11 ms·

Free speech cannot be sacrificed to strike fake news

121 points by Jerry2 9y ago

GCU-Empiricist 9y ago
“If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another — but which one? Differences are crucial.” R.A. Heinlein
enitihas 9y ago
I think the solution for the problem of fake news is going to be very difficult. People have a tendency of believing whatever they read in Facebook or a random google search or a random WhatsApp message, and that is going to be difficult to counter. Traditionally the source of information could be monitored at least in well run countries. However, when anyone can make his/her views visible to the whole world and make emphatic claims with false logic, it is going to be hard to prevent people from believing them. A lot of threads I saw on the Myanmar issue say Facebook should have done more. Maybe Facebook could change its algorithms to not show people aggressive stuff. Maybe they can have an option to report stuff. But what about people spreading propaganda in an exponential way, with only very few people reporting. How on earth any messaging platform will deal with that. I think we are looking at a very painful compromise some where down the line.
- matwood 9y ago
  > People have a tendency of believing whatever they read in Facebook or a random google search or a random WhatsApp message, and that is going to be difficult to counter. People have a tendency of believing whatever they read, period. Trying to always remain skeptical and search out multiple sources and facts is hard and time consuming. Being a skeptic is also challenging from a mental/emotional standpoint, because you always have to challenge your own possibly deeply held beliefs.
chrissnell 9y ago
"Fake news" is an awkward word choice by the President but I think I understand who he is targeting. There is a trend among major news organizations to do reporting with an agenda in mind. Whereas traditional reporting was "this happened and then this happened...", the agenda-driven reporting reads like "this happened because so-and-so is trying to <insert politicized opinion>". Sometimes these pieces push the facts to the very bottom of the story. Sometimes they exclude them entirely. I place the blame on editors with agendas driving the reporting process. This happens on both the left and right. Fox News, Washington Post, L.A. Times--they are all frequent offenders. I'm just so sick of it. Any sophisticated reader can spot this biased reporting quickly but other readers can't and are sucked in. I wish there was a strong just-the-facts movement/resurgence in reporting. I'm basically down to the Wall Street Journal in my daily reading selections.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  Fox News and the Washington Post are about as different as could be when it comes to the level of their reporting. Fox is straight up propaganda, to the point that it is ridiculous that anybody would even take them serious, they're about at the level of Russia Today. The Washington Post is more along the lines of 'manufacturing consent', and if they lie it is by omission.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > Fox is straight up propaganda, to the point that it is ridiculous that anybody would even take them serious. Even conservatives, including some recent Fox commentators, are starting to acknowledge that with Fox’s shift from a fairly broad right-wing/Republican propaganda machine to a more specifically pro-Trump propaganda machine.
    - jacquesm 9y ago
      It's about time, but at the same time there will be many more months of damage and it will at the present rate of destruction take multiple election cycles, maybe as much as decades before the damage is undone, assuming it will even happen.
ILikeConemowk 9y ago
>Why is fake news so prevalent? Because of fake news? I find this phenomenon kind of pleasing, intellectually tickling? I mean, like recursion. Everyone asks why the phenomenon exists without realizing they are the sole creators. It's like a merry go round, each outlet trying to "catch" the baddies without realizing they are the problem. The MSM and the people within are so desperate for clicks and views that they spend their whole lives hopelessly slinging bullshit, "fact checks", retractions, hyperbole, "OP-eds" which are actually propaganda disguised as opinion and every other thinkable form of garbage content aimed solely at manipulating us. Then there's those of us who just sit quietly on the sidelines and laugh, and then we turn the talking heads off.
- moate 9y ago
  #WakeUpSheeple. Cool Story Bro.
  - Varcht 9y ago
    #TheCakeIsNotaLie You tell him, bro.
cabaalis 9y ago
Using words that do not directly harass, libel, or slander another person or group is harmless, even if those words are charged and disagreed with by the majority. The actions that people take upon hearing or reading words are solely their own.
- blacksmith_tb 9y ago
  I would like to agree, but there are some strong counterexamples[1], though by the same token, I find it hard to accept that we would make policies designed to think for people on the grounds they can't be trusted to do so themselves. It points to a means-end problem at the very least. 1: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3257748.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3257748.stm
- exogen 9y ago
