Deeply Worried: Fake News, Lack of Critical Thinking

Domzh

Senior Member.
Hey everyone,

I'm deeply concerned about the direction our society is heading.

Fake news on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Reddit seems to be spreading like wildfire, and at the same time, many people appear to have lost their ability to think critically or perform basic research.

Edit: I know that fake news and conspiracy theories were always a thing, thinking about the moon landing and 9/11 truthers. I remember the "documentary" lose change that had a big role in starting all of it at that time. Back then though, at least there was some effort in creating these theories and media pieces to explain them. I also like to believe that there were single individuals behind it, innocent reasons. Now it looks like a mix of targeted misinformation campaigns and just attention seeking idiots with a tiktok account.

I understand that not everyone is trained to handle or evaluate information scientifically, but do we really need specialized training for this?

Mainstream news media has long shifted its focus toward revenue and capturing attention, often at the expense of proper journalism. Many journalists today seem unable, or unwilling, to produce high-quality, fact-based reporting, and instead contribute to spreading both harmless nonsense and dangerous misinformation.

My gut feeling is that foreign intelligence assets may be actively exploiting platforms like TikTok and YouTube to destabilize Western societies.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, this problem seems worse than ever—or maybe it's just more obvious now. I've noticed misinformation spreading beyond the usual demographic of younger, less educated users. It's not just teens on social media anymore; even older, well-educated individuals seem to be affected.

Whether it's conspiracy theories about aliens, the war in Ukraine, alt-right narratives, Qanon, flat Earth theories, COVID, or crypto scams, it feels like we're speeding into an idiocracy reality.

What once seemed to be a 4chan and equivalent exclusive phenomena that was (more or less) fun to engage with has no swapped over into "normal" society. I live in Switzerland and historically what happened online never made it our everyday life.

During COVID i saw that a lot of low-education demographics have discovered, or were pushed towards, "alternative media" such as and especially tiktok. Easy digestible, short, out of context videos catering to a certain belief system, let outcasted people feel as part of something bigger. They found a belonging, felt validated and "enlightened".

What worries me deeply is that its not just the "crazy cat ladies" and "new age, magnet bracelet" crowd anymore. In my experience it seems that it has since spread into the military, police, politics, healthcare and academia.

I have also not really seen a lot of a "counterweight" to this, quality reports / news articles, documentations seem not to cover this issue.

Do you see this development too? Are my fears reasonable or is it more of a perceived issue that isnt backed by facts? And if its a real issue, do you think there's any chance we'll "return" to a culture of (more) critical thinking?
 
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My gut feeling is that foreign intelligence assets may be actively exploiting platforms like TikTok and YouTube to destabilize Western societies.
that's proven fact, and includes all types of social media
have also not really seen a lot of a "counterweight" to this, quality reports / news articles, documentations seem not to cover this issue.
SmarterEveryDay had a mini-series on this on youtube a while back. See https://www.metabunk.org/threads/mediawise-isthislegit-program.10568/ and https://www.metabunk.org/threads/media-bias.11554/ .

For media to say, "our direct competition is trash" is fertile ground for lawsuits, unfortunately
 
that's proven fact, and includes all types of social media

SmarterEveryDay had a mini-series on this on youtube a while back. See https://www.metabunk.org/threads/mediawise-isthislegit-program.10568/ and https://www.metabunk.org/threads/media-bias.11554/ .

For media to say, "our direct competition is trash" is fertile ground for lawsuits, unfortunately
I want to provide a huge note with this too. Yes, foreign adversaries practice influence activities a lot (we do too, whatever nation you're in does it, even Nepal does and they don't have a centralized body for its conduct). With that said, there are some recognition notes to be had with this.
A) When you're conducting messaging based influence activities targeting broad audiences like this for affective behavioral change, you are amplifying things that exist. There are very, very rare cases of actual original creations like people mention, and even those overwhelmingly tag to real things but just may be a new spin on them.

