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> Fake news is the promotion and propagation of news articles via social media. These articles are promoted in such a way that they appear to be spread by other
by xienze 9y ago
> Fake news is the promotion and propagation of news articles via social media. These articles are promoted in such a way that they appear to be spread by other users, as opposed to being paid-for advertising.
I don't really buy that there's some massive botnet (Russian, naturally) spreading these stories. I mean we're really talking about the social media equivalent of chain emails. Someone reads something that an author knowingly or unknowingly thinks is true, they think it's true and share with their friends, and so on. This has been going on for as long as humans could share information with one another. Of course our intellectual superiors have confirmed that what's happening _now_ is actually a crisis of massive proportion for some reason or another that I can't quite put my finger on.
- kingbirdy 9y agoI think the Russia angle is more from a generation perspective - obviously it's not just Russians reading them, that defeats the point, but someone has to write it and get the ball rolling on sharing them
- shallot_router 9y agoAbsolutely, but for many those stories to gain traction in the first place, often there needs to be a marketing seed of some sort. That's where the "fake news" machinery comes in. (Of course, some sizeable subset is a chain mail or story that spreads organically, or some fake news mill trying to make money.)
- aaron-lebo 9y agoRussia invaded Crimea with unmarked soldiers, because it wasn't obvious who they were /s What's invading a forum in comparison? You're right, there's some innocent stuff going on, but it's almost naive to believe that states wouldn't use very cheap and easily available methods to spread propaganda to various populations. I mean, it'd almost be stupid for them not to be strategic in that way. We're talking about Putin, a guy who comes from the KGB and has sanctioned assassinations.
- meric 9y agoNot trying to defend Putin here, but Obama has sanctioned assassinations too, perhaps you can drop that tidbit next time to make a more persuasive argument.
- aaron-lebo 9y agoIf Obama was relevant to the discussion, sure. Drone strikes of enemy combatants is a little different than poisoning political opponents, though... Putin is an autocrat through and through. Obama is just your average politician.