13 ms·

Facebook will never take responsibility for fake news

65 points by Garbage 10y ago

mankash666 10y ago
Why should it? It's a for-profit entity fine tuned to surface the kind of links YOU want to read. The problem is us humans, we're prone to set rational thinking aside when presented with "news" to our liking. Every time we click on a link too good to be true, we're hoping that this one time the universe has finally rewarded us for our persistent but futile attempts at moulding it to our fancy.
- Yaggo 10y ago
  I think it's somewhat dangerous mindset that the "fake news problem" should/could be handled solely by the publishing platform. There will always be another way to publish false information. People believe fake news because they want to believe. Introducing any kind of sensoring authority will only treat the symptoms, not the disease, making the long-term problem worse. Basic education, equal opportunities etc. are the only sustainable solution.
felipeerias 10y ago
A lot of things fall under the "fake news" definition nowadays, from alternative points of view all the way to state-sponsored disinformation and propaganda. However, the term being loosely defined should not make us lose sight of the fact that there is an specific kind of "fake news" that is 100% a consequence of the priorities and incentives that Facebook has put in place: making outrageous headlines and stories out of thin air, for no other reason than making money from advertising.
- CM30 10y ago
  You mean the priorities and incentives that advertisers have put in place? Because while Facebook and other social media sites are often associated with it, I'd say things like Google search and ad networks have encouraged it just as much.
- candiodari 10y ago
  > the priorities and incentives that Facebook has put in place: making outrageous headlines and stories out of thin air Because we don't see outrageous headlines anywhere else ! That's why !
JamesMcMinn 10y ago
I'm not sure that they should take responsibility for it, but I do believe they should make tools available for people to fight it, although I don't think even that is an easy task. Facebook enables fake news by offering a platform where fake news can spread, but it spreads because a lot of people really do believe what is being reported, not because they necessarily want to spread fake news. Fake news, or lies as we should really be calling them, is very much a social problem. We've had "fake news" in the form of parody websites like the Onion for a long time, and whilst a large number of people fell for their stories, they often didn't make the same mistake twice. People are looking for new sources of news, and the combination of this with easily shareable and difficult to verify stories means that the lies spread quickly. Part of this has been caused by the attack on mainstream media (MSM) - people no longer trust the MSM because they're being told not to by politicians, and the fact that they're often caught misreporting stories doesn't help this. So, people turn to smaller more focused sources - often ones which they've never heard of before, and which they haven't been told not to trust. How does Facebook solve this? I'm not sure. Flagging stories as "this hasn't been reported elsewhere", or by filtering new sources of news might be a start, but it wouldn't be a solution. I'm not sure people would trust Facebook to manually moderate content, and it would simply give fake news and politicians the ammunition they needed to target Facebook as being against them. The very nature of news is that its unexpected and mostly unpredictable, so training algorithms to detect fake news reliably, without hiding real news, is a very difficult task. Facebook can't take responsibility for fake news, society needs to do that.
- libertine 10y ago
  I also don't think they should take the responsability for it (pretty much like Torrent Trackers, or Youtube, when it comes to content distribution). But I think there could be some mechanisms in place, similar to how Youtube handles copyright claims - where upon reporting, or a request for a source from any Facebook user - the publication would get it's Reach capped, or the publication would be hidden, until further evidence is displayed. Now, there are a lot of problems with this approach - first it's user based (which has it's pros and cons), second it may be target for malicious activity and anti-competitive pratices - but on the other hand if the source was displayed, it would somehow protect them (at least briefly), without having the Reach capped, but still flagged if the source is dubious.
i_feel_great 10y ago
The entire field of advertising can be classified as "fake news".
- wuch 10y ago
  There is article "Fake News" from 1992 [0], looking at the problem from this angle, essentially saying that quite a lot of news is fake in a sense that it is not prepared by journalists, but instead supplied by public relations agencies and published without any critical analysis by the media. Take for example recent CIA leaks. Reuters, when reporting it [1], included a statement from antivirus software manufacturing saying that "We can prevent attacks in real time if we were given the hooks into the mobile operating system". Given long history of AV software manufactures not following even basic security practices, I doubt that security experts would agree that this is how we should ensure safety of mobile devices. [0] David Lieberman, "Fake News,", TV Guide 1992, quoted in "Toxic sludge is good for you". [1] Eric Auchard, "Wikileaks' CIA hacking dump sends tech firms scrambling for fixes" http://www.reuters.com/article/wikileaks-products-idUSL5N1GL2A4 http://www.reuters.com/article/wikileaks-products-idUSL5N1GL...
skdotdan 10y ago
So, Facebook won't censor?
vezycash 10y ago
"Fake news" only became a "problem" after the last US election. If we really want to solve the problem instead of an an outlet to vent frustration like spiled brats, then we should think deeper. Why does my mum believe every piece of crap that shows up on Facebook and WhatsApp? And why do I call bullshit within a few seconds of reading it? This I believe is the right angle. Why do people believe obvious lies. And why is it obvious to some and not others? I suspect the root of the problem is our system of education. The primary goal these days seems to be obedience and unquestioning believe in authority. If this isn't solved (I doubt it can). Then asking for fake news control will bring a bigger problem - loss of free flow of information... China already has an excellent way of controlling fake news. But is that what we really want? Those who will benefit from the Chinese news control are those behind the sudden interest in fake news. Wake up people!
