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Originally Posted by Damien
I think it's one of the most dangerous aspects of modern politics. The way that 'alternative' news sources purporting to to tell the truth unfiltered by the 'corporate' media have proliferated.
There are many on both the left and right of politics and, conventionally, they almost always seem to paint one side as entirely right and the other as entirely wrong. They are hyper-partisan whilst portraying themselves as the antidote to a biased press. It's remarkable how many otherwise intelligent people consume these sources and at best they excuse it as redressing a balance as if the best way to counter a lie is with more, but different, lies.
The danger is that it just wears people down until there is no such thing as an objective truth and everything is a matter of opinion. Facts are dismissed as fake news or just one side of the story. People will sneer at real reporting, sourced on the ground and with editorial control, whilst placing absolute faith in some random blog or YouTube video from some partisan hack in his or her bedroom.
People should be more willing to challenge themselves and if everything you read only reinforces your own existing opinion that should be a massive red flag.
As for discerning if any of it is true? I would just dismiss it all out of hand because you don't have the time to fact-check random nut jobs.
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I think that's the strategy of some of the non-mainstream sites - to wear people down so they don't know what's wrong or right.
I find it interesting on this site the number of people who rightly criticise Corbyn and Abbott for their incompetence with figures but turn a blind eye to the many, many u-turns of Theresa May and her inability to state the economic cost of immigration caps and when targets will be achieved in this area. Why can't people rise above it all and empower themselves to criticise Corbyn, Farron and May for their many failings?