Why does nobody fact check anymore?

[DecisionFatigue]

I’ve just spent the past 15 minutes correcting people on Twitter about a flag being flown at the demo in support of Palestinians today. The flag shown in their photos is an Islamic flag, very common flag to represent Islam and the writing is everywhere in Islamic countries. It would have been flown in solidarity with Palestinian Muslims today. Fair enough, it looks similar to the Al-Qaeda flag to the unknown eye/non-Arabic speakers but it has very clear differences if they had bothered to check before posting, googling it would have taken them 30 seconds! Instead they’ve successfully managed to convince swathes of people that we’re all terrorist supporters 🤦🏽‍♀️

They look similar because they’re both white writing on a black background, they don’t show similar imagery or anything.

The state is having a field day telling everyone that if they show support to palestinians they support hamas/ al quaeda/ whichever one is the name of the day. So you can be arrested.

There’s a lawyer calling for everyone to be arrested! He can’t have won many cases if he’s this shite at fact finding 🤦🏽‍♀️ honestly I despair.

Could the same flag be also be used in support of Israeli Muslims?

Since they got all their news from social media. They never stop to think 'How do I know this is what or where it says it is?'

I do try to do this, even with stuff that might back my beliefs. In fact especially then.

Yes it would be, no doubt! I mentioned it was in support of Muslim Palestinians as it was flown at the demo in London earlier today.

If I’m talking about something heavy then I always make sure I’ve checked and have a legit source before I post. Misinformation causes so many issues.

I provided images side by side earlier and they still couldn't accept that they were wrong, it was like talking to a brick wall. Meanwhile, the original tweet is still be shared which is no doubt going to cause more issues.

It's so frustrating. In the past I've seen posts like 'Here's a video of Muslim extremists attacking an innocent man in Copenhagen for no reason', and there was nothing in it to indicate the attackers' religion affiliation, that their victim was indeed 'innocent' or that it was in Copenhagen

Oh don't get me started. It genuinely SHOCKS me when someone expresses strong opinions over something and they havnt done a basic fact check.
I want to scream sometimes, people will read a sensationalised news article about a report, get up in arms about it but not bother to read the original report. People get wound up about a quote pulled out of context and won't bother to watch the original video of the person speaking. They get up in arms about a political issue but won't bother to look at reporting from both sides of the political spectrum on the same thing, or again follow things through to the original source. People will read a TWEET and not even bother to bloody Google it.
Follow information back to the original source, and look at where you are getting the information from and their other reporting on the topic, think about the political affiliations of a news outlet etc.
Although on that point, I do HOWL when you see people bitch about 'biased left wing reporting' then read the Daily Mail for their info. So bias is only okay when it fits your politics???

The language barrier and lack of shared alphabet make it especially easy for people to spread false information right now. Translation apps can only do so much.

at the moment, I’m only trusting information from large mainstream sources. Even that comes with its own bias though so the loss of crowd sourced information is unfortunate

Yes people share things that

1. Don't make any sense
2. Is obviously rubbish
3. They know nothing about

Everyone I know does this and its worrying!

The 'Student identifying as a cat' is a classic one; there were all those headlines about 'Row over student identifying as a cat' and if you read the articles, buried somewhere right at the end was a statement that no students involved actually identified as a cat. Because the incident concerned was a totally hypothetical discussion all along, but don't let that get in the way of a catchy headline. 🙄

But you've fact checked in this case, because you wanted to support your own case. The question is, do you also routinely fact check anti Israeli propaganda? I think that most people have their own biases when it comes to investing time in fact checking. Usually it is because they wish to be 'right' to win an argument. I agree that people should constantly be fact checking things on social media, but you have to be open minded and prepared to disbelieve things that you want to believe in.

I make as my starting point having lived on a kibbutz and having accidentally meandered through the occupied territories afterwards (pre-wall days). One should always get lost and go where the authorities don't want you to go when visiting foreign countries.

also see: remember that everyone is human

In my experience lawyers don't tend to pay much attention to actual facts.

@Hugosauras - dunno if that was directed at me but yes I do as I am Jewish, not a fan of the Israeli government but a fan of the truth in either direction. For example in the past I've seen stuff about 'Israeli soldiers are commanded/encouraged to rape Palestinian women' which sounded like propaganda to me. People sometimes assume that criticising Israel means you probably believe every bad thing you hear about it, and tbf I think a lot of people are like that, but I find myself very much in a position where I check about both sides.

You need to remember that there are many many bots (incl some from the Israeli secret services) onTwitter, there to create tte exact reactions you are talking about.

Yes people could check. But who is going to check every single info they read? Even when some info is coming from sources they trust.

Nowadays, we have access to a lot of information. Whilst it’s good, it’s also making it hard to separate what is or isn’t reliable. This is even more difficult when MSM doesn’t check their sources either….

at the moment, I’m only trusting information from large mainstream sources. Even that comes with its own bias though so the loss of crowd sourced information is unfortunate

You see just now I’m trusting very little coming from mainstream media.
I’ve seen them burying too many subjects (how many people know about the covid enquiry running just now?), information disturbed to fit their agenda (both sides), explanation of conflicts/science etc… as if they were experts when the pov is a lot if rubbish (and discredited by experts) etc etc

Im finding trying to get info from opposite sources (in this case, let’s look at the Israeli newspapers. They are enlightening), academics, people who have lived or live there etc… much better at giving me an idea of what’s going on.
eg recently came across a tweet from the UN saying that the Israeli plans will lead to ethnic cleaning.
Not perfect, not unbiased but a heck of a lot better than our newspapers (let alone our government)