Fake News
stratechery.com
stratechery.com
That is absolutely not the way it went. Essentially nobody believed what Iraq was accused of by the USA, not even the CIA trusted the available evidence. It was all fabricated to justify the invasion, a total fake.
I mean, if there's a widespread belief that Secretary Clinton is running a child sex ring out of a Washington D.C. pizza parlor[0], widespread enough that it's turning up in response to random phone polling in the days before the election, that's a different category of "fake news" than "Restore hair growth with this one simple trick."
If a tweet of some parked busses for a Tableau conference in Austin, Texas, can result in a tweeted claim by the President-Elect and a thread that runs for more than a week on cable news about "paid protestors,"[1] that's not the same as "Aliens take President-Elect for a ride on their flying saucer."
These seem to be in a different category than the NY Times' in-retrospect-horrible reporting prior to the US invasion of Iraq. It's possible to be certain but wrong, and marshal evidence in support of your beliefs. In the case of the NY Times, that mistaken reporting was enormous, and the impact of it was enormous, but it is reasonable to think that others given the same information would have made the same mistakes. Lots of people did, in fact. In the meantime, 99% of the rest of NY Times reporting was accurate, as is usually the case. The two examples of "fake news" I linked seem ludicrous, and they're just the tip of the iceberg.
Anecdotally, I personally saw claims about eight LGBT youth having killed themselves as a result of the election, but those claims seem to be unsubstantiated at best, and most like "fake news" from the other political side. It's not entirely a partisan issue.
So yeah, Judith Miller's reporting turned out to be terrible. I'm not sure how that counters the fact that the so-called "fake news" currently being discussed is reprehensibly awful, and apparently effective.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13011496 [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/media/how-fake-ne...
This article notes that consumers want fake news, but I want to see more of these flags. I realize it's a huge risk for FB, as the article notes, but I've unfollowed (not unfriended) so many friends for posting this nonsense that it's really hurting my own end-user experience in the network. When you're dealing with people for whom snopes and wikipedia are "part of the MSM," you are dealing with people who are living in a consensual hallucination. It's simultaneously infuriating and frightening to be exposed to that on a daily basis.
I have very mixed feelings about this. I know that Facebook is a company and can censor or allow whatever they want to. They censor obscene and offensive stuff, sure. But deciding what is "true" and "false" is a whole new ball game. Do we want to get used to having a central authority telling us what's true and false? If I want to say something stupid on Facebook, I should be allowed to say it.
Remember that you can have an authority run by a trusted leader one day, and someone else the next.
I know that, living in 2016, the concept of "objective truth" and "objective falsehood" is a hard one to really wrap our brains around. But lets try:
Some things are true, and some things are false.
You're very welcome to say "something stupid on Facebook" as an individual because you haven't presented yourself as a news source. But Facebook shouldn't play willing participant in giving conspiracy sites a platform to present made up stories as truths.
I save "unfollow" for friends who are serial sharers of article, after article.
If there is a problem with the media in general (apart from strong political bias), it's a human problem that we all share. People respond to shock, outrage, and disgust much more than they respond to pragmatic ideas, logic, or even truth in general. As long as media companies are built on revenue models tied to ad impressions and social engagement, we'll likely see more of the same.
Censorship will not help; it can only make the problem worse. Perhaps instead, social networks should return to being social networks rather than scrolling billboards. I recall a time (around 2005-2006) when Facebook consisted mostly of people's own words, thoughts, and conversations rather than embedded media. I think I'd really enjoy a Facebook that didn't even turn URLs into hyperlinks - one where the only media that can be embedded is your own original content. That's partly why I believe Instagram is on the rise, while Facebook seems to be on the decline (depending on who you ask - and yes, I know Instagram is owned by FB).
The current social media landscape is like trying to host a party at your house with TVs on every wall (showing random propaganda) so loud that no one can even hear themselves talk.
I'm not saying that the media is faultless and never makes mistakes. Or that they don't, from time to time, overhype absolute nonsense stories or clicks or viewing figures. But we're comparing infrequent reporting mistakes with deliberate and calculated lying. They are not anywhere near the same thing.
The fact that you feel like fake news is being used as a scapegoat should make you stop and wonder if there is any evidence to back up that feeling, rather than double down on it.
A scientific journal doesn't say "hey - we only occasionally let through a few articles without peer review; the majority of our content is peer reviewed, so we're ok."
Even the most "trustworthy" US-based news organizations have lost a lot of credibility in the past couple of weeks. And yes, there have even been a fair number of cases of deliberate and calculated lying - all without corrections or retractions.
