6 ms·

How I Became Fake News

55 points by pmcpinto 9y ago

baldfat 9y ago
These things happen when people, with MH issues, thinks there are different teams, like the Cowboys vs the Giants or Republicans vs Democrats. There is only one team in America, Team USA. Down Votes from people who didn't read the article? Author's life was threatened for taking the video of the crash.
- trevyn 9y ago
  This is why we need to go to war! I don't know if I'm being sarcastic or not. :/
- baldfat 9y ago
  Wait how are people taking what I am saying? They didn't read the article? He posted the video of the crash on twitter and did interviews all Sunday. The alt-right conspiracy was he was planted there to take the picture. His life was threatened. Those are the people with MH.
  - grzm 9y ago
    I sympathize with the sentiment that we should be looking for ways to work together. I suspect what people are responding to is your reference to "MH issues", which I read as mental health issues. Unless you're speaking clinically, which is difficult to see how in this case, it's name calling, which is explicitly against the forum guidelines.
    - baldfat 9y ago
      Well when people threaten to kill the poster of the video of the incident based on conspiracy theories I would think I am okay in saying MH?
      - grzm 9y ago
        When you say MH do you mean mental health? If not, please ignore the remainder of my comment. If so, I don't think so. It's just name calling, unless you're referring to specific clinical issues. I doubt you're attempting to attribute particular diagnoses here. If you don't mean specific issues, then it's so broad as to be meaningless, and that goes back to name calling.
wyldfire 9y ago
I hope this stays on HN despite the occasional moratorium on political content. I'm pretty careful not to share anything remotely political so as to avoid my public profile taking on too much polarizing content. But I'm astonished and disappointed by the capacity of some to forfeit objectivity in the name of what seems to me like a cult of personality. EDIT: I'm happy to burn my karma to speak my mind. Downvoters, please join the debate.
- zzleeper 9y ago
  I'm quite used to articles like this appearing as (flagged) by the time I click the actual comments. It would be interesting to know who is constantly flagging the articles, either users hell-bent on hn being only about tech, or right-wing people that don't want to be reminded about this.
  - yorwba 9y ago
    I'd say there is a certain amount of both kinds of flags. I don't tend to flag submissions that aren't obviously spam, but for political topics the quality of the article does need to pretty high to prevent sane discussion being drowned out by the flamewar, so I can understand when others are flagging more aggressively.
  - weberc2 9y ago
    It goes both ways. For example, submissions that were critical of Google's handling or the media's reporting of the "Google memo" were flagged as well.
    - mcphage 9y ago
      Part of that was sheer mass. For what, at least 2 weeks (?) there was article after article after article about it. And most articles were posted repeatedly, to the point where it was hard to tell which were posted first and which were posted later. I definitely got sick of seeing the same links over and over again..
afarrell 9y ago
A teacher of mine tied tourniquets on boylston street and was accused of being a part of some Jewish conspiracy that used the Tsarnaevs as a fall guy.
glitcher 9y ago
The image at the top of the article was extremely jarring. My immediate thought was whether anyone in the image died, and then my stomach sank with the sense that the use of this image for the topic of fake news is exploitative and disrespectful. If anyone who read the article disagrees I would like to hear your point of view. I closed the page after only a few seconds.
- FLGMwt 9y ago
  If I'm not mistaken, the image comes from the author's own video of the murderous assault. The post is about the author being demonized for having published it and the contrivance of conspiracy theories and threats against him and his family. It connects these events to "fake news" by first hand experience dangers of muddying the informational waters around controversial and important issues.
- pavlov 9y ago
  The photo is of the event that the author witnessed. I don't really see what the problem is?
  - glitcher 9y ago
    I guess the problem is my personal perspective. IMO it is very important to openly discuss horrific events, but personally I don't need to see the last couple moments of someone's life about to end in order to have that discussion.
- wyldfire 9y ago