B) When it does come to "malign influence" (the proper banner tag for influence activities conducted in malign fashion), it is not reported on or covered much, but DOMESTIC malign influence, NOT foreign malign influence makes up a majority of all malign influence. This is true for every country. Within this, there are multiple categories reflecting different actor audiences eg news media actors, corporations, etc. Many of these are not professionals and do not do anything similar to A).
There is a professional influence industry like this (it is a communications field technically just a holistic view on it), but you're dropping 500k just for a few weeks of different sorts of analysis and pretesting. Very unlikely they are involved with anything like this. This puts the greatest hypothesis about malign influence around the topic back into the category of just being lesser-tier independent actors not actually practicing influence activities themselves, but have conduct which may appear as such.
 
This puts the greatest hypothesis about malign influence around the topic back into the category of just being lesser-tier independent actors not actually practicing influence activities themselves, but have conduct which may appear as such.
I'm kinda hoping that "learn about misinformation to foil the Russians" is more effective than "learn about misinformation to foil Joe next door", though both is technically true (the best kind of true)
 
I'm kinda hoping that "learn about misinformation to foil the Russians" is more effective than "learn about misinformation to foil Joe next door", though both is technically true (the best kind of true)
the problem is that most of those that have been brainwashed by this tiktok content also have been brainwashed into thinking that Putin is their best friend and every negative info about Russia is fake news
 
We're in a "the emperor has no clothes" situation, where people in significant positions in the government either believe the lies, or are cowed into pretending to believe them. I'm firmly of the opinion that the media are determined to react to the people (instead of seriously reporting the facts) and the people then react to the media. Some of the people are trapped in this amplification loop - and they are the ones who squawk the loudest. That doesn't mean they are the majority.
 
Something has to fill in for the failed promises of religion among the credulous.
But it's just more failed promises, and a lot people tend to double down instead of evaluating their belief system.
Many people seem to have turned away from mainstream media and institutions to get information from whoever shouts the loudest. For all the faults of mainstream media and institutions, if people are willing to lap up whatever is said by their favorite podcaster or some researcher whose only talent is having an iphone, maybe the problem isn't with what they are rejecting.
 
I'm kinda hoping that "learn about misinformation to foil the Russians" is more effective than "learn about misinformation to foil Joe next door", though both is technically true (the best kind of true)
Maybe not the best place to dive in depth but can if anyone wishes. I, personally, disagree with this heavily and it annoys me very much with my work. We have a lot of people that try to base counter methodologies, education programs and etc founded off research output (not even true understanding) about adversarial behavior and products. This entirely leaves out that actual professional actors as such start with an objective, identify preliminary audiences aligned to the objective likely to partake in behavior beneficial to the objective, and THEN you assess those preliminary audiences and the channels you choose, the content you make, the lines of persuasion and symbols you use etc is all based off those audience analysis.

There are three major reasons why learning it this way, in my opinion, is actually horrible for domestic use cases, whether or not it be political or conspiracy memery. These aren't really sequential and all cross-interact.
A) The public-interest CMI space is heavily based upon research output of adverse behavior. This is inherently not how you do counter research in this context and because it leaves wide vulnerability to the following issues. There's a reason actors that do these things, have procedural methods for counteracting it that are somewhat similar to the active conduct of them.

B) The public-interest CMI space pigeon-holes into research output and disconsiders actual actor understanding. This means most of what they tell you about tactics, techniques and basically what to look for - it is predicated off isolated observation, not understanding.

