It's not like there's a state border check for vehicle emissions. You can visit California in a non-California car without an emissions check. Joy's claim doesn't make sense even before fact checking.
This is a great example of the importance of teaching people critical thinking skills.
If you stop to analyze what was written in this sensationalized post rather than acting on your emotions, the first question that should come into mind is "who stopped them?". There are no checkpoints between Oregon and California where cars are turned away from crossing state lines due to emissions. In fact, that would probably violate federal free travel laws which would supercede any stupid law like that.
Next, consider the source. Is this person trustworthy? Did they provide ample citations to reputable journalistic outlets that verified the factuality of the claims? If not, they may be trying to deceive you with falsehoods or have an ulterior motive for misrepresenting the facts. At best they are repeating claims that they've heard from others and anything they report on should be taken with a grain of salt.
This post doesn't hold up to the slightest amount of scrutiny, but people get fooled every day by crap like this. My advice is that if you hear something that sounds outrageous or too good to be true, stop and think carefully about it for a few minutes, or maybe just wait for another source to report it. Saves you a lot of stress and protects you from endlessly doomscrolling.
A friend of mine posted something on Facebook (reposted from a local list in Arizona) claiming that two people were knocking on doors and beating up people, and one woman was in the hospital as a result. Pictures of the perpetrators and everything.
Something felt off, so I did a quick search on their names. And I found an article from some city in Texas where the same rumor had been circulating about that area. The article clarified that the two people had committed some crimes several years ago and were caught, tried, and convicted already.
So someone took one of these, changed the name of the area, and posted it to the local list. Why do people do this? A form of stochastic terrorism maybe?
Edit - I can't find the post (I think my friend deleted it), but I did still have a tab open with the article about it.
I have noticed this as well. Back during the early facebook years, a "news" outlet would just generate content by posting stories like "Greenville ranked as the city with highest crime rate" every week or so.
Everybody on my facebook feed would go crazy saying things like "I always knew that town was dangerous, but to hear it outranks New York? TERRIFYING!"
Only issue is that this outlet would have 50 different URLs for the article, all giving a city in a different state (always an immigrant heavy suburb) and those articles would be appear around facebook and nobody would know the wiser.
It costs almost nothing for them to rewrite the world and your perspective about it. The granularity they are now capable of should give us pause.
I assume the people in the picture were "melanin enriched"? There you have your answer.
It's a shame that you can't know when seeing such posts if the person resharing it has good intentions or not. "Don't open your door for strangers" is often good advice after all.
Where I live I mostly see this done to support the narrative that immigrants are bad, that you can't trust traditional media, and that you should be voting for the local fascist party.
Afaik the place names and date are not changed here, I suspect because that would make the perpetrators criminally liable. Instead they work by omission: take a many years old crime, don't mention the date but instead post it on facebook as if it only recently happened, in that post question why the media isn't mentioning this event or how the non-fascist politicians could let things get this much out of control, and then boost the post with help from others in the telegram group so that it reaches a wider audience.
“who stopped them?”. There are no checkpoints between Oregon and California
.. actually, there are checkpoints along every major roadway into California that do check incoming vehicles, mostly to find and prevent invasive species from entering the state and affecting the agricultural industry, and more broadly to protect the environmental systems in California. There have, in fact, been legal challenges against these checkpoints for violating travel laws, but the checkpoints have remained. They've also been used to seize non-agricultural items like weed, weapons smuggling, etc. so emissions standards checking isn't completely out of the realm.
Obviously, she's lying and she doesn't know any of this either anyway. But there are checkpoints to enter California.
Yeah, you're right, but you also conveniently cut out the second half of my sentence where I specifically mentioned being turned away for emissions. Context matters.
Additionally, Washington, Oregon, California, and BC (this one has to have some sort of international limitations) have a climate pact with eachother to adopt emission and climate policies set by the other states/province.
Out of all the states that CA would have emissions issues with, OR would not be one of them.
Teaching critical thinking skills it not a solution. People are not getting fooled, they want to believe it, it fills an emotional need.
