People who have turned to X for breaking news about the Israel-Hamas conflict are being hit with old videos, fake photos, and video game footage at a level researchers have never seen.

  • Sabre363@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    Maybe it’s not a good idea to use a media platform run by a megalomaniac moron as a primary source of news and information.

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      It’s a great timeline … 99% of the planet relies on megalomaniac morons, mega corporations, billionaires and for profit media corporations for all their information.

      And we wonder why there is so much misinformation, disinformation, non information and covered up information everywhere.

      It’s definitely the information age … expect no one said it would actually keep us informed or have any benefit to humanity.

    • phx@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      It’s not just TwitX, there’s a bunch on Lemmy and Reddit feeds too

      • SCB@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        At this point Hexbear is essentially co-opted by astroturfing terrorists

        • prole@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          The 12 year old loser 4channers that thought (probably still think) saying the ‘n’ word is hilarious, turned into 25 year old fascists that think “nihilism” means “make life shitty for everyone else.”

          • mycorrhiza they/them@lemmy.ml
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            1 year ago

            Who are you talking about right now? Hexbear? Is your basis for who is a fascist just that they are rude to liberals on the internet and have intense feelings about capitalism and imperialism?

          • SCB@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Words have actual meanings

            divert to or use in a role different from the usual or original one.

  • InternetUser2012@midwest.social
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    1 year ago

    If you’re getting your information from facebook, twitter or fox news (to name a few top offenders) you’re in for a bad time.

    • IHawkMike@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      And if a significant enough portion of the people are getting their information from those sources, we’re all in for a bad time.

    • Pofski@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      I think another big issue is that there are a lot of news outlets that get their info from those three sources.

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      More like: we’re all in for a bad time.

      Unfortunately, their inability to discern fantasy from reality does not only affect them.

      • KoalaUnknown@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        When Bank of America announced 0% downpayment loans for people living in red lined communities with an abnormally low home value, Reddit was flooded with posts saying “BoA is giving better loans to black people” completely ignoring that the loans had no race qualifications. All it takes is one poorly summarized post and the whole site starts screaming nonsense.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      1 year ago

      Hard enough to get unbiased reporting at the best of times.

      Every media outlet picked sides on this a long time ago.

  • ViewSonik@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    X is a far-right nazi sympathizing website. Advertisers should have pulled their products a year ago

    • KoalaUnknown@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      They have always had more accurate news than the mainstream media, they just have a roundabout way of giving it.

      • Nalivai@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        Yeah, it was very useful at getting hot takes, misinformation, sensationalist and outsourced soundbites. It still useful for that, but now there is more unchecked nazism.

  • Pratai@lemmy.ca
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    1 year ago

    In fairness… People who turn to twitter for news aren’t the type of people that generally like to be informed by reality.

  • Stefen Auris@pawb.social
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    1 year ago

    I disagree with the headline, the war is not causing disinformation. Its bad faith users posting disinformation and ~~X’s ~~ (nope still calling it Twitter) policies that not only let it happen but encourage it.

  • hesusingthespiritbomb@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Honestly I blame the news orgs for this.

    There are a ton of videos floating around that ARE credible. They simply aren’t getting reported on in a meaningful way. If they do get mentioned, it’s often in an extremely watered down manner that almost feels intentionally misleading.

    You also have videos that are 100 percent verifiable (or the protest videos) that are only being reported on by a few organizations, often leaving out important context.

    If the mainstream media refuses to truly engage in the situation, then people will turn to dubious sources.

    • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I mean, that’s just the other side of the same coin. They need good info to dig through, and they need to acrhally dig. Both are required for actual journalism, and both don’t work under capitalism. There’s too much money in lies, and it’s expensive to fight them in the first place.

    • Pxtl@lemmy.ca
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      1 year ago

      It was the social media of choice for journalists. It was an excellent place to get your news as long as you followed the right people (reputable, credible professionals).

      Now many of those right people have left and they’re far more difficult to distinguish from the wrong people.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Agreed. I didn’t use Twitter, but friends followed NPR correspondents for information and, while it didn’t replace the news, it enhanced it for them.

    • ohlaph@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      It actually had some credibility before. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but it did have some credibility. Not so much now.

  • edric@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Imagine clicking on a video thinking it’s footage of current events and it’s from a game.

    • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 year ago

      Imagine not being at all media-savvy and buying into it. MAGA types are idiot shitheads who are completely driven by their emotions. There’s no higher function.

    • isles@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’ve been wondering when pages would drop the “formerly Twitter” clarifier.

    • Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, it kind of looks like the author of the article forgot to fill in their placeholder during proofreading.

      HBO destroyed their brand with “Max”, and Elon was like “hold my beer, I’ll make the single dumbest and most confusing brand decision in the history of business.”

  • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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    1 year ago

    Who are these articles for because everyone I know has always had the opinion that Twitter is full of dumb takes and misinfo

    • ripcord@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      Millions and millions of people who are still using it as their primary info source.

      Good that you apparently don’t know any of them, but the number of people who actually stopped using TwitX or use it less appears to be shockingly small.

      • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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        1 year ago

        Yeah unfortunately my friends use tiktok as their primary source so I can’t give them to much credit.

          • Fizz@lemmy.nz
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            1 year ago

            Haha yep. I’ve heard them describe events and I have to stop them and say “do you really think it happened like that?” Then pull up Wikipedia and go through the events filling in the important context that their tiktok conveniently left out.

            But everytime I do this i think they trust tiktok less.