Russian Agents Are Not Behind Every Piece of Fake News You See
fortune.com
fortune.com
It is hard not to feel very cynical about the sudden post-election focus that large media outlets are putting on 'fake news'. I think it is mostly an attempt to discredit alternative media and reinforce the establishment / government narrative.
Imagine the glee in mainstream news if FB GOOG would mainly surface the news of the NYT, WaPo, FoxNews, etc.
It just means that they need to have content that has gone through some editorial process and isn't just made up.
Anyway, I'd rather let adults be adults and not "protected" from bad words and bad ideas. Let the market place of ideas provide a forum for debate.
False information and hate speech should be downgraded, even banned, when it's done to be shared with millions of people and it can lead to actions that are not beneficial to society in general.
Let adults be adults is fine enough, but I don't understand why people should be allowed on disseminate verifiably false information. If it's the state control that bothers you, make a democratic system to flag it. It's sill better than allowing FB and Google to give you what their algorithms say keep you using their service.
Take a look at Walter Lippmann.
I think an issue we have with getting news from places like FB is that (I think) it will often show news or stories which you probably align with politically or reinforce your views (leading to increased polarization). Compare that to how we used to get our news from papers or the TV were we couldn't control the programming.
As an example. Some random guy tweets that CNN showed Porn instead of an Anthony Bourdain show. Based on nothing else Daily Mail, Esquire, GQ, Fox News had articles up immediately giving the claim legitimacy and a massive audience in the tens of millions. Of course it never happened. This isn't on some spectrum of different opinions. This is a flat out lie, that was never fact checked by seemingly reputable companies that suddenly became true.
The fact is that because of Twitter and Facebook and the financial importance of being first to the punch the integrity of news is slowly but surely going down the toilet. So yes the fake news epidemic is real, serious and very much a new phenomenon (because media companies rely more and more on internet revenue).
The current propaganda over fake news is solely about the Trump election result and attempting to install a form of censorship & control over information either directly (outlaw 'fake news' via political content controls or similar) or indirectly (get FB/Google/Twitter to shut down distribution, which they're thrilled to do) to prevent that from ever happening again.
They brought these problems on to themselves by trying to play fast and loose with journalism in the first place, now they get played and are feeling a bit upset and want some payback.
Fake news are created by news spammers and propaganda organizations. These guys do it on purpose, for cynical reasons. They won't stop, so we need to filter them out.
What is needed is a blacklist and a way to collaborate in fact-checking. I often seek Wikipedia for news for this reason - it tends to be more fact checked and complete.
After a news piece has been tested and found fake, then we need to apply machine learning to quickly identify all clones of that news floating around (this is easier that the original problem of detecting if they are fake).
So basically the internet needs an immune system.
As long as entities exist that distribute news and there's a chance of some fuckery the loser (or presumptive loser) will scream foul play. As to whether or not it's happening? I dunno, maybe?
Two good rules of thumb - and this goes for established media outlets - when reading an article.
A. Follow the links that writers include in their articles.
Example: Well the article above. But this is how bad it is: Currently the WP's most popular article is titled 'Americans keep looking away from the election’s most alarming story' which includes the line "Trump reveled in information gained from...“fake news” stories that evidence suggests (link) were generated by Russian intelligence operation". Well, if you click that link there is zero evidence, just an article from 'geektime.com' (who?) asking 'Could Russia be behind US election-based fake news on Facebook?'.
This is incredibly disingenuous.
B. Read the comments.
Example: Just go to the comments on any article on The Economist or The Guardian and you'll almost always find high quality addenda that either refute or add context to the article being commented on. Perhaps it's the limited number of media outlets in Europe, or just the nature of our media, but there's a high level of healthy dissent below-the-line that I don't see on The NYT, WP etc.
This assumes, of course, that people care about the truth. Yet critical thinking may be futile against a firehose of information and this trait of human psychologically: many people value how they feel over the truth and so will be biased towards 'news' that fulfills that role.
