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Until the Internet and social media in particular, there was no way for people to spread information this quickly and efficiently. People are very susceptible

Until the Internet and social media in particular, there was no way for people to spread information this quickly and efficiently. People are very susceptible to believing false information stated eloquently, and this as you say has always been true, but in days past the spread of such information was limited to very disreputable channels and were quite easily countered with that fact alone. "Where did you get that from? Oh, <publication> is full of shit, everyone knows that Joey". Now it takes ten minutes for a Facebook post to be heard 'round the world and people believe it implicitly. Spreading fake news has never been easier, and countering it has never been harder.

Anon1096 8y ago
Your description of the past is really really wrong. In the US "fake news" just used to be the "yellow press" and it was as widely spread as the fake news of today. In fact the Spanish American War was basically entirely started because of the yellow press and the cries of "Remember the Maine" despite the sinking of the ship probably just being an accident.
- Barrin92 8y ago
  > In the US "fake news" just used to be the "yellow press" but nobody doubted that the yellow press existed, and that's the important difference. People knew that they were reading tabloid bs when they opened a paper like this, the authoritative function of trusted news outlets wasn't undermined. Social media disguises itself as authentic. People who influence on social media can do so by pretending to be your neighbour who shares real-life experiences rather than the 'distanced elites'. Regardless of whether they are saying the truth or not. That's the difference and it has had a much bigger impact on undermining a shared consensus about what is fiction and what is real than the historical yellow press.
azangru 8y ago
There is a contradiction between your second and your third paragraph. If people learned that "<publication> is full of shit", they will also learn that Facebook is generally full of shit and will learn to discern between trustworthy posters, gossipers, and posters whom they know nothing about (and so can trust only guardedly). I do hope it's a self-correcting process.
- dcow 8y ago
  I simply stopped using Facebook after I learned it was full of shit.
dizzystar 8y ago
There was plenty of fake news / ideas spread before the internet. The mechanisms were different, but impactful just the same. It also goes without saying that, had Clinton won, this conversation wouldn't even exist, despite the wild amounts of false information about both sides, and the results, that is said about the election to this day. As an exercise, write down everything you believe about the demographics that voted for both Trump and Clinton, then compare that to the polling done by CNN.

Anon1096 8y ago

Your description of the past is really really wrong. In the US "fake news" just used to be the "yellow press" and it was as widely spread as the fake news of today. In fact the Spanish American War was basically entirely started because of the yellow press and the cries of "Remember the Maine" despite the sinking of the ship probably just being an accident.

Barrin92 8y ago
> In the US "fake news" just used to be the "yellow press" but nobody doubted that the yellow press existed, and that's the important difference. People knew that they were reading tabloid bs when they opened a paper like this, the authoritative function of trusted news outlets wasn't undermined. Social media disguises itself as authentic. People who influence on social media can do so by pretending to be your neighbour who shares real-life experiences rather than the 'distanced elites'. Regardless of whether they are saying the truth or not. That's the difference and it has had a much bigger impact on undermining a shared consensus about what is fiction and what is real than the historical yellow press.

azangru 8y ago

There is a contradiction between your second and your third paragraph. If people learned that "<publication> is full of shit", they will also learn that Facebook is generally full of shit and will learn to discern between trustworthy posters, gossipers, and posters whom they know nothing about (and so can trust only guardedly). I do hope it's a self-correcting process.

dcow 8y ago
I simply stopped using Facebook after I learned it was full of shit.

dizzystar 8y ago

There was plenty of fake news / ideas spread before the internet. The mechanisms were different, but impactful just the same. It also goes without saying that, had Clinton won, this conversation wouldn't even exist, despite the wild amounts of false information about both sides, and the results, that is said about the election to this day. As an exercise, write down everything you believe about the demographics that voted for both Trump and Clinton, then compare that to the polling done by CNN.