3 ms·

The Iraq war was preceded and enabled by a massive propaganda campaign where close to 100% of American outlets went along with the WMD claim and were for an inv

by dilemma 10y ago

The Iraq war was preceded and enabled by a massive propaganda campaign where close to 100% of American outlets went along with the WMD claim and were for an invasion (FAIR.org). You don't get to say a propaganda campaign that ruined a country and killed hundreds of thousands wasn't fake news. It was - complete and utter fabrication on an industrial scale, and it had devastating effects.

thecatspaw 10y ago
it is fake news, but its not faked by the newsorganizations, which is what they are trying to prevent.
- supergreg 10y ago
  Should a tool trying to fight fake news make any distinctions?
  - intended 10y ago
    Insufficient resolution to Question, scope too broad. There's several levels to "truth". What happened. What an eyewitness/machine reported happened Whether the witness maliciously lied/mistakenly reported the event Was all of this reported faithfully Separately was reporting done to verify the facts. And do note, we've (coders) created the world where most newspapers have already gone out of business, and they have to in turn compete with everything and everyone for what remains of human attention spans. So the new question I would append to that list is - does it even matter anymore ? ProPublica for example tries very hard to do good in depth reporting. There have been reams of leaks with more data than what most people know what to do with. This has to compete for human attention bandwidth against documents/content designed to press buttons, elicit emotions and thus propagate (generating more page views, and so revenue) My point is simply that truth is a narrow view on the scope of the problem. In a year or two this will die down and a new generation of coders will parrot "move fast and break things." The larger system at play her must be front and center. Ideally people would have more time to reflect on their own - see more news that causes dissonance - hopefully causing people to check their opinions and beliefs. And of course the tool to Achieve this should itself not create a worse problem
TulliusCicero 10y ago
You seem to be confused about the difference between real/fake news vs correct/wrong news. The claims by the Bush administration about WMDs were real news. That the claims turned out false is another matter entirely. Your problem is that you're interpreting it in terms of "is wrong/is right" instead of "deliberately lying/trying to be accurate". Perhaps news publications should've been more skeptical, but they themselves weren't trying to make things up.
- Tepix 10y ago
  I agree that there is a difference, but "deliberately lying" isn't it in this case. The politicians involved knew that their claims were not backed up by facts.
  - acdha 10y ago
    The point is that the media did not: they assumed that the administration, CIA, etc. weren't completely making it up and a common assumption at the time was that details and corroborating evidence were being withheld to protect intelligence sources and techniques. They arguably should have been more skeptical but it's very different from the situation where some place like Breitbart runs a propaganda piece which is easily debunked using public information, like the fake electoral map they printed which flipped entire states to maintain the “coastal elites” narrative they're selling. The mainstream media has some serious blemishes from that era (Valerie Plame comes to mind) but they have editors, publish corrections, etc. and it's a monstrous exaggeration to try to equate the two.
    - makomk 10y ago
      Except that one of the examples of fake news that the media have leapt on was just some random person making an bad assumption and it going viral: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/media/how-fake-news-spreads.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/media/how-fake-ne... The main thing that seems to make something a good example of "fake news" is that it's pro-Trump in some way.
macspoofing 10y ago
>You don't get to say a propaganda campaign that ruined a country and killed hundreds of thousands wasn't fake news. You're getting hung up on the term 'fake news'. In this context this term has a specific meaning, different than what you're referring to. 'Fake News' are sites with content that is purposely false (though it could plausibly be true) that is also usually outrage-inducing. At the same time they attempt to pass themselves off as credible news organizations. Their business model involves getting their fake content to go viral, increasing views and their advertising revenue.

by dilemma 10y ago

thecatspaw 10y ago

it is fake news, but its not faked by the newsorganizations, which is what they are trying to prevent.

supergreg 10y ago
Should a tool trying to fight fake news make any distinctions?
- intended 10y ago
  Insufficient resolution to Question, scope too broad. There's several levels to "truth". What happened. What an eyewitness/machine reported happened Whether the witness maliciously lied/mistakenly reported the event Was all of this reported faithfully Separately was reporting done to verify the facts. And do note, we've (coders) created the world where most newspapers have already gone out of business, and they have to in turn compete with everything and everyone for what remains of human attention spans. So the new question I would append to that list is - does it even matter anymore ? ProPublica for example tries very hard to do good in depth reporting. There have been reams of leaks with more data than what most people know what to do with. This has to compete for human attention bandwidth against documents/content designed to press buttons, elicit emotions and thus propagate (generating more page views, and so revenue) My point is simply that truth is a narrow view on the scope of the problem. In a year or two this will die down and a new generation of coders will parrot "move fast and break things." The larger system at play her must be front and center. Ideally people would have more time to reflect on their own - see more news that causes dissonance - hopefully causing people to check their opinions and beliefs. And of course the tool to Achieve this should itself not create a worse problem

TulliusCicero 10y ago

You seem to be confused about the difference between real/fake news vs correct/wrong news. The claims by the Bush administration about WMDs were real news. That the claims turned out false is another matter entirely. Your problem is that you're interpreting it in terms of "is wrong/is right" instead of "deliberately lying/trying to be accurate". Perhaps news publications should've been more skeptical, but they themselves weren't trying to make things up.

Tepix 10y ago
I agree that there is a difference, but "deliberately lying" isn't it in this case. The politicians involved knew that their claims were not backed up by facts.
- acdha 10y ago
  The point is that the media did not: they assumed that the administration, CIA, etc. weren't completely making it up and a common assumption at the time was that details and corroborating evidence were being withheld to protect intelligence sources and techniques. They arguably should have been more skeptical but it's very different from the situation where some place like Breitbart runs a propaganda piece which is easily debunked using public information, like the fake electoral map they printed which flipped entire states to maintain the “coastal elites” narrative they're selling. The mainstream media has some serious blemishes from that era (Valerie Plame comes to mind) but they have editors, publish corrections, etc. and it's a monstrous exaggeration to try to equate the two.
  - makomk 10y ago
    Except that one of the examples of fake news that the media have leapt on was just some random person making an bad assumption and it going viral: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/media/how-fake-news-spreads.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/business/media/how-fake-ne... The main thing that seems to make something a good example of "fake news" is that it's pro-Trump in some way.

macspoofing 10y ago

>You don't get to say a propaganda campaign that ruined a country and killed hundreds of thousands wasn't fake news. You're getting hung up on the term 'fake news'. In this context this term has a specific meaning, different than what you're referring to. 'Fake News' are sites with content that is purposely false (though it could plausibly be true) that is also usually outrage-inducing. At the same time they attempt to pass themselves off as credible news organizations. Their business model involves getting their fake content to go viral, increasing views and their advertising revenue.