Andrew Wakefield says hello.

And he represents just one of hundreds of deadly misinformation campaigns in the last thirty years alone.

I’m saying when you make people who are wrong find community based on beoling wrong they get even more entrenched.

Yeah, definitely. But: It’s a lot easier to answer the disinformation if you know where it’s coming from. Part of the thing that makes my head spin about the GOP news cycle is how even I (a chronically-online, fairly well-informed person) will have absolutely no idea where some people come up with the nonsense they come up with. Is it from their own mind? Is there some fringe community on Facebook doling out steaming dog piles of AI-generated anti-vax nonsense? Is it a legitimate outlet, and they’re just massively misunderstanding it? Knowing where it comes from can really help in combating it; even if you can’t stop the current fake news, you might be able to head the next one off before it takes root. Sometimes just the process of needing to find a source can make people look twice. It works for me, even: if I want to write something I’m pretty sure about, and then go looking for a source, sometimes I’ll find out that that source isn’t reliable, or that it was retracted. Sometimes I’ll even find out that what I remembered was true, but it’s way better or worse. I become more media literate sourcing my facts.

easier to answer You’re still running on the absolute fantasy that people ate rational, and you’re doing worse than nothing to help when you do. look twice Not helpful, with the modern tendency to hitlerian readings of… Everything useful for me Valid, whatever you find helps, but don’t push it on others as if it will somehow safeguard truth.