#Solutionary Series: Navigating The Noise, 30 Second Soundbites, Out of Context Video & Deceptively Edited Screenshots

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#Solutionary Series: Navigating The Noise, 30 Second Soundbites, Out of Context Video & Deceptively Edited Screenshots

Never trust, always verify

Joel Walbert

Sep 05, 2023

Buy Me a Coffee

Strike.Me

Confirmation bias:

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values.^[1] People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes. The effect is strongest for desired outcomes, for emotionally charged issues, and for deeply entrenched beliefs. Confirmation bias cannot be eliminated, but it can be managed, for example, by education and training in critical thinking skills.
Biased search for information, biased interpretation of this information, and biased memory recall, have been invoked to explain four specific effects:
attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence)
belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false)
the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series)
illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations).
A series of psychological experiments in the 1960s suggested that people are biased toward confirming their existing beliefs. Later work re-interpreted these results as a tendency to test ideas in a one-sided way, focusing on one possibility and ignoring alternatives. Explanations for the observed biases include wishful thinking and the limited human capacity to process information. Another proposal is that people show confirmation bias because they are pragmatically assessing the costs of being wrong, rather than investigating in a neutral, scientific way.
Flawed decisions due to confirmation bias have been found in a wide range of political, organizational, financial and scientific contexts. These biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. For example, confirmation bias produces systematic errors in scientific research based on inductive reasoning (the gradual accumulation of supportive evidence). Similarly, a police detective may identify a suspect early in an investigation, but then may only seek confirming rather than disconfirming evidence. A medical practitioner may prematurely focus on a particular disorder early in a diagnostic session, and then seek only confirming evidence. In social media, confirmation bias is amplified by the use of filter bubbles, or "algorithmic editing", which display to individuals only information they are likely to agree with, while excluding opposing views.

Tanks on the Streets:

The disinfo, shared this year, no context:

The reality:

Fact Check-Video of military tanks in Los Angeles dates to at least 2020

Footage of military vehicles driving by in Los Angeles, California, was shared on social media as early as 2020 and does not show military activity in California in July 2023, contrary to claims online.
“JUST IN: Military seen driving through West Hollywood, California,” read posts sharing the video on Facebook (here). Another example is viewable (here).
The video, however, was shared on TikTok as early as June 2020 (here). The exact location where the video was filmed in Los Angeles can be seen on Google Street View (bit.ly/46uedf3).