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Webspam farms are spam and should be filtered as such. The fact is 'fake news' is a separate term and is using separate filters because it's a completely separa
by lj3 10y ago
Webspam farms are spam and should be filtered as such. The fact is 'fake news' is a separate term and is using separate filters because it's a completely separate concept that is political in nature.
You claim this isn't a slippery slope, but we've already slid down it a bit. Infowars was delisted by Quantcast as 'fake news'. Whether you like Alex Jones or not, I think we can both agree his site isn't blogspam.
- tptacek 10y agoNo, they are not separate concepts. Your argument is akin to the one that says "if we block cialis spam, what's to prevent us from blocking all of commerce". Why are you defending spam? You just did it upthread, when you suggested that maybe we shouldn't be so hostile to people who believe that the Dalai Lama endorsed Trump. The authors of that story do not believe that. It's webspam.
- lj3 10y agoArgumentum ad absurdum. I expected better from someone with your reputation here on HN. And now you're not even reading what I said! Spam should be filtered as spam. 'fake news' applies to so much more than just spam, as I have already demonstrated.
- tptacek 10y agoNo, it's not reductio ad absurdum. The reason r.a.a. is a fallacy is that it introduces the false premise that the opponent must believe something ridiculous (that they clearly don't believe) for their statements to hold. But you actually just did defend the Dalai Lama site. Are we agreed that ENDTHEFED.COM should be filtered? Maybe we're just arguing past each other.
- lj3 10y agoNo, I think I'm done. You stopped engaging with my facts a while ago and switched to pure rhetoric. You've lost.