• FistingEnthusiast@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    8 months

    People are choosing stupidity

    Is it because it’s easier than getting proper news from reputable sources or something?

    • jubilationtcornpone@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      8 months

      Getting news from reputable sources generally involves reading and ~25% of American adults are functionally illiterate.

      Probably not the main cause of people turning to TikTok for news but if you drew a ven diagram of the two groups, I wouldn’t be shocked if there was an awful lot of overlap.

      • RoidingOldMan@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8 months

        His tweets have a 5th grade reading level, there’s a connection for sure. Even Facebook and Twitter and other social media requires some level of reading.

        • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.worldEnglish
          8 months

          In general, media companies usually target a 5th grade reading level to ensure most can read and understand the stories.

          His tweets definitely aren’t a 5th grade level, because they’re clearly below that level.

        • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
          8 months

          4th-grade I’ve heard. In any case, American media had been aiming for 5th-grade long before Trump. Maybe it was 6th? In any case, I learned that in the 90s.

      • ZiemekZ@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8 months

        ~25% of American adults are functionally illiterate

        That ~25% of American adults is too dumb to deserve to vote. You should be able to show some kind of basic intelligence and common sense in order to have a say in how a country should be run – it should be based on merit. I even have a name for that: meritocracy!

        • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
          8 months

          That idea gets too sticky, too fast. Look up Southern literacy tests for black people. Complete nightmare.

          Reminds me of my friend applying for his concealed weapon permit in Alabama. You had to submit a form, and a picture, to the local sheriff. Told him, “Good thing you’re a middle-aged white guy!”

          Still, I feel ya. Over half of Americans read at a 6th-grade level and our President speaks at a 4th-grade level. Obama spoke at a 10th-grade level and the hate wasn’t all down to racism. Americans are so fucking dumb, they were insulted, felt he was talking over their head to be a snotty, over-educated, “I’m better than you.”, type. Or as we call it in the South, “uppity”.

          • Soup@lemmy.worldEnglish
            8 months

            “Why are you being mean to me?!?!”

            “…I’m sorry for being a little flustered but I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

            “You’re doing it again!”

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8 months

      I think it’s just that a content creator, especially one with the ability to come off authentically, comes off as more trustworthy than a media corporation, even one well known for its trustworthiness.

      Part of me misses my childhood local paper. Especially the game we played in middle school of finding the spelling and grammar errors. Honestly though I do think we need to have a revival of subscribing to local newspapers

      • 14th_cylon@lemmy.zipEnglish
        8 months

        the headline sounds fucking scary, but i wonder what the reality really is. i am in my fourties, i remember news being printed on the paper, and i understand the media world and what the difference is between trustworthy media and tabloid.

        still, lemmy is often times the first place where i see specific news, esp. regarding us politics (i am from eu) - but i choose links to reputable sources (which is not that hard, because lot of times the same info is linked 5 times from the different sources) and verify if needed.

        so “gets news from social networks” would sound more ominous than i think my reality is. i don’t have tiktok, so i have no idea what the reality is there.

      • KoboldCoterie@pawb.socialEnglish
        8 months

        My middle school social studies teacher used to give extra credit on things if we brought in a newspaper clipping with a spelling error circled. I didn’t understand until years later that getting us to read the paper was the goal, but it sure worked on me.

    • reddig33@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8 months

      People aren’t taught to use critical thinking skills anymore.

      • shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
        8 months

        Texas GOP official platform had called for an end to critical thinking education. Looks like they took such a beating over that stance as to flip a 180.

        We support education in the arts and music and building critical thinking skills, including logic, rhetoric, and analytical sciences. We support quality vocational educational training that imparts skills needed for meaningful post-graduation employment.

        Doubt that translates into real-world policies.

    • Meron35@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8 months

      Not to defend the stupidity that does exist on Tiktok, but reputable sources often post their news and extra content on Tiktok, and Tiktok often the only way to access it. “Proper news” in the form of articles tends to be more jargony and needs to confirm to a professional tone. Not to mention, they simply take more time to produce.

      Examples of extra content include fact checks, debunking right wing conspiracy theories, longer versions of interviews that didn’t make the final cut, or simple clarifications in the form of Q and As.

      E.g. see the Tiktok accounts for the BBC, The Guardian, the Financial Times, etc

  • xxce2AAb@feddit.dkEnglish
    8 months

    And that would have been bad enough before Oracle started running the show. With Larry Ellison (a.k.a. Satan wearing a poorly tailored human meat-suit) deciding what people should be reading, it’s downright terminally moronic.

  • majster@lemmy.zipEnglish
    8 months

    And that is the reason behind previous bans and current forced sale to US oligarchs.

  • 「黃家駒 Wong Ka Kui」(old account, migrated to Piefed)@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    8 months

    My parents gets news from Wechat

    So much “Taiwan Taiwan Taiwan”, “Democrats Ruin NYC” “ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT living in FREE HOTEL” 🤦‍♂️

    Like calm down lmao, we aren’t even in China anymore, what’s the obsession with “reunification”, and like hate for dems is so weird, since their main opponent literally wants to kick us out.

  • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
    8 months

    When I used Reddit I got news from there. If news sites weren’t so fucking atrocious to use I might browse them directly. Plus, it’s not like legitimate news isn’t shared on social media. AP is generally considered pretty unbiased and reliable and they have a TikTok account.

    • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
      8 months

      My thoughts entirely. One of my favorite ironies is The Washington Post saying “Democracy Dies in Darkness” as they prevent you from reading their news article without having a subscription.

  • roofuskit@lemmy.worldEnglish
    8 months

    The new fascist propaganda machine. Algorithm controlled by the GOP and Trump cronies.