9 ms·

Fake news is too big and messy to solve with algorithms or editors

110 points by bootload 10y ago

HeavenBanned 10y ago
They can't make it disappear but they can create a condition whereby you'll never stray from the "real" news they offer and cordon you off into an internet environment where you'll never even be exposed to "fake" news. There are methods of achieving that.
dilemma 10y ago
Facebook has created a system that encourages fake content. Change that system and you get rid of the content.
- yeukhon 10y ago
  Be specific. What system? Society is full of chatters. Now we virtualize social interaction, the chatter is only getting more widespread at the speed of light.
  - jfoutz 10y ago
    The system that encourages the, generally, emotional response of likes, rather than the, generally, intellectual response of likes. Stories that challenge a person's world view are generally ignored, stories that support a person's world view are liked. I enjoy casual conversations with people i disagree with. In person i can keep it genial and friendly. On line i don't have that control, and criticizing an idea becomes tough to distinguish from criticizing the person. Because the person i'm interacting with isn't really thinking much at all, and just reacting in an emotional way. At least that's how i believe they're reacting, because i catch my self reacting that way more often than i like to admit. edit As a concrete example, I've had a bunch of in person conversations about gun ownership, and a fair number of online discussions. With the in person examples, generally, i feel like i've learned something, and my interlocutor has a better understanding of my point of view. Any time i try that online, i just get pissed off and i'm pretty sure my interlocutor does as well, judging by being unfriended.
    - est 10y ago
      > intellectual response of likes That kind of response died along with USENET in the 90s in the eternal September
    - iamatworknow 10y ago
      >As a concrete example, I've had a bunch of in person conversations about gun ownership, and a fair number of online discussions. With the in person examples, generally, i feel like i've learned something, and my interlocutor has a better understanding of my point of view. Any time i try that online, i just get pissed off and i'm pretty sure my interlocutor does as well, judging by being unfriended. I've had the same experience. I'm a gun owner. I also believe that guns are dangerous and every gun owner should be thoroughly vetted before being allowed to own one. As a New Yorker it took 11 months for my pistol permit application to be processed. My finger prints were taken, as well as a mug shot. It cost over $100. A county sheriff came to my home to inspect it and interview me. And I was fine with all of that, because it meant others had to go through this same strict process. I think it should not be easy to obtain a gun, and it should be easy to lose the privilege. But I've shared this opinion online with other gun owners before and to say it was not received very well is a massive understatement. Apparently, not only does my belief in tighter restrictions mean I don't deserve to own guns, it also means that I don't believe in any part of the Constitution at all, and should my life be in danger, gun owners who may be able to help me shouldn't come to my defense. That was seriously what I was told. To these people online it's preferable that I be killed than defended because I believe guns shouldn't be easy to obtain. It's absolutely crazy.
  - sjg007 10y ago
    Just block breitbart, infowars etc..
    - aqsheehy 10y ago
      Exactly. The solution facebook should be applying to fake news is to just block all content that disagrees with the viewpoint of the individual reader.
      - bigbugbag 10y ago
        So inverting the existing filter bubble ?
        grenoire 10y ago
        You mean reinforcing?
  - bigbugbag 10y ago
    Simple enough: facebook give more visibility to what people share the most. Fake news are exploiting neuroscience knowledge of how the brain works to elicit the response they want from the reader and aim of reaching a larger audience so they're largely shared on facebook closing the loop.
  - dilemma 10y ago
    The system that makes it profitable to create fake news articles and post on Facebook.
  - dude01 10y ago
    Changes in quantity can be changes in quality. You're right, all FB did is virtualize social interaction. But now you can interact orders of magnitude faster and with more people with it, thus changing the nature of interacting.
helthanatos 10y ago
They certainly can't stop it if they promote it... Facebook is social media, so it is excused, but Google prioritizes according to ad payments, so whoever is paying for the ads has more control over the approved content and the ad content. Spreading fake news by demonizing certain videos that aren't agreed with and such. Now, it's not exactly up to Google to stop fake news either... They just shouldn't promote it as have.
rdtsc 10y ago
I think two things happened that are interesting: * Traditional mass media has failed at manufacturing consent (stealing Chomsky's title here because I like the book and it fits). Election was lost to a TV personality even though mass media was supposed to prevent it. Google and Facebook didn't waste any time after noticing this market vacuum and signaled they are ready to be the new manufacturers of consent. "Pay us money and we'll properly inform people of your favorite brand/policy/candidate and block competing brands/candidates. Don't rely on TV news anymore. Come to us". That was a very good move on their part. * Fake news term was a good PR term. It works well as a slogan, is short and very expressive. However it was appropriated by others. Disarming by appropriation is an interesting technique. So now the same media companies talking about fake news are defending themselves from being labeled as such. It went so far that WaPo journalist explicitly asked everyone to stop using the term as it apparently is backfiring too much: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/its-time-to-retire-the-tainted-term-fake-news/2017/01/06/a5a7516c-d375-11e6-945a-76f69a399dd5_story.html?utm_term=.5fa563648f29 https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/its-time-to-r... I think studying how appropriation happened so quickly and effectively is worth it just as much as the effect of lizard people or chemtrails on the outcome of the election.
- rjeli 10y ago
  Yes, I think the appropriation was astoundingly effective. A few days ago I heard someone refer to actual fake news as fake news and I suddenly remembered CNN talking about fake news right after the election before Trump started slinging it around. I had completely forgotten.
  - sanderjd 10y ago
    I know this just reflects our bubbles, but the only time I see "fake news" used as a slur for real news is in tweets from the President. So it doesn't seem like very effective appropriation to me. It just seems thin and obvious.
    - wjossey 10y ago
      While I'm quite left of center on most issues, I'm also a political hound. I listen to conservative talk radio a couple times a week for the purposes of oppo research and fake news is regularly tossed around in reference to NPR, BBC, NYTimes, etc. Rush Limbaugh has 14M+ listeners per week who hear those sources called "fake news", so I'd sadly agree that it has been very effectively appropriated.
aqsheehy 10y ago
The algorithm for identifying fake news is actually pretty straight forward: if I disagree with it then it's fake news else it's just news
- sanderjd 10y ago
  Easier algorithm: organizations with a long record and reputations to uphold, and which issue retractions when their stories are found to be factually incorrect, are real news. (Even if they are imperfect and politically skewed.)
  - aqsheehy 10y ago
    The hard part is the "when their stories are found to be factually incorrect". If you have that solved that then you don't need the rest. Otherwise you would just game the system by retracting posts irregularly.
    - hn_throwaway_99 10y ago
      > Otherwise you would just game the system by retracting posts irregularly. But that's the point. There seems to be a large number of people and organizations (including the US President) who are NEVER interested in issuing retractions or admitting fault - when something is pointed out as factually false, they just repeat the falsehood louder even when there is stuff like audio or video evidence that directly refutes it.
    - Larrikin 10y ago
      Believing that since nothing can be 100% true everything is completely false paralyzes society. The temperature that's reported by your thermometer may be off by a degree or so but if you take that to mean it can't be trusted at all you have no basis to trust anything. Sources should be critically evaluated constantly, but sources that are usually more off should be treated differently than sources that are usually more on.
    - sanderjd 10y ago
      You're right, but honestly even just "issues retractions or corrections ever" weeds out huge swaths of "news".
yeukhon 10y ago
