to think it's remarkably easy to get people upset and angry with little evidence something actually happened?

[cakeorwine]

Paper picks a story up.
Doesn't investigate too much. Just takes someone's word for it, especially if it suits their agenda, prints the story and then it gets picked up as it also fits in with someone's cognitive bias and they post it on social media

I've done the same. Read something, posted it, and it turned out not to be as first presented. But people rarely read any retraction, or any further evidence.. It just adds to their views of something and helps reinforce their own cognitive biases.

(And the obvious answer is No Shit, Sherlock)

Do people stop and think before reading something and posting it? Or do they just post it because it's something that's upset them?

They post it because it aligns with what they want to believe. Even if there's precious little to substantiate what is claimed.

It does my head in.

We may well be fucked as a species because we are so easily led, and yet so unwilling to believe we are easily led.

I don't belive anything I read anymore. If it's something I think matters or something of interest to me I do a lot of digging and even then I'm healthily skeptical.

Which story?

There's a good argument for critical thinking to be a compulsory subject in secondary schools.

Any story.

It's easy to get outraged by something you read and post it.

I know I did that - because the story was so believable. But it turned out not to be true.

Any story.

I can't think what you mean.

Don't you have an example? Something or other must have inspired the thread.

Yeah I agree. My own dad, who I would say has a lot of common sense and is intelligent, always tells me about stuff in outrage, and I’ll say, where did you hear that, and he’ll say, on Facebook. And I mentally facepalm.

I agree that critical thinking should be on the curriculum.

It does help that I used to be a journalist so know that 90% of what people read is either bollocks or fits the topical agenda of the day so is likely one sided.

People are always sharing stories here that are clickbaity froth inducing nonsense

People are always sharing stories here that are clickbaity froth inducing nonsense

Fox News victims? Conspiracy theories? That kind of thing?

Take a look at AIBU at the moment.

I am sure you can find examples of outrage.

I’d hazard a guess OP is referring to the threads about banks closing accounts of folk of whom they disapprove.

Indeed. I honestly think media literacy and fact-checking should be taught in schools as part of the school curriculum.

I regularly call out both DM and MIL for constantly sharing clickbaity articles and memes online, never an ounce of truth in any of them. Makes my blood boil 😑

Or closing accounts.

The rest is open to question.

You’re so right though. And people just don’t listen. Even in person… they hear what they want to hear.

Nicola bulkey. All lies
the titan countdown when they knew the guys were dead
rachael nickels bf arrested for her murder. Hundreds of them. All the time

Sorry Nicola Bulley. How many belueved her murdered? And caused havoc?

I saw something the other day about a petting zoo possibly closing down due to complaints from local residents and repeated council involvement. The article didn’t give any information at all about the nature of the complaints except a quote halfway in from the owner that mentioned them getting bigger than expected and finding it hard to stick to their licence conditions as a result.

The headline and general tone left no doubt that the angle was ‘nasty busy bodies target poor local business’ and all of the comments were ranting along exactly those lines. Whereas, if you engaged your brain for just a moment it seemed reasonable to wonder if there wasn’t quite a bit more to it than that.

The headline and general tone left no doubt that the angle was ‘nasty busy bodies target poor local business’ and all of the comments were ranting along exactly those lines

And then social media warriors post abuse on social media, threaten to boycott etc

It's so easy to get people annoyed.

The irony was that there were numerous posts saying how crap council workers are and that councils do nothing, when they did seem to be doing something in this case. Listening to residents and taking action!

Absolutely! It's one thing I've tried to teach my kids as it's so important.

Yep completely agree. The strongest example I can think of was when Andy Murray was quoted as saying he wanted "Anyone but England " to win the World Cup (may have been the Euros I can't recall). Cue lots of daily mail readers hating on Andy Murray for being an anti English Scot. That stuck for ages.

Actual context was he was being interviewed on Radio with his good friend Tim Henman. Henman and the DJ were mercilessly ribbing him about Scotland not being in the tournament, but England were. They asked him (you can hear them laughing) who he wanted to win, and came the "anyone but England ".

It was some friendly banter and gentle ribbing between mates but people heard the headline and assumed he hated England and really generated some Andy hatred. There were some vicious words and articles written in the press which triggered a lot of anti Andy toxic rubbish. All completely taken out of context.

I HAD to block my mum in FB as she just posts anything she reads. Bad during Brexit, racist stuff but then dogs missing hundredsf of miles from where she lives. No filter,

Yep, this is a massive pet hate of mine. So many people don’t dig past the headlines which are designed to divide and inflame. It’s incredibly depressing. I wish there were tighter controls on what papers etc are allowed to publish, they have so much to answer for.

This is so true, I worry it's starting to shape society, I'm hoping it's just the world of social media and might slow down in the real world once it's becomes more apparent.

I deactivated Twitter as couldn't bear the lies and misdirected viciousness and anger between people I'd thought more of.