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> "Google said it had added more detailed examples of problematic pages into the guidelines" 'Problematic'. There's that word, again. The news need not even be

> "Google said it had added more detailed examples of problematic pages into the guidelines" 'Problematic'. There's that word, again. The news need not even be 'fake' anymore. Simply 'problematic' will do. Here's Mark Zuckerberg not long ago: > While the amount of problematic content we've found so far remains relatively small, any attempted interference is a serious issue. Problematic to whom, one wonders? The loser? Those who feel most aggrieved? This is little more than an attempt to sanitize information so that all that remains is the pre-approved 'least problematic' truth (fact-checked, of course). Hillary Clinton, with much irony and little self-awareness, summed up the intent behind this move in her latest book: > “Attempting to define reality is a core feature of authoritarianism....This is what the Soviets did when they erased political dissidents from historical photos. This is what happens in George Orwell’s classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, when a torturer holds up four fingers and delivers electric shocks until his prisoner sees five fingers as ordered. “The goal is to make you question logic and reason and to sow mistrust towards exactly the people we need to rely on: our leaders, the press, experts who seek to guide public policy based on evidence, ourselves”. So the message is clear: Trust us, you dolts. We know best.

ZeroGravitas 9y ago
If you don't know what "problematic" means you could just look it up in a dictionary. adjective: constituting or presenting a problem Or are the "word-checkers" in on the big conspiracy too?
- sumfag 9y ago
  Maybe you're missing the big picture here. Ever read 1984 or look into George Orwell's history? These books were written as a warning of this type of censorship and Orwell himself was targeted by the CIA and FBI for some of these thoughts. Thought-police comes to mind. Ever heard of the Polish Pink Files? How about the Stasi? In every instance where this type of policing happens, it leads to major disaster. The snide comment was cute but totally unwarranted, as conspiracies do occur.
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    1984 was not written to warn against politicians being fact-checked by independent organizations. To claim otherwise is not just silly, but actively working at cross purposes to the stated intent.
    - nailer 9y ago
      > 1984 was not written to warn against politicians being fact-checked by independent organizations. To claim otherwise is not just silly Thankfully not one of the comments you're responding to is claiming otherwise.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
        Who needs the memory-hole when we can simply ignore context which is only pixels away: "This is little more than an attempt to sanitize information so that all that remains is the pre-approved 'least problematic' truth (fact-checked, of course)." "These books were written as a warning of this type of censorship" (emphasis in the original)
        nailer 9y ago
        You seem to be claiming: > "This is little more than an attempt to sanitize information so that all that remains is the pre-approved 'least problematic' truth (fact-checked, of course)." is equivalent to: > politicians being fact-checked by independent organizations. Which is fascinating.
        ZeroGravitas 9y ago
        I'm beginning to believe the basic left/right divide is founded on the inability to handle context. Though it's probably just a secondary effect of defending the indefensible, which makes context, like facts, inconvenient. The post was clearly attacking "fact-checking" as a partisan activity. Snopes and Politifact type sites are under attack by the right wing, because fake news is a right-wing problem. There's no point parsing into exactly how "fake" each bit of news is. Nothing made up by Macedonian teenagers is any crazier than stuff Trump has repeated on camera. As soon as you bring objectivity into things then it's going to make Trump look bad. They've elected a brazen liar, who lies about stupid stuff he doesn't even need to lie about, and instead of owning that, they're now telling us that 1984 is a warning about people not accepting lies from their government. Even in the twisted world we now live in, that is shocking.