- zelos 10y ago
  Indeed. In the UK, the drip feed of fake news over the last decade from the traditional print press must have contributed to the Brexit victory. The Daily Mail is still running stories about straight cucumbers now.
- est 10y ago
  > China already has an excellent way of controlling fake news Here's the fun part, in China, spreading rumor is a criminal offence, but debunks (or at least one sided debunks) are not. So people and PR firms and using fake news to counter fake news.
- skc 10y ago
  >>I suspect the root of the problem is our system of education. The primary goal these days seems to be obedience and unquestioning believe in authority.<< You would think so. But my dad is a varsity Professor with a PhD, my mom has a Masters in English. They believe literally every cock and bull story they see on Facebook. You make an interesting point when you state that "The primary goal these days seems to be obedience and unquestioning believe in authority." because for me that is both the problem and, ironically, the very obvious solution. If there was a trusted (read, authoritative) service that one could use to vet such stories then the problem would go away. The devil is in the details though. I've seen people dismiss Snopes as some sort of leftist agenda pandering website.
_rpd 10y ago
> “It’s not always clear what is fake and what isn’t,” [Zuckerberg] continued. “A lot of what people are calling fake news are just opinions that people disagree with.” > This is just the latest in a long string of recent responses to the issue that shirk responsibility for the content that users consume and share on Facebook. It really isn't. This is the core issue.
concinds 10y ago
1. Everyone is born with the ability to trust, and to distrust. Many people suck at trusting others (i.e. they trust too much people who aren't trustworthy, and trust too little people who are), that's how you get abusive spouses and unavailable spouses. Trusting some news outlets and distrusting others is no different from dis/trusting people. The problem of people trusting the wrong things has been a problem throughout history, and the solution has to be psychological. Mandatory therapy for every citizen? Won't happen. 2. Teaching kids to spot "fake news" at school is laughably impotent and "feel good". People believe fake stories because they're emotionally-invested in the subject (see PG's "keep your identity small" post). Anyone that thinks we can solve fake news through "critical thinking skills" is... fake news. The problem is emotional involvement. If you're emotionally involved in a story, you won't want to use critical thinking. 3. You can get people to change their opinions, e.g. from climate-denial to pro-science (through using their cognitive dissonance against them). That's how you got Sanders converting Trump supporters at a recent town hall[0]. You haven't made them more rational, you've just taken their emotions, which pointed one way, and made them point the other way. So, if you want to make people trust "the establishment" or the Democrats more, you don't need to fix points 1. and 2. (which require fixing people), you just need to learn about cognitive dissonance and persuasion. But that doesn't solve the core problem of not having an informed population. [0]: http://www.politicususa.com/2017/03/13/bernie-sanders-storms-deep-red-west-virginia-convinces-trump-voters-conned.html http://www.politicususa.com/2017/03/13/bernie-sanders-storms...
sweetheart 10y ago
I didn't think I'd live to see the day people are upset with Facebook for not having more influence in the content they see. I understand the reasoning, and know it's not that simple, but still, it just sounds so backwards
yAnonymous 10y ago
And neither should they. The German government wants to implement insane penalties for not removing "fake news" fast enough, but what they're really trying to do is make sure Facebook only tells their side of the story, i.e. establish censorship on the internet. Government-critical sites that had millions of followers were already banned while media supporting the government can happily keep spreading their equally or even worse fake news. It's becoming a world-wide trend to call unfavorable things fascist and then employ fascist methods to fight them. Just like calling oligarchic structures a democracy, because it sells better.
- tgragnato 10y ago
  Upvoted, I really feel that the discussion about fake news is degenerating / encroaching towards maintaining the status quo and a generalised lack of self-criticism. When I read > I highly doubt that Facebook will “move fast, break things.” > Instead, Facebook is pushing half-hearted solutions and scapegoating the issue to other parties, prepping to weather this storm on an already-laid foundation of media dependence and habit. I start to think Facebook is only waiting to be disrupted. This may be one of the human sides of a technology developed by people who want to "fix everything from polarization to terrorist attacks to how we live together", but fail to provide basic rights to its users (privacy and freedom of information among others). Any opinion ?
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  The obvious point is that Facebook cannot provide accurate review-and-takedown of the total activity of billions of users. It doesn't matter what you legislate, it's currently not possible. Given which, "penalties for fake news" means one of: "after reports, which is too late", "all of it, so shut down your company", or "anything which annoys us enough to prosecute, so be proactive about pushing our stance". Choice three seems to be the usual outcome.
- synicalx 10y ago
  > It's becoming a world-wide trend to call unfavorable things fascist and then employ fascist methods to fight them. Take all of my upvotes. I'll never get my head around "Antifa" doxxing and assaulting Trump voters because they're "facists". When someone stands up against these kids, ie Based Stick Man, they're the ones that get arrested not the aggressors.
