9 ms·

Headlines like this along with the MSM's latest push to define "fake news" is pretty worrisome. Even if you don't agree with Breitbart or other outlets, it's f

Headlines like this along with the MSM's latest push to define "fake news" is pretty worrisome. Even if you don't agree with Breitbart or other outlets, it's frightening to think we could soon be in a world where entire stories are categorically dismissed or accepted based on their source, rather than their individual content.

um_ya 10y ago
The precursors of the "ministry of truth"
- acchow 10y ago
  Long time since I read the book, but did the precursors of the "ministry of truth" really start in corporations?
  - elcct 10y ago
    They figured out that using communism to steal from the people is not effective so they invented social democracy to steal via government fenced corporations. This gives people more sense of freedom whilst generating better yield for the ruling class.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      I'm pretty sure none of that is in the book.
- rconti 10y ago
  If anything, the precursor to the ministry of truth is a political figure making it clearer than ever that coverage he doesn't like will be severely punished. Not just by loss of access, but by lawsuits and changes to the law. It's hardly new that news organizations have to be a bit friendly to anyone they cover in order to preserve access. I cannot waltz into the White House press room and expect equal access, no matter how fair and intelligent my non-existent media empire is. But the scope and severity we have been promised is an order of magnitude worse.
- KirinDave 10y ago
  Ah yes. Any contradictory discretion is immediately escalated to "thought control by the government." It's curious how many forms this "equal time" complaint comes in, but it's almost universally used as a bludgeon to imply that left-leaning news has an obligation to offer a platform for all sorts of things. I'd like equal time on Rush Limbaugh's show to talk about how health care should be socialized. I think I have a cogent case that would demand scrutiny and be convincing to his audience. Will you help me petition for time there? I'll of course expect his advertising revenue for the time there (who works for free on this day and age?)!
eli 10y ago
Do you think the people who buy ads or run ad networks have an obligation to patronize businesses they personally find objectionable?
- omonra 10y ago
  There is a big difference between the two. Businesses / customers are not required to patronize certain establishments. However establishments are prohibited by law from denying business to people they personally find objectionable.
  - eli 10y ago
    No, in general establishments can refuse service to anyone they please - imagine a consultant forced to engage with every client who asks! There are certain protected classes of people you cannot discriminate against. I'm having a really hard time seeing how Breitbart could fit any of those definitions. You can totally refuse to serve customers acting in a way you find objectionable.
    - omonra 10y ago
      You're mostly right. The law actually says "the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination by privately owned places of public accommodation on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin." If someone refuses me service as a jewish white man, that's illegal (despite jews/whites/men are not being a protected class)
gabemart 10y ago
> it's frightening to think we could soon be in a world where entire stories are categorically dismissed or accepted based on their source I think this is an inevitable consequence of a world where anyone with a domain name and a vps can start a "news" website. It takes more effort to debunk a fake news story than it does to write it.
_delirium 10y ago
Haven't we always lived in that world? Nobody really treats all sources exactly equally, and many people dismiss certain categories of sources as not worth looking into. Depending on the person, this might be outlets they think of as mainly peddling conspiracy theories (Infowars, etc.), it could be outlets they see as too right-wing to be worth looking into (e.g. Breitbart), outlets they see as too left-wing to be worth looking into (e.g. World Socialist Web), etc.
- zer00eyz 10y ago
  > Nobody really treats all sources exactly equally The fact that were using the term "post fact voter" is pretty scary. At one point media was more of a conscious buy, but now thats mostly auto-magic. You buy into a network and might not have any idea where your ad is showing up. I think this is another confession that the system isn't perfect and were going to see some corrections.
  - tomjen3 10y ago
    Only one side is using that term though. Its a brilliant piece of propaganda but that is it.
- roywiggins 10y ago
  The scary people are the ones who DO treat sources exactly equally- if someone said it on the internet, well, maybe it's true...
justinlaster 10y ago
How is this frightening? Why should we turn a blind eye to a source that continually posts provably fake and completely contrived news stories? This particular source also targets an audience that is demonstrably not capable of discerning what is probably true and what is absurdly false. It's not worth the price and risk of reading such a source, when the content they provide that is true can easily be consumed from other sources that are far more reliable. Let's call this for what it is and always has been: yellow journalism. It's fake, it's damaging, and with the internet it gets spread far too quickly. And then, when enough momentum around the fake story is able to clearly paint it as false gets noticed by the majority of people, this particular source never issues a correction. They just silently let their mistake fall to the wayside, never bothering to inform their audience of their calculated mistake and what is actually true. When you fail to acknowledge your mistakes, and when you do those mistakes repeatedly to the point where it can only be assumed to be purposefully done, you lose credence. Or at least you should. I'm not sure what's going on with this fetishization of false equivalency in American journalism. Not all journalistic entities are on the same platform; some of them clearly don't mind hiring people that have no principles as a citizen of their respective country or even principles as a decent human being, nor do they have respect for their fellow countrymen and maybe not even themselves.
