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Question about a flat earth video that made me rethink how I check sources
Last week I watched a 40 minute flat earth video a coworker sent me, and about 20 minutes in I noticed the same 3 clips kept replaying while a narrator counted the same shadow readings twice. I paused it and searched the channel name, and it turned out the guy ran a fishing forum in Nebraska with zero science background. It dawned on me I had been judging videos by how sure the voice sounded, not by who was actually talking. How do you all vet a channel before you give it 40 minutes of your evening?
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william_price13d ago
Try flipping it around though. Maybe the guy with the fishing forum is exactly who you should trust more, not less. A random Nebraska angler has no grant money, no tenure to lose, no brand deal with a shadow-measuring company, so what's his angle? Meanwhile plenty of slick channels with real science degrees are funded by groups that already know what answer they want, and the production quality is just there to make it feel solid. Half the "trusted" explainer channels out there are run by the same three media companies repackaging the same script. So maybe judging by voice and polish is dumb, sure, but judging by credentials is just a different shortcut that fails the same way.
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barbara_lane5513d ago
Easy to nod along till you remember my uncle's the guy with strong opinions and zero grants, and he's also wrong about everything. The funded channel and the boat forum guy can both be selling something, one just has a nicer camera. Best bet is probably to check who pays everyone and stop trusting the vibe either way.
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