4 ms·

There have been a lot of these projects lately. It's clever, but I am not close to being convinced that fake news is a problem that we can engineer our way out

There have been a lot of these projects lately. It's clever, but I am not close to being convinced that fake news is a problem that we can engineer our way out of.

aswanson 10y ago
If it at least amplifies awareness in the general public about the problem, it's done it's job.
- farright 10y ago
  Isn't that exactly what the fake news sites works say?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- devoply 10y ago
  People read what they want to read. For instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning You can get rid of the fake news outlets, but you can't get rid of fake news as long as there is free speech.
  - pohl 10y ago
    Eliminating it would be an overly ambitious goal. We only need to mitigate its effects.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- ZenoArrow 10y ago
  I'd argue it could end up backfiring for multiple reasons. The most obvious one is that it will undoubtedly end up strengthening filter bubbles. The problems that face us will not be solved by siloing ourselves away from views we disagree with. It might take more effort to filter out bullshit in our current age, but if we're not even aware of the bullshit someone else is feeding off, how are we going to combat it? We need to bring more people into public debate, not isolate them.
- ahartman00 10y ago
  Counterpoint: if it provides a false sense of security, then it might have made things worse. Also, confidence in the press is at an all time low, so there is already awareness. [1] 1. http://www.gallup.com/poll/192665/americans-confidence-newspapers-new-low.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/192665/americans-confidence-newsp...
dbot 10y ago
Exactly this. You are just abstracting the decision about "truth" to another set of observers. Every crowdsourced news aggregation site faces the same challenge, too. Digg had serious vote manipulation problems. Reddit's /r/politics section was overrun by pro-Clinton activists, etc. Concerted, concentrated effort can almost always overpower the consensus of average users. EDIT: to be clear, my point is that if/when this becomes a powerful tool, the incentive to aim it at a broader or different set of goals is overwhelming.
- colllectorof 10y ago
  Tools for analyzing information can work, but they need to help the person using them make their own judgements, rather than delegate the whole process to some third party or opaque model/algorithm. This is the same basic difference that you can see between good and bad science lectures in schools. Bad lectures give students a bunch of formulas they have to trust and memorize. Good lectures describe how the world works, which they can confirm through their own observations and experiments. Anything that relies on blind trust in some curator will eventually have the exact same problems news most media has right now.
- tptacek 10y ago
  These aren't crowdsourced news aggregator sites. These are webspam sites, spun the same way any other webspam site is spun (with scripts and templates). The only thing that makes them interesting is that their payload is 1-2 carefully produced political stories, not a sales call-to-action.
InclinedPlane 10y ago
People need to stop using the word "fake news" as though people were seeing stories about "bat boy" in the grocery store checkout aisle and believing them. This is propaganda. It's inflammatory, it's knowingly false, and it has a political agenda. It's propaganda.
- programmarchy 10y ago
  I'd challenge you to name one news site that doesn't have a political agenda. Everything is "propaganda", including your comment, and mine.
  - jknoepfler 10y ago
    edit: if you're going to down-vote something which is plainly constructive and well thought-out, you should try to articulate a response. [1] propaganda, noun, derogatory: information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. His comment is claiming that fake political news should be distinguished from the fake tabloid style news (bigfoot sightings/alien abduction/etc. that we've become accustomed to in the grocery store checkout aisle). The former is propaganda, the latter is not. This distinction is correct, in terms of everyday usage of the word. Your claim that "everything is propaganda" is plainly false. An author having a political agenda is not sufficient to render an article propaganda. This would be similar to claiming that every article written by someone with sexual desire is "pornography." It's plainly ridiculous, unless you are operationally defining "pornography" to mean something other than it does in everyday written English. Things that are propaganda: 1. fake news stories disseminated with the express intent of influencing elections, which are known to be false by the author of the article / editor of the publication / etc. Things that are not propaganda: 1. stories about bat children in supermarket tabloids 2. your comments Things that might be propaganda: 1. fake news stories about political figures that appear in tabloids that also produce bat-child news (the article is false, the article might publicize and promote a political cause, but it isn't clear that it is a tool deliberately crafted to do that). What would clearly be propaganda in this situation though, would be a liberal/conservative/etc. spin site republishing a fake tabloid news story about Clinton/Trump that they must in good faith know is false). [1] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/propaganda https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/propaganda
madenine 10y ago
Fake news site are just the latest symptom of the two fold problem of anyone being able to put anything on the internet and people tending to like things that validate their existing views. If its not news sites, its images with some text over them, videos, etc.