C) For this one using an example I love to give because it's been pretty common from places like BBC or etc when the Ukraine war started. If Ukrainians are the target audience, and you take that content, and surface it in English to a bunch of Americans. What exactly do we think we're doing other than amplifying the content?
That is in fact an actor categorization distinctly recognized and sometimes identified aside from the TA itself (they would be called disseminators or distributors). This does nothing to actually counteract the content (which is oriented towards Ukrainians - you are not messaging to them, therfore, literally not countering the adversarial objective).
Further, the lessons you teach here for educating English audiences? You are going to misinform them. Why is that? Because of A), the presentation you see of the effort will be based upon the audience and an analysis to that audience. No two will be the exact same. If you use this as the basis of your teaching, you will tell people to look for Y when they are instead targeted with X. This leaves them more vulnerable to X because they now believe they are prepared with the tools to spot and approach it themselves until otherwise indicated.
 
Maybe not the best place to dive in depth but can if anyone wishes. I, personally, disagree with this heavily and it annoys me very much with my work. We have a lot of people that try to base counter methodologies, education programs and etc founded off research output (not even true understanding) about adversarial behavior and products. This entirely leaves out that actual professional actors as such start with an objective, identify preliminary audiences aligned to the objective likely to partake in behavior beneficial to the objective, and THEN you assess those preliminary audiences and the channels you choose, the content you make, the lines of persuasion and symbols you use etc is all based off those audience analysis.
Don't the media literacy techniques I've referred to work regardless of who the source of the misinformation is?
 
Don't the media literacy techniques I've referred to work regardless of who the source of the misinformation is?
For certain approaches yes. Going back to how that is planned by professional actors though, you know this and are planning around it, which is absolutely possible. An example I give a lot is, for example, a lot of people think belief is the crux factor. I know you've been in spots before where I've explained how that's not entirely true. With that in mind, you can lead people to favorable behavior through releasing content they are likely to take as untrue or etc. It all depends on your objective and your audience, issue, environment, and conduit analysis' informing your approach. As it stands no one promotes any media literacy techniques that would counteract you surfacing a fake article through a partnered journalist, with the intent for the audience to believe it's fake and thus discuss it.
As an example of this, around the last election some of the old accounts the Internet Research Agency used in the 2016 election were reactivated. What did they do? Well, they didn't post fakes, nor leading truths. They trolled about the fact they were accounts operationalized for influence activities, and it amplified discourse related to Russian influence and their capabilities again (which we tend to overestimate greatly, which is beneficial to them). < I'll get some links for it when I step back inside, don't remember if anyone covered that really well off the top of my head in more readable form.
 
It is HIGHLY likely CCP is using tiktok to promote none sense to cause social disruption in western countries as well as to seed distrust in our governments. In instances like this (essentially state owned media), I think it should be banned, or be forced to be divested to American owned interests bound by US law, hosted on US soil. Tiktok is insidious because they can push these various narratives by the hundreds algorithmically, daily, and then invest in the ones that start to stick until a critical mass of village idiots located here start circulating and participating in it. Russia and North Korea are absolutely running bot networks to influence western owned social media platforms. That is much harder to fight with legislation. It is really bad with LLMs so good at pretending to be humans as well, at least in conversation.

The only real solution is good journalism IMO. Sadly, news networks have taken a "if I can't beat them, join them" approach to competing with internet "journalism" and talking heads. That has caused them to blindly repeat claims without old school verification and vetting and to push false narratives for profit/views/clicks like some sort of real time reality TV show. There is also far too many opinion piece style shows running on what should be strictly news, networks. Politicians are no source of help either because they are essentially running their campaigns and managing their constituents in the same reality TV show format. Being a loudmouth and getting attention is all that matters.

I am not sure there is a good fix for any of this aside from just allowing society to adjust to things, but that alone can have huge implications, especially in democracies where foreign governments can use our freedom of expression against us nefariously. The best we can do is promote sites like this one that show truth in plain terms minus the sensationalism. It is also important to take the approach Mick talks about in his book with people and be kind when trying to spread truth. Calling them idiots or acting elitist just makes you part of the over all problem. Listen to them and debunk things logically as you can. Sure, some are a lost cause, but others will listen. Admit you don't know when you don't know. You may not change their mind's on the spot, but they will continue to think about your points. I also think we need to take a more active role in participating in the media and helping journalists see the other side of things that often goes unreported. Lastly, raise your children with critical thinking skills. In my experience if this is not taught in childhood, it is exceedingly hard to get an adult to learn and use them. The only times I have seen it happen is when adults are confronted with truths that are to the contrary of their long held beliefs in a way that makes them impossible to avoid. That can be a rare occurrence though.

