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I think "Fake News" is a boogey-man rationalization for what happened. "Half of the country voted for someone else. Not someone I liked. I am baffled. What hap

by rdtsc 10y ago

I think "Fake News" is a boogey-man rationalization for what happened. "Half of the country voted for someone else. Not someone I liked. I am baffled. What happened? Because they read about lizard people or how Obama was born in Africa" or, the officially sanctioned response: "Because of those pesky KGB agents hiding in the bushes". That is the easiest rationalization and one which leads to least cognitive dissonance and one in which the other side is completely demonized or idioticized. All those working men and women from PA and MI who before voted for the "right party" almost religiously for years, all of the sudden have been brainwashed by sneaky foreigners to believe in lizard people, they are all now white supremacists and like Hitler (nevermind they voted for Obama just a few years ago), and will also use gays for target practice.

chis 10y ago
Yeah, it was interesting seeing Rachel Maddow jump from "3rd party voting screwed us" to "down with the electoral college" and now it's somehow all about Facebook clickbait. This one seems like the narrative most likely to catch on.
- megalox 10y ago
  There are a number of contributing factors to the outcome. As such, it is reasonable to expect a number of different conversations.
flukus 10y ago
It's not even a new problem in any case. There were all sorts of crazy conspiracy magazines in every newsagent long before the internet existed. "Respectable" news sources have been publishing completely fictional stuff for as long as they've existed too.
- karmelapple 10y ago
  There is a rash of outlets turning out completely fake news with inflammatory, baiting headlines, which can be more easily shared now than ever before. This problem is undoubtedly different than if some newspapers in one town or city publishing wrong information; then it was contained to a geographic area, but that's no longer the case with electronic media.
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    It sure is a problem but this showing right after the election with Facebook, Google and all these media outlets started talking about "Fake News" all of the sudden is a not a coincidence, there is an implication there and my point is that is largely made up and somewhat dishonest.
    - karmelapple 10y ago
      Do you think the problem was worse now than in the past? My point is that yes, it IS worse.
- paganel 10y ago
  > "Respectable" news sources have been publishing completely fictional stuff for as long as they've existed too. But if you say that out-loud then you're "undermining democracy" or you're a Russian shill, or both. Never mind that as a reader of The Economist for more than 10 years it pained me to see how low their standard for reporting anything Trump-related went, and we're talking about a British magazine which wasn't involved directly in the US elections. They were calling Trump all sorts of names even though he hadn't spent one-day in elected office, while when they interviewed a genuine war criminal like Tony Blair about a year ago (on 3 or 4 pages) the word "criminal" never made it into their reporting, not even the more tame "liar" (which Trump was called hundreds of times, never-mind that everyone and his dog lies come election time). Stuff like NYTimes and Washington Post were funny to read at times.
  - flukus 10y ago
    Actually, the Trump reporting was an eye opener for me. I'm very left wing and I've always thought the concept of "Liberal media" was retarded. How wrong I was.
    - Retric 10y ago
      They dumped on the non news email scandal for month after month. It's not liberal bias it's revenue bias. Trump baited them into a lot of free press. PS: Bias would be something like: "Trumps 100 Billion dollar wall designed to keep immigrants from leaving!"
  - dmitrij 10y ago
    Having the Economist, NY Times and WP reporting according to a certain liberal, free market bias is bad. But, in a world of post-truth, not having them at all would be worse. For me, there is still a difference between bias and not caring about the facts at all.
  - croon 10y ago
    Sure, either NYT, WP, The Economist, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, etc, etc were all corporate shills/lamestream media/liars/agenda seekers.... OR Trump voters were misled by their "sources" and try any mental gymnastics they can to reaffirm their preconceived notions. If it quacks like a duck...
- bigyaz 10y ago
  Yes, and they had a few hundred fringe readers. To compare that to a racist, anti-Semitic site like Breitbart or Infowars that reach millions of credulous rubes who haved never done any critical thinking in their lives is frankly ignorant.
dmode 10y ago
Did you even read the article? It's about implication of Facebook in international politics. I have relatives in India and I know exactly how this plays out. They are constantly sharing fake news that confirms their bias. For example one of the stories was how NASA has validated a religious book in India which had calculated the distance between Earth and Sun
- jerkstate 10y ago
  Hey now - there's plenty of fake news to confirm everyone's biases on Facebook, yours included.
- msravi 10y ago
  And that affects the outcome of an election, how? Sure, it's a bias that you ought to measure and factor in into your projections and your campaigning, but to say that the fake news item swung the vote in one or either direction is to completely miss the point.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  > Did you even read the article? Yes I did. Did you read my comment? There is a reason we are all of the sudden talking about Fake News and just a few days almost nobody thought about the phrase. It has little to do with elections in India.
  - fweespeech 10y ago