It's not fearless critical reporting they're after, but rather a bubble of moral affirmation.
Nothing like the loan given to the National Front in France anyway.
The comments are often worse than the article itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_brigades
As vacuous as fake news but a lot less divisive.*
* Well, unless you're not a cat person that is.
Don't know about WP, but NYT has a "Readers' Picks" tab in its comments section, which was consistently very critical of NYT throughout the election cycle, especially their one-sided coverage of Clinton and Sanders campaigns. At times, it was quite surreal -- the tone and substance of most upvoted comments were in stark difference with the actual article.
The news media is to a certain extent peer reviewed. Although perhaps not the the extent that scientific papers are but actually non-opinion news media does hold itself to certain standards. These may including correcting factual errors, attempting to contact both/all sides for comments, or if they use anonymous sources if they state a reason why they are anonymous. Furthermore the actual news media should always have the opinion section marked as opinion (which you should generally steer clear of).
Another example which is often brought up is "bias". However actual bias is extremely difficult to prove. Opinion pieces don't count towards bias since they should be under a (labeled) opinion section.
There are courses that deal with news literacy[1] that are probably taught around the country but this is just one example that I'm familiar with.
[1] http://www.centerfornewsliteracy.org/ (SUNY @ Stony Brook)
Actually it is extremely easy. It is easy to tell if an article has an angle or as not, by the choices of word and expressions. For instance, let's take the immigration crisis in Europe. Whether a media chose to call immigrants "illegal immigrants" or "asylum seekers" denoted bias in one direction or another. So left-wing media called them "asylum seekers" because they wanted to paint them in a good way, while right-wing media called them "illegal immigrants" to paint them in a negative way.
Now calling something "fake news" is biased too. All news are fabricated to an extent. "fake news" basically means , "news that don't come from an established source", it's new speak for unsanctioned news, to make it look like trusted news can only come from the NYT, Wapo and co ... it is extremely dishonest, since these media are propaganda organs.
> Opinion pieces don't count towards bias since they should be under a (labeled) opinion section.
Journalists are activists. Whether they write opinion pieces or not. The easiest way to tell facts from opinion is to take multiple sources opposed politically, and compare what they have in common and in which way they differ. Facts may be inferred that way. Off course it gets harder when the media choose not to report events because it contradicts the narrative they are pushing, and we all saw the result in the latest election. They can't blame "fake news" yet suppress information when it doesn't fit their narrative.
So obviously i'm not a journalist, but you could say I'm biased against MSM. More accurately I don't give them the benefit of the doubt just because they are professionals.
This is a bit extreme. Activist implies that the journalist is actively pursuing a biased agenda. There are journalists who strive to pursue a largely objective take as much as possible, acknowledging that there will always be some bias due to human nature.
When I'm talking about bias it's something which would not be provable based on one article. I'm talking about something which would span multiple years and many articles. That kind of bias is very difficult to prove.
> Now calling something "fake news" is biased too.
Do not conflate non-mainstream news sources with news which has been completely fabricated. These are two completely different things. Furthermore I would argue that the mainstream news media holds itself to certain journalistic standards that a random internet blog may not.
> NYT, Wapo and co ... it is extremely dishonest, since these media are propaganda organs.
Using the term "propaganda organs" makes me think you believe them to be biased sources? What exactly makes their news articles badly written?
> The easiest way to tell facts from opinion is to take multiple sources opposed politically
A good news article will already include multiple sources and try and have both points of view.
I think something which is increasingly becoming a problem is people getting their only news from online sources which they agree with or align with politically. This is different from how we consumed news media in the past since we couldn't control what was in the paper or on the TV (and is probably what has led to the increased polarization in politics).
Sounds like an interesting ML project.
The build up to the Iraq war is a perfect example of how these august, mainstream news organizations were rendered to be mouthpieces of the then ruling administration. Another example is the NYT constant villification of Edward Snowden.