  I find this viewpoint ridiculous on the face of it. Consider outright propaganda that does not directly harass, libel, or slander another person or group. Propaganda on the order of "1984". Harmless? A giant news corp. convinces a large segment of the population that 2+2=5. It wreaks havoc on people's ability to do real science and engineering and sows distrust of actual expert mathematicians who know the truth. Some of these believers are politicians, instituting policies that affect you. Harmless?
- psyc 9y ago
  For me, the question is not about whether it's harmful. I believe the central question, especially since we're talking about freedom of speech, is whether the state is the proper tool to use to reduce the harm. From my point of view as a 40 year old american, it feels as though the present discourse is much quicker to default to the state to solve problems, than it was when I was young. I don't think using the state to solve everything is unreasonable on its face, but I do think history teaches it tends towards disaster in the limit.
frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
>The marketplace for ideas will ensure that true news trumps fake news. Why would I believe this? It hasn't worked so far and I think there is some misplaced faith here. Perhaps the media is facing a backlash because of their basic hypocrisy in the modern era. CNN, Washington Post, NYTimes and more are quick to criticize Trump which I'm fine with, he's in a position of power and he's not handling it well, checking his power and public perception is literally the purpose of media. The problem is that the media has abdicated this same duty everywhere else where it has been convenient for them. An example is why is this criticism of Facebook so linked to Trump's election? We deserved this level of coverage years ago. Blaming this all on obviously fake news on social media sidesteps why people believe those things in the first place - conventional media has repeatedly betrayed the trust of people. Take this recent article that was posted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16642683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16642683 There is a lot of good criticism of the author in those comments, how she pre-formulated a story, repeatedly encountered suspicious roadblocks in her investigation and then because she couldn't write the perspective she wanted, dropped the story entirely. What am I supposed to call this uncritical coverage of Theranos other than Fake News? And even there I can't exactly pin it on that journalist, it wasn't just her that encountered these things and didn't write about them, it was lots of journalists which points to a systemic issue. All of which is a really longwinded way to say this piece made me sad because it is the 'marketplace of ideas' that led us to an era of actually fake news. Journalists like Jenny Gold are simply responding to the incentives of that marketplace. And that other journalists inside this system, like Sandeep, have no creative solutions for how to bring back real investigative journalism which questions and speaks truth to power in all it's forms and simply rely on old clichés does not bode well for the future.
- s2g 9y ago
  > An example is why is this criticism of Facebook so linked to Trump's election? Because nobody cares until something goes horribly wrong. IT's the same reason why infrastructure spending is non-existent until a whole bunch of people start dying.
rdiddly 9y ago
The market will sort out the real from the fake? The market is how we got where we are. The market favors clickbait, not necessarily truth. Don't get me wrong, I find all the calls for somebody to do something (i.e. restrict free speech) equally troublesome. I basically think there's no solution. Liars gonna lie.
- drb91 9y ago
  > The market favors clickbait, not necessarily truth. This seems super related to the lack of a decent way to pay for one-off articles and the need to show ads. If there were a medium between adware and a $10/month subscription, I firmly believe the articles would bulk up again. Gaming for page views necessarily trends towards zero content per page view. Competing for money itself would lead to some sort of qualitative difference in content--a huge win for consumers.
- enitihas 9y ago
  I understand your point, but in times of crisis, (like the Myanmar situation) I think the idea of no solution won't find much takers and people will be desperate to "do something".
  - cat199 9y ago
    so, create a crisis like 'russian meddling' to do the same here, you are saying?
    - gizmo385 9y ago
      Want to expand on what you mean by "create a crisis" in relation to Russian meddling?
- vinhboy 9y ago
  > Liars gonna lie. And stupid people will continue to be stupid. > I basically think there's no solution. Agreed.
- fhood 9y ago
superkuh 9y ago
Freedom of the press only means freedom to use hand cranked printing presses. That is all the founders were thinking about. They did not anticipate high throughput roll to roll printing, radio, television, or the internet. Consequently freedom of the press does not apply to any of these things. Only hand cranked printing press manufactured leaflets should be allowed. Freedom of the press should be banned for all other mediums. ... and in case you're wondering, yes, this is a metaphor for another on-going debate and an apt one.
- Varcht 9y ago
  Words don't influence people, people do!
- ufo 9y ago
  Sorry but I dont understand what analogy you are trying to make here