    > Yes I did. Did you read my comment? There is a reason we are all of the sudden talking about Fake News and just a few days almost nobody thought about the phrase. It has little to do with elections in India. [2014] https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2014/08/30/large-the-internet-fake-news-problem/SABBRta88xgqwEPY86oP3M/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2014/08/30/large-the-intern... > The Internet’s fake news problem > Some of it is satire (The Onion and, to a less proven extent, its clickbaiting sister site Clickhole continue to bear the standard of mastery), but the larger part of what’s out there is “satire” — from the chronically unfunny half-jokes of the Daily Currant to the shrug-inducing falsehoods of Empire News , the toothlessly goofy sendups of Free Wood Post , the over-the-top Christian-trolling of Christwire , and the more pernicious race-baiting of sites like CreamBPM and Newsbuzzdaily . https://newrepublic.com/article/118013/satire-news-websites-are-cashing-gullible-outraged-readers https://newrepublic.com/article/118013/satire-news-websites-... > Upworthy and Viralnova, at least, are honest about what they're selling: gaudy, sentimental, life-affirming stories. But the Currant class promises humor and almost universally fails to deliver it—because the actual goal is SEO clickbait. Given that, you might wonder why they even bother identifying themselves, usually in disclaimers at the bottom of the page, as satirical news sites.The answer is simple: to avoid a lawsuit. > But the biggest mystery isn’t the identity of the conmen—it’s how much they're hauling in. Barkeley told Slate that his humor provides him with a “tight but livable” income. A number of publically available valuation services, which are by no means precise, estimate that The Daily Currant brings in anywhere from mid-five figures to $130,000 dollars a year on ad revenue alone. Finkelstein, the SEO expert, says even those numbers may be low, as they doesn't include revenue derived from short-term revenue bumps when a story goes viral. “I would estimate their yearly revenue from display advertising at about $100,000–$150,000 a year,” he said, noting that even with his expertise and access to estimation tools, it's not an exact science. “It isn’t perfect, but it is close. But at most, over the few years they’ve existed, The Daily Currant may have made as much as $500,000 in revenue—split between two people who are hardly doing any work.” > The Daily Currant is likely the king of this particular con. But others may be catching up. The same public revenue calculators place Mediamass’s annual ad revenue alone at just under $40,000; Huzzlers' is rapidly approaching $45,000. Not bad takes, especially when you consider that some of these sites don’t even bother to write their own unfunny canards: They just steal them from other sites. [2016] http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-human-news-editors-2016-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-human-news-editors-2... > After a Gizmodo story claimed Facebook editors had suppressed conservative news from the Trending section, the social network fired those editors in favor of an algorithm. As part of the change, the Trending section no longer shows custom headlines and summaries of news topics. > “We’re not in the business of deciding what issues people should read about," he said. "We don’t create content. We’re not in that business.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/10/12/facebook-has-repeatedly-trended-fake-news-since-firing-its-human-editors/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/10... > Facebook has repeatedly trended fake news since firing its human editors
rhcom 10y ago
Why write off the possibility of foreign influence in our elections? Is the NSA in on the conspiracy too? I also think the story that all these people who voted for Obama switched to Trump isn't true. The people who voted for Obama didn't even vote this election [1]. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/omribenshahar/2016/11/17/the-non-voters-who-decided-the-election-trump-won-because-of-lower-democratic-turnout/#2325965240a1 http://www.forbes.com/sites/omribenshahar/2016/11/17/the-non...
- rdtsc 10y ago
  I don't know, I find it hard to be believe that with Trump getting what over 300 electoral college votes and Hillary having the worst Democratic performance in 28 years, that people who voted for Obama just simply didn't show up to vote or voted for Hillary. Washington Post (if you trust it, I don't much, but got nothing else here) says this --- Nearly 1 in 5 Trump voters say they approve of Obama's job performance. That would mean about 8 percent (note: large margin of error) of Americans went to the polls on Election Day liking what Obama was producing as president but deciding to vote for the other party's unpopular nominee anyway. --- They are quoting Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University there
  - prostoalex 10y ago
    > I find it hard to be believe that with Trump getting what over 300 electoral college votes and Hillary having the worst Democratic performance in 28 years, that people for voted for Obama just simply didn't show up Romney 2012 - 60,933,504 votes, Trump 2016 - 61,000,837 votes. Obama 2012 - 65,915,795 votes, Clinton 2016 - 62,109,875 votes. Let's not forget that second term presidencies typically attract fewer voters, and 2012 was a low point for Obama, whose personal record is 69,498,516 votes in 2008. People who traditionally vote Republican showed up and voted Republican. People who traditionally vote Democrat simply didn't show up.
    - rdtsc 10y ago
      > People who traditionally vote Republican showed up and voted Republican. You maybe right. I think some of traditional Republicans voted against Trump. I don't have hard numbers, but at least from my circle of acquaintances two life long Republicans voted for Hillary and against Trump, and a life long Democrat voted for Bernie then Stein. I would say it is probably not as simple as "simply didn't show up".
whybroke 10y ago
What was the impact of facebook and the nature and intensity of fake news four years ago vs now? If the difference is even slightly significant, it could well explain part of the phenomenon. And one does need to explain why such large percentage of Trump's supporters believe things like Obama being foreign a born muslim, and why they voted so conclusively against their own self interests
- ahartman00 10y ago
  but they thought he was a foreign born muslim during the elections that he won also. explain that?
qq66 10y ago
This isn't the "wrong candidate" who has "wrong" policy views like Ted Cruz or Pat Buchanan. This is a candidate who doesn't really have the basic self-control to stop Tweeting when he knows it's hurting him. That's new. Alexander Hamilton didn't think it could happen, although we've greatly damaged the system that he and his peers created to prevent it from happening (primary elections, ballot measures, bound electors, etc). It's worth trying to figure out why, because it will only take between one and a few such commanders-in-chief for the story to get its final chapter.
slowmotiony 10y ago