I agree with you in principle that Google, Facebook, et al do have a serious problem. The revenue models incentivize getting the maximum number of clicks and this leads to clickbait articles and outright lies posed as reputable stories targeted towards those of a certain political persuasion. This model should be changed.
However, the various proposals being bandied about would effectively elevate traditional media outlets to the status of true gatekeepers of news and re-centralize power into their hands.
Its not helpful criteria, because according to it any media is biased. I agree with idea of unavoidable bias. One cannot speak unbiased. But this idea devalue the concept of "bias" and makes it useless. This idea moves us from binary black and white views (biased/unbiased) to unary gray, where everything share the same gray color of bias. Therefore this idea is destructive one, it reduces acutness of our mind.
Such an idea have an official name, its fallacy of gray: http://lesswrong.com/lw/mm/the_fallacy_of_gray/
> The easiest way to tell facts from opinion is to take multiple sources opposed politically, and compare what they have in common and in which way they differ. Facts may be inferred that way.
You have switched problem, while discussing "fake news". The problem is not ability of truth seeker to infer facts. Problem is inability of the most ppl cope with loads of contradictory data. This problem becomes more urgent because of fake news -- the news that spreads lies. This problem can grow to a level when skilled truth seeker would lose his ability to infer facts. To see clearly and to be able to infer facts you need some solid ground of stable views, but when everything can be a lie and you cannot see no single certain truth, you would lose ability to think. You know, I'm russian and I had passed through such an experience a few years ago when propaganda struck especially hard. Moreover being a teenager I constantly was at such a state and had no ability to infer facts because at 90th the soviet truths was happily destroyed but democratic truths appeared to be a leaky cover for a corruption. There was no single word of truth.
Fake news is a problem, because they create a great ocean of lies with small spreaded islands of truth in it. Ppl would get lost in this ocean and would stop believing into anything. Even sight of the land near the horizon they would call a "mirage" or "illusion", being unable to see difference beetwing a truth and a lie. They would laugh at you, if you try to persuade them that "illusion" is not an illusion, they would think that either you are lying, or just have no enough life experience to stop believing in mirages.
One needs a criteria which is able to differenciate information to truth and lies. Such a criteria could be a nominal scale (aristotelian true/false) or ratio scale (like bayesian reasoning use), but the scale is not have such an importance as existence of criteria does.
A little offtop, but nevertheless... I think Putin have such a popularity in Russia because he have created stable Truth. Yes, from outside this truth doesn't look true, but from inside it is true. This Truth makes world (as ppl see it) stable, predictable and ppl likes Putin for this stability. Fake news will not make americans to seek such a stability, but thay have power to move americans one step toward seeking. Ohm, they already moved: we speak now about pluses and minuses of censorship, that can bring some certainty to news industry.
Well, yes and no. An "asylum seeker" is someone fleeing a threat to their lives, e.g. a warzone, famine etc. The Dublin Convention holds that they claim asylum in the first safe country. An "illegal immigrant" is someone who enters a country, well, illegally, for any reason.
So let's say we have someone who flees Syria and ends up in France, a safe country. He or she is an "asylum seeker". Now let's say he breaks into the back of a lorry and crosses the Channel to England. He is now an "illegal immigrant". But it is the same person...
Between Syria and France there is a least 10 safe countries. it's perfectly reasonable to call that person an illegal alien at that point,which the left-wing media refused to do because they deemed it "dehumanizing". That's why I'm talking about activism. That's not journalism.
I wouldn't be too sure about that.
The stories of fake science publish in "reputable" journals are too many to enumerate here, and probably do as much, or more, damage to our collective knowledge as fake-thing on the "news" this evening at six.
The unpalatable truth is that the check and balance of peer review has repeatedly been shown to be ineffectual, and has been subverted and circumvented.[1]
1. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/wh...