- tomp 10y ago
  Which Breitbart news stories are "provably fake" (as opposed to "disagreeable", "editorialized", "provocative", etc.)?
  - justinlaster 10y ago
    Here you go: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/04/1001-reasons-why-global-warming-is-so-totally-over-in-2016/ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/04/1001-reas... >Always, but always, it has been about the cynical exploitation of mass crowd hysteria and about the sly manipulation by activists and crony capitalists of the political system in order to advance the cause of global governance. Let's not be disingenuous. There's tons and tons of stories like this.
Pfhreak 10y ago
This phenomena is called 'Reputation'. It's not a replacement for evaluating the value of opinions, but it is a short cut. If Breitbart et al have earned a reputation of being white nationalists, and others use that reputation to evaluate whether they want to consume their media, that seems totally reasonable. If Breitbart wants to eliminate that reputation, they can by regularly pushing content that discredits it. Consider Buzzfeed, who is slowly turning their reputation around. It takes work, and more than one article with good individual content. You have to show a commitment to change, regularly, before that reputation changes.
- nailer 10y ago
  > Consider Buzzfeed, who is slowly turning their reputation around. I'm not necessarily sure that's true.
  - seabass 10y ago
    Mainstream media is propping them up right now because their "fake news" study supports the agenda of the current news cycle.
- exolymph 10y ago
  I've been amazed by how many people still dismiss BuzzFeed entirely and aren't aware of BuzzFeed News or their investigative team. It really goes to show that first impressions last, and people use them as consumption heuristics.
matthewmacleod 10y ago
I totally understand the concern, but I'm struggling to think of how else we deal with this sort of phenomenon. I suppose we've always treated fringe media outlets as what they are, to some extent. We don't place a huge amount of weight on what e.g. the Socialist Worker says, but of course we don't simply disregard all journalism from these sources. Maybe that's the answer for things like Breitbart – unashamedly biased sources should be less heavily weighted. Doesn't that seem reasonable?
- nailer 10y ago
  As long as I, the consumer, can do the weighting. I'd rather continue reading both Milo and The Guardian rather than be stuck in left or right echo chamber.
  - ant6n 10y ago
    This seems like a strong case of false equivalence. The whole moving the overton window. To me your statements sounds strangely familiar to "I'd rather be reading both Mein Kampf and stuff written by FDR, rather than be stuck in a left or right echo chamber". Milo is a mysoginist provocateur who's trying to manipulate white males into believing that sexism and white supremacy are pretty good ideas. The fact that I even know this person makes me slightly vomit inside my mouth, and the way so many people listen and even respect his populism makes me pretty sad.
    - nailer 10y ago
      > This seems like a strong case of false equivalence. > To me your statements sounds strangely familiar to "I'd rather be reading both Mein Kampf ... So to clarify, you think that someone who disagrees with third wave feminism is like Hitler and want to discuss false equivalence?
      - ant6n 10y ago
        'clarification'
beguiledfoil 10y ago
First they refused to advertise on the racist site, and I did not speak up because I did not believe in a right to advertising revenue.
- omonra 10y ago
  You realize that the word 'racist' has lost all meaning by now? It simply means 'people I disagree with'. I think it's lost meaning starting with 2011 (thanks, Obama). See: http://chronicle.nytlabs.com/?keyword=racist http://chronicle.nytlabs.com/?keyword=racist Notice how frequency of use spikes by 500% over last 5 years. That means that either the world has got immensely more racist, we started noticing it more or the word has just got diluted to where it doesn't mean anything (by a factor of 5, to be precise). I happen to think it's the latter.
  - croon 10y ago
    I happen to think it's just more public. Which derails your entire argument. Just because you call it out doesn't mean the word loses meaning.
    - omonra 10y ago
      You have every right to believe in whatever you want. I'd suggest you read this piece by a someone who you can relate to - a "member of a desperate and discombobulated coastal elite" that discusses how definition of the term varies: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/11/the_people_who_look_at_trump_and_don_t_see_a_racist.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201...
  - beguiledfoil 10y ago
    so scientific. sorry. i'll run ads on breitbart now. convinced by your link that it won't destroy my brand.
wlll 10y ago
I think this xkcd comment is relevant, though free speech wasn't mentioned specifically. https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/ My personal system of ethics is such that were I to run a service I would specifically ban some groups, organisations or uses from it, eg. peddlers or enablers of child pornography, Nazis, people engaging in deceitful propaganda to the detriment of society etc. Organisations such as the daily mail, breitbart, anyone describing themselves as "alt-right" and more would be included in this. I'm not preventing you from doing the thing you want to do, I'm just not allowing it on my platform.
- striking 10y ago
  Whenever someone posts that link, I post this rebuttal. http://sealedabstract.com/rants/re-xkcd-1357-free-speech/ http://sealedabstract.com/rants/re-xkcd-1357-free-speech/ Sometimes the people who speak the loudest are actually the wrong ones. And if we only let the loudest speak, we won't find out when they're wrong. Is there an example of a platform like the one you describe with a large audience?
  - wlll 10y ago
