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Of course there is "conservative news" and "liberal news". Liberal news is things that happened, things that will happen, etc. Conservative news is a made up

Of course there is "conservative news" and "liberal news". Liberal news is things that happened, things that will happen, etc. Conservative news is a made up stories, things that never happened, etc. Example of trending "conservative news": Obama bans the phrase "Merry Christmas". E.g. http://www.redflagnews.com/headlines-2015/barack-obama-bans-entire-military-from-saying-christmas http://www.redflagnews.com/headlines-2015/barack-obama-bans-...

542458 10y ago
I think that's an overly broad and biased characterization. I find it hard to believe that an entire half of the voting spectrum is made up of liars and charlatans.
- thrownaway2424 10y ago
  But it should be pretty easy to believe that half of people (at least) are gullible. If "Obama bans Christmas" ends up as trending news because a couple hundred far-out whackjobs clicked on it, then your mom sees that in the trending box, and now your mom thinks that Obama banned Christmas.
  - bobwaycott 10y ago
    This seems to be a far more damning indictment of trending news than curated news or the gullibility of people. Perhaps that is what you're getting at. I have this nagging suspicion that people catalog information based on the subjective believability of headlines without following through to the story, and only click on things because they either A) don't believe the headline, or B) find it enticing enough to want the juicy details. "Obama bans 'Merry Christmas'" would likely get far more clicks and trend more than "Obama said Happy Holidays yesterday". To me, the problem is in the headline writing, coupled with silly human behaviors and algorithms. Not sure how to solve that problem. I think Gizmodo's headline on this story is a compelling example of what I'm talking about. "Facebook has a tool used by curators to modify the Trending News section" probably wouldn't get as many clicks.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > I find it hard to believe that an entire half of the voting spectrum is made up of liars and charlatans. The publishers of conservative news stories are not "an entire half of the voting spectrum", so that's not the issue in any case.
marcoperaza 10y ago
>Of course there is "conservative news" and "liberal news". Liberal news is things that happened, things that will happen, etc. Conservative news is a made up stories, things that never happened, etc. So what do you call Vox and Rolling Stone? Do you really have such a simplistic view of the world, where half of America is a bunch of morons with no legitimate gripes? You are destroying America. You are spreading division and hatred instead of understanding and reasoned arguments. I wonder if you would say the same thing if you were commenting with your real name.
- bobwaycott 10y ago
  Hey, there's really no need for attacking each other. That doesn't improve anything.
pgm8705 10y ago
Right. Certainly there aren't any liberal blogs or "news" organizations that sensationalize headlines or downright make things up... It happens both ways and is unfortunate.
- thrownaway2424 10y ago
  Liberals do not maintain a cottage industry of complaining about the conservative conspiracy to suppress their viewpoints, whereas conservatives seemingly spend 100% of their time doing so. For example there are plenty of dead tree books like [1], extensive networks of people investigating Obama's place of birth, including the current American conservative leader and icon Donald Trump. Meanwhile there is a real, concrete conspiracy by conservatives to actively suppress the truth, especially in the area of climate science. It would be hard to not notice that the conservative PM of Canada actually banned scientists from speaking to the public, or that Republicans in the USA are constantly trying to defund NOAA and NASA, or that the Republican-controlled 104th Congress of the US forbid the NIH from studying gun violence, among many other examples. https://books.google.com/books?id=9iLHTFOQLGwC&pg=PA314&lpg=PA314&dq=liberal+conspiracy+to+suppress+the+news&source=bl&ots=zkkdBGIFoN&sig=NUhIAKLM9su9wu4ovdG33f7Dnx4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjj1oSfv83MAhUO9WMKHWhhBf8Q6AEIMzAE#v=onepage&q=liberal%20conspiracy%20to%20suppress%20the%20news&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=9iLHTFOQLGwC&pg=PA314&lpg=...
  - marcoperaza 10y ago
    How about leftist anti-nuclear, anti-GMO, organic food pseudoscience? Nuclear power is the solution to fossil fuel emissions that doesn't require destroying our economy, but the left is the biggest obstacle to its development. Or how about the wage gap, which no serious economist actually thinks exists.
    - thrownaway2424 10y ago
      Advocating against something is not the same as suppressing advocacy of that thing.