Neo-liberal solutions to societal issues focusing on individuals has been a complete disaster. It is basically victim blaming and doesn't actually scale in many circumstances.
Eg. High house prices; Victims fault for not working harder and saving more. Neo-liberal solution: Work longer, spend way less. Outcome at scale: Economy crashes due to low spending.
Sometimes I wonder how much better the world could be if I had the power to snap my fingers and everybody on the planet knows that confirmation bias exists and it’s a big deal.
My point was not that X would be able to do something about this, but that it is not a source of breaking news, and fundamentally not a replacement for journalism…and should not be used as such.
This is exactly why so many things just feel hopeless to me. The worst people have caught on to, and the parrots don't even realize, that you can just say literally anything and the occupants of your echo chamber will believe it immediately and then refuse to believe whatever reality actually is if it is presented to them by literally any other "outsider."
Hell even someone of the "in-group" who is not substantial enough will be outed as an "other" if they dare go against the initial message.
The knock-on effects of this also concern me. Largely, the only effective way I've seen to battle disinformation is to retreat to smaller spaces. The intensity and engagement driven content loop on all the major platforms just fuels the fire. Ultimately, to achieve a better admin:user ratio where the admins aren't idiots. While I wax nostalgic about my former BBS days, it feels like a giant step backwards to that. The quality on content is there and signal:noise ratio is sublime, but the amount of information, level of discourse, and widespread geographic socialization, isn't.
I just assume things cannot be controlled, there is no direction, and the majority of the human race will be swimming in lies, disinformation and cat memes fur generations
I plan to move somewhere where this isnt a problem. If Im going to live in a capitalist society Im going to exercise my free market choice to choose somewhere better than the McDonalds being run by geriatric conspiracy theorists
America does not care about truth. Worse, it actively discourages truth.
Lying is accepted. Making up facts that suit your narrative and shouting down anyone who disagrees gets you rewarded with the highest position of state.
We, the rest of the world, are just watching you guys in horror.
Makes sense. The Internet was the peak of the information age and usually with any cultural push their is the counter culture equivalent. When any truth could be found in seconds we now find ourselves where any opinion can be fed enough backing to feel like a truth.
Personally I would go so far as to say that people politicizing the fires from a place that is burning to the ground should probably also immediately shut up and flee the building.
Well apparently believing in climate change is political over here, and I don't think it's wrong to point to this as evidence that we need to make some serious changes.
This is not "false" this is just "pants on fire lying"
This person should not have the freedom to speak publicly anymore
Screw freedom of expression as we currently have it. Freedom of expression should become a right with responsibility. if you can't be responsible, you can't have the right. You either speak the truth or don't get to speak to groups, period
I'm SO done with literally everyone and everything lying with zero repercussions. Companies lie, all fine. Politicians lie like there is no tomorrow and that's fiiiiine, even Obama lied like 25% and that's fiiiiine, trump literally lies 99% of the time and it's all fine! Nothing happens, so we just lie more and more and you can't trust anything or anyone anymore
Freedom of expression on the internet was a big mistake
It's not freedom of expression that's the issue here; it's the devaluation of responsible public influence such as (but not limited to) quality journalism. Lots of news agencies that used to be reputable are either going out of business or getting bought out by shady people. Hicks (I should know) have always been able to stand at the edge of their property yelling bullshit. The problem is people started listening and putting them up in the town square to yell bullshit (sometimes they even get paid!).
If every time the press quoted somebody they gave right alongside it a count of past occasions when they were caught lying, there would a lot less lying because people would be reading their quote, looking at the count of lies next to it and mentally going "bullshit!" for the big liars.
The excess lying going around is because the liars take advantage of people being physically unable of keeping track of the liar-levels and lies they've been caught on of all the "media personalities" (humans are only capable of managing at best around 200 relationships with other entities, so not just family and friends but also personalities one has an opinion about and even brands).
