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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 tak

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.
nickik 10y ago
I believe this to be correct. You have to change the political system. From a technical perspective it is easy, we know about voting systems, we know how gerrymandering works and how to fight it. Many people don't know that the Swiss System is actually based on the American one, with some small differences. These differences have lead to at totally different result. Switzerland has about 12 parties in the lower house and 6 in the upper. The President and his Ministers are replaced by a council of ministers (7) that is elected by the parliament, currently 4 parties are represented. The US would not need to copy the Swiss model, but some changes that lead to similar effects would help the US political system and the 'fake news' problem. A good place to start: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7679C7ACE93A5638 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7679C7ACE93A5638

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.

nickik 10y ago

I believe this to be correct. You have to change the political system. From a technical perspective it is easy, we know about voting systems, we know how gerrymandering works and how to fight it. Many people don't know that the Swiss System is actually based on the American one, with some small differences. These differences have lead to at totally different result. Switzerland has about 12 parties in the lower house and 6 in the upper. The President and his Ministers are replaced by a council of ministers (7) that is elected by the parliament, currently 4 parties are represented. The US would not need to copy the Swiss model, but some changes that lead to similar effects would help the US political system and the 'fake news' problem. A good place to start: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7679C7ACE93A5638 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7679C7ACE93A5638