I posted this essay over a year ago. Here’s some additional thoughts I have on light of recent events including COVID denial (COVID conspiracies, downplaying the threat, HCQ miracle “cure”, vaccine conspiracies, etc) and election denial.

First, ideas, true and false, can have grave consequences. I think this is self-evident from the aforementioned events.

Second, misinformation is resistant to change, and will double down with more misinformation. Most recently, the capitol incident was blamed on Antifa and used photoshopped images from dubious sources as “evidence”.

I think the things I might change as a matter of practice though is not posting. There’s an important distinction is to make here though. Engaging in conversation that is constructive is not the same thing as fact checking. To those that are willing, this can be fruitful. But trying to fight misinformation with facts is pretty fruitless. So there is the addendum. Onto the essay.

A little over a year ago, I took a break from social media as part of a personal “detox”. I was largely put out by much of the ideological discord on social media. It was particularly virulent for me because any one that knows me knows that when it comes to political positions I will agree with “liberals” on some issues and “conservatives” on others. Because of this, I’ve ruffled the feathers of pretty much everyone. Not that I’m apologetic about that, but at the end of the day, my feather ruffling shenanigans really got disillusioned with ideological discussions. My reasons for this stemmed from the fact that, well, facts didn’t seem to matter. My thinking was that if only people knew the facts, then they would change their mind. Boy was I mistaken. My fact-checking mission was, while noble, not at all helpful and the more I’ve learned about this, the more I’ve realize that I was probably doing more harm than good. The problem with fact-checking is that it tends to backfire, causing people to double-down on what they already believe, even if it isn’t true. More often than not, if I posted something that showed a particular “fact” to be false, either my post would get deleted, the source would be attacked, the facts would be simply ignored, or even dismissed because a false “fact” still “proved a point”.

I was somewhat frustrated by this phenomenon, and I wanted to understand what I was doing wrong. So, like everything I’m curious about, I started learning about it. Fundamentally, what I learned was that identity was more important in belief formation than facts were. And because identity is so important, it creates biases that filter data for an individual. While initially I thought it was a problem that was particularly pervasive among specific groups, what I learned was that all groups, regardless of religion, lack thereof, political party, or any other ideology, were prone to these phenomena. Moreover, what surprised me was how strong these identity-based biases really are.

One of the most prevalent, and something most people have heard of is confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is the tendency to believe facts that already conform to one’s beliefs than facts that do not. This bias acts as a strong filter in belief formation. Another phenomenon is the Dunning-Kruger effect, which basically says that people with limited knowledge or expertise on a subject tend to overestimate their abilities and knowledge. In other words, one with a little bit of knowledge tends to see himself as an expert. The solution to this then, might seem obvious: One might suggest, “Blaize, we just need more knowledge”, “we just need to embrace science” or “we need to be more rational”. It’s not that simple though, as even those who learn more and become better at critical thinking don’t become any less biased, rather they are just entrench with more sophisticated biases.

The science on science that illuminated this also surprised me. Bias plays a big part in how science works – not as much with the process – but rather what actually gets studied through a selection bias. This can be driven by the market, such as there being more demand for science related to curing baldness than curing malaria. Also, ideological biases impact science, typically in the form of publicly funded research. Moreover, once studies are completed, there’s also editorial bias in what gets published in journals, selection bias in what studies get reviewed and reproduced, and a drive to get published because this is where scientists get attention and justify grants for research. Don’t get me wrong – I am not dissing science. Science, as messy as it is, is still incredibly useful and probably the best tool we’ve got for discovering facts about the world. But the view that science and scientists are objective is a naïve fantasy and not reality.

Summarily, altering one’s approach to fact finding does little to impact one’s belief because the problem is that people can’t seem to escape the implications of identity – unless you change how you perceive your identity. Two things stood out to me. First, rather than define your identity along ideological lines, seek to identify yourself as a curious person, and be more open to being “surprised” by facts. Ironically, my discovery of this phenomenon surprised me because not only was it unintuitive, but also its what changed my mind about fact-checking – almost as if this whole process was self-evident. Second, in an attempt to have discourse with other people, the most important thing is not how right you are, rather it’s how empathetic you are to others. Empathy will go a lot further to changing minds than facts will any day.

TLDR: So how did this impact me personally?

First, I stopped fact checking everything for people – it doesn’t help. I still fact check things for myself though.

Second, I’ve all but stopped having ideological discussions on social media (religion, politics, social issues etc.) because empathy is removed from this context.

Third, I try not to create an echo chamber around me by only reading news from sources that I might already agree with and only interacting with those who agree with me.

Fourth, I “retrained” social media sites to stop putting ideological content in front of me by first “unfollowing” friends that post lots of political stuff. Second, I post more about other interests that I have, such as technology, so that the social media algorithms will correlate these posts and put similar content in front of me instead.

Fifth, I use social media less. I removed the apps from my phone so I don’t get notifications and I only use social media through the phone’s browser.

Sixth, I share stuff that I think people will enjoy rather than stuff that will divide people. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not trying to soften my views. I still have strong opinions about issues, but I don’t air them on social media anymore because it doesn’t help.

Seventh, I don’t confuse silence with apathy or indifference on issues. It’s not. Rather, as I’ve said, posting and engaging on polarizing issues doesn’t really help things. Some people learned this sooner than I did. I just had to learn it the hard way.

Eighth, I try to be more curious and read stuff that is less ideological like astronomy news or physics. This stuff is both surprising and fascinating.

So, there you have it. What ways have you found helpful when dealing with social media?

Editor: I saw Blaize had posted this on Facebook and thought it was helpful when thinking about whether and how to engage in fact-checking on social media, so I asked for permission to re-post here. In his thread on Facebook, I also wrote this:

Incidentally, reading similar things from Malcom Gladwell a while back is actually what prompted me to get somewhat MORE engaged on social media, but only with people I actually know and when it seems like I can have a conversation. Gladwell pointed out that, basically, the main way people (always, ever) change their minds/try something new is because someone they trust talks to them about it. There are these brief periods where a new medium comes online (e-mail, fax, etc.) where people are excited about (and maybe influenced by) things coming in by that medium. But mostly, it’s in conversations with people they care about. It’s hard to argue with his logic (in “The Tipping Point”). So, I don’t get engaged in fact-checking, but I do engage with people I have real relationships with, including on social media, and somewhat more than I did before.

In any case, I thought this was a helpful perspective and wanted to pass it on. - DLM

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