
How liars create the ‘illusion of truth’ - known
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161026-how-liars-create-the-illusion-of-truth
======
whack
_" But part of guarding against the illusion is the obligation it puts on us
to stop repeating falsehoods. We live in a world where the facts matter, and
should matter. If you repeat things without bothering to check if they are
true, you are helping to make a world where lies and truth are easier to
confuse. So, please, think before you repeat."_

Someone really should drill this into the head of every reporter and
journalism student. Talking points put forward by political campaigns and
special interest groups, if they are untrue or deliberately misleading,
_should not_ be given air time. Simply parroting such false statements does a
grave disservice to society.

~~~
ChuckMcM
That has always been a core tenet of journalism, as taught, but the ability to
get information from the Internet has put massive pressure on that.

The simplest explanation is that "scoops" (being the first with a story) is
more valuable than being second, so there is tremendous pressure to publish
first. As your competitors (who are often lay journalists on the Internet) may
have a lower standard of proof than you do, you risk being scooped if you are
to stingy with your fact checking.

But the Internet is perhaps a _much_ bigger problem in this regard. It is
perceived as journalism while it may be either opinion, commercial speech, or
simply hate speech. My Dad will tell me something is true and refer to a half
dozen blogs that he reads which all say something is true (my favorite was
that half the population of LA was illegal aliens). That is a statement which
can be generally challenged on its face but it can also be challenged
analytically by looking at the tax base for LA county, not to mention Census
records vs available housing. The challenge though was that "every source he
checked" said it was true, and they all got their bogus information from
probably the same original source what ever that was.

As a result, while I think it _is_ drilled into the heads of journalism
students and reporters, it is _not_ the standard operating mode of _many more_
bloggers and vloggers, and as a result we get pounded by falsehoods if we
aren't critical in our information sources.

~~~
zigzigzag
I think there was never some mythical golden age of pre-internet quality
journalism, to be honest. I frequently read newspaper articles in supposedly
respectable outlets that are not about breaking news yet are still riddled
with serious flaws or biases, sometimes outright falsehoods. This problem
becomes a hundred times worse when exploring their opinion columns or
editorials. If "journalism school" (whatever that is) tries to teach
journalists to be unbiased fact checkers then it's not done a good job.

I think the internet has been a massively positive thing for news in general,
as it so quickly allows people to do rapid fact checking, get access to
contrary opinions, see comments on the articles and so on. If your dad doesn't
do those things he probably wouldn't have been more informed before the
internet, he'd have just quoted you other one-sided sources too. Fact checking
things you want to believe in takes discipline and commitment, it isn't
something that was broken by the internet.

~~~
Spooky23
You never had the types of crazy claims that you see in partisan media pre-
internet.

Crazy stuff existed, but in not easily accessible forums to the average joe.

~~~
amyjess
You're forgetting about the Yellow Journalism era of the late 19th century.

Or the role of newspapers like the _Boston Gazette_ during the lead up to the
American Revolution, that mostly served to turn the populace against English
rule.

Or the mass publication of seditious libels during Restoration England. If you
want to talk about whacked-out conspiracy theories, you should see what was
published in the 1660s through the 1680s. Popish Plot anyone?

The idea that journalists should be unbiased is a very, very modern one.

~~~
bbctol
What I'm really curious about is what changed between the era of yellow
journalism and the mid-twentieth century. I absolutely agree that people
hearkening back to print journalism as a time when everything was fact-checked
and reliable are mistaken, but it really does seem that journalism now is more
sensationalist than in the _recent_ past, just not the distant past. That
means that print isn't the answer; there's something else to a society that
makes its reporting either good or bad. What is it? Corporate power? General
partisanship?

~~~
wutbrodo
I've read that some posit that the switch to a subscription model in part
effected the decline of yellow journalism. The subscription customer's
purchase decision is potentially less driven by in-the-moment attention-
grabbing and more by characteristics like informativeness and accuracy.

------
will_brown
I have been thinking about the following lately...

Myth: Student loans are not dischargable in bankruptcy.

Truth: Student loans are dischargable in bankruptcy, albeit at a higher
standard than other personal debts.

