Had a conspiracy guy at work tell me my timeline was all wrong

He pointed out that I was citing a 2014 event as proof of something that supposedly happened in 2016, but the source I used was actually from 2012. I checked his date and he was right - I had been repeating bad info from a YouTube video for months. Now I double check every date and source before I even bring something up in here. Anyone else get called out on something that made you rethink your whole research process?

3 comments

3 Comments

fiona_kim971d agoMost Upvoted

Did you find yourself questioning everything else you thought you knew after that? I had a similar moment with a statistic I'd been quoting for years, only to realize the study was retracted because of bad methodology. Now I force myself to look up the original source before I share anything, not just the video or article that referenced it.

xena5821d ago

Wait, the whole study got retracted and you still kept quoting it? That's honestly terrifying because I've definitely been in that exact spot where I just trusted a number someone put in a YouTube video. Now I'm wondering how many of the "facts" floating around in my head are actually just garbage from bad sources.

tessap731d ago

Oh man, this hits so close to home. I had that exact feeling when I found out a "fact" I'd been using in debates for years came from a study with like 12 participants and no control group. It made me look at everything I thought I knew sideways for a while.