{"id":1143,"date":"2021-03-08T10:00:40","date_gmt":"2021-03-08T10:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/?p=1143"},"modified":"2021-03-07T22:38:18","modified_gmt":"2021-03-07T22:38:18","slug":"think-before-you-push-the-share-button","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/think-before-you-push-the-share-button\/","title":{"rendered":"Think Before You Push the \u201cShare\u201d Button"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You\u2019ve just run across a hilarious satire on a comedic news site and can\u2019t wait to re-post it so your friends can get a chuckle. Or you\u2019ve found an over-the-top editorial arguing for an unethical policy and want to show others the dangers of bad thinking. But before you share, take a moment to consider the potential cost of sharing stories like this. While clearly different from spreading fake news, posting satire or posting to mock may still mislead. \u00a0Your audience could be left with false beliefs or trusting in unreliable sources.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut it\u2019s so clearly a joke!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The joke may be clear to your intended audience, but we often forget how many people we are connected to through social media.\u00a0 Targeting a post narrowly should ensure that everyone who reads the post gets the tone. Yet often it\u2019s easiest to share a post with a whole friend group, or to simply post things so that anyone can see them.\u00a0 How likely is it that a publicly shared post will be received as intended by everyone who sees it? Unlikely in the case of satire, even less likely when you are mocking an article written in earnest.\u00a0 Among your inner circle, it\u2019s probably obvious that you are poking fun, but your wider sharing escapes this context.\u00a0 So-called \u201ccontext collapse\u201d occurs when that original context is lost in the sharing. And, of course, posting widely on social media is an excellent way to accidentally generate context collapse. Your friends will get the joke, but will your grandmother? A former co-worker from two years ago? Consider how your post will be received by all the audiences you may be reaching.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019ll figure it out\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even if your grandmother or former co-worker are a bit confused by your post, perhaps missing the humor and seeing an assertion to be trusted (and be honest, have you never been taken in by a satirical news story), the hope is that the confusion will be short lived.\u00a0 They will eventually figure out your original intent, at that point correcting their beliefs about both you and the world. But recent work in the psychology of belief formation and revision offers alarming evidence that people are very bad at correcting false beliefs once formed \u2013 even beliefs about neutral topics and even when the correction follows original misinformation immediately!<\/p>\n<p>In one study (Johnson and Seifert, 1994), subjects were exposed to a series of info-snippets written as ongoing news reports about a fire in a warehouse. One report pointed to flammable cans of paint and pressurized gas cylinders in a closet. This was corrected later in the series when the closet was reported as, in fact, empty.\u00a0 Yet even when the correction was issued <u>immediately<\/u>, subjects continued to reference the misinformation to explain why the fire was so intense. In this and other experiments, corrections only reduced the repeating of the misinformation by, at most, half, and in some studies not at all! <a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> Fat chance, then, that your audience, once mistaken, will come around to the joke and revise their beliefs!<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat\u2019s the harm?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Still, accepting the above, is it really all that bad if your reposting fools someone? After all, even if they don\u2019t have the context to discern your intended message, they only end up convinced of a single or a few falsehoods from any given article, right? Maybe not. In re-posting, you typically share far more than a single article. In fact, you connect them with a source potentially spewing many false claims\u2014 a far more serious risk.<\/p>\n<p>Your source may lead them down to rabbit hole of conspiracy thinking, linking them to wilder and wilder sources as they go. While you are not entirely responsible for that descent, you initiated a process through what I call \u201cbent credentialing.\u201d When your audience fails to catch your ironic tone, they may instead hear an endorsement of both an argument and, much worse, the original source. Consider, then, the potential risks the next time you run across something funny or outrageous and feel the impulse to share it.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShould I just stop sharing?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Definitely not.\u00a0 A 2017 study by Fletcher and Nielsen showed that people who encounter news incidentally on social media are exposed to a more diverse set of news stories than those who did not use social networks. This diversity might be explained by the \u201cweak ties\u201d that we have with co-workers, distant relatives, etc. on social media.\u00a0 These people are more likely to have a different political identity that those with whom we share strong ties. As a result, people to whom we have weak ties are poised to provide a wider range of sources to us, and we are poised to do the same for them. So sharing links can also be beneficial, we just need to cautions about how we do it.<\/p>\n<p>And, as a further positive note, psychological research suggests that we can correct for misinformation if we identify it as such before sharing. The news media has increasingly resorted to this over the past four years, with headlines now reading, \u201cTrump incorrectly claims he won the election.\u201d Providing context via a signal, or even a laugh emoji, which your closest friends probably don\u2019t need and might find a bit flat-footed, can make all the difference!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> See Lewanwoski et al (2012) for a review of these studies.