jlebrech 10y ago
One man's fake news is another man's "I knew it."
DanCarvajal 10y ago
Why wont the News Media take responsibility for their content being so poor that it's increasingly hard to tell between what's "real" and what's "fake"?
- Neliquat 10y ago
  Bingo. The batshit fundie newsletters are better sourced than the average nyt article these days.
- jrnichols 10y ago
  They don't really care anymore as long as that sweet sweet ad revenue keeps rolling in. That's one thing I've noticed drives a lot of the fake news sites - they're loaded with ads. Clearly that's their goal. If only we could get Google to cut off ad revenue to websites that are spreading made-up news. Good recent example? This: http://archive.is/R5Z1J http://archive.is/R5Z1J Fake news about Trump spread like wildfire. Even worse, the fake news sites were set up by a media company to advertise their new film. I think that's absolutely reprehensible behavior on their part. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/17/to-promote-film-20th-century-fox-created-fake-news-sites-with-fake-anti-trump-stories/?utm_term=.f3280a2625ab https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/1... And it's all about the ad revenue.
root_axis 10y ago
This is not a Facebook problem, nor is it a problem that can be fixed structurally since a fundamental disagreement about what constitutes fake news exists along partisan lines. When 'fake news' aligns with an individual's bias, the truth has now become the lie. Any attempt to wrest the non-aligning view-point from the realm of facts is met with a doubling-down and a recursive poisoning of every well. The only viable solution must come from the top-down. People will only reject fake news when leaders emphasize critical thinking and shoot down false stories, especially when the fake narrative is favorable to them or their position.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
meri_dian 10y ago
If we choose to 'fight' fake news, meaning we try to automate its removal from social networks, we'll end up censoring a good deal of speculative news which takes leaps of logic and is controversial but not 'fake' in the sense that it's trying to pass falsehood as fact. This is obviously problematic if we want to foster free and open discourse. The alternative is to not do anything at all, but that leaves our democracies open to attack from malicious actors. These both lead to bad outcomes. So let's consider alternative approaches. I believe 'fake news' is a symptom as well as a cause of political polarization. The less polarized and divisive our politics is, the less willing people will be to blindly accept fake news. Basically the potential receptive audience to fake news will decline. Given that approaches which try to attack fake news directly both have negative consequences, I think if we instead try to target other sources of polarization in society the fake news problem itself will become less serious. Let's start with getting money out of politics, instituting term limits for congress, finding an alternative to gerrymandering for the creation of electoral districts and most importantly growing the economy. These are challenging and nontrivial approaches but will ultimately attack the root cause of fake news spread. It is much better to treat a disease at its source than to just treat its symptoms.
- AckSyn 10y ago
  Intentionally or unintentionally, they have to go. All media is suspect without sources, secret sources, sources that won't go on record, and all the rest without proof of what they're saying. Else we're no better than school yard gossip.
  - meri_dian 10y ago
    So you want to ban all opinion and editorial pieces? Articles based on facts very often speculate and riff on ideas, branching off of initial facts, to reach conclusions. Who decides what is appropriate speculation and what is not?
    - AckSyn 10y ago
      "Appropriate speculation" isn't spouting off about a pet agenda a particular news outlet has or shoehorning it into whatever #popularbullshit is trending, it's about a logical conclusion to new information. Opinion pieces take that and twist it to their own bias and quite often into an inflammatory way. Too many outlets use opinion pieces as fact and engage in public outraging by selecting the most controversial, inflammatory, or biased stories and opinions to get viewership. Hell, you don't have to look far for them claiming not to be news but "Entertainment News" and frankly, it's insulting. News used to have standards. Unfortunately it scrapes the bottom of the barrel.
gerbilly 10y ago
If you want to avoid fake news, why not pay for real news? Buy a subscription to the NY Times, or any other of the major newspapers or newsmagazines.[1] Did you know the journalism industry is in a tailspin, and many professional reporters can't find jobs because people feel they can find the same information for free from blogs and on facebook? Newspapers aren't perfect, and bias in unavoidable, _but_ I don't see too many blogs paying copyeditors and fact checkers to double check their work. The good newspapers also take responsibility for their work and protect their sources. I find it sad that as a society we are abandoning the press, which is an important check and balance on the other institutions in society. Instead we prefer our dopamine squirts from swiping our facebook feeds on our phones, and being fed targeted stories that confirm our biases. I find it a sad irony that a generation who often likes to sneer at older industries, and disrupt them, thinks they have replaced the free press with something 'better' just because it is delivered via a cellphone. They are mistaking the medium for the message. The information quality is lower, but if it feels new and shiny, it must be better right?... [1] Yes I know most of these sources offer their content for free online, but I'm suggesting to pay for it anyway. You know support them before they disappear completely.
Mikeb85 10y ago
Nor should they. The problem is that, to judge something as 'fake', an authority needs to deem what is 'real'. And abuse of authority never happens, right? Banning fake news is akin to state censorship, since ultimately the one making the penalties (the state) gets to decide what 'fake news' actually is.