It's so obvious. The current narrative is that voters are stupid and believe in complete nonsense, otherwise they wouldn't have "voted wrong".
- MrZongle2 10y ago
  Just like Brexit.
michaelbuckbee 10y ago
My concern about the Fake News come from a different viewpoint: it's not about politics, it's about commerce. A very common digital ad is: "The Rock arrested for suspected steroid abuse" and a picture of him in cuffs (screenshotted from a movie). If you click through to the landing page it is a hard sell for some body building supplement that's "so good it should be illegal." In other words Fake News is a dark pattern and with the election the same shady, spammy, scummy folks switched it up for politics. They're putting out fake news stories on both sides [1] just trying to drive clicks and shares and get people outraged enough they'll "Like/Share" the ad to their social networks. 1 - http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/ http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/
- rdtsc 10y ago
  > it's not about politics, it's about commerce. Absolutely. The other classic is ads disguised as news. Sometimes they'd usually be a little disclaimer but not always. Some videos have people acting like news anchors talking about buying cleaning products. So it is about revenue as well. However I don't think it is coincidental everyone all of the sudden started to talk about "Fake News" since a few days ago.
  - soundwave106 10y ago
    Previously when these type of patterns were brought up, the discussion was more using the terms "clickbait" and the concerns were about hidden "sponsored advertising". Using inflammatory populist politics to sell shady items is a pretty old pattern too (certainly it has existed throughout my lifetime). I agree it's a boogey-man to think it decided the election. Personally, I stopped using Facebook a long time ago partially because of the platform's embrace of "clickbait" and obnoxious "viral" sponsored content. The "fake news" stories, which are just another side of the same coin, confirms to me that Facebook is not a terribly trustworthy social media platform. Maybe it will confirm this to other people too. So it will be interesting to see how Facebook reacts.
- eoirs 10y ago
  Well then why did Obama had to mention it.
ern 10y ago
There is some truth in that. But these stories about fake news and professional trolling have been around for more than a year. The article is about other countries where the phenomenon is widespread. If HRC had won. I'm pretty sure we'd have been having the same conversations although not reported with the same urgency.
- TheGirondin 10y ago
  We absolutely would not be talking about the fake news disguised as satire about how Trump is going to send people back to Africa, or round up all Hispanics into internment camps, or ban the practice of Islam, or nuke the middle east. We certainly would not be talking about how mainstream media outlets also kept pushing fear mongering narratives.
tdkl 10y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyS3Ghevf2I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyS3Ghevf2I
return0 10y ago
Yep, eventhough it's been a week. And let's not forget russia denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance ^-- you are here
- rdtsc 10y ago
  And where are you on the scale? ;)
  - return0 10y ago
    I 'm not american, and i expected trump to win anyways.
    - rdtsc 10y ago
      Makes sense. It seems the graph needs vertical axis: "how affect am I by this" ;-)
imagist 10y ago
I agree with what you're saying--fake news from Facebook brainwashing people probably was not the deciding factor in this election. However, fake news is a huge problem, especially as more and more people get their news from Facebook. Even if fake news wasn't THE factor this election, it was A factor, and it's not hard to imagine a future in which fake news determined the outcome of an election.
ZeroGravitas 10y ago
You say all this in a dismissive tone, but there is a powerful media voice in America that talks about fish people and interdimensional elves, and a president elect that claimed for years that the previous president was a sleeper agent who had his entire life story up to and beyond college invented as a cover story. Who on television after a mass shooting crassly implied that the President was implicated. I could go on but I'll stop there. That seems worth a news article or two. Also regarding your thought that it's just sour grapes after losing, here's a fascinating This American Life episode from during the election on roughly the same topic, but talking about the USA: https://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/599/seriously?act=1 https://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/599/se... "Ira's quest continues. He calls his Uncle Lenny, who gets his news from Fox and the Wall Street Journal, and lives with an entirely different set of facts, and Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration expert at the CATO Institute, who explains that the central issue in Donald Trump’s candidacy is based on something that isn’t true."
- chrishacken 10y ago
  I think his point is, there has been fake news on FB for years now and no one has bat an eye. Now all of a sudden it's of interest to everyone because it's a scapegoat explanation for why the Democrats lost the White House.
  - mtbcoder 10y ago
    I think it's of interest now because you have a direct cause-and-effect scenario in place (e.g. fake news having some effect on the outcome of a US election). Beforehand, most people would have assumed that the fake news industry simply pandered to the conspiratorial crowd without any repercussions. It was harmless...not to be taken seriously. However, now we can see real consequences, which makes for a worthy story IMO.
    - rdtsc 10y ago
      > you have a direct cause-and-effect scenario in place See I was not so sure about the direct cause and effect bit. That sounds a bit too dismissive. I am sure it has to have some effect but not sure that's the reason for an electoral landslide and Hillary delivering the worst Democratic performance in 20 some years, despite having experience, a mass media support, DOJ and POTUS on her side, a lot more donor money and resources. Saying this is because Macedonians brainwashed our citizens about lizard people or KGB agents seems dishonest.
sebastianconcpt 10y ago
Rationalization plays a role but there is a lot more than that involved. If you studi the cultural war subject you might find some answers
tim333 10y ago
