Calling Bullshit: The Art of Skepticism in a Data-Driven World

by Carl T. Bergstrom

In today’s social media world, our friends treat us to saccharine drivel about their latest soul mates, square-framed snapshots of their locally sourced organic brunches, and tiresome boasts about their kids’ athletic, artistic, or academic accomplishments. But our homes are also filled with the voices of strangers—often anonymous strangers—that our friends have seen fit to share. We don’t know these people. What they write is seldom written with the attention to accuracy we would expect from a commercial media outlet. And some of the “authors” are paid human agents or computer programs spreading disinformation on behalf of corporate interests or foreign powers.

There are three basic approaches for protecting ourselves against misinformation and disinformation online. The first is technology.

A second approach is governmental regulation.

A third and most powerful approach is education.

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

Most important: When you are using social media, remember the mantra “think more, share less.”

Twitter has been compared to a nation of television viewers yelling back at their TV sets, encouraged by a faint hope that the people on the TV might hear them.

To call bullshit in a civil way, attack the argument, rather than the person.