News propaganda didn't just fall off a tree magically. Propaganda is common throughout history to gather supports. Fake news didn't just happen on Facebook. Mainstream media have been criticized for all forms of malpractices or unfair reporting by misquoting, taking a quote or story out of context, using unauthentic images or using different random parts of a clip to create a story. Is NYT more fair than Fox News? I recently came across a YouTube video called "The Sinter Reason Weed is Illegal" [1]. I am not a historian, but from this video I learned that perhaps the ban of cannabis was perhaps not based on scientific facts at all. The whole ban was just a political move by provoking racism to rally up against the Blacks and the Mexicans. After the 2016 Election, I started to follow a Facebook Page called "Now This Politics" (NTP). Given the page's political nature, most of the stories are about the current administration. I started to get more news stories from Facebook. A few days ago United Airlines was reported to have barred girls from boarding a flight because of their leggings. NTP created a video about the incident. I felt UA was being ridiculous. Legging isn't the most inappropriate dress code. I didn't approve UA's defense. But when I went to the comment section, I started to change my stand on the issue because apparently these girls got their tickets via an employee discount program, for which the ticket holder is subjected to a stricter dress code. While I don't dispute this dress code might be outdated for legging (what about Yoga pants?), NTP's video was able to impose a negative view on me. Yes, the video did include UA's defense statement UA said the employee discount ticket holders are subjected to dress code requirement at the end of the video, but at that point the negativity had already been planted. Now I have to be extra careful not to side with the video creator right away, just because their other videos do make good points exposing the uglinesses of our current government. The fact I agree with them before would mean I am now vulnerable to social influences and perhaps beginning to deindivdiualize in my capacity to distinguishing my own views from others' views.. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJlqsdezhhk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJlqsdezhhk [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/26/us/united-airlines-leggings.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/26/us/united-airlines-leggin...
- globuous 10y ago
  > I learned that perhaps the ban of cannabis was perhaps not based on scientific facts at all. The whole ban was just a political move by provoking racism to rally up against the Blacks and the Mexicans. This is interesting, I didn't know about that. However, I remember a sociology class I took in college. It showed that crack and cocaine fines / jail times were very different from each other (doing crack was legally more Dangerous than doing cocaine). But crack and cocain are pretty much the same thing. The biggest difference is that a few décades ago (I don't know if it's still the case), white people did cocaine and black people did crack. Because crack was cheaper than cocaine. Sad how régulations are made sometimes.
intrasight 10y ago
I don't actively use G+ so I can't judge that. But I do use FB every day. I think the "fake news" and many other annoyances would go away if we just rolled the platform back to what it was like ten+ year ago - where you could just type messages and your friends would see those messages.
tbrock 10y ago
Who cares? Get your news from paying attention to real life instead of from your friends spending time on Facebook. Read here and make up your own mind: http://www.allsides.com/ http://www.allsides.com/
- cat199 10y ago
  This is great - Finally something that clearly highlights the implicit editorial bias in all news sources.. Thanks for share.
superioritycplx 10y ago
The two sides on political spectrum define "fake news" differently: one calls everything that's not reported by the established (and very well paid) media "fake news", the other one calls news that uses cherry picked facts to push the narrative "fake news."
- ihsw2 10y ago
  Do either of them qualify as fake news? How do we combat fake news if nobody knows what it is, and how do we prevent collateral damage/unintended consequences?
  - Razengan 10y ago
    Fake == not real. Fake news == reporting stuff that did not happen, isn't true.
    - BearGoesChirp 10y ago
      What about reporting on real facts in a way that leads one to draw a false conclusion? Imagine if Fox News ran a story on race and crime and used lots of FBI facts, never drawing any actual conclusion, but pointing out how crimes break down racially while never mentioning the possibility that profiling or the interactions between race and poverty or poverty and crime? All the reporting would be on actual facts. But it should at least be called propaganda if not fake news.
      - Razengan 10y ago
        Anything with a prominent opinion present throughout the piece is more an "article" than "news" anyway, but yes, propaganda nonetheless.
  - superioritycplx 10y ago
    Basically, "fake news" happen when the messenger adds their color to the content. It's activist journalism. It's "the President issued an executive order" vs "the President, in a Hitler-like move, issued an executive order" Journalism was needed because people wanted to know what happened across the globe. Citizen reporting on twitter, Periscope, and YouTube erased that need. Journalists also didn't help themselves last year by being completely one sided. People noticed that. "Fake news" is the journalism's last attempt to save itself. It's already dead from self inflicted wounds.
arcaster 10y ago
Fake News is an awfully vague term for censorship.
- soreasan 10y ago
  This is my big worry. I feel like "Fake News" is being used for news that people disagree with.
empressplay 10y ago
If someone is the target of a fake news story, can't they just sue the poster? Wouldn't an injunction force Facebook to take it down? Maybe what's needed is more like a DMCA takedown mechanism, if the verified target of a piece (eg a politician or their agent) files a complaint, then the piece is temporarily taken down, and the person who posted it has an opportunity to prove the substance of the allegations and if they fail it gets taken down permanently, otherwise it goes back up permanently. This would also have the advantage of killing all of those useless "anonymous source" articles too.
- partiallypro 10y ago
  Winning a case like that is incredibly difficult, even for celebrities. Unless there was a gross violation of privacy, people rarely win the battle. It qualifies as free speech or what could be parody? There's a fine line. A lot of the outlets that put out the "fake news" are owned by the same companies that put out "fake news" with the total opposite view point. Outrage gets clicks and viewership, we're trolling ourselves to death.
rustynails77 10y ago
I believe Wikipedia has an excellent definition of fake news which matches the understanding that most people I know are using, "Fake news is a type of hoax or deliberate spread of misinformation, be it via the traditional news media or via social media, with the intent to mislead in order to gain financially or politically." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news I have researched many articles from around 50 years ago and today. I strongly believe that the amount of disinformation has grown significantly, especially from the Mainstream Media. I find it difficult to find a single news outlet that can't be found to meet that definition above (ie. to spread fake news). It's not "I disagree with you" (like many posters are saying). It's not those "men’s rights advocates" [from the article] or "Breitbart". It's MOST (if not all) mainstream media. The issue falls into two categories (above). 1. Blatant lies. For example, how many times have you heard about women's voting rights (women couldn't vote until a long time after men could). Read this http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/9933592/Women-voted-75-years-before-they-were-legally-allowed-to-in-1918.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/9933592/Wom... And the UK is not the only country with similar stories. Compare this article with statements like this from the guardian "In 1928, women were granted equal voting rights with men: it had been 10 years since the Representation of the People Act _first_ enabled them to take their place at the ballot box..." (emphasis mine) https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/jul/09/women.women https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/jul/09/women.w... Then there's the blatant misinformation. Go to Google, type in "domestic violence" and click "Images". Then scroll through every single image you can find. If you want even more images, pick specific media publications and search that using "domestic violence site:www.smh.com.au" (or whatever media out you like). You will see thousands upon thousands of images that all contain the same thing. Pictures of white grown women, or white men in threatening poses. You will find less than 2% of women who don't appear white, you will find less than 5% of pictures depict abused children. You will find 0% of abused males. Now, compare this with the following. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4510.0~2015~Main%20Features~Experimental%20Family%20and%20Domestic%20Violence%20Statistics~6> http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/... http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-224-x/2010000/t002-eng.htm http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-224-x/2010000/t002-eng.