No. There is something called truth. Did it rain yesterday or did it not? What was the temperature last week? These are things that are scientifically true or not true and yet over the last election cycle these facts were up for "debate". I don't mean climate change. They argued about whether it was hot or cold on a specific day at a specific place.
The weather is easy. Where the grey areas start are with things like budgets. Did a particular department spend more or less this year that last? Such statements would seem objectively true or untrue yet we saw grown men and women fight for years, one side seeing surplus and the other deficit. In the middle is an accountant who knows the objective truth, the real story from the fake news. When the accountant comes forward, that story is then slotted into real or fake. If there are never any objectively true or untrue facts, why do we even bother talking?
It's true to report that earthlings tend to earn more than martians. I could use that fact from the study to form the basis of a totally factual story that goes completely against the study itself. My readers will come away thinking discrimination happens in earthlings' favor instead of against them. Totally true facts can support a totally false conclusion, depending on presentation.
> McLuhan's central thesis, encapsulated in the famous phrase "the medium is the message", was that the technologies through which we take in information - the media, broadly defined - become "extensions" of our bodies, exerting a profound influence over us. When an important new medium arrives, it can reshape who we are as individuals and as a society. [1]
> Electric media, being cool technologies that promote interaction, would bring back our lost tribal consciousness, McLuhan believed. But our tribes would no longer be small, isolated groups. Because the new media spanned the planet, we would become members of a "global village". [1]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/nov/01/comment.i...
This is a rag that has been a sock puppet for the DNC since forever.
Healthy scepticism is a life skill. More so now when rumours can spread globally in seconds. The solution is not control but education and discernment. Our prejudices and current knowledge often determine to a large degree what we more easily believe.
The traditional media is not only losing reach but also its power to 'shape and influence events' ie propaganda and in desperation the 'free press' has been reduced to the sorry state of seeking 'official source of truth status'. Sort of like a ministry of truth.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/russian-propaganda-effor...
Edit: a few more
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/11/25/reports-russia...
http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/25/13746250/us-election-russ...
http://www.seattlepi.com/business/technology/article/Report-...
Talk about playing to people's biases...
EDIT: I'm retarded.
For some reason it is being argued that google's (and facebook's) algorithms, which obviously must rank their results, should not take accuracy into account at all.
The value of google is exactly proportional to the accuracy of its results, not its random interspersing of fabrications. If I want insane conspiracy theories I can always take 3 seconds to type bullshit.com in the url line.
And ironically, somehow observations like this one are ruthlessly down voted by defenders of free speech.
The discovery that social media, as currently implemented, is in the process of annihilating rational discourse is the single most important discovery of this election cycle. Possibly of the last decade.
Even now, because of this problem, there is no longer agreement on many basic facts. The notion that a people so polarized on basic truths will ever be able to function together democratically is what is utterly naive. Under such circumstances, ultimately one side will have to force its view of reality on the other.
Indeed it may not be a coincidence that the sudden success of extremists parties in the west, driving voters to vote so conspicuously against their own self interest, corresponds almost exactly to the emergence of social media in general and facebook in particular.
What is naive is the belief that truth will somehow win out when the bulk of mankind sees the world predominantly through a facebook feed that explicitly selects for spectacular self confirming nonsense algorithmicly suppressing anything unpleasant to know.
Social media has created a kind of nervous system which amplifies and spreads fears and foolishness. Yes, this is a problem that we should address. (Perhaps allowing interpersonal communications to be dominated by a handful of companies was not the best idea.)
What is naive is to solve this problem by putting the determination of truth and falsehood in the hands of a centralized authority.
Absolutely. Especially since tabloid like self confirming facile nonsense has broader user retention and thus profitability than difficult or subtle factual information.
>What is naive is to solve this problem by putting the determination of truth and falsehood in the hands of a centralized authority.
Indeed that would be catastrophic. But the ordering of the facebook timeline is intentionally emphasizing self confirming propagandistic nonsense: We already live in a highly propagandized facebook steam. Just remove that (highly profitable) bias from the algorithm.
