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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