We cannot throw our hands up in despair and just give up. We just continue to focus on what works and what we are good at. People are lurking this site all the time and having ah-ha moments even though we may never know about them. Good, impacting work is done here daily and we should double down on those efforts every chance we get. I'd like to see an "easy mode" version of this site at some point that addresses things in the current zeitgeist and sumamrizes the evidence against the claims we generate in these threads in a clear and understandable fasion. Mick's summary videos would also be good to add there. I often link threads here to family/friends but the length and the banter can dilute the impact and data to people not particularly invested in these things.
 
I think the mainstream media lost their monopoly on information, and thus what makes perceived reality, when they started to become partisan and support one specific side of the ideological spectrum.

The backlash against this is the decentralized information world in which we live now, where national media claims commercial airplanes over New Jersey are nefarious drones, while the only rational voices calling it out for what it is, a case of mistaken identification, are only on the new alternate media.
 
I have also seen mainstream media being replaced by legacy media. I suppose those who have now become part of the mainstream need to differentiate themselves.
I just wonder will those who criticized the mainstream will now question the new media with the same vigor?
 
The mainstream vs legacy etc arguments tend to silo themselves sometimes - the proper phrasing of this also isn't mainstream vs legacy, as legacy references pre-internet institutions and mainstream references popularity (legacy media can be mainstream).
A lot of what people reference in this regard, for example people now getting news from TikTok - they are still mostly getting their news from the same legacy media institutions (actors), just their social media accounts (channels) instead. Maybe it's a repost/paraphrasing of it, but in the end a lot of it still roots back to the same actors - "legacy" or "mainstream".
 
I just wonder will those who criticized the mainstream will now question the new media with the same vigor?
4225942-Marshall-McLuhan-Quote-The-student-of-media-soon-comes-to-expect.jpg
 
I think the mainstream media lost their monopoly on information, and thus what makes perceived reality, when they started to become partisan and support one specific side of the ideological spectrum.
That may be further back in time than most folks think. The muckraker press was in its Progressive crusading heyday in the late 1890s and early 1900s. Heck, the political struggle between the Federalist and the Democratic-Republicans (and, eg, the Jefferson and Adams campaigns in 1800) go back quite a ways. I'd not be surprised if it goes back a lot further than that.
 
I have also seen mainstream media being replaced by legacy media.
We have seen once-respected media giants being bought by profiteers with agendas; the L.A. Times is just one example, where its new owner yanked the Harris endorsement. Truth simply doesn't pay as much as sensationalism.
 
I think the mainstream media lost their monopoly on information, and thus what makes perceived reality, when they started to become partisan and support one specific side of the ideological spectrum.
This is objectively false.
Media-Bias-Chart-12.0_August-2024-Unlicensed-Social-Media-1536x1215.jpg

https://adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/
You want media up in the green section for reliability, and you can find neutral as well as somewhat right or left biased media there.
See also https://www.metabunk.org/threads/media-bias.11554/

For years, some politicians have claimed that the media are against them when they wanted to obscure that the facts are against them. I think that this slander has done more to the reputation of the media than anything the media did.
 
I think the mainstream media lost their monopoly on information, and thus what makes perceived reality, when they started to become partisan and support one specific side of the ideological spectrum.

The backlash against this is the decentralized information world in which we live now, where national media claims commercial airplanes over New Jersey are nefarious drones, while the only rational voices calling it out for what it is, a case of mistaken identification, are only on the new alternate media.
Alternative media and partisan commercial media started the drone hysteria and the useless corporate regular media jumped on the clicks when politicians and public officials started squawking about it.
 