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_the_United_States#Over_a_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_the_Unite... https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/domesticabuseinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2016 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeand... You will see the percentage of male victims is 35%, 51%, 41%, and 35% (Australia, Canada, US, UK). In other words, there is plenty of violence against males with the family. If you really have the time, also, read the text in the articles and you will see how consistently manipulative the media are, across the entire world! The idea is to manipulate and create a public perception. The real reason behind it was captured by this feminist who said that her friends refused to acknowledge domestic violence of any males in case it took funding from women (ie. it's about the money). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itSTzV29bS0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itSTzV29bS0 I personally think you can't get much lower than denying violence, protection from violence and trying to cut off support any any victim of violence, but, then again, i'm in the extreme minority. I could give so many examples of fake news, not just these. We could talk about cancer, education, employment, wages, you name it. There's a huge list of fake news. Sadly, these themes saturate the media (world wide) with a continuous stream of lies and misinformation. I don't think the article helped in the slightest. If anything, I saw it as a backward step. There are perfectly good definitions and plenty of examples that could have been illustrated. This is a worthy discussion. Let's stop pussyfooting. Hold all liars and manipulators to the same standard. Start exposing blatant lies.
avivo 10y ago
I agree with title and most of the points. And I definitely don't want platforms to just arbitrarily censor what they believe is "fake news". But we also can't dismiss the responsibility of the platforms. The sort of systemic change that this piece alludes to needs the companies to be involved. They are a huge part of "the system" — part of the problem. As the piece itself says: "We need to work together and build coalitions of groups who do not share the same political and social ideals to address the issues that we can all agree are broken." That cannot happen when the incentives and UX promulgated by the platforms are fighting against any sort of social cohesion. Platform changes are critical to bootstrapping ourselves into a better media ecosystem.
anticodon 10y ago
Please, show me unbiased ("true") news. In my opinion, such a thing is like perpetuum mobile, in other words, it can't exist.
- im3w1l 10y ago
  Here is a perpetuum mobile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_crystal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_crystal
  - Sunset 10y ago
    But is it a perpetuum mobile if you can't extract more energy than you've put in?
- darpa_escapee 10y ago
  Fake news != Biased news. It's the difference between running these headlines: "Secret child sex-trafficking ring led by Hillary Clinton" vs "Trump lies, yet again"
  - cat199 10y ago
    When the bias is so strong it clouds the understanding of events, it's pretty darn close to fake.. Witness the fact that noone is talking about all countries attempts to influence the US elections on all sides, despite the fact that this is almost certainly the case..
pasta 10y ago
I think false conclusions are the problem. For example: "Trump approved an oil pipe.". This is no fake news. But the conclusion most outlets made was: "See, Trump is working with the Russians because it's Russian steel.". And even one part of the conclusion is true: it is partly Russian steel. But the steel was already bought years ago. So my questions is: how could Google and Facebook do reliable fact checking on this? So yes, maybe they can't make fake news disapear.
- camillomiller 10y ago
  They shouldn't. This is a byproduct of the failure of journalistic filtering. However biased, journalistic outlets used to have a role and a purpose: apply a filter to the enormous amount of information the new media society generates; stick by the truth coming from facts. What tipped it all over is the advent of three things: 24h news channels, demanding a spectacularization of news to fill an entire day of broadcasting; the Web, of course; the need to find a way for monetizing news on the Web, that led to dancing with the devil of online advertisement. We're currently in a phase where the shortcomings of the ad based business model for media are clear to everyone. How many previously respectable outlets have already burnt their integrity at the altar of clickbait and ads for the sake of keeping the lights on? What we are witnessing with fake news is what happens when a balancing power of society (media) is losing its grip and importance. The problem here being that the actors who are actively weakening that power (Google and Facebook) don't want to affirm a different flavor of that power. It's only about the money.
- BearGoesChirp 10y ago
  True facts can be presented in such a way to lead to fake conclusions. With only a small amount of knowledge and almost no investments I can do this on a number of topics, often presenting groups of facts that lead readers to assume opposing false conclusions. Now imagine groups that have vast amounts of resources to spend doing the same. Doing studies and only paying attention to the ones that agree with a certain view point. Scanning through other studies and statistics to find plenty of statistics that back their point even when relative to the whole body of statistics on the issue the findings are in the minority. Using psychology to find the best way to present facts with the goal of causing false conclusions to be drawn. Find legitimate critiques of opposing research but not uniformly applying them. One example is the effect of listing crime rates by grouping based on total vs per capita rates. Group X is 10% of the population but commits 20% of the crime. You can list the data as they only commit 20% of the crime, or that their crime rate per capita is double that of group Y which is 40% of the population and commits 40% of the crime. And even this might not be correct is treatment of Group's X and Y by the police are not equal. Perhaps Group Y commits more crime, but isn't as likely to be investigated? How can someone trust the facts they are being given when there are groups whose purposefully work to be able to give true facts in a way that encourages wrong conclusions?
Kenji 10y ago
Who decides which news are fake and which aren't? This entire discussion is dumb and any serious effort to curb 'fake news' is equal to censorship. Go live in North Korea if you want there to be no dissenting opinions. Don't bring your fascism to us.
- eivarv 10y ago
  Well, news that are truly false can amount to propaganda and I've regularly seen it used to polarize and/or antagonize - so I find your comments about fascism kind of ironic. I think this whole thing boils down to people not being able to or not knowing how to discern truth from falsehood, rather what people associate with "censorship".
- soundwave106 10y ago
  Google and Facebook are private advertising companies at heart. So yes, they get to decide what (in theory) is best for their business on this issue. If they believe curbing what they view is "fake news" is best for business, they have every right to do so. Someone can set up a social network entirely funded by the "fake news" Google and Facebook rejects, if they believe that this is a valid business model too. Again, they have every right. It only leans "fascism" or "North Korea" style if news editorial direction becomes dictated by the government, and dissent is stifled by force.
  - Kenji 10y ago
    I don't care about what google or facebook do. I worry about this going into legislation. You have no idea how dangerous this is.
adrianratnapala 10y ago
A good article, if a bit of a rant. The frustrating thing about all this is that civilised people worked out, back in the 18th century that the solution is to let bullshit and truth have free play so that free people can decide for themselves. That doesn't mean interweb giants won't have there work cut out for them. But that should be workaday stuff like blocking spam and the like. "The like" includes stuff like folks who make up stupid stuff just to get clicks -- but it doesn't mean every kind of lie or misinformation.
ericdykstra 10y ago
