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My question then is if we actually passed the critical mass of fake news that only now warrants all these blog posts and mainstream media discourse.

grzm 10y ago
Look how much discussion there is about fakenews/webspam here on HN. It's a popular topic. As for blog posts and media, they're following the popularity as well in part to cash in on the traffic they'll see due to people's interest on the topic. I'm not sure what your premise is. Is it that this is a topic now only because of the election results? That it's a hot topic now because of some media conspiracy because of the election results? That the fakenews meme has been planted because of the election results? Those are all potentially interesting premises which could be researched and tested. I think we can agree that some news topics are faddish. For fakenews/webspam, the trigger that kicked it off is the election. Here's what I'm positing: We have a much larger number of people using social media since the last election (2012). People are spending a much larger amount of time online engaged with social media since the last election. People are getting a much larger percentage of their news online in general and social media in particular since the last election. Campaigns have spent much more on online advertising since the last election. Online advertising in general is much increased since the last election. All of these things contribute to an environment where people are going to be sensitive to news about online news and advertising. Even before the election, I'm sure you can find examples of people complaining about fake articles, both related to the campaign and otherwise. As an example, Ryan Holiday's "Trust Me I'm Lying" was published in 2013. This all makes for a great environment for a meme such as fakenews to take off. With all of the other increased politicization and polarization accompanying the election, it's unlikely that it needed much of a push. People were already complaining about untrue claims, cherry-picking, and the like. All of these things could likely be easily backed up, but I don't think they're likely to be particularly contentious. Any you disagree with? I don't know if any additional nefarious push needs to happen. What do you think?

grzm 10y ago

Look how much discussion there is about fakenews/webspam here on HN. It's a popular topic. As for blog posts and media, they're following the popularity as well in part to cash in on the traffic they'll see due to people's interest on the topic. I'm not sure what your premise is. Is it that this is a topic now only because of the election results? That it's a hot topic now because of some media conspiracy because of the election results? That the fakenews meme has been planted because of the election results? Those are all potentially interesting premises which could be researched and tested. I think we can agree that some news topics are faddish. For fakenews/webspam, the trigger that kicked it off is the election. Here's what I'm positing: We have a much larger number of people using social media since the last election (2012). People are spending a much larger amount of time online engaged with social media since the last election. People are getting a much larger percentage of their news online in general and social media in particular since the last election. Campaigns have spent much more on online advertising since the last election. Online advertising in general is much increased since the last election. All of these things contribute to an environment where people are going to be sensitive to news about online news and advertising. Even before the election, I'm sure you can find examples of people complaining about fake articles, both related to the campaign and otherwise. As an example, Ryan Holiday's "Trust Me I'm Lying" was published in 2013. This all makes for a great environment for a meme such as fakenews to take off. With all of the other increased politicization and polarization accompanying the election, it's unlikely that it needed much of a push. People were already complaining about untrue claims, cherry-picking, and the like. All of these things could likely be easily backed up, but I don't think they're likely to be particularly contentious. Any you disagree with? I don't know if any additional nefarious push needs to happen. What do you think?