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Small-Scale Question Sunday for September 18, 2022

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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I think it's an attempt at avoiding the "backfire effect" - a recently viral idea that correcting misinformation effectively repeats it, so can end up reinforcing and spreading it, since brains may just remember they've "heard that before" rather than "heard that before and it was false" if the false part isn't as heavily hammered in. I first noticed this style of writing with Trump reporting, though backfire effect is older than that. I imagine for journalists the style has a signalling component too, for the Wikipedia article I see there was edit warring.

It was a topic in academia and clickholes as misinformation became perceived as a rising threat. Googling around suggests that one of the main original papers didn't reproduce.

I agree with the object level point that the election was not stolen, and find constantly mentioning it as "false" to be extremely weird and off-putting. I cannot imagine someone who disagrees with the object level point (or merely being on-the-fence) being convinced one bit.