  I agree that the image is jarring. I think that graphic images like this, or of terrorism, or of warfare are a necessary check for those of us who are so disconnected from these events. It does not strike me as exploitative. Previously, I had seen video of the car driving away, reversing, and video of the aftermath. I had not yet seen this still image, it's very striking. It is clear to me that it is sheer luck that the devastation and loss of life wasn't worse than it was. > I closed the page after only a few seconds. If you're disturbed by the image I really recommend that you consider reading the article with your browser's auto-image-load feature disabled. I don't think there's any downside to reading the article. After you've read it, decide on the merits of what the author's written and any credentials they have whether it should be credible.
udsfngicusgf 9y ago
You know why this is fake news, because: > I witnessed a terrorist attack in Charlottesville. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/21/fake-news-charlottesville-215514 http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/21/fake-news-... > Fields has already been charged with second-degree murder, ... http://wtvr.com/2017/08/18/james-fields-jr-charged-with-5-additional-felonies-in-charlottesville-car-attack/ http://wtvr.com/2017/08/18/james-fields-jr-charged-with-5-ad... > Murder ... by any willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing ... is murder of the first degree... . All [other murder] is murder of the second degree... . https://vacode.org/2016/18.2/4/1/18.2-32/ https://vacode.org/2016/18.2/4/1/18.2-32/ The 2nd degree murder charge means that the killing was NOT "willful, deliberate, and premeditated." Of course, the author is not actually saying that Fields is an accidental terrorist. The author isn't saying Fields used violence to pursue a political aim without any willful, deliberate, and premeditated intent to do so. The author is lying. The author is trying to trick readers into assuming facts which are not. That's why it's fake news.
- wyldfire 9y ago
  > You know why this is fake news You have distorted the meaning of this term. It was originally applied to fly-by-night online "publications" who have no background or experience in journalism making spurious claims later shown to have no backing evidence. This is an eyewitness account of an attack (the authr does describe it as terrorism, yes) and later the response to their account and video recording. The video substantiates his account and the response is likely backed with evidence (police report regarding white powder, etc). You dispute the author's claim that it should be called terrorism. That's pretty subtle overall IMO, and does not make the article or the publication worthy of being described as "fake news." Please choose another term, like "hyperbole" or "exaggeration".
- yorwba 9y ago
  > The 2nd degree murder charge means that the killing was NOT "willful, deliberate, and premeditated." The choice of charge just means that the prosecution is not yet convinced that it was a planned attack, as opposed to a spontaneous decision. Additional evidence might cause them to change their mind. In any case, it does indicate that they do not regard it as an accident. Is a Muslim man who gets enraged by a gay couple kissing and stabs them an Islamist terrorist? I have no idea, but he might very well be tied to an organized movement that encouraged his behavior, and then I'd definitely call it terrorism, even if it wasn't the result of long-term planning.
DigitalJack 9y ago
I didn't see anything about "fake news?" There are conspiracy theorists and assorted wackos in any sizable group of people. I'm not surprised at the threats he has received. Amazed (in a bad way) and disappointed that people like those making the threats exist. That such warped brains exist. I'm not saying they should be wiped out, just sad to realize that this state of mind is even possible. But I'm not surprised or shocked. Anyway, scanning through the article, where was the fake news commentary?
- yorwba 9y ago
  The "fake news" part is the allegiation that everything was a ploy by the leftist media to discredit the right.
  - DigitalJack 9y ago
    alleged by whom? some conspiracy theorists? who cares? Fake news would be a mainstream media outlet declaring that George Soros paid the driver to drive into the crowd. Nothing like that was alleged in the story though (unless I missed it). He just mentioned conspiracy nuts threatening him on twitter, email, etc.
    - tantalor 9y ago
      > On Thursday, Hannity broadcast claims on his radio show that the protesters in Charlottesville were paid. I suppose that would include the author.
      - DigitalJack 9y ago
        Paid protesters are no secret. Doesn't mean they all are.
        tantalor 9y ago
        What? Citation please. http://www.factcheck.org/2017/08/counterprotesters-paid-charlottesville/ http://www.factcheck.org/2017/08/counterprotesters-paid-char...

