3 ms·

The original concept of fake news was actually quite interesting: People who knowingly writes completely false things ("The statue of liberty has fallen down" o

The original concept of fake news was actually quite interesting: People who knowingly writes completely false things ("The statue of liberty has fallen down" or "Water found on the sun") just to get people to click the ads. It's a much easier problem to solve than biased news.

bigbugbag 10y ago
Exactly my thought when reading the article. Of course Facebook and Google have the power to stop fake news, simply move away from the ads business model and suddenly there's no incentive to invest in fake news. Fake news is an offshoot of the web being an advertising space with a seemingly unending supply of brain hacked human bots.
- Mendenhall 10y ago
  100 percent agree with this although I doubt many will see the reality of what you said. Facebook and google played a huge part in spreading clickbait and fake news titles and and now all of a sudden they are trying to "stop" it lofnl.
- cat199 10y ago
  > simply move away from the ads business model and suddenly there's no incentive to invest in fake news Getting your desired message heard and accepted is still a pretty strong motivator - though yes, this does deincentivize the purely 'fake news for profit' camp.
- Shish2k 10y ago
  > simply move away from the ads business model "simply"?
Sunset 10y ago
We had a better name for that, "clickbait".
- thomasahle 10y ago
  Fake news are probably often clickbait, but most classical clickbait don't leave people believing completely made up things. "You won't believe what this actor looks like now" is not as damaging as making people believe "The US has invaded North Korea".
rmc 10y ago
Or outlandish political statements. "Hillary Clinton has been diagnoses with cancer", "Pope Francis has endorsed Donald Trump". etc.
dredmorbius 10y ago
It was a term applied to propaganda provided to news organisations in the early 1990s as "ANRs" and "VNRs": video and audio news releases, complete with fake reporters. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fake_news http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fake_news There was some usage earlier in the 20th century, 1920 - 1950 or so. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fake%20news&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cfake%20news%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fake%20news&ye...

bigbugbag 10y ago

Exactly my thought when reading the article. Of course Facebook and Google have the power to stop fake news, simply move away from the ads business model and suddenly there's no incentive to invest in fake news. Fake news is an offshoot of the web being an advertising space with a seemingly unending supply of brain hacked human bots.

Mendenhall 10y ago
100 percent agree with this although I doubt many will see the reality of what you said. Facebook and google played a huge part in spreading clickbait and fake news titles and and now all of a sudden they are trying to "stop" it lofnl.
cat199 10y ago
> simply move away from the ads business model and suddenly there's no incentive to invest in fake news Getting your desired message heard and accepted is still a pretty strong motivator - though yes, this does deincentivize the purely 'fake news for profit' camp.
Shish2k 10y ago
> simply move away from the ads business model "simply"?

Sunset 10y ago

We had a better name for that, "clickbait".

thomasahle 10y ago
Fake news are probably often clickbait, but most classical clickbait don't leave people believing completely made up things. "You won't believe what this actor looks like now" is not as damaging as making people believe "The US has invaded North Korea".

rmc 10y ago

Or outlandish political statements. "Hillary Clinton has been diagnoses with cancer", "Pope Francis has endorsed Donald Trump". etc.

dredmorbius 10y ago

It was a term applied to propaganda provided to news organisations in the early 1990s as "ANRs" and "VNRs": video and audio news releases, complete with fake reporters. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fake_news http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fake_news There was some usage earlier in the 20th century, 1920 - 1950 or so. https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fake%20news&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cfake%20news%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=fake%20news&ye...