65 points by Garbage 10y ago

Why should it? It's a for-profit entity fine tuned to surface the kind of links YOU want to read. The problem is us humans, we're prone to set rational thinking aside when presented with "news" to our liking. Every time we click on a link too good to be true, we're hoping that this one time the universe has finally rewarded us for our persistent but futile attempts at moulding it to our fancy.

Yaggo 10y ago
I think it's somewhat dangerous mindset that the "fake news problem" should/could be handled solely by the publishing platform. There will always be another way to publish false information. People believe fake news because they want to believe. Introducing any kind of sensoring authority will only treat the symptoms, not the disease, making the long-term problem worse. Basic education, equal opportunities etc. are the only sustainable solution.

felipeerias 10y ago

A lot of things fall under the "fake news" definition nowadays, from alternative points of view all the way to state-sponsored disinformation and propaganda. However, the term being loosely defined should not make us lose sight of the fact that there is an specific kind of "fake news" that is 100% a consequence of the priorities and incentives that Facebook has put in place: making outrageous headlines and stories out of thin air, for no other reason than making money from advertising.

CM30 10y ago
You mean the priorities and incentives that advertisers have put in place? Because while Facebook and other social media sites are often associated with it, I'd say things like Google search and ad networks have encouraged it just as much.
candiodari 10y ago
> the priorities and incentives that Facebook has put in place: making outrageous headlines and stories out of thin air Because we don't see outrageous headlines anywhere else ! That's why !