55 points by pmcpinto 9y ago

These things happen when people, with MH issues, thinks there are different teams, like the Cowboys vs the Giants or Republicans vs Democrats. There is only one team in America, Team USA. Down Votes from people who didn't read the article? Author's life was threatened for taking the video of the crash.

trevyn 9y ago
This is why we need to go to war! I don't know if I'm being sarcastic or not. :/
baldfat 9y ago
Wait how are people taking what I am saying? They didn't read the article? He posted the video of the crash on twitter and did interviews all Sunday. The alt-right conspiracy was he was planted there to take the picture. His life was threatened. Those are the people with MH.
- grzm 9y ago
  I sympathize with the sentiment that we should be looking for ways to work together. I suspect what people are responding to is your reference to "MH issues", which I read as mental health issues. Unless you're speaking clinically, which is difficult to see how in this case, it's name calling, which is explicitly against the forum guidelines.
  - baldfat 9y ago
    Well when people threaten to kill the poster of the video of the incident based on conspiracy theories I would think I am okay in saying MH?
    - grzm 9y ago
      When you say MH do you mean mental health? If not, please ignore the remainder of my comment. If so, I don't think so. It's just name calling, unless you're referring to specific clinical issues. I doubt you're attempting to attribute particular diagnoses here. If you don't mean specific issues, then it's so broad as to be meaningless, and that goes back to name calling.

wyldfire 9y ago

I hope this stays on HN despite the occasional moratorium on political content. I'm pretty careful not to share anything remotely political so as to avoid my public profile taking on too much polarizing content. But I'm astonished and disappointed by the capacity of some to forfeit objectivity in the name of what seems to me like a cult of personality. EDIT: I'm happy to burn my karma to speak my mind. Downvoters, please join the debate.

zzleeper 9y ago
I'm quite used to articles like this appearing as (flagged) by the time I click the actual comments. It would be interesting to know who is constantly flagging the articles, either users hell-bent on hn being only about tech, or right-wing people that don't want to be reminded about this.
- yorwba 9y ago
  I'd say there is a certain amount of both kinds of flags. I don't tend to flag submissions that aren't obviously spam, but for political topics the quality of the article does need to pretty high to prevent sane discussion being drowned out by the flamewar, so I can understand when others are flagging more aggressively.
- weberc2 9y ago
  It goes both ways. For example, submissions that were critical of Google's handling or the media's reporting of the "Google memo" were flagged as well.
  - mcphage 9y ago
    Part of that was sheer mass. For what, at least 2 weeks (?) there was article after article after article about it. And most articles were posted repeatedly, to the point where it was hard to tell which were posted first and which were posted later. I definitely got sick of seeing the same links over and over again..

afarrell 9y ago

A teacher of mine tied tourniquets on boylston street and was accused of being a part of some Jewish conspiracy that used the Tsarnaevs as a fall guy.

glitcher 9y ago

The image at the top of the article was extremely jarring. My immediate thought was whether anyone in the image died, and then my stomach sank with the sense that the use of this image for the topic of fake news is exploitative and disrespectful. If anyone who read the article disagrees I would like to hear your point of view. I closed the page after only a few seconds.

FLGMwt 9y ago
If I'm not mistaken, the image comes from the author's own video of the murderous assault. The post is about the author being demonized for having published it and the contrivance of conspiracy theories and threats against him and his family. It connects these events to "fake news" by first hand experience dangers of muddying the informational waters around controversial and important issues.
pavlov 9y ago
The photo is of the event that the author witnessed. I don't really see what the problem is?
- glitcher 9y ago
  I guess the problem is my personal perspective. IMO it is very important to openly discuss horrific events, but personally I don't need to see the last couple moments of someone's life about to end in order to have that discussion.
wyldfire 9y ago
I agree that the image is jarring. I think that graphic images like this, or of terrorism, or of warfare are a necessary check for those of us who are so disconnected from these events. It does not strike me as exploitative. Previously, I had seen video of the car driving away, reversing, and video of the aftermath. I had not yet seen this still image, it's very striking. It is clear to me that it is sheer luck that the devastation and loss of life wasn't worse than it was. > I closed the page after only a few seconds. If you're disturbed by the image I really recommend that you consider reading the article with your browser's auto-image-load feature disabled. I don't think there's any downside to reading the article. After you've read it, decide on the merits of what the author's written and any credentials they have whether it should be credible.

