5 ms·

Google finances Fake News ecosystem

33 points by neves 6y ago

jfengel 6y ago
That's pretty obvious -- fake news makes money the same way everything else makes money. The remarkable thing is that it's something that people would be motivated to pay for, but they don't have to. Some troll farms receive state and corporate funding, but they can make tons of money the old-fashioned way.
jbdigriz 6y ago
The entire basis of this paper is politically motivated and aimed at deplatforming any sites which don't abide by radical leftist progressive propaganda. Any discussion which considers Snopes a valid "fact checking" enterprise immediately loses all credibility. Very unfortunate as the premise that Google promotes or blocks content to suit their agenda is undoubtedly accurate
- madhadron 6y ago
  > Any discussion which considers Snopes a valid "fact checking" enterprise immediately loses all credibility. Citation needed, and alternatives. Also, > radical leftist progressive propaganda Who are all these American Bolsheviks that everyone seems to think have all this power? There isn't really a left, much less a radical left, in the USA at all that I can tell.
  - theredlion 6y ago
    No radical left in the USA? Have you been following the news for the past 2 months?
    - setr 6y ago
      There's an old joke that the hard left in the US have the same policies as the hard right in the EU
      - theredlion 6y ago
        Yep I'm aware of that as I've heard it for going on decades now. You're right in that it is an old joke, because if we're going to act as if the left in the USA now is the same as it was 10 years ago, then we aren't operating in the same version of reality
    - madhadron 6y ago
      I have. There's protestors demanding that we finishing dismantling the American apartheid. Not particularly left. Are there calls for collective ownership of the means of production that I've been missing?
      - theredlion 6y ago
        > Are there calls for collective ownership of the means of production that I've been missing? Apparently yes
        madhadron 6y ago
        Citations? Are you sure you have it in the right direction? There's forces trying to privatize the post office and the schools, which is the opposite.
        theredlion 6y ago
        Source: look at news on the internet from sites other than the ones calling what we have in this country "American apartheid"
        madhadron 6y ago
        I haven't seen any news source call it that. That's my description, and it seems accurate. After all, South Africa based a lot of their system on how the USA operated. But what news sources are we talking about? NYT? BBC? WaPo? Seattle Times? Christian Science Monitor?
        jbdigriz 6y ago
        Apartheid elected a man with no connections, wealth or experience to become the first black president twice in a row and retire a multimillionaire... Seriously you should drop this extreme radical leftist fever dream perspective because it prevents you from having adult debates.
  - jbdigriz 6y ago
    https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-trump-impatiently-dump-fish-food-in-japanese-koi-pond/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-trump-impatiently-dump... This is labelled as "miscaptioned" which is embarrassingly obvious politispeak for a LIE. Not only did Trump NOT dump ALL the food in the koi pond as fake news media breathlessly reported (with intentionally deceptive editing), but he was actually following the exact same action taken by Abe as a dignified courteous guest would do as a sign of respect for a highly regarded leader from a foreign culture. You want more examples?
