3 ms·

> the term 'fake news' is in itself gaslighting and part of the problem The term "fake news" is not gaslighting. It was coined to describe news that was, quite

> the term 'fake news' is in itself gaslighting and part of the problem The term "fake news" is not gaslighting. It was coined to describe news that was, quite literally, intentionally made up with the intent to deceive and manipulate the reader using objectively false facts. For example, the fake electoral map that showed that Clinton only won the popular vote along the coasts, and that everywhere else (including Chicago!) voted uniformly for Trump. The term has since been appropriated (one might argue intentionally, by progenitors of said fake news) to describe any news that has a perceived bias or slant differing from the one held by the person speaking, but that's not "fake news" - that's just... well, news. > We don't have too much fake news, we have too little critical thinking I agree with this. To a large degree, if people collectively possessed better critical thinking skills and demonstrated the interest in using them, actual fake news would be a non-issue. As I said, true "fake news" is trivially verifiable as false (e.g. Trump winning Chicago), but it's spread by people who either don't have the skills to think that deeply, don't want to think deeply, or simply don't mind blatantly lying in order to push their agenda.

grey-area 10y ago
True fake news is not produced by Democrats? Hmm. I think better to reject this style of argument altogether, whoever uses it, the term has been poisoned irredeemably by its misuse and evacuated successfully of meaning, if it ever had any. I suspect this was a deliberate strategy by Trump's campaign, but it also shows up the vacuous nature of the original term that it can be so successfully co-opted. When you accept an argument on the basis of vague concepts like fake news, terrorists and protecting the homeland and you've already lost in a fundamental sense by failing to look at the foundation and assumptions going into the arguments over what is true and not. We should look at the basis of the argument and facts presented - the content, and just ignore the rhetorical packaging like 'very fake news', it's not helpful to argue over whether things are fake or not or what exactly fake news is, because definitions like that are so easily twisted. You might find that you oppose fake news only to find it has been redefined successfully to mean everything Trump disagrees with.
- chimeracoder 10y ago
  > True fake news is not produced by Democrats? ...where on earth did you read that anywhere in what I wrote?
  - grey-area 10y ago
    :) Hyperbole I admit. You didn't say exactly that, but you did approach it in saying that 'true fake news' was labelled as such by the Democrats (implying they didn't make any), as opposed to the fake fake news term of Trump, which came later. Again, I don't think the labels are as interesting as the claims - better to focus just on what is true and what is not for one atomic fact, not on whether a given fact is 'fake news' which shuts down rational thought and becomes a partisan matter. The sophistry of vague terms like fake news is dangerous whoever wields them and has been really well used by people like Trump to simply distract from reality and shut down the critical faculties of those watching, even when they hate him - it distracts from the actual argument with arguments about what is fake etc, etc. Imagine if you will a search engine applying labels like 'fake news', 'true fake news' and perhaps 'fake fake news' to results - this is pointless, and would not persuade one person, but would help to polarise society further into different camps, just as Fox News and CNN say have become different constituencies who wouldn't dream of looking at the other channel.
    - soundwave106 10y ago
      "Fake news" sites is not necessarily politics. Call it conspiracy theory, rumor mill gossip, and the like. There are fake news sites on celebrities, supernatural events, "gross out" fake news, race / cultural baiting, and any other general outrage that inspires clicks. Snopes has a list of them compiled in early 2016, and politics is only a small part of it. (http://www.snopes.com/2016/01/14/fake-news-sites/ http://www.snopes.com/2016/01/14/fake-news-sites/) I don't see "fake news" as vague. Fake news is fake. There is nothing ambiguous about the term; many people (eg Trump) have co-opted the term wrongly. If you publish an article saying Adam Sandler committed suicide (http://archive.is/n78Do http://archive.is/n78Do) and the truth is he's still quite alive and making movies... that's fake news. Can you think of a better word? Liars? Con artists? All these apply to me. I do think that true fake news websites did embrace Trump more than other politicians, but I believe a lot of this came more from Donald Trump's position as an "anti-establishment" candidate making him a perfect target for writers targeting the conspiracy minded. I think it's fair to say that a lot of conspiracy theory relies on large distrust of institutional authority. I doubt personally that the fake news sites would've similarly embraced Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush. None of this is terribly new to the Internet (stuff like the National Enquirer and Weekly World News would probably be described as "fake news" now). I agree that, if one is prone to believing conspiracy theory, I'm not sure simply a warning label in a Google search will persuade anyone. Nevertheless, since Google and Facebook are essentially about advertising, my thought is that there might be an economic motivation to at least quietly make sure true fake news sites are less visible. I doubt many mainstream corporations want to be associated with true "fake news", personally, and the often questionable content they have. (Unfortunately any algorithm alterations probably will have to be done quietly, since it's now such a political football.)