There is a spectrum of what people call "fake news" ranging from: 1. Complete fiction presented as fact up to push a narrative [1] 2. Reporting on conspiracy theories as fact, presenting circumstantial evidence as hard evidence. 3. Intentionally misleading by cherry-picking statistics/data/etc [2][3] 4. Taking things out of context to paint a picture of a person that doesn't exist [4] 5. Criticizing someone's words rather than their position to construct a straw man (most character assassination pieces do this) 6. Presenting biased reporting on stories 7. Only presenting stories that paint a story of the world that the author agrees with The first is unequivocally fake news. Any source that reports a story like this should be suspect, and any that doesn't issue a retraction should be ignored. The second is what the mainstream media pins the Alex Jones type on, calling them fake news. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th are usually the tactics of what people call "alternative media," but almost all legacy media companies use these tactics, at least occasionally. This is why WSJ, CNN, WaPo, etc often get the fake news label from the alternative media and other critics. If fake news is defined as fiction presented as fact, then it's not unfair to label these tactics as fake news. The last two are just punditry and audience pandering, and the only ones calling them "fake news" are partisans that can't stand partisan viewpoints from the other side. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/11/10/women-in-hijabs-on-2-campuses-say-they-were-attacked-by-men-invoking-donald-trump/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/11/1... [2] http://theparadoxproject.org/blog-1/2016/12/4/mostly-false-politifact-and-bias http://theparadoxproject.org/blog-1/2016/12/4/mostly-false-p... [3] http://theparadoxproject.org/blog-1/2016/12/20/picking-your-fact-politifacts-biased-fact-check-choices http://theparadoxproject.org/blog-1/2016/12/20/picking-your-... https://medium.com/incerto/the-facts-are-true-the-news-is-fake-5bf98104cea2 https://medium.com/incerto/the-facts-are-true-the-news-is-fa... [4] https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-severs-ties-with-youtube-star-pewdiepie-after-anti-semitic-posts-1487034533 https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-severs-ties-with-youtube... further reading: I love this essay by Nassim Taleb: "The Facts are True, the News is Fake" https://medium.com/incerto/the-facts-are-true-the-news-is-fake-5bf98104cea2 https://medium.com/incerto/the-facts-are-true-the-news-is-fa...
EJTH 10y ago
Google and Facebook Can’t Just Make Fake News Disappear, and thats a good thing! http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Anytimes.com+and+thats+a+good+thing http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Anytimes.com+and+thats+a+good+thi...
Mendenhall 10y ago
They cant make fake news disappear because they are going about it the wrong way. As soon as you try to crack down or limit "fake news" you play right into psychology of reinforcing the fake news "media" and "they out to get us". Also lol at the concept of google and facebook knowing whats fake news and what isnt and trusting them to do so.
thr0waway1239 10y ago
The author writes: "Discursively, this frame is used to highlight every form of problematic content, including both blatantly and accidentally inaccurate information, salacious and fear-mongering headlines, hateful and incendiary rhetoric produced in blogs, and propaganda of all stripes (driven by both the State and other interests)." Did you read all the different types and make a mental note of which news you recently heard falls under which category? Probably not, because we are cognitive misers. Sometimes, the underlying issue is that humans simply do not have the capacity to sift through so much noise to get to the heart of the matter. To proof yourself against fake news will involve so much thinking that it will become a full time job. People really like to "sort and label", as a famous economist put it. It conserves our mental energy and can even be very helpful for economic and social progress. The sorting and labeling is going to be personalized to their upbringing and cultural norms, with a strong affinity towards news, fake or not, which agrees with such an upbringing. Fake news could just be an unintended side effect of the increase in opportunities to consume (information) and communicate, because humans won't go from cognitive misers to cognitive spendthrifts ever. And who wants less opportunity to consume and communicate? And certainly, stop asking Google and Facebook to make fake news disappear. This is like requesting burglars to make sure they bolt the door after they are done with their burglary so that other people don't vandalize what is left of the shop.
dredmorbius 10y ago
I wanted to like this piece. It's got some good bits in it,and boyd's been on fire the past few months. With some credit to the point that the problem isn't trivial, I get the overall sense boyd is simply throwing up her hands, and that strikes me as disingenuous. @ericdykstra has addressed the question of definitions of fake news, so I'll just repoint to that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14001745 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14001745
tempodox 10y ago
> Although most techies imagined that their tools would be used to bridge disconnects, that did not happen. That is one disturbing takeaway. Props to the author for seeing that and pointing it out. I for one feel stupid for having believed such a thing could happen. But then, hindsight is always 20/20.
pottersbasilisk 10y ago
No kidding. I think fake news is a symptom of humanity's social fabric or contract coming apart.
sandmarq 10y ago
I can't be more enthousiam
sandmarq 10y ago
I'M waitting with impatince the creation of the minitere of the truth to finally know the real news.
forgottenpass 10y ago
>Experts can’t even agree on who is a hate group and who is engaging in protected speech. Probably because the experts struggling over this aren't expert enough to notice that borders of those categories are not questions with answers that can be investigated, but instead they're categorizations people choose to apply. (Oh, and the author should know better than to casually drop the implication that they're non-intersecting categories.) And to the extent discussing "protected" speech introduces the legal questions, there is no amount of experts expert-ing that can come up with a mathmatical proof to replace a nation's amalgamation of different societal philosophies figuring out where to draw legal boundaries.
xatan_dank 10y ago
The problem is not 'fake news'. The problem is that it's impossible to have a discussion about the news at all since everyone is experiencing drastically different content directly catered to them on the internet. At least with Fox News we could all point to something Megyn Kelly said and debate whether we agreed or not. There's no way we can even agree upon an information set to talk about with interactive 'fake news' because it differs for everyone and changes rapidly. We also don't have any of the source for these repulsive services, where we at least have some evidence of how MSM outlets are biased. The idea that services like Google and Facebook are going to use more algorithms to counter the tracking and ad servicing algorithms they developed in the first place is laughable. The solution (if they were actually trying to counter 'fake news') would be to get rid of this harmful technology entirely, but that's all these companies have to bring in revenue so I doubt that'd happen. 'Fake news' is not Breitbart or CNN or one news outlet. 'Fake news' is really the way these internet companies have distorted our collective reality for their own short-term gains. It is irresponsible, dangerous, and in my opinion, not profitable in the long run unless they completely usurp all our species' communication. Which they are actively trying to achieve.
- metaphorm 10y ago
  you're putting much too much blame on internet distributors of media (i.e. Google, Facebokk, etc.). Conventional media organizations and their distribution networks have raced to the bottom very eagerly. Fox News created the media model which is now the only game in town because it was so successful.
6stringmerc 10y ago
Along the same lines, I wrote about the same issue in a more contentious and direct way - in that Fake News can spread because a large portion of the population are ignorant, and sometimes willfully so, to the point of maddening denials of reality like "I dunno maybe the Earth is flat." https://medium.com/@6StringMerc/a-case-study-in-the-fake-news-feedback-loop-e42e236eefd0 https://medium.com/@6StringMerc/a-case-study-in-the-fake-new...
lutusp 10y ago
Not addressed in the article, but critical to the issue, is education -- a properly educated public would be immune to fake news. Key to that educated outlook would be healthy skepticism and application of the null hypothesis precept from science -- the assumption that, without positive empirical evidence, a claim is assumed to be false. If readers were educated and skeptical, if they understood and appreciated how science works, the fake news epidemic would starve and die for lack of an audience.
ilaksh 10y ago
By pretending that propaganda only comes from sources that they don't like, they can rationalize censorship. 'Fake News' needs to be put in the context of on-going propaganda that comes from the mainstream media (including in the United States). Most HN readers are unaware of this context. I urge the reader of this comment to research the history of (war) propaganda, and carefully examine his/her belief system if he/she feels that the United States is exempt from history in this regard. See 'The Myth of American Exceptionalism' http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/10/25/obama-putin-american-exceptionalism-column/3181829/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/10/25/obama-putin... and research the history of propaganda in the US. At some historical point where it becomes uncomfortable to acknowledge it, people will suppose that it ceased to exist. This is not true.
nippples 10y ago
The main issue here is that journalists and editors all over established publications decided to give objectivity all the middle fingers they could find, and we're pretty much just fed "news commentary" and opinion columns instead of news these days. Add that to these idiots becoming sanctimonious and now you've got a lot of disaffected audience who just know something doesn't add up seeking alternative news. If the only options you got are people wagging their fingers, you might as well just find someone who's not constantly calling you an asshole over things you cannot control about yourself.