On the other hand there's an article in the WaPo "Facebook fake-news writer: ‘I think Donald Trump is in the White House because of me’" where he mentions "my story about a protester getting paid $3,500 as fact. Like, I made that up. I posted a fake ad on Craigslist." And similar. It's by no means impossible that that stuff swung the election. I mean I actually believed there may have been paid protestors and that's the first I've seen of it being faked (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11/17/facebook-fake-news-writer-i-think-donald-trump-is-in-the-white-house-because-of-me/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11...)
- rukittenme 10y ago
  It sounds like this "journalist" just has a huge ego. No one man or his news would have swung an election. If fake news could swing an election, CNN would be the "newspaper of record" and not the New York Times. This whole fake news controversy makes me really sad. Democrats aren't learning from their failures.
  - tim333 10y ago
    I agree with you about the "journalist." However a lot of people think Comey's "oh we're investigating the emails again"... "nothing there" stuff swung it. Not exactly fake news but kind of along those lines.
    - rukittenme 10y ago
      The inquiry undoubtedly hurt her but its not fake news for the FBI to report on the status of an investigation. That's real news with an anti-climactic ending.
  - kristjansson 10y ago
    No one is saying that fake news/filter bubbles were the overriding factor in the election, merely that they were contributory.
maxerickson 10y ago
The fake news isn't lizard people and magic brainwashing of people into white supremacists, it's "Clinton is even more terrible than you think". Trump would not have won without also carrying most of the traditional Republican base, but it's quite possible that something with a small effect ended up flipping the vote in one of the states that decided the electoral college.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  > The fake news isn't lizard people and magic brainwashing of people into white supremacists, it's "Clinton is even more terrible than you think". What about people not liking her policies or what she has done, is that because of "Fake News". Should we go and censor that. Telling them they read "Fake News" and instead they should have been watching the "real news" like CNN would also sound rather silly, don't you think?
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    No, it's fine for people to not like her policies, that's the traditional Republican base that I mentioned. I'm sure lots of well informed people voted against Clinton. So for example, in Wisconsin, I'm sure Trump would have gotten 1 million+ votes regardless of fake news. The question is more whether inaccurate stories influenced enough people (3 types of influence: vote changing, increasing enthusiasm which encourages voting, decreasing enthusiasm which discourages voting) to push the margin in Wisconsin to 30,000 in favor of Trump. I have seen no proof that it happened, I'm just saying that I think it could have happened in such a close race.
    - rdtsc 10y ago
      > The question is more whether inaccurate stories influenced enough people Exactly, I'd want to know more as well. > I'm just saying that I think it could have happened in such a close race. The margin was close in many states, but overall Hillary still got the worst Democratic turnout since early 90's. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending who you ask) electoral collage is how presidency is won. So campaign strategy focuses on that. In that regard with Trump's landslide, putting "Fake News" as a major reason I think is dismissive. There are serious conditions under which so many people elected a TV show star as a President, and even though I am just as baffled and don't have the answer, I suspect focusing on "Fake News" is a misdirection.
megalox 10y ago
Your assertion that fake news can't matter is absurd. Fake news has always been a part of American society (Remember the Maine!) and has always affected politics. The degree has varied over time, but this type of manipulation has happened, repeatedly, with great effect. It is dishonest to pretend that the dems are claiming fake news is the only reason they lost. Conversations list it as one of a host of contributing factors, not a whole explanation. We all know this, and you should be ashamed of having pretended otherwise. It's also absurd to claim that the response is mere sour grapes. People have a tendency to ignore problems and hope they go away until they are too big to ignore. This is such a case. Filter bubbles and fake news seemed troubling, but when Trump managed to beat a number of well qualified Republican candidates, it became clear that fake news had more power than was believed. It's beyond belief that fake news has now become a political issue. On the one hand we have people who want it to be easier for an individual to know if they're being lied to; and on the other hand we have the Trump-loving wing of the GOP. (this is not the entire or even a majority of the GOP). It's wholly reasonable to care about truth, and to want more truth. Your post has no value. You are just attacking the character of people with a valid concern, and you're backing up that attack with mischaracterizations and lies. Thus, I suppose, it is unsurprising that you oppose truth in media.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  > Your assertion that fake news can't matter is absurd. I didn't say it can't matter. I said I don't believe it is the reason for an electoral landslide. Do you? > It is dishonest to pretend that the dems are claiming fake news is the only reason they lost. So we agree there. It is a matter of degree. It seems you think it has a stronger degree and I think it didn't. Hopefully we'll see some impartial well done studies about it. So far I just have an opinion and it's ok disagree with it. > People have a tendency to ignore problems and hope they go away until they are too big to ignore. This is such a case. That's a good explanation. I like it, I can agree with that. > You are just attacking the character of people with a valid concern, But isn't "attacking the character of people" the theme here. The idea that people who haven't picked a candidate I liked are idiots / racists / homophobic? I've heard that quite often in mass media and I find it too dismissive and simple. I didn't say you said that but I've heard it enough time to form an opinion. > Your post has no value. Sorry. I didn't mean to waste your time. It was my opinion. Yes it probably has no value.