Or, you know, keep trusting these companies (not knowing which stories are "mistakes" vs truth). I'm not going to stop anyone from trusting a source of information just because I don't trust it myself.
Still, the point of my original comment is more about how we deal with it in social media. I have no problem letting the market decide what to do with media organizations.
No, it doesn't work that way.
News organizations, like people, make mistakes. It's how they address those mistakes that matter.
If genuine mistakes are made, those responsible admit those mistakes and issue corrections. When that happens, one's reputation can remain mostly intact.
What they didn't mention is what he did instead, which was to desegregate schools. There's good evidence that desegregating schools is the most effective way to improve them. You have to admit it's a little dishonest to throw the word segregation around over and over again in response to someone following a strategy of desegregation instead of your personal solution of raising taxes. It's a strategy that would make Orwell proud.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/opinion/jeff-sessions-othe...
It's an opinion piece, so neither is it written by the New York Times, nor is it surprising that the author might be "inserting opinions".
It's an especially good example because it is an opinion piece. It checks facts, cites sources, and presents a lot of evidence instead of just giving a straightforward opinion. All these facts give legitimacy to the implications. Instead of making the article more objective, they enhance the bias.
I never said anything about it not being an opinion piece, just that it's published by the media.
I agree with your original critique, but writing "the New York Times recently wrote an article" is not saying "just that it's published by the media". Whether or not an opinion piece is sufficient to make your point, you said the NYT wrote it, it turns out that they did not, but you are claiming that despite this you were right all along. Don't do that!
That is an opinion piece. A lot of people seem to be conflating opinion pieces and reporting. You can't use opinion pieces to prove bias in a newspaper's reporting.
Anyway, my point was to show how sources and facts can push an agenda.
If you really really investigate all the claims by both sides, and at the end dont throw your hands up and say "well I cant exactly be sure either way" then either you have incredible sources or you are reading into stories what you want to hear to confirm your beliefs.
I was watching live when Martha Raddatz almost broke into tears on ABC news. I was thinking "Is she going to start crying? Who is allowing her to be on camera as a serious news person".
For instance, no cable network broadcast incorrect election results. They all informed viewers of the accurate, correct vote counts as they came in. By comparison, a fake news site was at the top of Google a few days ago with a story that literally lied about the popular vote count, saying that Trump had won it.
I'm not saying cable news is great - far from it - but these fake news sites are in a league of their own.
When I see the kind of blatant bias that the anchors on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN etc showed on election night I can't help feeling like the networks that write their paychecks are intentionally trying to misinform people for their own gain.
"As the Americans learned so painfully in Earth's final century, free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people whose leaders at last lose their grip on information flow will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
Some from both want to police it and tell everyone else what needs to be silenced.
This is why free speech is so important.
Correction: two groups are using that word. One is an extremist faction. The other is an opposing faction gleefully trying to connect the historical use of the word to a candidate and his supporters in general.
Edit: to the authors of the responses below, thank you for taking time to provide a rebuttal (I'm not sure why HN isn't allowing me to reply further). To those individuals who simply downvoted and moved on, I believe the German word you're looking for in this case is säuberung.
The candidate drew on that extremist faction for support during his campaign, didn't make any effort to distance himself from that extremist faction, and surrounded himself with people that that extremist faction were delighted by during his campaign.
Then, after winning, not only does he not distance himself from the people he had previously surrounded himself with, but appears to be following through in terms of appointments and proposed legislation that, again, absolutely delights that extremist faction.
I get that the candidate is not a member of that extremist faction, but if that extremist faction adores that candidate and voices strong agreement with every political appointment and policy position, many people have good reason for being a little concerned about it. I don't know why this is so hard for people to grasp. Just because a particular argument is being used by his political opponents for the purpose of discrediting him, doesn't mean that that argument isn't a real issue that people should be very aware of and concerned about.
False equivalence is far worse than fake news; it's the legitimization of the factually true and the morally wrong.
It is far better to have a multitude of sources and let people choose, which is not what occurs for the corporate news media.
If I see how much time it takes to carefully fact-check some of the nonsense articles that have been doing the rounds recently, it would be a full-time job just to stay reasonably up-to-date. This is why people have been sourcing out the job of fact-checking and editing to e.g. newspapers in the past.
I also very much doubt that the majority of people are capable of critically evaluating news items. Some of the discussions I've had recently, where people wouldn't change their opinion even when confronted with clear-cut evidence, haven't helped convince me otherwise.