110 points by bootload 10y ago

They can't make it disappear but they can create a condition whereby you'll never stray from the "real" news they offer and cordon you off into an internet environment where you'll never even be exposed to "fake" news. There are methods of achieving that.

dilemma 10y ago

Facebook has created a system that encourages fake content. Change that system and you get rid of the content.

yeukhon 10y ago
Be specific. What system? Society is full of chatters. Now we virtualize social interaction, the chatter is only getting more widespread at the speed of light.
- jfoutz 10y ago
  The system that encourages the, generally, emotional response of likes, rather than the, generally, intellectual response of likes. Stories that challenge a person's world view are generally ignored, stories that support a person's world view are liked. I enjoy casual conversations with people i disagree with. In person i can keep it genial and friendly. On line i don't have that control, and criticizing an idea becomes tough to distinguish from criticizing the person. Because the person i'm interacting with isn't really thinking much at all, and just reacting in an emotional way. At least that's how i believe they're reacting, because i catch my self reacting that way more often than i like to admit. edit As a concrete example, I've had a bunch of in person conversations about gun ownership, and a fair number of online discussions. With the in person examples, generally, i feel like i've learned something, and my interlocutor has a better understanding of my point of view. Any time i try that online, i just get pissed off and i'm pretty sure my interlocutor does as well, judging by being unfriended.
  - est 10y ago
    > intellectual response of likes That kind of response died along with USENET in the 90s in the eternal September
  - iamatworknow 10y ago
    >As a concrete example, I've had a bunch of in person conversations about gun ownership, and a fair number of online discussions. With the in person examples, generally, i feel like i've learned something, and my interlocutor has a better understanding of my point of view. Any time i try that online, i just get pissed off and i'm pretty sure my interlocutor does as well, judging by being unfriended. I've had the same experience. I'm a gun owner. I also believe that guns are dangerous and every gun owner should be thoroughly vetted before being allowed to own one. As a New Yorker it took 11 months for my pistol permit application to be processed. My finger prints were taken, as well as a mug shot. It cost over $100. A county sheriff came to my home to inspect it and interview me. And I was fine with all of that, because it meant others had to go through this same strict process. I think it should not be easy to obtain a gun, and it should be easy to lose the privilege. But I've shared this opinion online with other gun owners before and to say it was not received very well is a massive understatement. Apparently, not only does my belief in tighter restrictions mean I don't deserve to own guns, it also means that I don't believe in any part of the Constitution at all, and should my life be in danger, gun owners who may be able to help me shouldn't come to my defense. That was seriously what I was told. To these people online it's preferable that I be killed than defended because I believe guns shouldn't be easy to obtain. It's absolutely crazy.
- sjg007 10y ago
  Just block breitbart, infowars etc..
  - aqsheehy 10y ago
    Exactly. The solution facebook should be applying to fake news is to just block all content that disagrees with the viewpoint of the individual reader.
    - bigbugbag 10y ago
      So inverting the existing filter bubble ?
      - grenoire 10y ago
        You mean reinforcing?
- bigbugbag 10y ago
  Simple enough: facebook give more visibility to what people share the most. Fake news are exploiting neuroscience knowledge of how the brain works to elicit the response they want from the reader and aim of reaching a larger audience so they're largely shared on facebook closing the loop.
- dilemma 10y ago
  The system that makes it profitable to create fake news articles and post on Facebook.
- dude01 10y ago
  Changes in quantity can be changes in quality. You're right, all FB did is virtualize social interaction. But now you can interact orders of magnitude faster and with more people with it, thus changing the nature of interacting.

helthanatos 10y ago

They certainly can't stop it if they promote it... Facebook is social media, so it is excused, but Google prioritizes according to ad payments, so whoever is paying for the ads has more control over the approved content and the ad content. Spreading fake news by demonizing certain videos that aren't agreed with and such. Now, it's not exactly up to Google to stop fake news either... They just shouldn't promote it as have.

rdtsc 10y ago

I think two things happened that are interesting: * Traditional mass media has failed at manufacturing consent (stealing Chomsky's title here because I like the book and it fits). Election was lost to a TV personality even though mass media was supposed to prevent it. Google and Facebook didn't waste any time after noticing this market vacuum and signaled they are ready to be the new manufacturers of consent. "Pay us money and we'll properly inform people of your favorite brand/policy/candidate and block competing brands/candidates. Don't rely on TV news anymore. Come to us". That was a very good move on their part. * Fake news term was a good PR term. It works well as a slogan, is short and very expressive. However it was appropriated by others. Disarming by appropriation is an interesting technique. So now the same media companies talking about fake news are defending themselves from being labeled as such. It went so far that WaPo journalist explicitly asked everyone to stop using the term as it apparently is backfiring too much: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/its-time-to-retire-the-tainted-term-fake-news/2017/01/06/a5a7516c-d375-11e6-945a-76f69a399dd5_story.html?utm_term=.5fa563648f29 https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/its-time-to-r... I think studying how appropriation happened so quickly and effectively is worth it just as much as the effect of lizard people or chemtrails on the outcome of the election.

rjeli 10y ago
Yes, I think the appropriation was astoundingly effective. A few days ago I heard someone refer to actual fake news as fake news and I suddenly remembered CNN talking about fake news right after the election before Trump started slinging it around. I had completely forgotten.
- sanderjd 10y ago
  I know this just reflects our bubbles, but the only time I see "fake news" used as a slur for real news is in tweets from the President. So it doesn't seem like very effective appropriation to me. It just seems thin and obvious.
  - wjossey 10y ago
    While I'm quite left of center on most issues, I'm also a political hound. I listen to conservative talk radio a couple times a week for the purposes of oppo research and fake news is regularly tossed around in reference to NPR, BBC, NYTimes, etc. Rush Limbaugh has 14M+ listeners per week who hear those sources called "fake news", so I'd sadly agree that it has been very effectively appropriated.

aqsheehy 10y ago

The algorithm for identifying fake news is actually pretty straight forward: if I disagree with it then it's fake news else it's just news

sanderjd 10y ago
Easier algorithm: organizations with a long record and reputations to uphold, and which issue retractions when their stories are found to be factually incorrect, are real news. (Even if they are imperfect and politically skewed.)
- aqsheehy 10y ago
  The hard part is the "when their stories are found to be factually incorrect". If you have that solved that then you don't need the rest. Otherwise you would just game the system by retracting posts irregularly.
  - hn_throwaway_99 10y ago
    > Otherwise you would just game the system by retracting posts irregularly. But that's the point. There seems to be a large number of people and organizations (including the US President) who are NEVER interested in issuing retractions or admitting fault - when something is pointed out as factually false, they just repeat the falsehood louder even when there is stuff like audio or video evidence that directly refutes it.
  - Larrikin 10y ago
    Believing that since nothing can be 100% true everything is completely false paralyzes society. The temperature that's reported by your thermometer may be off by a degree or so but if you take that to mean it can't be trusted at all you have no basis to trust anything. Sources should be critically evaluated constantly, but sources that are usually more off should be treated differently than sources that are usually more on.
  - sanderjd 10y ago
    You're right, but honestly even just "issues retractions or corrections ever" weeds out huge swaths of "news".