by rdtsc 10y ago

chis 10y ago

Yeah, it was interesting seeing Rachel Maddow jump from "3rd party voting screwed us" to "down with the electoral college" and now it's somehow all about Facebook clickbait. This one seems like the narrative most likely to catch on.

megalox 10y ago
There are a number of contributing factors to the outcome. As such, it is reasonable to expect a number of different conversations.

flukus 10y ago

It's not even a new problem in any case. There were all sorts of crazy conspiracy magazines in every newsagent long before the internet existed. "Respectable" news sources have been publishing completely fictional stuff for as long as they've existed too.

karmelapple 10y ago
There is a rash of outlets turning out completely fake news with inflammatory, baiting headlines, which can be more easily shared now than ever before. This problem is undoubtedly different than if some newspapers in one town or city publishing wrong information; then it was contained to a geographic area, but that's no longer the case with electronic media.
- rdtsc 10y ago
  It sure is a problem but this showing right after the election with Facebook, Google and all these media outlets started talking about "Fake News" all of the sudden is a not a coincidence, there is an implication there and my point is that is largely made up and somewhat dishonest.
  - karmelapple 10y ago
    Do you think the problem was worse now than in the past? My point is that yes, it IS worse.
paganel 10y ago
> "Respectable" news sources have been publishing completely fictional stuff for as long as they've existed too. But if you say that out-loud then you're "undermining democracy" or you're a Russian shill, or both. Never mind that as a reader of The Economist for more than 10 years it pained me to see how low their standard for reporting anything Trump-related went, and we're talking about a British magazine which wasn't involved directly in the US elections. They were calling Trump all sorts of names even though he hadn't spent one-day in elected office, while when they interviewed a genuine war criminal like Tony Blair about a year ago (on 3 or 4 pages) the word "criminal" never made it into their reporting, not even the more tame "liar" (which Trump was called hundreds of times, never-mind that everyone and his dog lies come election time). Stuff like NYTimes and Washington Post were funny to read at times.
- flukus 10y ago
  Actually, the Trump reporting was an eye opener for me. I'm very left wing and I've always thought the concept of "Liberal media" was retarded. How wrong I was.
  - Retric 10y ago
    They dumped on the non news email scandal for month after month. It's not liberal bias it's revenue bias. Trump baited them into a lot of free press. PS: Bias would be something like: "Trumps 100 Billion dollar wall designed to keep immigrants from leaving!"
- dmitrij 10y ago
  Having the Economist, NY Times and WP reporting according to a certain liberal, free market bias is bad. But, in a world of post-truth, not having them at all would be worse. For me, there is still a difference between bias and not caring about the facts at all.
- croon 10y ago
  Sure, either NYT, WP, The Economist, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, etc, etc were all corporate shills/lamestream media/liars/agenda seekers.... OR Trump voters were misled by their "sources" and try any mental gymnastics they can to reaffirm their preconceived notions. If it quacks like a duck...
bigyaz 10y ago
Yes, and they had a few hundred fringe readers. To compare that to a racist, anti-Semitic site like Breitbart or Infowars that reach millions of credulous rubes who haved never done any critical thinking in their lives is frankly ignorant.

dmode 10y ago

Did you even read the article? It's about implication of Facebook in international politics. I have relatives in India and I know exactly how this plays out. They are constantly sharing fake news that confirms their bias. For example one of the stories was how NASA has validated a religious book in India which had calculated the distance between Earth and Sun

