TikTok: The Super-spreader of Misinformation
My sister has kept trying to get me onto Tiktok for months, so I finally gave in and at first it was fun, and the videos were hilarious, but then I started getting TikTok’s that were spreading misinformation with no mention that whats being said is just an opinion. The major demographic on TikTok are kids, and as we all know, they are easily impressionable. Leading up to December 21st, there were thousands of TikToks that were claiming the world was going to end, which was a re-worked version of the 2012 end times prediction, and it terrified a lot of kids. As we can see, it did not happen, but the thing is, these videos were not backed by any evidence, nor did they have a label on them that said they were baseless claims. Yes, there were some people that tried to debunk this claim, but for some reason TikToks algorithm does not push these videos as much and they were getting drowned out by these ignorant claims.
These people go unchecked, and spew nonsense with absolutely zero evidence, and when called out on it you get blocked or they make a video about you claiming you are not open minded or they ridicule in some condescending way as if what they’re saying is unquestionably the truth. Recently a new stimulus bill had a 180-day countdown for the government to acquire all of the modern knowledge we have from our UFO projects looking into if there are E.T.’s out there and if what we’re seeing is foreign nations, and whether or not they should continue funding these projects or task force’s. Not once does this bill mention that aliens exist, but in conspiracy theorist fashion they see want they want to see. Aliens may exist, but we do not have proof of them. People claim they have evidence, but most are just lights in the sky that are too blurry to make out, or they are obviously faked. What these people fail to understand, is that seeing lights that are unidentified, does not mean they’re aliens. It means they are unidentified, and to claim they are aliens is just that, a claim. If you are going to claim that the UFO you captured is an alien, then the burden of proof is on you to prove its an alien. I got into a debate with a woman, on TikTok, and I mentioned theories, and she said “all of science has theories”, which is an obvious red flag that she doesn’t understand that there is a difference between a scientific theory, which is an explanation of the natural world that is tested and verified with accordance to the scientific method, and a theory is a claim, your opinion, and it doesn’t become a fact until you provide evidence for your claim.
A lot of these videos are leaving out crucial components to what they are explaining, which either means; They have not researched enough and are just spewing their opinion, or they are being intellectually dishonest and are purposely leaving these things out to fit their narrative they’re trying to paint. Either way, these people are spreading misinformation, and from the comment sections you can tell most people don’t research beyond the video. A study found that most Americans, on social media, don’t read past a headline they see; so, one can only make an educated guess that people don’t research beyond a TikTok video. These conspiracy videos scream how the government is deceptive, but then they are deceptive by leaving out components of a story, so it makes it seem like what they’re saying is truth.
At no point in history has anyone proven that lets say, La Llorna exists, yet TikTok is full of videos claiming to see this ghost. There are ghost videos that of noises, “voices”, objects moving, doors opening and closing, etc, but they all are either from only one angle or there are parts of the video we can’t see in which someone could be hiding making these things happen. If we cannot see certain parts of a room, the video should automatically be discarded because there could be deception at play. At no point has any of the equipment used to capture ghosts/spirits been proven to do any of the things these ghost hunters claim they do. Where is the evidence that ghosts raise and lower the temperature in a room? Don’t you have to prove that ghosts exist first before making claims for what they do? EVP, or Electric Voice Phenomenon, are the claim that audio devices pick up entities that are otherworldly, but again, there are many factors at play that make our ears unreliable, i.e., audio pareidolia, which is when people here meaningful things in noise. A prime example is this video, which is just “Bill” being repeated over and over again, but with pictures being displayed that sound like “Bill”, so your brain will make you hear words that aren’t being said.
This is what a lot of ghost hunting shows will do, they will play audio, but display what they believe is being said, so then your brain will try to make it sound like what is being displayed. On these TikTok videos, I always recommend putting cameras at all ends of the room were this “ghost” moves things, or do it live with cameras at all angles so we can see there is no foul play.
If things can be faked, people will do it for notoriety, a prime example being Uri Geller, an Illusionist who claimed he could bend spoons with his mind. He was asked to come on the Tonight Show, with Johnny Carson, in 1972, but Carson wanted to see if Geller could actually bend spoons with his mind, so he got in touch with James Randi, a famous skeptic to come up with a way to test Gellers abilities. Randi said to replace all of his spoons and other metal objects with their own, and then see if he’ll do it. Spoiler, he never did it, and made up some lame excuse for why. They debunked his claims entirely, yet people still believed him, even though it was proven he was a fraud. Randi went on to do this with Peter Popoff, who claimed to be a faith healer. Randi was asked to see if there was any foul play at hand, so Randi and his team went to work, and came up with an elaborate test that ended up completely revealing this man was a fraud. Before each show, they would have people who wanted to be healed to write on a card their name and ailments, so Randi had someone fake an ailment. Also, they had someone try and see if Popoff was getting fed information through a hearing device. Well, when the “healing” started, on their audio equipment, as the 1st person walked up, you could Popoffs wife telling him who the person was and what their ailment was to make it seem like he knew. The person they had fake an ailment finally got to Popoff and like clockwork, he tried to heal them, even though they had no ailments. Again, he was proven to be a fraud, and for a while, he disappeared, but today, he is again duping people even though he was found to be a complete fraud. If people can fake things, they will, especially for 15 minutes of fame. If Popoff and Geller could get away with it for that long without being exposed, in a time with none of the advanced technology we have to fake things, how can people be so credulous?
There is nothing worse than when false information is being spread, and you are making it known that its false, and you get labeled as the fool. When people with no experience or education have the same confidence as someone with experience and education, no matter how wrong they are, they will not see it. This phenomenon is called the Dunning–Kruger effect, which is a cognitive bias in which people overestimate their knowledge and abilities and are unable to see that they are overestimating their abilities or knowledge. In other words, ignorant people do not know that they are ignorant. With all of this at play, it is no wonder there are so many videos on TikTok spreading misinformation, people think that what they are saying is accurate regardless of if it actually is, or they are lying and/or faking it. TikTok needs to make an algorithm that lets people know when something has misinformation in it. Of course, people will say “You’re infringing on my free speech and censoring me”, no we are exercising our free speech to let people know that what you are saying is not backed by evidence or is dead wrong. If you are on TikTok giving your opinion, that has no evidence, let people know there is no evidence. In academia and the science world you must provide sources to prove what you’re saying is true; and if you don’t, your papers get discarded; so why does a person, with absolutely no background in any of what they’re talking about, get to just freely claim that what they’re saying is fact? This is what makes TikTok bad, and it’s not being addressed.
