4 ms·

Back in November, PC World did some testing with fake FB accounts to see what fake news would be targeted at them. It was pretty eye-opening: http://www.pcworld

Back in November, PC World did some testing with fake FB accounts to see what fake news would be targeted at them. It was pretty eye-opening: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3142412/windows/just-how-partisan-is-facebooks-fake-news-we-tested-it.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/3142412/windows/just-how-part... > The Macedonians may still be at it, because our Republican supporter, Todd White, was flooded with partisan posts. Worse, over a little more than two days, we counted 10 such posts in his feed that were fake, most accusing Democrats or their supporters of illegal activity. In all, White was clearly exposed to more spin than his Democratic counterpart, Chris Smith, who saw exactly zero fake news stories.

yorwba 9y ago
Sounds like there is an untapped market segment. By the next US election, someone will have figured out what kind of content gets Democrats riled up, and makes a ton selling headlines to the highest bidder.
- peoplewindow 9y ago
  Er, that's easy. It's done already by large corporate news sources. Just go browse The Guardian or The Independent (both UK outlets) to find a constant series of clickbait stories designed to maximally upset people with Clinton-style views. Random Macedonians can't make money doing it because those advertising dollars are already sucked up by much larger and better known brands. There may also be a structural issue (in the USA). If you lean Democrat you probably trust mainstream US media sources like the NYT, Washington Post, CNN, ABC etc. These sources all very openly pushed Clinton and her policies. If you hear a story that sounds initially dubious, you search Google and you don't find anything to support it, you probably will conclude it's not true. However if you lean Republican and already don't trust these media sources, searching for a story and not finding it will not tell you anything, because you are already expecting those sources to try and suppress information that makes left-leaning causes look bad. So you might find a bunch of YouTube videos or right wing blogs or whatever and conclude that is sufficient. The US media does publish a lot of biased unfactual garbage, including lots of opinion dressed up as fact, but it's usually quite skillfully done and they avoid pushing stories that are trivially false like "Putin issues arrest warrant for George Soros".
  - marknutter 9y ago
    Having swung right in recent years, I'm now dealing with this very problem. It takes a ton of effort to get the full picture on a given story. The more controversial it is, the more google's search results will be dominated by rags like Vox, Slate, and HuffPo.

yorwba 9y ago

Sounds like there is an untapped market segment. By the next US election, someone will have figured out what kind of content gets Democrats riled up, and makes a ton selling headlines to the highest bidder.

peoplewindow 9y ago
Er, that's easy. It's done already by large corporate news sources. Just go browse The Guardian or The Independent (both UK outlets) to find a constant series of clickbait stories designed to maximally upset people with Clinton-style views. Random Macedonians can't make money doing it because those advertising dollars are already sucked up by much larger and better known brands. There may also be a structural issue (in the USA). If you lean Democrat you probably trust mainstream US media sources like the NYT, Washington Post, CNN, ABC etc. These sources all very openly pushed Clinton and her policies. If you hear a story that sounds initially dubious, you search Google and you don't find anything to support it, you probably will conclude it's not true. However if you lean Republican and already don't trust these media sources, searching for a story and not finding it will not tell you anything, because you are already expecting those sources to try and suppress information that makes left-leaning causes look bad. So you might find a bunch of YouTube videos or right wing blogs or whatever and conclude that is sufficient. The US media does publish a lot of biased unfactual garbage, including lots of opinion dressed up as fact, but it's usually quite skillfully done and they avoid pushing stories that are trivially false like "Putin issues arrest warrant for George Soros".
- marknutter 9y ago
  Having swung right in recent years, I'm now dealing with this very problem. It takes a ton of effort to get the full picture on a given story. The more controversial it is, the more google's search results will be dominated by rags like Vox, Slate, and HuffPo.