Best of the month

Here we selected the best pieces of news posted in January 2021 in five categories: Best of the best, Triggering, Thoughtful, Emotional and Concervative. Enjoy!

How We Choose

We’ve selected the top most engaging news articles on Twitter from Australian news media. The selection criteria are based on logical fallacies statistics found in the retweets and comments.

Critical Concentration

From newspaper “The Australian”: “The Victorian people who endured an extended Covid lockdown and the nation’s contact tracing teams are this newspaper’s Australians of the Year.”

The response contains approximately 40% of comments that look a lot like fallacious reasoning of any type our detector can recognise. Spread between reasoning type groups:

Logical Fallacies Composition

Victoria just got out of 3rd lockdown very frustrated, depressed and let’s say not happy. Many people blame for these COVID-19 outbreaks the victorian government for it failed to organise efficient contact tracing and quarantine measures in facilities.

Examples of logical fallacies from responses:

You’re a disgrace to journalism.

It’s really hard to believe The Australian could be any more embarrassing, but here we are.

Triggering News

Inspiring Ad Hominem and Name Calling.

In this reference to the person, name-calling, and identity politics trigger group during last week, the most prominent tweet was

From the SkyNews: “Liberal MP @CraigKellyMP has defended himself against an onslaught of leftwing criticism for his decision to champion certain coronavirus treatments and for comparing mask use to child abuse.”

The response contains approximately 32% of comments that look a lot like Ad Hominem Attacks. The spread controversial arguments between logical fallacy groups:

Logical Fallacies Composition

Overall, people do not like the word “leftwing”.

Examples of Argumentum ad Hominem and Argumentum ad Personam from the comments

Another ❄ who can’t stand a bit of criticism

There’s more harmless organisms dredged from septic tanks

Food for Thoughts

In this smart argument category - where comments contain a lot of reasoning that looks really like Appeal from Ignorance, Reduction to Absurdity, Conspiracy Theory, False Dichotomy Fallacy, Fallacy of Composition or Fallacy of Division.

Last week, the most worth reading tweet in this group was

From the ABC News: “Google is threatening to pull its search engine from Australia…”

The response contains approximately 8% of comments that look a lot like logical fallacies of the types listed above. The distribution between this and other groups of reasoning types:

Logical Fallacies Composition

The fight for the influence and income. Medias are looking for extra income and want to get some boney from external links.

The example of Conspiracy Teory from the comments:

The Australian government is extorting money from tech companies to prop up Murdoch’s flailing media organisations. There, fixed it for you.

Emotional Trigger

Inspiring in comments something that looks really like Appeal to Emotion.

In this Emotional Appeal category last week, the most worth reading tweet was

From SBS News: “Daniel Andrews has criticised the decision to bestow controversial tennis great Margaret Court with an Australia Day honour…”

The response contains approximately 13% of comments that look a lot like emotional appeals. To compare with other groups:

Logical Fallacies Composition

Examples Appeal to Emotions (to disgust):

Good. She’s a disgusting bigot

Team and Status Quo

Inspiring readers for some arguments that look like contain these logical fallacies Bandwagon Fallacy, Hasty Generalization, Appeal to Tradition, Appeal to Authority or Slippery Slope. In this class last week, the most prominent piece of news was

This month is the same as for emotional appeals favour, “Liberal MP @CraigKellyMP has defended himself against an onslaught of leftwing criticism for his decision to champion certain coronavirus treatments and for comparing mask use to child abuse.”

The response contains approximately 9% of comments that we would associate with this group. The reasoning types composition:

Logical Fallacies Composition

Hasty generalizations examples:

left wing criticism. Three quarters of Australians think he should shut up and let science do its work. I wish they were all left wing.

Strange combination of hasty generalisation, ad hominem, and appeal to authority

So all the Doctors and epidemiology experts who have spoken out about his incorrect advice are left wing FFS delusional

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Other top news: All News Articles reviews with Logical Fallacies examples from comments.