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So The Washington Post article on fake news is lying to its readers. This perfectly illuminates the problem with trust, truth, and the Internet. Two good rules
by welanes 10y ago
So The Washington Post article on fake news is lying to its readers. This perfectly illuminates the problem with trust, truth, and the Internet.
Two good rules of thumb - and this goes for established media outlets - when reading an article.
A. Follow the links that writers include in their articles.
Example: Well the article above. But this is how bad it is: Currently the WP's most popular article is titled 'Americans keep looking away from the election’s most alarming story' which includes the line "Trump reveled in information gained from...“fake news” stories that evidence suggests (link) were generated by Russian intelligence operation". Well, if you click that link there is zero evidence, just an article from 'geektime.com' (who?) asking 'Could Russia be behind US election-based fake news on Facebook?'.
This is incredibly disingenuous.
B. Read the comments.
Example: Just go to the comments on any article on The Economist or The Guardian and you'll almost always find high quality addenda that either refute or add context to the article being commented on. Perhaps it's the limited number of media outlets in Europe, or just the nature of our media, but there's a high level of healthy dissent below-the-line that I don't see on The NYT, WP etc.
This assumes, of course, that people care about the truth. Yet critical thinking may be futile against a firehose of information and this trait of human psychologically: many people value how they feel over the truth and so will be biased towards 'news' that fulfills that role.
It's not fearless critical reporting they're after, but rather a bubble of moral affirmation.
- inimino 10y agoNot sure why you are being downvoted specifically, but the idea that responsible readership is the solution to widespread credulity seems to be less popular on HN than I would have expected.
- lunula 10y agoMaybe the assertion that the WaPo is lying is a little bit extreme for some readers. But they do seem to be overstating the case based on the available sources.
- sprafa 10y agoHe's right tho. Although I do suspect Russian envolvement, there's been no hard evidence so far. Nothing like the loan given to the National Front in France anyway.
- wstrange 10y ago> B. Read the comments The comments are often worse than the article itself. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_brigades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_brigades
- asddddd 10y agoFake news illustrates what people actually want when they share "news" on Facebook/Twitter (and to a lesser degree, sites like Reddit): a headline, not a story. It's really just the ultimate in clickbait.
- welanes 10y agoTrue. I miss the days when people made a quick buck from sharing funny pictures of cats instead of appealing to tribal instincts. As vacuous as fake news but a lot less divisive.* * Well, unless you're not a cat person that is.
- turar 10y ago> Perhaps it's the limited number of media outlets in Europe, or just the nature of our media, but there's a high level of healthy dissent below-the-line that I don't see on The NYT, WP etc. Don't know about WP, but NYT has a "Readers' Picks" tab in its comments section, which was consistently very critical of NYT throughout the election cycle, especially their one-sided coverage of Clinton and Sanders campaigns. At times, it was quite surreal -- the tone and substance of most upvoted comments were in stark difference with the actual article.