There have been a lot of these projects lately. It's clever, but I am not close to being convinced that fake news is a problem that we can engineer our way out of.

aswanson 10y ago

If it at least amplifies awareness in the general public about the problem, it's done it's job.

farright 10y ago
Isn't that exactly what the fake news sites works say?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
devoply 10y ago
People read what they want to read. For instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motivated_reasoning You can get rid of the fake news outlets, but you can't get rid of fake news as long as there is free speech.
- pohl 10y ago
  Eliminating it would be an overly ambitious goal. We only need to mitigate its effects.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
ZenoArrow 10y ago
I'd argue it could end up backfiring for multiple reasons. The most obvious one is that it will undoubtedly end up strengthening filter bubbles. The problems that face us will not be solved by siloing ourselves away from views we disagree with. It might take more effort to filter out bullshit in our current age, but if we're not even aware of the bullshit someone else is feeding off, how are we going to combat it? We need to bring more people into public debate, not isolate them.
ahartman00 10y ago
Counterpoint: if it provides a false sense of security, then it might have made things worse. Also, confidence in the press is at an all time low, so there is already awareness. [1] 1. http://www.gallup.com/poll/192665/americans-confidence-newspapers-new-low.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/192665/americans-confidence-newsp...

dbot 10y ago

Exactly this. You are just abstracting the decision about "truth" to another set of observers. Every crowdsourced news aggregation site faces the same challenge, too. Digg had serious vote manipulation problems. Reddit's /r/politics section was overrun by pro-Clinton activists, etc. Concerted, concentrated effort can almost always overpower the consensus of average users. EDIT: to be clear, my point is that if/when this becomes a powerful tool, the incentive to aim it at a broader or different set of goals is overwhelming.

colllectorof 10y ago
Tools for analyzing information can work, but they need to help the person using them make their own judgements, rather than delegate the whole process to some third party or opaque model/algorithm. This is the same basic difference that you can see between good and bad science lectures in schools. Bad lectures give students a bunch of formulas they have to trust and memorize. Good lectures describe how the world works, which they can confirm through their own observations and experiments. Anything that relies on blind trust in some curator will eventually have the exact same problems news most media has right now.
tptacek 10y ago
These aren't crowdsourced news aggregator sites. These are webspam sites, spun the same way any other webspam site is spun (with scripts and templates). The only thing that makes them interesting is that their payload is 1-2 carefully produced political stories, not a sales call-to-action.

InclinedPlane 10y ago

People need to stop using the word "fake news" as though people were seeing stories about "bat boy" in the grocery store checkout aisle and believing them. This is propaganda. It's inflammatory, it's knowingly false, and it has a political agenda. It's propaganda.

programmarchy 10y ago
I'd challenge you to name one news site that doesn't have a political agenda. Everything is "propaganda", including your comment, and mine.
- jknoepfler 10y ago
  edit: if you're going to down-vote something which is plainly constructive and well thought-out, you should try to articulate a response. [1] propaganda, noun, derogatory: information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view. His comment is claiming that fake political news should be distinguished from the fake tabloid style news (bigfoot sightings/alien abduction/etc. that we've become accustomed to in the grocery store checkout aisle). The former is propaganda, the latter is not. This distinction is correct, in terms of everyday usage of the word. Your claim that "everything is propaganda" is plainly false. An author having a political agenda is not sufficient to render an article propaganda. This would be similar to claiming that every article written by someone with sexual desire is "pornography." It's plainly ridiculous, unless you are operationally defining "pornography" to mean something other than it does in everyday written English. Things that are propaganda: 1. fake news stories disseminated with the express intent of influencing elections, which are known to be false by the author of the article / editor of the publication / etc. Things that are not propaganda: 1. stories about bat children in supermarket tabloids 2. your comments Things that might be propaganda: 1. fake news stories about political figures that appear in tabloids that also produce bat-child news (the article is false, the article might publicize and promote a political cause, but it isn't clear that it is a tool deliberately crafted to do that). What would clearly be propaganda in this situation though, would be a liberal/conservative/etc. spin site republishing a fake tabloid news story about Clinton/Trump that they must in good faith know is false). [1] https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/propaganda https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/propaganda

madenine 10y ago

Fake news site are just the latest symptom of the two fold problem of anyone being able to put anything on the internet and people tending to like things that validate their existing views. If its not news sites, its images with some text over them, videos, etc.