9 ms·

The "newsfeed" pattern is one of the worst ideas humanity has ever had. Never has it been so easy to manipulate public opinion at will. 10 years ago there was a

The "newsfeed" pattern is one of the worst ideas humanity has ever had. Never has it been so easy to manipulate public opinion at will. 10 years ago there was a such thing as standards in journalism. Now anypoliticalblog.com's headline has been promoted to the equal status of an actual news organisation by means of the implicit legitimacy of appearing in a news feed. This insanity has reached a crescendo with the official endorsement of sites like breitbart.com by the White House, and I don't think there's any going back. It's a psychological hack, and the promoters of this technology know it.

rtpg 9y ago
Let's not forget that standard media diet includes Fox News and One America Network (which has ~15% the viewer count of Fox News). Old media isn't necessarily great at filtering out nonsense. Though I agree that the newsfeed tends to put these things next to the NYT or the Guardian, I feel like "page rank"-y stuff could help smooth this out. I've already seen improvements to my FB newsfeed for this kind of stuff over the yearse.
- headmelted 9y ago
  As a longtime Guardian reader, I'd be careful about implicitly declaring the Guardian as any more "legitimate" than anyone else. Can't speak on the topic of NYT, but at least in the case of the Guardian, it's clearly lowered its standards over the last several years to find a market. (I still read it, but it's slowly becoming a left-wing Daily Mail cough Owen Jones cough, which is really disappointing).
  - drizzt396 9y ago
    That recent article about the rebellious self-owned Greek factory was case in point. Great story, but the journalism was lacking significantly.
  - BigJono 9y ago
    Yep, I read the Guardian's Australian edition every now and then and some of their stuff is absolute rubbish. I'd love to know what the go-to center-left news source is over here. So far I haven't found it...
    - abakker 9y ago
      bloomberg.com, I think. Many of their articles border on totally apolitical. edit to add: their core business isn't actually selling ads on news articles, which also helps quite a bit.
      - headmelted 9y ago
        That's quite interesting to me. I was always under the impression that Bloomberg was the non-WWE version of CNBC (i.e. primarily markets news, without Cramer's hysterics). Will have to check it out again if its got broader coverage than I realized. Thanks for the tip!
        Arlene90 9y ago
        my cо шояκêя'S нålf SlSтêя måκêS 69 êåcн ноuя оn тнê lnтêяnêт.. Sнê нåS вêên lålD оff fоя Slχ mоnтнS.. тнê pяêvlоuS mоnтн нêя êåяnlngS шåS 12870 шояκlng fяоm ноmê 2 ноuяS êåcн Dåy.. cнêcκ оuт тнlS •••••••••>>http://ow.ly/P0wk30aVXfN http://ow.ly/P0wk30aVXfN
- indy 9y ago
  Echoing some of the other replies to your comment, The Guardian has really gone down in its quality of journalism.
BigJono 9y ago
> 10 years ago there was a such thing as standards in journalism Was there? Because last I checked all that these so called 'reputable' sources of news seem to put out is biased garbage full of misleading data and often blatant lies. I've seen better journalism from bloody buzzfeed than I have from some of the "proper" news networks in Australia...
- aphextron 9y ago
  >Was there? Because last I checked all that these so called 'reputable' sources of news seem to put out is biased garbage full of misleading data and often blatant lies. The inculcation of this sentiment is precisely the effect I'm referring to. The waters have become so muddied with nonsense that no one can tell right from wrong anymore. And thus, actual news organizations with trained reporters and fact checkers and a tradition of at least being held to some kind of accountability lose all credibility. It's not a perfect system, but it's one which evolved to solve the exact problems we are facing here. There's a reason Trump attacks the media's credibility on a daily basis. Throwing your hands up and saying "it's all fake news" is precisely what the propagandists want.
  - hyperdunc 9y ago
    Is there a reason most of the MSM attacks Trump's credibility on a daily basis? The reasons are ratings and political ideology. They know that a lot of people hate Trump so they attack him. Any evidence of wrongdoing on Trump's part is merely a happy extra for the MSM. If Obama did the same things that Trump does, do you think the MSM would behave the same way? The MSM have cried wolf so many times that now half the country will not listen if they actually find something solid against Trump. Whatever your position on Trump, it's hard to think of the MSM as being driven by actual journalism. And that's a real shame for the small number of journalists in the MSM who actually have integrity.
    - Cursuviam 9y ago
      I agree; the right-wing press lacks high quality journalists. Journalists seem to happen to lean left a whole lot more.
hyperdunc 9y ago
"Actual news organizations" don't exist in the sense we'd like. They're all agenda driven and constantly lie by omission. Breitbart is shamelessly pro-Trump. They will publish stories that others won't but also won't publish anything counter to their narrative. The Guardian, which someone else mentioned, is massively left-leaning and is also very selective about what they cover. Their articles are often poorly thought out and extremely regressive. Both sources are poison if taken in isolation, without the antidote of the other. The MSM have earned the lack of trust they receive. Anyone who wants to end up receiving an approximation of overall truth will consume a variety of sources with different biases.
- headmelted 9y ago
  I unfortunately and reluctantly am forced to agree with you. Except about Breitbart being legitimate (sorry, can't do it). My dad explained this to me very crudely some years ago, (but as he's a Daily Mail reader I dismiss everything he says by default). In this case though, it really does require you to read broadly to get out of your opinion bubble. The BBC is a perfect case study of this. It's got a charter that is supposed to make it explicitly neutral, but of course that's unenforceable in reality (what's biased and not is going to be a matter of opinion), as evidenced by their approach anytime the question of the license fee comes up in public discourse. There's probably money to be made by crawling a variety of news sources, throwing the output into an AI fanoogler, and using it to write a separate article that balances the views on the given topic as a separate news site. Obviously I'll require majority equity. Fanoogler R&D isn't cheap you know.
  - headmelted 9y ago
    I made up the word fanoogler thinking it didn't already exist. I just googled it in case it already exists and has offensive overtones, and this turned up: "To scam someone out of something they owe you but do not want to give you." Deep, yo.
- Cursuviam 9y ago
  Reuters maybe? They actively try for neutral coverage. edit: But yeah, organizations of people with biases can't be perfectly neutral
seanwilson 9y ago
Not saying I like the current climate at all but TV stations and newspapers have always had their own bias and "newsfeed" so to speak. Is it really easier today than before to surround yourself with news that lacks credibility? There's always been junk newspapers and junk TV news channels. People need to develop their own critical thinking skills and not rely on e.g. a specific newspaper they believe to have standards to do their thinking for them. I mean do you personally have an issue with identifying inaccurate news stories? If not, why not? People that want to believe obviously made up news are going to find some way to get their fix of news like that whether Google or Facebook filter it out for them or not.
return0 9y ago
Human nature was always as easy to manipulate. It was just never so transparent.
losteverything 9y ago
I may have agreed with you at some point in my nearly century long news junkie-hood, but now i rule by this: "i dont need to know about a person i will never meet or a place i will never go." Most of any media is junk
dsfyu404ed 9y ago
What rock have you been living under? You could put one TV on MSNBC and one on Fox News in 1997 and 2017 and it would be about the same result. I'd also like to remind you, it's not just quality of coverage that matters, it's what you cover.
balladeer 9y ago
Is there an app/portal that, at least, just tries to provide unbiased and unadultrated news (just aggregation; if not the source of the article/post) for events from (a.) particular country (b.) around the world (c.) and maybe few topics of interest (or not) with a clean and simple interface w/o those fancy "social features" and not based on "trending" and "highly voted" features and charges a fee?

