Why Inaccurate News is a Threat by Josh Pasek.
Pasek’s clip is part of the larger Fake News, Facts, and Alternative Facts.
Pasek uses a couple of examples from the 2016 presidential campaign to conclude:
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So what we end up with, then, is an environment where we have an ideal news consumer or even a suboptimal news consumer. And what can happen as they get and interact with inaccurate information, is they come to a point where their views and the way that they start voting, making decisions, etc., can be based on something that’s wrong. And that, in turn, can mean that we elect people who aren’t necessarily the candidates that will best enact what people want. That people end up saying that they’re for a particular thing. When, in fact, if they knew more about it, they’d be against it. And those sorts of biases can be hugely pernicious to a democracy that successfully represents what it is that its people want.
Pasek has decided “inaccurate information” resulted in the election of Donald Trump and that’s his proof of the danger of inaccurate news.
If you remember his earlier comments about inference, his case runs like this:
- There was inaccurate information reported in the media during the 2016 presidential election.
- Therefore inaccurate information was responsible for the election of Donald Trump.
I don’t doubt inaccurate information was circulating during the 2016 presidential election but it’s a terrifying leap from the presence of inaccurate information crediting a presidential election to that single cause.
Especially without asking inaccurate information as compared to how much accurate information?, how many voters were influenced?, to what degree were influenced voters influenced?, to which candidate were they influenced?, in which states were they influenced?, what other factors impacted voters?, to what degree did other factors influence voters?, etc.
Without much deeper and complex analysis of voters and their voting behavior, claims that inaccurate information was in circulation, while factually true, are akin to saying the sun rose and set on election day, 2016. True but its impact on the election is far from certain.