yeukhon 10y ago

News propaganda didn't just fall off a tree magically. Propaganda is common throughout history to gather supports. Fake news didn't just happen on Facebook. Mainstream media have been criticized for all forms of malpractices or unfair reporting by misquoting, taking a quote or story out of context, using unauthentic images or using different random parts of a clip to create a story. Is NYT more fair than Fox News? I recently came across a YouTube video called "The Sinter Reason Weed is Illegal" [1]. I am not a historian, but from this video I learned that perhaps the ban of cannabis was perhaps not based on scientific facts at all. The whole ban was just a political move by provoking racism to rally up against the Blacks and the Mexicans. After the 2016 Election, I started to follow a Facebook Page called "Now This Politics" (NTP). Given the page's political nature, most of the stories are about the current administration. I started to get more news stories from Facebook. A few days ago United Airlines was reported to have barred girls from boarding a flight because of their leggings. NTP created a video about the incident. I felt UA was being ridiculous. Legging isn't the most inappropriate dress code. I didn't approve UA's defense. But when I went to the comment section, I started to change my stand on the issue because apparently these girls got their tickets via an employee discount program, for which the ticket holder is subjected to a stricter dress code. While I don't dispute this dress code might be outdated for legging (what about Yoga pants?), NTP's video was able to impose a negative view on me. Yes, the video did include UA's defense statement UA said the employee discount ticket holders are subjected to dress code requirement at the end of the video, but at that point the negativity had already been planted. Now I have to be extra careful not to side with the video creator right away, just because their other videos do make good points exposing the uglinesses of our current government. The fact I agree with them before would mean I am now vulnerable to social influences and perhaps beginning to deindivdiualize in my capacity to distinguishing my own views from others' views.. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJlqsdezhhk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJlqsdezhhk [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/26/us/united-airlines-leggings.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/26/us/united-airlines-leggin...

globuous 10y ago
> I learned that perhaps the ban of cannabis was perhaps not based on scientific facts at all. The whole ban was just a political move by provoking racism to rally up against the Blacks and the Mexicans. This is interesting, I didn't know about that. However, I remember a sociology class I took in college. It showed that crack and cocaine fines / jail times were very different from each other (doing crack was legally more Dangerous than doing cocaine). But crack and cocain are pretty much the same thing. The biggest difference is that a few décades ago (I don't know if it's still the case), white people did cocaine and black people did crack. Because crack was cheaper than cocaine. Sad how régulations are made sometimes.

intrasight 10y ago

I don't actively use G+ so I can't judge that. But I do use FB every day. I think the "fake news" and many other annoyances would go away if we just rolled the platform back to what it was like ten+ year ago - where you could just type messages and your friends would see those messages.

tbrock 10y ago

Who cares? Get your news from paying attention to real life instead of from your friends spending time on Facebook. Read here and make up your own mind: http://www.allsides.com/ http://www.allsides.com/

cat199 10y ago
This is great - Finally something that clearly highlights the implicit editorial bias in all news sources.. Thanks for share.

superioritycplx 10y ago

The two sides on political spectrum define "fake news" differently: one calls everything that's not reported by the established (and very well paid) media "fake news", the other one calls news that uses cherry picked facts to push the narrative "fake news."

ihsw2 10y ago
Do either of them qualify as fake news? How do we combat fake news if nobody knows what it is, and how do we prevent collateral damage/unintended consequences?
- Razengan 10y ago
  Fake == not real. Fake news == reporting stuff that did not happen, isn't true.
  - BearGoesChirp 10y ago
    What about reporting on real facts in a way that leads one to draw a false conclusion? Imagine if Fox News ran a story on race and crime and used lots of FBI facts, never drawing any actual conclusion, but pointing out how crimes break down racially while never mentioning the possibility that profiling or the interactions between race and poverty or poverty and crime? All the reporting would be on actual facts. But it should at least be called propaganda if not fake news.
    - Razengan 10y ago
      Anything with a prominent opinion present throughout the piece is more an "article" than "news" anyway, but yes, propaganda nonetheless.
- superioritycplx 10y ago
  Basically, "fake news" happen when the messenger adds their color to the content. It's activist journalism. It's "the President issued an executive order" vs "the President, in a Hitler-like move, issued an executive order" Journalism was needed because people wanted to know what happened across the globe. Citizen reporting on twitter, Periscope, and YouTube erased that need. Journalists also didn't help themselves last year by being completely one sided. People noticed that. "Fake news" is the journalism's last attempt to save itself. It's already dead from self inflicted wounds.

arcaster 10y ago

Fake News is an awfully vague term for censorship.

soreasan 10y ago
This is my big worry. I feel like "Fake News" is being used for news that people disagree with.

empressplay 10y ago

If someone is the target of a fake news story, can't they just sue the poster? Wouldn't an injunction force Facebook to take it down? Maybe what's needed is more like a DMCA takedown mechanism, if the verified target of a piece (eg a politician or their agent) files a complaint, then the piece is temporarily taken down, and the person who posted it has an opportunity to prove the substance of the allegations and if they fail it gets taken down permanently, otherwise it goes back up permanently. This would also have the advantage of killing all of those useless "anonymous source" articles too.

partiallypro 10y ago
Winning a case like that is incredibly difficult, even for celebrities. Unless there was a gross violation of privacy, people rarely win the battle. It qualifies as free speech or what could be parody? There's a fine line. A lot of the outlets that put out the "fake news" are owned by the same companies that put out "fake news" with the total opposite view point. Outrage gets clicks and viewership, we're trolling ourselves to death.

rustynails77 10y ago

I believe Wikipedia has an excellent definition of fake news which matches the understanding that most people I know are using, "Fake news is a type of hoax or deliberate spread of misinformation, be it via the traditional news media or via social media, with the intent to mislead in order to gain financially or politically." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news I have researched many articles from around 50 years ago and today. I strongly believe that the amount of disinformation has grown significantly, especially from the Mainstream Media. I find it difficult to find a single news outlet that can't be found to meet that definition above (ie. to spread fake news). It's not "I disagree with you" (like many posters are saying). It's not those "men’s rights advocates" [from the article] or "Breitbart". It's MOST (if not all) mainstream media. The issue falls into two categories (above). 1. Blatant lies. For example, how many times have you heard about women's voting rights (women couldn't vote until a long time after men could). Read this http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/9933592/Women-voted-75-years-before-they-were-legally-allowed-to-in-1918.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/9933592/Wom... And the UK is not the only country with similar stories. Compare this article with statements like this from the guardian "In 1928, women were granted equal voting rights with men: it had been 10 years since the Representation of the People Act _first_ enabled them to take their place at the ballot box..." (emphasis mine) https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/jul/09/women.women https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/jul/09/women.w... Then there's the blatant misinformation. Go to Google, type in "domestic violence" and click "Images". Then scroll through every single image you can find. If you want even more images, pick specific media publications and search that using "domestic violence site:www.smh.com.au" (or whatever media out you like). You will see thousands upon thousands of images that all contain the same thing. Pictures of white grown women, or white men in threatening poses. You will find less than 2% of women who don't appear white, you will find less than 5% of pictures depict abused children. You will find 0% of abused males. Now, compare this with the following. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/4510.0~2015~Main%20Features~Experimental%20Family%20and%20Domestic%20Violence%20Statistics~6> http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/... http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-224-x/2010000/t002-eng.htm http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/85-224-x/2010000/t002-eng.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_the_United_States#Over_a_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_violence_in_the_Unite... https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/domesticabuseinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2016 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeand... You will see the percentage of male victims is 35%, 51%, 41%, and 35% (Australia, Canada, US, UK). In other words, there is plenty of violence against males with the family. If you really have the time, also, read the text in the articles and you will see how consistently manipulative the media are, across the entire world! The idea is to manipulate and create a public perception. The real reason behind it was captured by this feminist who said that her friends refused to acknowledge domestic violence of any males in case it took funding from women (ie. it's about the money). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itSTzV29bS0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itSTzV29bS0 I personally think you can't get much lower than denying violence, protection from violence and trying to cut off support any any victim of violence, but, then again, i'm in the extreme minority. I could give so many examples of fake news, not just these. We could talk about cancer, education, employment, wages, you name it. There's a huge list of fake news. Sadly, these themes saturate the media (world wide) with a continuous stream of lies and misinformation. I don't think the article helped in the slightest. If anything, I saw it as a backward step. There are perfectly good definitions and plenty of examples that could have been illustrated. This is a worthy discussion. Let's stop pussyfooting. Hold all liars and manipulators to the same standard. Start exposing blatant lies.