    I would be interested to see what some of the people that were quoted in that rebuttal would say now. Speech is dangerous, speech is a weapon, that's why it needs to be protected, because people want to have the weapon only for themselves. But the weapon of 1859 is a hatchet and the weapon of 2016 is a virus. > Is there an example of a platform like the one you describe with a large audience? I think the real platform is the Internet. Losing access to an advertising service is hardly denying platform access. I believe in net neutrality and believe that ISPs and IP providers should have common carrier status, and if someone wants to air an argument of prejudice and hate they can buy the IP connection and set up a web server. No-one is stopping them, but we're not amplifying fringe voices to the same volume as everyone else.
  - kafkaesq 10y ago
    It's not much of a rebuttal. Its crucial argument: Free Speech means giving minority opinions the same access to infrastructure and audience that the majority has is at best, highly problematic (and ultimately, basically a straw man).
btilly 10y ago
Is it more frightening to think that stories will be judged based on their source, or frightening to note how many people believe false news stories to be true? The real problem is one nobody talks about. News today is driven by advertising revenue. That revenue is driven by clicks. Clicks are driven by headlines that cause people to click. Headlines that outrage people do that more effectively. Truth does not enter into it. Therefore advertising driven news has a natural tendency towards exaggeration, and then eventually making stuff up. With new stuff hitting emotional buttons established by the old. And once we've seen the same themes over and over again, they become believable to us no matter what the facts may be. This was what caused the "yellow press" to be what it was a century ago. It remained so until The New York Times established a subscription model for news that actually rewarded verifiable facts. That subscription model has now broken down, and we are back to the yellow press again. :-(
- cloakandswagger 10y ago
  I'm not at all worried about "fake" news becoming such a problem that it substantially distorts the public's perception of reality. That might have been an issue 100 years ago when information traveled slowly, but with the speed of communication and the ease of fact checking today any blatantly false news is pretty quickly snuffed out (and the reporter's reputation so damaged that they quickly become irrelevant). Much more of a threat is a MSM (which is highly coordinated and have a mutual interest in maintaining their control) branding independent sources as "fake"
  - mtberatwork 10y ago
    > I'm not at all worried about "fake" news becoming such a problem that it substantially distorts the public's perception of reality. I am and it's happening. [1] [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/fact-check-this-pizzeria-is-not-a-child-trafficking-site.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/fact-check-this...
    - cloakandswagger 10y ago
      That would be more correctly termed as a conspiracy theory, which have existed forever. Has Breitbart or any other major independent news source covered this?
sedachv 10y ago
> Even if you don't agree with Breitbart or other outlets, it's frightening to think we could soon be in a world where entire stories are categorically dismissed or accepted based on their source, rather than their individual content. I have a hard time believing you personally take the stories in the National Enquirer seriously or have never heard of yellow journalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism) which, along with the jargon "MSM," strongly makes me suspect that you are a neo-Nazi (calling the alt-right what it is) troll.
- cloakandswagger 10y ago
  Using an acronym for the mainstream media makes me a Nazi. Got it.
  - sedachv 10y ago
    It is one good clue for identifying neo-Nazi trolls. Checking your post history confirms this.
- ant6n 10y ago
  People are down-voting you a because you describe somebody as a neo-nazi. That's pretty strong, but I can't help but similarly feel somebody is self-labelling themselves as "alt-right if they use "MSM" seriously. It's similar to, albeit not as strong as, using "SJW".
unprepare 10y ago
> it's frightening to think we could soon be in a world where entire stories are categorically dismissed or accepted based on their source, rather than their individual content. If you think categorically dismissing sources is a new phenomenon, may i point you to 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf' which has been around at least since the 15th century. Whats worrying is the lack of news sources that can be trusted by people from any political camp.
kafkaesq 10y ago
It's frightening to think we could soon be in a world where entire stories are categorically dismissed or accepted based on their source, rather than their individual content. No, it's prudent policy, actually -- and what news outlets have pretty much always been doing, all along. In the old days, you wouldn't have expected the NYT to carry "wire" stories from outlets run by American Nazi Party or Scientology. Same basic principle at play -- just that with the internet, alternative outlets have proliferated, and hence have become harder to keep track of. So if anything, this is a move back to relative normalcy. The thing to keep in mind is that, at the end of the day, this is not censorship -- it's content curation, operating on the same principles it pretty much always has.
chiefalchemist 10y ago
re: " it's frightening to think we could soon be in a world where entire stories are categorically dismissed or accepted based on their source, rather than their individual content." Ha. That's what's called brand and reputation. If you build trust over ten articles just so you can exploit that trust for one uber-damaging faux one, that's NOT frightening. That's life. And it's EXACTLY how things should work. That said, the road of "censorship" is a slippery one. The root problem is thinking - mainly critical thinking. Spoon feeding people the "right" info is just as bad - perhaps worse - than keeping people from the "wrong" info. Sure, stop Breitbart and the like, but it's not going to solve the problem. So yeah, here we go again, dumping a ton of time and energy into solving a symptom - disease left completely unaddressed - that will only show up again elsewhere in some other slightly different form.

