4 ms·

This is so deliciously meta... news about the spread of fake news appears to itself be fake news, and the spread of said fake news displays all the properties d

This is so deliciously meta... news about the spread of fake news appears to itself be fake news, and the spread of said fake news displays all the properties described in the paper.

jackpirate 8y ago
I hope this was secretly the authors' plan all along.
ajross 8y ago
Wrong science is not "fake news". A retraction by an author isn't a refutation by an antagonist. The conflation of the two, however, is definitely on the spectrum. They messed up and told everyone so. That's pretty much the opposite of propaganda falsehoods.
- kosievdmerwe 8y ago
  Given that retractions have less publicity than their initial publication, I don't see why an unscrupulous entity (talking in the hypothetical and not about the authors) can't use a publication-followed-by-a-retraction to smear something/someone while also trying to maintain legitimacy. The authors get some points for issuing a retraction, but they lose some for not doing proper due diligence first. Especially when they likely published their paper to cash in on the zeitgeist.
  - ajross 8y ago
    Don't know that I disagree with any of that. Bad science is a problem. It's not fake news.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- rjf72 8y ago
  I think the key point here is that nobody knows precisely what fake news is, so we all create our own often times incompatible definitions. This probably goes back to the source of the word. The terms usage seems to have been organized by mainstream media outlets to attack smaller sites. If that sounds controversial check out the trends on the term [1]. It was a basically nonexistent term, in spite of what it means having been a thing for many years, which then spiked to ubiquity everywhere in a matter of days. That reeks of collusion. And so does it's demise. The term backfired and began to be used against mainstream sites when they ran articles that were 'factually challenged'. And though 'fake news' has hardly faded, now that the big players have almost entirely stopped using the term - as quickly as they had chosen to start using it in the first place, it's trending back to 0. You even now have articles such as CNN suggesting we "ban the term 'fake news'" [2], a WaPo columnist suggesting, "It’s time to retire the tainted term 'fake news.'", and so on. [3]. The moral of the story being just yet another telling of Frankenstein. 'Fake news' as a term probably did well in focus tests, but once the term was used in the wild it took on a life of its own leading those that created it to desire nothing other than its extermination. [1] - https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=fake%20news https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=f... [2] - https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/26/opinions/fake-news-and-disinformation-opinion-wardle-derakhshan/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/26/opinions/fake-news-and-di... [3] - https://www.wired.com/2017/02/internet-made-fake-news-thing-made-nothing/ https://www.wired.com/2017/02/internet-made-fake-news-thing-...
  - SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
    >CNN suggesting we "ban the term 'fake news'" What once was a real media outlet arguing to ban words they don’t like... hmm
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    That wired article points to an October 12th article[0] from the Washington Post as first using the term. The term doesn't seem to have been popularized until November 12th, when it takes off[1]. That's a full month later, but given the timing I think it's obvious why people suddenly started talking about it. Trump doesn't seem to have tweeted the term until December 10th[2]. At this point however I think he basically owns it. The British Government agrees with me that the term should be avoided[3]. It seems clear to me that no matter who started it, the word is in essence a propaganda term for 'propaganda.' [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/10/12/facebook-has-repeatedly-trended-fake-news-since-firing-its-human-editors/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/10... [1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2016-09-01%202016-12-31&geo=US&q=fake%20news https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2016-09-01%202... [2] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/807588632877998081 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/80758863287799808... [3] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/10/22/government-bans-phrase-fake-news/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/10/22/government...
  - cbsmith 8y ago
    The other key point here is that it's a lot funnier if you choose one particular interpretation.
- cbsmith 8y ago
  The "news" was the "science journalism", not the "science". Science journalism can often be "fake news"... and a refutation by an antagonist isn't necessary for "fake news". Many of the original news stories about the paper were the "fake news".
wnevets 8y ago
Can we please stop calling mistakes fake news? Fakes news is purposefully fake.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  Can we stop calling propaganda "fake news"?
  - wnevets 8y ago
    why? propaganda is kinda hard to spell.
    - darkpuma 8y ago
      Really? Prop-a-gan-da. It's spelled exactly how it sounds. The term "fake news" is borderline infantile. Maybe we should just redirect en.wikipedia.org to simple.wikipedia.org. Hey, it's simpler right? In fact, let's phase out English from public discourse and all restrict ourselves to Ogden's Basic English. We'll have to rename "fake news" though, 'fake' isn't on that list. It's now "false news."
- wolco 8y ago
  I thought many were unknowingly sharing or creating based on prior false news stories
jcahill 8y ago
This vocabulary level and overall comprehension of the situation are suitable for a child or teen making an old-timey trollface meme about the scenario, not a data scientist.

