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> "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. C

> "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" Well said. Are people savvy enough now to see through that?

thomasahle 10y ago
>> "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" > Well said. Are people savvy enough now to see through that? This is the obvious critique you could give any media that claims trying to filter out falsehoods. You can either trust nobody (which many people have unfortunately decided to do) or listen to the various news providers and see who makes the better case for you to trust them. I don't know that Google and Facebook makes a worse case than so many other outlets?
- deleted 10y ago
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- bigbugbag 10y ago
  Well with that many US presidents in the KKK and his unmatched worldwide penetration google has it worse than most if not all.
scrame 10y ago
> Well said. Are people savvy enough now to see through that? Absolutely not. The internet has turned "I read it somewhere" factoids into a constant barrage of crap that is addictive and unfulfilling and kinda rage inducing. I'm hoping sometime in the future-ish that people will wise up, but its very hard when all of your media is tailor-made to keep you just pissed off to demand more.
- devoply 10y ago
  IMO 3 things can happen in the future: 1) New media becomes the elite's puppet just like old media. 2) New technology will disrupt and destroy old and currently new media and create decentralized social media where fake news will be the norm and the elites will lose control of information. 3) New uncensored platform appears to appeal to a general need of people wanting to see what they want to see which again reopens the debate. The first is more likely than the second. But for the first time in a very long time the second option has a chance.
  - sametmax 10y ago
    1) it's already the case. PR firms have created many credible user accounts in most social media, maintain them for a long time, and now use them to influence it on day to day basis. I bet even HN has some of those. 2) already the case. it's called world of mouth. we just use technology to propagate it now. We never had so many chat apps, social networks, content sharing services, etc. 3) this I want to happen, but every attempt is not only hard to use, but also used for very illegal/immoral stuff that makes it the target of regulations, preventing it from becoming popular. And even if it ever reach popularity, it can cross a threshold making it full of trash like the previous medium, and we would have to restart again. Maybe we should create a system that is hard to get it, to prevent people that are not interested enough to come and trash it.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  I am unconvinced this is ghe case. If anything we have never been as aware as we are today about "facts" its just that the frequency of both claims and rebuttals of those clims have gone up.
  - AJ007 10y ago
    Instead of fake news we had urban legends and old wives tales -- and these stories spread for decades or centuries. Now the velocity has increased, allowing these stories to appear to have some concentrated influence on current events. Jump back before the web and Snopes and it was extremely difficult to even verify a story was fact or not. Facts usually meant going to a library and finding a book that was written years before. Even then, just establishing that the author's name was real was a long and very rough process. I agree, we have come a very long way and are much better off today. This is hardly a crisis, just growing pains.
jasonkostempski 10y ago
If people were savvy enough to see through that, nobody would be talking about "fake news" because it wouldn't be a problem.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  Fake news isnt a problem for anything but your wallet. Fake nees is not made to make you actually believe but to get you to click or share. We are beeter off against lies than we ever were

thomasahle 10y ago

>> "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" > Well said. Are people savvy enough now to see through that? This is the obvious critique you could give any media that claims trying to filter out falsehoods. You can either trust nobody (which many people have unfortunately decided to do) or listen to the various news providers and see who makes the better case for you to trust them. I don't know that Google and Facebook makes a worse case than so many other outlets?

deleted 10y ago
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deleted 10y ago
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bigbugbag 10y ago
Well with that many US presidents in the KKK and his unmatched worldwide penetration google has it worse than most if not all.

scrame 10y ago

> Well said. Are people savvy enough now to see through that? Absolutely not. The internet has turned "I read it somewhere" factoids into a constant barrage of crap that is addictive and unfulfilling and kinda rage inducing. I'm hoping sometime in the future-ish that people will wise up, but its very hard when all of your media is tailor-made to keep you just pissed off to demand more.

devoply 10y ago
IMO 3 things can happen in the future: 1) New media becomes the elite's puppet just like old media. 2) New technology will disrupt and destroy old and currently new media and create decentralized social media where fake news will be the norm and the elites will lose control of information. 3) New uncensored platform appears to appeal to a general need of people wanting to see what they want to see which again reopens the debate. The first is more likely than the second. But for the first time in a very long time the second option has a chance.
- sametmax 10y ago
  1) it's already the case. PR firms have created many credible user accounts in most social media, maintain them for a long time, and now use them to influence it on day to day basis. I bet even HN has some of those. 2) already the case. it's called world of mouth. we just use technology to propagate it now. We never had so many chat apps, social networks, content sharing services, etc. 3) this I want to happen, but every attempt is not only hard to use, but also used for very illegal/immoral stuff that makes it the target of regulations, preventing it from becoming popular. And even if it ever reach popularity, it can cross a threshold making it full of trash like the previous medium, and we would have to restart again. Maybe we should create a system that is hard to get it, to prevent people that are not interested enough to come and trash it.
ThomPete 10y ago
I am unconvinced this is ghe case. If anything we have never been as aware as we are today about "facts" its just that the frequency of both claims and rebuttals of those clims have gone up.
- AJ007 10y ago
  Instead of fake news we had urban legends and old wives tales -- and these stories spread for decades or centuries. Now the velocity has increased, allowing these stories to appear to have some concentrated influence on current events. Jump back before the web and Snopes and it was extremely difficult to even verify a story was fact or not. Facts usually meant going to a library and finding a book that was written years before. Even then, just establishing that the author's name was real was a long and very rough process. I agree, we have come a very long way and are much better off today. This is hardly a crisis, just growing pains.

jasonkostempski 10y ago

If people were savvy enough to see through that, nobody would be talking about "fake news" because it wouldn't be a problem.

ThomPete 10y ago
Fake news isnt a problem for anything but your wallet. Fake nees is not made to make you actually believe but to get you to click or share. We are beeter off against lies than we ever were