- asdf333 6y ago
  really? my impression is that snopes is pretty good. why do you say it isn't?
  - theredlion 6y ago
    I've noticed on a number of occasions what appears to be what I would consider a very staunch difference in Snopes' declaration of a claim vs what they say below in their explanation
    - coolgeek 6y ago
      > I've noticed > on a number of occasions > what appears to be > what I would consider (just setting the stage here... making sure we all understand the underpinning of the argument) > a very staunch difference in Snopes' declaration of a claim vs what they say below in their explanation Assuming, for the sake of argument, that there is an appreciable difference between the categorization and the basis/justification on which that particular categorization was chosen, that is a well-known problem with discrete binning. As others have noted, however, in their demand for citations, it is unlikely that any such appreciable differences actually exist.
      - theredlion 6y ago
        No. You provide examples of why you think Snopes is worthy of believing. There is no reason to believe them simply due to the fact that they are posited as an unbiased site. They present information in bad faith then contradict themselves on the exact same page in the explanation of their claim to validity. Burden of proof is on he who makes an outrageous claim, so by all means feel free to state your case as to why you think a particular, clearly untrustworthy website, is worthy of trust
        Can_Not 6y ago
        Snopes sort of just is what it seems to be... I don't expect snopes to be right 100% about everything, but you're the one making an "outrageous claim" while demanding other people prove your vague unsourced allegations wrong.
- marketneutral 6y ago
  Your statement is false and unsourced. The basis of the paper, as stated in the abstract is to "examine the role of search engines and their optimization processes in directing traffic towards junk news & disinformation about COVID-19" - it has nothing to do with "radical leftist propaganda". Also, besides Snopes, the authors list the following sources: AFP Factuel, BBC Reality Check, Correctiv, Les Décodeurs, dpa Faktencheck, FactCheck, Media Bias/Fact Check, Newsguard, Pagella Politica, PolitiFact, Tagesschau Faktenfinder. It is easy, especially for the HN community, to see that overly-sensationalist fake news stories could trip an algo whose purpose is to surface the "most popular" stories. This is fantastic work by The Computational Propaganda Project.
  - jbdigriz 6y ago
    The very first line of the introduction has most blatant heavy handed QUALITATIVE assessment of ZeroHedge as an example of a conspiratorial site which is as antithetical to true science as you can get. In fact, the term conspiracy theory was itself developed by the CIA to discredit any leaks about various clandestine activities they intended to keep this way. This is a bad faith argument and sets the stage for everything to come, culminating in the true intention which is to continue the marxist left on free thought and speech. Every single one of those "fact checker" sites is a known left leaning and supported entity with plenty of examples of mistruth. It's ironic how both the left and right are at least pretending to want to reign in big tech, but for the exact opposite reasons...
biggidywiggidy 6y ago
https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-381-who-will-fact-check-the-fact-checkers/ https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-381-who-will-fact-chec...