Want to see something depressing?

Have a look at the top 2 podcasts on Spotify now.

1735343834596.png

Source: Spotify

Joe Rogan has been uncritically parading UFO believers since forever (as well as being one himself), with recent guests being Luis Elizondo, Ryan Graves and James Fox.

The Telepathy Tapes attempts to revive the pseudoscience of Facilitated Communication by suggesting that non-verbal people with disorders such as autism and cerebral palsy actually have telepathic mind powers. FC was discredited by double blind tests where the disabled person and the facilitator were both shown different images. When the disabled person was asked to type out what they had seen, they ended up typing out - with the facilitator assisting them - what the facilitator had actually seen. But hey, I guess telepathy explains that!
 
Have a look at the top 2 podcasts on Spotify now.
...
The Telepathy Tapes attempts to revive the pseudoscience of Facilitated Communication by suggesting that non-verbal people with disorders such as autism and cerebral palsy actually have telepathic mind powers. FC was discredited by double blind tests where the disabled person and the facilitator were both shown different images. When the disabled person was asked to type out what they had seen, they ended up typing out - with the facilitator assisting them - what the facilitator had actually seen. But hey, I guess telepathy explains that!
Pageing @tinkertailor - someone with actual expertise in the field of restricted communication - sorry if you facepalm after being tagged.
 
This is objectively false.
View attachment 75312
https://adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/
You want media up in the green section for reliability, and you can find neutral as well as somewhat right or left biased media there.
See also https://www.metabunk.org/threads/media-bias.11554/

For years, some politicians have claimed that the media are against them when they wanted to obscure that the facts are against them. I think that this slander has done more to the reputation of the media than anything the media did.
My point is that people used to consume media without being aware of their political bias because media personalities used to be careful of concealing their bias.
Nowadays they wear it on their sleeves, and people who do not agree just ignore points of view that do not resonate with their flavor of echo chamber.
Of course the Legacy Media (tm) was always biased, but people did not see it, because it was downplayed and a non-factor when reporting news, making people of all political stripes consume the same media products, creating a shared reality.
That's not what's going on today.
 
I think the mainstream media lost their monopoly on information, and thus what makes perceived reality, when they started to become partisan and support one specific side of the ideological spectrum.
This sounds suspiciously like "both-siderism". Is there any legitimate reason why a news medium should support both sides of an ideological spectrum equally? If two opposing positions disagree with each other but the facts support one particular narrative, any honest and unbiased news source would present those facts. If those facts show one side unfavorably, that's not the fault of the reporters and not the fault of the facts.
 
OK, who wants to be
Is there any legitimate reason why a news medium should support both sides of an ideological spectrum equally? If two opposing positions disagree with each other but the facts support one particular narrative, any honest and unbiased news source would present those facts. If those facts show one side unfavorably, that's not the fault of the reporters and not the fault of the facts.
I'd say that there is good reason to cover both sides of any debate fully, which is subtley different from "support both sides... equally."

Ideally, facts placed in evidence would be open to interpretation as to what they signify, in terms of political philosophy and social action and the like, and the argument would be about that rather than about the facts. But reality is that each (or all sides, there can be more than two!) side will at the least be wanting to give a great deal of stress to the facts that support their case, and to dismiss those supporting the case of their opponents as not being particularly important. That has been the case as long as I have been old enough to have any interest in politics, media and the like.

As we move with some trepidation (on my part, at least) into what appears to be a dawning Age of Antirationalism, with its attendant retinue of Alternative Facts, I'm not sure how the responsible media (if any) can best respond. If I had an answer, I'd be shouting it! But I do know that the importance of islands of rational thought and a regard for the facts are critically important, and hope that this space will long continue to be one of them.

(Disclosure: I have been watching some coverage of potential Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy, Jr. this morning, and am feeling a bit despondent...)
 
