[ExI] Update from H. L. Mencken

[spike at rainier66.com]

From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of BillK via extropy-chat
Sent: Wednesday, 1 May, 2024 7:46 AM
To: Extropy Chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Cc: BillK <pharos at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [ExI] Update from H. L. Mencken

 

On Wed, 1 May 2024 at 14:26, <spike at rainier66.com <mailto:spike at rainier66.com> > wrote:
>
> Oh it has been such a gift.  Can you even imagine your life without the internet?  Without electronic communications?  No access to unfiltered news?  Most of my adult life has had internet, but I remember what it was like before it, in the 1980s.  We knew almost nothing.  What we did know was mostly wrong.
>
> spike
>-------------------------------------------



Just ask the experts at lie-telling: chatbots!

BillK

 

 

>From Llama-3

 

Estimating the percentage of the internet that is lies, propaganda, and advertising is a challenging task. The internet is a vast and dynamic space, and it's difficult to quantify the proportion of content that falls into these categories.

However, we can look at some studies and statistics that might provide some insight:

* A study by the Pew Research Center in 2019 found that 54% of adults in the United States said that most or nearly all of the news they saw was inaccurate or misleading.

*A study by the University of California, Berkeley in 2018 found that 65% of tweets from fake accounts were propaganda or disinformation.

*A report by the Digital Content Next (DCN) in 2020 found that 72% of online content was advertising.

While these statistics provide some insight into the prevalence of lies, propaganda, and advertising on the internet, it's important to note that the internet is a vast and dynamic space, and it's difficult to quantify the proportion of content that falls into these categories.

 

 

 

 

 

BillK, note something important in that survey: they reported the percentage of adults who said that most or nearly all the news they saw was inaccurate or misleading.  They took a subjective judgment and converted it into an objective measure.

 

More on that later, but think about it.  How do we determine if a news story is true, misleading, incomplete, or an outright lie?

 

spike

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