Inside a Fake News Factory: ‘This Is All About Income’ | Hacker News Reader

Inside a Fake News Factory: ‘This Is All About Income’

nytimes.com

39 pointsmy_first_acct43 comments

This whole war on fake news thing bothers me. It leads to giving unprecedented power to private corporations in controlling what people are able to see and hear.

The other thing is that the US media is far from perfect as well. I can point to plenty of articles in the BBC, NYT, the Economist and WaPo that are classified as News--not OpEds--that ignore science, are politically motivated, and would loosely qualify as "fake news," or at least OpEds.

During the election cycle, I know a lot of people that were personally very turned off by the DNC corruption, yet US media coverage was scarce. When I type "DNC corruption" into Google and DuckDuckGo, there are no results on the first page from major media outlets. When I search site:nytimes.com "DNC Corruption" the first result is from 1860. The second is "Can we trust Julian Assange...?" I could keep going, but the point is, this is terrifying.

Censorship by private corporations and government is not the answer.

> It leads to giving unprecedented to private corporations in controlling what people are able to see and hear.

You don't know much about Rupert Murdoch or Hearst, do you?

What did the grandparent post say that indicates ignorance of Murdoch or Hearst? If anything I'd suspect the opposite.

Thanks for that. I am aware of who they are.

Ok so AFAIK what you are trying to say is that corporations, as well as media moguls, already have power in controlling what people say and hear. It's true that is already a problem. So why don't we try to stop it from getting worse?

The fact is the trend is towards people digesting news through filters such as Twitter, Facebook and Google. I don't want to see private corporations have unprecedented control in censoring the perceived choice of consumers in what they see and hear.

The war on fake news is lending to a theme towards censorship. I think most people are aware most news is already produced by a few major media corporations. I don't want to live in a world where everything else is considered "fake."

I get the abstract argument against censorship, but I think the 'fake news' in these discussions is fairly clearly defined as news that's made up from nothing (and isn't opinion). There is some element of "I know it when I see it," but I think it's possible to be fairly objective. I'm sure Facebook et cetera won't want to be accused of censoring something that turns out to be a real news story.

Moreover, my understanding is that Google and Facebook already censor what consumers see based on what their data suggests they will like (or what will generate greater ad views/clicks/whatever).

It seems to me that the real problem isn't that aggregators may "censor" news, it's the suggestion that there's nothing to be done about it. Surely consumers can just read the NY Times or whatever sources they trust instead of relying solely on social media. The problem might be apathy or lack of free time or lack of critical thinking, but I don't think it's Facebook and Google trying to stop fake news from spreading on their networks.

The NYT broke the story on Clinton's email scandal, and followed it continuously, long past other media outlets and to the point where it was getting criticized because the vast majority of its coverage of Clinton was dedicated to a single scandal to the exclusion of much other newsworthy reporting it could have done.

Your failure to use the right search terms is not evidence of media bias.

"clinton email scandal" != "dnc corruption"

Also, your last sentence would be apropos had we been given GP's search terms and you rebutted with a set of terms that did indeed give the desired results.

Wow. The DNC corruption scandal began in summer of 2016 and involves Debbie Wasserman Schultz being removed from her position as DNC chair over the evident corruption with, "how to deal with Bernie Sanders" popularity (the DNC should be neutral actor).

Clinton's use of a private email server began in spring 2015.

They are related, but hardly not even the same thing.

Thanks for that comment about using the right search terms. I'll try to use "the right search terms" next time. /s

> Censorship by private corporations and government is not the answer.

You yourself complain about lack of reporting about an issue, lack of truth, and then you go on to celebrate the spreading of lies? Fake news are basically just lies so opposing them is to spread truths, and to call efforts to spread truth "censorship" is 1984 logic.

Also, as I'm sure others will point out, FB and google already arbitrarily restrict content on their platforms so there is nothing "unprecedented" about it. There really isn't much of a case that filtering fake news is different banning from Simpsons clips or music remixes.

I think the words you are looking for are Double Speak when you refer to "1984 logic." Anyways, the fact that there will be people who might say something stupid is not reason to further restrict the right to free speech.

