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I disagree. There is no value in shifting through fake news. To me it makes sense to have filters in the same way as my email client has a spam filter, namely a

I disagree. There is no value in shifting through fake news. To me it makes sense to have filters in the same way as my email client has a spam filter, namely as a convenience for me not to have to navigate through crappy spam messages. I believe it's important, however, that fake news filters need to be configurable by the end consumer (=me) rather than by someone else such as the site that delivers the news. But that's no different from spam, I'd never use server-side spam filters with unknown blacklists either. If you think you're being tricked, you can occasionally turn off the fake news filter and check the result yourself, or look in your "fake news folder", so I don't see what harm could be done except improving the information quality. However, I don't think fake news can be detected heuristically by text data mining in the same way as spam, instead the detector must take a look at the data sources and evaluate those.

ivraatiems 10y ago
> I disagree. There is no value in shifting through fake news. To me it makes sense to have filters in the same way as my email client has a spam filter, namely as a convenience for me not to have to navigate through crappy spam messages. I understand the metaphor you're going for - and yeah, it's a huge slog to have to comb through all the garbage sometimes. However, there is a pitfall in doing this for too long without re-checking yourself: The trustworthiness of organizations changes, and new ones pop up all the time. If you aren't careful, you can end up in a massive echo chamber. That is, if you're going to filter out what you feel is "fake news," you'd better have an ironclad definition for the term, and a way to easily tell what does and doesn't match it, and the only way to do that is to be aware as possible of what's out there. After all, how many times a day/week/month do people actually look in their spam folders?
- JohnStrange 10y ago
  Let's just call me unconvinced by your reply. I was assuming that you can tell fake news from real news, which is very easy for the majority of people. If you can't tell fake news from real news in the first place, no amount of technology or education or behavior will allow you to stay well-informed in the long run. For the rest of us, a technological aid can be helpful, that's all I'm saying. I'd also like to suggest that the problem is vastly exaggerated. Maybe some people really have forgotten crucial distinctions like those between news, false news, fake news, commentaries, opinions, etc., but I doubt that there are many. An almost certain sign of real news is that they are repeated everywhere, since there is only one reality. Anybody who is indeed unsure about whether some news is genuine or not can simply check major newspapers and press agencies, and if they don't take up on the story after a while, then it's not news at all or at least false news. Maybe in some regions of the world the number of people who are willing to manipulate media with a strong agenda has increased. I'm inclined to believe that, although some hard empirical evidence for this assertion would be desirable. Anyone who uses the term "mainstream media" is very suspect, for example. However, most of these people are really just hypocrites rather than being misinformed.
  - Pokepokalypse 10y ago
    >I was assuming that you can tell fake news from real news, which is very easy for the majority of people. I can tell fake news from real news. However, I'm left-leaning. And sometimes, there's left-leaning news that is fake. In some cases it's blatant. In others it's subtle. But I have to admit, I'm biased, and I often don't figure out what's true or not until I've done some digging. In some cases, doing some digging results in more fake bullshit. But that's not really the problem for me. I don't want my world to be a difficult puzzle that I have to solve every day. But that's the way it is. The problem is the minority of people who can't even figure this out. They vote. And they're enough of a minority that this threatens my livelihood and well being, and possibly my life. This is a huge problem for Democracy, and if we can't reform our electoral system so that a majority wins, then we're actually fucked. Like; we're (USA) going to end up like Egypt or Ukraine fucked. I think if we can develop tools to combat this, we should use such tools. Or we will become tools for someone else.
  - ivraatiems 10y ago
    I don't know you, and my goal isn't to impugn your ability to tell fact from fiction or make good judgments on the reality of news. However, speaking in general, people are not as good at determining fact from fiction as they think they are. In general, it is a skill that has to be learned, and we live in a constantly changing media environment where one has to keep in practice and remain aware of what's going on, and what's out there. Personally, I know that I have accidentally fallen for things I believed to be legitimate, but that were not, and as a result, I had to improve how I went about verifying news. If I had relied on my own certainty about being able to judge these things, I would have repeated lies. There's nothing wrong with using an aid day-to-day. The problem only comes when the aid ends up being a crutch, that is, when the point of the filter is to encase you in a bubble, rather than strain out the real crap.

ivraatiems 10y ago

> I disagree. There is no value in shifting through fake news. To me it makes sense to have filters in the same way as my email client has a spam filter, namely as a convenience for me not to have to navigate through crappy spam messages. I understand the metaphor you're going for - and yeah, it's a huge slog to have to comb through all the garbage sometimes. However, there is a pitfall in doing this for too long without re-checking yourself: The trustworthiness of organizations changes, and new ones pop up all the time. If you aren't careful, you can end up in a massive echo chamber. That is, if you're going to filter out what you feel is "fake news," you'd better have an ironclad definition for the term, and a way to easily tell what does and doesn't match it, and the only way to do that is to be aware as possible of what's out there. After all, how many times a day/week/month do people actually look in their spam folders?

JohnStrange 10y ago
Let's just call me unconvinced by your reply. I was assuming that you can tell fake news from real news, which is very easy for the majority of people. If you can't tell fake news from real news in the first place, no amount of technology or education or behavior will allow you to stay well-informed in the long run. For the rest of us, a technological aid can be helpful, that's all I'm saying. I'd also like to suggest that the problem is vastly exaggerated. Maybe some people really have forgotten crucial distinctions like those between news, false news, fake news, commentaries, opinions, etc., but I doubt that there are many. An almost certain sign of real news is that they are repeated everywhere, since there is only one reality. Anybody who is indeed unsure about whether some news is genuine or not can simply check major newspapers and press agencies, and if they don't take up on the story after a while, then it's not news at all or at least false news. Maybe in some regions of the world the number of people who are willing to manipulate media with a strong agenda has increased. I'm inclined to believe that, although some hard empirical evidence for this assertion would be desirable. Anyone who uses the term "mainstream media" is very suspect, for example. However, most of these people are really just hypocrites rather than being misinformed.
- Pokepokalypse 10y ago
  >I was assuming that you can tell fake news from real news, which is very easy for the majority of people. I can tell fake news from real news. However, I'm left-leaning. And sometimes, there's left-leaning news that is fake. In some cases it's blatant. In others it's subtle. But I have to admit, I'm biased, and I often don't figure out what's true or not until I've done some digging. In some cases, doing some digging results in more fake bullshit. But that's not really the problem for me. I don't want my world to be a difficult puzzle that I have to solve every day. But that's the way it is. The problem is the minority of people who can't even figure this out. They vote. And they're enough of a minority that this threatens my livelihood and well being, and possibly my life. This is a huge problem for Democracy, and if we can't reform our electoral system so that a majority wins, then we're actually fucked. Like; we're (USA) going to end up like Egypt or Ukraine fucked. I think if we can develop tools to combat this, we should use such tools. Or we will become tools for someone else.
- ivraatiems 10y ago
  I don't know you, and my goal isn't to impugn your ability to tell fact from fiction or make good judgments on the reality of news. However, speaking in general, people are not as good at determining fact from fiction as they think they are. In general, it is a skill that has to be learned, and we live in a constantly changing media environment where one has to keep in practice and remain aware of what's going on, and what's out there. Personally, I know that I have accidentally fallen for things I believed to be legitimate, but that were not, and as a result, I had to improve how I went about verifying news. If I had relied on my own certainty about being able to judge these things, I would have repeated lies. There's nothing wrong with using an aid day-to-day. The problem only comes when the aid ends up being a crutch, that is, when the point of the filter is to encase you in a bubble, rather than strain out the real crap.