  - OscarCunningham 9y ago
    People sometimes argue that the second amendment doesn't or shouldn't apply to certain weapons, because the founders of the US didn't anticipate those weapons.
    - InitialLastName 9y ago
      I mean, we already know that the first amendment doesn't (and should not) apply to some forms of speech; slander, libel and incitement to violence are all things that we (as a society) have decided are forms of speech that should be regulated.
      - friendlydude12 9y ago
        The first amendment isn’t intended for physical speech. It exists to protect opinions and ideas. It’s for this reason lots of non-verbal “speech” is protected under the first amendment, like online posts and flag burning. Threatening violence or slander has nothing to do with the first amendment.
arunbahl 9y ago
> Ultimately, legal tools should be limited to problems they can solve. Fake news is not one of these problems. False. Replace "fake news" with "false advertising", and there's ample precedent for how this might be achieved. We've got laws at both state and federal levels that make deceptive or misleading claims illegal, to protect consumers; protecting consumers of news media needn't be any more problematic constitutionally.
- schoen 9y ago
  Courts have commonly treated advertising as less constitutionally protected than other forms of speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_speech
- nokcha 9y ago
  Imposing criminal or civil liability for false news has a chilling effect on someone reporting even true news if there is reason to believe that the government might disagree with the reporting. I certainly wouldn't trust Trump's DOJ not to abuse such a law. Just look at how the Alien And Sedition Acts were abused. Supreme Court jurisdiction holds that commercial speech (advertising) is less protected than other speech. This is why laws against false advertising are usually upheld while similar laws against other kinds of false speech would be ruled unconstitutional.
jlbbellefeuille 9y ago
I just won a freedom of speech lawsuit against NYC for my startup VUGO. We do not want to make governmental entities the judges of what information is fact or opinion, because the government will pick winners and losers based on what benefits them. The good news is that the judicial branch is in favor of protecting the 1st amendment in all it's forms (press, political, religious and commercial) Although a strong 1st amendment means that the responsibility falls on the citizen. Caveat Emptor...In other words the the consumer of media alone is responsible for checking the quality and suitability of information before a accepting something as fact. We need to do a better job of helping people think critically, I don't know what the answer is, but I do know that government regulation of Free Speech is definitely NOT the answer having fought content-based censorship in NYC.
hirundo 9y ago
Fake news is not a market failure, because there is a large and robust market for fake news. It's driven by our wishes, whims and dreams. To defeat it you'll have to start by defeating those.
losteverything 9y ago
I wish people could live my life before cable and the internet. We are so so much better off now than the 3 networks is all you get days. Somebody in N.Y. decided what important to me, not me. When i wanted a sports score or tomorrows weather I had to listen to 30 minutes of news. As I get older I want to consume Far Less news.... And I can now pick and chose. A much better place than the 1960s or 70s
- CM30 9y ago
  This is actually a good point. For as much as people criticise echo chambers and fake news and what not, you have to ask yourself whether it was really any 'better' in the old days, or whether you simply didn't know otherwise. Was it better when the government or the church decided what people were allowed to know? When there was one media outlet in a certain medium, like in the UK when there was originally only one TV network in existence? I mean, even the days when it was just newspapers didn't necessarily have an informed populace or people open to other views. It had people who read the same tabloid for decades and got stories that would likely make Breitbart jealous. Fake news may be a hot topic nowadays, but at the end of the day, it's really just a byproduct of anyone being able to become a publisher, and it's probably better that's the case than that one or two organisations can dictate what's newsworthy and what isn't.
  - orev 9y ago
    Well, it really was better, for this reason: because you had limited options and limited control, you had to sit/listen/watch/read through segments and articles that you didn’t necessarily agree with, forcing you to be exposed to other ideas. Sure it wasn’t perfect, but there just simply was not an echo chamber like what exists today. Like any healthy diet, your news needs to include things you might not necessarily like, but you could wash them down with the other frivolous bits. Today you can just binge on candy all the time and like any kind of addict, people get really upset when you try to take it away. Further, there was a pretty big stigma associated with buying tabloids, but today you can indulge without anyone having any idea what you’re looking at.
- friendlydude12 9y ago
s2g 9y ago
> It does not distinguish between facts and opinion Neither does the author of this piece, apparently. > Courts cannot become fact-checkers Why not?