- lmm 9y ago
  It's a hidden way of using the passive voice, and bad for the same reasons: it (deliberately) blurs the distinction between "someone might have a problem with this" and "I have a problem with this".
- eighthnate 9y ago
  You are being facetious. Problematic is subjective. Here is a simple comparison. Jews are problematic to nazis. Nazis are problematic to jews. Feminism is problematic to chauvanists. Chauvanists are problematic to feminist. You see the problem with problematic right?
  - dang 9y ago
    Would you please stop posting such generic, unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? They are tedious and break the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- dang 9y ago
  Would you please not post snarky, unsubstantive comments here? They break the site guidelines and degrade discussion below the level we're hoping for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
yostrovs 9y ago
It really is amazing how dangerously wrong her interpretation of 1984 is. I doubt she read it recently, so that must have been her view of the whole book all the while she wanted to be president.
spdustin 9y ago
Problematic to whom? Readers who seek a factual account of an event. Why is this so subjective, and why are people so riled up in these threads? News should be objectively true. If it isn't, it should be clearly flagged as opinion, or struck entirely as fiction, i.e. fake.
- probably_wrong 9y ago
  There's a line of thinking that claims that 'true' objectivity is impossible, because even choosing what to speak about (or not) involves a degree of subjectivity. This idea was taken to the extreme with outlets like Fox News, and I think we are witnessing a counter-move in the opposite direction as a result. Once the pendulum swings enough in that direction, and 'legitimate' news start being censored, the GP comment will probably feel a lot more relevant.
  - spdustin 9y ago
    Fox News, when they report objectively factual accounts of world events, isn't "fake news". Breathlessly repeating irrelevant stories against the current political grain on Fox News? Still not fake news. Biased, sure. Selectively edited. But not fake. Reporting a rumor or an outright fiction in the form of an objectively factual account of a world event? That's fake. There is zero reason for the issue to be political. Either it's falsified on purpose and with an intent to deceive the consumer (a'la "Fake Gucci Purse") or it's not.
    - jon_richards 9y ago
      Didn't fox news successfully fight a lawsuit by arguing they had no obligation not to lie?
    - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
      Fox news displays plenty of "fake" (by any definition) news. They said the city of Birmingham in the UK was a place "where non-Muslims just simply don't go". Here's a sampling of 50 pretty obvious lies: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/article/2015/feb/26/50-fox-news-lies-6-seconds-daily-show/ http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/article/2015/feb/26/50-... An aside, I've literally read a story about a guy who writes "fake news" just for cash, and one of the headlines he made up for clicks, is the exact same as something that was actually said on Fox news: "Says Colorado food stamp recipients can use ATMs to get cash to buy marijuana." Here's an NPR story about the fake news creator, when he mentions this: http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503146770/npr-finds-the-head-of-a-covert-fake-news-operation-in-the-suburbs http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503... Ironically the last bit of Fox News I actually watched was a "fact-check" segment. In it, the first lady's claim that slaves had built the white house was "fact-checked". By which they meant they didn't actually contradict the fact (because it was true) but minimized it as much as possible, including throwing in the unsupported lie that the slaves were "well treated". We actually have documentary evidence written by the first lady that was in the white house at the time, that the slaves she saw building the white house were in fact poorly treated. But even if they were, why would you bring this up? Well-treated slaves are still slaves.