You can actually use that as a litmus test for free speech: There will always be stupid, awful, and racist people, and if they don't exist you know they lost their right to free speech.

I'd rather be free from tyranny than have a few bad apples--either way we're going to have the bad apples anyways.

It is actually unprecedented. Clips from the Simpsons being banned may have been banned on broadcast TV, but it does not mean someone could not upload that clip to Youtube (you do get the point, don't go into some strawman argument about copyright laws).

1860? What are you talking about?

> site:nytimes.com DNC Corruption

> Debbie Wasserman Schultz to Resign DNC Post - The New York Times (Jul 24, 2016)

> D.N.C. Hack Raises a Frightening Question: What's Next? - The New ... (Jul 29, 2016)

> Released Emails Suggest the D.N.C. Derided the Sanders Campaign ... (Jul 22, 2016)

> After Lying Low, Deep-Pocketed Clinton Donors Return to the Fore ... (Jul 28, 2016)

Perhaps this is fake? Perhaps not. Who controls that? http://vigilantcitizen.com/vigilantreport/pizzagate-4chan-un...

Media claims its fake: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/pizzagate-shows-how-...

Just because they play both sides of the field doesn't add credulity to the objectivity of their coverage.

I am so jaded to believe that both sides pay them for coverage. Either in money or political favors.

The weird thing is, it doesn't seem to have affected the election at all. From the article:

> He set up a website, posted gushing stories about Hillary Clinton and waited for ad sales to soar. “I don’t know why, but it did not work,” said the student, Beqa Latsabidze, 22, who was savvy enough to change course when he realized what did drive traffic: laudatory stories about Donald J. Trump that mixed real — and completely fake — news in a stew of anti-Clinton fervor.

> But he, too, discovered that writing about Mr. Trump was a “gold mine.”

> “It’s all Trump,” Mr. Egan said by telephone. “People go nuts for it.”

Is it possible fake Trump news was the result, and not the cause, of Trump's appeal to the American people ? There's more in the paragraphs below that makes one think this is the case.

I tried the same search with DuckDuckGo and got the same results as what I posted.

You'll note that those results all start appearing in July - after the DNC shoved Sanders out of the race. When the corruption was relevant, the "reputable" media was silent.

I think that bad establishment news and "fake news" being relevant at the same time isn't a coincidence. The lack of trust in the establishment news sources opens a market for alternatives. However working outside the establishment is inherently the Wild West, so what you're going to get may well be even worse on average. But it's very important to keep around because some of it will be much better for certain topics, and it'll at least keep the establishment in check.

Exactly. I'd be worried if sources like The Real News Network or The Intercept got erroneously lumped in with "fake news".

Has the intercept been labeled fake news? I knew greenwald had harsh criticisms of the american media.

No, they haven't. I'm just responding to the parent post saying that I hope they don't get caught up in the storm and labeled as such.

'Fake News' is not an 'alternative'. It's literally fake.

'Pope endorses Trump' - fake.

'Trump molested three children from Texas' - fake.

'Americans invade Canada' - fake.

There's a problem with 'actual fake news' not just 'biased news'.

CNN - despite it's bias - is still mostly a decent news site.

Go to CNN.com, Fox.com, MSNBC.com - and look at ALL of the links. It's mostly just boring, factual news.

I acknowledge that. The problem is that at the fringes there's news that will be labeled as fake by some and not others. If that stuff gets censored that's a huge problem to me, to the point that I'll accept the clearly fake news, while we think of a better way to deal with it.

Gee why are you completely ignoring what the article is about??

I remember a certain criticism of Trump's: "build a wall and make Mexico pay for it," campaign. So the argument went that Trump's phrasing cleverly drew attention from whether or not building a wall was a good idea, and created redirected discussion to a straw man argument about whether Mexico should pay for it.

Right now the media coverage appears as: "fake news is _____ insert headline," like "motivated by profit," is the focus of the article. It's the same as Trump's clever phrasing: What is assumed is that there exists this problem with fake news, and it's bad. The debate has been shifted about why fake news exists, or what to do about fake news, the debate in the media was never about "is it right to try to suppress fake news, or does that lead us down a slippery slope?" Same tactic. Don't fall for it. Clearly the big media corporations have not just political pressure (which is undisputed) but a very obvious profit motive behind squashing out alternative news.

