6 ms·

Facebook apparently already had a fix ready for fake news, but didn't implement it because it disproportionately affected right-wing news sites, and they were a

• adventured 10y ago
  The left was rampant with conspiracy theories about the FBI throwing the election. Hillary went so far as to partially blame Comey. Half of my more liberal friends on Facebook believe the election was rigged in one way or another. Of course I don't know if other people are seeing the same response post election in their social feeds. It seems common on Twitter. The great right wing conspiracy that the Clintons claim have been following/targeting them for decades, rather than their own actual behavior being the issue. That's not new, however it was present during Hillary's run. Some of the more fringe leftists claim that Trump is in the pocket of zionists and that the election was being thrown for the benefit of Israel's interests (he was very outspoken in favor of Israel during all phases of the election). That's also not new however, that group tends to be universally anti-Israel regardless of the candidate. Or the greatest conspiracy theory of them all for the election: Hillary was prevented from winning by sexist men determined to keep a woman out the Presidency. I've seen that one commonly in the mainstream left-leaning media.
  • untog 10y ago
    > I've seen that one commonly in the mainstream left-leaning media. Out of interest, in news reports or in opinion pieces? I wish newspapers did away with opinion sections, they serve no good purpose and cloud what news reporting actually is. I'd be interested to read the justification a news organisation gives for stating something like that as fact and not opinion.
    • adventured 10y ago
      Opinion pieces by the major news platforms. CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, Bloomberg, Business Insider, MSNBC, Politico all seem to have run an endless parade of opinion pieces about sexist or racist voters being the reason Hillary lost. What you typically get in the news stories, is indirect leaner statements, such as: 'and Donald Trump - who often ran a hateful campaign filled with racist and sexist statements - is the President-elect.' I didn't vote for Trump and I had to stop reading content on most of those sites throughout the end of the election because they became overwhelming propaganda platforms for Hillary's campaign. Business Insider seemed to become 1/2 anti-Trump articles in its content, they weren't even pretending to be unbiased - fine, but if I wanted that I'd go to the Huffington Post not a mainstream business news site.
      • untog 10y ago
        What is untrue about "Donald Trump - who often ran a hateful campaign filled with racist and sexist statements"?
        • gscott 10y ago
          He says a sexist thing once and it will be repeated many times on television and in articles slamming him for it. If you listen to the totality of his statements it is not nearly as bad as what the news media puts out. Which gets us into is the news media real news, fake news, or opinion. With the rise of Fox news other news companies have had to go heavy on opinion to survive. Fox News has sucked up most of the conservative audience CNN, MSNBC, etc has to fight over the left leaning audience becoming more sensational in the process.
  • jimrandomh 10y ago
    > The left was rampant with conspiracy theories about the FBI throwing the election. Hillary went so far as to partially blame Comey. That wasn't a "conspiracy theory", that was a straightforward interpretation of events which are not in dispute. Hillary had to mess up pretty badly for things to get to the point where that'd be relevant, but by calling it a "conspiracy theory" you come across as very dishonest.
• planetjones 10y ago
  On the rare occasions I stray to see what nonsense is on my FB feed all I have seen is left wing fake left wing new stories. For instance the fake Trump quote from people magazine about republicans being the dumbest voters just would not die, despite it clearly being completely made-up.
• etherfuse 10y ago
  Ever heard of Fahrenheit 911?
• geowwy 10y ago
  > Does anyone have any good examples of left-leaning fake, conspiratorial news stories in the last few years? The theory that Putin hacked the Democrats to get Donald Trump elected. There's zero proof that Russia is behind the leaks, but Dems still peddle this myth. Hillary Clinton even went as far as threatening Russia with military intervention over the emails. And there's still zero proof Russia had anything to do with it.
  • untog 10y ago
    There isn't conclusive evidence, but from what I've read, the hack to Podesta's email used a Bitly account known to be associated with Russian intelligence: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-hackers-broke-into-john-podesta-and-colin-powells-gmail-accounts http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-hackers-broke-into-john... Like I said, not conclusive, but I wonder what definite evidence you're likely to have with intelligence agencies. Point taken, though.
