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Comment by ycombonator | Hacker News Reader

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ycombonator·

This why most people call them fake news.

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No, people call them fake news because they do not like the facts that are reported.

I'd wager it might have something to do with lack of objectivity in almost everything reported.

It's the facts that aren't reported, and the facts that are overemphasized or out of context.

You can call that bias, but calling it fake is not true.

It's a euphemism of the behavior of the media. No one means the news is 100% fake, but that there is some manipulation and bias going on.

At some point when there's enough bias it does become fake news because you can't trust the source at all.

There are two separate things. One is reporting certain things and not others or worse, trying to skew the gravity of various facts with tainted opinions from someone invested in the perception of them.

Then there is literally reporting things that aren't true and are made up. Various news sources indulge in the first two, but any news source with a shred of respectibility doesn't engage in actually reporting things that are false.

Why use this language? Fake news is this specific double speak created by Trump which has a different but related meaning to the words generally.

Fine, but I don't understand why so many people who he is attacking choose to legitimize this usage by parroting him at their own expense.

Note: Im not taking about the OP here, just Americans and American institutions generally

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