jerkstate 10y ago
Hey now - there's plenty of fake news to confirm everyone's biases on Facebook, yours included.
msravi 10y ago
And that affects the outcome of an election, how? Sure, it's a bias that you ought to measure and factor in into your projections and your campaigning, but to say that the fake news item swung the vote in one or either direction is to completely miss the point.
rdtsc 10y ago
> Did you even read the article? Yes I did. Did you read my comment? There is a reason we are all of the sudden talking about Fake News and just a few days almost nobody thought about the phrase. It has little to do with elections in India.
- fweespeech 10y ago
  > Yes I did. Did you read my comment? There is a reason we are all of the sudden talking about Fake News and just a few days almost nobody thought about the phrase. It has little to do with elections in India. [2014] https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2014/08/30/large-the-internet-fake-news-problem/SABBRta88xgqwEPY86oP3M/story.html https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/2014/08/30/large-the-intern... > The Internet’s fake news problem > Some of it is satire (The Onion and, to a less proven extent, its clickbaiting sister site Clickhole continue to bear the standard of mastery), but the larger part of what’s out there is “satire” — from the chronically unfunny half-jokes of the Daily Currant to the shrug-inducing falsehoods of Empire News , the toothlessly goofy sendups of Free Wood Post , the over-the-top Christian-trolling of Christwire , and the more pernicious race-baiting of sites like CreamBPM and Newsbuzzdaily . https://newrepublic.com/article/118013/satire-news-websites-are-cashing-gullible-outraged-readers https://newrepublic.com/article/118013/satire-news-websites-... > Upworthy and Viralnova, at least, are honest about what they're selling: gaudy, sentimental, life-affirming stories. But the Currant class promises humor and almost universally fails to deliver it—because the actual goal is SEO clickbait. Given that, you might wonder why they even bother identifying themselves, usually in disclaimers at the bottom of the page, as satirical news sites.The answer is simple: to avoid a lawsuit. > But the biggest mystery isn’t the identity of the conmen—it’s how much they're hauling in. Barkeley told Slate that his humor provides him with a “tight but livable” income. A number of publically available valuation services, which are by no means precise, estimate that The Daily Currant brings in anywhere from mid-five figures to $130,000 dollars a year on ad revenue alone. Finkelstein, the SEO expert, says even those numbers may be low, as they doesn't include revenue derived from short-term revenue bumps when a story goes viral. “I would estimate their yearly revenue from display advertising at about $100,000–$150,000 a year,” he said, noting that even with his expertise and access to estimation tools, it's not an exact science. “It isn’t perfect, but it is close. But at most, over the few years they’ve existed, The Daily Currant may have made as much as $500,000 in revenue—split between two people who are hardly doing any work.” > The Daily Currant is likely the king of this particular con. But others may be catching up. The same public revenue calculators place Mediamass’s annual ad revenue alone at just under $40,000; Huzzlers' is rapidly approaching $45,000. Not bad takes, especially when you consider that some of these sites don’t even bother to write their own unfunny canards: They just steal them from other sites. [2016] http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-human-news-editors-2016-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-human-news-editors-2... > After a Gizmodo story claimed Facebook editors had suppressed conservative news from the Trending section, the social network fired those editors in favor of an algorithm. As part of the change, the Trending section no longer shows custom headlines and summaries of news topics. > “We’re not in the business of deciding what issues people should read about," he said. "We don’t create content. We’re not in that business.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/10/12/facebook-has-repeatedly-trended-fake-news-since-firing-its-human-editors/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/10... > Facebook has repeatedly trended fake news since firing its human editors

rhcom 10y ago

Why write off the possibility of foreign influence in our elections? Is the NSA in on the conspiracy too? I also think the story that all these people who voted for Obama switched to Trump isn't true. The people who voted for Obama didn't even vote this election [1]. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/omribenshahar/2016/11/17/the-non-voters-who-decided-the-election-trump-won-because-of-lower-democratic-turnout/#2325965240a1 http://www.forbes.com/sites/omribenshahar/2016/11/17/the-non...

rdtsc 10y ago
I don't know, I find it hard to be believe that with Trump getting what over 300 electoral college votes and Hillary having the worst Democratic performance in 28 years, that people who voted for Obama just simply didn't show up to vote or voted for Hillary. Washington Post (if you trust it, I don't much, but got nothing else here) says this --- Nearly 1 in 5 Trump voters say they approve of Obama's job performance. That would mean about 8 percent (note: large margin of error) of Americans went to the polls on Election Day liking what Obama was producing as president but deciding to vote for the other party's unpopular nominee anyway. --- They are quoting Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University there
- prostoalex 10y ago
  > I find it hard to be believe that with Trump getting what over 300 electoral college votes and Hillary having the worst Democratic performance in 28 years, that people for voted for Obama just simply didn't show up Romney 2012 - 60,933,504 votes, Trump 2016 - 61,000,837 votes. Obama 2012 - 65,915,795 votes, Clinton 2016 - 62,109,875 votes. Let's not forget that second term presidencies typically attract fewer voters, and 2012 was a low point for Obama, whose personal record is 69,498,516 votes in 2008. People who traditionally vote Republican showed up and voted Republican. People who traditionally vote Democrat simply didn't show up.
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    > People who traditionally vote Republican showed up and voted Republican. You maybe right. I think some of traditional Republicans voted against Trump. I don't have hard numbers, but at least from my circle of acquaintances two life long Republicans voted for Hillary and against Trump, and a life long Democrat voted for Bernie then Stein. I would say it is probably not as simple as "simply didn't show up".

whybroke 10y ago

What was the impact of facebook and the nature and intensity of fake news four years ago vs now? If the difference is even slightly significant, it could well explain part of the phenomenon. And one does need to explain why such large percentage of Trump's supporters believe things like Obama being foreign a born muslim, and why they voted so conclusively against their own self interests

ahartman00 10y ago
but they thought he was a foreign born muslim during the elections that he won also. explain that?

qq66 10y ago

This isn't the "wrong candidate" who has "wrong" policy views like Ted Cruz or Pat Buchanan. This is a candidate who doesn't really have the basic self-control to stop Tweeting when he knows it's hurting him. That's new. Alexander Hamilton didn't think it could happen, although we've greatly damaged the system that he and his peers created to prevent it from happening (primary elections, ballot measures, bound electors, etc). It's worth trying to figure out why, because it will only take between one and a few such commanders-in-chief for the story to get its final chapter.

slowmotiony 10y ago

It's so obvious. The current narrative is that voters are stupid and believe in complete nonsense, otherwise they wouldn't have "voted wrong".

