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Comment by redsummer | Hacker News Reader

I was about to write the same thing. Many articles have fake information.

For instance, someone might edit an article to say that a person was a known political extremist. Someone else might write an article (not on Wikipedia) saying the same thing (after having read the Wikipedia article). Years later, if the information is questioned on Wikipedia, then editors will add a reference to the off-wiki article, and everyone will be happy. Circular fake news, with truth going down the plughole. The entropic heat death of information.

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With the widespread adoption of the term "fake news", I'm wondering what you mean by "fake information" as opposed to wrong, or false, or mistaken, or in more subtle cases, from a different perspective (think "freedom fighter" vs "terrorist"). "fake" to me implies purposeful deception. Is that what you mean here?

It doesn't have to be deliberate, purposeful, or even conscious - though it often is. An exaggeration can be treated as fact. That fact can again be exaggerated, until the words bear no relation to reality. Wikipedia practically invented this mechanism.

I do think in that case that fake is not the right adjective to use. Every definition of fake implies intent to deceive. If you're trying to encompass the meanings you describe above, fake doesn't appear to cover it.

You are right. But I do think that what is now called "fake news" is generated by a similar mechanism. I don't know what term to use. Wrong or false don't quite cover it. Perhaps 'unmoored' - a boat can be unmoored accidentally or deliberately, or by outside events - a big wave.

Yeah, I'm not sure what the appropriate term is here, either. Perhaps contentious? disputed?

I'm still trying to get my head around what fake news is actually trying to describe. I'd like it to refer to intentional deception, but I think it's being used much more broadly than that. I fear that it's effectively meaningless at this point, other than as a generic insult.

Wikipedia policy is such that slanderous claims like that about living people should be (and usually are) immediately reverted.

What does this mean in practice? Editors on Wikipedia are not a balanced cross-section of the world. I would guess they at 90% male, nerdy, middle class, and disproportionately liberal. This will be reflected in their articles, and the leeway given to certain 'facts'. And god help you if there is an article edited about you after you die - then the gloves are off and slander is fine.

I know the policy; I've seen it ignored many times. Also, that applies only to articles about living people.

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