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Comment by pjc50 | Hacker News Reader

There's too much demand for fake news, plenty of subsidy for it, and it's far easier to make.

Non fake news is going to be restricted to pay services like Bloomberg terminals.

It is getting easier and easier to fake stuff and there are becoming less and less fully trusted institutions. So sadly I think you are right. Its scary but we are likely heading towards a future where you need to pay to get verified information and that itself will likely be segmented to different subscriptions for what information you want.

> It is getting easier and easier to fake stuff

This is why the moon landing hoax was revolutionary in the 60's. The size of this project was enormous.

As an American, confirmation that the landing was a hoax would make me even prouder than my current belief that it was real.

The moon landing was filmed. Problem is, Stanley Kubrick was such a perfectionist that he _demanded_ they film on location.

On the other hand, he shot Full Metal Jacket in England and not Vietnam, so maybe he was able to compromise ..

Yeah, they filmed it on Ganymede instead.

Haha, perhaps.

Well the thing is that technically information is free, but creating it is definitely not. So, if Ads are not paying for it, and people won't pay for it either, who does?

Fake news exists because of the perverses incentives of the system; where getting as many clicks as possible is what matters. This is very much a result of social networks and view-based remuneration.

I don't think it's that bad if people need to pay for real information...

Fake news mainly exist, because the need to disguise, manipulate and lie for power gains is probably a old as humanity.

> Its scary but we are likely heading towards a future where you need to pay to get verified information

…are you describing a newspaper?

It seems a challenging situation.. if you pay fact checkers you get accused of censorship by “weaponised free speech” and if you leave it to the community you get inconsistent results.

The first one sounds like it's an argument made by someone who never wanted the facts to begin with. Correcting misinformation is not stifling free speech.

I'm all for more proper fact checkers, backed by reputable sources.

Yes, this is the case. Fact checkers were kept alive by efforts of the big tech firms. Post Trump’s election, funding has been pulled globally.

And paid newspapers, hopefully.

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