rtpg 9y ago

Let's not forget that standard media diet includes Fox News and One America Network (which has ~15% the viewer count of Fox News). Old media isn't necessarily great at filtering out nonsense. Though I agree that the newsfeed tends to put these things next to the NYT or the Guardian, I feel like "page rank"-y stuff could help smooth this out. I've already seen improvements to my FB newsfeed for this kind of stuff over the yearse.

headmelted 9y ago
As a longtime Guardian reader, I'd be careful about implicitly declaring the Guardian as any more "legitimate" than anyone else. Can't speak on the topic of NYT, but at least in the case of the Guardian, it's clearly lowered its standards over the last several years to find a market. (I still read it, but it's slowly becoming a left-wing Daily Mail cough Owen Jones cough, which is really disappointing).
- drizzt396 9y ago
  That recent article about the rebellious self-owned Greek factory was case in point. Great story, but the journalism was lacking significantly.
- BigJono 9y ago
  Yep, I read the Guardian's Australian edition every now and then and some of their stuff is absolute rubbish. I'd love to know what the go-to center-left news source is over here. So far I haven't found it...
  - abakker 9y ago
    bloomberg.com, I think. Many of their articles border on totally apolitical. edit to add: their core business isn't actually selling ads on news articles, which also helps quite a bit.
    - headmelted 9y ago
      That's quite interesting to me. I was always under the impression that Bloomberg was the non-WWE version of CNBC (i.e. primarily markets news, without Cramer's hysterics). Will have to check it out again if its got broader coverage than I realized. Thanks for the tip!
      - Arlene90 9y ago
        my cо шояκêя'S нålf SlSтêя måκêS 69 êåcн ноuя оn тнê lnтêяnêт.. Sнê нåS вêên lålD оff fоя Slχ mоnтнS.. тнê pяêvlоuS mоnтн нêя êåяnlngS шåS 12870 шояκlng fяоm ноmê 2 ноuяS êåcн Dåy.. cнêcκ оuт тнlS •••••••••>>http://ow.ly/P0wk30aVXfN http://ow.ly/P0wk30aVXfN
indy 9y ago
Echoing some of the other replies to your comment, The Guardian has really gone down in its quality of journalism.

