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>Google will try to police its results better after this incident, but they can't effectively do this without mass censorship. It's not mass censorship. It's e

>Google will try to police its results better after this incident, but they can't effectively do this without mass censorship. It's not mass censorship. It's editorialization. Something we've lost an appreciation for in our fetishization of a dystopian future that's always just over the horizon. Facebook tried doing this to combat actual fake news (the one that ironically comes from the political segment in the U.S. most likely to cry wolf about it). This process was then characterized as facebook policing political content in a biased manner -- despite the fact that blatantly false content happened to continually come from sources with a conservative bent more often than not, which isn't Facebook's problem to deal with. Point being, it's not censorship. And I wish any attempt to fight false information wasn't disingenuously painted as these organizations having some kind of political agenda or as "censorship". We need content aggregators of every kind (facebook, google, reddit, and even HN) to be more editorial, especially and specifically when content is presented in a manner that might help how credible that content looks. This whole wish-washy "oh just let the people decide what they wanna see, it'll work out in the end" with a nice touch of "all opinions matter" clearly hasn't and isn't working.

powertower 9y ago
> Facebook tried doing this to combat actual fake news (the one that ironically comes from the political segment in the U.S. most likely to cry wolf about it). This process was then characterized as facebook policing political content in a biased manner -- despite the fact that blatantly false content happened to continually come from sources with a conservative bent more often than not, which isn't Facebook's problem to deal with. Assuming we followed the same Facebook story (that intentionally set up boards of people - that were biased - to curtail the news in various ways), it seems like what you are trying to say is that alternative and conservative news is "fakes news", and they should receive algorithmic censorship. Personally, for myself, the last 10 stories I've seen on "neutral" outlets like CNN and to the left outlets like Washington Post / New York / MSNBC - have been 100 percent driven by agenda rather than facts. And the only time I'm able to get anything real is when I go to the other side, in which case all I have to do is tone it down 50%, yet on the left I have to literally invert what they are saying to get at the truth. So how would you categorize which one of us is the idiot whose sources of news should be curtailed? Because I'm actually fine with you listening to CNN.
- aliasxneo 9y ago
  You're outnumbered on HN.
  - revmoo 9y ago
    This is really rude
  - kelukelugames 9y ago
    Some people are down voting him for name calling. Both republicans and democrats suffer from a persecution complex on HN. It's kind of funny. All sites are agenda driven. But somehow sites with agendas that I disagree with are more guilty of bias. Funny how that works. Fake news, on the other hand, is claiming global warming is hoax invented by the Chinese. I would say only 10% of my facebook friends are conservative and I've only seen them post blatant lies like photoshops of black NFL players cheering the burning of a US flag. The liberals, at worst, get a little too excited about the Russian investigation. Though that has as much merit as Hilary's emails.
    - powertower 9y ago
      When someone says that I cannot discern fake from real, and for my own well being I should be protected from "fake news" (otherwise I'll start to believe that global worming is real / not-real), than I'm being treated like I'm some type of an "idiot", so why hide that word.
    - alehul 9y ago
      > Some people are down voting him for name calling. I was surprised by the downvotes to a fairly argued comment, and then I read this hours ago and it seemed valid. The most upvoted comment in response now, however, calls him 'idiotic' several times throughout.
  - alehul 9y ago
    You're right he is, but if being outnumbered opinion-wise now leads to downvotes, I feel skeptical of HN's future. Would we still upvote those who deny climate change for discussion's sake, for example?
kelukelugames 9y ago
A fake news site owner said conservatives are more likely than liberals to believe and spread fake news. In fact, he said fake news didn't take off with liberals at all. I want to verify this. How easy would it be too replicate this experiment? Edit: Found some links. Couldn't find the original article though. 0. Republicans seem more susceptible to fake news than Democrats (but liberals, don’t feel too comfy yet) http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/05/republicans-seem-more-susceptible-to-fake-news-than-democrats-but-liberals-dont-feel-too-comfy-yet/ http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/05/republicans-seem-more-susce... 1. Article that says both left and right visits his fake news site. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/article/2017/may/31/If-youre-fooled-by-fake-news-this-man-probably-wro/ http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/article/2017/may/31/If-... 2. Democrats are falling for fake news about Russia https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/19/15561842/trump-russia-louise-mensch https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/19/15561842/trump-russia-lo... 3. The rise of left-wing, anti-Trump fake news http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-39592010 http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-39592010
- jsight 9y ago
  I think that is going to be really difficult to discern with any accuracy. The different mindset of the two parties will likely lead to differences in the types of things that each will believe, but I don't believe that either group is immune to believing made up stories. I have also found that the losing party tends to suffer from the wildest delusions. I'm not really sure why that is, but it is always sad to watch.
  - chockZ 9y ago
    >I have also found that the losing party tends to suffer from the wildest delusions. I would disagree with you on this statement. The far right is consumed by conspiracy theories (Seth Rich, Pizzagate etc) despite controlling all three branches of the Federal Govt.
- fhood 9y ago
  Very hard to verify, but you could probably dig up some related data if you tried hard enough. Possibly things like fraud reports?