<\/p>\n<p>Photo by Myznik Egor on Unsplash<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019ve just run across a hilarious satire on a comedic news site and can\u2019t wait to re-post it so your friends can get a chuckle. Or you\u2019ve found an over-the-top [&hellip;]","protected":false},"author":1319,"featured_media":1145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"'Think Before You Push the \u201cShare\u201d Button' Sarah Wright on Open for Debate","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[44],"custom_author":[286],"class_list":["post-1143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-open-for-debate","tag-social-media","custom_author-wright-sarah"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8KPlM-ir","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1588,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/context-needed\/","url_meta":{"origin":1143,"position":0},"title":"Context Needed","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"December 26, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"It may be hard for us to admit, but many of us are two-faced. That is to say, we act differently depending on who we\u2019re with. We might be polite and affectionate with parents, playful with friends, and calm and composed with colleagues. And that\u2019s no bad thing; adjusting how\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Open for Debate&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/12\/hugh-han-5pkYWUDDthQ-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/12\/hugh-han-5pkYWUDDthQ-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/12\/hugh-han-5pkYWUDDthQ-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/12\/hugh-han-5pkYWUDDthQ-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/12\/hugh-han-5pkYWUDDthQ-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2022\/12\/hugh-han-5pkYWUDDthQ-unsplash-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":531,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/bullshit-you-can-believe-in\/","url_meta":{"origin":1143,"position":1},"title":"Bullshit You Can Believe In","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"November 5, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. So begins Harry Frankfurt\u2019s rightly celebrated essay On Bullshit, raising the important questions of precisely what bullshit is and why there is so much of it around. That sentence is particularly poignant now, three\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Open for Debate&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2018\/11\/140521-F-LR006-054.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2018\/11\/140521-F-LR006-054.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2018\/11\/140521-F-LR006-054.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2018\/11\/140521-F-LR006-054.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":456,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/ruminating-on-fake-news-online-education-and-intellectual-humility\/","url_meta":{"origin":1143,"position":2},"title":"Ruminating on Fake News, Online Education, and Intellectual Humility","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"June 18, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"From 2015 until last month (May, 2018), I was involved with a project at the University of Edinburgh, which aimed to produce a massive open online course (or MOOC) on intellectual humility. One of the central goals of the project was to give various academics who are producing extremely valuable\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Open for Debate&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2018\/06\/park_white_black_water_rain_tom_oregon_canon-296566.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2018\/06\/park_white_black_water_rain_tom_oregon_canon-296566.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2018\/06\/park_white_black_water_rain_tom_oregon_canon-296566.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2018\/06\/park_white_black_water_rain_tom_oregon_canon-296566.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2018\/06\/park_white_black_water_rain_tom_oregon_canon-296566.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":646,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/objectification-knowledge-and-pornography\/","url_meta":{"origin":1143,"position":3},"title":"Objectification, Knowledge, and Pornography","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"April 8, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Objectification is treating or depicting a person as a mere thing. What does this involve? By now we\u2019re all familiar with the idea that it\u2019s an aspect of women\u2019s subordinate status in society that they are sexually objectified: they are treated and depicted as sex objects. Practices such as sex\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Open for Debate&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2019\/03\/aleksandar-radovanovic-10295-unsplash-1-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2019\/03\/aleksandar-radovanovic-10295-unsplash-1-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2019\/03\/aleksandar-radovanovic-10295-unsplash-1-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2019\/03\/aleksandar-radovanovic-10295-unsplash-1-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2019\/03\/aleksandar-radovanovic-10295-unsplash-1-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2019\/03\/aleksandar-radovanovic-10295-unsplash-1-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":197,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/arguing-virtuously\/","url_meta":{"origin":1143,"position":4},"title":"Arguing Virtuously","author":"Andrew Aberdein","date":"August 14, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"I recently found out that I had been collecting books by accident. Rearranging some shelves, I discovered I had several books with similar titles, all acquired at different times, and for different reasons, but with a strikingly similar theme: Winning Arguments; How to Win An Argument; How to Win Every\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Open for Debate&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2017\/08\/330px-1909_Tyee_-_Debate_and_Oratory_illustration.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1841,"url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/we-should-complain\/","url_meta":{"origin":1143,"position":5},"title":"We Should Complain","author":"Alessandra Tanesini","date":"December 11, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"I write about complaint to reduce its stigma. I teach classic philosophical texts that argue against it, so I realize the stigma is longstanding. Complaining is soft, Aristotle says. It\u2019s undignified, Immanuel Kant adds. It should never be enjoyed, they both say. I aim to counter that. I noticed this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Open for Debate&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Open for Debate","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/category\/open-for-debate\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2023\/12\/hands-and-head.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2023\/12\/hands-and-head.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2023\/12\/hands-and-head.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2023\/12\/hands-and-head.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"meta_box":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/533\/2021\/03\/myznik-egor-K7_8sGMgym8-unsplash-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1319"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1143"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1146,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1143\/revisions\/1146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1143"},{"taxonomy":"custom_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/openfordebate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/custom_author?post=1143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}