avivo 10y ago

I agree with title and most of the points. And I definitely don't want platforms to just arbitrarily censor what they believe is "fake news". But we also can't dismiss the responsibility of the platforms. The sort of systemic change that this piece alludes to needs the companies to be involved. They are a huge part of "the system" — part of the problem. As the piece itself says: "We need to work together and build coalitions of groups who do not share the same political and social ideals to address the issues that we can all agree are broken." That cannot happen when the incentives and UX promulgated by the platforms are fighting against any sort of social cohesion. Platform changes are critical to bootstrapping ourselves into a better media ecosystem.

anticodon 10y ago

Please, show me unbiased ("true") news. In my opinion, such a thing is like perpetuum mobile, in other words, it can't exist.

im3w1l 10y ago
Here is a perpetuum mobile. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_crystal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_crystal
- Sunset 10y ago
  But is it a perpetuum mobile if you can't extract more energy than you've put in?
darpa_escapee 10y ago
Fake news != Biased news. It's the difference between running these headlines: "Secret child sex-trafficking ring led by Hillary Clinton" vs "Trump lies, yet again"
- cat199 10y ago
  When the bias is so strong it clouds the understanding of events, it's pretty darn close to fake.. Witness the fact that noone is talking about all countries attempts to influence the US elections on all sides, despite the fact that this is almost certainly the case..

pasta 10y ago

I think false conclusions are the problem. For example: "Trump approved an oil pipe.". This is no fake news. But the conclusion most outlets made was: "See, Trump is working with the Russians because it's Russian steel.". And even one part of the conclusion is true: it is partly Russian steel. But the steel was already bought years ago. So my questions is: how could Google and Facebook do reliable fact checking on this? So yes, maybe they can't make fake news disapear.

camillomiller 10y ago
They shouldn't. This is a byproduct of the failure of journalistic filtering. However biased, journalistic outlets used to have a role and a purpose: apply a filter to the enormous amount of information the new media society generates; stick by the truth coming from facts. What tipped it all over is the advent of three things: 24h news channels, demanding a spectacularization of news to fill an entire day of broadcasting; the Web, of course; the need to find a way for monetizing news on the Web, that led to dancing with the devil of online advertisement. We're currently in a phase where the shortcomings of the ad based business model for media are clear to everyone. How many previously respectable outlets have already burnt their integrity at the altar of clickbait and ads for the sake of keeping the lights on? What we are witnessing with fake news is what happens when a balancing power of society (media) is losing its grip and importance. The problem here being that the actors who are actively weakening that power (Google and Facebook) don't want to affirm a different flavor of that power. It's only about the money.
BearGoesChirp 10y ago
True facts can be presented in such a way to lead to fake conclusions. With only a small amount of knowledge and almost no investments I can do this on a number of topics, often presenting groups of facts that lead readers to assume opposing false conclusions. Now imagine groups that have vast amounts of resources to spend doing the same. Doing studies and only paying attention to the ones that agree with a certain view point. Scanning through other studies and statistics to find plenty of statistics that back their point even when relative to the whole body of statistics on the issue the findings are in the minority. Using psychology to find the best way to present facts with the goal of causing false conclusions to be drawn. Find legitimate critiques of opposing research but not uniformly applying them. One example is the effect of listing crime rates by grouping based on total vs per capita rates. Group X is 10% of the population but commits 20% of the crime. You can list the data as they only commit 20% of the crime, or that their crime rate per capita is double that of group Y which is 40% of the population and commits 40% of the crime. And even this might not be correct is treatment of Group's X and Y by the police are not equal. Perhaps Group Y commits more crime, but isn't as likely to be investigated? How can someone trust the facts they are being given when there are groups whose purposefully work to be able to give true facts in a way that encourages wrong conclusions?

Kenji 10y ago

Who decides which news are fake and which aren't? This entire discussion is dumb and any serious effort to curb 'fake news' is equal to censorship. Go live in North Korea if you want there to be no dissenting opinions. Don't bring your fascism to us.

eivarv 10y ago
Well, news that are truly false can amount to propaganda and I've regularly seen it used to polarize and/or antagonize - so I find your comments about fascism kind of ironic. I think this whole thing boils down to people not being able to or not knowing how to discern truth from falsehood, rather what people associate with "censorship".
soundwave106 10y ago
Google and Facebook are private advertising companies at heart. So yes, they get to decide what (in theory) is best for their business on this issue. If they believe curbing what they view is "fake news" is best for business, they have every right to do so. Someone can set up a social network entirely funded by the "fake news" Google and Facebook rejects, if they believe that this is a valid business model too. Again, they have every right. It only leans "fascism" or "North Korea" style if news editorial direction becomes dictated by the government, and dissent is stifled by force.
- Kenji 10y ago
  I don't care about what google or facebook do. I worry about this going into legislation. You have no idea how dangerous this is.

adrianratnapala 10y ago

A good article, if a bit of a rant. The frustrating thing about all this is that civilised people worked out, back in the 18th century that the solution is to let bullshit and truth have free play so that free people can decide for themselves. That doesn't mean interweb giants won't have there work cut out for them. But that should be workaday stuff like blocking spam and the like. "The like" includes stuff like folks who make up stupid stuff just to get clicks -- but it doesn't mean every kind of lie or misinformation.

ericdykstra 10y ago

There is a spectrum of what people call "fake news" ranging from: 1. Complete fiction presented as fact up to push a narrative [1] 2. Reporting on conspiracy theories as fact, presenting circumstantial evidence as hard evidence. 3. Intentionally misleading by cherry-picking statistics/data/etc [2][3] 4. Taking things out of context to paint a picture of a person that doesn't exist [4] 5. Criticizing someone's words rather than their position to construct a straw man (most character assassination pieces do this) 6. Presenting biased reporting on stories 7. Only presenting stories that paint a story of the world that the author agrees with The first is unequivocally fake news. Any source that reports a story like this should be suspect, and any that doesn't issue a retraction should be ignored. The second is what the mainstream media pins the Alex Jones type on, calling them fake news. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th are usually the tactics of what people call "alternative media," but almost all legacy media companies use these tactics, at least occasionally. This is why WSJ, CNN, WaPo, etc often get the fake news label from the alternative media and other critics. If fake news is defined as fiction presented as fact, then it's not unfair to label these tactics as fake news. The last two are just punditry and audience pandering, and the only ones calling them "fake news" are partisans that can't stand partisan viewpoints from the other side. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/11/10/women-in-hijabs-on-2-campuses-say-they-were-attacked-by-men-invoking-donald-trump/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/11/1... [2] http://theparadoxproject.org/blog-1/2016/12/4/mostly-false-politifact-and-bias http://theparadoxproject.org/blog-1/2016/12/4/mostly-false-p... [3] http://theparadoxproject.org/blog-1/2016/12/20/picking-your-fact-politifacts-biased-fact-check-choices http://theparadoxproject.org/blog-1/2016/12/20/picking-your-... https://medium.com/incerto/the-facts-are-true-the-news-is-fake-5bf98104cea2 https://medium.com/incerto/the-facts-are-true-the-news-is-fa... [4] https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-severs-ties-with-youtube-star-pewdiepie-after-anti-semitic-posts-1487034533 https://www.wsj.com/articles/disney-severs-ties-with-youtube... further reading: I love this essay by Nassim Taleb: "The Facts are True, the News is Fake" https://medium.com/incerto/the-facts-are-true-the-news-is-fake-5bf98104cea2 https://medium.com/incerto/the-facts-are-true-the-news-is-fa...

