11 ms·

Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

108 points by hvo 10y ago

deleted 10y ago
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factorialboy 10y ago
Fake news on Facebook? I'd rather be equally if not more worried about fake news on mainstream media outlets.
- the_duke 10y ago
  Apparently, lot's of people have FB as their only source of news. Now, if "news media" like Breitbart or tabloids are really much better, I wont comment on. But it's still troublesome.
- mrweasel 10y ago
  That will be one of the issues that Facebook will need to deal with, if they're serious about this. From the article: >Worse, Facebook doesn’t flag or mark credible news websites Okay, so who's judging what is a credible news website/source? Is CNN a credible news source, is The Huffington Post, how about the National Enquirer? People can argue that CNN get so many facts wrong, that they aren't a credible news source. If you're an expect in a field, you tend to notice that the media often make massive mistakes or gross misinterpretations when dealing with news regarding your field. Now realise that they make the same mistakes for pretty much any other field. Are ANY mainstream media actually credible, given the knowledge that they misunderstand and misrepresent an incredible amount of topics every single day.
VLM 10y ago
The Times is in denial that anyone considers it anything other than a mixture of Democratic party propaganda and clickbait legacy media. The stats are not looking good for them and dying industries always lash out reflexively and ineffectively at random opponents.
- RankingMember 10y ago
  The NYT? Really? I would agree if you were describing Huffington Post or various other left-wing rags, but the NYT is pretty far from a Democratic Propaganda paper.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    The NYT takes sides all the time. That shouldn't come as a surprise.
  - dictum 10y ago
    I wouldn't call it propaganda, but as a foreigner it was amusing to read the NYT front page on election day. There was no attempt at neutrality whatsoever. (The NYT has no obligation to be neutral and I'm not complaining about their editorial position. They have a right to take sides. It is still useful to keep their previous positions in mind when analyzing what they're saying now.)
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - MK999 10y ago
    12 Trump hit pieces in one day alone. More like establishment propaganda paper, I don't think they would have given Jeb Bush or Rubio such a hard time.
    - jimbokun 10y ago
      Which of those pieces are you saying are inaccurate or untrue?
    - lordCarbonFiber 10y ago
      How, I wonder, do you report on a candidate, who we have a recording bragging about sexual assault, and avoid a "hit piece"? To make a derogatory article attacking trump literally all you have to do is quote what he's said on the record; No editorializing necessary.
dictum 10y ago
Who isn't? * * * This election and its aftermath have been an amazing opportunity for Americans of all leanings to be in denial.
- RUG3Y 10y ago
  I was anticipating the end of this election, now I find that the situation is just as bad or worse. I'm not talking about which candidate won, but the vitriol coming from both right and left. The intensity is killing me.
6stringmerc 10y ago
At the root principle of the article, I agree that a platform which spreads erroneous information should be held accountable in some fashion - but it's the following kind of set up that is troublesome: >In addition to doing more to weed out lies and false propaganda, Facebook could tweak its algorithm so that it does less to reinforce users’ existing beliefs, and more to present factual information. This may seem difficult, but perhaps the Silicon Valley billionaires who helped create this problem should take it on before setting out to colonize Mars. Right, in principle Facebook should do this for the benefit of society, but on a practical consideration, would becoming a highly-involved arbiter of content be good for making money? Facebook isn't under any legal mandate to act as a referee - consider it unfortunate if you like, but I kind of shrug it off. Individual user responsibility should be a noteworthy counter-point, because as trite as it might sound, if Facebook is rife with issues and rot, then going there is probably not a good idea. If they happen to make more money by allowing junk in their system, then that's their decision to make. Eventually will it cost them users? >The company’s business model, algorithms and policies entrench echo chambers and fuel the spread of misinformation. If they want to serve up a garbage buffet and make a profit from it, I can't sit back and scold them too hard, I just have to excuse myself. It's not just on Facebook - commenting communities of any sort tend to generate clusters of like-minded folk. "Right" thinking or "wrong" thinking. Personally I don't walk around downtown digging through the trash for my lunch, and I don't get my worldview from Facebook. I do keep up with some people, but can count my weekly minutes on the site with two hands pretty much. Just my approach, YMMV.
- heurist 10y ago
  Facebook can do whatever it wants. Personally, if facebook does not stop the spread of false information I will stop using their services and will do my best to convince my friends to stop using their services. If they want to create harmful social bubbles for profit that's their prerogative, but I won't be part of it.
  - randomgyatwork 10y ago
    If you use facebook, you've been in a harmful social bubble since the beginning.... you are only realizing it now
deleted 10y ago
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mc32 10y ago
I think it's too early to tell if these fake stories had any effect on people's political leanings, so diving in without knowing much about it is a bit of a different kind of fake news. It's hunches and opinions without critical examination. Now it's definitely a question to ask but I'm afraid it's being asked as a way to explain Hillary's loss because it's easier to find a scapegoat than look introspectively --and Dems at least publicly say we want to avoid scapegoating, politically speaking. In the end, I wonder, had Hillary won, would be seeing the same examination? Would we have people at the Times wondering if Hillary had won because of the spread of false news, or wonder about a conspiracy to railroad Bernie? Hard to say, but one wonders. On the other hand, I can't agree more that they should surface more than mostly self-reinforcing news or information to their users.
- makomk 10y ago
  It doesn't matter whether the fake stories actually had any effect on people's political leanings, because the media narrative is that they did. Ultimately, the mainstream media are in denial. Every single media organisation backed Clinton, including ones that had never backed a presidential candidate before, they published articles pointing to this as reason to vote for her whilst insisting that it was ridiculous to believe they could in any way be biased towards her. They were absolutely certain she would win, mocking those who though otherwise. They were wrong. Rather than look inwards, they found a scapegoat. That's why they don't care about the 130,000 retweets for a fake claim that people were chanting "We hate Muslims, we hate blacks, we want our great country back" at a Trump rally from a known British hoaxer, or the quarter of a million for a photoshop of Trump's parents in KKK outfits, or any of the other fakes that don't fit the narrative.
  - mc32 10y ago
    My favorite plausible one was the one where supposedly back in the 90s Trump said "he'd run as a Repub because they're the most gullible". I found it amusing that Hollywood actors/actresses tweeted it in a non-jokey way. And yes, it is telling all their examples are about ones which targeted Hillary.
  - Pokepokalypse 10y ago
ThomPete 10y ago