This may be a cynical take on things, but it seems to me that the 'fake news factories' figured out that the core product of a political website is confirmation of existing beliefs, then 'unbundled' it from everything else.

This is exactly how Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer designed their news products 100 years ago.

Well, political news have had a pseudo-legitimate form of this for a long time: opinion and comment sections.

Completely fabricated news is a step up, though.

Unbundled from reality. Tied to profit.

It's an environment where they can rapidly iterate on what the most "click-worthy" stories are and dial in the content to meet audience expectations.

This is worse than the pure sugar being fed by useless news organizations like CNN where their coverage has almost zero informational value. This is like heroin where it's actively feeding wild misconceptions.

I find it funny how globalism is leaking back into the US in unexpected ways; who would have thought twenty years ago that a Georgian citizen would take flak for derailing a US election by producing pulp news? It was always supposed to be the American eagle spreading its freedom to the world who gratefully welcomed it with praise, they weren't actually supposed to influence the US back!

Some geopolitical irony here. Georgia has been trying join NATO; President Trump will quite possibly recognize Georgia as being in the Russian sphere of influence.

"It was always supposed to be the American eagle spreading its freedom to the world who gratefully welcomed it with praise, they weren't actually supposed to influence the US back! "

They can 'influence' back as long as it's reasonable.

Articles like: 'Hillary and Trump have secret sexual encounter' is not 'news' and not any kind of positive influence.

> It's an environment where they can rapidly iterate on what the most "click-worthy" stories are and dial in the content to meet audience expectations.

Ha! That literally describes most websites... including some factors in the Google ranking algorithm. I guess that's what happens when damn-near every website on earth optimizes for user engagement.

If you see that much of a difference, you weren't being cynical enough.

Surprise! All for-profit companies exist with making money as the highest priority. As idealistic software engineers we're programmed to think of everything as a mission, but as soon as you look higher at most post-investment companies you'll see it's about money even if leadership doesn't believe that itself. There may be an ideological honey moon period but as soon as there's a bump/loss in confidence cash is king without fail. One counter example is a bootstrapped solo entity because there is no external authority/commitment to maximize shareholder value for anyone else, so they can burn money if they want.

A good way to confirm this in job interviews is to bring up B Corps in response to the founding/mission part of the pitch and watch them say it just hasn't been a priority. A B Corp is a certified for-profit company with a mission built in beyond quarter-over-quarter growth. If they really believe in their mission they should certify as a B Corp, if they're not and they're hiring with recruiters--implies some level of cash on hand, readiness to grow--it's lip service. I should note this isn't a deal breaker if they can pay, I just like to know who I am working with. In time I'd like to prefer employment from B Corps.

It looks like the 'real news' is going to go down with the ship because the only response they have to discretization of there reporting is to double down on there false narrative.

I stopped reading mainstream media and watching TV many years ago because I consider 80% of what they report to be misleading, misinformation and yes 'fake news'.

The corporate media has finally lost the ability to control the public discourse. That was the only real value they still had to the handful of oligarchs that own them.

Nazi Frogs, Russian hackers, Fake news factories and what ever else they come up with next is not going to save them.

So how is this different from say SNL perpetuating the false notion that Sarah Palin said she could see Russia from her house? Call it satire and you're free to propagandize all you want. Only after the anointed candidate of the power lost, must we examine the means by which propaganda (specifically that we find unfavorable) is disseminated. Fake news is the crop you reap when you show mass censorship. Trying to double down on the censorship will only hasten your irrelevance.

It's almost as if satire isn't propaganda at all. Weird, that.

Well, how is this different from the old supermarket tabloids? I vividly remember bat boy.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Boy_(character)

So, real-world Onion News?

Just a different kind of spammers. News spammers.

True enough, but the damage is more nebulous and potentially greater. Also, will bag of words work well for news?

No, no, today we use bidirectional LSTMs with word embeddings. They work so much better.

'Fake News' took our jobs!

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