I'd say that there is good reason to cover both sides of any debate fully, which is subtley different from "support both sides... equally."

Ideally, facts placed in evidence would be open to interpretation as to what they signify, in terms of political philosophy and social action and the like, and the argument would be about that rather than about the facts. But reality is that each (or all sides, there can be more than two!) side will at the least be wanting to give a great deal of stress to the facts that support their case
An example of what I'm talking about would be the pre-election "Haitians are eating our pets" nonsense. There simply were no "facts" to support that claim, none, nada, zip. If it had been framed as a question about the role of government in limiting immigration, or in support services required by immigrants, then there would be a legitimate debate about the subject. But when it blew up as a big story about an entirely fabricated event, there was no reason except blatant partisanship for a news source to lend it any credence. Any honest reporting of the facts could only have reported the fact that a political figure lied to the American public.
 
As we move with some trepidation (on my part, at least) into what appears to be a dawning Age of Antirationalism ...
The more I read of Francis Wheen's /How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World/ (Yes, I've been reading it for almost a year now, I don't need to visit the loo that often), the more I am convinced that the actual dawn you refer to was before I was even capable of being aware of it. Things like Brexit weren't a huge step back, that was just a breaking wave in the almost ubiquitous tide of idiocy that had been rising for decades. Insert "Bush, stupidest president ever - until the next one..." tropes to your regional whim.
 
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Pageing @tinkertailor - someone with actual expertise in the field of restricted communication - sorry if you facepalm after being tagged.
I'm always delighted when people see this kinda thing and are like "Eyy, call that one girl who talks about this," THANK YOU! I'm a speech pathology grad student, we help people communicate in scientifically supported ways and this specific pseudoscience is my current academic obsession.

Having been reading everything I can get my hands on (academic papers, news articles, books, etc) about facilitated communication (FC) for the past year, nothing will surprise me.

The FC proponents have been going into overdrive since Netflix put out "Tell Me You Love Me," a documentary about Anna Stubblefield, a white female facilitator who facilitated sexual consent from her nonspeaking adult Black client. I haven't watched it because I have enough rage in my heart about the case, but it's a thing.

For more general information about FC and what it is and how it (doesn't) work, I recommend this website: https://www.facilitatedcommunication.org/

Speaking of fake news, I have done a little experiment about facilitated communication. When I look up stories on the news with the words "autism" and some kind of positive attribute (e.g., "amazing"), MANY of the news articles are actually about FC. Autistic people (and all neurodivergent folks) are capable of amazing things, but when you see an article about an autistic person who has achieved a seemingly impossible feat, FC should be ruled out before sharing the media.

For example, Elizabeth Bonker, a nonspeaking autistic woman who graduated valedictorian from Rollins College:

This is framed as very inspirational, almost miraculous, but Elizabeth did this with the help of a facilitator, who held a letterboard (and moved it subtly) for her to spell individual words. This is seen at 0:46 in the video. This isn't independent; she isn't independently selecting these words. She is being helped. It's a crude metaphor, but this works just like a Ouija board, with a human being used as the planchette.

When reading articles like this, look for words like "helped by [another person]," "learned to Spell" and mentions of 'Spelling to Communicate' and the 'Rapid Prompting Method.' They change the names and create new programs to distance themselves from the bad press FC gets, but it's the same principles.

And, by the by, there are multiple evidence-based methods of enhancing independent communication in autistic individuals, or anyone who is nonspeaking. These include augmentative and alternative communication (aka AAC, often seen in the form of an iPad with an app on it and icons associated with words that can be selected and spoken by the device), gestures, and general language therapies.

/stepping down from soapbox now
 
For example, Elizabeth Bonker, a nonspeaking autistic woman who graduated valedictorian from Rollins College:
..
This is framed as very inspirational, almost miraculous, but Elizabeth did this with the help of a facilitator, who held a letterboard (and moved it subtly) for her to spell individual words. This is seen at 0:46 in the video. This isn't independent; she isn't independently selecting these words. She is being helped. It's a crude metaphor, but this works just like a Ouija board, with a human being used as the planchette.

