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Fake news is a much, much harder problem than spam. Spam is simply marketing emails that a user never asked to receive. If you ask users themselves for a defin

Fake news is a much, much harder problem than spam. Spam is simply marketing emails that a user never asked to receive. If you ask users themselves for a definition of spam, you’ll get some variation on the above. If users were asked to mark emails they considered to be spam, they would generally mark the same kind of emails as spam. Some would mark more, some less, but all around a common center. Users and companies are basically in agreement about what spam is. Compare with fake news. If you asked users to mark stories they considered fake, some would mark info wars and some would mark huff post. And those groups would rarely overlap. Given that users and companies fundamentally disagree on what fake news even is, I can’t see how any piece of technology can solve this.

nl 9y ago
I did the fakenewschallenge, and my day job is related. I'm not arguing it is easy, but there are plenty of things which make it worse than it has to be.
- jaredklewis 9y ago
  But, my understanding of things like the fake news challenge is that their definition of fake news is probrably news that has been shown by experts, scientists, video evidence, scholars, actual investigative journalists, or similar to be demonstrably false. The alt-right is already aware that scholars, scientists, and generally educated people believe their news sources to be bunk and that has not changed their opinion. So even if facebook or whoever makes perfect software that blocks crazy info wars articles or other news meeting the definition above, conservatives will cry censorship and find another platform because their chosen platform fundamentally disagrees with them on what is true. People don’t use Facebook to be told they are wrong.
zerebubuth 9y ago
> If you asked users to mark stories they considered fake, some would mark info wars and some would mark huff post. It's possible that's the right answer, and that there should be more scepticism of stories from both of those sources. Fake news didn't start online, though. There have been many paper publications which lie outside of mainstream scientific and ideological orthodoxy, e.g: Fortean Times, Daily Worker, Sunday Sport, which today we might call "fake news". Some of these had quite wide circulations and were available in many shops, and yet didn't precipitate any kind of crisis. It would seem that fake news is perhaps a symptom of something deeper. It's possible that the mainstream press has lost the authority to suppress the fringes as public figures have learned to control their image in the media more (i.e: spin), presenting at least the appearance of collusion. EDIT: It would appear that Joseph Pulitzer, creator of the prestigious journalism prize, was deeply involved in the rise of "yellow journalism", the "fake news" of the 1890s. Perhaps in a century from now, journalists will covet the Bannon Prize?
jandrese 9y ago
Fake news is absolutely real, for some definitions of fake news. This is the problem, there is no generally accepted definition of "fake news". Some people (including some very prominent ones) define it as "any story with which I do not agree." Other people define it as news stories that contain falsehoods, which seems like a better definition but is far from universally accepted. Just look at the attacks on Politifact, Factcheck.org, etc... for people who don't think objective truth is a factor in "Fake news". And of course things are rarely black and white, there is usually at least a kernel of truth in any statement, so you end up mostly measuring the depth of the bullshit covering it. Next time you hear an attack on "the mainstream media" remember that the attack is targeting organizations that do their own independent verification of stories (or at least try to) instead of regurgitating talking points. The people are angry that those organizations are making it harder to lie to you.
- mike_hearn 9y ago
  Do you know they do independent verification of stories? I have met lots of journalists. I have been interviewed for stories (on Bitcoin and blockchain stuff) many times. I have never met, heard of or encountered anyone whose job was to independently check facts or talking points provided by sources.
  - smsm42 9y ago
    I don't have first-person experience with this, but I have heard about people being interviewed for articles in New Yorker, and they have been contacted by exactly those people - whose job was to verify the facts in the article (different from article writer, editor, etc.). I am not sure how widespread this practice is, but these people certainly do exist.
- dawnbreez 9y ago
  >Just look at the attacks on Politifact, Factcheck.org, etc... for people who don't think objective truth is a factor in "Fake news". More likely explanation: people mistake personal bias for "common sense" or some kind of factual information, and then attack what they assume is "fake news" based on these faulty starting points.

nl 9y ago

I did the fakenewschallenge, and my day job is related. I'm not arguing it is easy, but there are plenty of things which make it worse than it has to be.

jaredklewis 9y ago
But, my understanding of things like the fake news challenge is that their definition of fake news is probrably news that has been shown by experts, scientists, video evidence, scholars, actual investigative journalists, or similar to be demonstrably false. The alt-right is already aware that scholars, scientists, and generally educated people believe their news sources to be bunk and that has not changed their opinion. So even if facebook or whoever makes perfect software that blocks crazy info wars articles or other news meeting the definition above, conservatives will cry censorship and find another platform because their chosen platform fundamentally disagrees with them on what is true. People don’t use Facebook to be told they are wrong.

zerebubuth 9y ago

> If you asked users to mark stories they considered fake, some would mark info wars and some would mark huff post. It's possible that's the right answer, and that there should be more scepticism of stories from both of those sources. Fake news didn't start online, though. There have been many paper publications which lie outside of mainstream scientific and ideological orthodoxy, e.g: Fortean Times, Daily Worker, Sunday Sport, which today we might call "fake news". Some of these had quite wide circulations and were available in many shops, and yet didn't precipitate any kind of crisis. It would seem that fake news is perhaps a symptom of something deeper. It's possible that the mainstream press has lost the authority to suppress the fringes as public figures have learned to control their image in the media more (i.e: spin), presenting at least the appearance of collusion. EDIT: It would appear that Joseph Pulitzer, creator of the prestigious journalism prize, was deeply involved in the rise of "yellow journalism", the "fake news" of the 1890s. Perhaps in a century from now, journalists will covet the Bannon Prize?

jandrese 9y ago

Fake news is absolutely real, for some definitions of fake news. This is the problem, there is no generally accepted definition of "fake news". Some people (including some very prominent ones) define it as "any story with which I do not agree." Other people define it as news stories that contain falsehoods, which seems like a better definition but is far from universally accepted. Just look at the attacks on Politifact, Factcheck.org, etc... for people who don't think objective truth is a factor in "Fake news". And of course things are rarely black and white, there is usually at least a kernel of truth in any statement, so you end up mostly measuring the depth of the bullshit covering it. Next time you hear an attack on "the mainstream media" remember that the attack is targeting organizations that do their own independent verification of stories (or at least try to) instead of regurgitating talking points. The people are angry that those organizations are making it harder to lie to you.

mike_hearn 9y ago
Do you know they do independent verification of stories? I have met lots of journalists. I have been interviewed for stories (on Bitcoin and blockchain stuff) many times. I have never met, heard of or encountered anyone whose job was to independently check facts or talking points provided by sources.
- smsm42 9y ago
  I don't have first-person experience with this, but I have heard about people being interviewed for articles in New Yorker, and they have been contacted by exactly those people - whose job was to verify the facts in the article (different from article writer, editor, etc.). I am not sure how widespread this practice is, but these people certainly do exist.
dawnbreez 9y ago
>Just look at the attacks on Politifact, Factcheck.org, etc... for people who don't think objective truth is a factor in "Fake news". More likely explanation: people mistake personal bias for "common sense" or some kind of factual information, and then attack what they assume is "fake news" based on these faulty starting points.