I don't believe he is in denial at all. In fact the article strikes me as more of the same reason why so many voted for Trump. The people who write these articles just can't accept the idea that people didn't vote for Trump unless they were tricked into it, or were fed lies. The idea that because they have a different reality they based their votes on never occurred to them. What fake news do is reinoforce what people already believe to be true which is quite another discussion and anyone who have been debating with some 9/11 truther knows that no amount of data will convince them of anything else and neither are you going to be convinced it's suddenly true even though we all have been bombarded with claims from friends. Also maybe my facebook feed is different, maybe my friends are different but I had and still have plenty of disagreement in my feed plenty of articles pointing both ways. Here is a good example from my feed. https://cl.ly/1b1s2W2w0G0c https://cl.ly/1b1s2W2w0G0c Basically a four year old history surfaces which is wrong and look at the articles underneath. I have seen plenty of examples of that. But maybe my feed is unique.
- conistonwater 10y ago
  That is not the argument in the opinion piece at all. What are you responding to?
  - jansenv 10y ago
    Looks like they just needed to vent a bit.
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    Here is an examples which illustrates it perfectly well: "After the election, Mr. Zuckerberg claimed that the fake news was a problem on “both sides” of the race. That’s wrong. There are, of course, viral fake anti-Trump memes, but reporters have found that the spread of false news is far more common on the right than it is on the left."
    - talmand 10y ago
      This >> but reporters have found that the spread of false news is far more common on the right than it is on the left." does not make this >> Mr. Zuckerberg claimed that the fake news was a problem on “both sides” of the race incorrect. One side does not get a pass because it was the lesser problem.
malchow 10y ago
Facebook has 1.79B MAUs, and users do not inject enough self-generated original content into the system to make Facebook consistently interesting for those 1.79M MAUs. Therefore their links to outside sites – good and bad, and it isn't particularly simple to decide – will continue to be core to Facebook's business. I always find it funny when I see HNers complaining about The Wall Street Journal's paywall. Pay it, man! And read the news. Too much emphasis on Facebook's alleged influence. It's a link/aggregation/search application, and the complexion of its output is strongly going to reflect what users input.
VeejayRampay 10y ago
I can't believe how people are trying desperately to find a culprit, a reason, an explanation and turning to Facebook for their choice of scapegoat. I mean if half your country is voting for a person whose face could easily illustrate the entries for both demagogue and ignorant in a dictionary, you have bigger problems than Facebook.
- mistermann 10y ago
  If you'd like more of the same, keep it up.
  - dewyatt 10y ago
    This is inflammatory bait and not HN-quality discourse.
    - mistermann 10y ago
      Sorry, you're right.
vinhboy 10y ago
I've mentioned this before in another thread. It does not matter if it was less than 1% of facebook content. The problem is, it's also every where else. Have you guys seen the front page of Yahoo lately? And also, some how this crap crept into my Google Now news feed. Probably because I visited a dumb link on Reddit. I had to manually block them. But that probably means people who regularly read this crap, gets a ton of them.
newdayrising 10y ago
If Hillary won this wouldn't have been an issue for the NYT. Close to the election I repeatedly saw articles comparing Trump to Hitler and predicting the end of free society of he were to win. The only fake news I saw was satirical "news." I did not vote for Trump, but it's crazy how hysterical and witch-hunty the left is right now.
- mr_spothawk 10y ago
  not just crazy, it's legitimately scary. i have friends who's opinion and perspective i can usually trust makes making bold declarations about topics on which they are highly misinformed. that's to say nothing of the calls for censure of thought-crime from the commenters on HN
- pault 10y ago
  I tend to agree with you, but in the days after the election several of my acquaintances witnessed hate crimes accompanied by Trump slogans. This, along with the surge in reports of hate crimes in the media, tells me that this isn't just a repeat of 2000.
  - Pokepokalypse 10y ago
    This is fact. This is actually occurring. I've seen it, and I've heard first hand accounts. What is also significant is that I see it being largely ignored in the media, as they frame peaceful counter-Trump protests as "riots" and "thugs destroying property". This is the opinion I'm seeing coming out by moderates, who are decrying the protests, and ignoring the fascist violence coming from hate groups.
    - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
      Really? The only (mainstream) articles I've seen have always put "riot" in quotes - as if we the media don't really think it's a riot, but the police say it is, and even implying that the police saying it is might be some kind of a problem. This about events where there is actual, documented (and even photographed) property being destroyed. (This was in Portland.)
mistermann 10y ago
> The Macedonian teenagers found this, too. They had experimented with left-leaning or pro-Bernie Sanders content, but gave up when they found it wasn’t as reliable a source of income as pro-Trump content. But even if Mr. Zuckerberg were right and fake news were equally popular on both sides, it would still be a profound problem. Perhaps because the market was already saturated with pro-Hillary pieces from mainstream media? If they produce only one-sided hit pieces on Trump, are you surprised those on the right will share anything positive they can find? The left has made it's own bed.
dariusm5 10y ago
Considering that American's trust in mainstream media is an all time low [1], I'm sure there is a big demand for alternative news. I'm not surprised people are looking for content that fits their narrative and end up reading fake articles. As someone observing from Mexico, I noticed almost all of the mainstream US media became an echo chamber for pro-Clinton content. I only realized this after after seeing how Sanders was sabotaged and the media collectively tried to bury it. Here in Mexico it's a similar situation with a few big media outlets protecting the corrupt status quo. [1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/185927/americans-trust-media-remains-historical-low.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/185927/americans-trust-media-rema...
- pweissbrod 10y ago
  What defines a 'mainstream' media outlet anyways? There were a handful of news outlets thoroughly reporting issues between DNC and Bernie Sanders such as Huffington Post and al-jazeera. I suppose these are not 'mainstream'? Perhaps mainstream media is defined by having a dedicated TV channel, or at least primetime TV show? Isnt it almost customary for such outlets to prioritize ratings over comprehensive coverage?
  - rayvd 10y ago
    Both of those are left wing outlets. I'd think "mainstream" would be the ones which still posit themselves as un-biased (CBS, NBC, ABC, NY Times, Wash Post, etc.). I say the more the merrier. Let people decide.
  - lujim 10y ago
    Who knows the definition, but I can tell you who is included. ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN.... Watching the anchors on these channels respond to Trumps performance on election night was jaw dropping. I was amazed that they weren't even going to try to pretend that they were impartially covering this election. I've always known the Fox and msnbc were a joke, but I have zero confidence in a single US based news outlet after this election. BTW Huffington Post stands out as an exceptionally huge steaming pile of partisan garbage as well.