121 points by Jerry2 9y ago

“If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another — but which one? Differences are crucial.” R.A. Heinlein

enitihas 9y ago

I think the solution for the problem of fake news is going to be very difficult. People have a tendency of believing whatever they read in Facebook or a random google search or a random WhatsApp message, and that is going to be difficult to counter. Traditionally the source of information could be monitored at least in well run countries. However, when anyone can make his/her views visible to the whole world and make emphatic claims with false logic, it is going to be hard to prevent people from believing them. A lot of threads I saw on the Myanmar issue say Facebook should have done more. Maybe Facebook could change its algorithms to not show people aggressive stuff. Maybe they can have an option to report stuff. But what about people spreading propaganda in an exponential way, with only very few people reporting. How on earth any messaging platform will deal with that. I think we are looking at a very painful compromise some where down the line.

matwood 9y ago
> People have a tendency of believing whatever they read in Facebook or a random google search or a random WhatsApp message, and that is going to be difficult to counter. People have a tendency of believing whatever they read, period. Trying to always remain skeptical and search out multiple sources and facts is hard and time consuming. Being a skeptic is also challenging from a mental/emotional standpoint, because you always have to challenge your own possibly deeply held beliefs.

chrissnell 9y ago

"Fake news" is an awkward word choice by the President but I think I understand who he is targeting. There is a trend among major news organizations to do reporting with an agenda in mind. Whereas traditional reporting was "this happened and then this happened...", the agenda-driven reporting reads like "this happened because so-and-so is trying to <insert politicized opinion>". Sometimes these pieces push the facts to the very bottom of the story. Sometimes they exclude them entirely. I place the blame on editors with agendas driving the reporting process. This happens on both the left and right. Fox News, Washington Post, L.A. Times--they are all frequent offenders. I'm just so sick of it. Any sophisticated reader can spot this biased reporting quickly but other readers can't and are sucked in. I wish there was a strong just-the-facts movement/resurgence in reporting. I'm basically down to the Wall Street Journal in my daily reading selections.

jacquesm 9y ago
Fox News and the Washington Post are about as different as could be when it comes to the level of their reporting. Fox is straight up propaganda, to the point that it is ridiculous that anybody would even take them serious, they're about at the level of Russia Today. The Washington Post is more along the lines of 'manufacturing consent', and if they lie it is by omission.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Fox is straight up propaganda, to the point that it is ridiculous that anybody would even take them serious. Even conservatives, including some recent Fox commentators, are starting to acknowledge that with Fox’s shift from a fairly broad right-wing/Republican propaganda machine to a more specifically pro-Trump propaganda machine.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    It's about time, but at the same time there will be many more months of damage and it will at the present rate of destruction take multiple election cycles, maybe as much as decades before the damage is undone, assuming it will even happen.

ILikeConemowk 9y ago

>Why is fake news so prevalent? Because of fake news? I find this phenomenon kind of pleasing, intellectually tickling? I mean, like recursion. Everyone asks why the phenomenon exists without realizing they are the sole creators. It's like a merry go round, each outlet trying to "catch" the baddies without realizing they are the problem. The MSM and the people within are so desperate for clicks and views that they spend their whole lives hopelessly slinging bullshit, "fact checks", retractions, hyperbole, "OP-eds" which are actually propaganda disguised as opinion and every other thinkable form of garbage content aimed solely at manipulating us. Then there's those of us who just sit quietly on the sidelines and laugh, and then we turn the talking heads off.

moate 9y ago
#WakeUpSheeple. Cool Story Bro.
- Varcht 9y ago
  #TheCakeIsNotaLie You tell him, bro.

cabaalis 9y ago

Using words that do not directly harass, libel, or slander another person or group is harmless, even if those words are charged and disagreed with by the majority. The actions that people take upon hearing or reading words are solely their own.

