Happy rather belated New Year! I have now finished my PhD, I am a Dr, and I am slowly emerging back into the real world. Which – right now – is rather a messy place.

I’ve increasingly been wondering about heuristics for deciding which sources are and aren’t reliable. This is because I think truth matters and the world is terrible.

My current heuristics are:

Most accounts on social media are not good faith actors. Most accounts are low-information or have an axe to grind or both.

Posting ragebait is a red flag. If it looks like an account is trying to rile me up, or make me angry, or make me sad, I have to wonder why and if they are really in service of the truth.

…So avoiding ragebait is a green flag. This isn’t quite true – there are plenty of ways to maintain a civil tone and spread misinformation – but if an account isn’t trying to make me angry, I’m less likely to consider it as a bad faith actor.

Those heuristics are probably flawed. I’m probably missing a lot. What am I missing? If anyone has any better heuristics, let me know.