Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
As someone observing from Mexico, I noticed almost all of the mainstream US media became an echo chamber for pro-Clinton content. I only realized this after after seeing how Sanders was sabotaged and the media collectively tried to bury it. Here in Mexico it's a similar situation with a few big media outlets protecting the corrupt status quo.
[1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/185927/americans-trust-media-rema...
There were a handful of news outlets thoroughly reporting issues between DNC and Bernie Sanders such as Huffington Post and al-jazeera.
I suppose these are not 'mainstream'? Perhaps mainstream media is defined by having a dedicated TV channel, or at least primetime TV show? Isnt it almost customary for such outlets to prioritize ratings over comprehensive coverage?
I'd think "mainstream" would be the ones which still posit themselves as un-biased (CBS, NBC, ABC, NY Times, Wash Post, etc.).
I say the more the merrier. Let people decide.
BTW Huffington Post stands out as an exceptionally huge steaming pile of partisan garbage as well.
But now, there seems to be a whole slew: hundreds of these weird little websites out there, generating crazy crazy fake news, sharing them around, and disseminating them, for the purpose of gaining ad-revenue from gullible conservatives. The side effect is something like a palm-oil land-clearing project, where a whole forest gets burned down, and everyone downwind is choking on the smoke and ash.
I think this is because of the corrosive effect of money in politics. So many billions of dollars going into political ads. So many very conservative elites, investing in major media channels and directing editorial content. Causing a major collapse in credibility of ALL major news networks, which creates an ecosystem for these little sites to pop up.
The problem is all the seriously delusional people who believe these stories about muslims marching to YOUR neighborhood to demand sharia law, and Hillary Clinton being a secret KKK member.
I like media in general and thinking how it is used to control and manipulate people. Especially the idea of the illusion of freedom. I've always recommended Manufacturing Consent by Herman and Chomsky.
That analyzes how corporatist media is used to manipulate and control public opinion, and I think at not time has it been truer than in the last election cycle. CNN's Cuomo "these documents are illegal to look at, let us interpret them for you" is such a wonderful example of it. I love it. (sorry everyone, I've mentioned that multiple times).
There is a new twist here and that is social media. I wonder what they'd have to say about that.
They are doing their job.
How many of us buy paper newspaper? How many of us have paid news site account? or browse news site without ad blocker. We want to read content without ads so they are selling this content. Media is writing PR piece and getting paid.
In fact the article strikes me as more of the same reason why so many voted for Trump. The people who write these articles just can't accept the idea that people didn't vote for Trump unless they were tricked into it, or were fed lies. The idea that because they have a different reality they based their votes on never occurred to them.
What fake news do is reinoforce what people already believe to be true which is quite another discussion and anyone who have been debating with some 9/11 truther knows that no amount of data will convince them of anything else and neither are you going to be convinced it's suddenly true even though we all have been bombarded with claims from friends.
Also maybe my facebook feed is different, maybe my friends are different but I had and still have plenty of disagreement in my feed plenty of articles pointing both ways.
Here is a good example from my feed.
Basically a four year old history surfaces which is wrong and look at the articles underneath.
I have seen plenty of examples of that. But maybe my feed is unique.
"After the election, Mr. Zuckerberg claimed that the fake news was a problem on “both sides” of the race. That’s wrong. There are, of course, viral fake anti-Trump memes, but reporters have found that the spread of false news is far more common on the right than it is on the left."
>> but reporters have found that the spread of false news is far more common on the right than it is on the left."
does not make this
>> Mr. Zuckerberg claimed that the fake news was a problem on “both sides” of the race
incorrect.
One side does not get a pass because it was the lesser problem.
We are talking about whether it effects election which is what the article claims he is in denial about.
"Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief, believes that it is “a pretty crazy idea” that “fake news on Facebook, which is a very small amount of content, influenced the election in any way.” In holding fast to the claim that his company has little effect on how people make up their minds, Mr. Zuckerberg is doing real damage to American democracy — and to the world."
Regardless of whether their assumption is true or not, I wouldn't expect the CEO of said company to just come out and say "oh yeah, sure, we're influencers like any other media and we forward fake news too". It's just business sense imho.
As for what Mark truly believes, on a personal level, you'd have to be a close friend, not a journalist recording, to get privy to it.