- 10y ago
draw_down 10y ago
Our entire media class is in denial.
- heurist 10y ago
  The far-right wing of the media just took over the executive branch of our government. We are all in denial.
  - draw_down 10y ago
    And yet, I can't wait to hear ostensibly intelligent people continue to whine about "political correctness" and how it's ruining everything.
bbctol 10y ago
"Fake stories" are not the biggest problem, and focusing on them could fix surface issues without addressing the underlying echo chamber effect. This piece is better than most, but I wish all people arguing for Facebook and Google to stop enabling opinions to be manipulated weren't so distracted by simple lies. It's the series of cherry-picked facts that create a narrative that we have to watch out for.
- Pokepokalypse 10y ago
  Fake stories are a huge problem. A trump supporter just shared a story yesterday about a mob of muslims marching through an American neighborhood demanding that Christmas decorations be taken down. Doesn't even pass the smell test: yet this person believes them implicitly. This election was decided so narrowly, you have to wonder what the impact was.
intrasight 10y ago
This "fake news" thing goes all the way back to the founding of our country (USA that is). It has always been a problem. And the solution now is the same as then - be critical and know thy source.
pi-err 10y ago
We are all in denial. As a non-FB user, I hit every day a Facebook captcha to test if I'm a bot, each time I land near a Facebook site. When it's not a captcha, a panel hides a third of the Facebook page. I have a "shadow" empty FB account that I sometimes use: if I'm logged in, anything I watch online ends up polluting recommendations and suggested sites. I looked up information on Syria and Trump the other day - I now have creepy sites displayed on my suggested sites. I also get giant "YOU ARE NOW QUITTING FACEBOOK" alerts anytime I try to click a link to, yes, go to this address. We all obsess on Google/Apple for privacy and yet do not hold Facebook to any standard regarding an open, honest web. I feel we're all getting slowly conditioned by Facebook (and others) to stay siloed. To fear that the web we browse will have "consequences" and that we should avoid being curious altogether. It's by now clear that the entire purpose of FB is to build a "unified profile" that advertisers can track on- and offline. We're all in denial on the consequences of this unified tracking. If we were in the Renaissance, anonymous publications like Spinoza's would be impossible. Free speech and opinion _requires_ freedom to change mind, wander around. This has to stop.
swalsh 10y ago
I'm scared people are going to keep pushing for social media to implement stronger filters. I believe very strongly that the free flow of information (even when it's just wrong) is critical. Information gives people power, but withholding information takes power away. If a company like Facebook implements the filter, we're giving that power to them and hoping they are ambivalent. The solution to fake news is for people to learn how to live in this new world. There used to be only a handful of news organizations, but now there are an infant amount of them. This is GOOD, it's democratizing, but it puts a burden on us as citizens, and consumers of information to understand the motivations of the authors. This is an opportunity we should be happy to have and be scared of technological or manual solutions that threaten it.
- throwaway1892 10y ago
  Also any kind of filter is open to abuse
- simion314 10y ago
  Maybe instead of filtering they can label the items that are not real news, or label the real news as news(I am not from US so the use case I am thinking of is fake medical/scientific news so in this domain would be easier to start with)
  - Pokepokalypse 10y ago
    Truth in advertising, you say?
- norea-armozel 10y ago
  Or we can stop obsessing over the news and politics as a whole? I know that sounds contrary to common sense but I largely avoid any official news for mental health reasons and just for the fact that 9 times out of 10 I've been right as to their original sources (usually think tanks). Ditch the news from your Facebook or at least treat like you would being handed a pamphlet by a stranger: disregard it and throw it away. If you're really itching to know the facts of something in this modern world then Google is your best friend especially if you want to search academic papers on specific subjects like whether or not gender dysphoric children should be given puberty blockers (read the medical journals, the abstracts aren't as dense as say your average physics one). Or if you want to know if the EROI on solar is worth it, you got the department of energy papers, various consumer review sites, and much more. Basically, go do your own journalism because modern journalism is garbage and it'll never recover. Also accept that being more read doesn't mean you're more informed. Especially being well read in politics is like being well read in the DC New 52 lore. It's neat you put the energy into it but it's just a hobby of little objective value.
gthtjtkt 10y ago
This is more than a little bit ironic coming from the New York Times, which just issued an apology for its blatantly biased, divisive, and disappointing coverage of the entire election cycle: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/elections/to-our-readers-from-the-publisher-and-executive-editor.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/elections/to-our-reader...
aikah 10y ago
His job is not get this or that candidate elected. It's more like the New York Times is in denial blaming everybody but the poor candidate they endorsed for her failure to get elected. The New York Times was also in denial during the campaign dismissing Trump's candidacy as a joke, then giving Hillary 99% chances to win. Had they taken Trump seriously from the get-go and try to do a proper rebuttal with fact checking and not just "Pepe the frog is a fascist symbol", maybe the outcome would have been different.
dominotw 10y ago
Lol NYTimes. Pot kettle black. Looks like Zuckerberg doesn't have veto power at nytimes ;). https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4213 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4213 Lack of any self-awareness can only be attributed to arrogance. This is exactly the type of arrogance that got their candidate defeated and made Trump an underdog. Fuck you nytimes.
codemusings 10y ago
The only problem is: you can't fix stupid. It doesn't really matter. If it's not Facebook, it's Gawker, Buzzfeed or a thousend other clickbait outlets. If somebody actually believes the pope would endorse an American election candidate there really is nothing you can do.
- Pokepokalypse 10y ago
  You can fix stupid. If you couldn't, we'd still be in the Dark Ages.
mark_l_watson 10y ago
I don't trust the main stream media at all. As part of my long term research on NLP + text mining, I got in the habit of using English language news article from around the world as a text corpus. As part of this process I noticed the disconnect to US coverage compared to foreign news sources. Realizing that everyone has their own agenda, this experience still makes me sceptical of our news. That said, I am also very sceptical of what I read on the web. I follow several people's blogs and what they post on social media because over the years what they say usually turns out to be correct.
- eggie 10y ago
  Would you characterize the disconnect you found a bit more?
  - mark_l_watson 10y ago
    Mostly dealing with our military operations (e.g., civilian casualties), that we are savior of the free world, how life in other countries is so much worse than in the USA (large dose of American exceptionalism). The USA is a great place, but there are also many other countries that are also great places.
