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Comment by untog | Hacker News Reader

Facebook apparently already had a fix ready for fake news, but didn't implement it because it disproportionately affected right-wing news sites, and they were afraid of backlash:

http://www.gizmodo.com/facebooks-fight-against-fake-news-was...

This got me thinking. I'm center-leftish, but I'd like to think open minded. To me, the results FB saw are correct - from Birtherism, Obama being a Muslim, Sandy Hook trutherism, all the way to Democrats using the voting records of dead people to swing the election, the false conspiracy pedalling news stories I've seen have been overwhelmingly on the right. (note that I am not saying all right-wing people believe these things, just that most of the people who do are right-wing)

But am I wrong? I'm constantly aware that Facebook puts me in a filter bubble. Does anyone have any good examples of left-leaning fake, conspiratorial news stories in the last few years?

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> Does anyone have any good examples of left-leaning fake, conspiratorial news stories in the last few years?

The theory that Putin hacked the Democrats to get Donald Trump elected.

There's zero proof that Russia is behind the leaks, but Dems still peddle this myth. Hillary Clinton even went as far as threatening Russia with military intervention over the emails. And there's still zero proof Russia had anything to do with it.

In response to this comment, I went and googled the incident. The primary source is a joint statement by the Department of Homeland Security and the Director of National Intelligence, which says:

> "The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations."

https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/215-pr...

The Director of National Intelligence is capable of mistakes, and their saying it does not necessarily mean it's true. But the statement was absolutely unambiguous. And yet, on a google search for "Podesta email DNI-DHS statement", I found lots of sites lying outright about the content of the statement:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/441266/hillary-clinton-... http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/11/01/hillarys-russian-hack-... http://www.wuc-news.com/2016/10/no-hillary-17-us-intelligenc...

> are consistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts.

That is far from proof. I might be a good reason to suspect but it's far from proof.

>Some states have also recently seen scanning and probing of their election-related systems, which in most cases originated from servers operated by a Russian company.

How do the differentiate an attack originating from a Russian server from an attack Russian Attack? How do they know they aren't just being used?

The statement didn't say how they know or why they're confident. It just says that they're confident. If they know because they have their own spies, or hacked Russian systems, then they can't say that.

If the only evidence they can show is "we think it's them, trust us" then they should not say anything.

While that is a fair criticism, it's still evidence towards a conclusion, even if it isn't a conclusion itself. To compare it, as in my original point, to "Barack Obama is a Muslim", it's in an entirely different league.

There isn't conclusive evidence, but from what I've read, the hack to Podesta's email used a Bitly account known to be associated with Russian intelligence:

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-hackers-broke-into-john...

Like I said, not conclusive, but I wonder what definite evidence you're likely to have with intelligence agencies. Point taken, though.

I agree, this is definitely not conclusive proof that the source used by Wikileaks is the same source. It's probably important to note that his password was something like "p@ssword".

More good reading on the topic:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/29/cozy-bear...

How do they differentiate between a Russian Intelligence hacker and one sharing resources with one? Or just a kid in a basement somewhere?

> Hillary Clinton even went as far as threatening Russia with military intervention over the emails.

AFAICT, this is itself a propaganda myth of the right (its a radical distortion of Clinton's suggestion that cyberattacks should be met with a range of political, economic, and military responses like any other attacks -- an announcement which was fairly similar in content, including the four identified adversaries, the Pentagon's own most recently announced cyberwar strategy, which predates the emails.

> And there's still zero proof Russia had anything to do with it.

There is nonzero public evidence backing the conclusion of various cybersecurity firms that particular previously identified Russian actors were involved, a conclusion which predated and whose data likely provided a key input to the intelligence community determination (which may or may not also have additional all no public evidence backing it, which you wouldn't expect to be published.)

When you say no proof, what would you expect good enough proof? I expect the Russians would never admit to anything.

>And there's still zero proof Russia had anything to do with it.

The western intelligence community has converged on the conclusion that the Russian government was involved and staked their reputation on that conclusion. So, unless you just don't trust your government at all, it's likely to be true.

Western intelligence community also converged on the conclusion that Iraq had WMDs. They lost their credibility after that and it will take a long time to regain the trust.

Though if you have any other credible source, please share it.

>Western intelligence community also converged on the conclusion that Iraq had WMDs

Not really. There was a decent amount of dissent in the western intel community on Iraqi WMDs (pretty much everyone not in the "coalition of the willing" and even some within it), it's just that the Bush administration purposefully ignored the dissenters.

>Though if you have any other credible source, please share it.

If you don't believe the intelligence community can ever be trusted again after Iraq, I don't think there's any source could be enough for you. If the authorities on the subject are in on the conspiracy, then any proof could be just another layer on the conspiracy, right? Turtles all the way down.

That perspective also makes me wonder: surely we should shut down all intelligence services tomorrow? If their output is deemed to be tainted by Iraq, what's the point in paying for them?

Suffice to say, this doesn't seem like a reasonable perspective to me.

Did they? It seems only the anglosphere countries came to this conclusion and that they were "instructed" to.

