Just about everyone can agree that this is a worthy aim, even if we don’t all approve of the specific ways in which Libertarians apply it. She made the switch (in her words, she “became a conservative overnight”) because she got pissed at a handful of people who were harassing her online, whom she (wrongly) believed to be leftists. Anti-immigration bias isn’t just occasionally misguided like Libertarianism; it’s rooted entirely in bigotry and hate. You’ve no doubt seen it more times than you can count: a friend or relative shares something on social media that is manifestly erroneous, to the point of being self-parody. But the consequences of confirmation bias extend past the creation of false narratives and a narrow-minded perception of information. --Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Newsweek, 25 August 1986, p. 27. https://guides.library.cornell.edu/evaluate_news. But like anyone else, I naturally rely on some sources of information more than others. But if your convictions are on solid ground to begin with, that will only make them stronger. Continuing with the anti-immigrant example, you’d attribute the criminal behavior of the individuals in question to their being undocumented immigrants, rather than considering other factors that are probably much more important. When lies, hate speech and propaganda flood our messaging groups and social media feeds, they exploit our grievances and fears. But it didn’t fool them for long, because I was asking questions and making observations that would not have come from any of its lockstep followers. It’s because the public itself skews the search results. Video and transcript from Facing History and Ourselves: Fake News, Propaganda, and Misinformation: Learning to Critically Evaluate Media Sources. ( Log Out / Facing History and Ourselves. Does it support the greatest good for the greatest number — or does it merely serve your own narrow self-interests at the expense of other people? They have waged a relentless, far-reaching disinformation campaign about vaccines that has saturated the search results. However, I still feel I’m on the right track when I criticize Trump’s character, because I’m backed up by fact checkers who have refuted far more lies told by Trump (about Democrats). Confirmation bias and fake news. Confirmation bias, the tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with one’s existing beliefs.This biased approach to decision making is largely unintentional and often results in ignoring inconsistent information. Decoding Fake News: Confirmation Bias This Library Guide provides resources to help students to identify "fake" news, bias, and propaganda, as well as good journalism, with a goal of encouraging them to become engaged consumers of information. This is a time when it’s especially risky to rely on highly biased reporting. Suppose, for example, that you’re a Libertarian; the one premise that you’re probably devoted to above all is “limited government”. I watched the video and was left puzzled as to how Biden humiliated her. It’s important that you also do a search for “vegetarianism is not healthier” to get all the pros and cons. And you may know people who formerly were Democratic voters, but swiftly converted to Republican because they somehow became convinced that Republicans were more “pro-life”. That said, it’s also important to realize that search engines sometimes have their own confirmation bias — or bias, at least. Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email. The third point is where people make the most obvious and deliberate effort to maintain their confirmation bias. After the 2000 “election”, I spent several months reading the National Review every day; I was really curious about what kind of values could support someone like George W. Bush, so I wanted to peer more deeply into the right-wing mindset. So, if anyone say something that sounds too bizarre to be true, it usually is! That’s because unlike in past eras, when we only had to breach the gulf of ignorance, we now have to fend off a constant bombardment of misinformation. If … Perhaps even better would be to scour sources that are neutral, if such an animal even exists anymore. I have often wished I could be more tolerant of other’s views without bias, but every time I turn on Fox News I must change the channel a few minutes later to get a grip on my sanity. Change ). Confirmation bias. In old-fashioned terms, they’re just plain narrow-minded. The propaganda model is a conceptual model in political economy advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky to explain how propaganda and systemic biases. They have passed it on because they saw someone else pass it on, and it resonated with their beliefs, so they shared it without bothering to do one second of research about it.