politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
What you’re teaching them to do is trust “experts” on the internet to give them unbiased sources. (And we know that there’s no such thing.) You might be an expert, I’ll grant you, but what happens the next time they ask about COVID and the only person who replies sends them a link about bleach light treatments?
There’s nothing wrong with answering questions, but I’d much rather answer the question “Is this link/source legit?” than “What’s the answer?” I think that’s more ethical, and more critical thinking can come into play by explaining why a source is or isn’t good.
Once I send someone to Google, I can't help them discern fact from fiction any more. And some people do need help. Most of us do. Try googling what is the best dishwasher or laptop or vacuum and what do you get? A massive number of articles which mostly don't agree on the slightest, and most of which just repeat marketing copy from the box and show ads. Google is honestly next to useless as an information source these days. There are many subjects that Google is still quite useful for, but there are a bunch that are in an awful state.
I get what you're saying and part of me agrees with it - we need desperately to develop critical thinking skills. But I don't think I can help anyone do that by sending them to Google. I actually googled before sending the video link because I prefer textual references. But I ran into the same issue of a bunch of conflicting information from highly dubious websites. answersfromgenesis.com? abort73.com? Nah. So, when I can, I share sources I've vetted, and if someone can refute them then I've learned something helpful myself.
Imparting critical thinking skills is unfortunately beyond my ability. I'm only about 3/5 teaching them to my kids, so I think the internet as a whole needs more help than I can give.