powertower 9y ago

> Facebook tried doing this to combat actual fake news (the one that ironically comes from the political segment in the U.S. most likely to cry wolf about it). This process was then characterized as facebook policing political content in a biased manner -- despite the fact that blatantly false content happened to continually come from sources with a conservative bent more often than not, which isn't Facebook's problem to deal with. Assuming we followed the same Facebook story (that intentionally set up boards of people - that were biased - to curtail the news in various ways), it seems like what you are trying to say is that alternative and conservative news is "fakes news", and they should receive algorithmic censorship. Personally, for myself, the last 10 stories I've seen on "neutral" outlets like CNN and to the left outlets like Washington Post / New York / MSNBC - have been 100 percent driven by agenda rather than facts. And the only time I'm able to get anything real is when I go to the other side, in which case all I have to do is tone it down 50%, yet on the left I have to literally invert what they are saying to get at the truth. So how would you categorize which one of us is the idiot whose sources of news should be curtailed? Because I'm actually fine with you listening to CNN.

aliasxneo 9y ago
You're outnumbered on HN.
- revmoo 9y ago
  This is really rude
- kelukelugames 9y ago
  Some people are down voting him for name calling. Both republicans and democrats suffer from a persecution complex on HN. It's kind of funny. All sites are agenda driven. But somehow sites with agendas that I disagree with are more guilty of bias. Funny how that works. Fake news, on the other hand, is claiming global warming is hoax invented by the Chinese. I would say only 10% of my facebook friends are conservative and I've only seen them post blatant lies like photoshops of black NFL players cheering the burning of a US flag. The liberals, at worst, get a little too excited about the Russian investigation. Though that has as much merit as Hilary's emails.
  - powertower 9y ago
    When someone says that I cannot discern fake from real, and for my own well being I should be protected from "fake news" (otherwise I'll start to believe that global worming is real / not-real), than I'm being treated like I'm some type of an "idiot", so why hide that word.
  - alehul 9y ago
    > Some people are down voting him for name calling. I was surprised by the downvotes to a fairly argued comment, and then I read this hours ago and it seemed valid. The most upvoted comment in response now, however, calls him 'idiotic' several times throughout.
- alehul 9y ago
  You're right he is, but if being outnumbered opinion-wise now leads to downvotes, I feel skeptical of HN's future. Would we still upvote those who deny climate change for discussion's sake, for example?

kelukelugames 9y ago

A fake news site owner said conservatives are more likely than liberals to believe and spread fake news. In fact, he said fake news didn't take off with liberals at all. I want to verify this. How easy would it be too replicate this experiment? Edit: Found some links. Couldn't find the original article though. 0. Republicans seem more susceptible to fake news than Democrats (but liberals, don’t feel too comfy yet) http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/05/republicans-seem-more-susceptible-to-fake-news-than-democrats-but-liberals-dont-feel-too-comfy-yet/ http://www.niemanlab.org/2017/05/republicans-seem-more-susce... 1. Article that says both left and right visits his fake news site. http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/article/2017/may/31/If-youre-fooled-by-fake-news-this-man-probably-wro/ http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/article/2017/may/31/If-... 2. Democrats are falling for fake news about Russia https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/19/15561842/trump-russia-louise-mensch https://www.vox.com/world/2017/5/19/15561842/trump-russia-lo... 3. The rise of left-wing, anti-Trump fake news http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-39592010 http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-39592010

jsight 9y ago
I think that is going to be really difficult to discern with any accuracy. The different mindset of the two parties will likely lead to differences in the types of things that each will believe, but I don't believe that either group is immune to believing made up stories. I have also found that the losing party tends to suffer from the wildest delusions. I'm not really sure why that is, but it is always sad to watch.
- chockZ 9y ago
  >I have also found that the losing party tends to suffer from the wildest delusions. I would disagree with you on this statement. The far right is consumed by conspiracy theories (Seth Rich, Pizzagate etc) despite controlling all three branches of the Federal Govt.
fhood 9y ago
Very hard to verify, but you could probably dig up some related data if you tried hard enough. Possibly things like fraud reports?