The western intelligence community has simply said that the Russian government accessed these mails. There's nothing to suggest that they're the ones who gave Wikileaks access though. It's quite likely that there were multiple parties who had access.

I think you have the backwards: the right's instance that there is no evidence is the unreasonable position.

Of course one might insist it's a conspiracy by the Director of National intelligence but that just makes the claim even less reasonable.

https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/press-releases/215-pr...

CNN saying that it is illegal for the public to read Wikileaks emails.

I can't think of any other examples of outright lies, but there's alot of lying by omission; e.g. we now know that the DNC was heavily biased towards Clinton in the primaries, that they were inciting violence at Trump rallies, and that they were given the debate questions prior to debates. Was this even reported on main leftwing media?

Edit: also all the reduction of Trump's voters to just being racist, sexist and the accusations of the "whitelash" - why don't they talk about "blacklash" every time a democrat wins?

Edit 2: another example is the recent backlash against Breitbart. Although I see them mainly as a contrarian news site (similar to ZeroHedge), they probably have some bias - but just because it's the opposite of other media, you can't call it racism/sexism. Why is women voting for a woman feminist, men voting for a man sexist? Why are pro-black movements described as #BlackLivesMatter and pro-white movements as white supremacist? Accusations of bias are pretty empty when you're so full of it yourself...

> examples of outright lies

A lie is a false statement made with the intent to deceive. I believe CNN is merely wrong. The difference is the intent, but people are far too quick to throw out the accusation of lying every time someone makes a mistake.

Hanlon's razor and all that, would suggest incompetence rather than malice. I find it hard to believe there's a deliberate misinformation campaign going on at CNN where they are trying to get people to believe it's illegal to view Wikileaks emails even though they know it isn't - cui bono?

EDIT - Of course, it is possible CNN were deliberately lied to by, for example, an NSA or CIA official, who they incorrectly believed (due to the implied authority of government officials) and therefore took at face value. I can see the motive for NSA or CIA to lie here, so that people are frightened of committing an illegal act by reading the emails, therefore less people will see them; an obvious benefit, just not for CNN...

Give it up. CNN is green-screens and lies.

Wolf Blitzer was receiving interview questions from the Clinton campaign when he was going to interview candidate Trump. While this isn't evidence of lying it is certainly evidence of an unethical relationship between the media and the candidates that it is supposed to be covering impartially. To collude with one of the campaigns is effectively allowing the campaign to skirt FEC regulations and utilize the strength of an entire news corporation to influence the outcome of an election. One could argue that this has the same impact as fake news.

Source: https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/22673

Absolutely, that's my point. You can hardly call yourself a journalist if the point of your reporting is to bias the public; whether to do that by outright lying or just with skillful deception by omission is besides the point.

> Was this even reported on main leftwing media?

If you include NYT in this, yes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/us/politics/video-dnc-trum...

> another example is the recent backlash against Breitbart

Breitbart was taken over by Steve Bannon after Breitbart's death, and it seems (inarguably to me) like it took a turn after that point. When you have headlines like "Bill Kristol: Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew", you're going to attract negative attention.

> But am I wrong? I'm constantly aware that Facebook puts me in a filter bubble. Does anyone have any good examples of left-leaning fake, conspiratorial news stories in the last few years?

I think most seem to be right wing, but the left has it's share. Anti vaxers, anti GMO, anti "chemicals" tend to come from the left.

I think your mistaking the causation too. They aren't conspiracy theorists because they are right wing, they are right wing because they are conspiracy theorists. When you think the government is doing all these bad things then wanting less government is perfectly logical.

> ...Anti vaxers...

Well actually that too is a right-wing thing.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2015/09/20/donald...

That's actually an interesting one. It seems to have been primarily a left wing one when it started in the 90's. Jill Stein is also an anti-vaxer:

http://www.salon.com/2016/08/03/jill_steins_anti_vax_game_ho...

"Jill Stein is an anti-vaxer" is, ironically enough, an example of left-wing (or at least pro-Dem) fake news - the article you linked even links to the Snopes article debunking it: http://www.snopes.com/is-green-party-candidate-jill-stein-an...

Amanda Marcotte claims that the Snopes article is attacking a strawman because "the accusation is not that Stein herself is personally anti-vaccination. The accusation is that Stein panders to anti-vaccination crowd" - but as your comment demonstrates, that isn't true. Indeed, her article and similar articles try hard to leave readers with this false impression, twisting Stein's argument that we need to restore public trust because vaccines are a vital public health tool into "sowing doubts about vaccination safety". If claiming that "Dr. Stein uses a common anti-vaccine dodge" isn't claiming that she's a secret anti-vaxxer, then I'm a chocolate teapot.

I suppose those candidates are either simple minded or have cynically spotted a 'previously ignored voting group'.

Heaven forbid one of them end up in the white house.

On the rare occasions I stray to see what nonsense is on my FB feed all I have seen is left wing fake left wing new stories. For instance the fake Trump quote from people magazine about republicans being the dumbest voters just would not die, despite it clearly being completely made-up.

The left was rampant with conspiracy theories about the FBI throwing the election. Hillary went so far as to partially blame Comey.