MrZongle2 10y ago
Just like Brexit.

michaelbuckbee 10y ago

My concern about the Fake News come from a different viewpoint: it's not about politics, it's about commerce. A very common digital ad is: "The Rock arrested for suspected steroid abuse" and a picture of him in cuffs (screenshotted from a movie). If you click through to the landing page it is a hard sell for some body building supplement that's "so good it should be illegal." In other words Fake News is a dark pattern and with the election the same shady, spammy, scummy folks switched it up for politics. They're putting out fake news stories on both sides [1] just trying to drive clicks and shares and get people outraged enough they'll "Like/Share" the ad to their social networks. 1 - http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/ http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/

rdtsc 10y ago
> it's not about politics, it's about commerce. Absolutely. The other classic is ads disguised as news. Sometimes they'd usually be a little disclaimer but not always. Some videos have people acting like news anchors talking about buying cleaning products. So it is about revenue as well. However I don't think it is coincidental everyone all of the sudden started to talk about "Fake News" since a few days ago.
- soundwave106 10y ago
  Previously when these type of patterns were brought up, the discussion was more using the terms "clickbait" and the concerns were about hidden "sponsored advertising". Using inflammatory populist politics to sell shady items is a pretty old pattern too (certainly it has existed throughout my lifetime). I agree it's a boogey-man to think it decided the election. Personally, I stopped using Facebook a long time ago partially because of the platform's embrace of "clickbait" and obnoxious "viral" sponsored content. The "fake news" stories, which are just another side of the same coin, confirms to me that Facebook is not a terribly trustworthy social media platform. Maybe it will confirm this to other people too. So it will be interesting to see how Facebook reacts.
eoirs 10y ago
Well then why did Obama had to mention it.

ern 10y ago

There is some truth in that. But these stories about fake news and professional trolling have been around for more than a year. The article is about other countries where the phenomenon is widespread. If HRC had won. I'm pretty sure we'd have been having the same conversations although not reported with the same urgency.

TheGirondin 10y ago
We absolutely would not be talking about the fake news disguised as satire about how Trump is going to send people back to Africa, or round up all Hispanics into internment camps, or ban the practice of Islam, or nuke the middle east. We certainly would not be talking about how mainstream media outlets also kept pushing fear mongering narratives.

tdkl 10y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyS3Ghevf2I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyS3Ghevf2I

return0 10y ago

Yep, eventhough it's been a week. And let's not forget russia denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance ^-- you are here

rdtsc 10y ago
And where are you on the scale? ;)
- return0 10y ago
  I 'm not american, and i expected trump to win anyways.
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    Makes sense. It seems the graph needs vertical axis: "how affect am I by this" ;-)

imagist 10y ago

I agree with what you're saying--fake news from Facebook brainwashing people probably was not the deciding factor in this election. However, fake news is a huge problem, especially as more and more people get their news from Facebook. Even if fake news wasn't THE factor this election, it was A factor, and it's not hard to imagine a future in which fake news determined the outcome of an election.

ZeroGravitas 10y ago

You say all this in a dismissive tone, but there is a powerful media voice in America that talks about fish people and interdimensional elves, and a president elect that claimed for years that the previous president was a sleeper agent who had his entire life story up to and beyond college invented as a cover story. Who on television after a mass shooting crassly implied that the President was implicated. I could go on but I'll stop there. That seems worth a news article or two. Also regarding your thought that it's just sour grapes after losing, here's a fascinating This American Life episode from during the election on roughly the same topic, but talking about the USA: https://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/599/seriously?act=1 https://m.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/599/se... "Ira's quest continues. He calls his Uncle Lenny, who gets his news from Fox and the Wall Street Journal, and lives with an entirely different set of facts, and Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration expert at the CATO Institute, who explains that the central issue in Donald Trump’s candidacy is based on something that isn’t true."

chrishacken 10y ago
I think his point is, there has been fake news on FB for years now and no one has bat an eye. Now all of a sudden it's of interest to everyone because it's a scapegoat explanation for why the Democrats lost the White House.
- mtbcoder 10y ago
  I think it's of interest now because you have a direct cause-and-effect scenario in place (e.g. fake news having some effect on the outcome of a US election). Beforehand, most people would have assumed that the fake news industry simply pandered to the conspiratorial crowd without any repercussions. It was harmless...not to be taken seriously. However, now we can see real consequences, which makes for a worthy story IMO.
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    > you have a direct cause-and-effect scenario in place See I was not so sure about the direct cause and effect bit. That sounds a bit too dismissive. I am sure it has to have some effect but not sure that's the reason for an electoral landslide and Hillary delivering the worst Democratic performance in 20 some years, despite having experience, a mass media support, DOJ and POTUS on her side, a lot more donor money and resources. Saying this is because Macedonians brainwashed our citizens about lizard people or KGB agents seems dishonest.

