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Everything that's old is new again. Soon everyone will be so completely saturated with this type of news/entertainment, that I bet they'll crave things that ar

Everything that's old is new again. Soon everyone will be so completely saturated with this type of news/entertainment, that I bet they'll crave things that are actually real. I think on HN we tend to be ahead of the curve. Almost everyone on here has completely given up or is giving up on a lot of social media and news feeds.

bobthepanda 7y ago
Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers pushed public opinion for the Spanish American War based on a lie. So the cycle is alive and well.
- emmelaich 7y ago
  An alternate opinion: https://mediamythalert.com/2011/01/13/the-anniversary-of-a-media-myth-ill-furnish-the-war/ https://mediamythalert.com/2011/01/13/the-anniversary-of-a-m...
bilbo0s 7y ago
>Almost everyone on here has completely given up or is giving up on a lot of social media and news feeds. In fairness, HN itself is actually a social media news feed, and is also filled with it's share of clickbait outrage porn. The reality is that no user sourced digital medium is going to be free of these kinds of issues. If you could figure out a way to actually create a system that is free of these issues, you could probably make a billion dollars.
- im3w1l 7y ago
  There is an easy solution but you are not going to like it... require real names. And verify them. And keep track of their reputations. Edit: Proposed this as a solution for disinformation agents. Guess I picked the wrong sub-thread to place that. Sorry for the confusion.
  - killface 7y ago
    this is exactly right. folks could likely get by anyway, but it would be dramatically reduced. until there are consequences for lying online, and as long as there's money to be made by lying, enough people will be assholes and do it.
    - pixl97 7y ago
      Politicians lie in real life and suffer few consequences.
  - tomc1985 7y ago
    Yeah, now if you state an opinion that's too controversial or against the grain you get blacklisted by anyone with enough time to feed your name into a database. Real names: no, no, no, no, no
    - pixl97 7y ago
      Even better as real names are stolen and traded, you can find out via identity theft that you're a real jerk online.
  - lordCarbonFiber 7y ago
    Have you seen the lowest common denominator facebook feed? Plenty of people will post plenty of garbage of their own volition even if you ignore just sharing other sources of clickbait and that's under their own name and face most of the time. Reputation tracking is most useful for detecting bad faith actors (ie the person "just asking questions" but regular participates in extremist forums), but doesn't seem to be enough to promote any sort of self moderation.
  - heavyset_go 7y ago
    > require real names. And verify them. Facebook does this and even requires some users to upload a photo ID to prove their identity[1], and that site is a cesspool. A side effect is that people like me, who have no desire to create a public index of everything they've ever said or done on the internet, will not use those products in any capacity. [1] https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/183000765122339 https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/183000765122339
- cptaj 7y ago
  Or at least a nobel peace prize
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
banku_brougham 7y ago
I think its more like a fire that is burning a system we might have called ‘civic discourse.’ Our societal communication is sustaining damage, it looks like Fury Road on the other side. The theory of moral sentiments, the ideas of The Republic, are an architecture built over centuries of human civilization. The forces of anarchy and disorder are hard at work pulling it down.
- cb504 7y ago
  and behind that disorder and anarchy are corporations and totalitarian regimes looking to weaken democracies for their own self-serving ends.
anigbrowl 7y ago
I think you're dead wrong, and have only to look at the history of yellow journalism (int he US) or the daily cesspool of tabloid newspapers (int he UK) to see that there has always been a large audience for trash.
- cm2187 7y ago
  My problem isn’t that tabloid have and always had a large audience, it is that formerly serious newspapers like the FT are becoming propaganda outlets. Even news agencies which historically had very strong standards seems to think they should put their thumb on the scale, like Reuters embargoing a story on O’Rourke to give him a chance to beat Ted Cruz. There isn’t any neutral, trustworthy news anymore. All news is now about pushing narrative.

bobthepanda 7y ago

Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers pushed public opinion for the Spanish American War based on a lie. So the cycle is alive and well.

emmelaich 7y ago
An alternate opinion: https://mediamythalert.com/2011/01/13/the-anniversary-of-a-media-myth-ill-furnish-the-war/ https://mediamythalert.com/2011/01/13/the-anniversary-of-a-m...

bilbo0s 7y ago

>Almost everyone on here has completely given up or is giving up on a lot of social media and news feeds. In fairness, HN itself is actually a social media news feed, and is also filled with it's share of clickbait outrage porn. The reality is that no user sourced digital medium is going to be free of these kinds of issues. If you could figure out a way to actually create a system that is free of these issues, you could probably make a billion dollars.

im3w1l 7y ago
There is an easy solution but you are not going to like it... require real names. And verify them. And keep track of their reputations. Edit: Proposed this as a solution for disinformation agents. Guess I picked the wrong sub-thread to place that. Sorry for the confusion.
- killface 7y ago
  this is exactly right. folks could likely get by anyway, but it would be dramatically reduced. until there are consequences for lying online, and as long as there's money to be made by lying, enough people will be assholes and do it.
  - pixl97 7y ago
    Politicians lie in real life and suffer few consequences.
- tomc1985 7y ago
  Yeah, now if you state an opinion that's too controversial or against the grain you get blacklisted by anyone with enough time to feed your name into a database. Real names: no, no, no, no, no
  - pixl97 7y ago
    Even better as real names are stolen and traded, you can find out via identity theft that you're a real jerk online.
- lordCarbonFiber 7y ago
  Have you seen the lowest common denominator facebook feed? Plenty of people will post plenty of garbage of their own volition even if you ignore just sharing other sources of clickbait and that's under their own name and face most of the time. Reputation tracking is most useful for detecting bad faith actors (ie the person "just asking questions" but regular participates in extremist forums), but doesn't seem to be enough to promote any sort of self moderation.
- heavyset_go 7y ago
  > require real names. And verify them. Facebook does this and even requires some users to upload a photo ID to prove their identity[1], and that site is a cesspool. A side effect is that people like me, who have no desire to create a public index of everything they've ever said or done on the internet, will not use those products in any capacity. [1] https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/183000765122339 https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/183000765122339
cptaj 7y ago
Or at least a nobel peace prize
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

banku_brougham 7y ago

I think its more like a fire that is burning a system we might have called ‘civic discourse.’ Our societal communication is sustaining damage, it looks like Fury Road on the other side. The theory of moral sentiments, the ideas of The Republic, are an architecture built over centuries of human civilization. The forces of anarchy and disorder are hard at work pulling it down.

cb504 7y ago
and behind that disorder and anarchy are corporations and totalitarian regimes looking to weaken democracies for their own self-serving ends.

anigbrowl 7y ago

I think you're dead wrong, and have only to look at the history of yellow journalism (int he US) or the daily cesspool of tabloid newspapers (int he UK) to see that there has always been a large audience for trash.

cm2187 7y ago
My problem isn’t that tabloid have and always had a large audience, it is that formerly serious newspapers like the FT are becoming propaganda outlets. Even news agencies which historically had very strong standards seems to think they should put their thumb on the scale, like Reuters embargoing a story on O’Rourke to give him a chance to beat Ted Cruz. There isn’t any neutral, trustworthy news anymore. All news is now about pushing narrative.