    - eggie 10y ago
      Someone was talking about how, when you use existing systems to translate an poem written in arabic by a ten year old it comes out unintelligible, but the same process is flawless for descriptions of terrorist attacks.
    - eggie 10y ago
      Someone was talking about how, when you use existing systems to translate an poem written in arabic by a ten year old it comes out unintelligible, but the same process is flawless for descriptions of terrorist attacks.
- Pokepokalypse 10y ago
  This reminds me of the Microsoft project a few months ago, that took a corpus of online text, and very quickly started regurgitating racist messages.
rdtsc 10y ago
Am I reading between the lines correctly, is she saying Trump won because his supporters read about lizard people on Facebook? Speaking of denial, wonder where on a realness gradient she puts NYTimes or CNN?
- gragas 10y ago
  NYT is so out of touch. After extreme bias during the election cycle and a 96% drop in profits last quarter, they released a statement to their subscribers. Here's my favorite part: >We cannot deliver the independent, original journalism for which we are known without the loyalty of our readers.
johnward 10y ago
He's not in denial he knows these people want fake news. He's afraid of an exodus if they block it.
jondubois 10y ago
This is not so bad. I think that lies in the media are good if they help to balance public opinion. The world that I'm really scared of is one where everyone agrees about everything and people who disagree are locked up; that's where I saw things going before the election (when I thought that Hillary was going to win). Chaos and disagreement is one of the most important things in our society. We always need at least two sides to every story (even if one side is a complete fabrication) - Balance of public opinions is the most important thing for freedom.
- Tempest1981 10y ago
  I wouldn't go so far as to say that lies are good. I'm in favor of a robust debate, but let's base it on facts, and even feelings/understanding. The last thing we need to do is mis-educate more people... that'll never lead to agreement.
a_lihu 10y ago
And this is coming from NYT, a bullshit venue, whose boss said in a recent letter: "... we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor ...". NYT should close the business, nobody trusts them anymore.
- gragas 10y ago
  Yeah NYT is in denial, not Zuck. >We cannot deliver the independent, original journalism for which we are known without the loyalty of our readers. Funny, considering the newspaper just had a 96% drop in profits last quarter.
  - grzm 10y ago
    "considering the newspaper just had a 96% drop in profits last quarter." Without knowing what the drop in profits is due to, I think it's. For example, is it because people are getting more of their news online and letting their paper subscriptions lapse? In my area home delivery is between $5–$10 per week, and that's at the 50% off introductory rate, compared to $3.75/week online only. Of course, that doesn't take into account printing and delivery costs. Another reason could be that people no longer see value above and beyond what's available elsewhere that they can get for free online. That's different from no longer trusting the paper. Looking up the reporting on the NYT profit decline, they note - decline in print ad sales, increase in digital ad sales (which is expected given the print -> digital migration) - significant investment in digital publishing - net profit losses mainly due to restructuring charges related to reducing workforce http://www.reuters.com/article/us-newyorktimes-results-idUSKBN12X1HU http://www.reuters.com/article/us-newyorktimes-results-idUSK... Of course, that's not to say trust in the paper isn't going to affect profits. I think it's fair to look at the entire picture.
EdiX 10y ago
reporters have found that the spread of false news is far more common on the right than it is on the left Citation needed.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Tempest1981 10y ago
  "A recent BuzzFeed News analysis of giant hyperpartisan Facebook pages found that 38% of posts on conservative pages and 19% of posts on liberal pages featured false or misleading content." https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/partisan-fb-pages-analysis https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/partisan-fb-pages-an... From https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/can-facebook-trending-fight-off-fake-news https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/can-facebook-trendin...
  - EdiX 10y ago
    Well, I didn't know buzzfeed bloggers counted as reporters, I stand corrected.
losteverything 10y ago
<Mr. Zuckerberg is doing real damage to American democracy — and to the world. We are so so so much better now that newspapers matter less and that the network news is not the main game in town. How does more sources make democracy worse even if it's "buyer beware?" it's arrogant to think truth is always hidden. <<People vote the way they do for a variety of reasons, but their information diet is a crucial part of the picture. We had a choice of candidates that was leftovers or diner food for Thanksgiving. That was the problem Do you really think the NYT will say good things in an op-ed about it's nimble young competitor?
- Melk 10y ago
  No matter what your opinion is of mainstream media, replacing it with disinformation, half-truths, and fabrications is not an improvement.
  - losteverything 10y ago
    I struggle with this. A rising tide raises all passengers (sic) So more people get more news than mainstreamville. That is better than the way it was. Imo
gragas 10y ago
Ha! More like, NYTimes is in denial. Especially considering one of their biggest subscription losses in history just happened last quarter.
chinese_donald 10y ago
What about all of the fake Trump news? My friends on Facebook still think Trump is a rapist (he never raped anyone), Racist (I'm still not sure where this one came from), and homophobic (he is not reversing gay marriage). When his first speech came out about immigration, he said he wants to deport illegal immigrants (which is actually already law). The media turned it into just 'immigrants' and we now have entire groups of legal immigrants that are afraid Trump will deport them. Did nobody watch the speech or does the mainstream media have problems comprehending English? There is anti-Trump violence growing in the US and people have been assaulted and harassed for even saying they supported him. The protests aren't 'peaceful', they are riots. This is all ignored on the news, however. The only thing they can spew out is the story about the girl that got her Hijab pulled, which turned out to be fake. MSNBC still reports it as fact. Will Facebook ban links to MSNBC for this fake story? This is exactly why half the country voted Trump into office. Even now, you still can't figure out that it was your own fault and want to blame the rest of American for losing the election. The other irony is complaining about bias and marginalizing and then painting an entire group of people (Trump supports) as 'racists' and 'islamaphobes'. It really shows me that all of the people that claim we need more 'love' and 'peace' are just using it for political gain and power. When they don't get what they want, the fangs come out. You want understanding and compassion when it comes to gay marriage and the transgender community, but give none of it in return.
- mjmsmith 10y ago
  > The only thing they can spew out is the story about the girl > that got her Hijab pulled, which turned out to be fake. You honestly believe that there was one single incident, and it was fake? This is an honest question: where do you get your news from?
TYPE_FASTER 10y ago
Media != journalism http://www.pbs.org/newshour/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/

