There is a particular stereotype about the people who spread misinformation on the Internet. Generally speaking, we imagine that they’re middle-aged single/divorced men who have nothing better to do than gripe about everything and have the technological skills to spread their hate of all things by using bots they’ve created. This has been the mental picture we’ve been encouraged to hold for years now and we’ve happily played along, assuming that these lonely souls are just creepy guys who are fat, lazy, and jobless.
Turns out, we were wrong. New research published this past week (May 30) in Science affirms a 2019 study showing that the people most responsible for 90% of all misinformation spread on social media are women! Specifically, older women with an average age of 58, and largely Republican (64%). They make up 60% of the 2000 so-called superspreaders that dominate social media. One in 20 internet users follows at least one of these superspreaders and shares the misinformation they post. No bots. Just a bunch of old ladies with an agenda sitting around hitting the retweet button on X over and over and over until their casserole is done.
The researcher stated, “It does not seem like supersharing is a one-off attempt to influence elections by tech-savvy individuals, but rather a longer-term corrosive socio-technical process that contaminates the information ecosystem for some part of society.”
Two key words in that sentence: corrosive and contaminates. This is critical because such labels potentially limit this kind of communication from the shield of free speech. By now, we should all understand that the First Amendment guarantee of speech does not cover language that is potentially harmful to others. If we can prove that the deliberate and intentional sharing of misinformation is harmful, then it becomes illegal and the persons involved would be subject to prosecution.
Sure, no one likes the image of seeing grandma in handcuffs, but then, we didn’t imagine that instead of pestering her daughter-in-law about the grandkids grandma was making a deliberate attempt to destroy Democracy, either. Because of this misinformation, our elections are in danger. People who vote are making choices based on this misinformation and the result is that we get more people like Marjorie Taylor Greene making fools of themselves and the people they represent.
The authors of both studies, as well as other experts in the field, think that platforms should limit the number of times someone can “share” something. The suggested number is 50 retweets a day. I’m just going to go out on a limb here and say there’s no way in hell that Elon Musk is going to limit a damn thing on X. He doesn’t give a shit. He simply wants users and he doesn’t care what kind of bullshit they share.
Instead, I think people like you and I have to be a lot more aggressive about blocking people the first time we see something stupid show up in our newsfeeds. While Breitbart, InfoWars, and Gatewaypundit are the original source of most fake news, I would add Newsmax and Fox News to the list as well. Block them. Block everyone who shares their stories. Remember, you don’t have to follow them for their shit to show up in your newsfeed. Block them and, depending on which social media site you’re on, make sure you tell them that the material is offensive and false so that their misinformation is shared with fewer people.
Our Democracy is far too valuable to let a bunch of bigoted, homophobic, addle-brained, cookie-burning old ladies destroy it. Block the living hell out of them and let your DA (who is also an elected official) know that you consider misinformation damaging to the public. Let’s make it illegal. Shall we?
Morning Update: 06/02/24
All The Things That Are
Yesterday was pretty much exactly what we expected: rain. The weather did hold off long enough for Tipper and me to make a trip to the store for eggs and cereal. We should have grabbed another gallon of milk, but there was still over half a gallon in the fridge. This morning, there’s no milk. That tends to happen a lot around here. We’ll go a couple of days with hardly anyone touching the milk, then boom, it’s gone. So, we’ll be making another trip today.
One of the cute things about Tipper, though, is how careful she is when she’s walking with me. She watches for every uneven spot in the sidewalk, every hole I might step in, anything that could possibly trip me up. She grabs my elbow to help me step off the curb. She insists on holding doors open for me. She takes grocery bags from my hands and carries them herself. I’ve had to explain to her why it’s important for me to be the one walking on the outside of the sidewalk because she’d take that dangerous position, too, if I’d let her.
So, you can imagine her concern when I announced around 7:30 last night that I was “going walking” by myself. I had a specific destination that was not child-appropriate, so her going with me was not an option. She was napping when I left and when she woke she wanted to know, “Are they going to drive you home or? I’m a little confused. 😭” Kat and I both assured her that I was okay. By that time, I was on my way home and she was back asleep before I finished taking the dogs out. It is so incredibly precious how much she cares, though I do worry that perhaps she’s taking on an adult-sized load of concern.
