Chomsky on Google's contribution to 'fake news' | Hacker News Reader

Chomsky on Google's contribution to 'fake news'

22 pointssideshowb8 comments

Excerpt from video for those who, like myself, prefer to read:

Google talk interviewer: “How do you think Google can and should handle the fake news problem? We have a big hammer. We’re looking for nails.”

Chomsky: "Well, by not contributing to it."

"See, advertising’s a very interesting phenomenon. Any of you who’ve taken an economics course know that... the marvels of the market that we’re supposed to admire and worship are because the market is based on informed consumers making rational choices... Turn on your television set. Do you see efforts by corporations to create... informed consumers making rational choices? Is that what you see when you see an ad for cars? If we had a market system... when General Motors is advertising a car, what you would see is a list of the characteristics of the car, along with a report by Consumer Reports saying what’s wrong with it and so on... But you don’t see that.

"Huge amounts of capital are expended every year to try to undermine markets... by creating uninformed consumers making irrational choices; and driving them to consumerism...

"That’s what ought to be taught in economics courses: massive efforts by the business community to undermine markets."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C-zWrhFqpM

The Canary reported this though ironically with so many ads you can hardly see the article https://www.thecanary.co/2017/07/04/noam-chomsky-flips-the-debate-about-fake-news-on-its-head-in-a-room-full-of-google-staff-video/

What a bunch of nonsense on so many levels.

What does advertising have to do with fake news? What does advertisement having to do with a "informed consumer"? Yes, GM does not run ads listing all the technical specs of their cars, because that is not what consumers are interested in. For most people, buying a car has largely something you do with personal taste, gut feeling and overall appeal. Technical specs of cars in a given price range are more or less all the same across all brands, so the only way to differentiate is to appeal to the consumers gut feelings.

I think he's abstracting a level: advertising and fake news are both instances of misleading information. Sure, there are differences: fake news tends to be completely fake; advertising in the West is usually true to the letter but incomplete and often implying that the product will bring you more than the seller can really promise. Any good salesperson knows you sell lifestyles not features. Hence the scantily clad women we used to see draped over the cars in the ads (though at least in the 21st century we seem to have got a bit more tasteful on that front).

Given sufficient information I would buy a car based mainly on internal dimensions, fuel economy - yes the manufacturers are known for honesty on that one aren't they - reliability and price.

Reliability is exactly the kind of missing information he's on about imo. (Startup idea there, somebody please steal it!). Even for used cars it's hard to measure directly as nobody collects enough stats to do so. Example, what proportion of VW 1.9TD engines have failed due to conrod piercing the head unit? Is the risk any higher for engines with codes starting BXE? How does the risk break down by mileage and by age? If VW know these things they certainly don't tell us, and plenty of BXE owners want to find out (do a search...)

For new cars it can't be directly measured as there aren't any instances with 300k on the clock to evaluate. You'd have to make a proxy model based on component quality. What we do in reality is assume that brands previously known for reliability will continue to be reliable, but it's not exactly unusual for companies to trade their reputation for a quick buck.

If consumers were rational this would all be highly relevant. If, as you say, we aren't rational as a group then that's because of the car industry's success in marketing.

For most people buying a car has largely something to do with the money they have/can spend for it. Everything else you list comes second.

And no, it's not bunch of nonsense. Ads are just as fake as fake news. That's what the guy is trying to say.

> What does advertising have to do with fake news?

You need surface to display ads. Fake news is this surface and Google/Facebook take a big cut of their revenue from it.

This is an interesting secondary phenomenon you point out, that could be helped (not entirely fixed) by disabling google ads on known fake news sites.

Still, the primary issue is that the ads themselves are biased and google makes its living from them. Until Google diversifies more from ad revenue it will always have conflicted motives when it comes to removing bias.

think about all the 'promoted stories', 'paid content', ads that look like search results, astroturfing on reddit, etc etc.

The term 'fake news' is misleading. This stuff isn't 'news' at all. The stories often have poorly drawn conclusions that misinterpret primary sources and get people's tempers going, or make them aware of new products, or herbal supplements, or garner more subscribers, etc.

>by creating uninformed consumers making irrational choices; and driving them to consumerism...

I am not sure. Isn't this a well known and intended effect of the Ads and PR stunts?

Yes of course. What are you not sure about?

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