198 GQ.COM.AU SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2017The internet not only makes
it easier to find those who share
your beliefs, it also allows you
to ignore those who don’t. A study
released by the US Pew Research
Center last October showed that
while half of Facebook and
Twitter users had been surprised
by one of their connections’
political views, 83 per cent
ignored these posts, while
39 per cent had changed their
settings to hide these differing
political views.
Facebook has repeatedly denied
claims that the company’s
algorithms create ‘filter bubbles’
that restrict exposure to
a diversity of opinions. “We’re
working to help people build an
informed community that
exposes people to new ideas and
builds common understanding
in a world where every person has
a voice,” a Facebook representative
told us.
“Core to this vision is the
importance of ensuring people
have access to accurate
information so they can make
decisions about the world around
them. False news and hoaxes are
harmful to our community and
make the world less informed.
Everyone has a responsibility to
curb the spread of false news from
tech and media companies to
newsrooms and classrooms.”
It would be easy to assume that
identifying misinformation would
help change people’s minds, or,
at least, cast doubt on reports that
have been shown to be false.
Except that, often, it doesn’t.
In fact, pointing out falsehoods
can actually have the opposite
effect; it can make people hold
on to their mistaken beliefs even
more fervently.In 1989, Donald Trump was
a real estate developer in New
York, when he took out full-page
advertisements in all four of the
city’s major newspapers. The
subject of the ads was not a new
apartment complex or golf course,rather, it regarded a crime that
had gripped the city for weeks.
That April, a young woman had
been attacked and raped while
jogging in Central Park and five
juveniles, all aged 14-16, were
convicted of the crime. Trump’s
ads called for New York to
reinstate the death penalty.
But in 2001, the so-called
Central Park Five were exonerated
after new DNA evidence came to
light. In 2014 they eventually
received a $53m settlement. In
response, Trump wrote an
editorial for the New York Daily
News in which he claimed they
were still guilty and pointed out
they “do not exactly have the pasts
of angels”. It’s a view Trump has
repeated as recently as last year,
while running for President.
“They admitted they were guilty,”
he told CNN in a statement. “The
fact the case was settled with
so much evidence against them
is outrageous.”
Research indicates this
propensity to reject conflicting
evidence is not unique to the
leader of the free world. “If you
tell people something – even if it
is later on corrected – they tend to
stick to the original information,”
explains Prof Lewandowsky. “For
the most part, people don’t update
their memory. That is something
we’ve found over and over again.”
In 1988 two researchers from
the Scottish University of Dundee
published a study in which
participants were shown a series
of news reports about a fictitious
fire. One of these stated that
flammable paint and gas canisters
had been stored in the room
where the blaze started. The
researchers then issued
a correction: there were no paint
or gas cylinders in the room.
But when participants were
later asked questions about the
cause of the fire, many still raised
the possibility that the paint or
gas canisters were to blame. In
fact, they were just as likely to
refer to them as potential causesthis little bubble that’s isolated
from other people. And if you
take that to its extreme, what
you get is this intense polarisation
that we’re observing now.
It’s not at all without
negative consequences.”
Facebook deploys an algorithm
to curate the content users see in
their News Feed, based on as many
as 100,000 factors. These include
whether companies have paid for
certain content to be promoted, or
how a user interacts with similar
posts – whether you ‘liked’ or
commented on similar topics.FROM TOP:
DONALD TRUMP AND
WIFE, MELANIA ON
HIS INAUGURATION DAY;
FACEBOOK’S MARK
ZUCKERBERG;
A CAMEL CIGARETTE
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