So as I see it, there are two actual problems that cause the general perception of doing your own research being bad (which is an astonishingly anti intellectual position / cultural meme).

1. Popular search engines are hot garbage as they are highly incentivized in numerous ways to promote spectacular nonsense of all kinds which at this point are basically just 'genres of content'.

2. An astounding number of people seemingly have no ability to do critical thinking, nor do they know what proper research entails. Basically, this is because education in general is on the decline: Public education no longer has (and in many areas never did) the funding or mindset to teach people /how to think/, and with ever more expensive secondary education from ever lower quality colleges, less people understand /how to do proper research/.

Finally, I will point out the insufferable fury I have toward boomers, the generation that told me as a child that wikipedia could not be used as a source, not even wikipedia's sources as a valid source because the internet is full of nonsense... and then the vast majority of them aged and wisened to believe anything some delusional crackpot posts on a racist facebook meme group, or wacky new age cult / mlm / support group.

In college I took a journalism 101 course as an elective, and we spent at least a couple classes on checking if sources were valid.

For one of the assignments the teacher gave us a list of websites and we had to determine which were legit, and why we thought so.

This kind of thing could easily be taught more broadly and earlier.

Though I imagine the right wing would be upset because they rely on a lot of falsehoods.

If someone is unable to comprehend/recognize valid from invalid/biased sources/information, "doing their own research" is very dangerous in fueling further extreme/conspiratorial beliefs.

People should learn how to effectively scrutinize sources before they attempt to "research" something themselves.

Okay, but how do I recognise valid from invalid, bias from unbiased?

Take that sketchy blog you linked me to, it's just some thing some guy wrote. Can that be trusted? Must I spend significant free time to do in-depth research on all of his references to ascertain if he's valid and unbiased? How will I know if the sources are valid and unbiased? Will I have to do in-depth research on all of their references too? When does it end?

At some point you just have to trust someone, you can't unravel the complete truths of anything to their very core. Most of us don't even have the free time to unravel things more than a little bit.

I see the point you're making and don't entirely disagree, critical thinking is something that's taught and learned, and it's what makes the difference here. But this idea that we can ever actually know that what we're reading is reliable or unbiased? I don't buy it.

I think it's impossible to actually know if a source is reliable without directly confirming its assertions with your own eyeballs.

And, I think it's impossible to actually know if a source is endeavouring to actually be unbiased, or if they have an agenda or plan, without literally reading the minds of those involved to ascertain their motives and potential schemes.

At the end of the day, people who place their bets on one side of the fence or the other when it comes to who to trust aren't so different. Critical thinking and the ability to ask questions constantly and never take anything you hear as truth just on the face of things is what's most important, I think. That way, you're at least a little more prepared to spot lies when they crop up.

I guess that's my point, haha.

Unfortunately after coming to this realisation I don't know who to trust any more :-( Obviously I can't trust the media, they're owned by the rich ruling class and even when they report truths, they do so via a thick veil of bias that makes it difficult to know if I'm getting all the facts, or if I'm missing out on huge important chunks of information entirely.

Take all the reporting on our recent UK strikes, all the reporting was there, but it was all about how disruptive and terrible the strikes were for everyone else, painting a picture of selfish, greedy workers making things worse for everyone else because they only care about themselves. The whole article would barely if at all mention in any depth why they're striking, why they felt they had no other choice, how this is a symptom of a larger problem with late stage capitalism, etc.

The media is owned by the rich, obviously they're going to paint the picture they want. And that news source I'm talking about isn't even privately owned, it's our tax funded government news organisation.

The government itself is also owned by the rich, our PM is just a few million short of being a literal billionaire, he's a business capitalist. They can't be trusted either. They all have their own agendas and reasons to skew facts and trick people.

Take Brexit as a well known example of both private interests AND the government itself tricking millions of people with lies and deception and exploitation to make an absolutely terrible decision that damaged this country irreparably. Everything people saw on TV, websites, social media, newspapers, radio, leaflets, etc, was chock full of disinformation, emotional trickery, etc.

Even the people saying Brexit was a bad idea had their own agendas and clear bias, and while I side with them, can I truly, honestly say that what they said is unbias and definitely reliable with no hidden ulterior motives? Alas, no.

So where do I get my reliable, unbias information even if I have my critical thinking hat on? I've come to the conclusion that I can't believe anything, not fully, unless I see it with my own eyes. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that comes to me through other channels is twisted along the way by bias and agendas.

I'm not happy about it, it makes me very sad :-( But yeah, that's kinda where I'm at these days.

The OC gave solid points regarding their stance, and you "debunked" him in the most childish way possible by name-calling like a 3yr old.

Stay loyal to the foil

Yeah, it's funny how leftists care about societal problems until it fucks with their wallets.

I guess that's one thing the left and right can always unite on: greed.

I've researched this by watching literally dozens of minutes of videos on YouTube. Real hardcore stuff with some things that most sheeple probably wouldn't be ready to accept, but it directly contradicts the main stream media narrative, so you know it's true. Also, basically all the claims were widely discredited and it's pretty obvious that so much energy wouldn't have been put into disproving something that was actually untrue, unless someone was trying to hide something from us.

So "doin research" = "throwing away anything contradicting to your views". Makes sense ¯\_(ツ)_/¯