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I think that all the news which we consume is misleading in one way or another; whether they deceive us through outright misinformation, unevenly balanced argum

I think that all the news which we consume is misleading in one way or another; whether they deceive us through outright misinformation, unevenly balanced arguments, or priming (through repeated exposure to particular concepts). While these small fake news creators deceive us through outright misinformation, big news corporations deceive us through priming. If you repeatedly draw peoples' attentions to the same concepts and ideas over and over again; they will incorporate these ideas as part of their core belief system and it will cause them to block out real information which opposes those ideas. Small independent 'news' creators just don't have the necessary scale to leverage priming effects, so they are forced to resort to outright 'sensational' misinformation to push forward their agendas. I think that fake news is important for society, just like religion; sometimes the intention behind the text is more important than the actual information content within.

makomk 10y ago
Definitely. For example, compare these two Wired articles about the possibility of rigging the US election by hacking voting systems: https://www.wired.com/2016/10/wireds-totally-legit-guide-rigging-presidential-election/ https://www.wired.com/2016/10/wireds-totally-legit-guide-rig... was from before the election and claimed that it would be virtually impossible, would require a conspiracy of thousands to get past all the safeguards, and was ridiculous. https://www.wired.com/2016/11/hacked-not-audit-election-rest/ https://www.wired.com/2016/11/hacked-not-audit-election-rest... after the election claims that actually, it's well established that they're hackable, and that the audits are so ineffective it's almost as though they're designed not to detect hacking. Two completely contradictory positions, both backed up with an arsenal of facts and expert opinions and presented as definite truth. All that changed is that the idea the election results could be hacked became anti-Trump rather than pro-Trump.

makomk 10y ago

Definitely. For example, compare these two Wired articles about the possibility of rigging the US election by hacking voting systems: https://www.wired.com/2016/10/wireds-totally-legit-guide-rigging-presidential-election/ https://www.wired.com/2016/10/wireds-totally-legit-guide-rig... was from before the election and claimed that it would be virtually impossible, would require a conspiracy of thousands to get past all the safeguards, and was ridiculous. https://www.wired.com/2016/11/hacked-not-audit-election-rest/ https://www.wired.com/2016/11/hacked-not-audit-election-rest... after the election claims that actually, it's well established that they're hackable, and that the audits are so ineffective it's almost as though they're designed not to detect hacking. Two completely contradictory positions, both backed up with an arsenal of facts and expert opinions and presented as definite truth. All that changed is that the idea the election results could be hacked became anti-Trump rather than pro-Trump.