I have to push myself through days like yesterday. In addition to everything hurting, I cough more, my balance is off more, and as I move between periods of sleep and awake, my cognition isn’t always as sharp as it should be. I either nap, surrounded by as many animals as possible or I’m doing something fairly rote and mundane so as to not make my head hurt anymore than it already does.
Going back through posts from 2021 and earlier, I’m noticing that not only are some videos missing (I know why) but the photo carousel isn’t working either. When I check on the photos that are missing, I also find that I don’t necessarily like how I initially processed a lot of them. Therefore, I’ve decided that I need to reprocess them and repost them as videos as that makes them more difficult to steal. I’m not sure how that’s going to look necessarily, but it’s something I can do to fill time without making my head hurt.
Last week, we enjoyed the food from Fat Cat BBQ during the race, but there’s also a nearby bar called Fat Cat as well and this past week we discovered that a dear friend is now working behind the bar there. So, as I grew restless and a bit hungry, I decided that when the weather cleared I would walk down there (hence the reason for Tipper’s concern). The bar is almost exactly a mile from the house and the biggest danger is crossing Lafayette Rd.
Kat nor I are, by nature, not the kind of people who sit in bars on a regular basis just to hang out and drink. First, neither one drinks that much (I’m not supposed to drink at all), we’re both cheapskates when it comes to how much we pay for alcohol, and finally, we don’t necessarily like people all that much. Fat Cat has been on the same corner the entire time we’ve lived here and last night was the first time I’ve walked through its doors. In fact, at one point, someone (I don’t remember who) told me to be careful, that it wasn’t necessarily my “kind of crowd.” But Jenni is a dear friend and it’s been well over a year since I last saw her. I knew that as long as she was there I’d be reasonably safe.
Turns out, any concern about it being too rough an establishment was ill-placed. I walked in and almost immediately one dear inebriated soul was happy to welcome me to the bar, introduced himself, and suggested I order a drink. There was no one there who wasn’t friendly. Bonus points: Jenni’s daughter was working the kitchen and DJ Redbone was in the house just floating about and being social. I’ve known Redbone since the days of UNZip the Runway (14, maybe 15 years ago?) so it was good to catch up a bit. I didn’t stay too long. There’s a time limit on when I need to take my evening medicine and check my glucose. I was back home and headed to bed before 10:00. I’ve not been out at night in so long, though, I really enjoyed my time there.
One side note: on the walk there, just a few houses north of us, I came across a young raptor in a neighbor’s yard. I’m not sure exactly what kind of bird it was. He had a smooth, gold head and black body with gold feathers in his tail. He had caught a mole and flew off toward the North 40 when he left. This is one of those moments when I hate how lousy the digital zoom is on my phone camera. I couldn’t get close enough to get an identifying picture. He looked really young, but he definitely knew he was king of the air at that moment.
As we celebrate Pride Month, it’s well worth noting that yesterday, a drag queen story time in Philadelphia set the Guinness World Record for attendance. This is the first such record for that category and as LGBTQ+ issues are such a hot point during an election year, I’m extremely happy that it happened and I think Philadelphia was the perfect place!
Solaris has planted himself on my desk in from of my monitor fresh from having puked up his entire breakfast. So help me, I’m pretty sure that the majority of the paper towels we use in this house go toward cleaning up cat puke.
The air outside is still damp this morning. It seems strange that it’s June and I’ll need to wear a light jacket to go to the store. What’s more strange is that it’s going to be a couple of weeks before we truly break this cool pattern.
Meanwhile, in India, people are dying from the heat as they stand in line to vote, and South Africa’s mostly-white Democratic Alliance has won the majority there for the first time in over 20 years. Oh, and get this, North Korea is sending balloons carrying trash over to South Korea. South Korea is promising an “unendurable” response. China landed a rocket on the far side of the moon while Boeing choked on its effort to launch a manned space flight. I don’t see how anyone can be surprised by either of those news items. It has to be some very brave people sitting in that Boeing rocket.
Solaris says it’s time to stop typing. He’s batting at my fingers. I guess I’ll have to find something more entertaining to do.
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