    • fisherjeff 10y ago
      More good reading on the topic: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/29/cozy-bear-fancy-bear-russia-hack-dnc https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jul/29/cozy-bear...
    • flukus 10y ago
      How do they differentiate between a Russian Intelligence hacker and one sharing resources with one? Or just a kid in a basement somewhere?
    • fareesh 10y ago
      I agree, this is definitely not conclusive proof that the source used by Wikileaks is the same source. It's probably important to note that his password was something like "p@ssword".
  • sirrocco 10y ago
    When you say no proof, what would you expect good enough proof? I expect the Russians would never admit to anything.
• rdtsc 10y ago
  Conspiratorial stuff starts brewing in the opposition. If say liberals are the majority, then conservatives will start generating conspiracy theories. If conservatives come to power, they'll be more left-ish conspiracy theories around. It's just a way to explain their minority status. We lost because "lizard people control the government" is much easier on the psyche than, "a lot of people simply don't agree with us".
• tomp 10y ago
  CNN saying that it is illegal for the public to read Wikileaks emails. I can't think of any other examples of outright lies, but there's alot of lying by omission; e.g. we now know that the DNC was heavily biased towards Clinton in the primaries, that they were inciting violence at Trump rallies, and that they were given the debate questions prior to debates. Was this even reported on main leftwing media? Edit: also all the reduction of Trump's voters to just being racist, sexist and the accusations of the "whitelash" - why don't they talk about "blacklash" every time a democrat wins? Edit 2: another example is the recent backlash against Breitbart. Although I see them mainly as a contrarian news site (similar to ZeroHedge), they probably have some bias - but just because it's the opposite of other media, you can't call it racism/sexism. Why is women voting for a woman feminist, men voting for a man sexist? Why are pro-black movements described as #BlackLivesMatter and pro-white movements as white supremacist? Accusations of bias are pretty empty when you're so full of it yourself...
  • fareesh 10y ago
    Wolf Blitzer was receiving interview questions from the Clinton campaign when he was going to interview candidate Trump. While this isn't evidence of lying it is certainly evidence of an unethical relationship between the media and the candidates that it is supposed to be covering impartially. To collude with one of the campaigns is effectively allowing the campaign to skirt FEC regulations and utilize the strength of an entire news corporation to influence the outcome of an election. One could argue that this has the same impact as fake news. Source: https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/22673 https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/22673
    • tomp 10y ago
      Absolutely, that's my point. You can hardly call yourself a journalist if the point of your reporting is to bias the public; whether to do that by outright lying or just with skillful deception by omission is besides the point.
  • grkvlt 10y ago
    > examples of outright lies A lie is a false statement made with the intent to deceive. I believe CNN is merely wrong. The difference is the intent, but people are far too quick to throw out the accusation of lying every time someone makes a mistake. Hanlon's razor and all that, would suggest incompetence rather than malice. I find it hard to believe there's a deliberate misinformation campaign going on at CNN where they are trying to get people to believe it's illegal to view Wikileaks emails even though they know it isn't - cui bono? EDIT - Of course, it is possible CNN were deliberately lied to by, for example, an NSA or CIA official, who they incorrectly believed (due to the implied authority of government officials) and therefore took at face value. I can see the motive for NSA or CIA to lie here, so that people are frightened of committing an illegal act by reading the emails, therefore less people will see them; an obvious benefit, just not for CNN...
• flukus 10y ago
  > But am I wrong? I'm constantly aware that Facebook puts me in a filter bubble. Does anyone have any good examples of left-leaning fake, conspiratorial news stories in the last few years? I think most seem to be right wing, but the left has it's share. Anti vaxers, anti GMO, anti "chemicals" tend to come from the left. I think your mistaking the causation too. They aren't conspiracy theorists because they are right wing, they are right wing because they are conspiracy theorists. When you think the government is doing all these bad things then wanting less government is perfectly logical.