blacksmith_tb 9y ago
I would like to agree, but there are some strong counterexamples[1], though by the same token, I find it hard to accept that we would make policies designed to think for people on the grounds they can't be trusted to do so themselves. It points to a means-end problem at the very least. 1: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3257748.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3257748.stm
exogen 9y ago
I find this viewpoint ridiculous on the face of it. Consider outright propaganda that does not directly harass, libel, or slander another person or group. Propaganda on the order of "1984". Harmless? A giant news corp. convinces a large segment of the population that 2+2=5. It wreaks havoc on people's ability to do real science and engineering and sows distrust of actual expert mathematicians who know the truth. Some of these believers are politicians, instituting policies that affect you. Harmless?
psyc 9y ago
For me, the question is not about whether it's harmful. I believe the central question, especially since we're talking about freedom of speech, is whether the state is the proper tool to use to reduce the harm. From my point of view as a 40 year old american, it feels as though the present discourse is much quicker to default to the state to solve problems, than it was when I was young. I don't think using the state to solve everything is unreasonable on its face, but I do think history teaches it tends towards disaster in the limit.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago

>The marketplace for ideas will ensure that true news trumps fake news. Why would I believe this? It hasn't worked so far and I think there is some misplaced faith here. Perhaps the media is facing a backlash because of their basic hypocrisy in the modern era. CNN, Washington Post, NYTimes and more are quick to criticize Trump which I'm fine with, he's in a position of power and he's not handling it well, checking his power and public perception is literally the purpose of media. The problem is that the media has abdicated this same duty everywhere else where it has been convenient for them. An example is why is this criticism of Facebook so linked to Trump's election? We deserved this level of coverage years ago. Blaming this all on obviously fake news on social media sidesteps why people believe those things in the first place - conventional media has repeatedly betrayed the trust of people. Take this recent article that was posted here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16642683 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16642683 There is a lot of good criticism of the author in those comments, how she pre-formulated a story, repeatedly encountered suspicious roadblocks in her investigation and then because she couldn't write the perspective she wanted, dropped the story entirely. What am I supposed to call this uncritical coverage of Theranos other than Fake News? And even there I can't exactly pin it on that journalist, it wasn't just her that encountered these things and didn't write about them, it was lots of journalists which points to a systemic issue. All of which is a really longwinded way to say this piece made me sad because it is the 'marketplace of ideas' that led us to an era of actually fake news. Journalists like Jenny Gold are simply responding to the incentives of that marketplace. And that other journalists inside this system, like Sandeep, have no creative solutions for how to bring back real investigative journalism which questions and speaks truth to power in all it's forms and simply rely on old clichés does not bode well for the future.

s2g 9y ago
> An example is why is this criticism of Facebook so linked to Trump's election? Because nobody cares until something goes horribly wrong. IT's the same reason why infrastructure spending is non-existent until a whole bunch of people start dying.

rdiddly 9y ago

The market will sort out the real from the fake? The market is how we got where we are. The market favors clickbait, not necessarily truth. Don't get me wrong, I find all the calls for somebody to do something (i.e. restrict free speech) equally troublesome. I basically think there's no solution. Liars gonna lie.

drb91 9y ago
> The market favors clickbait, not necessarily truth. This seems super related to the lack of a decent way to pay for one-off articles and the need to show ads. If there were a medium between adware and a $10/month subscription, I firmly believe the articles would bulk up again. Gaming for page views necessarily trends towards zero content per page view. Competing for money itself would lead to some sort of qualitative difference in content--a huge win for consumers.
enitihas 9y ago
I understand your point, but in times of crisis, (like the Myanmar situation) I think the idea of no solution won't find much takers and people will be desperate to "do something".
- cat199 9y ago
  so, create a crisis like 'russian meddling' to do the same here, you are saying?
  - gizmo385 9y ago
    Want to expand on what you mean by "create a crisis" in relation to Russian meddling?
vinhboy 9y ago
> Liars gonna lie. And stupid people will continue to be stupid. > I basically think there's no solution. Agreed.
fhood 9y ago

superkuh 9y ago

Freedom of the press only means freedom to use hand cranked printing presses. That is all the founders were thinking about. They did not anticipate high throughput roll to roll printing, radio, television, or the internet. Consequently freedom of the press does not apply to any of these things. Only hand cranked printing press manufactured leaflets should be allowed. Freedom of the press should be banned for all other mediums. ... and in case you're wondering, yes, this is a metaphor for another on-going debate and an apt one.