108 points by hvo 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

factorialboy 10y ago

Fake news on Facebook? I'd rather be equally if not more worried about fake news on mainstream media outlets.

the_duke 10y ago
Apparently, lot's of people have FB as their only source of news. Now, if "news media" like Breitbart or tabloids are really much better, I wont comment on. But it's still troublesome.
mrweasel 10y ago
That will be one of the issues that Facebook will need to deal with, if they're serious about this. From the article: >Worse, Facebook doesn’t flag or mark credible news websites Okay, so who's judging what is a credible news website/source? Is CNN a credible news source, is The Huffington Post, how about the National Enquirer? People can argue that CNN get so many facts wrong, that they aren't a credible news source. If you're an expect in a field, you tend to notice that the media often make massive mistakes or gross misinterpretations when dealing with news regarding your field. Now realise that they make the same mistakes for pretty much any other field. Are ANY mainstream media actually credible, given the knowledge that they misunderstand and misrepresent an incredible amount of topics every single day.

VLM 10y ago

The Times is in denial that anyone considers it anything other than a mixture of Democratic party propaganda and clickbait legacy media. The stats are not looking good for them and dying industries always lash out reflexively and ineffectively at random opponents.

RankingMember 10y ago
The NYT? Really? I would agree if you were describing Huffington Post or various other left-wing rags, but the NYT is pretty far from a Democratic Propaganda paper.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  The NYT takes sides all the time. That shouldn't come as a surprise.
- dictum 10y ago
  I wouldn't call it propaganda, but as a foreigner it was amusing to read the NYT front page on election day. There was no attempt at neutrality whatsoever. (The NYT has no obligation to be neutral and I'm not complaining about their editorial position. They have a right to take sides. It is still useful to keep their previous positions in mind when analyzing what they're saying now.)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- MK999 10y ago
  12 Trump hit pieces in one day alone. More like establishment propaganda paper, I don't think they would have given Jeb Bush or Rubio such a hard time.
  - jimbokun 10y ago
    Which of those pieces are you saying are inaccurate or untrue?
  - lordCarbonFiber 10y ago
    How, I wonder, do you report on a candidate, who we have a recording bragging about sexual assault, and avoid a "hit piece"? To make a derogatory article attacking trump literally all you have to do is quote what he's said on the record; No editorializing necessary.

dictum 10y ago

Who isn't? * * * This election and its aftermath have been an amazing opportunity for Americans of all leanings to be in denial.

RUG3Y 10y ago
I was anticipating the end of this election, now I find that the situation is just as bad or worse. I'm not talking about which candidate won, but the vitriol coming from both right and left. The intensity is killing me.

6stringmerc 10y ago

At the root principle of the article, I agree that a platform which spreads erroneous information should be held accountable in some fashion - but it's the following kind of set up that is troublesome: >In addition to doing more to weed out lies and false propaganda, Facebook could tweak its algorithm so that it does less to reinforce users’ existing beliefs, and more to present factual information. This may seem difficult, but perhaps the Silicon Valley billionaires who helped create this problem should take it on before setting out to colonize Mars. Right, in principle Facebook should do this for the benefit of society, but on a practical consideration, would becoming a highly-involved arbiter of content be good for making money? Facebook isn't under any legal mandate to act as a referee - consider it unfortunate if you like, but I kind of shrug it off. Individual user responsibility should be a noteworthy counter-point, because as trite as it might sound, if Facebook is rife with issues and rot, then going there is probably not a good idea. If they happen to make more money by allowing junk in their system, then that's their decision to make. Eventually will it cost them users? >The company’s business model, algorithms and policies entrench echo chambers and fuel the spread of misinformation. If they want to serve up a garbage buffet and make a profit from it, I can't sit back and scold them too hard, I just have to excuse myself. It's not just on Facebook - commenting communities of any sort tend to generate clusters of like-minded folk. "Right" thinking or "wrong" thinking. Personally I don't walk around downtown digging through the trash for my lunch, and I don't get my worldview from Facebook. I do keep up with some people, but can count my weekly minutes on the site with two hands pretty much. Just my approach, YMMV.

heurist 10y ago
Facebook can do whatever it wants. Personally, if facebook does not stop the spread of false information I will stop using their services and will do my best to convince my friends to stop using their services. If they want to create harmful social bubbles for profit that's their prerogative, but I won't be part of it.
- randomgyatwork 10y ago
  If you use facebook, you've been in a harmful social bubble since the beginning.... you are only realizing it now

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

mc32 10y ago

I think it's too early to tell if these fake stories had any effect on people's political leanings, so diving in without knowing much about it is a bit of a different kind of fake news. It's hunches and opinions without critical examination. Now it's definitely a question to ask but I'm afraid it's being asked as a way to explain Hillary's loss because it's easier to find a scapegoat than look introspectively --and Dems at least publicly say we want to avoid scapegoating, politically speaking. In the end, I wonder, had Hillary won, would be seeing the same examination? Would we have people at the Times wondering if Hillary had won because of the spread of false news, or wonder about a conspiracy to railroad Bernie? Hard to say, but one wonders. On the other hand, I can't agree more that they should surface more than mostly self-reinforcing news or information to their users.

makomk 10y ago
It doesn't matter whether the fake stories actually had any effect on people's political leanings, because the media narrative is that they did. Ultimately, the mainstream media are in denial. Every single media organisation backed Clinton, including ones that had never backed a presidential candidate before, they published articles pointing to this as reason to vote for her whilst insisting that it was ridiculous to believe they could in any way be biased towards her. They were absolutely certain she would win, mocking those who though otherwise. They were wrong. Rather than look inwards, they found a scapegoat. That's why they don't care about the 130,000 retweets for a fake claim that people were chanting "We hate Muslims, we hate blacks, we want our great country back" at a Trump rally from a known British hoaxer, or the quarter of a million for a photoshop of Trump's parents in KKK outfits, or any of the other fakes that don't fit the narrative.
- mc32 10y ago
  My favorite plausible one was the one where supposedly back in the 90s Trump said "he'd run as a Repub because they're the most gullible". I found it amusing that Hollywood actors/actresses tweeted it in a non-jokey way. And yes, it is telling all their examples are about ones which targeted Hillary.
- Pokepokalypse 10y ago

