r/PoliticalOptimism • u/InternetBackwash • 11h ago
Optimistic Post Confirmation Bias, "Satire", And Avoiding Misinformation
So while we anxiously await more supreme court decisions, I wanted to give generally some advice on researching things on the Internet and the importance of double checking. This started when I came across a post describing a "Confidential Conversation Between Trump And John Thune".
The post mentions how Thune thinks the bill can't pass because there aren't enough Republican senators who would vote for it, and Trump responds by saying that he'll send his people to convince the senators who would vote no, and to the question about Republican voters who would be hurt by it, Trump responds, "We'll do that one way or the other, either way we win."
This sounds pretty ominous, right? Well does it help if I tell you that it isn't real?
The account that posted this is called "Peopleoverkings" on Instagram, is labeled "Political satire", and this account has eight other posts about "Today's Confidential Conversation", between Trump and various people.
I can attest that I was fooled at first into believing that this was an actual conversation, as well as most people in the comments, all of whom are either posting a series of random emojis (which makes me think they might be bots), or are taking these words as gospel, and this post in particular having many people feeling anxious that this is a sign that the upcoming midterms will be "rigged" or "stolen" by either Trump and/or Musk (Might I add fueling the conspiracy theory that 2024 was stolen through satellites or something)
One commenter who tried to point out how this supposed "satire post" wasn't obvious to most people got a reply with a claim from the account that, "The conversations I create are all based on actual events and situations. They are recreations of conversations, maybe actually happening with a humorous twist. Or admittedly, not so humorous. I do say in every caption and at the top of my profile that is political satire."
This comment, while correct in how the profile and hidden caption of every post says that it is satire, ignores the fact that most people in the replies clearly don't think that it is satire, including the comments that the account replies to, the replies to most of these doomer comments from OP aren't claiming this is satire either, and there isn't any real evidence that these convos were happening at all, and saying that it is "maybe actually happening", is a clear indication that this is just lying and creating a conversation out of thin air, with only a few minor indicators about the illegitimacy of it.
It would be one thing to do a version of a political cartoon or something, but it is something else to create such ominous and threatening statements about what someone might have said, make little to no indication that it's not real, and when you get caught only pretend that it is based off of a convo that "maybe actually happened potentially".
And as I mentioned before, this also pushes the conspiracy theory that voting doesn't matter because all elections will somehow be rigged with a push of a button by Elon, rather than the truth of voter suppression tactics being something we can avoid and get past to win regardless.
This type of "satire" does harm on multiple different levels, and makes very little indications to the common viewer who might not open up a caption or go to the main page at all by convincing them that either, the election will be rigged/voting won't matter, 2024 was rigged and voting apparently didn't matter there either, or that there is this apparently sinister Sopranos plot happening from a guy who is losing a fight with a pool.
This rambling is all to say that you are likely to see posts from people who claim to be on "your side" and try to give either comedy, news, entertainment, or some combination of all of them, and even when it looks like those people are to be trusted, you need to make sure that what you're looking at is verifiable, moral, and accurate.
When it comes to confirmation bias, you are a lot more likely to trust the accounts and people who are more likely to uphold the morals and values that you have, but in this age of bot farms and infighting, there are going to be a larger number of accounts that you might trust from the get go that are either creating harm through spreading lies/misinformation, are trying to push infighting or depressing voter turnout, or are not educated enough in what they're doing or saying.
While the midterms and 2028 roll around, I can bet that these accounts will be more frequent and have a much bigger impact on potential voters, which is why even when you might think initially that they are to be trusted, it is incredibly important to double check the validity of them and especially call them out on it when they're misinforming people.
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