Silicon Valley Helped Create Trump, and That’s Bad for It | Hacker News Reader

Silicon Valley Helped Create Trump, and That’s Bad for It

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Personally, I am concerned around this new mantra to eliminate fake news. Who are the gatekeepers of said truthfulness. Now I am not arguing that fake news does not abound on the Internet but a call to arms for companies to eliminate "Fake" news sounds too close to censorship for my fancy.

The obvious problem is the one created by sites which simply fabricate "news" for clicks. Those should be easy to tamp down because little they do is actual news in any way. It's all fabrication.

On the other hand, there is lots of biased media, for good and for ill, but that's not the same as fabricating news and I imagine these will not be the targets for "censorship" among the news platforms.

I think the NYT and others in this case are lashing out on seeing their influence wane and not being able to influence their readership with what they believe is the basis for a "righteous" political lifestyle as well as their apparent impotency in shaping political thought.

this is probably how it will go for the first year or so before the public accepts it: obvious fake news sites are censored.

than they will start censoring articles which are maybe just editoralize their content a bit too much in a way that facebook doesn't like.

than they will start censoring full sites that they don't agree with.

its a slippery slope and they're playing for the long game.

Governments censor. Private institutions editorialize.

If the NYT chooses not to print an op-ed you send them, it is NOT censorship.

If the United States government forces the NYT not to print your op-ed, it IS censorship.

See the difference?

So what happens when the NYT prints a story that ends up being fabricated, or uses false (or fake) data to support an op-ed?

In this brave, new world where "fake news" is filtered out, will the "truthy" organizations be given a free pass?

That's my biggest concern. As it stands now, publications often do their best to bury retractions and corrections.

Newspaper that print fake stories will take substantial credibility hits. It is in their best interest not to publish falsehoods.

"Newspaper that print fake stories will take substantial credibility hits."

How, exactly? (I realize that you are not personally responsible for implementation, but I think this is an important question)

If "filtering" merely means blacklisting/whitelisting domains or organizations, this won't work.

And in regard to organizations not publishing falsehoods because it is in their best interest: let's consider Walter Duranty's reporting for the NYT in the 1930s. He won a Pulitzer for that, and that honor was enjoyed by the publication...it further cemented their reputation as the "newspaper of record".

It took 30 years before reports of his falsifications started getting traction, and almost 70 before serious calls were made to strip Duranty of the prize. It has yet to be revoked.

What lesson did the Times learn from that? Did they suffer any kind of financial penalty? What lesson would they learn from a smack on the hand from Facebook?

Would Facebook really ban news from the NYT if the latter had another Duranty, or even another Jayson Blair? What about the Washington Post? The LA Times?

Filtering out "fake news" will cut a lot of the obvious crap out: pointless lists, clickbait, "breakthrough diets", secrets "they" don't want you to know about, and celebrity gossip nonsense. I am not convinced that it will stop political propaganda, which is supposedly the whole point of this exercise.

It probably became fake news when we stopped buying the NYT in print. Now it's mostly fake news because they give out 10 fake news items per month and expect me and you and everyone else to pay for the "real" news so they can run their news outlet. But then we won't so then they'll just accept money from anyone with an agenda.

> But then we won't so then they'll just accept money from anyone with an agenda.

That is an extraordinary claim to make. Do you have any evidence to back that up?

You must be a blast at parties.

This is boiler-plate internet snark that one can find all over the web, but is typically looked at unfavorably on HN because it adds nothing to the discussion.

Well, the NYT actually hires a lot of good journalists. Good journalists actually try hard not to print fake news. It's sad that these are surprising concepts.

On page 2 of every (paper) issue of the Times, right under the table of contents, there's a section titled, "Corrections." That's also part of doing good journalism.

My very unscientific feeling: The constant influx of pieces like this since the election feels like the mainstream media redirecting calls of "echo chamber" elsewhere.

An echo chamber compared to what, though? Twitter's alt-right? They're not exactly honestly measuring the material problems of rural Americans: they're passing memes around about expelling the Muslims and gassing the Jews.

Yeah, I don't think it's invalid to say that fake news is a serious problem (or even that it probably helped elect Trump), but I think there's a much deeper crisis of news, bias, and the nature of truth in the Internet age that needs to be addressed head-on.

We can't know whether fake news tilted the election towards Trump. There is no experiment or analysis that can conclusively dis/prove that hypothesis. NYT and others should be humble here. Sure, fake news is stupid, but so is claiming that it "helped elect Trump"

Here's the narrative- "This outcome is so out of whack that either you guys are just the stupidest, most gullible people, or you are normal people, who would have voted for us, had you not been fooled by malevolent and manipulative forces."

It's an easy way to console your butthurt when you lost- just claiming that had everyone been better informed, they'd have done the 'right' thing.

So is NYT fake news, their own echo chamber with no facts or research.

They just pull a popular headline and write what if... So what's the difference between these Macedonian boys making more money money with adsense? -- none. I give the latter more respect for succeeding.

No the nytimes helped elect trump by refusing to admit his chances were much higher since the beginning, and trying to hide clintons flaws. This is an article I expect to see on gawker not a legit newspaper.

I'm not sure I would say that the nytimes was hiding how well Trump was doing. Trump did not do well in most polls, Clinton was usually ahead and did win the popular vote. The election results weren't really expected. It would have been nice if the nytimes had been able to see through the bad data, but I think that was more of a problem with the bad data than any political leanings.

Thus is just the NYT throwing the dead cat into Silicon Valley while bringing you more Trump bad press. Move along.

"... the anger and misinformation of the voters who helped propel him to the presidency."

And we start off with insults and dismissal-- the reason she didn't win and that the Times is reviled for its reporting by various groups.

This is an opinion piece. There is a difference between opinion pieces and reporting, a distinction that lots of people seem to be missing recently. You shouldn't revile a newspaper's reporting based on its opinion pieces.

I full well understand the distinction. And normally, I'd agree with you, however, in this case, I feel his opinions and points are indicative of the larger NYT itself, and even after such a surprise drubbing, they continue to ignore reality with hope of assuaging their feelings-- 'surely it can't be we that are wrong...'

The Times went so far out of their way to torpedo Trump and promote his opponent that Solzberger Jr had to remind everyone that they are dedicated to impartiality (http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/elections/to-our-reader...).

We wait, with anticipation, the results of this renewal.

Pointing fingers and finding scapegoat. How does that add any value? How many people in rural Alabama use Internet?

So much for the soul-searching and reform that the Democratic Party so desperately needs.

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