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Comment by 3131s | Hacker News Reader

'Fake news' is as old as humanity itself and there is no reason to prefer this new term to simply 'false information' or something similar. As another poster said, this current rash of articles is pushing the idea that there is a binary distinction between fake and real news, when in reality we already have a rich vocabulary to discuss the nuanced spectrum between truth and falsehood, e.g. misinformation, disinformation, black / white / grey propaganda, selective exposure, fallacy, rumor, hyperbole, euphemism / dysphemism, limited hangout, dog whistling, spin / framing, FUD, bias, etc.

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.

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To me it seems that traditional media is taking this opportunity to make their case with Google/Facebook that they are the sole/main providers of "real" news and that others are less reputable. And this is just a way to re-establish their pedigree as canonical sources for news to the detriment of alternative news sources --including of course the inflated purveyors of "fake news" who are not the real targets. The actual targets being anyone not associated with an institutional news organization [your local news, independent news, bloggers, etc].

Imagine the glee in mainstream news if FB GOOG would mainly surface the news of the NYT, WaPo, FoxNews, etc.

They should only surface news from reputable companies. And that doesn't mean those companies have to be giants like Fox or NYT.

It just means that they need to have content that has gone through some editorial process and isn't just made up.

As a practical matter how do you ensure that without a process to vet every single source that wishes to publish news? This makes it harder for someone to enter the market and makes it possible for arbitrary or stilted rules to be imposed by the gatekeepers on a whim.

In principle, that's definitely an issue. In practice, we don't have that problem at all (certainly not since Facebook fired their "trending" editorial department). Maybe we should try to optimize for solving the problem we have (fake news) and worry about the barriers to entry / rule-imposition by gatekeepers when they actually arise?

That's a very dangerous proposition, and one that makes state (or corporate) control of speech normalized. I personally don't think that should be the first option explored as a solution. Perhaps "real" news sources should spend more effort educating people on how they provide a superior product. Explain that all news sources aren't the same... make sure that sinks in to people. Of course that will mean they'll have to spend a little less time covering the Kardashian's.

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.

Speech is already controlled by corporate interests, you're just not noticing it because the claims are its done "to fit your preferences". Whether that's true or not, or really is it to fit your preferences or to keep you longer using their services (do angry users use FB more often?) you can't tell. The algorithm to control speech is already in place, but the results are completely self serving for FB. What we're arguing for is to consider whether the current solution is a net benefit to society.

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.

It was the marketplace that made fake news possible. Traditional news always had its checks in place and they did a fairly good job upholding those. Even Google News follows quality guidelines[0]. It's no coincidence that fake news websites targeted Facebook because they knew there is no such vetting there.

0: https://support.google.com/news/publisher/answer/40787

Well traditional news media is peer reviewed to a certain extent and will publish corrections.

Then what is the problem? Why is it that grown adults have a hard time respecting the traditional news media more than random sources? That's the crux of the issue that needs to be explored rather than reactionary authoritarianism.

Human psychology is easily manipulated, and you're seeing that happen right now. Whoever controls the information controls the masses. The Internet is being weaponised by every major large interest in the World - nation states, big oil, climate activists. Progressive folks got here first, but now everyone is using it, and frighteningly enough people like Steve Bannon are really really good at it.

Take a look at Walter Lippmann.

And why are you convinced this bid to control the news is not part of that weaponizing process; maybe you're inadvertently helping them. "They" may just be seeking cover under the idea that adults are too easily manipulated to trust their abilities to sort fact from fiction.

Adults are easily manipulated.

Peer review and corrections are indeed important, but many have lost respect for traditional news media due to the selective reporting that they feel pushes a certain narrative.

I believe your comment is spot on mate. "Traditional" news media may even "lie less" than the average political blogger and the likes, but they have an army of competent communication boffins who know how to extract whatever conclusion they want from any possible fact. Also their oldest trick is simply selective reporting, which allows any individual piece of new to pass even the most strict peer reviewing, while retaining some neat control over what data will be used by their viewers when formin their opinions.

Well you can at least argue that traditional news media does hold itself to certain journalistic standards (I'm talking news articles, not opinion pieces).

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.

WE couldn't control the content. But do we even know who was controlling what should be shown/investigated/high lined or not? Or what makes a "credible" font?

Recall too that before the election republicans were all whooping and hollering about how facebook was purposefully censoring pro-Trump and anti-Clinton stories.

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?

The problem is that even just returning from the search bubble and echo chambers can create quite that impression- suddenly there is lots of new i dont like- thus it must be falsified.

This is such nonsense. What is happening now is unprecedented.

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).

It's a new phenomenon for someone to tell a lie and have it spread like wildfire? The internet might enable both the truth and lies to spread faster, but I don't see it as something fundamentally new.

Yes it is a new phenomenon. Because of Facebook and Twitter fake news can reach tens of millions of diverse people in seconds. Please explain when in history this has otherwise been the case. And remember we aren't just talking about one off examples here. We are talking about a constant barrage of completely fake news.

Even what you're referring to has been around for at least 15 years, the internet is not exactly new anymore. I don't disagree with you that the spread of false information is a problem, it's more that I deeply disagree with the tone and proposed solutions within most of these articles about 'fake news'. I would like to utilize the corresponding ability of the internet to rapidly disseminate truth as a way to combat falsehood, and to me this entails building open, distributed discussion platforms where both anonymity and verified identities are possible.

Drudge or CNN have been capable of spreading 'fake news' to tens of millions via the Web in the US for 15 or more years.

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.

When Trump is finished with the US you'll understand why people are panicking.

When "fake news" is finished in the US you'll understand why people are panicking.

Propaganda (barrage of fake news) predates the newspaper and certainly predates Facebook.

It used to be these "reputable" organizations used to have reporters investigate, and do a story. Then came citizen news and they'd report on what someone reported to them without sending an actual journalist to establish basic facts. So you had these organizations trying to scoop each other without getting or trying to get any facts whatsoever just to get something up first. And now you have people essentially "news-swatting" them.

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.

I don't think the problem is that "citizen news" are not fact checked, because generally, citizens don't create fake news, and when something is worth reporting, there are multiple distinct reports.

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.

To summarize your argument: people lack critical thinking skills, therefore we need an Internet-wide censorship system.

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