JamesMcMinn 10y ago

I'm not sure that they should take responsibility for it, but I do believe they should make tools available for people to fight it, although I don't think even that is an easy task. Facebook enables fake news by offering a platform where fake news can spread, but it spreads because a lot of people really do believe what is being reported, not because they necessarily want to spread fake news. Fake news, or lies as we should really be calling them, is very much a social problem. We've had "fake news" in the form of parody websites like the Onion for a long time, and whilst a large number of people fell for their stories, they often didn't make the same mistake twice. People are looking for new sources of news, and the combination of this with easily shareable and difficult to verify stories means that the lies spread quickly. Part of this has been caused by the attack on mainstream media (MSM) - people no longer trust the MSM because they're being told not to by politicians, and the fact that they're often caught misreporting stories doesn't help this. So, people turn to smaller more focused sources - often ones which they've never heard of before, and which they haven't been told not to trust. How does Facebook solve this? I'm not sure. Flagging stories as "this hasn't been reported elsewhere", or by filtering new sources of news might be a start, but it wouldn't be a solution. I'm not sure people would trust Facebook to manually moderate content, and it would simply give fake news and politicians the ammunition they needed to target Facebook as being against them. The very nature of news is that its unexpected and mostly unpredictable, so training algorithms to detect fake news reliably, without hiding real news, is a very difficult task. Facebook can't take responsibility for fake news, society needs to do that.

libertine 10y ago
I also don't think they should take the responsability for it (pretty much like Torrent Trackers, or Youtube, when it comes to content distribution). But I think there could be some mechanisms in place, similar to how Youtube handles copyright claims - where upon reporting, or a request for a source from any Facebook user - the publication would get it's Reach capped, or the publication would be hidden, until further evidence is displayed. Now, there are a lot of problems with this approach - first it's user based (which has it's pros and cons), second it may be target for malicious activity and anti-competitive pratices - but on the other hand if the source was displayed, it would somehow protect them (at least briefly), without having the Reach capped, but still flagged if the source is dubious.

i_feel_great 10y ago

The entire field of advertising can be classified as "fake news".

wuch 10y ago
There is article "Fake News" from 1992 [0], looking at the problem from this angle, essentially saying that quite a lot of news is fake in a sense that it is not prepared by journalists, but instead supplied by public relations agencies and published without any critical analysis by the media. Take for example recent CIA leaks. Reuters, when reporting it [1], included a statement from antivirus software manufacturing saying that "We can prevent attacks in real time if we were given the hooks into the mobile operating system". Given long history of AV software manufactures not following even basic security practices, I doubt that security experts would agree that this is how we should ensure safety of mobile devices. [0] David Lieberman, "Fake News,", TV Guide 1992, quoted in "Toxic sludge is good for you". [1] Eric Auchard, "Wikileaks' CIA hacking dump sends tech firms scrambling for fixes" http://www.reuters.com/article/wikileaks-products-idUSL5N1GL2A4 http://www.reuters.com/article/wikileaks-products-idUSL5N1GL...

skdotdan 10y ago

So, Facebook won't censor?

vezycash 10y ago

"Fake news" only became a "problem" after the last US election. If we really want to solve the problem instead of an an outlet to vent frustration like spiled brats, then we should think deeper. Why does my mum believe every piece of crap that shows up on Facebook and WhatsApp? And why do I call bullshit within a few seconds of reading it? This I believe is the right angle. Why do people believe obvious lies. And why is it obvious to some and not others? I suspect the root of the problem is our system of education. The primary goal these days seems to be obedience and unquestioning believe in authority. If this isn't solved (I doubt it can). Then asking for fake news control will bring a bigger problem - loss of free flow of information... China already has an excellent way of controlling fake news. But is that what we really want? Those who will benefit from the Chinese news control are those behind the sudden interest in fake news. Wake up people!

zelos 10y ago
Indeed. In the UK, the drip feed of fake news over the last decade from the traditional print press must have contributed to the Brexit victory. The Daily Mail is still running stories about straight cucumbers now.
est 10y ago
> China already has an excellent way of controlling fake news Here's the fun part, in China, spreading rumor is a criminal offence, but debunks (or at least one sided debunks) are not. So people and PR firms and using fake news to counter fake news.
skc 10y ago
>>I suspect the root of the problem is our system of education. The primary goal these days seems to be obedience and unquestioning believe in authority.<< You would think so. But my dad is a varsity Professor with a PhD, my mom has a Masters in English. They believe literally every cock and bull story they see on Facebook. You make an interesting point when you state that "The primary goal these days seems to be obedience and unquestioning believe in authority." because for me that is both the problem and, ironically, the very obvious solution. If there was a trusted (read, authoritative) service that one could use to vet such stories then the problem would go away. The devil is in the details though. I've seen people dismiss Snopes as some sort of leftist agenda pandering website.