BigJono 9y ago

> 10 years ago there was a such thing as standards in journalism Was there? Because last I checked all that these so called 'reputable' sources of news seem to put out is biased garbage full of misleading data and often blatant lies. I've seen better journalism from bloody buzzfeed than I have from some of the "proper" news networks in Australia...

aphextron 9y ago
>Was there? Because last I checked all that these so called 'reputable' sources of news seem to put out is biased garbage full of misleading data and often blatant lies. The inculcation of this sentiment is precisely the effect I'm referring to. The waters have become so muddied with nonsense that no one can tell right from wrong anymore. And thus, actual news organizations with trained reporters and fact checkers and a tradition of at least being held to some kind of accountability lose all credibility. It's not a perfect system, but it's one which evolved to solve the exact problems we are facing here. There's a reason Trump attacks the media's credibility on a daily basis. Throwing your hands up and saying "it's all fake news" is precisely what the propagandists want.
- hyperdunc 9y ago
  Is there a reason most of the MSM attacks Trump's credibility on a daily basis? The reasons are ratings and political ideology. They know that a lot of people hate Trump so they attack him. Any evidence of wrongdoing on Trump's part is merely a happy extra for the MSM. If Obama did the same things that Trump does, do you think the MSM would behave the same way? The MSM have cried wolf so many times that now half the country will not listen if they actually find something solid against Trump. Whatever your position on Trump, it's hard to think of the MSM as being driven by actual journalism. And that's a real shame for the small number of journalists in the MSM who actually have integrity.
  - Cursuviam 9y ago
    I agree; the right-wing press lacks high quality journalists. Journalists seem to happen to lean left a whole lot more.

hyperdunc 9y ago

"Actual news organizations" don't exist in the sense we'd like. They're all agenda driven and constantly lie by omission. Breitbart is shamelessly pro-Trump. They will publish stories that others won't but also won't publish anything counter to their narrative. The Guardian, which someone else mentioned, is massively left-leaning and is also very selective about what they cover. Their articles are often poorly thought out and extremely regressive. Both sources are poison if taken in isolation, without the antidote of the other. The MSM have earned the lack of trust they receive. Anyone who wants to end up receiving an approximation of overall truth will consume a variety of sources with different biases.

headmelted 9y ago
I unfortunately and reluctantly am forced to agree with you. Except about Breitbart being legitimate (sorry, can't do it). My dad explained this to me very crudely some years ago, (but as he's a Daily Mail reader I dismiss everything he says by default). In this case though, it really does require you to read broadly to get out of your opinion bubble. The BBC is a perfect case study of this. It's got a charter that is supposed to make it explicitly neutral, but of course that's unenforceable in reality (what's biased and not is going to be a matter of opinion), as evidenced by their approach anytime the question of the license fee comes up in public discourse. There's probably money to be made by crawling a variety of news sources, throwing the output into an AI fanoogler, and using it to write a separate article that balances the views on the given topic as a separate news site. Obviously I'll require majority equity. Fanoogler R&D isn't cheap you know.
- headmelted 9y ago
  I made up the word fanoogler thinking it didn't already exist. I just googled it in case it already exists and has offensive overtones, and this turned up: "To scam someone out of something they owe you but do not want to give you." Deep, yo.
Cursuviam 9y ago
Reuters maybe? They actively try for neutral coverage. edit: But yeah, organizations of people with biases can't be perfectly neutral

seanwilson 9y ago

Not saying I like the current climate at all but TV stations and newspapers have always had their own bias and "newsfeed" so to speak. Is it really easier today than before to surround yourself with news that lacks credibility? There's always been junk newspapers and junk TV news channels. People need to develop their own critical thinking skills and not rely on e.g. a specific newspaper they believe to have standards to do their thinking for them. I mean do you personally have an issue with identifying inaccurate news stories? If not, why not? People that want to believe obviously made up news are going to find some way to get their fix of news like that whether Google or Facebook filter it out for them or not.

return0 9y ago

Human nature was always as easy to manipulate. It was just never so transparent.

losteverything 9y ago

I may have agreed with you at some point in my nearly century long news junkie-hood, but now i rule by this: "i dont need to know about a person i will never meet or a place i will never go." Most of any media is junk

dsfyu404ed 9y ago

What rock have you been living under? You could put one TV on MSNBC and one on Fox News in 1997 and 2017 and it would be about the same result. I'd also like to remind you, it's not just quality of coverage that matters, it's what you cover.

balladeer 9y ago

Is there an app/portal that, at least, just tries to provide unbiased and unadultrated news (just aggregation; if not the source of the article/post) for events from (a.) particular country (b.) around the world (c.) and maybe few topics of interest (or not) with a clean and simple interface w/o those fancy "social features" and not based on "trending" and "highly voted" features and charges a fee?