Part of the reason the Press won't do that is because so many of them are also liars (in the sense that they're actual vehicles for Propaganda rather than having Journalistic integrity) but also in many countries legislation such as Anti-slander Legislation means that if they point people's lies out they can get sued, which is costly even if they win, whilst if they say only good things they get no legal costs, so the whole field is tilted towards painting well know personalities wi the the means or influence to sue news media in a positive light - in other words, the system is designed to protect well connect or rich liars and conmen from being exposed in the most widely circulated media.
I fully agree we need to have independent journalists. People won't pay for news anymore so governments should fund independent journalists through some sort of independent foundation. International foundation, preferably.
But beyond that, it matters little if we still have Alex Jones who somehow has actual listeners, or Fox news which is just a 24/7 bullshit pump with a large userbase.
We need to stop people, organizations, and companies from being able to lie to large groups. You lie? The lie gets immediately marked as being a lie. Not "this is not entirely true", no, "this is a lie". Repeat offenders should be fined depending on their worth. You are worth a billion dollars? Get a 100 million dollar fine. Still don't listen? Jail time, doesn't matter who you are.
Its either that or I see this world dead within the decade. With AI pictures and videos getting better every day, with AI becoming better at posting, how long do you think we have until we have a dead Internet with only AI posting lies and all extremist humans ready to commit mass murder because the AI bots have been telling them that the Jewish space lasers will make your frog children gay or something?
The Internet gave a bullhorn to idiots and cheaters and though I was one of the earlier users, loving it's thinking it would rescue the world, now I'm of the opinion that it will doom us all
Who decides what is true though? In China the gov't ensures no 'misinformation' is spread on their social platforms... Is something like that a good solution for you?
Of course that is an issue but we've arrived at a point where I think that is less of an issue than the rampant "everybody and everything is a lie, there is no objective truth anymore, but everybody claims to have the absolute, factual, and moral truth anyway"
The current situation is unsustainable. You can't have a normal civil discussion about climate change because the other side screeches that climate change is fake news, then shits on the table.
You can't do anything if you can't at least agree on what is factual truth and oh boy, Republicans and conservatives just put so much lies and bullshit out there that it's just not doable anymore
It has to stop. So normal people like you and me, fine, talk. But websites must contain FACTUAL information, or be very clearly labeled "fiction, not factual". If the site contains information that is known to be false, just have some DMCA like ayatem that will remove it from the Internet.
What source is factual? Anything not supported by a single government, anything that is not funded by any for profit company. Wikipedia is a good example. Sure, it's far from perfect but it's a 100 times more reliable than anything else out there and you gotta start with something.
Make an independent government funded group that can work no matter who's in charge at the government, and they are tasked with checking facts.
If someone with power (politician, famous actor, comoany, whatever) makes some false statement, have it labelled as such and fine them. They don't repeatedly, remove their Internet posting privileges. They circumvent that? Jail them.
Its either that or humanity will be over. This current anarchy is used by various actors for only their personal benefit, and they all have the "I don't care if the world burns if I can rule the ashes. I have matches" attitude. How much more of this bullshit do you think we can have? What do you think will happen once AI picture and videos are perfected? You won't be able to trust anything ever again, the Internet will effectively be dead and only conspiracy wing nuts will use it to read the latest outrageous lie to incentive them to commit some terror attack.
You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.
Driving Californians (particularly the wealthy and well-connected Malibu celebrity class) insane with rage and paranoia, then pointing them at the milquetoast liberal stand-ins for Far-Left Radicalism, will do to California what it did to New York, Texas, and Florida.
Just a matter of time before the right-wing propaganda machine crushes the brains of the enfranchised class. I'm already hearing my mother-in-law blame the stupid Los Angelinos for raising her own home insurance rates. And more than a few coworkers are smugly insisting this is what a DEI fire department gets you.
Its not the Republican-ism that comes first. You have to sell people on the "I'm exceptional" mentality first, then insist they're being exploited by their inferiors. Malibu celebrities are a target rich environment for this kind of delusional elitism.