>Disagreements on basic facts are not new.
Now however it is far worse, indeed essentially nonexistent. As a result the width of the division has grown enormously in the last 10 years. In the, US for example, the vast majority of counties are now either landslide red or landslide blue. The most polarized since the civil war. And there has never been this level of overt hostility to science at the top of the political ladder.
On the larger scale, it is a mistake to think that the experiment of enlightenment democracy that is only present in a minority of countries and in those, only for a fraction of history, is somehow permanent and can somehow endure when the public no longer has access to accurate information. Indeed, nascent democracies are already being snuffed out one by one.
We agree on the problem, just not the solution.
Let's consider two sub-problems. First, the advertising-based business model benefits from compulsive behavior and engaging, viral content. The most engaging content is not always the most true, and the second problem: some of it is entirely fabricated.
Put these two parts together and you get the current situation. Now we see many crocodile tears shed over the fact that the second problem spread so much untrue content that it may have swung the election. Whether that's realistic or not, it creates an excellent opportunity to establish an authority that determines which stories are true, or how true a story is. Who wouldn't want that job? What a way to make a difference. So we have this:
> Under such circumstances, ultimately one side will have to force its view of reality on the other.
And what better way to do that than by establishing a ministry of truth. (Whether established by the government or private enterprise is practically immaterial.) But might it be worth stepping back for a moment first?
If the only way democracy can work is by the elite directly controlling the perception of truth, then what is it that democracy still offers?
> Just remove that (highly profitable) bias from the algorithm.
Sell that to the shareholders! "Engagement is down but our metrics show the electorate is slightly better informed due to our efforts this quarter." So here you get at the first problem, which is that Facebook's monetization is directly at odds with many of the things that people should be doing to make a democracy work, such as getting off Facebook, reading a history book, engaging with their neighbors, and so on. Of course nobody is talking about solving this, because none of the solutions to this problem allow anyone to amass money or power.
Thank you! This has been weighing on my mind ever since the fakenews meme has infected HN, I just haven't been able to express it constructively. It seems that admitting any common ground feels like surrender in the current political climate. It would be great if we could start from this statement and look for some workable, agreeable solution.
Basically, it is a next level of jamming techniques used against western radio stations in old times - active trolling instead of passive jamming, using paid people instead of dumb noise generators.
What Russians developed is very efficient (optimized, if you wish) set of methods to manipulate the minds of idiots, to implant naive, unverified (and unquestioned by wast majority of idiots) assumptions and false premises, in forms of emotionally charged but primitive memes (textual or graphical) - "Shillary will start WW3". Fucking degenerates.
In the same way all the Russian media propaganda is organized nowadays - meme-like framed "news", tailored to the vocabulary and mentality of uneducated, primitive majority, along with marketing-like targeting. You do not have to have a PhD to do that.
What happened is that almost everyone else nowadays are re-using these simple ready-made methods. All this is nothing but virus-like meme contagion, plus applied manipulative psychology of advertising on internet scale. That's all. No KGB agents or anything like that.
How a third-world, corruption-ridden country with stagnant economy could be so powerful? It obviously wasn't. The cause is these "information viruses" (memes) spreading through human stupidity. Russians didn't invent them, of course, only used on a large scale.
This fake news meme is so boring by now. The mainstream media try to blame others for their falure to manipulate the people in a direction desired by the elites, but actually nowadays mainstream media is no better than the fake news sources.
If we keep repeating this message enough, include it on everything from t-shirts, billboards to radio and tv ads (maybe even handing out steep discounts at stores everywhere if you have people regurgitate some of the websites to not visit from the very reputable list that the extremely unbiased and trustworthy Jeff Bezos' Washington Post has helped distribute recently), everyone will eventually come around, the world will be saved and everything everyone dead or alive has ever wished for will come true.