Fact-Checking Google’s New Study On Political Fact-Checking: Mostly Misleading
Welcome to TechCrunch’s ongoing series where we hold major tech companies accountable for spreading propaganda about their service’s value to the democratic process. Today, Google released a “study” showing that swing voters are turning to the Internet in droves (64%) to fact-check candidates. We rate this study “mostly misleading” for a few reasons. 1). most “swing” voters are actually closeted partisans, and the most recent evidence on genuinely independent thinkers finds that they care more about personality than substance. 2). Most voters look for evidence confirming their pre-existing beliefs. 3). Surveys are an awful, no-good way of measuring behavior. But, on the other hand, experimental evidence finds that refusing to refute false statements is detrimental to campaigns, so fact-checking does have its benefits. Google released a study by Global Strategy Group and Public Opinion Strategies today of 500 “persuadable” voters, finding that 64% of respondents fact-check ...
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Accept It: Both Democrats And Republicans Are Equally Smart
"People with strong attachments to the Republican Party were more likely to see their paper as leaning toward Clinton, independent of the paper's actual coverage. Similarly, people with strong democratic identification were likely to see their newspaper as leaning toward Bush," wrote Professor Russell Dalton, in an eye-opening 1992 study about how partisanship blinds us to the fact that there are great things to say about both political parties. Despite writing exactly five articles for and against each political party since July 24th, I and some of our other writers have been accused of being partisan shills, selling out our journalistic integrity to hock the brain-dead policies of whatever party my friends, colleagues, and readers happen to disagree with. Yet, there are very good psychological reasons why both political parties have unique technological advantages and why its so difficult for us to accept this fact.
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Maine Democrats scramble after governor blocks Medicaid expansion
BOWDOINHAM, Maine - Democratic legislators in Maine scrambled on Tuesday to muster the votes needed to override Republican Governor Paul LePage's late-night veto of a bill to expand Medicaid coverage to an additional 60,000 people.
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Democrat-Controlled Senate Fails to Pass Even 'Watered-Down, Over-Compromised' Gun Legislation
UPDATE (4:31 PM): By a vote of 54 to 46 and as expected, the US Senate failed to pass a gun safety bill on Wednesday. The final vote showed five Democrats voting against it and only four Republican senators voting in supported. As the The Hill reports , the proposed law
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Democrats may join Republicans' push for early convention in 2016
NEW YORK - A Republican proposal to move up the date of the party's presidential nominating convention to early summer in 2016 - instead of the end of August - could trigger a similar move by Democrats, officials in that party said on Wednesday.
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Found more than 1 month ago on channel
Reuters