It’s still useful to maintain the distinction between lying (making claims while believing they’re false) and unwittingly spreading misinformation (making false claims while not being aware they’re false). Including when there are no attempts to check for correctness, even by understanding what is being said, even if it’s clear there’s something funny going on, even when there are tribal or other incentives to keep saying it unchanged and disincentives to check its correctness.
(Not maintaining this distinction leads to forming and spreading misinformed models of people who are saying false things. There are often incentives to keep saying that people saying false things are lying, and disincentives to keep making clear the distinction between lying and misinformation. One could even argue calling them out like that is a good incentive, but that’s a rather self-defeating line of argument, since it’s disincentivising misinformation through misinformation, or even through lying, depending on if you understand the argument when following its recommendations.)
Thanks! I fully agree. What I said was wrong and I edited my comment to reflect that.
It’s somewhat nice that “spreading misinformation” is an umbrella covering doing so intentionally (lying) and unintentionally. It is unpleasant that another way to say “misinformation” is “fake news” and accusations of such seem to be available as a cheap, fully general, attack on political opponents. I guess it would be pretty nice if people always used citations when talking about things, but that seems like an unrealistic ideal.
It’s still useful to maintain the distinction between lying (making claims while believing they’re false) and unwittingly spreading misinformation (making false claims while not being aware they’re false). Including when there are no attempts to check for correctness, even by understanding what is being said, even if it’s clear there’s something funny going on, even when there are tribal or other incentives to keep saying it unchanged and disincentives to check its correctness.
(Not maintaining this distinction leads to forming and spreading misinformed models of people who are saying false things. There are often incentives to keep saying that people saying false things are lying, and disincentives to keep making clear the distinction between lying and misinformation. One could even argue calling them out like that is a good incentive, but that’s a rather self-defeating line of argument, since it’s disincentivising misinformation through misinformation, or even through lying, depending on if you understand the argument when following its recommendations.)
Thanks! I fully agree. What I said was wrong and I edited my comment to reflect that.
It’s somewhat nice that “spreading misinformation” is an umbrella covering doing so intentionally (lying) and unintentionally. It is unpleasant that another way to say “misinformation” is “fake news” and accusations of such seem to be available as a cheap, fully general, attack on political opponents. I guess it would be pretty nice if people always used citations when talking about things, but that seems like an unrealistic ideal.