It's an article about the "scapegoat" person behind the website dolartoday.com
You can find my explanation about how much damage this website does by publishing fake news to a large audience... I dont even go in details about the economically damage (the one with more impact on my country) just a simple example, link to my post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13017182
I am actually concerned by the implications of our destroyed arbiters of truth, but I'm not smart enough to envision a path back to sanity. People accustomed to the relative political stability of the US have no idea how bad it can get.
I assert that we need something similar when it comes to "NEWS", anything labeled news should have certain standards of accuracy such that the public consuming something labeled news can be confident that what they are consuming is reasonably factual much in the same way that someone consuming food and drugs feel reasonably confident they are consuming what is on the label. This goes to the health of our democracy and hence indirectly to the wellness of the public.
I know this sounds pretty controversial and has 1st amendment implications but it is not without precedence. Prior to the 1996 telecom deregulation act, there were restrictions placed on the public TV networks under something called the “Fairness Doctrine”. That was done under the 1934 telecom act which (http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/piac/novmtg/pubint.htm), in return for free use of the airwaves in exchange for "public services" such as news programming.
With deregulation came the selling of spectrum through auction, which in my view, I don't think it was a good bargain for the public. But I also think that falsely calling something news could also fall under the regulations by the FTC.
I think it is important for the functioning of a democracy that the public have access to a source of information that they can feel confident is fact based.
All of this is obviously academic as it seems pretty unlikely the Trump administration would consider anything like that.
Who determines what is factual? How do you police the global Internet?
Consider the Snowden disclosures. The government held its line on their non-factuality for surprisingly long, including by lying to Congress [1]. Also, The Guardian, who led the charge on vetting and publishing Snowden's claims, is a British newspaper.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/31/cia-di...
I could choose to have sources flagged as trustworthy or untrustworthy by the ACLU and the EFF thusly indicated in my browser. (Similar to AdBlocker Plus lists.)
It would be simply for a campaign to publish its own trust ratings, however.
So what I do is unfollow all my friends by default, and I use FB only to discover interesting events, and for basic messaging with friends.
Furthermore, he seems to argue for an economic fatalism about both the news media and Facebook, that they must provide what users want, and that users want fake news/propaganda to support their own opinion, so the media and Facebook must provide it.
On the media: "The media couldn’t have done a damn thing about Trump if they had wanted to. The reason the media covered Trump so extensively is quite simple: that is what users wanted."
On Facebook: "the company is heavily incentivized to be perceived as neutral by all sides; anything else would drive away users, a particularly problematic outcome for a social network."
If this economic fatalism argument is correct, then I see no reason to believe that some other solution will "spring from the power of the Internet," and democracy is doomed.
Certainly Thompson himself provides no reason to think a solution will exist, even one that "springs from the power of the Internet." He is correct that "if we choose, [we have] access to more information and sources of truth than ever before, and more ways to reach out and understand and persuade those with whom we disagree." But if we can't actually tell which news sources are providing truth, and we all want lies, and so thereby the lies are easier to find/access/distribute, then the problem cannot be solved.
But if his economic fatalism argument isn't correct, then it really has nothing to do with his second argument that FB shouldn't decide the news.
As for Facebook, most their proposed solutions https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10103269806149061 look like solutions Thompson would like. Thompson argues that Facebook shouldn't "decide the news," not for economic reasons, but because FB could make the wrong decisions under a totalitarian government. Facebook strongly agrees, "We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves," so they won't.
FB proposes easy reporting and third-party verification, which sound to me like they "spring from the power of the Internet," whatever that means. If FB decides to "raise the quality bar" on the "Related Articles" section by measuring positive citations, in a way vaguely reminiscent of Google PageRank, that would spring from the power of the Internet, I guess.
None of that matters if people are always going to click on propaganda and share it no matter what. So Thompson is either wrong about the economic fatalism argument, or FB is already planning to give him what he wants, or both.
But for common usage, it's seen as less than honest. For example, consider "spreading awareness" and "spreading propaganda". Which seems benign and which sinister?
Pieces in The Onion do have an overt political leaning, but the publication's primary function is comedy, not news.
A lot of these so-called fake news agencies may quietly label themselves as satire simply for legal reasons but make an effort to conceal this whenever convenient.
I'm not sure if you can categorically differentiate between the characteristics of an Onion piece full of hyperbole and some typical nonsense fake news piece, but the impression left in the readers is probably the differentiator: Fake news sites are trying to convince people that they're true, where actual parody and satire sites do not.
No piece of "fake" news changed anyone's mind, simply reinforced beliefs they already had. Same reason people subscribe to newspapers that reflect their existing worldview or value system.
You make it sound like that doesn't matter. It does. Reinforcing an incorrect belief is a bad thing.
Sites like that are part of the problem.