4 ms·

If you can't stop the spread of fake news, then you need to become better at spreading real news. Easier said than done, I know. Edit: When it comes to improv

If you can't stop the spread of fake news, then you need to become better at spreading real news. Easier said than done, I know. Edit: When it comes to improving distribution of and access to real news, there is a lot of low hanging fruit. Consider for instance the unfortunate state of affairs where most fake news is free, but a lot of real news is hidden behind paywalls. I understand that journalists have mortgages like the rest of us, they can't do it for free, but the social value of real news is sufficiently high we should be highly motivated to find alternatives to pay walls.

shishy 8y ago
Is that even a realistic way to combat this? If people have a tendency to gravitate towards bits of information (true or false) that confirm their biases/make them feel good about their beliefs, then I don't see how "real news" can ever win. After all, there's only 1 real news and infinitely many fake news... Or is there a way to think about this problem that I'm not grasping yet?
qwerty456127 8y ago
Perhaps nobody but a humble portion of people consciously interested in real news above "what they want to hear" kind of news is going to pay for real news. Most of the freely available mainstream news channels will always be biased by definition because telling people what they want to hear is the way they gain the ratings they can monetize and manipulating public opinion is a major way of monetization.
intended 8y ago
1) You obviously haven’t seen Indian real news. It’s on the verge of giving fake news a run for its money. 2) this idea that more speech is the antidote, needs to end. 3) it’s the era of content. If there’s better content out there, that content wins. 4) content has no inherent truth value or perhaps any value other than entertainment value for some subset of the population. BBC news is free. Fake news is free, engaging, and customized to touch thing that trigger me, and come from sources that I trust. They match my prior assumptions and other content I have in my head. News will lose, and has been ever since - the news cycle Did it in. Frankly I think the internet creates an information loop that’s too fast for human societies to reflect.
- darkpuma 8y ago
  > "2) this idea that more speech is the antidote, needs to end." Just as you are hopelessly to stop the distribution of fake news, you cannot make people like me stop pointing this out. The problem of fake news is not limited to India, and the existence of free sources of real news, such as the BBC, is not sufficient. We need more sources of free news, written from a wide variety of perspectives from a wide variety of organizations, spread over a wide variety of mediums. The BBC is not always the first to break a story, nor does it always have the best presentation of a story. Sometimes an organization like the NYTs does it faster and better, but the distribution of that story is limited by the paywall. Tearing down paywalls and diversifying distribution channels is the only realistic way of combating fake news. Anything else is a pipe dream.
  - jobigoud 8y ago
    The set of possible false news is infinitely bigger than the set of real news.
    - darkpuma 8y ago
      All the more reason to remove barriers to access of real news.
      - intended 8y ago
        This worsens the problem by assuming that lack of “news” is the problem. Historically news media was already in trouble because of the news cycle. News had to bleed to get advertising to survive. Underlying that was the limited short term attention span of our species. As long as there is only limited mental space for ideas, a fierce competition must exist to take up that space. And to win, ideas that engage our hindbrain win. Sex sells, if it bleeds it leads. Tribalism. This was the case before the internet. The internet through this into over drive. Now we can’t even keep up. More content? People are already saturated. There are hundreds of Indian news channels. But there’s only a few formats. A few talking heads yelling about the same issues and pandering to emotions. A model learnt around the world. —————- Don’t think that There’s things such as real news - sadly today it’s just “content.” Look at what happens when day - ravish Kumar, makes a great show. He loses. Because Arnab Goswami with his theatrics and fake screaming is more enaging. Facts don’t win hearts and advertising time. Most people don’t read articles before responding on social media. They read headlines. Discussing news is discussing a battle already lost. And if this sounds bleak - It’s actually hard to encapsulate how truly hopeless the current scenario seems to be.

shishy 8y ago

Is that even a realistic way to combat this? If people have a tendency to gravitate towards bits of information (true or false) that confirm their biases/make them feel good about their beliefs, then I don't see how "real news" can ever win. After all, there's only 1 real news and infinitely many fake news... Or is there a way to think about this problem that I'm not grasping yet?

qwerty456127 8y ago

Perhaps nobody but a humble portion of people consciously interested in real news above "what they want to hear" kind of news is going to pay for real news. Most of the freely available mainstream news channels will always be biased by definition because telling people what they want to hear is the way they gain the ratings they can monetize and manipulating public opinion is a major way of monetization.

intended 8y ago

1) You obviously haven’t seen Indian real news. It’s on the verge of giving fake news a run for its money. 2) this idea that more speech is the antidote, needs to end. 3) it’s the era of content. If there’s better content out there, that content wins. 4) content has no inherent truth value or perhaps any value other than entertainment value for some subset of the population. BBC news is free. Fake news is free, engaging, and customized to touch thing that trigger me, and come from sources that I trust. They match my prior assumptions and other content I have in my head. News will lose, and has been ever since - the news cycle Did it in. Frankly I think the internet creates an information loop that’s too fast for human societies to reflect.

darkpuma 8y ago
> "2) this idea that more speech is the antidote, needs to end." Just as you are hopelessly to stop the distribution of fake news, you cannot make people like me stop pointing this out. The problem of fake news is not limited to India, and the existence of free sources of real news, such as the BBC, is not sufficient. We need more sources of free news, written from a wide variety of perspectives from a wide variety of organizations, spread over a wide variety of mediums. The BBC is not always the first to break a story, nor does it always have the best presentation of a story. Sometimes an organization like the NYTs does it faster and better, but the distribution of that story is limited by the paywall. Tearing down paywalls and diversifying distribution channels is the only realistic way of combating fake news. Anything else is a pipe dream.
- jobigoud 8y ago
  The set of possible false news is infinitely bigger than the set of real news.
  - darkpuma 8y ago
    All the more reason to remove barriers to access of real news.
    - intended 8y ago
      This worsens the problem by assuming that lack of “news” is the problem. Historically news media was already in trouble because of the news cycle. News had to bleed to get advertising to survive. Underlying that was the limited short term attention span of our species. As long as there is only limited mental space for ideas, a fierce competition must exist to take up that space. And to win, ideas that engage our hindbrain win. Sex sells, if it bleeds it leads. Tribalism. This was the case before the internet. The internet through this into over drive. Now we can’t even keep up. More content? People are already saturated. There are hundreds of Indian news channels. But there’s only a few formats. A few talking heads yelling about the same issues and pandering to emotions. A model learnt around the world. —————- Don’t think that There’s things such as real news - sadly today it’s just “content.” Look at what happens when day - ravish Kumar, makes a great show. He loses. Because Arnab Goswami with his theatrics and fake screaming is more enaging. Facts don’t win hearts and advertising time. Most people don’t read articles before responding on social media. They read headlines. Discussing news is discussing a battle already lost. And if this sounds bleak - It’s actually hard to encapsulate how truly hopeless the current scenario seems to be.