Expect a lot more Californians going on Joe Rogan and making up tall tales about how the fire was caused by poors and illegals stealing all the good firefighting water, while the state refused help for some arcane bureaucratic reasons related to The Fairness Doctrine.
This stupid bitch has since deleted the tweet and gotten back to it like it's another Tuesday. OSFM had to put out a statement correcting it. I hate people.
My bad, you're right. I tried to check first, but I didn't have the patience to scroll past her claiming America Is So Back because "Starbucks kicked homeless people out of bathrooms," so I ended up not seeing the reposted tweet.
She lies, runs away from OSFM, gets community noted, and still, in the replies:
Um, this is 100% TRUE and WOKE Oregon seems to be covering for WOKE California. Leftists stick together.
There are many people whose work and ideas I deeply respect, but even in my weakest moments, I couldn't possibly idolize them like this useless waste of oxygen does gargling on Trump's ballsack every day.
Because I'm a horrible person, I can foresee that there's zero chance I'll die before doing something monumentally stupid. My greatest shame is realizing it probably won't be as effective as what Luigi did.
Doesn't help that a significant number of modern media and platforms is optimized for content lengths that allow one but not the other (headlines, sound bites, micro-blogging, short-form videos).
I swear half of the right wing pundits on YouTube are just doing it for the ad revenue. They see that people are mad about right wing crazies so they act like they are right wing so they can clicks
Sometimes you can see their mask slip.
Andrew Tate, that Pearl lady. Both have accidentally smiled in interviews at times that signal they are trolling
I can’t believe Biden and Obama started these fires. With their energy weapons. And now they aren’t doing anything to put them out. Trump would have had the fires out before they started. The dems aren’t even using aircraft or people….those videos on the news are fake AI.
I mean I wouldn't ever live in California, but not because of what these talking maga skin piles keep saying. I just revise to live in a disaster-prone region. I mean California has a fire season. Fuuuuuck that. Same goes for hurricane territory.
Right wingers haven't cared about the truth for decades. It's just now they don't care whether we know it or not. Just think back to Trump's first term and "alternate truths" and all that. They don't care anymore. They believe what they want to believe, and no amount of facts or reasoning is going to change it.
But yes, everyone lies. Some people just more than others and some will lie to your face with a smirk on their face knowing damn well you know they're lying.
since they repealed the Fairness Doctrine (not that it was perfect) in the late 80s when they realized that balanced reporting was one of the things that forced Nixon's resignation
Like it's stupid how easy it is to make up misinformation and disinformation, compared to how much effort it takes to refute it. Humanity is doomed.
I could just as easily say: "The Oregon fire department couldn't get to the fires in time because they had been stopped by immigrant caravans, woke transgender hitchhikers and antifa mobs!!!!!!"
You know how cheaters ruin online games? How their fun relies on fucking everyone, abusing the system and winning without respecting the rules? The same applies to people like her, trump, musk, etc. They're "communication cheaters", they don't respect the rules, they abuse the system, yet platforms want us to believe that they deserve to be treated like common users.
"Waah waah mah 🧊 🍑 waah waah censorship" - Fuck you. If free speech was a game, these people would be banned.
Or someone could train a bot to exaggerate misinformation from known liars
Community note: In fact, Oregon sent over 420 fire trucks but due to the rampage of the woke chupacabra and the cannibals of the northern California mountains, only 69 made it as far south as Sacramento. At that point California officials realized that Oregon actually sent minivans full of weed and spent the weekend hotboxing, using the Jewish space laser that started the fires on the "defrost" setting to heat up the marijuana.
dont need AI for this. its why we have systems like webs of trust and peer verification. standard crypto + some social communication solves a lot of these problems.
Alright, I've read enough here.... My conclusion; California fire IS gay.
Now, don't get up and clap. This was figured fair and square via research. I scrolled endlessly and stopped when I saw the appropriate comment that supported my hip-O-thesis.
Why do these people want everyone to get out of California? Maybe they’ll move to where you live and start voting there. Or their secret plan is if everyone moves away they can then move in?