I have said a lot of things on both sides and is hardly just some troll. We all have our triggers, this is one for me so whats wrong with that?
There's a problem here - first past the post voting - but there's also another problem: denial of the legitimacy of an opposition. The vast majority of the people who voted for Trump have valid opinions. You can't just dismiss them.
People who voted for him are not all misinformed racist sexist delusional hicks. There's too many of them to all be fooled. Many of them voted for Obama last time; the numbers make that clear.
Denial is the biggest thing I see in the US media right now, and it's worrying. Because it will probably lead to opposition to the symptom (Trump), rather than the cause (what motivated people to vote for him), and will promote internal opposition. It brings heat, not light.
I believe most of us are misinformed and delusional, and I do not believe people having Facebook as their primary news source is improving the situation.
There was a lot of false and misleading information distributed online during this election, and literally spoken by the candidates (one more than another).
The biggest lie is actually at the heart of Trump's campaign, that he can bring back the jobs. Those jobs he's talking about haven't just been outsourced to other countries, in many cases they have been automated into oblivion. Trump promised to bring these back, but how can you bring something back that doesn't exist?
Mind you the Dems and Clinton had no substantial story to weave for the people that are hurting from the lack of these jobs. So people chose the fiction over no substantive story. It's an uncomfortable thing to tell people that everything they know is irrrelevent in the modern economy.
That does not make it a lie anymore than "yes we can" does.
Giving people optimism about the future, bettering yours and everyone's existence is motivating for everyone. I believe this for anyone I've ever managed, and for any project I've ever worked on. People work better when they are optimistic.
"Yes, we can" is a motivational statement encouraging people to try. Trump's "make America great again" is based on some misguided notion of nastalgia. When is this period that that statement harkens back to?
Remember, the decades after WWII were great for the US because literally every other industrialized nation had been bombed so badly that they could barely make anything at all. America did well during this period because we had no competition.
So how do we go back to that?
All politicians rely on this. Some of them deliver, most do not.
Who's going to go read white-papers after that sort of offer?
I'm all over something like a minimum basic income that would effectively do the same thing as doubling the minimum wage, without putting the cost burden on businesses that can't afford it.
The perk of a national $15 minimum wage is to remove any incentive US only businesses that may consider relocating to less expensive parts of the country. I'm sure it seems perfectly reasonable in a high cost of living area, but outside of that it's a jaw droppingly bad proposal.
The issue really needs to be completely depoliticized, and the minimum wage should really be set to some kind of local/regional indicator, and indexed to inflation.
But if we did that... politicians wouldn't get to flip this card out every 10 years to play it.
From the primary debate:
"While Clinton believes $12 an hour is the right federal minimum, she is not steadfastly opposed to the idea of a $15 hourly minimum nationwide. On Thursday, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked if she would sign a bill from Congress setting the federal minimum at that level (something that would be politically improbable). "Well, of course I would," she said."
The living wage in London is £9.75 and everywhere else its £8.45. Nobody says the living wage council thinks that people outside of London are second class citizens. People think that the living wage council is wise to recognise that living costs are much higher in cities like London, and areas outside of London have a business cost advantage for locating operations outside of London because people living in smaller towns have lower living costs and hence can enjoy the same living standard on less income.
Don't be a jerk by taking the least charitable interpretation of a policy when you know full well that it's bollocks.
Part of the problem is that those in the media forgot about people who are different from them--- for whom those $30 billion could have meant the difference between permanent regional decline and a new start.
The policies being proposed mean that the next time there is a leak, or stolen/hacked e-mail, the party involved can simply deny it is real and then the publisher would have to take the story offline or face some sort of negative weight or ban in Google and Facebook.
Quite simply, you take away labor protections. Automation does not eliminate jobs, it competes for them. If people are cheaper, businesses will opt for people, even in the presence of automation. Robots won't work for free; people have proven time and time again that they will.
There is some evidence[1] that Trump supports this method, at least to the point that he can push the blame onto lower levels of government if jobs don't materialize.
[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2016/05/09/donald-tr...
What fake news do is reinoforce what people already believe to be true
Sure. And it also reinforces things people don't yet know (because it's fake) but which fits into one's preexisting worldview. It's a multiplicative factor. An amplification.
The claim by the article is actually very measured -- that fake news is a part of the whole picture. Do you really disagree with that?