As someone who's worked on noise-removal from touch-screen sensors, and also developed my own predictive (basically FItts Law meets Markov Model) touch-screen keyboard design (I'd nearly forgotten about that, the idea didn't go particularly beyond a clunky prototype: I wasn't a GUI guy, I was a kernel/driver dev.), that setup horrifies me - how could adding the noise of a second person holding, nay wobbling, the tablet improve accuracy? The leap from "it's unnecessarily adding noise" to "it's deliberately adding an alternative signal" as worded might seem fairly large, but if you are prepared to step to the half-way point of "it's deliberately not removing an easily-removable source of noise", then you're accepting the motive part, which is the edgier leap.
 
The Telepathy Tapes attempts to revive the pseudoscience of Facilitated Communication by suggesting that non-verbal people with disorders such as autism and cerebral palsy actually have telepathic mind powers. FC was discredited by double blind tests where the disabled person and the facilitator were both shown different images. When the disabled person was asked to type out what they had seen, they ended up typing out - with the facilitator assisting them - what the facilitator had actually seen. But hey, I guess telepathy explains that!
Hah! If the non-verbal person had telepathic powers, the facilitator would have described what the other person saw, so they can't even get that straight.
 
As someone who's worked on noise-removal from touch-screen sensors, and also developed my own predictive (basically FItts Law meets Markov Model) touch-screen keyboard design (I'd nearly forgotten about that, the idea didn't go particularly beyond a clunky prototype: I wasn't a GUI guy, I was a kernel/driver dev.), that setup horrifies me - how could adding the noise of a second person holding, nay wobbling, the tablet improve accuracy? The leap from "it's unnecessarily adding noise" to "it's deliberately adding an alternative signal" as worded might seem fairly large, but if you are prepared to step to the half-way point of "it's deliberately not removing an easily-removable source of noise", then you're accepting the motive part, which is the edgier leap.
Speech pathologists work in a team with occupational and physical therapists to meet clients where they are at motorically. We can increase the size of icons on high-tech AAC, add 3d-printed key guards to ease access, use eye gaze, etc. We also have what's called indirect selection, which means using switches to scan through and select the icons needed without moving the body. If you are completely paralyzed except for one eyelid, we can hook you up to a device and use that one muscle twitch for communication. It's completely baffling how they say this. Most of the non speakers using FC are able to feed themselves using utensils. I know from personal experience that many, many autistic folks with high support needs* know how to navigate tech (I've had non speaking kids grab my phone, navigate to YouTube, and start a video before I even realize my phone is gone). It makes zero sense.
*"High support needs" is the new and more affirming way to say 'low functioning' for autistic folks


FC was discredited by double blind tests where the disabled person and the facilitator were both shown different images. When the disabled person was asked to type out what they had seen, they ended up typing out - with the facilitator assisting them - what the facilitator had actually seen. But hey, I guess telepathy explains that!
I believe they may be referring to this study by Saloviita et al., which I love so much I need other people to read it: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24946681/
Seriously, the first time I read it I was sitting at my desk clapping and saying "you tell em, baby! Yaaaas Saloviita" like I was watching the Ru Paul's Drag Race finale in the local bar, it is the creme de la creme of FC research and it almost makes me happy that this is their defense after it.
 
I believe they may be referring to this study by Saloviita et al., which I love so much I need other people to read it: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24946681/
Seriously, the first time I read it I was sitting at my desk clapping and saying "you tell em, baby! Yaaaas Saloviita" like I was watching the Ru Paul's Drag Race finale in the local bar, it is the creme de la creme of FC research and it almost makes me happy that this is their defense after it.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of our UI guys (up to about a dozen of our clients now) hadn't collaborated with that group, as they were (initially) at JYU too.
 
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