ZeroGravitas 9y ago

If you don't know what "problematic" means you could just look it up in a dictionary. adjective: constituting or presenting a problem Or are the "word-checkers" in on the big conspiracy too?

sumfag 9y ago
Maybe you're missing the big picture here. Ever read 1984 or look into George Orwell's history? These books were written as a warning of this type of censorship and Orwell himself was targeted by the CIA and FBI for some of these thoughts. Thought-police comes to mind. Ever heard of the Polish Pink Files? How about the Stasi? In every instance where this type of policing happens, it leads to major disaster. The snide comment was cute but totally unwarranted, as conspiracies do occur.
- ZeroGravitas 9y ago
  1984 was not written to warn against politicians being fact-checked by independent organizations. To claim otherwise is not just silly, but actively working at cross purposes to the stated intent.
  - nailer 9y ago
    > 1984 was not written to warn against politicians being fact-checked by independent organizations. To claim otherwise is not just silly Thankfully not one of the comments you're responding to is claiming otherwise.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
      Who needs the memory-hole when we can simply ignore context which is only pixels away: "This is little more than an attempt to sanitize information so that all that remains is the pre-approved 'least problematic' truth (fact-checked, of course)." "These books were written as a warning of this type of censorship" (emphasis in the original)
      - nailer 9y ago
        You seem to be claiming: > "This is little more than an attempt to sanitize information so that all that remains is the pre-approved 'least problematic' truth (fact-checked, of course)." is equivalent to: > politicians being fact-checked by independent organizations. Which is fascinating.
        ZeroGravitas 9y ago
        I'm beginning to believe the basic left/right divide is founded on the inability to handle context. Though it's probably just a secondary effect of defending the indefensible, which makes context, like facts, inconvenient. The post was clearly attacking "fact-checking" as a partisan activity. Snopes and Politifact type sites are under attack by the right wing, because fake news is a right-wing problem. There's no point parsing into exactly how "fake" each bit of news is. Nothing made up by Macedonian teenagers is any crazier than stuff Trump has repeated on camera. As soon as you bring objectivity into things then it's going to make Trump look bad. They've elected a brazen liar, who lies about stupid stuff he doesn't even need to lie about, and instead of owning that, they're now telling us that 1984 is a warning about people not accepting lies from their government. Even in the twisted world we now live in, that is shocking.
lmm 9y ago
It's a hidden way of using the passive voice, and bad for the same reasons: it (deliberately) blurs the distinction between "someone might have a problem with this" and "I have a problem with this".
eighthnate 9y ago
You are being facetious. Problematic is subjective. Here is a simple comparison. Jews are problematic to nazis. Nazis are problematic to jews. Feminism is problematic to chauvanists. Chauvanists are problematic to feminist. You see the problem with problematic right?
- dang 9y ago
  Would you please stop posting such generic, unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? They are tedious and break the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
dang 9y ago
Would you please not post snarky, unsubstantive comments here? They break the site guidelines and degrade discussion below the level we're hoping for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

yostrovs 9y ago

It really is amazing how dangerously wrong her interpretation of 1984 is. I doubt she read it recently, so that must have been her view of the whole book all the while she wanted to be president.

spdustin 9y ago

Problematic to whom? Readers who seek a factual account of an event. Why is this so subjective, and why are people so riled up in these threads? News should be objectively true. If it isn't, it should be clearly flagged as opinion, or struck entirely as fiction, i.e. fake.

probably_wrong 9y ago
There's a line of thinking that claims that 'true' objectivity is impossible, because even choosing what to speak about (or not) involves a degree of subjectivity. This idea was taken to the extreme with outlets like Fox News, and I think we are witnessing a counter-move in the opposite direction as a result. Once the pendulum swings enough in that direction, and 'legitimate' news start being censored, the GP comment will probably feel a lot more relevant.
- spdustin 9y ago
  Fox News, when they report objectively factual accounts of world events, isn't "fake news". Breathlessly repeating irrelevant stories against the current political grain on Fox News? Still not fake news. Biased, sure. Selectively edited. But not fake. Reporting a rumor or an outright fiction in the form of an objectively factual account of a world event? That's fake. There is zero reason for the issue to be political. Either it's falsified on purpose and with an intent to deceive the consumer (a'la "Fake Gucci Purse") or it's not.
  - jon_richards 9y ago
    Didn't fox news successfully fight a lawsuit by arguing they had no obligation not to lie?
  - ZeroGravitas 9y ago
    Fox news displays plenty of "fake" (by any definition) news. They said the city of Birmingham in the UK was a place "where non-Muslims just simply don't go". Here's a sampling of 50 pretty obvious lies: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/article/2015/feb/26/50-fox-news-lies-6-seconds-daily-show/ http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/article/2015/feb/26/50-... An aside, I've literally read a story about a guy who writes "fake news" just for cash, and one of the headlines he made up for clicks, is the exact same as something that was actually said on Fox news: "Says Colorado food stamp recipients can use ATMs to get cash to buy marijuana." Here's an NPR story about the fake news creator, when he mentions this: http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503146770/npr-finds-the-head-of-a-covert-fake-news-operation-in-the-suburbs http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503... Ironically the last bit of Fox News I actually watched was a "fact-check" segment. In it, the first lady's claim that slaves had built the white house was "fact-checked". By which they meant they didn't actually contradict the fact (because it was true) but minimized it as much as possible, including throwing in the unsupported lie that the slaves were "well treated". We actually have documentary evidence written by the first lady that was in the white house at the time, that the slaves she saw building the white house were in fact poorly treated. But even if they were, why would you bring this up? Well-treated slaves are still slaves.