Fake news are easy to debunk and the same lie which takes advantage of network spread can also be debunked by the same measures.
Again if people really want to believe in something no amount of rebuttals are going to change that.
What's far more concerning is the kind of exaggerations that the traditional media use to blow everything out of proportion.
We all live in filter bubbles some in very tightly controlled bubbles others in more open bubbles but they are all bubbles.
I have yet to see any proof that fake news are effecting how people vote on any serious scale. Maybe some people here and there. But to claim that it's a problem for the election is simply another attempt at trying find a reason other than the obvious one, that many people who voted for Trump did so because they live in another bubble than those who votes for Hillary. That they have different perspectives and different problems, different dreams and fears.
Thats the reason we votes different and fake news aren't going to change the overall world view we have there.
Also, I have a hard time believing that seeing one or two stray bogus stories is the same as seeing bogus stories everywhere you care to look.
In one case a vulnerable human being might have enough reason to doubt what they're reading, and in the other case they suddenly feel like the world is caving in on them.
I agree with what you're trying to say, but you are being overly broad.
Talk to Trump supporters prior to the election, and with the exception of "anti-establishment", most of them will give reasons that they were tricked into believing.
Go to fact checking web sites and look at all the statements Trump continually repeated that were demonstrably false, and see how many of them the supporters believed (hint: many of them).
So yes, they were fed lies and believed them.
However, you are correct in that it was not the only reason why they voted for him. They believed those lies as post-hoc justification for their picking him. Really no different from people who pick any candidate, including Hilary.
what makes you think they were "tricked" any more than supporters of some different as-yet-uninstalled president.
This looks like a middle ground fallacy.
2) In one breath you dismiss this article as elitism, and in the very next admit the problem of fake news, which is exactly what this article is talking about. It's not another discussion. It is exactly this discussion. I've never seen such a blatant use of straw man.
Thats what I am talking about, not sure what exactly make you say it's a straw man.
It's not enough of a problem i.e. it din't affect the election in any meaningful way.
Not sure why that's so hard to understand.
As a non-FB user, I hit every day a Facebook captcha to test if I'm a bot, each time I land near a Facebook site. When it's not a captcha, a panel hides a third of the Facebook page.
I have a "shadow" empty FB account that I sometimes use: if I'm logged in, anything I watch online ends up polluting recommendations and suggested sites. I looked up information on Syria and Trump the other day - I now have creepy sites displayed on my suggested sites. I also get giant "YOU ARE NOW QUITTING FACEBOOK" alerts anytime I try to click a link to, yes, go to this address.
We all obsess on Google/Apple for privacy and yet do not hold Facebook to any standard regarding an open, honest web.
I feel we're all getting slowly conditioned by Facebook (and others) to stay siloed. To fear that the web we browse will have "consequences" and that we should avoid being curious altogether.
It's by now clear that the entire purpose of FB is to build a "unified profile" that advertisers can track on- and offline.
We're all in denial on the consequences of this unified tracking. If we were in the Renaissance, anonymous publications like Spinoza's would be impossible. Free speech and opinion _requires_ freedom to change mind, wander around.
This has to stop.
Now it's definitely a question to ask but I'm afraid it's being asked as a way to explain Hillary's loss because it's easier to find a scapegoat than look introspectively --and Dems at least publicly say we want to avoid scapegoating, politically speaking.
In the end, I wonder, had Hillary won, would be seeing the same examination? Would we have people at the Times wondering if Hillary had won because of the spread of false news, or wonder about a conspiracy to railroad Bernie? Hard to say, but one wonders.
On the other hand, I can't agree more that they should surface more than mostly self-reinforcing news or information to their users.
That's why they don't care about the 130,000 retweets for a fake claim that people were chanting "We hate Muslims, we hate blacks, we want our great country back" at a Trump rally from a known British hoaxer, or the quarter of a million for a photoshop of Trump's parents in KKK outfits, or any of the other fakes that don't fit the narrative.
And yes, it is telling all their examples are about ones which targeted Hillary.
Then, I basically kind of started to "shut down", because I felt that there was really no source that was trustworthy.
Around the same time, I saw some previously neutral forums, go "hard-Clinton". To the point where there was obvious brigading (downvoting and banning dissenters) going on.