Half of my more liberal friends on Facebook believe the election was rigged in one way or another. Of course I don't know if other people are seeing the same response post election in their social feeds. It seems common on Twitter.

The great right wing conspiracy that the Clintons claim have been following/targeting them for decades, rather than their own actual behavior being the issue. That's not new, however it was present during Hillary's run.

Some of the more fringe leftists claim that Trump is in the pocket of zionists and that the election was being thrown for the benefit of Israel's interests (he was very outspoken in favor of Israel during all phases of the election). That's also not new however, that group tends to be universally anti-Israel regardless of the candidate.

Or the greatest conspiracy theory of them all for the election: Hillary was prevented from winning by sexist men determined to keep a woman out the Presidency. I've seen that one commonly in the mainstream left-leaning media.

> I've seen that one commonly in the mainstream left-leaning media.

Out of interest, in news reports or in opinion pieces? I wish newspapers did away with opinion sections, they serve no good purpose and cloud what news reporting actually is. I'd be interested to read the justification a news organisation gives for stating something like that as fact and not opinion.

Opinion pieces by the major news platforms. CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, Bloomberg, Business Insider, MSNBC, Politico all seem to have run an endless parade of opinion pieces about sexist or racist voters being the reason Hillary lost.

What you typically get in the news stories, is indirect leaner statements, such as: 'and Donald Trump - who often ran a hateful campaign filled with racist and sexist statements - is the President-elect.'

I didn't vote for Trump and I had to stop reading content on most of those sites throughout the end of the election because they became overwhelming propaganda platforms for Hillary's campaign. Business Insider seemed to become 1/2 anti-Trump articles in its content, they weren't even pretending to be unbiased - fine, but if I wanted that I'd go to the Huffington Post not a mainstream business news site.

What is untrue about "Donald Trump - who often ran a hateful campaign filled with racist and sexist statements"?

He says a sexist thing once and it will be repeated many times on television and in articles slamming him for it. If you listen to the totality of his statements it is not nearly as bad as what the news media puts out.

Which gets us into is the news media real news, fake news, or opinion. With the rise of Fox news other news companies have had to go heavy on opinion to survive. Fox News has sucked up most of the conservative audience CNN, MSNBC, etc has to fight over the left leaning audience becoming more sensational in the process.

A few sexist incidents come to mind without even looking them up - Megan Kelly having "blood coming out of her wherever", insulting the looks of both Carly Fiorina and Heidi Cruz, and the whole "grab them by the pussy" remark. So, not once. And you curiously omitted to mention the racism part, which also has plenty of evidence.

The reason it was repeated in the media was because he initially refused to apologise for the comments. After pressure from the media and voters, he did.

> The left was rampant with conspiracy theories about the FBI throwing the election. Hillary went so far as to partially blame Comey.

That wasn't a "conspiracy theory", that was a straightforward interpretation of events which are not in dispute. Hillary had to mess up pretty badly for things to get to the point where that'd be relevant, but by calling it a "conspiracy theory" you come across as very dishonest.

Conspiratorial stuff starts brewing in the opposition. If say liberals are the majority, then conservatives will start generating conspiracy theories.

If conservatives come to power, they'll be more left-ish conspiracy theories around.

It's just a way to explain their minority status. We lost because "lizard people control the government" is much easier on the psyche than, "a lot of people simply don't agree with us".

How about fictionalized stories to emotionally support the narrative (just from this month!)

https://reason.com/blog/2016/11/11/election-night-hijab-atta... http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/11/01/attorney-rolling-stone-... http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-13/anti-trump-protests...

for a while now, liberalism has held an "ends justify the means" sort of attitude towards victims stories, out of context gender statistics, and "grassroots" activism. (conservatism has too, but that wasnt the question posed.)

obviously not all attacks are fake, and there is a lot of hate in the country. but a lot of sensationalized stories come out, that basically exist as propaganda, and spread like wildfire, without being fact checked. how many of you saw this link on facebook? how many of its stories are untrue? https://twitter.com/i/moments/796417517157830656?lang=en

if you stick to huffingtonpost & salon, and all the clickbait derived from their sphere, it really could be as manufactured and fake as the right, it just feels more real because the stories are more plausable.

there is also this article http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-el...

i mean, fuck, the story you just posted is allegedly fake, if that doesnt say something i dont know what does. http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/11/14/did_faceb...

and as other people have pointed out, gmo, chemtrails, vax dangers have transcended parties and infected hippys and teapartiers alike.

Interesting point — it seems that right-wing misinfo is usually of the reactionary outrage kind (e.g. group X is doing this, this is outrageous, that's why we need [some variation of a return to morality]) while left-wing misinfo is of the revolutionary outrage kind (group X is doing this, this is outrageous, that's why we need [some variation of revolution])

nice. i think they are both morality ploys.

[some variation of a return to morality] vs [some variation of an evolution towards morality]

i guess its whether you think we were there at one point, or havent gotten there yet.

traditional bedrooms vs equal protection. is homosexuality immoral, or is is infringing on liberty and freedom immoral?

Ever heard of Fahrenheit 911?

Hacker News is also a left leaning bubble so asking this question here will probably mostly just yield liberal viewpoints on the topic.

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