ThomPete 10y ago

I don't believe he is in denial at all. In fact the article strikes me as more of the same reason why so many voted for Trump. The people who write these articles just can't accept the idea that people didn't vote for Trump unless they were tricked into it, or were fed lies. The idea that because they have a different reality they based their votes on never occurred to them. What fake news do is reinoforce what people already believe to be true which is quite another discussion and anyone who have been debating with some 9/11 truther knows that no amount of data will convince them of anything else and neither are you going to be convinced it's suddenly true even though we all have been bombarded with claims from friends. Also maybe my facebook feed is different, maybe my friends are different but I had and still have plenty of disagreement in my feed plenty of articles pointing both ways. Here is a good example from my feed. https://cl.ly/1b1s2W2w0G0c https://cl.ly/1b1s2W2w0G0c Basically a four year old history surfaces which is wrong and look at the articles underneath. I have seen plenty of examples of that. But maybe my feed is unique.

conistonwater 10y ago
That is not the argument in the opinion piece at all. What are you responding to?
- jansenv 10y ago
  Looks like they just needed to vent a bit.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  Here is an examples which illustrates it perfectly well: "After the election, Mr. Zuckerberg claimed that the fake news was a problem on “both sides” of the race. That’s wrong. There are, of course, viral fake anti-Trump memes, but reporters have found that the spread of false news is far more common on the right than it is on the left."
  - talmand 10y ago
    This >> but reporters have found that the spread of false news is far more common on the right than it is on the left." does not make this >> Mr. Zuckerberg claimed that the fake news was a problem on “both sides” of the race incorrect. One side does not get a pass because it was the lesser problem.

malchow 10y ago

Facebook has 1.79B MAUs, and users do not inject enough self-generated original content into the system to make Facebook consistently interesting for those 1.79M MAUs. Therefore their links to outside sites – good and bad, and it isn't particularly simple to decide – will continue to be core to Facebook's business. I always find it funny when I see HNers complaining about The Wall Street Journal's paywall. Pay it, man! And read the news. Too much emphasis on Facebook's alleged influence. It's a link/aggregation/search application, and the complexion of its output is strongly going to reflect what users input.

VeejayRampay 10y ago

I can't believe how people are trying desperately to find a culprit, a reason, an explanation and turning to Facebook for their choice of scapegoat. I mean if half your country is voting for a person whose face could easily illustrate the entries for both demagogue and ignorant in a dictionary, you have bigger problems than Facebook.

mistermann 10y ago
If you'd like more of the same, keep it up.
- dewyatt 10y ago
  This is inflammatory bait and not HN-quality discourse.
  - mistermann 10y ago
    Sorry, you're right.

vinhboy 10y ago

I've mentioned this before in another thread. It does not matter if it was less than 1% of facebook content. The problem is, it's also every where else. Have you guys seen the front page of Yahoo lately? And also, some how this crap crept into my Google Now news feed. Probably because I visited a dumb link on Reddit. I had to manually block them. But that probably means people who regularly read this crap, gets a ton of them.

newdayrising 10y ago

If Hillary won this wouldn't have been an issue for the NYT. Close to the election I repeatedly saw articles comparing Trump to Hitler and predicting the end of free society of he were to win. The only fake news I saw was satirical "news." I did not vote for Trump, but it's crazy how hysterical and witch-hunty the left is right now.

mr_spothawk 10y ago
not just crazy, it's legitimately scary. i have friends who's opinion and perspective i can usually trust makes making bold declarations about topics on which they are highly misinformed. that's to say nothing of the calls for censure of thought-crime from the commenters on HN
pault 10y ago
I tend to agree with you, but in the days after the election several of my acquaintances witnessed hate crimes accompanied by Trump slogans. This, along with the surge in reports of hate crimes in the media, tells me that this isn't just a repeat of 2000.
- Pokepokalypse 10y ago
  This is fact. This is actually occurring. I've seen it, and I've heard first hand accounts. What is also significant is that I see it being largely ignored in the media, as they frame peaceful counter-Trump protests as "riots" and "thugs destroying property". This is the opinion I'm seeing coming out by moderates, who are decrying the protests, and ignoring the fascist violence coming from hate groups.
  - AnimalMuppet 10y ago
    Really? The only (mainstream) articles I've seen have always put "riot" in quotes - as if we the media don't really think it's a riot, but the police say it is, and even implying that the police saying it is might be some kind of a problem. This about events where there is actual, documented (and even photographed) property being destroyed. (This was in Portland.)

mistermann 10y ago

> The Macedonian teenagers found this, too. They had experimented with left-leaning or pro-Bernie Sanders content, but gave up when they found it wasn’t as reliable a source of income as pro-Trump content. But even if Mr. Zuckerberg were right and fake news were equally popular on both sides, it would still be a profound problem. Perhaps because the market was already saturated with pro-Hillary pieces from mainstream media? If they produce only one-sided hit pieces on Trump, are you surprised those on the right will share anything positive they can find? The left has made it's own bed.

dariusm5 10y ago

Considering that American's trust in mainstream media is an all time low [1], I'm sure there is a big demand for alternative news. I'm not surprised people are looking for content that fits their narrative and end up reading fake articles. As someone observing from Mexico, I noticed almost all of the mainstream US media became an echo chamber for pro-Clinton content. I only realized this after after seeing how Sanders was sabotaged and the media collectively tried to bury it. Here in Mexico it's a similar situation with a few big media outlets protecting the corrupt status quo. [1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/185927/americans-trust-media-remains-historical-low.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/185927/americans-trust-media-rema...

pweissbrod 10y ago
What defines a 'mainstream' media outlet anyways? There were a handful of news outlets thoroughly reporting issues between DNC and Bernie Sanders such as Huffington Post and al-jazeera. I suppose these are not 'mainstream'? Perhaps mainstream media is defined by having a dedicated TV channel, or at least primetime TV show? Isnt it almost customary for such outlets to prioritize ratings over comprehensive coverage?
- rayvd 10y ago
  Both of those are left wing outlets. I'd think "mainstream" would be the ones which still posit themselves as un-biased (CBS, NBC, ABC, NY Times, Wash Post, etc.). I say the more the merrier. Let people decide.
- lujim 10y ago
  Who knows the definition, but I can tell you who is included. ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN.... Watching the anchors on these channels respond to Trumps performance on election night was jaw dropping. I was amazed that they weren't even going to try to pretend that they were impartially covering this election. I've always known the Fox and msnbc were a joke, but I have zero confidence in a single US based news outlet after this election. BTW Huffington Post stands out as an exceptionally huge steaming pile of partisan garbage as well.
10y ago

draw_down 10y ago

Our entire media class is in denial.

heurist 10y ago
The far-right wing of the media just took over the executive branch of our government. We are all in denial.
- draw_down 10y ago
  And yet, I can't wait to hear ostensibly intelligent people continue to whine about "political correctness" and how it's ruining everything.

bbctol 10y ago

"Fake stories" are not the biggest problem, and focusing on them could fix surface issues without addressing the underlying echo chamber effect. This piece is better than most, but I wish all people arguing for Facebook and Google to stop enabling opinions to be manipulated weren't so distracted by simple lies. It's the series of cherry-picked facts that create a narrative that we have to watch out for.