_rpd 10y ago

> “It’s not always clear what is fake and what isn’t,” [Zuckerberg] continued. “A lot of what people are calling fake news are just opinions that people disagree with.” > This is just the latest in a long string of recent responses to the issue that shirk responsibility for the content that users consume and share on Facebook. It really isn't. This is the core issue.

concinds 10y ago

1. Everyone is born with the ability to trust, and to distrust. Many people suck at trusting others (i.e. they trust too much people who aren't trustworthy, and trust too little people who are), that's how you get abusive spouses and unavailable spouses. Trusting some news outlets and distrusting others is no different from dis/trusting people. The problem of people trusting the wrong things has been a problem throughout history, and the solution has to be psychological. Mandatory therapy for every citizen? Won't happen. 2. Teaching kids to spot "fake news" at school is laughably impotent and "feel good". People believe fake stories because they're emotionally-invested in the subject (see PG's "keep your identity small" post). Anyone that thinks we can solve fake news through "critical thinking skills" is... fake news. The problem is emotional involvement. If you're emotionally involved in a story, you won't want to use critical thinking. 3. You can get people to change their opinions, e.g. from climate-denial to pro-science (through using their cognitive dissonance against them). That's how you got Sanders converting Trump supporters at a recent town hall[0]. You haven't made them more rational, you've just taken their emotions, which pointed one way, and made them point the other way. So, if you want to make people trust "the establishment" or the Democrats more, you don't need to fix points 1. and 2. (which require fixing people), you just need to learn about cognitive dissonance and persuasion. But that doesn't solve the core problem of not having an informed population. [0]: http://www.politicususa.com/2017/03/13/bernie-sanders-storms-deep-red-west-virginia-convinces-trump-voters-conned.html http://www.politicususa.com/2017/03/13/bernie-sanders-storms...

sweetheart 10y ago

I didn't think I'd live to see the day people are upset with Facebook for not having more influence in the content they see. I understand the reasoning, and know it's not that simple, but still, it just sounds so backwards

yAnonymous 10y ago

And neither should they. The German government wants to implement insane penalties for not removing "fake news" fast enough, but what they're really trying to do is make sure Facebook only tells their side of the story, i.e. establish censorship on the internet. Government-critical sites that had millions of followers were already banned while media supporting the government can happily keep spreading their equally or even worse fake news. It's becoming a world-wide trend to call unfavorable things fascist and then employ fascist methods to fight them. Just like calling oligarchic structures a democracy, because it sells better.

tgragnato 10y ago
Upvoted, I really feel that the discussion about fake news is degenerating / encroaching towards maintaining the status quo and a generalised lack of self-criticism. When I read > I highly doubt that Facebook will “move fast, break things.” > Instead, Facebook is pushing half-hearted solutions and scapegoating the issue to other parties, prepping to weather this storm on an already-laid foundation of media dependence and habit. I start to think Facebook is only waiting to be disrupted. This may be one of the human sides of a technology developed by people who want to "fix everything from polarization to terrorist attacks to how we live together", but fail to provide basic rights to its users (privacy and freedom of information among others). Any opinion ?
Bartweiss 10y ago
The obvious point is that Facebook cannot provide accurate review-and-takedown of the total activity of billions of users. It doesn't matter what you legislate, it's currently not possible. Given which, "penalties for fake news" means one of: "after reports, which is too late", "all of it, so shut down your company", or "anything which annoys us enough to prosecute, so be proactive about pushing our stance". Choice three seems to be the usual outcome.
synicalx 10y ago
> It's becoming a world-wide trend to call unfavorable things fascist and then employ fascist methods to fight them. Take all of my upvotes. I'll never get my head around "Antifa" doxxing and assaulting Trump voters because they're "facists". When someone stands up against these kids, ie Based Stick Man, they're the ones that get arrested not the aggressors.

jlebrech 10y ago

One man's fake news is another man's "I knew it."

DanCarvajal 10y ago

Why wont the News Media take responsibility for their content being so poor that it's increasingly hard to tell between what's "real" and what's "fake"?

