Professor Amanda Sturgill

Professor Amanda Sturgill

@drsturg.bsky.social

Truthmonger. I write books, teach students and make podcasts about you being smarter about misinformation. #WeAreAltGov #DetectingDeception https://bit.ly/UnSpunPod

51.6K followers805 following2.4K posts

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

Today in Detecting Deception is proof by assertion. Or, in other words, not proof. Stunningly ignorant.

The Bulwark@thebulwark.com

RFK: "There's five hundred million Arabs in the world. And yet they don't produce science. They don't win the Nobel Prize. They don't win the Fields Prize. They don't win the Wolf Prize. They don't produce literature."

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

Are you pretty good at something? Expert even? Pull up a chair. [Whispers] That doesn't mean you are good at everything. You have to be careful about this, because it's easy to think that you could master/have mastered things you are actually quite ignorant about. Here are some examples:

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Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

4/ Do you look good? Are you Central Casting™? Maybe even an actor or TV personality? That doesn't mean you are automatically a good military leader. Playing a doctor on TV doesn't mean you should practice medicine.

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

5/ See, it's tempting to take popularity or success in one field and assume it transfers. It doesn't always and it can cause big trouble when you act as if it does. It can just show you're poor at critical thinking and self-knowledge. [Slaps knee] Good talk. Go make the world better.

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

Are you pretty good at something? Expert even? Pull up a chair. [Whispers] That doesn't mean you are good at everything. You have to be careful about this, because it's easy to think that you could master/have mastered things you are actually quite ignorant about. Here are some examples:

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

2/ Are you good at thinking? Did you get a lot of letters after your name at some point? That doesn't actually mean you've mastered or even COULD master the intricacies of any field. Crazy, I know, but hear me out. I'm expert in part of communications. I'm not even great at all parts of that!

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

3/ Are you good in business? Do you have a lot of money? Do your decisions affect a lot of lives through your business? That doesn't actually mean you are good at leadership generally. You might, for example, be a huge failure in politics.

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

I looked this up, and it is real. I have questions. 1. If the power is out most of the time, how would people see this message? 2. Does he mean discrete, like it stops and starts, or is spelling just not his thing?

Eric Levai@ericlevai.bsky.social

Did he think this was a private message or something?

Professor Amanda Sturgill reposted

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

We all know politicians lie. But how do they get away with it? One surprising reason is that their supporters don't hold it against them. In fact, they sometimes like it. Find out more in this week's episode of UnSpun. Here or where you pod. bit.ly/UnSpunPod

Professor Amanda Sturgill reposted

Kate Starbird
@katestarbird.bsky.social

It's October 21, 2026. Early voting for the midterms is off and running. Mail-in ballots are circulating in many states. And we're seeing reports of machine glitches and USPS errors. Good time to remind folks that mistakes do happen, but they are rarely intentional, and they usually have remedies.

Professor Amanda Sturgill reposted

Jody Wallace
@jodywallace.bsky.social

I find this podcast VERY useful! Recommended.

Professor Amanda Sturgill@drsturg.bsky.social

We all know politicians lie. But how do they get away with it? One surprising reason is that their supporters don't hold it against them. In fact, they sometimes like it. Find out more in this week's episode of UnSpun. Here or where you pod. bit.ly/UnSpunPod

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

2/ I do wonder...there are elephant and donkey figurines in the wide shot, with the donkey closer to the speaker. In some of the tight shots, the donkey is in frame and the elephant is not. It would be interesting to study the effect of that small cue on perception of the accuracy of the content.

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

🧵Half-caff thoughts (Not sharing the original post because I don't want to spread it) "All [insert people you disagree with] cheat" is not a helpful thing to share. They've made a hasty generalization mistake - assuming because you found something in some, it applies to all.

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Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

3/ Maybe you feel some satisfaction when someone you don't like gets caught doing something bad. Turning that into broad-brush condemnation of large groups of people is more than inaccurate. It feeds tribalism and it dehumanizes. The genocides start with dehumanizing. You don't have to help.