On the other hand: There was copious material available, of direct quotes straight out of Trump's mouth. Live TV footage at rallies. Live TV footage at debates. Where he said some things that were not just; "oh, he's a bit careless and doesn't know what that's implying." He said some things that were very hard to interpret in any way other than how he said them. There's also the actual wording of actual policy positions on his own web site.
I think this is what is meant by the assertion that "false stories from the left are not nearly as big a problem".
It's true that there's still some crazy stuff coming from the left. (A lot of the news organization sites breathlessly speculating about who Trump is appointing, before he's actually made any appointments - and turning them into outrageous scandals).
But a lot of the negative things coming out about Trump are absolute facts that you can't sugarcoat, because he said them while being recorded.
Facebook isn't the only place people get 'fake news'. Just look at their peer groups. My cousin is a member of a labor union and they tell all kind of goofy tales about what will happen is candidate X gets elected or candidate Y gets elected. You should hear the coffee shop rambling the old men do at Tim Horton's in the morning. And you should heard the rambling the young kids do at the independent coffee shop at night. All of it is just FUD.
>In addition to doing more to weed out lies and false propaganda, Facebook could tweak its algorithm so that it does less to reinforce users’ existing beliefs, and more to present factual information. This may seem difficult, but perhaps the Silicon Valley billionaires who helped create this problem should take it on before setting out to colonize Mars.
Right, in principle Facebook should do this for the benefit of society, but on a practical consideration, would becoming a highly-involved arbiter of content be good for making money? Facebook isn't under any legal mandate to act as a referee - consider it unfortunate if you like, but I kind of shrug it off. Individual user responsibility should be a noteworthy counter-point, because as trite as it might sound, if Facebook is rife with issues and rot, then going there is probably not a good idea. If they happen to make more money by allowing junk in their system, then that's their decision to make. Eventually will it cost them users?
>The company’s business model, algorithms and policies entrench echo chambers and fuel the spread of misinformation.
If they want to serve up a garbage buffet and make a profit from it, I can't sit back and scold them too hard, I just have to excuse myself. It's not just on Facebook - commenting communities of any sort tend to generate clusters of like-minded folk. "Right" thinking or "wrong" thinking. Personally I don't walk around downtown digging through the trash for my lunch, and I don't get my worldview from Facebook. I do keep up with some people, but can count my weekly minutes on the site with two hands pretty much. Just my approach, YMMV.
Nothing stops a person from creating a set of signals that Facebook will use to generate a mixed content feed that's representative of a broad range of views.
The problem is that almost no one uses Facebook like that.
For a while early on, I recall enjoying Facebook when it was .edu email addresses only, because it was a good way to keep tabs on people I went to upper education with and parted ways with shortly after. It was a nice contact resource in that regard. Now the platform is a behemoth, the AOL thing.
that's to say nothing of the calls for censure of thought-crime from the commenters on HN
What is also significant is that I see it being largely ignored in the media, as they frame peaceful counter-Trump protests as "riots" and "thugs destroying property".
This is the opinion I'm seeing coming out by moderates, who are decrying the protests, and ignoring the fascist violence coming from hate groups.
Well, see, Trump was really horrible as a candidate. Really incredibly weak. And yet Hillary lost. That couldn't have been because Hillary was an even weaker candidate! It had to be because of a witch! If we can find that witch, we'll be fine in the next election!
I believe very strongly that the free flow of information (even when it's just wrong) is critical. Information gives people power, but withholding information takes power away. If a company like Facebook implements the filter, we're giving that power to them and hoping they are ambivalent.
The solution to fake news is for people to learn how to live in this new world. There used to be only a handful of news organizations, but now there are an infant amount of them. This is GOOD, it's democratizing, but it puts a burden on us as citizens, and consumers of information to understand the motivations of the authors.
This is an opportunity we should be happy to have and be scared of technological or manual solutions that threaten it.
(The NYT has no obligation to be neutral and I'm not complaining about their editorial position. They have a right to take sides. It is still useful to keep their previous positions in mind when analyzing what they're saying now.)
Grabbing by the genitals, yeah I think that covers it. Personal definitions of lewdness aside, you don't get to change the laws.
Which is what you assumed. Groupies exist for a reason - they want to get with the target of their admiration.
It's true that Donald Trump is lying, feckless fool. That doesn't need balancing. We can argue all day about why people voted for him, why they rejected the incumbent elite, why they wanted a change, and so on. But that doesn't really change the facts.
