How I Detect Fake News | Hacker News Reader

How I Detect Fake News

medium.com

16 pointschang23017 comments

I find it odd that people are talking about algorithms to identify and respond to fake news, instead of simply pushing for more education and critical thought at an individual level.

In the example detailed in the article, I would think people would never even get past the headline -- a heat map for crime waves would have variances at the level of neighborhoods in large cities, and otherwise would look similar to a population heat map. The maps clearly show county data just based on the borders, not even getting into the placement of colors (seriously, northern minnesota is a hot spot for crime?), so a cursory level of critical thought applied to the headline should have caused people to reject it.

Encouraging people to just stop and think about the content they consume should be the first step.

> I find it odd that people are talking about algorithms to identify and respond to fake news, instead of simply pushing for more education and critical thought at an individual level.

While people should be critical, the situation we're dealing with is analogous to megaphones becoming too cheap and a large group of people deciding to troll the rest of the world. Telling everyone to use earplugs in general, and find quiet rooms to have conversations with a small selection of saner people is not the right solution here.

Besides, no problem was ever solved by saying "people should just be better"

Media has existed for a long time. Newspapers have put out bad news for a long time. Politicians have been trolling us via TV for a long time. And some people have fell for it over the years, but less so than today. It isn't the volume of the content that matters, but how the audience receives it. So yes, helping the audience to receive it better does make a difference, because that personal filter on consumption of media is exactly what is missing.

I'm not claiming that just saying it on a discussion online suffices to make a difference. You need to actually act in real life. I do so by talking about what is going on in the media with my wife and kids, and encouraging them to do the same with their friends. It might be small, but it is something. And enough people making small changes DO solve problems.

Changing education is the best solution but its not a quick solution, people like quick solutions.

This is solid and helpful. Still yet, these days on Facebook it's hard to even discern the real news from the obvious fakes, even after including these tips. For example, yesterday came upon a picture of Tila Tequila doing a Sieg Heil salute in a small crowd of otherwise well-dressed upscale looking types. I did not recognize the source. So I thought a second - do I really need to spend the time to figure out what the heck is going on in this picture? Frankly, I encourage one of you enterprising programmers to make us a chrome or firefox add-in that acts as a rating system that overlays "probability of fake" on stories that look like they may be news.

I remember first becoming aware of "urban legends" maybe a couple of decades ago. One of the interesting things about them, is that they give you some insight into what people are scared of. They evolve and thrive over time by hitting people's emotions in just the right way.

So the message I pick up from this "fake news" is the very real message that some conservative view Democrat voters as criminals (based on them being non-white?) Enough so that a fairly thin rumour alleging the same can go viral.

I'd be interested in a news article that farmed these things and reported back what people are believing on Facebook.

Of course, this requires you to actually want to detect fake news.

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