sebastianconcpt 10y ago

Rationalization plays a role but there is a lot more than that involved. If you studi the cultural war subject you might find some answers

tim333 10y ago

On the other hand there's an article in the WaPo "Facebook fake-news writer: ‘I think Donald Trump is in the White House because of me’" where he mentions "my story about a protester getting paid $3,500 as fact. Like, I made that up. I posted a fake ad on Craigslist." And similar. It's by no means impossible that that stuff swung the election. I mean I actually believed there may have been paid protestors and that's the first I've seen of it being faked (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11/17/facebook-fake-news-writer-i-think-donald-trump-is-in-the-white-house-because-of-me/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/11...)

rukittenme 10y ago
It sounds like this "journalist" just has a huge ego. No one man or his news would have swung an election. If fake news could swing an election, CNN would be the "newspaper of record" and not the New York Times. This whole fake news controversy makes me really sad. Democrats aren't learning from their failures.
- tim333 10y ago
  I agree with you about the "journalist." However a lot of people think Comey's "oh we're investigating the emails again"... "nothing there" stuff swung it. Not exactly fake news but kind of along those lines.
  - rukittenme 10y ago
    The inquiry undoubtedly hurt her but its not fake news for the FBI to report on the status of an investigation. That's real news with an anti-climactic ending.
- kristjansson 10y ago
  No one is saying that fake news/filter bubbles were the overriding factor in the election, merely that they were contributory.

maxerickson 10y ago

The fake news isn't lizard people and magic brainwashing of people into white supremacists, it's "Clinton is even more terrible than you think". Trump would not have won without also carrying most of the traditional Republican base, but it's quite possible that something with a small effect ended up flipping the vote in one of the states that decided the electoral college.

rdtsc 10y ago
> The fake news isn't lizard people and magic brainwashing of people into white supremacists, it's "Clinton is even more terrible than you think". What about people not liking her policies or what she has done, is that because of "Fake News". Should we go and censor that. Telling them they read "Fake News" and instead they should have been watching the "real news" like CNN would also sound rather silly, don't you think?
- maxerickson 10y ago
  No, it's fine for people to not like her policies, that's the traditional Republican base that I mentioned. I'm sure lots of well informed people voted against Clinton. So for example, in Wisconsin, I'm sure Trump would have gotten 1 million+ votes regardless of fake news. The question is more whether inaccurate stories influenced enough people (3 types of influence: vote changing, increasing enthusiasm which encourages voting, decreasing enthusiasm which discourages voting) to push the margin in Wisconsin to 30,000 in favor of Trump. I have seen no proof that it happened, I'm just saying that I think it could have happened in such a close race.
  - rdtsc 10y ago
    > The question is more whether inaccurate stories influenced enough people Exactly, I'd want to know more as well. > I'm just saying that I think it could have happened in such a close race. The margin was close in many states, but overall Hillary still got the worst Democratic turnout since early 90's. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending who you ask) electoral collage is how presidency is won. So campaign strategy focuses on that. In that regard with Trump's landslide, putting "Fake News" as a major reason I think is dismissive. There are serious conditions under which so many people elected a TV show star as a President, and even though I am just as baffled and don't have the answer, I suspect focusing on "Fake News" is a misdirection.

megalox 10y ago

Your assertion that fake news can't matter is absurd. Fake news has always been a part of American society (Remember the Maine!) and has always affected politics. The degree has varied over time, but this type of manipulation has happened, repeatedly, with great effect. It is dishonest to pretend that the dems are claiming fake news is the only reason they lost. Conversations list it as one of a host of contributing factors, not a whole explanation. We all know this, and you should be ashamed of having pretended otherwise. It's also absurd to claim that the response is mere sour grapes. People have a tendency to ignore problems and hope they go away until they are too big to ignore. This is such a case. Filter bubbles and fake news seemed troubling, but when Trump managed to beat a number of well qualified Republican candidates, it became clear that fake news had more power than was believed. It's beyond belief that fake news has now become a political issue. On the one hand we have people who want it to be easier for an individual to know if they're being lied to; and on the other hand we have the Trump-loving wing of the GOP. (this is not the entire or even a majority of the GOP). It's wholly reasonable to care about truth, and to want more truth. Your post has no value. You are just attacking the character of people with a valid concern, and you're backing up that attack with mischaracterizations and lies. Thus, I suppose, it is unsurprising that you oppose truth in media.

rdtsc 10y ago
> Your assertion that fake news can't matter is absurd. I didn't say it can't matter. I said I don't believe it is the reason for an electoral landslide. Do you? > It is dishonest to pretend that the dems are claiming fake news is the only reason they lost. So we agree there. It is a matter of degree. It seems you think it has a stronger degree and I think it didn't. Hopefully we'll see some impartial well done studies about it. So far I just have an opinion and it's ok disagree with it. > People have a tendency to ignore problems and hope they go away until they are too big to ignore. This is such a case. That's a good explanation. I like it, I can agree with that. > You are just attacking the character of people with a valid concern, But isn't "attacking the character of people" the theme here. The idea that people who haven't picked a candidate I liked are idiots / racists / homophobic? I've heard that quite often in mass media and I find it too dismissive and simple. I didn't say you said that but I've heard it enough time to form an opinion. > Your post has no value. Sorry. I didn't mean to waste your time. It was my opinion. Yes it probably has no value.