Pokepokalypse 10y ago
Fake stories are a huge problem. A trump supporter just shared a story yesterday about a mob of muslims marching through an American neighborhood demanding that Christmas decorations be taken down. Doesn't even pass the smell test: yet this person believes them implicitly. This election was decided so narrowly, you have to wonder what the impact was.

intrasight 10y ago

This "fake news" thing goes all the way back to the founding of our country (USA that is). It has always been a problem. And the solution now is the same as then - be critical and know thy source.

pi-err 10y ago

We are all in denial. As a non-FB user, I hit every day a Facebook captcha to test if I'm a bot, each time I land near a Facebook site. When it's not a captcha, a panel hides a third of the Facebook page. I have a "shadow" empty FB account that I sometimes use: if I'm logged in, anything I watch online ends up polluting recommendations and suggested sites. I looked up information on Syria and Trump the other day - I now have creepy sites displayed on my suggested sites. I also get giant "YOU ARE NOW QUITTING FACEBOOK" alerts anytime I try to click a link to, yes, go to this address. We all obsess on Google/Apple for privacy and yet do not hold Facebook to any standard regarding an open, honest web. I feel we're all getting slowly conditioned by Facebook (and others) to stay siloed. To fear that the web we browse will have "consequences" and that we should avoid being curious altogether. It's by now clear that the entire purpose of FB is to build a "unified profile" that advertisers can track on- and offline. We're all in denial on the consequences of this unified tracking. If we were in the Renaissance, anonymous publications like Spinoza's would be impossible. Free speech and opinion _requires_ freedom to change mind, wander around. This has to stop.

swalsh 10y ago

I'm scared people are going to keep pushing for social media to implement stronger filters. I believe very strongly that the free flow of information (even when it's just wrong) is critical. Information gives people power, but withholding information takes power away. If a company like Facebook implements the filter, we're giving that power to them and hoping they are ambivalent. The solution to fake news is for people to learn how to live in this new world. There used to be only a handful of news organizations, but now there are an infant amount of them. This is GOOD, it's democratizing, but it puts a burden on us as citizens, and consumers of information to understand the motivations of the authors. This is an opportunity we should be happy to have and be scared of technological or manual solutions that threaten it.

throwaway1892 10y ago
Also any kind of filter is open to abuse
simion314 10y ago
Maybe instead of filtering they can label the items that are not real news, or label the real news as news(I am not from US so the use case I am thinking of is fake medical/scientific news so in this domain would be easier to start with)
- Pokepokalypse 10y ago
  Truth in advertising, you say?
norea-armozel 10y ago
Or we can stop obsessing over the news and politics as a whole? I know that sounds contrary to common sense but I largely avoid any official news for mental health reasons and just for the fact that 9 times out of 10 I've been right as to their original sources (usually think tanks). Ditch the news from your Facebook or at least treat like you would being handed a pamphlet by a stranger: disregard it and throw it away. If you're really itching to know the facts of something in this modern world then Google is your best friend especially if you want to search academic papers on specific subjects like whether or not gender dysphoric children should be given puberty blockers (read the medical journals, the abstracts aren't as dense as say your average physics one). Or if you want to know if the EROI on solar is worth it, you got the department of energy papers, various consumer review sites, and much more. Basically, go do your own journalism because modern journalism is garbage and it'll never recover. Also accept that being more read doesn't mean you're more informed. Especially being well read in politics is like being well read in the DC New 52 lore. It's neat you put the energy into it but it's just a hobby of little objective value.

gthtjtkt 10y ago

This is more than a little bit ironic coming from the New York Times, which just issued an apology for its blatantly biased, divisive, and disappointing coverage of the entire election cycle: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/elections/to-our-readers-from-the-publisher-and-executive-editor.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/elections/to-our-reader...

aikah 10y ago

His job is not get this or that candidate elected. It's more like the New York Times is in denial blaming everybody but the poor candidate they endorsed for her failure to get elected. The New York Times was also in denial during the campaign dismissing Trump's candidacy as a joke, then giving Hillary 99% chances to win. Had they taken Trump seriously from the get-go and try to do a proper rebuttal with fact checking and not just "Pepe the frog is a fascist symbol", maybe the outcome would have been different.

dominotw 10y ago

Lol NYTimes. Pot kettle black. Looks like Zuckerberg doesn't have veto power at nytimes ;). https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4213 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4213 Lack of any self-awareness can only be attributed to arrogance. This is exactly the type of arrogance that got their candidate defeated and made Trump an underdog. Fuck you nytimes.

codemusings 10y ago

The only problem is: you can't fix stupid. It doesn't really matter. If it's not Facebook, it's Gawker, Buzzfeed or a thousend other clickbait outlets. If somebody actually believes the pope would endorse an American election candidate there really is nothing you can do.

