Social Media Fallacies

Want to be better? Want to be taken even more seriously? Want to take down your enemies, ahem, I mean refute your opposition politely? Then it may be worth paying more attention to flaws in logic or argument. In writing circles, we call these fallacies.

Do you remember when that slightly crazy friend of yours talked about how the teen pregnancy rate in the US is more than six times that of the Netherlands? (Here are some STATISTICS on that fact, by the way.) But then they said it was either because people in the Netherlands smoke more pot or have more tulips, and you knew there was something not right about that. This is an example of a fallacy, an error in logic. (This fallacy is called “Correlation, not Causation.”)

Fallacies are running rampant on social media right now. It’s bad. Want to level up your skills to make sure you’re not part of the problem and also part of the solution? Take 5 to 10 minutes, and read THIS ARTICLE about some common fallacies frequently found on social media from Zarvana, a critical thinking coaching site.

In this contentious time after the death of George Floyd when many people are trying to assert that Black Lives DO Matter (and they absolutely do) to remarkable and unbelievable opposition, pay close attention to these fallacies. (The Wrong Denominator fallacy is particularly useful to people who assert statistics about “black on black” crime or “facts” about the rates of black people in prisons.)

Also remember that in today’s society when arguing about these critical issues, the goal is not to win. The goal, in my opinion, is to help the other side see what you mean. Get them to nod their heads or at least say, “Huh.” Good luck and don’t give up.