4 ms·

Ultimately it's a very hard problem to solve. Fake news, and its far more dangerous big brother, propaganda, can have an enormous effect on a society. Providi

by zzalpha 10y ago

Ultimately it's a very hard problem to solve. Fake news, and its far more dangerous big brother, propaganda, can have an enormous effect on a society. Providing people with tools to identify real information from fake information seems like a great thing for those who want to use them. But a lot of folks (whether they realize it or not) want to see fake news because it confirms their personal worldview (or: how everyone loves confirmation bias) and makes them feel good about being part of their in-group. I suspect folks who push for censorship think that it will somehow ensure these types of folks don't consume fake news or propaganda (probably without realizing that they, too, have consumed fake news from time to time). But the reality is fake news has existed for a very very long time. Hell, you could tune into MSNBC or Fox News and find stories that border pretty closely on fake news without even trying. And, again, they do it because it increases ratings. And it increases ratings because it makes people in their respective demographics feel good. So what you're ultimately trying to fight is the human need for a sense of belonging, and the desire to feel good about their personal beliefs. Good luck with that...

ska 10y ago
Fake news is propaganda, full stop. While it is often more concerning when done by a state actor, there is no fundamental difference.
- mtgx 10y ago
  Yes. The problem is most of these companies that want to fight "fake news" would probably almost completely focus on "new sites" that have fake news, and perhaps a couple of other "more obvious" big sites like Breitbart. But what happens when the fake news comes from CNN? Will Facebook block CNN or WSJ articles that spout lies and are blatantly incorrect? The problem with this is that these days, you often also get the "real news" from smaller sites, like DemocracyNow, or others even smaller, that report on NoDAPL protests when none of the big news sites do. What if Facebook gets used to censoring these sites, though, even though they report the real news out there? And would we even know? After all, they are small sites, that few people would know about in the beginning.
- zzalpha 10y ago
  Fake news is propaganda, full stop The Onion might disagree with that. The line between one man's satire and another man's propaganda is a pretty thin one.
  - ska 10y ago
    Not so thin at all. I think there is a pretty clean delineation between satirical sites like the onion (i.e. Social commentary) and the sort of "fake news" we are talking about here. These fake news posts are presented as factual, with the purpose of supporting a political or social goal - in other words propaganda.

by zzalpha 10y ago

ska 10y ago

Fake news is propaganda, full stop. While it is often more concerning when done by a state actor, there is no fundamental difference.

mtgx 10y ago
Yes. The problem is most of these companies that want to fight "fake news" would probably almost completely focus on "new sites" that have fake news, and perhaps a couple of other "more obvious" big sites like Breitbart. But what happens when the fake news comes from CNN? Will Facebook block CNN or WSJ articles that spout lies and are blatantly incorrect? The problem with this is that these days, you often also get the "real news" from smaller sites, like DemocracyNow, or others even smaller, that report on NoDAPL protests when none of the big news sites do. What if Facebook gets used to censoring these sites, though, even though they report the real news out there? And would we even know? After all, they are small sites, that few people would know about in the beginning.
zzalpha 10y ago
Fake news is propaganda, full stop The Onion might disagree with that. The line between one man's satire and another man's propaganda is a pretty thin one.
- ska 10y ago
  Not so thin at all. I think there is a pretty clean delineation between satirical sites like the onion (i.e. Social commentary) and the sort of "fake news" we are talking about here. These fake news posts are presented as factual, with the purpose of supporting a political or social goal - in other words propaganda.