um_ya 10y ago

The precursors of the "ministry of truth"

acchow 10y ago
Long time since I read the book, but did the precursors of the "ministry of truth" really start in corporations?
- elcct 10y ago
  They figured out that using communism to steal from the people is not effective so they invented social democracy to steal via government fenced corporations. This gives people more sense of freedom whilst generating better yield for the ruling class.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    I'm pretty sure none of that is in the book.
rconti 10y ago
If anything, the precursor to the ministry of truth is a political figure making it clearer than ever that coverage he doesn't like will be severely punished. Not just by loss of access, but by lawsuits and changes to the law. It's hardly new that news organizations have to be a bit friendly to anyone they cover in order to preserve access. I cannot waltz into the White House press room and expect equal access, no matter how fair and intelligent my non-existent media empire is. But the scope and severity we have been promised is an order of magnitude worse.
KirinDave 10y ago
Ah yes. Any contradictory discretion is immediately escalated to "thought control by the government." It's curious how many forms this "equal time" complaint comes in, but it's almost universally used as a bludgeon to imply that left-leaning news has an obligation to offer a platform for all sorts of things. I'd like equal time on Rush Limbaugh's show to talk about how health care should be socialized. I think I have a cogent case that would demand scrutiny and be convincing to his audience. Will you help me petition for time there? I'll of course expect his advertising revenue for the time there (who works for free on this day and age?)!

eli 10y ago

Do you think the people who buy ads or run ad networks have an obligation to patronize businesses they personally find objectionable?

omonra 10y ago
There is a big difference between the two. Businesses / customers are not required to patronize certain establishments. However establishments are prohibited by law from denying business to people they personally find objectionable.
- eli 10y ago
  No, in general establishments can refuse service to anyone they please - imagine a consultant forced to engage with every client who asks! There are certain protected classes of people you cannot discriminate against. I'm having a really hard time seeing how Breitbart could fit any of those definitions. You can totally refuse to serve customers acting in a way you find objectionable.
  - omonra 10y ago
    You're mostly right. The law actually says "the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination by privately owned places of public accommodation on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin." If someone refuses me service as a jewish white man, that's illegal (despite jews/whites/men are not being a protected class)

gabemart 10y ago

> it's frightening to think we could soon be in a world where entire stories are categorically dismissed or accepted based on their source I think this is an inevitable consequence of a world where anyone with a domain name and a vps can start a "news" website. It takes more effort to debunk a fake news story than it does to write it.