EJTH 10y ago

Google and Facebook Can’t Just Make Fake News Disappear, and thats a good thing! http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Anytimes.com+and+thats+a+good+thing http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Anytimes.com+and+thats+a+good+thi...

Mendenhall 10y ago

They cant make fake news disappear because they are going about it the wrong way. As soon as you try to crack down or limit "fake news" you play right into psychology of reinforcing the fake news "media" and "they out to get us". Also lol at the concept of google and facebook knowing whats fake news and what isnt and trusting them to do so.

thr0waway1239 10y ago

The author writes: "Discursively, this frame is used to highlight every form of problematic content, including both blatantly and accidentally inaccurate information, salacious and fear-mongering headlines, hateful and incendiary rhetoric produced in blogs, and propaganda of all stripes (driven by both the State and other interests)." Did you read all the different types and make a mental note of which news you recently heard falls under which category? Probably not, because we are cognitive misers. Sometimes, the underlying issue is that humans simply do not have the capacity to sift through so much noise to get to the heart of the matter. To proof yourself against fake news will involve so much thinking that it will become a full time job. People really like to "sort and label", as a famous economist put it. It conserves our mental energy and can even be very helpful for economic and social progress. The sorting and labeling is going to be personalized to their upbringing and cultural norms, with a strong affinity towards news, fake or not, which agrees with such an upbringing. Fake news could just be an unintended side effect of the increase in opportunities to consume (information) and communicate, because humans won't go from cognitive misers to cognitive spendthrifts ever. And who wants less opportunity to consume and communicate? And certainly, stop asking Google and Facebook to make fake news disappear. This is like requesting burglars to make sure they bolt the door after they are done with their burglary so that other people don't vandalize what is left of the shop.

dredmorbius 10y ago

I wanted to like this piece. It's got some good bits in it,and boyd's been on fire the past few months. With some credit to the point that the problem isn't trivial, I get the overall sense boyd is simply throwing up her hands, and that strikes me as disingenuous. @ericdykstra has addressed the question of definitions of fake news, so I'll just repoint to that https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14001745 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14001745

tempodox 10y ago

> Although most techies imagined that their tools would be used to bridge disconnects, that did not happen. That is one disturbing takeaway. Props to the author for seeing that and pointing it out. I for one feel stupid for having believed such a thing could happen. But then, hindsight is always 20/20.

pottersbasilisk 10y ago

No kidding. I think fake news is a symptom of humanity's social fabric or contract coming apart.

sandmarq 10y ago

I can't be more enthousiam

sandmarq 10y ago

I'M waitting with impatince the creation of the minitere of the truth to finally know the real news.

forgottenpass 10y ago

>Experts can’t even agree on who is a hate group and who is engaging in protected speech. Probably because the experts struggling over this aren't expert enough to notice that borders of those categories are not questions with answers that can be investigated, but instead they're categorizations people choose to apply. (Oh, and the author should know better than to casually drop the implication that they're non-intersecting categories.) And to the extent discussing "protected" speech introduces the legal questions, there is no amount of experts expert-ing that can come up with a mathmatical proof to replace a nation's amalgamation of different societal philosophies figuring out where to draw legal boundaries.

xatan_dank 10y ago

The problem is not 'fake news'. The problem is that it's impossible to have a discussion about the news at all since everyone is experiencing drastically different content directly catered to them on the internet. At least with Fox News we could all point to something Megyn Kelly said and debate whether we agreed or not. There's no way we can even agree upon an information set to talk about with interactive 'fake news' because it differs for everyone and changes rapidly. We also don't have any of the source for these repulsive services, where we at least have some evidence of how MSM outlets are biased. The idea that services like Google and Facebook are going to use more algorithms to counter the tracking and ad servicing algorithms they developed in the first place is laughable. The solution (if they were actually trying to counter 'fake news') would be to get rid of this harmful technology entirely, but that's all these companies have to bring in revenue so I doubt that'd happen. 'Fake news' is not Breitbart or CNN or one news outlet. 'Fake news' is really the way these internet companies have distorted our collective reality for their own short-term gains. It is irresponsible, dangerous, and in my opinion, not profitable in the long run unless they completely usurp all our species' communication. Which they are actively trying to achieve.

metaphorm 10y ago
you're putting much too much blame on internet distributors of media (i.e. Google, Facebokk, etc.). Conventional media organizations and their distribution networks have raced to the bottom very eagerly. Fox News created the media model which is now the only game in town because it was so successful.

6stringmerc 10y ago

Along the same lines, I wrote about the same issue in a more contentious and direct way - in that Fake News can spread because a large portion of the population are ignorant, and sometimes willfully so, to the point of maddening denials of reality like "I dunno maybe the Earth is flat." https://medium.com/@6StringMerc/a-case-study-in-the-fake-news-feedback-loop-e42e236eefd0 https://medium.com/@6StringMerc/a-case-study-in-the-fake-new...

lutusp 10y ago

Not addressed in the article, but critical to the issue, is education -- a properly educated public would be immune to fake news. Key to that educated outlook would be healthy skepticism and application of the null hypothesis precept from science -- the assumption that, without positive empirical evidence, a claim is assumed to be false. If readers were educated and skeptical, if they understood and appreciated how science works, the fake news epidemic would starve and die for lack of an audience.

ilaksh 10y ago

By pretending that propaganda only comes from sources that they don't like, they can rationalize censorship. 'Fake News' needs to be put in the context of on-going propaganda that comes from the mainstream media (including in the United States). Most HN readers are unaware of this context. I urge the reader of this comment to research the history of (war) propaganda, and carefully examine his/her belief system if he/she feels that the United States is exempt from history in this regard. See 'The Myth of American Exceptionalism' http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/10/25/obama-putin-american-exceptionalism-column/3181829/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2013/10/25/obama-putin... and research the history of propaganda in the US. At some historical point where it becomes uncomfortable to acknowledge it, people will suppose that it ceased to exist. This is not true.

nippples 10y ago

The main issue here is that journalists and editors all over established publications decided to give objectivity all the middle fingers they could find, and we're pretty much just fed "news commentary" and opinion columns instead of news these days. Add that to these idiots becoming sanctimonious and now you've got a lot of disaffected audience who just know something doesn't add up seeking alternative news. If the only options you got are people wagging their fingers, you might as well just find someone who's not constantly calling you an asshole over things you cannot control about yourself.