33 points by neves 6y ago

That's pretty obvious -- fake news makes money the same way everything else makes money. The remarkable thing is that it's something that people would be motivated to pay for, but they don't have to. Some troll farms receive state and corporate funding, but they can make tons of money the old-fashioned way.

jbdigriz 6y ago

The entire basis of this paper is politically motivated and aimed at deplatforming any sites which don't abide by radical leftist progressive propaganda. Any discussion which considers Snopes a valid "fact checking" enterprise immediately loses all credibility. Very unfortunate as the premise that Google promotes or blocks content to suit their agenda is undoubtedly accurate

madhadron 6y ago
> Any discussion which considers Snopes a valid "fact checking" enterprise immediately loses all credibility. Citation needed, and alternatives. Also, > radical leftist progressive propaganda Who are all these American Bolsheviks that everyone seems to think have all this power? There isn't really a left, much less a radical left, in the USA at all that I can tell.
- theredlion 6y ago
  No radical left in the USA? Have you been following the news for the past 2 months?
  - setr 6y ago
    There's an old joke that the hard left in the US have the same policies as the hard right in the EU
    - theredlion 6y ago
      Yep I'm aware of that as I've heard it for going on decades now. You're right in that it is an old joke, because if we're going to act as if the left in the USA now is the same as it was 10 years ago, then we aren't operating in the same version of reality
  - madhadron 6y ago
    I have. There's protestors demanding that we finishing dismantling the American apartheid. Not particularly left. Are there calls for collective ownership of the means of production that I've been missing?
    - theredlion 6y ago
      > Are there calls for collective ownership of the means of production that I've been missing? Apparently yes
      - madhadron 6y ago
        Citations? Are you sure you have it in the right direction? There's forces trying to privatize the post office and the schools, which is the opposite.
        theredlion 6y ago
        Source: look at news on the internet from sites other than the ones calling what we have in this country "American apartheid"
        madhadron 6y ago
        I haven't seen any news source call it that. That's my description, and it seems accurate. After all, South Africa based a lot of their system on how the USA operated. But what news sources are we talking about? NYT? BBC? WaPo? Seattle Times? Christian Science Monitor?
        jbdigriz 6y ago
        Apartheid elected a man with no connections, wealth or experience to become the first black president twice in a row and retire a multimillionaire... Seriously you should drop this extreme radical leftist fever dream perspective because it prevents you from having adult debates.
- jbdigriz 6y ago
  https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-trump-impatiently-dump-fish-food-in-japanese-koi-pond/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/did-trump-impatiently-dump... This is labelled as "miscaptioned" which is embarrassingly obvious politispeak for a LIE. Not only did Trump NOT dump ALL the food in the koi pond as fake news media breathlessly reported (with intentionally deceptive editing), but he was actually following the exact same action taken by Abe as a dignified courteous guest would do as a sign of respect for a highly regarded leader from a foreign culture. You want more examples?
asdf333 6y ago
really? my impression is that snopes is pretty good. why do you say it isn't?
- theredlion 6y ago
  I've noticed on a number of occasions what appears to be what I would consider a very staunch difference in Snopes' declaration of a claim vs what they say below in their explanation
  - coolgeek 6y ago
    > I've noticed > on a number of occasions > what appears to be > what I would consider (just setting the stage here... making sure we all understand the underpinning of the argument) > a very staunch difference in Snopes' declaration of a claim vs what they say below in their explanation Assuming, for the sake of argument, that there is an appreciable difference between the categorization and the basis/justification on which that particular categorization was chosen, that is a well-known problem with discrete binning. As others have noted, however, in their demand for citations, it is unlikely that any such appreciable differences actually exist.
    - theredlion 6y ago
      No. You provide examples of why you think Snopes is worthy of believing. There is no reason to believe them simply due to the fact that they are posited as an unbiased site. They present information in bad faith then contradict themselves on the exact same page in the explanation of their claim to validity. Burden of proof is on he who makes an outrageous claim, so by all means feel free to state your case as to why you think a particular, clearly untrustworthy website, is worthy of trust
      - Can_Not 6y ago
        Snopes sort of just is what it seems to be... I don't expect snopes to be right 100% about everything, but you're the one making an "outrageous claim" while demanding other people prove your vague unsourced allegations wrong.
marketneutral 6y ago
Your statement is false and unsourced. The basis of the paper, as stated in the abstract is to "examine the role of search engines and their optimization processes in directing traffic towards junk news & disinformation about COVID-19" - it has nothing to do with "radical leftist propaganda". Also, besides Snopes, the authors list the following sources: AFP Factuel, BBC Reality Check, Correctiv, Les Décodeurs, dpa Faktencheck, FactCheck, Media Bias/Fact Check, Newsguard, Pagella Politica, PolitiFact, Tagesschau Faktenfinder. It is easy, especially for the HN community, to see that overly-sensationalist fake news stories could trip an algo whose purpose is to surface the "most popular" stories. This is fantastic work by The Computational Propaganda Project.
- jbdigriz 6y ago
  The very first line of the introduction has most blatant heavy handed QUALITATIVE assessment of ZeroHedge as an example of a conspiratorial site which is as antithetical to true science as you can get. In fact, the term conspiracy theory was itself developed by the CIA to discredit any leaks about various clandestine activities they intended to keep this way. This is a bad faith argument and sets the stage for everything to come, culminating in the true intention which is to continue the marxist left on free thought and speech. Every single one of those "fact checker" sites is a known left leaning and supported entity with plenty of examples of mistruth. It's ironic how both the left and right are at least pretending to want to reign in big tech, but for the exact opposite reasons...

biggidywiggidy 6y ago

https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-381-who-will-fact-check-the-fact-checkers/ https://www.corbettreport.com/episode-381-who-will-fact-chec...