Neliquat 10y ago
Bingo. The batshit fundie newsletters are better sourced than the average nyt article these days.
jrnichols 10y ago
They don't really care anymore as long as that sweet sweet ad revenue keeps rolling in. That's one thing I've noticed drives a lot of the fake news sites - they're loaded with ads. Clearly that's their goal. If only we could get Google to cut off ad revenue to websites that are spreading made-up news. Good recent example? This: http://archive.is/R5Z1J http://archive.is/R5Z1J Fake news about Trump spread like wildfire. Even worse, the fake news sites were set up by a media company to advertise their new film. I think that's absolutely reprehensible behavior on their part. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/17/to-promote-film-20th-century-fox-created-fake-news-sites-with-fake-anti-trump-stories/?utm_term=.f3280a2625ab https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/02/1... And it's all about the ad revenue.

root_axis 10y ago

This is not a Facebook problem, nor is it a problem that can be fixed structurally since a fundamental disagreement about what constitutes fake news exists along partisan lines. When 'fake news' aligns with an individual's bias, the truth has now become the lie. Any attempt to wrest the non-aligning view-point from the realm of facts is met with a doubling-down and a recursive poisoning of every well. The only viable solution must come from the top-down. People will only reject fake news when leaders emphasize critical thinking and shoot down false stories, especially when the fake narrative is favorable to them or their position.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

meri_dian 10y ago

If we choose to 'fight' fake news, meaning we try to automate its removal from social networks, we'll end up censoring a good deal of speculative news which takes leaps of logic and is controversial but not 'fake' in the sense that it's trying to pass falsehood as fact. This is obviously problematic if we want to foster free and open discourse. The alternative is to not do anything at all, but that leaves our democracies open to attack from malicious actors. These both lead to bad outcomes. So let's consider alternative approaches. I believe 'fake news' is a symptom as well as a cause of political polarization. The less polarized and divisive our politics is, the less willing people will be to blindly accept fake news. Basically the potential receptive audience to fake news will decline. Given that approaches which try to attack fake news directly both have negative consequences, I think if we instead try to target other sources of polarization in society the fake news problem itself will become less serious. Let's start with getting money out of politics, instituting term limits for congress, finding an alternative to gerrymandering for the creation of electoral districts and most importantly growing the economy. These are challenging and nontrivial approaches but will ultimately attack the root cause of fake news spread. It is much better to treat a disease at its source than to just treat its symptoms.

AckSyn 10y ago
Intentionally or unintentionally, they have to go. All media is suspect without sources, secret sources, sources that won't go on record, and all the rest without proof of what they're saying. Else we're no better than school yard gossip.
- meri_dian 10y ago
  So you want to ban all opinion and editorial pieces? Articles based on facts very often speculate and riff on ideas, branching off of initial facts, to reach conclusions. Who decides what is appropriate speculation and what is not?
  - AckSyn 10y ago
    "Appropriate speculation" isn't spouting off about a pet agenda a particular news outlet has or shoehorning it into whatever #popularbullshit is trending, it's about a logical conclusion to new information. Opinion pieces take that and twist it to their own bias and quite often into an inflammatory way. Too many outlets use opinion pieces as fact and engage in public outraging by selecting the most controversial, inflammatory, or biased stories and opinions to get viewership. Hell, you don't have to look far for them claiming not to be news but "Entertainment News" and frankly, it's insulting. News used to have standards. Unfortunately it scrapes the bottom of the barrel.

gerbilly 10y ago

If you want to avoid fake news, why not pay for real news? Buy a subscription to the NY Times, or any other of the major newspapers or newsmagazines.[1] Did you know the journalism industry is in a tailspin, and many professional reporters can't find jobs because people feel they can find the same information for free from blogs and on facebook? Newspapers aren't perfect, and bias in unavoidable, _but_ I don't see too many blogs paying copyeditors and fact checkers to double check their work. The good newspapers also take responsibility for their work and protect their sources. I find it sad that as a society we are abandoning the press, which is an important check and balance on the other institutions in society. Instead we prefer our dopamine squirts from swiping our facebook feeds on our phones, and being fed targeted stories that confirm our biases. I find it a sad irony that a generation who often likes to sneer at older industries, and disrupt them, thinks they have replaced the free press with something 'better' just because it is delivered via a cellphone. They are mistaking the medium for the message. The information quality is lower, but if it feels new and shiny, it must be better right?... [1] Yes I know most of these sources offer their content for free online, but I'm suggesting to pay for it anyway. You know support them before they disappear completely.

Mikeb85 10y ago

Nor should they. The problem is that, to judge something as 'fake', an authority needs to deem what is 'real'. And abuse of authority never happens, right? Banning fake news is akin to state censorship, since ultimately the one making the penalties (the state) gets to decide what 'fake news' actually is.