_delirium 10y ago

Haven't we always lived in that world? Nobody really treats all sources exactly equally, and many people dismiss certain categories of sources as not worth looking into. Depending on the person, this might be outlets they think of as mainly peddling conspiracy theories (Infowars, etc.), it could be outlets they see as too right-wing to be worth looking into (e.g. Breitbart), outlets they see as too left-wing to be worth looking into (e.g. World Socialist Web), etc.

zer00eyz 10y ago
> Nobody really treats all sources exactly equally The fact that were using the term "post fact voter" is pretty scary. At one point media was more of a conscious buy, but now thats mostly auto-magic. You buy into a network and might not have any idea where your ad is showing up. I think this is another confession that the system isn't perfect and were going to see some corrections.
- tomjen3 10y ago
  Only one side is using that term though. Its a brilliant piece of propaganda but that is it.
roywiggins 10y ago
The scary people are the ones who DO treat sources exactly equally- if someone said it on the internet, well, maybe it's true...

justinlaster 10y ago

How is this frightening? Why should we turn a blind eye to a source that continually posts provably fake and completely contrived news stories? This particular source also targets an audience that is demonstrably not capable of discerning what is probably true and what is absurdly false. It's not worth the price and risk of reading such a source, when the content they provide that is true can easily be consumed from other sources that are far more reliable. Let's call this for what it is and always has been: yellow journalism. It's fake, it's damaging, and with the internet it gets spread far too quickly. And then, when enough momentum around the fake story is able to clearly paint it as false gets noticed by the majority of people, this particular source never issues a correction. They just silently let their mistake fall to the wayside, never bothering to inform their audience of their calculated mistake and what is actually true. When you fail to acknowledge your mistakes, and when you do those mistakes repeatedly to the point where it can only be assumed to be purposefully done, you lose credence. Or at least you should. I'm not sure what's going on with this fetishization of false equivalency in American journalism. Not all journalistic entities are on the same platform; some of them clearly don't mind hiring people that have no principles as a citizen of their respective country or even principles as a decent human being, nor do they have respect for their fellow countrymen and maybe not even themselves.

tomp 10y ago
Which Breitbart news stories are "provably fake" (as opposed to "disagreeable", "editorialized", "provocative", etc.)?
- justinlaster 10y ago
  Here you go: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/04/1001-reasons-why-global-warming-is-so-totally-over-in-2016/ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/01/04/1001-reas... >Always, but always, it has been about the cynical exploitation of mass crowd hysteria and about the sly manipulation by activists and crony capitalists of the political system in order to advance the cause of global governance. Let's not be disingenuous. There's tons and tons of stories like this.

Pfhreak 10y ago

This phenomena is called 'Reputation'. It's not a replacement for evaluating the value of opinions, but it is a short cut. If Breitbart et al have earned a reputation of being white nationalists, and others use that reputation to evaluate whether they want to consume their media, that seems totally reasonable. If Breitbart wants to eliminate that reputation, they can by regularly pushing content that discredits it. Consider Buzzfeed, who is slowly turning their reputation around. It takes work, and more than one article with good individual content. You have to show a commitment to change, regularly, before that reputation changes.

nailer 10y ago
> Consider Buzzfeed, who is slowly turning their reputation around. I'm not necessarily sure that's true.
- seabass 10y ago
  Mainstream media is propping them up right now because their "fake news" study supports the agenda of the current news cycle.
exolymph 10y ago
I've been amazed by how many people still dismiss BuzzFeed entirely and aren't aware of BuzzFeed News or their investigative team. It really goes to show that first impressions last, and people use them as consumption heuristics.