grey-area 10y ago

True fake news is not produced by Democrats? Hmm. I think better to reject this style of argument altogether, whoever uses it, the term has been poisoned irredeemably by its misuse and evacuated successfully of meaning, if it ever had any. I suspect this was a deliberate strategy by Trump's campaign, but it also shows up the vacuous nature of the original term that it can be so successfully co-opted. When you accept an argument on the basis of vague concepts like fake news, terrorists and protecting the homeland and you've already lost in a fundamental sense by failing to look at the foundation and assumptions going into the arguments over what is true and not. We should look at the basis of the argument and facts presented - the content, and just ignore the rhetorical packaging like 'very fake news', it's not helpful to argue over whether things are fake or not or what exactly fake news is, because definitions like that are so easily twisted. You might find that you oppose fake news only to find it has been redefined successfully to mean everything Trump disagrees with.

chimeracoder 10y ago
> True fake news is not produced by Democrats? ...where on earth did you read that anywhere in what I wrote?
- grey-area 10y ago
  :) Hyperbole I admit. You didn't say exactly that, but you did approach it in saying that 'true fake news' was labelled as such by the Democrats (implying they didn't make any), as opposed to the fake fake news term of Trump, which came later. Again, I don't think the labels are as interesting as the claims - better to focus just on what is true and what is not for one atomic fact, not on whether a given fact is 'fake news' which shuts down rational thought and becomes a partisan matter. The sophistry of vague terms like fake news is dangerous whoever wields them and has been really well used by people like Trump to simply distract from reality and shut down the critical faculties of those watching, even when they hate him - it distracts from the actual argument with arguments about what is fake etc, etc. Imagine if you will a search engine applying labels like 'fake news', 'true fake news' and perhaps 'fake fake news' to results - this is pointless, and would not persuade one person, but would help to polarise society further into different camps, just as Fox News and CNN say have become different constituencies who wouldn't dream of looking at the other channel.
  - soundwave106 10y ago
    "Fake news" sites is not necessarily politics. Call it conspiracy theory, rumor mill gossip, and the like. There are fake news sites on celebrities, supernatural events, "gross out" fake news, race / cultural baiting, and any other general outrage that inspires clicks. Snopes has a list of them compiled in early 2016, and politics is only a small part of it. (http://www.snopes.com/2016/01/14/fake-news-sites/ http://www.snopes.com/2016/01/14/fake-news-sites/) I don't see "fake news" as vague. Fake news is fake. There is nothing ambiguous about the term; many people (eg Trump) have co-opted the term wrongly. If you publish an article saying Adam Sandler committed suicide (http://archive.is/n78Do http://archive.is/n78Do) and the truth is he's still quite alive and making movies... that's fake news. Can you think of a better word? Liars? Con artists? All these apply to me. I do think that true fake news websites did embrace Trump more than other politicians, but I believe a lot of this came more from Donald Trump's position as an "anti-establishment" candidate making him a perfect target for writers targeting the conspiracy minded. I think it's fair to say that a lot of conspiracy theory relies on large distrust of institutional authority. I doubt personally that the fake news sites would've similarly embraced Marco Rubio or Jeb Bush. None of this is terribly new to the Internet (stuff like the National Enquirer and Weekly World News would probably be described as "fake news" now). I agree that, if one is prone to believing conspiracy theory, I'm not sure simply a warning label in a Google search will persuade anyone. Nevertheless, since Google and Facebook are essentially about advertising, my thought is that there might be an economic motivation to at least quietly make sure true fake news sites are less visible. I doubt many mainstream corporations want to be associated with true "fake news", personally, and the often questionable content they have. (Unfortunately any algorithm alterations probably will have to be done quietly, since it's now such a political football.)