Episode #893
News Items
Science or Fiction
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Item #1
Science
Reported trust in the media in 2021 was highest in China at 80%, and lowest in Russia at 29%, with the US in between at 39%.https://www.statista.com/statistics/683336/media-trust-worldwide/
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Item #2
Fiction
Analysis of social media posts finds that bots are far more likely to spread false information and are responsible for as much as 90% of its spread on the most popular platforms. https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aap9559
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Item #3
Science
Research shows that fake news spreads 6 times faster and 10 times farther on Twitter than true news, and that people are 70% more likely to share a false tweet than a truthful one. https://www.science.org/content/article/fake-news-spreads-faster-true-news-twitter-thanks-people-not-bots
Skeptical Quote of the Week.
‘An educated person is one who has learned that information almost always turns out to be at best incomplete and very often false, misleading, fictitious, mendacious – just dead wrong.’ Russell Baker (1925 – 2019 ), American Pulitzer Prize-Winning Writer, host of PBS’ Masterpiece Theater