matthewmacleod 10y ago

I totally understand the concern, but I'm struggling to think of how else we deal with this sort of phenomenon. I suppose we've always treated fringe media outlets as what they are, to some extent. We don't place a huge amount of weight on what e.g. the Socialist Worker says, but of course we don't simply disregard all journalism from these sources. Maybe that's the answer for things like Breitbart – unashamedly biased sources should be less heavily weighted. Doesn't that seem reasonable?

nailer 10y ago
As long as I, the consumer, can do the weighting. I'd rather continue reading both Milo and The Guardian rather than be stuck in left or right echo chamber.
- ant6n 10y ago
  This seems like a strong case of false equivalence. The whole moving the overton window. To me your statements sounds strangely familiar to "I'd rather be reading both Mein Kampf and stuff written by FDR, rather than be stuck in a left or right echo chamber". Milo is a mysoginist provocateur who's trying to manipulate white males into believing that sexism and white supremacy are pretty good ideas. The fact that I even know this person makes me slightly vomit inside my mouth, and the way so many people listen and even respect his populism makes me pretty sad.
  - nailer 10y ago
    > This seems like a strong case of false equivalence. > To me your statements sounds strangely familiar to "I'd rather be reading both Mein Kampf ... So to clarify, you think that someone who disagrees with third wave feminism is like Hitler and want to discuss false equivalence?
    - ant6n 10y ago
      'clarification'

beguiledfoil 10y ago

First they refused to advertise on the racist site, and I did not speak up because I did not believe in a right to advertising revenue.

omonra 10y ago
You realize that the word 'racist' has lost all meaning by now? It simply means 'people I disagree with'. I think it's lost meaning starting with 2011 (thanks, Obama). See: http://chronicle.nytlabs.com/?keyword=racist http://chronicle.nytlabs.com/?keyword=racist Notice how frequency of use spikes by 500% over last 5 years. That means that either the world has got immensely more racist, we started noticing it more or the word has just got diluted to where it doesn't mean anything (by a factor of 5, to be precise). I happen to think it's the latter.
- croon 10y ago
  I happen to think it's just more public. Which derails your entire argument. Just because you call it out doesn't mean the word loses meaning.
  - omonra 10y ago
    You have every right to believe in whatever you want. I'd suggest you read this piece by a someone who you can relate to - a "member of a desperate and discombobulated coastal elite" that discusses how definition of the term varies: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/11/the_people_who_look_at_trump_and_don_t_see_a_racist.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/201...
- beguiledfoil 10y ago
  so scientific. sorry. i'll run ads on breitbart now. convinced by your link that it won't destroy my brand.

wlll 10y ago

I think this xkcd comment is relevant, though free speech wasn't mentioned specifically. https://xkcd.com/1357/ https://xkcd.com/1357/ My personal system of ethics is such that were I to run a service I would specifically ban some groups, organisations or uses from it, eg. peddlers or enablers of child pornography, Nazis, people engaging in deceitful propaganda to the detriment of society etc. Organisations such as the daily mail, breitbart, anyone describing themselves as "alt-right" and more would be included in this. I'm not preventing you from doing the thing you want to do, I'm just not allowing it on my platform.

striking 10y ago
Whenever someone posts that link, I post this rebuttal. http://sealedabstract.com/rants/re-xkcd-1357-free-speech/ http://sealedabstract.com/rants/re-xkcd-1357-free-speech/ Sometimes the people who speak the loudest are actually the wrong ones. And if we only let the loudest speak, we won't find out when they're wrong. Is there an example of a platform like the one you describe with a large audience?
- wlll 10y ago
  I would be interested to see what some of the people that were quoted in that rebuttal would say now. Speech is dangerous, speech is a weapon, that's why it needs to be protected, because people want to have the weapon only for themselves. But the weapon of 1859 is a hatchet and the weapon of 2016 is a virus. > Is there an example of a platform like the one you describe with a large audience? I think the real platform is the Internet. Losing access to an advertising service is hardly denying platform access. I believe in net neutrality and believe that ISPs and IP providers should have common carrier status, and if someone wants to air an argument of prejudice and hate they can buy the IP connection and set up a web server. No-one is stopping them, but we're not amplifying fringe voices to the same volume as everyone else.
- kafkaesq 10y ago
  It's not much of a rebuttal. Its crucial argument: Free Speech means giving minority opinions the same access to infrastructure and audience that the majority has is at best, highly problematic (and ultimately, basically a straw man).