Now the myth, or what one might call the propaganda, is generally attributable
student loan debt holders who don't want debtors knowing and worse availing
themselves to their rights. However, what I find most odd is the
myth/propaganda is now actually perpetuated more by people who know the truth
but want student loan reforms. For example, they will generally ignore the
ability to discharge student loans in bankruptcy at all or other methods of
forgiveness such as "total and permenant disability". Also I notice when
confronted with the truth they perpetuate the myth by exaggerating how many
people actually qualify for relief.

~~~
MOARDONGZPLZ
That's not really a "lie" per se. In the USA it would only be dischargeable by
0.01% of people, or some freakishly low number. The standard of discharge wrt
student loans is so ridiculously high. The case law shows that a person, to
get them discharged, essentially needs to have zero chance of ever being able
to hold a job or work again. There have been quadriplegics who couldn't get
them discharged for hardship. The bar is so high, it is essentially impossible
for all but the severely, severely unfortunate among us. If you have the
potential to hold any sort of job at any point in the future, it's effectively
impossible to discharge.

So while it's not technically true, the ability to discharge student loans is
such an edge case, saying they're nondishargeable is effectively true.

~~~
countingteeth
It's neither a lie nor a myth, yet the truth is surprising.

A 2011 study found only 0.1% of student debtors in bankruptcy even apply for
discharge of student loans. Yet of that self-selecting group, 40% were
successful. The question is why more don't apply for discharge, and how
successful they might be.

Regardless, this does show that "student loans are not dischargable in
bankruptcy" is generally true, given a discharge rate of only 0.04%.

Source:
[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1894445](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1894445)

Iuliano, Jason. "An Empirical Assessment of Student Loan Discharges and the
Undue Hardship Standard." Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of
Public and International Affairs, Department of Politics. July 24, 2011. 86
American Bankruptcy Law Journal 495 (2012)

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I guess that means 60% are unsuccessful. My friend who was jailed for 5 years
could not even get a deferment. He had large fines added to his loan for
missing payments. In prison he could only earn some trivial amount (cents on
the dollar) for working, so it was impossible to keep up with the loans.

~~~
ci5er
The decision about whether one can discharge or not discharge in bankruptcy is
determined by the court. The decision about whether one can defer or not defer
is determined by the loan administrator.

I'm guessing that upon release, your friend would be (have been) an
outstanding candidate for being able to discharge the loans (and penalties and
interest) through a bankruptcy proceeding.

------
itsadok
This is similar to the "Contamination" effect, of how completely false
statements can affect a person's judgement, even if they are told the
statement are false.

[http://lesswrong.com/lw/k3/priming_and_contamination/](http://lesswrong.com/lw/k3/priming_and_contamination/)
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/k4/do_we_believe_everything_were_tol...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/k4/do_we_believe_everything_were_told/)

~~~
XaYdEk
I don't know, the Contamination effect seems more like buffer overflow in our
neural network and the Repetition effect more like a poor implementation of
caching.

------
hamhamed
Consequently, repeating something too many times is a flag to detect a lie.
Amateur liars usually forget that rule. Good liars create doubt. Bad liars
create certainty. However, the former knowns how to gain ppl's trust.

You learn that with camp fire based games like Mafia/Werewolf

------
tdkl
I wish people would stop parroting about Goebbels to this phenomena, because
the real "innovator" in the propaganda was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, Edward
Bernays [1] (Goebbels was a big fan of him). His manipulation techniques and
tricks are what started the profession of public relations (PR) in USA.

He also helped spreading the lie that helped CIA overthrow the democratically
elected Guatemalan president [2].

[1] [http://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-
american-...](http://theconversation.com/the-manipulation-of-the-american-
mind-edward-bernays-and-the-birth-of-public-relations-44393)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays)

~~~
dredmorbius
See also Adam Curtis's _The Century of the Self_ , which focuses extensively
on Bernays.

Bernays' books are avaialble via the Internet Archive. Fascinating reading.

~~~
tdkl
Yep, as soon I've found about him, I've checked out the documentary series, it
should be viewed in schools. But that would probably be bad for business as
it's not OK for masses to be aware of the techniques.

------
zigzigzag
Obligatory warning about interesting sounding psychological studies that may
or may not replicate.