542458 10y ago

I think that's an overly broad and biased characterization. I find it hard to believe that an entire half of the voting spectrum is made up of liars and charlatans.

thrownaway2424 10y ago
But it should be pretty easy to believe that half of people (at least) are gullible. If "Obama bans Christmas" ends up as trending news because a couple hundred far-out whackjobs clicked on it, then your mom sees that in the trending box, and now your mom thinks that Obama banned Christmas.
- bobwaycott 10y ago
  This seems to be a far more damning indictment of trending news than curated news or the gullibility of people. Perhaps that is what you're getting at. I have this nagging suspicion that people catalog information based on the subjective believability of headlines without following through to the story, and only click on things because they either A) don't believe the headline, or B) find it enticing enough to want the juicy details. "Obama bans 'Merry Christmas'" would likely get far more clicks and trend more than "Obama said Happy Holidays yesterday". To me, the problem is in the headline writing, coupled with silly human behaviors and algorithms. Not sure how to solve that problem. I think Gizmodo's headline on this story is a compelling example of what I'm talking about. "Facebook has a tool used by curators to modify the Trending News section" probably wouldn't get as many clicks.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> I find it hard to believe that an entire half of the voting spectrum is made up of liars and charlatans. The publishers of conservative news stories are not "an entire half of the voting spectrum", so that's not the issue in any case.

marcoperaza 10y ago

>Of course there is "conservative news" and "liberal news". Liberal news is things that happened, things that will happen, etc. Conservative news is a made up stories, things that never happened, etc. So what do you call Vox and Rolling Stone? Do you really have such a simplistic view of the world, where half of America is a bunch of morons with no legitimate gripes? You are destroying America. You are spreading division and hatred instead of understanding and reasoned arguments. I wonder if you would say the same thing if you were commenting with your real name.

bobwaycott 10y ago
Hey, there's really no need for attacking each other. That doesn't improve anything.

pgm8705 10y ago

Right. Certainly there aren't any liberal blogs or "news" organizations that sensationalize headlines or downright make things up... It happens both ways and is unfortunate.

thrownaway2424 10y ago
Liberals do not maintain a cottage industry of complaining about the conservative conspiracy to suppress their viewpoints, whereas conservatives seemingly spend 100% of their time doing so. For example there are plenty of dead tree books like [1], extensive networks of people investigating Obama's place of birth, including the current American conservative leader and icon Donald Trump. Meanwhile there is a real, concrete conspiracy by conservatives to actively suppress the truth, especially in the area of climate science. It would be hard to not notice that the conservative PM of Canada actually banned scientists from speaking to the public, or that Republicans in the USA are constantly trying to defund NOAA and NASA, or that the Republican-controlled 104th Congress of the US forbid the NIH from studying gun violence, among many other examples. https://books.google.com/books?id=9iLHTFOQLGwC&pg=PA314&lpg=PA314&dq=liberal+conspiracy+to+suppress+the+news&source=bl&ots=zkkdBGIFoN&sig=NUhIAKLM9su9wu4ovdG33f7Dnx4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjj1oSfv83MAhUO9WMKHWhhBf8Q6AEIMzAE#v=onepage&q=liberal%20conspiracy%20to%20suppress%20the%20news&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=9iLHTFOQLGwC&pg=PA314&lpg=...
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  How about leftist anti-nuclear, anti-GMO, organic food pseudoscience? Nuclear power is the solution to fossil fuel emissions that doesn't require destroying our economy, but the left is the biggest obstacle to its development. Or how about the wage gap, which no serious economist actually thinks exists.
  - thrownaway2424 10y ago
    Advocating against something is not the same as suppressing advocacy of that thing.