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This story reads more like 'fake news' won the election narrative peddling more then new insight into the bot situation. There has been plenty of research on th

This story reads more like 'fake news' won the election narrative peddling more then new insight into the bot situation. There has been plenty of research on the avalanche of bots spewing tweets, comment and stories for years now that 'sway peoples opinions'. Not just political but in every other domain also. Why is this now, after the election a big important story thats popping up all over the media.

adnzzzzZ 10y ago
Is it really a big surprise? The legacy media has noticed they don't have as much of an influence over people as they used to after their candidate lost the election, and so they're trying to understand how that could possibly have happened. Clearly they aren't at fault because they're never wrong, so it must that Russian bots are creating fake stories and that most people are too stupid to realize all those stories are fake. You're watching the last gasps of desperation of legacy media in its attempt to drive people away from alternative sources of media. This will fail spectacularly and further diminish legacy media's influence over people.
- spiderfarmer 10y ago
  By your logic they should not learn from their failures, but roll over and die? How un-american is that? By the way, lots of media outlets have admitted they were wrong. Fake news is a real issue that deserves to be reported about, it's not a scapegoat
  - adnzzzzZ 10y ago
    >Fake news is a real issue that deserves to be reported about, it's not a scapegoat It's too late to start treating fake news as a real problem after such an ugly an biased coverage of the election on their part. No one trusts them anymore
    - spiderfarmer 10y ago
      > No one trusts them anymore Disagree. I'd say that your nation is so divided that 50% doesn't trust the other 50%. That means that a large part still trusts eachother. As an outsider, I think bias was just a small part of what was wrong with the coverage. I mean, if you know that an outlet is left or right leaning, you can place their news in a certain light. But the coverage was all focused on the wrong issues. The right wouldn't shut up about Benghazi and e-mails. And the left was way too "OMG look at this monster". Not a word on actual policies.
      - B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
        > 50% doesn't trust the other 50% Nah, even most of those who voted for the media's candidate knew how biased they were. Not buying used cars from them any time soon. (Also, only between 50 and 60% of the voting age population do vote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_States_presidential_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_St... )
        soundwave106 10y ago
        There is no such thing as unbiased news. Failure to admit so immediately shows a bias in itself. :) While I have an assumption of what you mean by "the media's candidate", "the media" is a broad term. Many traditional newspapers were more behind Hillary Clinton; many websites like Breitbart were more behind Donald Trump. They are both "the media". I actually agree more with spiderfarmer. I would be willing to bet an atypical Breitbart reader does not trust the New York Times. I would be willing to be an atypical New York Times reader does not trust Breitbart.
  - marcosdumay 10y ago
    You know, it's funny those outlets are complaining about the fake news from the other side, when at the same time they are "admitting they were wrong" after it does not matter anymore. If they were respectable news outlets, people would believe in them, and this problem would not exist. But that can only happen if they don't publish fake news.
JohnTHaller 10y ago
This election in particular, fake news was rampant. Moreso than in any previous US election. To the point that a fake/biased news site had as many shares as CNN on Facebook in November. And the top 20 shared fake stories (95% of which were anti-Clinton/pro-Trump) were shared more than legit stories.
- JohnTHaller 10y ago
  Note: that should read 85% not 95% (17 out of the 20). Mistyped it and didn't notice until after the edit window expired. Apologies.

adnzzzzZ 10y ago

Is it really a big surprise? The legacy media has noticed they don't have as much of an influence over people as they used to after their candidate lost the election, and so they're trying to understand how that could possibly have happened. Clearly they aren't at fault because they're never wrong, so it must that Russian bots are creating fake stories and that most people are too stupid to realize all those stories are fake. You're watching the last gasps of desperation of legacy media in its attempt to drive people away from alternative sources of media. This will fail spectacularly and further diminish legacy media's influence over people.

spiderfarmer 10y ago
By your logic they should not learn from their failures, but roll over and die? How un-american is that? By the way, lots of media outlets have admitted they were wrong. Fake news is a real issue that deserves to be reported about, it's not a scapegoat
- adnzzzzZ 10y ago
  >Fake news is a real issue that deserves to be reported about, it's not a scapegoat It's too late to start treating fake news as a real problem after such an ugly an biased coverage of the election on their part. No one trusts them anymore
  - spiderfarmer 10y ago
    > No one trusts them anymore Disagree. I'd say that your nation is so divided that 50% doesn't trust the other 50%. That means that a large part still trusts eachother. As an outsider, I think bias was just a small part of what was wrong with the coverage. I mean, if you know that an outlet is left or right leaning, you can place their news in a certain light. But the coverage was all focused on the wrong issues. The right wouldn't shut up about Benghazi and e-mails. And the left was way too "OMG look at this monster". Not a word on actual policies.
    - B1FF_PSUVM 10y ago
      > 50% doesn't trust the other 50% Nah, even most of those who voted for the media's candidate knew how biased they were. Not buying used cars from them any time soon. (Also, only between 50 and 60% of the voting age population do vote: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_States_presidential_elections https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_St... )
      - soundwave106 10y ago
        There is no such thing as unbiased news. Failure to admit so immediately shows a bias in itself. :) While I have an assumption of what you mean by "the media's candidate", "the media" is a broad term. Many traditional newspapers were more behind Hillary Clinton; many websites like Breitbart were more behind Donald Trump. They are both "the media". I actually agree more with spiderfarmer. I would be willing to bet an atypical Breitbart reader does not trust the New York Times. I would be willing to be an atypical New York Times reader does not trust Breitbart.
- marcosdumay 10y ago
  You know, it's funny those outlets are complaining about the fake news from the other side, when at the same time they are "admitting they were wrong" after it does not matter anymore. If they were respectable news outlets, people would believe in them, and this problem would not exist. But that can only happen if they don't publish fake news.

JohnTHaller 10y ago

This election in particular, fake news was rampant. Moreso than in any previous US election. To the point that a fake/biased news site had as many shares as CNN on Facebook in November. And the top 20 shared fake stories (95% of which were anti-Clinton/pro-Trump) were shared more than legit stories.

JohnTHaller 10y ago
Note: that should read 85% not 95% (17 out of the 20). Mistyped it and didn't notice until after the edit window expired. Apologies.