------
thght
I am especially worried by the lies that we all create in our own minds by
repeating erroneous thoughts with our own thinking. People being convinced
about things that are not true or only partially true can be quite scary, more
so when those people are in power. Fair chance that Goebbels really believed
what he was saying. What we consider to be the 'truth' is very relative in my
perception.

~~~
projektir
It kind of goes both ways, too. If you have a belief, and it is correct, but
you don't reinforce it, it may get quickly replaced by some other belief.

------
peterwwillis
This only works if it's something people want to believe. If it goes against
some existing strong belief, like, "there is a God that really exists", they
will continue to believe what they want to no matter how many times
scientists, atheists and the like say otherwise.

Certain things you will just naturally want to believe more often. For
example, people are more likely to believe something fearful. Or something
that feeds the ego. Or something that reinforces an existing belief. But the
opposite of those things might not influence the person.

The illusion of truth is just a heuristic. It's probably how we learn
everything as children. We hear things and every time we hear them they are
reinforced. Teaching someone that something they've learned is wrong is
incredibly difficult.

------
josephpmay
I wonder what would happen if you repeated those same experiments with a
neural network. I think it might act the same way as humans do.

------
dschiptsov
Advertising explained.

------
debt
sometimes i talk about things that haven't happened yet as if they've already
happened because i'm so certain they will happen. i think this throws people
off sometimes.

as an example, instead of saying "people will move away from the coasts once
the sea levels rise due to climate change" i'll just start with "once everyone
has moved away from the coasts etc"

usually people need some clarification.

------
shitgoose
bbc, eh? from the horse's mouth...

------
rbobby
"Wrong!" \- D.Trump

------
wpietri
I'm sorry to immediately take this off on a tangent, but the article lists "a
prune is a dried plum" as a true statement. I agree with that, but does
anybody know why it's "prune juice" instead of "plum juice"? It makes as
little sense to me as saying that wine is made from raisin juice.

~~~
eth0up
While on the subject of gustatory shenanigans, a few which irk me are:

"Contains 100% juice" \- This one is clever, and true, albeit that the product
probably only contains 3% of actual 100% juice.

"Packed in x" \- Packed in x, sure. But in smaller print, Product of y.

"Cholesterol Free" \- Thanks. I was terribly worried that my non-animal
product contained some despite it not being an animal.

"Made from: pure a" displayed prominently on front label, while ingredients
read: b,c,d,e,f,...etc, etc.

"No _added_ growth hormones" \- Clearly there's little point anyway, in adding
hormones to a chicken breast or hotdog.

~~~
loopbit
Recently, a friend of mine gave me a box of tea that claimed to be:

\- fairtrade \- organic \- gluten free \- suitable for vegans \- kosher \-
halal

Now, I like the first one (and maybe the second one), 3 and 4 are just what I
would expect from a product that, according to its ingredients, is just tea
leaves. I feel that 5 and 6 are simply taking the piss.

~~~
ars
Eh? Not all tea is kosher, especially flavored kinds, and those with more
processing. So what's wrong with them telling you it's kosher?

And there are non-gluten-free teas, they have barley malt, or roasted barley
in them.

~~~
lomnakkus
For some reason (and not being very familiar with kosher law) I couldn't help
thinking of shellfish-flavoured tea and wondering why anyone would ever want
to drink that. Anyway, here's a little more information for anyone who's
curious: [http://www.learn-about-tea.com/kosher-tea.html](http://www.learn-
about-tea.com/kosher-tea.html)

~~~
ars
Tea almost always is (or can be) kosher. However unless a Rabbi actually
monitors the production you can't be sure.

For example the same packaging line might have been used for something else
that was not kosher. Or a flavoring might have a non kosher ingredient (or
more likely, could be kosher, but manufactured on a line that also does non-
kosher items).

------
tripzilch
Is it me, or is this title actually not-super-obvious clickbait but clickbait
nonetheless?

I mean, the story isn't about liars at all. It implies some sort of insight
about the workings of a liar's psyche or their methods, schemes, etc. But
instead it's about how repetition affects our perception of truth, and the
article (as well as common knowledge) is very clear about how it doesn't
matter whether this repetition comes from a singular intentional actor (a
liar), or if you get the statement repeatedly from a variety of sources. It
even nearly admits as much by hand-waving that of course liars have many
other, stronger, methods of manipulation but we're not going to cover any
those.

A more honest title would be "How _repetition_ creates the illusion of truth".

But then nobody would click that because people would think "um yeah, cool I
already know that". And they'd be right.

Tying into this, are the rather bold and hard-to-believe claims made initially
by the BBC article (as opposed to the research):

"people tend to rate items they've seen before as more likely to be true,
regardless of whether they are true or not"

"[the] effect worked just as strongly for known as for unknown items"

"For statements that were actually fact or fiction, known or unknown,
repetition made them _all_ seem more believable."

Only to, in the second half, completely contradict these claims:

"What Fazio and colleagues _actually_ found, is that the biggest influence on
whether a statement was judged to be true was... whether it actually was true.
The repetition effect couldn’t mask the truth. With or without repetition,
people were still more likely to believe the actual facts as opposed to the
lies."

Wait, what? You just spent half the article boldly claiming pretty much the
opposite, and then _surprise!_ If you found the earlier claims hard to
believe, it's because they weren't _actually_ what the research found at all!
You don't say!

We'll have a nice and intelligent discussion thread about it on HN, sure, it's
what we do, but c'mon the article itself is garbage.

