Romesh Ranganathan Quotes

We are drowning in partisan rhetoric that is just true enough not to be a lie; in industry-sponsored research; in social media's imitation of human connection; in legalese and corporate double-speak.

There is a danger, increasingly, that we're in a post-fact society where it seems my ignorance is as good as your facts.

The left and the right live in parallel universes. The right listens to talk radio, the left's on the Internet and they just reinforce one another. They have no sense of reality. I have now one ambition: to retire before it becomes essential to tweet.

It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything.

We now have access to so much information that we can find support for any prejudice or opinion.

Facts just don’t mean anything anymore. It’s who shouts the loudest and repeats it the most.

When people read 'Breitbart' every single day and convince themselves that Barack Obama is a foreign terrorist, that is not a problem of government. That is a problem of community failure, and we have to recognize that.

Research shows that if people are talking and listening to like-minded others, they become more dogmatic, more unified, and more extreme. Personalized Facebook experiences are a breeding ground for misunderstanding and miscommunication across political lines and, ultimately, for extremism.

Facebook Algorithms have got us all screwed up, where we only listen and talk to people with the same views as us, and I think it's not helping us as a culture to grow.

Politics is always antagonistic and tribalistic. But social media puts us in isolated information bubbles. We're not just disagreeing on politics. We're disagreeing on reality in very fundamental ways.

Fake news and rumors thrive online because few verify what's real and always bias towards content that reinforces their own biases.

The biggest problem is that Facebook and Google are these giant feedback loops that give people what they want to hear. And when you use them in a world where your biases are being constantly confirmed, you become susceptible to fake news, propaganda, demagoguery.

Social media has created a digital latticework, but it has also, for some, created abusive commenters, silos, and validation rather than curiosity.

Citizens have long been easily influenced by the opinions of others and sought social proof, but social media have amplified the phenomena to unprecedented heights. As digital devices permeate every aspect of our lives, it has boosted the way in which information can distort truth.

Ten geographers who think the world is flat will tend to reinforce each other's errors ... Only a sailor can set them straight.

If people tell an untruth long enough and loud enough, they begin to believe it themselves.

We live in an age where people can not only choose their own sources, but they can choose their own facts.

There is a subconscious tendency to substitute the conviction, forcefulness, or decibel level of opinionators as a proxy measure of their comprehension of the issues or veracity of their statements. Such correlations are imaginary and often inverse.

Political experts aren’t a very diverse group and tend to place a lot of faith in the opinions of other experts and other members of the political establishment. Once a consensus view is established, it tends to reinforce itself until and unless there’s very compelling evidence for the contrary position. Social media, especially Twitter, can amplify the groupthink further... .

Journalists should recalibrate themselves to be more skeptical of the consensus of their peers. That’s because a position that seems to have deep backing from the evidence may really just be a reflection from the echo chamber. You should be looking toward how much evidence there is for a particular position as opposed to how many people hold that position: having 20 independent pieces of evidence that mostly point in the same direction might indeed reflect a powerful consensus, while having 20 like-minded people citing the same warmed-over evidence is much less powerful.

All of us technology companies need to create some tools that help diminish the volume of fake news. We must try to squeeze this without stepping on freedom of speech and of the press, but we must also help the reader.

A lot of stories that aren't true get out into the mainstream, and it's hard to correct that. People want to hear what they already believe.

When you pretend to be an authority on everything, it forces your subordinates to defer to your opinion - which may not be the most informed in the room. If you have humility concerning the gaps in your experience or ability, it allows others to shine.

Because of the Internet, we're all such authorities on every subject and can chat about all sorts of things. But when push comes to shove, when our ideas are put to the test, that's when we find out who we really are.