How are you handling misinformation right now?

[DisorientingSneeze]

I’m finding myself increasingly frustrated. I get that we are all going crazy in our own way, but I’m having a lot of trouble with friends disseminating misinformation. Some of them are the usual suspects, but some of them are new to it and I wouldn’t have expected it.

I was trying to use my usual policies of leaving it be, but a friend pointed out that misinformation could literally cost lives right now.

What if anything do you feeling is your personal responsibility to engage with friends who disagree in matters of the pandemic?

In discourse where credible sources should matter, what fact-checking websites do you find widely accepted? I’m seeing people get outright shunned for using Snopes.

I’m not the thought police, but it people are afraid of things that aren’t real, while dismissing as a hoax or conspiracy things that are real, it seems like attempts at gentle correction are an act of love.

 

[puer.dei]

I’m not the thought police, but it people are afraid of things that aren’t real, while dismissing as a hoax or conspiracy things that are real, it seems like attemps at gentle correction are an act of love.

That’s all you can do, but you have to be prepared for them to shut you out. People who only mention it once, I ignore it. If they keep pushing it (which I mostly see on Facebook), I unfollow; or, as in one case, just leave the group entirely. It was a local community group that had turned into tin-foil-hat central.

Also, I really don’t care what some people say about Snopes. Every time I’ve checked their answers, they’ve been right. But you can always google whatever the subject is, and find other sources.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

What if anything do you feeling is your personal responsibility to engage with friends who disagree in matters of the pandemic?

I don’t discuss “the pandemic” with my friends, except in a helpful or fun interesting way.

As in, “Here’s a place I found that has hand sanitizer in stock at a good price” or sharing a funny or face-palming photo related to the pandemic.

I honestly could not care less what information, misinformation, political spin, blah blah blah is coming out today. I use common sense. It’s a disease, it’s communicable, do the stuff you do to avoid catching a disease that spreads through droplets or touching, and follow whatever laws are in place locally for you. If somebody else wants to engage in conspiracy theories or argue about whatever the CDC said, I invite myself out of that conversation and do whatever hiding or unfollowing I need to do in order to avoid it because life’s too short brah.

It is not my responsibility to correct my friends on their information. It’s pointless anyway because most people aren’t going to listen to someone else “correcting” them. I limit my corrections to like one a month when it’s really necessary, which is usually when someone says something egregiously nasty about the Pope or Mother Mary or something important like that, not pandemic hysteria.

 

[DisorientingSneeze]

It was a local community group that had turned into tin-foil-hat central.

Yes it is local things that have me most concerned. Local friends on Facebook and stranger/neighbors in Nextdoor. At this point I’m surprised they didn’t accuse the Blue Angels who did the flyover tributes of cropdusting us with something. That’s how wild it is getting.

I engaged with someone I know last night who was concerned about the contact trackers our county is training. I asked if that wasn’t the exact thing we did with all the people who got back from the Nile River cruises and the infected Rodeo person months ago and suggested it could be why Houston isn’t in worse shape right now. She quickly changed the subject to how California is separating children from their infected parents. Not having heard of this, the first thing I found looking for it was Snopes. Cue the Snopes being a liberal propaganda machine complaint.

I’m not mad at her, I’m just really worried about people. I’m even a little concerned that some other people who romantically fashion themselves as free thinkers (the rest of us are sheep) might organize against or otherwise mistreat these trackers who aren’t microchipping you for goodness sake. They just ask you where you’ve been! We will know which stores need to be scrubbed a second time. People are fighting so hard against measures that will actually help us open back up.

 

[Lou2U]

I try to bypass as many secondary sources as possible and go to the original document/news conference/medical advice etc. It’s helpful to cut out the middleman and get to what has actually been said. Or if there are conflicting accounts, I try to read as many as possible and judge myself what is sensible to think and what isn’t.

 

[DisorientingSneeze]

I don’t discuss “the pandemic” with my friends, except in a helpful or fun interesting way.

As in, “Here’s a place I found that has hand sanitizer in stock at a good price” or sharing a funny or face-palming photo related to the pandemic.

I honestly could not care less what information, misinformation, political spin, blah blah blah is coming out today. I use common sense. It’s a disease, it’s communicable, do the stuff you do to avoid catching a disease that spreads through droplets or touching, and follow whatever laws are in place locally for you.

That’s where I was initially. I’ll probably need to return to that policy.

 

[Shakuhachi]

It is not my responsibility to correct my friends on their information. It’s pointless anyway because most people aren’t going to listen to someone else “correcting” them

Right, but we can always question.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I’m just really worried about people. I’m even a little concerned that some other people who romantically fashion themselves as free thinkers (the rest of us are sheep) might organize against or otherwise mistreat these trackers who aren’t microchipping you for goodness sake.

As they say in Al-anon type programs, you didn’t cause it, you can’t cure it, and you can’t control it. Best to avoid these kinds of people and conversations. Chatting with neighbors should be limited to benign stuff like the weather. If one of them goes on a Dale Gribble rant then it’s time to just make non-committal responses like “Oh, my” or “My heavens” until you can conveniently excuse yourself, “sorry but I think I hear the timer on my stove going off” etc.

 

[DisorientingSneeze]

I’ll add that, though I’ve been on here less, I’m grateful for the levelheadedness of the CAF community through all of this.

 

[vz71]

Some of them are the usual suspects, but some of them are new to it and I wouldn’t have expected it.

Listen to them.
Check your source…check theirs as well.
They may have a legitimate argument.

What if anything do you feeling is your personal responsibility to engage with friends who disagree in matters of the pandemic?

I don’t.
If they appear receptive to correction, I will.
Otherwise I just leave them be.
Most of what people are acting upon is fear.
Depending on individual, calm logic may or may not help.

I’m seeing people get outright shunned for using Snopes.

Snopes has been shown to have a bias.

I’m not the thought police, but it people are afraid of things that aren’t real, while dismissing as a hoax or conspiracy things that are real, it seems like attempts at gentle correction are an act of love.

That’s right.
You are not the thought police.
Sometimes it is simply better to leave it be.

This act of love can only be effective if the individual is willing.

 

[adamhovey1988]

Well, I’m on CAF, I’m used to misinformation

 

[Irishmom2]

I am with you. I care so little that I actually asked my own husband If we could please change the subject, I am sick of hearing about it in any way, shape or form.

He just gave me the silent treatment the rest of the way home from the store.

 

[JanR]

All the more reason to avoid social media. Much of it is full of crap.