  • whybroke 10y ago
    > ...Anti vaxers... Well actually that too is a right-wing thing. http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2015/09/20/donald-trump-spouts-dangerous-anti-vaccine-nonsense-ben-carsons-response-is-worse/#6c089feb1bd5 http://www.forbes.com/sites/stevensalzberg/2015/09/20/donald...
    • flukus 10y ago
      That's actually an interesting one. It seems to have been primarily a left wing one when it started in the 90's. Jill Stein is also an anti-vaxer: http://www.salon.com/2016/08/03/jill_steins_anti_vax_game_how_and_why_the_green_party_candidate_is_pandering_to_the_anti_vaccination_crowd/ http://www.salon.com/2016/08/03/jill_steins_anti_vax_game_ho...
      • whybroke 10y ago
        I suppose those candidates are either simple minded or have cynically spotted a 'previously ignored voting group'. Heaven forbid one of them end up in the white house.
      • makomk 10y ago
        "Jill Stein is an anti-vaxer" is, ironically enough, an example of left-wing (or at least pro-Dem) fake news - the article you linked even links to the Snopes article debunking it: http://www.snopes.com/is-green-party-candidate-jill-stein-anti-vaccine/ http://www.snopes.com/is-green-party-candidate-jill-stein-an... Amanda Marcotte claims that the Snopes article is attacking a strawman because "the accusation is not that Stein herself is personally anti-vaccination. The accusation is that Stein panders to anti-vaccination crowd" - but as your comment demonstrates, that isn't true. Indeed, her article and similar articles try hard to leave readers with this false impression, twisting Stein's argument that we need to restore public trust because vaccines are a vital public health tool into "sowing doubts about vaccination safety". If claiming that "Dr. Stein uses a common anti-vaccine dodge" isn't claiming that she's a secret anti-vaxxer, then I'm a chocolate teapot.
• basch 10y ago
  How about fictionalized stories to emotionally support the narrative (just from this month!) https://reason.com/blog/2016/11/11/election-night-hijab-attack-false https://reason.com/blog/2016/11/11/election-night-hijab-atta... http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/11/01/attorney-rolling-stone-author-pushed-preconceived-narrative.html http://www.foxnews.com/us/2016/11/01/attorney-rolling-stone-... http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-13/anti-trump-protests-proof-professional-activist-involvement http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-13/anti-trump-protests... for a while now, liberalism has held an "ends justify the means" sort of attitude towards victims stories, out of context gender statistics, and "grassroots" activism. (conservatism has too, but that wasnt the question posed.) obviously not all attacks are fake, and there is a lot of hate in the country. but a lot of sensationalized stories come out, that basically exist as propaganda, and spread like wildfire, without being fact checked. how many of you saw this link on facebook? how many of its stories are untrue? https://twitter.com/i/moments/796417517157830656?lang=en https://twitter.com/i/moments/796417517157830656?lang=en if you stick to huffingtonpost & salon, and all the clickbait derived from their sphere, it really could be as manufactured and fake as the right, it just feels more real because the stories are more plausable. there is also this article http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-election-521044 http://www.newsweek.com/myths-cost-democrats-presidential-el... i mean, fuck, the story you just posted is allegedly fake, if that doesnt say something i dont know what does. http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/11/14/did_facebook_really_tolerate_fake_news_to_appease_conservatives.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/11/14/did_faceb... and as other people have pointed out, gmo, chemtrails, vax dangers have transcended parties and infected hippys and teapartiers alike.
  • dictum 10y ago
    Interesting point — it seems that right-wing misinfo is usually of the reactionary outrage kind (e.g. group X is doing this, this is outrageous, that's why we need [some variation of a return to morality]) while left-wing misinfo is of the revolutionary outrage kind (group X is doing this, this is outrageous, that's why we need [some variation of revolution])
    • basch 10y ago
• stormcrowsx 10y ago
  Hacker News is also a left leaning bubble so asking this question here will probably mostly just yield liberal viewpoints on the topic.