Varcht 9y ago
Words don't influence people, people do!
ufo 9y ago
Sorry but I dont understand what analogy you are trying to make here
- OscarCunningham 9y ago
  People sometimes argue that the second amendment doesn't or shouldn't apply to certain weapons, because the founders of the US didn't anticipate those weapons.
  - InitialLastName 9y ago
    I mean, we already know that the first amendment doesn't (and should not) apply to some forms of speech; slander, libel and incitement to violence are all things that we (as a society) have decided are forms of speech that should be regulated.
    - friendlydude12 9y ago
      The first amendment isn’t intended for physical speech. It exists to protect opinions and ideas. It’s for this reason lots of non-verbal “speech” is protected under the first amendment, like online posts and flag burning. Threatening violence or slander has nothing to do with the first amendment.

arunbahl 9y ago

> Ultimately, legal tools should be limited to problems they can solve. Fake news is not one of these problems. False. Replace "fake news" with "false advertising", and there's ample precedent for how this might be achieved. We've got laws at both state and federal levels that make deceptive or misleading claims illegal, to protect consumers; protecting consumers of news media needn't be any more problematic constitutionally.

schoen 9y ago
Courts have commonly treated advertising as less constitutionally protected than other forms of speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commercial_speech
nokcha 9y ago
Imposing criminal or civil liability for false news has a chilling effect on someone reporting even true news if there is reason to believe that the government might disagree with the reporting. I certainly wouldn't trust Trump's DOJ not to abuse such a law. Just look at how the Alien And Sedition Acts were abused. Supreme Court jurisdiction holds that commercial speech (advertising) is less protected than other speech. This is why laws against false advertising are usually upheld while similar laws against other kinds of false speech would be ruled unconstitutional.

jlbbellefeuille 9y ago

I just won a freedom of speech lawsuit against NYC for my startup VUGO. We do not want to make governmental entities the judges of what information is fact or opinion, because the government will pick winners and losers based on what benefits them. The good news is that the judicial branch is in favor of protecting the 1st amendment in all it's forms (press, political, religious and commercial) Although a strong 1st amendment means that the responsibility falls on the citizen. Caveat Emptor...In other words the the consumer of media alone is responsible for checking the quality and suitability of information before a accepting something as fact. We need to do a better job of helping people think critically, I don't know what the answer is, but I do know that government regulation of Free Speech is definitely NOT the answer having fought content-based censorship in NYC.

hirundo 9y ago

Fake news is not a market failure, because there is a large and robust market for fake news. It's driven by our wishes, whims and dreams. To defeat it you'll have to start by defeating those.

losteverything 9y ago

I wish people could live my life before cable and the internet. We are so so much better off now than the 3 networks is all you get days. Somebody in N.Y. decided what important to me, not me. When i wanted a sports score or tomorrows weather I had to listen to 30 minutes of news. As I get older I want to consume Far Less news.... And I can now pick and chose. A much better place than the 1960s or 70s

CM30 9y ago
This is actually a good point. For as much as people criticise echo chambers and fake news and what not, you have to ask yourself whether it was really any 'better' in the old days, or whether you simply didn't know otherwise. Was it better when the government or the church decided what people were allowed to know? When there was one media outlet in a certain medium, like in the UK when there was originally only one TV network in existence? I mean, even the days when it was just newspapers didn't necessarily have an informed populace or people open to other views. It had people who read the same tabloid for decades and got stories that would likely make Breitbart jealous. Fake news may be a hot topic nowadays, but at the end of the day, it's really just a byproduct of anyone being able to become a publisher, and it's probably better that's the case than that one or two organisations can dictate what's newsworthy and what isn't.
- orev 9y ago
  Well, it really was better, for this reason: because you had limited options and limited control, you had to sit/listen/watch/read through segments and articles that you didn’t necessarily agree with, forcing you to be exposed to other ideas. Sure it wasn’t perfect, but there just simply was not an echo chamber like what exists today. Like any healthy diet, your news needs to include things you might not necessarily like, but you could wash them down with the other frivolous bits. Today you can just binge on candy all the time and like any kind of addict, people get really upset when you try to take it away. Further, there was a pretty big stigma associated with buying tabloids, but today you can indulge without anyone having any idea what you’re looking at.
friendlydude12 9y ago

s2g 9y ago

> It does not distinguish between facts and opinion Neither does the author of this piece, apparently. > Courts cannot become fact-checkers Why not?