Lying? Sure. Feckless fool? Not a fact.
> But that doesn't really change the facts.
You mean, facts like Hillary arming radicals and destroying governments? Or facts like Clinton getting millions of dollars from major banks? Or facts like Clinton wiping email servers? There were floodlights on the liar, but a crook sneaked in behind them. Rampant editorializing drove people away from the media. People suspected a collusion between media houses and the Clinton campain. Wikileaks confirmed those suspicions. What do they do? CNN tell its viewers that it's illegal to read or download stuff from Wikileaks.
Again, on ACA repeal, he was VERY CLEAR in the debate: "repeal and replace Obamacare" (just not clear on "replace" with what). On 60 minutes, he's walking that back and talking about the parts he'll keep.
Trump is feckless. And a fool.
And Hillary may have armed radicals, but you look at photos of McCain shaking their hands. This policy will not change under a Trump administration, I guarantee it. Because he will do whatever this Republican congress wants. This is also true for Trade deals.
Just like Hillary, then [1][2]. She changed her tune this campaign season. Why exactly? I don't know. But the only explanation I can come up with is "my opponent's policies are bad"[3]. Most politicians do that when dealing with the opposite party, but Hillary seems to be unique in doing that against her own partymen, be it Obama (earlier) or Sanders now.
> ACA repeal
Just like Hillary, then[4]. However, Clinton had a different endgame in mind.
> Trump is feckless.
This, I cannot deny. Would you say the same of Hillary?
> And a fool.
That remains an opinion. Would you say the same of Hillary?
> you look at photos of McCain shaking their hands
... and I wonder how many of those people were hand-picked for the task by puppets the Americans put in place.
Anyway, this is precisely why I'm laughing so much about Trump's victory.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S1uc47j1Q4
[2] http://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/hillary-clinton...
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dY77j6uBHI
[4] http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-email-shows-clinton...
What would the right response of the paper be to a demagogue?
In retrospect, fake news might have been the most effective thing. But they're part of the establishment so they won't allow themselves to do that.
If that's true, why did the New York Times just apologize for their abysmal coverage of this election cycle?
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/elections/to-our-reader...
MSNBC laying into the NYT after the election for not accepting reality & criticizing people who said Trump even had the slightest chance at winning.
Basically, I do trust that what they write is true, but I don't trust them to always write it...
Social media people are happy to peddle outright lies one day, never follow up when they are proved wrong, and get on their high horses about "mainstream media".
How can a democracy function without an informed populace? If not the New York Times or some other existing "news" entity, what entity can possibly provide reliable information going forward?
Also, this isn't just about bias. Reporting with a bias can still be useful for informing people, as long as the information presented is accurate. Over time, outlets with varying bias can cover various sides of an issue, or various scandals, etc. from different perspectives, and as long as the information is accurate, over time most of the relevant facts should become known.
Not sure leaving it to the Macedonian teenagers will work out as well.
The New York Times forfeited that position. If I wanted a Democratic Party propaganda rag, I could find one - I don't need the New York Times for that. If I wanted accurate information, I do need the New York Times, or someone like them - but they won't do it. They used to, but they won't any more.
The New York Times was also in denial during the campaign dismissing Trump's candidacy as a joke, then giving Hillary 99% chances to win.
Had they taken Trump seriously from the get-go and try to do a proper rebuttal with fact checking and not just "Pepe the frog is a fascist symbol", maybe the outcome would have been different.
Now, if "news media" like Breitbart or tabloids are really much better, I wont comment on.
But it's still troublesome.
From the article:
>Worse, Facebook doesn’t flag or mark credible news websites
Okay, so who's judging what is a credible news website/source? Is CNN a credible news source, is The Huffington Post, how about the National Enquirer? People can argue that CNN get so many facts wrong, that they aren't a credible news source.
If you're an expect in a field, you tend to notice that the media often make massive mistakes or gross misinterpretations when dealing with news regarding your field. Now realise that they make the same mistakes for pretty much any other field. Are ANY mainstream media actually credible, given the knowledge that they misunderstand and misrepresent an incredible amount of topics every single day.
Looks like Zuckerberg doesn't have veto power at nytimes ;).
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4213
Lack of any self-awareness can only be attributed to arrogance. This is exactly the type of arrogance that got their candidate defeated and made Trump an underdog.