This is so deliciously meta... news about the spread of fake news appears to itself be fake news, and the spread of said fake news displays all the properties described in the paper.

jackpirate 8y ago

I hope this was secretly the authors' plan all along.

ajross 8y ago

Wrong science is not "fake news". A retraction by an author isn't a refutation by an antagonist. The conflation of the two, however, is definitely on the spectrum. They messed up and told everyone so. That's pretty much the opposite of propaganda falsehoods.

kosievdmerwe 8y ago
Given that retractions have less publicity than their initial publication, I don't see why an unscrupulous entity (talking in the hypothetical and not about the authors) can't use a publication-followed-by-a-retraction to smear something/someone while also trying to maintain legitimacy. The authors get some points for issuing a retraction, but they lose some for not doing proper due diligence first. Especially when they likely published their paper to cash in on the zeitgeist.
- ajross 8y ago
  Don't know that I disagree with any of that. Bad science is a problem. It's not fake news.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
rjf72 8y ago
I think the key point here is that nobody knows precisely what fake news is, so we all create our own often times incompatible definitions. This probably goes back to the source of the word. The terms usage seems to have been organized by mainstream media outlets to attack smaller sites. If that sounds controversial check out the trends on the term [1]. It was a basically nonexistent term, in spite of what it means having been a thing for many years, which then spiked to ubiquity everywhere in a matter of days. That reeks of collusion. And so does it's demise. The term backfired and began to be used against mainstream sites when they ran articles that were 'factually challenged'. And though 'fake news' has hardly faded, now that the big players have almost entirely stopped using the term - as quickly as they had chosen to start using it in the first place, it's trending back to 0. You even now have articles such as CNN suggesting we "ban the term 'fake news'" [2], a WaPo columnist suggesting, "It’s time to retire the tainted term 'fake news.'", and so on. [3]. The moral of the story being just yet another telling of Frankenstein. 'Fake news' as a term probably did well in focus tests, but once the term was used in the wild it took on a life of its own leading those that created it to desire nothing other than its extermination. [1] - https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=fake%20news https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=f... [2] - https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/26/opinions/fake-news-and-disinformation-opinion-wardle-derakhshan/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/26/opinions/fake-news-and-di... [3] - https://www.wired.com/2017/02/internet-made-fake-news-thing-made-nothing/ https://www.wired.com/2017/02/internet-made-fake-news-thing-...
- SlowRobotAhead 8y ago
  >CNN suggesting we "ban the term 'fake news'" What once was a real media outlet arguing to ban words they don’t like... hmm
- darkpuma 8y ago
  That wired article points to an October 12th article[0] from the Washington Post as first using the term. The term doesn't seem to have been popularized until November 12th, when it takes off[1]. That's a full month later, but given the timing I think it's obvious why people suddenly started talking about it. Trump doesn't seem to have tweeted the term until December 10th[2]. At this point however I think he basically owns it. The British Government agrees with me that the term should be avoided[3]. It seems clear to me that no matter who started it, the word is in essence a propaganda term for 'propaganda.' [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/10/12/facebook-has-repeatedly-trended-fake-news-since-firing-its-human-editors/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2016/10... [1] https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2016-09-01%202016-12-31&geo=US&q=fake%20news https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=2016-09-01%202... [2] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/807588632877998081 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/80758863287799808... [3] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/10/22/government-bans-phrase-fake-news/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/10/22/government...
- cbsmith 8y ago
  The other key point here is that it's a lot funnier if you choose one particular interpretation.
cbsmith 8y ago
The "news" was the "science journalism", not the "science". Science journalism can often be "fake news"... and a refutation by an antagonist isn't necessary for "fake news". Many of the original news stories about the paper were the "fake news".

wnevets 8y ago

Can we please stop calling mistakes fake news? Fakes news is purposefully fake.

darkpuma 8y ago
Can we stop calling propaganda "fake news"?
- wnevets 8y ago
  why? propaganda is kinda hard to spell.
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    Really? Prop-a-gan-da. It's spelled exactly how it sounds. The term "fake news" is borderline infantile. Maybe we should just redirect en.wikipedia.org to simple.wikipedia.org. Hey, it's simpler right? In fact, let's phase out English from public discourse and all restrict ourselves to Ogden's Basic English. We'll have to rename "fake news" though, 'fake' isn't on that list. It's now "false news."
wolco 8y ago
I thought many were unknowingly sharing or creating based on prior false news stories

jcahill 8y ago

This vocabulary level and overall comprehension of the situation are suitable for a child or teen making an old-timey trollface meme about the scenario, not a data scientist.