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

4/ Smile to yourself, if you feel you must. Maybe share that smile with someone IRL who agrees with you. You don't need to broadcast other people's bad thinking with your share. (I guess I am less fun before coffee)

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

🧵Half-caff thoughts (Not sharing the original post because I don't want to spread it) "All [insert people you disagree with] cheat" is not a helpful thing to share. They've made a hasty generalization mistake - assuming because you found something in some, it applies to all.

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

2/ If I go to Paris and my waiter is standoffish, it would be ridiculous for me to say all French people are rude. If I open a bottle of wine that is corked, it would be silly of me to assume everything in the cellar is undrinkable. You get the idea

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

As I have to continually remind my students, a charge is not a conviction. (And even when your audience is convinced something is one thing and deserves a verdict-by-media, we have a deliberative justice system for a reason and need to let it do its work.)

Barb McQuade@barbmcquade.bsky.social

Claims of voter fraud have a long history. While only citizens can and should vote, it’s an old trick to file charges on the eve of an election — just in time to influence voters and too late for the outcome of the cases to be known before Election Day. joycevance.substack.com/p/the-reoccu...

joycevance.substack.comThe Reoccuring Myth of Voter FraudIt’s “funny” how it’s surfacing just before an election. Again.

Professor Amanda Sturgill reposted

nichrome77.bsky.social
@nichrome77.bsky.social

@drsturg.bsky.social just listened to the latest episode of UNSPUN podcast and really appreciated your fair-handed analysis of politicians lying in the media and what we can do about it. I learn something on every episode of your show. Thank you for what you do for all of us! 👏🏽👍🏽

Professor Amanda Sturgill reposted

Chip Stewart
@medialawprof.bsky.social

Early voting has started in Texas. And they make it so hard. There’s not a single polling station in the Fort Worth area bordered by I-30, I-35, I-20 and Chisholm Trail Parkway. That’s the TCU, Colonial, Zoo, Clearfork area, major residential with biggest high schools in town.

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

I'm no campaign strategy expert, but it seems to me that you really ought to respond to the state's largest newspapers if you are serious about wanting public office. To fail to do this suggests you don't respect citizens' need to know about issues.

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

I've seen over multiple election cycles that candidates, particularly state/local ones, can be extremely difficult to get information from. Websites that are vague to the point of being useless. No one from the campaign willing to reply to multiple outreach attempts.

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

2/ Our university is in a news desert. You would think they would want to give information to voters, and student journalism is a way to do that. Campus media get read/watched well beyond campus. Many universities are in a news desert, btw. I feel this responsibility keenly as I teach.

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Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

4/ "Somewhere journalism changed from trying to be fair to trying to be symmetrical." Among other things, complicated issues tend to have more than 2 sides. It's lazy to confuse representation with accuracy.

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

5/ "Public anger is not the way that you'd measure the quality of your reporting." The idea that if both sides are mad at you, you're doing something right is flawed and not what objectivity means.

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

2/ "A group being visible gets confused for the group being representative." Some people are very good at attracting attention through aggrievement and outrage. That doesn't mean their ideas are actually popular.

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

3/ "The online conversation feels huge, but it's really just a small number of people." Things that seem hugely important here often don't register at all with most people. (Example: ask 5 people in your regular life today to name the White House Press Secretary)

Professor Amanda Sturgill
@drsturg.bsky.social

If you have your/your kids' instruments that you gave up on in a closet somewhere, you might see if your local school could use a donation...

Donovan Maust@dtmaust.bsky.social

"the Trump administration proposed additional 25 percent tariffs on trumpets, tubas and other brass instruments, citing 'national security threats'” 🎁link www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/b...

nytimes.comSoaring Instrument Prices Could Stop the Music at Many Schools (Gift Article)When a single cello can cost $1,000 and a tuba $9,000, tariffs are straining meager band and orchestra budgets.