Then why is Breitbart planning to expand into the French and German markets precisely on the eve of French and German elections? Do we think that these websites themselves actually believe they have no political influence, when they seem to be deliberately operating as ad-fueled propaganda outlets for the far-right?
And don't think I'm just being partisan. If World Socialist Web Site was pulling this stuff I wouldn't be happy either.
Obviously most news outlets will try to influence elections in some way, if they have an editorial stance. And sure, sometimes they may have enough influence to actually shift an election. But "fake news" like "FBI agent murdered by Hillary" or Pizzagate nonsense is a blip on the radar compared to all of the other news sources out there. Those hoax stories probably did not tip the US election at all.
There is nothing partisan about the above observations by eli_gottleib. They are true observations. The forceful assertion that the truth is now partisan is exactly part of the same problem that society now faces. A distorted symmetry of blame means that one side of a debate can act in bad faith and lie constantly and people will line up to call anyone who'd question them "partisan."
From this observation alone, we can't distinguish between (a) Breitbart expanding to pitch its values to voters who don't currently hold them (a political motive), (b) Breitbart expanding to serve its content to voters already favourable to its views (an economic motive), or (c) some combination thereof.
edit: to be clear, I think Bannon continues to use his platform to achieve concrete political, electoral political ends and shouldn't be viewed through the lens of a media corporation's metrics (profitability or audience)
Consider, for example, the fake news which came out of Macedonia this past cycle [1]. We can objectively agree it's crap. We can reasonably disagree as to whether the authors were principally motivated by economic or political carrots.
[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fake-news-macedonia-teen-shows-h...
We disagree on what can be objectively known. I don't think one can know another's internal mind state. Motives exist purely in minds.
Fact: Bannon has spoken and written about these desires. Fact: Breitbar publishes crap. Fact(ish): Breitbart's expansion into Germany will likely have a negative impact on its election quality and sociopolitical stability. Not a fact: what motivates the people at Breitbart to do this.
Part of combatting fake news is basing decisions and discussions around what can be objectively agreed upon.
True, maybe the deepest motive for Bannon's stated strategy is that he wants to angrily reject his father's scorn and through world domination (or at least world destabilization) finally earn his love and thus be able to love himself. But that's not really the subject at hand.
"Fake News" is just rebranded propaganda. Systematically trying to convince the public of lies is bad, regardless of motive. But we can also see clearly the first order motives of the people behind most of this current wave of propaganda even if we can't follow a chain of causality back to the deepest motives of human nature.
Both tell a story of factual event (Obama administration not vetoing a resolution US usually vetoes) and both add opinionated commentary which can't easily (if at all) be verified. Is either of those fake news? I not then you won't catch the thing people complaining about fake news rage about. If yes you are venturing Ministry of Truth territory - state run censorship known all too well for anyone growing up in communist states of Central/Eastern Europe.
But! As a society or a culture, it is smart to make sure whoever participates in your internal and cultural debate is not an outside force and participates in both directions: they should have an editor that has will defend their editorial choices. Somebody that lives in the same country and is part of culture.
This is more about facebook wanting to be both Reddit and the NYT. Either allow it all or have your editioral choices made by a local resident that like a newspaper will be available for questions.
You are just being partisan. The notion that somehow fake news is a thing, that it misleads people, or that it affects elections is ridiculous. It's an excuse for losing an election and avoiding blame.
Fake news has been a part of our media since forever. Go read the tabloids. People enjoy that stuff and that's all it is, entertainment. Would you ban tabloids from newsstands too?
I just don't think the two sides are equivalent here. AFAIK, there is no far-left fake news website with the same revenue or audience numbers as the far-right has right now. The far-right is winning. If you side with them, go ahead and be happy, but I don't think I've said anything false by merely noting that they're succeeding in their stated goals of making money and spreading their views.
>Fake news has been a part of our media since forever. Go read the tabloids. People enjoy that stuff and that's all it is, entertainment. Would you ban tabloids from newsstands too?
I'm not advocating banning anything. I'm advocating that ordinary journalistic standards should apply to anything which markets itself as journalism.
I think you are very wrong about "far right" or even "right" winning. People vote for them more often than in the past because their narrative resonates with what people find important at this point in time but they don't get anywhere close to fair share of media, let alone win.
Why is this a competition you want to win? Seems like a race to the bottom.
> I'm advocating that ordinary journalistic standards should apply to anything which markets itself as journalism.
There are no universal "journalistic standards". There are standard to which specific outlets hold themselves to and that's great, but that's hardly an argument to holding others to the same standard.
I have no expectation that The Sun holds itself to the same standard as The New York Times and frankly, I wouldn't want them to.
Who said I want to win?
>There are no universal "journalistic standards". There are standard to which specific outlets hold themselves to and that's great, but that's hardly an argument to holding others to the same standard.
Well, if I might put forward a positive program, I think that publishing falsehoods under cover of journalism, in a way that harms people's lives, should be a civil offense which the victim can sue for. Let the lawyers duke it out in court: not every case will be ruled the right way, but being sued is itself a penalty that will discourage sleaze.
We already have a moral standard for when "fake" speech stops being free: when it is both false and harmful. I don't think we'll destroy the freedom of Western societies by expanding that to cover, "both bullshit and harmful", and we'll deter quite a lot of genuine harm.