Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World

He described bullshit as what people create when they try to impress you or persuade you, without any concern for whether what they are saying is true or false, correct or incorrect.

There are three basic approaches for protecting ourselves against misinformation and disinformation online.

“The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.”

Still, fake news is not primarily a propaganda tool. Most fake and hyperpartisan news is created for a different reason: to generate advertising revenue.

The “firehose strategy” is designed to leave the audience disoriented and despairing of ever being able to separate truth from falsehood.

Disinformation flows through a network of trusted contacts instead of being injected from outside into a skeptical society.

These algorithms are not designed to keep you informed; they are designed to keep you active on the platform.

Participating on social media is only secondarily about sharing new information; it is primarily about maintaining and reinforcing common bonds.

With click-driven advertising, if a headline tells too much, there is little incentive to click on the story. Headlines now go through contortions not to tell you what the story says.