btilly 10y ago

Is it more frightening to think that stories will be judged based on their source, or frightening to note how many people believe false news stories to be true? The real problem is one nobody talks about. News today is driven by advertising revenue. That revenue is driven by clicks. Clicks are driven by headlines that cause people to click. Headlines that outrage people do that more effectively. Truth does not enter into it. Therefore advertising driven news has a natural tendency towards exaggeration, and then eventually making stuff up. With new stuff hitting emotional buttons established by the old. And once we've seen the same themes over and over again, they become believable to us no matter what the facts may be. This was what caused the "yellow press" to be what it was a century ago. It remained so until The New York Times established a subscription model for news that actually rewarded verifiable facts. That subscription model has now broken down, and we are back to the yellow press again. :-(

cloakandswagger 10y ago
I'm not at all worried about "fake" news becoming such a problem that it substantially distorts the public's perception of reality. That might have been an issue 100 years ago when information traveled slowly, but with the speed of communication and the ease of fact checking today any blatantly false news is pretty quickly snuffed out (and the reporter's reputation so damaged that they quickly become irrelevant). Much more of a threat is a MSM (which is highly coordinated and have a mutual interest in maintaining their control) branding independent sources as "fake"
- mtberatwork 10y ago
  > I'm not at all worried about "fake" news becoming such a problem that it substantially distorts the public's perception of reality. I am and it's happening. [1] [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/fact-check-this-pizzeria-is-not-a-child-trafficking-site.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/technology/fact-check-this...
  - cloakandswagger 10y ago
    That would be more correctly termed as a conspiracy theory, which have existed forever. Has Breitbart or any other major independent news source covered this?

sedachv 10y ago

> Even if you don't agree with Breitbart or other outlets, it's frightening to think we could soon be in a world where entire stories are categorically dismissed or accepted based on their source, rather than their individual content. I have a hard time believing you personally take the stories in the National Enquirer seriously or have never heard of yellow journalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism) which, along with the jargon "MSM," strongly makes me suspect that you are a neo-Nazi (calling the alt-right what it is) troll.

cloakandswagger 10y ago
Using an acronym for the mainstream media makes me a Nazi. Got it.
- sedachv 10y ago
  It is one good clue for identifying neo-Nazi trolls. Checking your post history confirms this.
ant6n 10y ago
People are down-voting you a because you describe somebody as a neo-nazi. That's pretty strong, but I can't help but similarly feel somebody is self-labelling themselves as "alt-right if they use "MSM" seriously. It's similar to, albeit not as strong as, using "SJW".

unprepare 10y ago

> it's frightening to think we could soon be in a world where entire stories are categorically dismissed or accepted based on their source, rather than their individual content. If you think categorically dismissing sources is a new phenomenon, may i point you to 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf' which has been around at least since the 15th century. Whats worrying is the lack of news sources that can be trusted by people from any political camp.

kafkaesq 10y ago

It's frightening to think we could soon be in a world where entire stories are categorically dismissed or accepted based on their source, rather than their individual content. No, it's prudent policy, actually -- and what news outlets have pretty much always been doing, all along. In the old days, you wouldn't have expected the NYT to carry "wire" stories from outlets run by American Nazi Party or Scientology. Same basic principle at play -- just that with the internet, alternative outlets have proliferated, and hence have become harder to keep track of. So if anything, this is a move back to relative normalcy. The thing to keep in mind is that, at the end of the day, this is not censorship -- it's content curation, operating on the same principles it pretty much always has.

chiefalchemist 10y ago

re: " it's frightening to think we could soon be in a world where entire stories are categorically dismissed or accepted based on their source, rather than their individual content." Ha. That's what's called brand and reputation. If you build trust over ten articles just so you can exploit that trust for one uber-damaging faux one, that's NOT frightening. That's life. And it's EXACTLY how things should work. That said, the road of "censorship" is a slippery one. The root problem is thinking - mainly critical thinking. Spoon feeding people the "right" info is just as bad - perhaps worse - than keeping people from the "wrong" info. Sure, stop Breitbart and the like, but it's not going to solve the problem. So yeah, here we go again, dumping a ton of time and energy into solving a symptom - disease left completely unaddressed - that will only show up again elsewhere in some other slightly different form.