vooke
Active Member
Came across this article on an academic paper on the Majority Illusion which is basically overestimation of the popularity of a particular behavior or idea
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/538866/the-social-network-illusion-that-tricks-your-mind/
The other point of note and that has been raised elsewhere here is that the first key to walking away from CTs is to look outside your sources. For every CT, there is an active source of the beliefs either in shaping and or propagating them. These are the 'active nodes'.
And closely related to the above point is that our own beliefs or behavior is significantly affected by others'
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/538866/the-social-network-illusion-that-tricks-your-mind/
Overestimating popularity of an idea or behavior makes it easily believable or highly tempting to try it out respectivelyThis is the majority illusion—the local impression that a specific attribute is common when the global truth is entirely different.
And finally,explaining some well known phenomena;In other words, the majority illusion can be used to trick the population into believing something that is not true.
I'm looking at the paper from a debunking perspective, especially 9/11. If one was to delve into the 9/11 CTs, the first impression is that majority or a significant number of Americans believe in them. Of course this is not necessarily so.That’s interesting work that immediately explains a number of interesting phenomena. For a start, it shows how some content can spread globally while other similar content does not—the key is to start with a small number of well-connected early adopters fooling the rest of the network into thinking it is common.
That might seem harmless when it comes to memes on Reddit or videos on YouTube. But it can have more insidious effects too. “Under some conditions, even a minority opinion can appear to be extremely popular locally,” say Lerman and co. That might explain how extreme views can sometimes spread so easily.
The other point of note and that has been raised elsewhere here is that the first key to walking away from CTs is to look outside your sources. For every CT, there is an active source of the beliefs either in shaping and or propagating them. These are the 'active nodes'.
And closely related to the above point is that our own beliefs or behavior is significantly affected by others'
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