Pokepokalypse 10y ago
You can fix stupid. If you couldn't, we'd still be in the Dark Ages.

mark_l_watson 10y ago

I don't trust the main stream media at all. As part of my long term research on NLP + text mining, I got in the habit of using English language news article from around the world as a text corpus. As part of this process I noticed the disconnect to US coverage compared to foreign news sources. Realizing that everyone has their own agenda, this experience still makes me sceptical of our news. That said, I am also very sceptical of what I read on the web. I follow several people's blogs and what they post on social media because over the years what they say usually turns out to be correct.

eggie 10y ago
Would you characterize the disconnect you found a bit more?
- mark_l_watson 10y ago
  Mostly dealing with our military operations (e.g., civilian casualties), that we are savior of the free world, how life in other countries is so much worse than in the USA (large dose of American exceptionalism). The USA is a great place, but there are also many other countries that are also great places.
  - eggie 10y ago
    Someone was talking about how, when you use existing systems to translate an poem written in arabic by a ten year old it comes out unintelligible, but the same process is flawless for descriptions of terrorist attacks.
  - eggie 10y ago
    Someone was talking about how, when you use existing systems to translate an poem written in arabic by a ten year old it comes out unintelligible, but the same process is flawless for descriptions of terrorist attacks.
Pokepokalypse 10y ago
This reminds me of the Microsoft project a few months ago, that took a corpus of online text, and very quickly started regurgitating racist messages.

rdtsc 10y ago

Am I reading between the lines correctly, is she saying Trump won because his supporters read about lizard people on Facebook? Speaking of denial, wonder where on a realness gradient she puts NYTimes or CNN?

gragas 10y ago
NYT is so out of touch. After extreme bias during the election cycle and a 96% drop in profits last quarter, they released a statement to their subscribers. Here's my favorite part: >We cannot deliver the independent, original journalism for which we are known without the loyalty of our readers.

johnward 10y ago

He's not in denial he knows these people want fake news. He's afraid of an exodus if they block it.

jondubois 10y ago

This is not so bad. I think that lies in the media are good if they help to balance public opinion. The world that I'm really scared of is one where everyone agrees about everything and people who disagree are locked up; that's where I saw things going before the election (when I thought that Hillary was going to win). Chaos and disagreement is one of the most important things in our society. We always need at least two sides to every story (even if one side is a complete fabrication) - Balance of public opinions is the most important thing for freedom.

Tempest1981 10y ago
I wouldn't go so far as to say that lies are good. I'm in favor of a robust debate, but let's base it on facts, and even feelings/understanding. The last thing we need to do is mis-educate more people... that'll never lead to agreement.

a_lihu 10y ago

And this is coming from NYT, a bullshit venue, whose boss said in a recent letter: "... we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor ...". NYT should close the business, nobody trusts them anymore.

gragas 10y ago
Yeah NYT is in denial, not Zuck. >We cannot deliver the independent, original journalism for which we are known without the loyalty of our readers. Funny, considering the newspaper just had a 96% drop in profits last quarter.
- grzm 10y ago
  "considering the newspaper just had a 96% drop in profits last quarter." Without knowing what the drop in profits is due to, I think it's. For example, is it because people are getting more of their news online and letting their paper subscriptions lapse? In my area home delivery is between $5–$10 per week, and that's at the 50% off introductory rate, compared to $3.75/week online only. Of course, that doesn't take into account printing and delivery costs. Another reason could be that people no longer see value above and beyond what's available elsewhere that they can get for free online. That's different from no longer trusting the paper. Looking up the reporting on the NYT profit decline, they note - decline in print ad sales, increase in digital ad sales (which is expected given the print -> digital migration) - significant investment in digital publishing - net profit losses mainly due to restructuring charges related to reducing workforce http://www.reuters.com/article/us-newyorktimes-results-idUSKBN12X1HU http://www.reuters.com/article/us-newyorktimes-results-idUSK... Of course, that's not to say trust in the paper isn't going to affect profits. I think it's fair to look at the entire picture.

EdiX 10y ago

reporters have found that the spread of false news is far more common on the right than it is on the left Citation needed.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Tempest1981 10y ago
"A recent BuzzFeed News analysis of giant hyperpartisan Facebook pages found that 38% of posts on conservative pages and 19% of posts on liberal pages featured false or misleading content." https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/partisan-fb-pages-analysis https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/partisan-fb-pages-an... From https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/can-facebook-trending-fight-off-fake-news https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/can-facebook-trendin...
- EdiX 10y ago
  Well, I didn't know buzzfeed bloggers counted as reporters, I stand corrected.

losteverything 10y ago

<Mr. Zuckerberg is doing real damage to American democracy — and to the world. We are so so so much better now that newspapers matter less and that the network news is not the main game in town. How does more sources make democracy worse even if it's "buyer beware?" it's arrogant to think truth is always hidden. <<People vote the way they do for a variety of reasons, but their information diet is a crucial part of the picture. We had a choice of candidates that was leftovers or diner food for Thanksgiving. That was the problem Do you really think the NYT will say good things in an op-ed about it's nimble young competitor?

Melk 10y ago
No matter what your opinion is of mainstream media, replacing it with disinformation, half-truths, and fabrications is not an improvement.
- losteverything 10y ago
  I struggle with this. A rising tide raises all passengers (sic) So more people get more news than mainstreamville. That is better than the way it was. Imo

gragas 10y ago

Ha! More like, NYTimes is in denial. Especially considering one of their biggest subscription losses in history just happened last quarter.

chinese_donald 10y ago

What about all of the fake Trump news? My friends on Facebook still think Trump is a rapist (he never raped anyone), Racist (I'm still not sure where this one came from), and homophobic (he is not reversing gay marriage). When his first speech came out about immigration, he said he wants to deport illegal immigrants (which is actually already law). The media turned it into just 'immigrants' and we now have entire groups of legal immigrants that are afraid Trump will deport them. Did nobody watch the speech or does the mainstream media have problems comprehending English? There is anti-Trump violence growing in the US and people have been assaulted and harassed for even saying they supported him. The protests aren't 'peaceful', they are riots. This is all ignored on the news, however. The only thing they can spew out is the story about the girl that got her Hijab pulled, which turned out to be fake. MSNBC still reports it as fact. Will Facebook ban links to MSNBC for this fake story? This is exactly why half the country voted Trump into office. Even now, you still can't figure out that it was your own fault and want to blame the rest of American for losing the election. The other irony is complaining about bias and marginalizing and then painting an entire group of people (Trump supports) as 'racists' and 'islamaphobes'. It really shows me that all of the people that claim we need more 'love' and 'peace' are just using it for political gain and power. When they don't get what they want, the fangs come out. You want understanding and compassion when it comes to gay marriage and the transgender community, but give none of it in return.

mjmsmith 10y ago
> The only thing they can spew out is the story about the girl > that got her Hijab pulled, which turned out to be fake. You honestly believe that there was one single incident, and it was fake? This is an honest question: where do you get your news from?

TYPE_FASTER 10y ago

Media != journalism http://www.pbs.org/newshour/ http://www.pbs.org/newshour/