Fuck you nytimes.
I always find it funny when I see HNers complaining about The Wall Street Journal's paywall. Pay it, man! And read the news.
Too much emphasis on Facebook's alleged influence. It's a link/aggregation/search application, and the complexion of its output is strongly going to reflect what users input.
That said, I am also very sceptical of what I read on the web. I follow several people's blogs and what they post on social media because over the years what they say usually turns out to be correct.
The USA is a great place, but there are also many other countries that are also great places.
Perhaps because the market was already saturated with pro-Hillary pieces from mainstream media? If they produce only one-sided hit pieces on Trump, are you surprised those on the right will share anything positive they can find?
The left has made it's own bed.
If somebody actually believes the pope would endorse an American election candidate there really is nothing you can do.
* * *
This election and its aftermath have been an amazing opportunity for Americans of all leanings to be in denial.
We are so so so much better now that newspapers matter less and that the network news is not the main game in town. How does more sources make democracy worse even if it's "buyer beware?" it's arrogant to think truth is always hidden.
<<People vote the way they do for a variety of reasons, but their information diet is a crucial part of the picture.
We had a choice of candidates that was leftovers or diner food for Thanksgiving. That was the problem
Do you really think the NYT will say good things in an op-ed about it's nimble young competitor?
A rising tide raises all passengers (sic)
So more people get more news than mainstreamville. That is better than the way it was. Imo
Doesn't even pass the smell test: yet this person believes them implicitly. This election was decided so narrowly, you have to wonder what the impact was.
>We cannot deliver the independent, original journalism for which we are known without the loyalty of our readers.
Funny, considering the newspaper just had a 96% drop in profits last quarter.
Without knowing what the drop in profits is due to, I think it's. For example, is it because people are getting more of their news online and letting their paper subscriptions lapse? In my area home delivery is between $5–$10 per week, and that's at the 50% off introductory rate, compared to $3.75/week online only. Of course, that doesn't take into account printing and delivery costs.
Another reason could be that people no longer see value above and beyond what's available elsewhere that they can get for free online. That's different from no longer trusting the paper.
Looking up the reporting on the NYT profit decline, they note
- decline in print ad sales, increase in digital ad sales (which is expected given the print -> digital migration)
- significant investment in digital publishing
- net profit losses mainly due to restructuring charges related to reducing workforce
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-newyorktimes-results-idUSK...
Of course, that's not to say trust in the paper isn't going to affect profits. I think it's fair to look at the entire picture.
Speaking of denial, wonder where on a realness gradient she puts NYTimes or CNN?
>We cannot deliver the independent, original journalism for which we are known without the loyalty of our readers.
reporters have found that the spread of false news is far more common on the right than it is on the left
https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/partisan-fb-pages-an...
From https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/can-facebook-trendin...
The world that I'm really scared of is one where everyone agrees about everything and people who disagree are locked up; that's where I saw things going before the election (when I thought that Hillary was going to win).
Chaos and disagreement is one of the most important things in our society. We always need at least two sides to every story (even if one side is a complete fabrication) - Balance of public opinions is the most important thing for freedom.
When his first speech came out about immigration, he said he wants to deport illegal immigrants (which is actually already law). The media turned it into just 'immigrants' and we now have entire groups of legal immigrants that are afraid Trump will deport them. Did nobody watch the speech or does the mainstream media have problems comprehending English?
There is anti-Trump violence growing in the US and people have been assaulted and harassed for even saying they supported him. The protests aren't 'peaceful', they are riots.
This is all ignored on the news, however. The only thing they can spew out is the story about the girl that got her Hijab pulled, which turned out to be fake. MSNBC still reports it as fact.
Will Facebook ban links to MSNBC for this fake story?
This is exactly why half the country voted Trump into office. Even now, you still can't figure out that it was your own fault and want to blame the rest of American for losing the election.
The other irony is complaining about bias and marginalizing and then painting an entire group of people (Trump supports) as 'racists' and 'islamaphobes'.
It really shows me that all of the people that claim we need more 'love' and 'peace' are just using it for political gain and power. When they don't get what they want, the fangs come out.
You want understanding and compassion when it comes to gay marriage and the transgender community, but give none of it in return.
You honestly believe that there was one single incident, and it was fake? This is an honest question: where do you get your news from?