Page 13 - Sharing Posts: The Spread of Fake News
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But though many people in Boston and elsewhere were ap-
palled by Jones’s claims, others had a very different reaction. Chief
among them was former Red Sox pitcher and onetime sports
commentator Curt Schilling, who came to the defense of Boston
and its fans. Pointing out that no one in the stands had described
or fi lmed the supposed taunts on social media, Schilling denied
that there had been any racist abuse directed at Jones. “I don’t
believe the story,” Schilling said fl atly. In response, Jones reiter-
ated that his account was not a fabrication, but Schilling refused
to back down. “If he wants to maintain the lie he made here,”
Schilling explained, “that’s fi ne. . . . Adam has an agenda and one
needs to only look at his past commentary on race and racism to
see it.”
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Schilling and Jones were expressing different opinions in this
debate, but more fundamentally, the two could not even agree
on what the facts of the case were. Jones insisted that racial
taunting had taken place; Schilling did not believe him. When two
sides cannot agree on the facts of a situation, it is impossible for
them to come to any kind of understanding. And more and more,
conservatives and liberals struggle to come to consensus about
the truth or falsity of information. This growing divide is evident to
experts and ordinary citizens alike. According to one survey from
the fall of 2016, 81 percent of registered voters said that Trump
and Clinton supporters “cannot agree on basic facts.” 37
Responses and Ideology
Fake news feeds into this debate over what is factual—and ex-
acerbates it as well. An already divided public will respond very
differently to the same fake news item—and will respond in pre-
dictable ways. A fake news item originating in April 2017, for ex-
ample, showed a photo of a badly injured woman in what looked
like a hospital bed. “This 7 month pregnant woman was beaten
by [a] Muslim refugee in Oklahoma,” read the caption. Reac-
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tions to the item differed according to the ideology of those who
read it. Readers who opposed allowing Muslim refugees into the
country saw the article as true and passed it along to family and
friends. But those who believed that the United States should be
more welcoming to Islamic refugees immediately dismissed the
item as false.
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