udsfngicusgf 9y ago

You know why this is fake news, because: > I witnessed a terrorist attack in Charlottesville. http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/21/fake-news-charlottesville-215514 http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/21/fake-news-... > Fields has already been charged with second-degree murder, ... http://wtvr.com/2017/08/18/james-fields-jr-charged-with-5-additional-felonies-in-charlottesville-car-attack/ http://wtvr.com/2017/08/18/james-fields-jr-charged-with-5-ad... > Murder ... by any willful, deliberate, and premeditated killing ... is murder of the first degree... . All [other murder] is murder of the second degree... . https://vacode.org/2016/18.2/4/1/18.2-32/ https://vacode.org/2016/18.2/4/1/18.2-32/ The 2nd degree murder charge means that the killing was NOT "willful, deliberate, and premeditated." Of course, the author is not actually saying that Fields is an accidental terrorist. The author isn't saying Fields used violence to pursue a political aim without any willful, deliberate, and premeditated intent to do so. The author is lying. The author is trying to trick readers into assuming facts which are not. That's why it's fake news.

wyldfire 9y ago
> You know why this is fake news You have distorted the meaning of this term. It was originally applied to fly-by-night online "publications" who have no background or experience in journalism making spurious claims later shown to have no backing evidence. This is an eyewitness account of an attack (the authr does describe it as terrorism, yes) and later the response to their account and video recording. The video substantiates his account and the response is likely backed with evidence (police report regarding white powder, etc). You dispute the author's claim that it should be called terrorism. That's pretty subtle overall IMO, and does not make the article or the publication worthy of being described as "fake news." Please choose another term, like "hyperbole" or "exaggeration".
yorwba 9y ago
> The 2nd degree murder charge means that the killing was NOT "willful, deliberate, and premeditated." The choice of charge just means that the prosecution is not yet convinced that it was a planned attack, as opposed to a spontaneous decision. Additional evidence might cause them to change their mind. In any case, it does indicate that they do not regard it as an accident. Is a Muslim man who gets enraged by a gay couple kissing and stabs them an Islamist terrorist? I have no idea, but he might very well be tied to an organized movement that encouraged his behavior, and then I'd definitely call it terrorism, even if it wasn't the result of long-term planning.

DigitalJack 9y ago

I didn't see anything about "fake news?" There are conspiracy theorists and assorted wackos in any sizable group of people. I'm not surprised at the threats he has received. Amazed (in a bad way) and disappointed that people like those making the threats exist. That such warped brains exist. I'm not saying they should be wiped out, just sad to realize that this state of mind is even possible. But I'm not surprised or shocked. Anyway, scanning through the article, where was the fake news commentary?

yorwba 9y ago
The "fake news" part is the allegiation that everything was a ploy by the leftist media to discredit the right.
- DigitalJack 9y ago
  alleged by whom? some conspiracy theorists? who cares? Fake news would be a mainstream media outlet declaring that George Soros paid the driver to drive into the crowd. Nothing like that was alleged in the story though (unless I missed it). He just mentioned conspiracy nuts threatening him on twitter, email, etc.
  - tantalor 9y ago
    > On Thursday, Hannity broadcast claims on his radio show that the protesters in Charlottesville were paid. I suppose that would include the author.
    - DigitalJack 9y ago
      Paid protesters are no secret. Doesn't mean they all are.
      - tantalor 9y ago
        What? Citation please. http://www.factcheck.org/2017/08/counterprotesters-paid-charlottesville/ http://www.factcheck.org/2017/08/counterprotesters-paid-char...