4 ms·

Timing matters when correcting fake news

20 points by samizdis 6y ago

zyxzevn 6y ago
Indeed. If fake news was corrected, trump would have won the 2020 election. Or Bernie in 2016
YinglingLight 6y ago
Just put us into re-education camps, take away our children, and give us 'Domestic/White Terrorism' social credit scores already.
SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Interesting. I would’ve expected labeling to be the most impactful, since you can’t read the information without processing the tag that it’s fake. I wonder what the mechanism is here.
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  It triggers all the people who think it’s censorship to state what objective reality is and contradict opinions stated as fact. Labeling is viewed as bias, whereas correction after the fact is viewed as review.
covidthrow 6y ago
What about "correcting" fake news well after publishing? How does that impact the effects of fake news? Case in point, NYT effectively reframed The 1619 Project well after it was published, after they ignored a significant number of criticisms from some of the best historians, and after winning a Pulitzer Prize. I'm going to guess that most people are completely unaware that they eventually acknowledged that it was fake news. I ask because I don't see social media posts about the project labeled as "disinformation". Is that because it's self-acknowledged at this point, despite already establishing itself as "real"? Is that because the fact-checkers are unaware of the updates? I'm very curious how a more complicated scenario such as this affects people's understanding of the fitness of a piece of work. Any insights or studies that I've missed?
- temp8964 6y ago
  And the "senior White House official" "disinformation".
  - covidthrow 6y ago
    I would like to affirm your criticism, because the NYT, WaPo, et al have used such tactics (and others) in misleading ways, which is dishonest and subsequently could be viewed as "fake news". Sometimes such sources turned out not to be anyone of significance. In other cases, they turned out to be instances of hearsay, or even outdated and irrelevant to the context. It is shocking that a community such as Hacker News can assert demand for all manner of sources in the scientific and technical fields, but when it comes to news, they are more than willing to accept articles in which anonymous, unverifiable sources dominate. One could argue that they defer their trust to the integrity of the news source. And to a point, this is reasonable. But it is also reasonable to draw attention to its potential for abuse, especially in "technically true" but "functionally dishonest" ways. I just think that's hard for some people to acknowledge this potential point of failure/abuse.
- TeaDrunk 6y ago
  This study said debunking afterwards is more effective right in the abstract. The question is whether or not people saw the debunk.
- rriepe 6y ago
  The standards are for the opposition only.
  - covidthrow 6y ago
    I think you are being downvoted in part because your comment is not 100% factual and because it triggers offense by some. But as a centrist, I want to be one to affirm that your statement has been demonstrably true in many (but not all) instances over the last many months and years. (And as a general trend throughout history.) Those who have power in a given domain tend to—at least eventually—wield their power in an unbalanced way. This criticism does not legitimize actual fake news, but does acknowledge that such tools to limit fake news can—and often are—used to also limit undesirable opposition speech. Case in point: Facebook, which tends to favor right-leaning speech, recently banned (and then revoked said ban) of several socialist groups on their platform. While they cite technical reasons, it is feasible that it was a human decision among those in power who wished to limit "opposition" speech. Of course, it could have legitimately been a bug, but it's certainly not believed so by those affected.
colllectorof 6y ago
More research about "fighting misinformation" that doesn't deal with the core issue of what will happen if its methods will be used to label true information as false. In other words, this is a paper that is all about finding better ways to manipulate people.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  Because the objective is not to get people to believe the truth, it’s to get them to agree with your views. A cursory glance at the “top media sources” of the day should make this obvious. All news is propaganda, in the original sense of the word, I.e. propagate.
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
I’d love to see a follow up of basically the same study with different kinds of fake news. If you looked at the 18 fake and 18 true headlines used here, it’s mostly stuff like “woman found 15 years dead on Clinton property” and “trump makes gun comments that anger french.” I’d like to see whether this same effects generalize to the “zomg: coffee cures cancer” sort of scientific illiteracy bad reporting.

20 points by samizdis 6y ago

Indeed. If fake news was corrected, trump would have won the 2020 election. Or Bernie in 2016

Just put us into re-education camps, take away our children, and give us 'Domestic/White Terrorism' social credit scores already.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

Interesting. I would’ve expected labeling to be the most impactful, since you can’t read the information without processing the tag that it’s fake. I wonder what the mechanism is here.

eyelidlessness 6y ago
It triggers all the people who think it’s censorship to state what objective reality is and contradict opinions stated as fact. Labeling is viewed as bias, whereas correction after the fact is viewed as review.

covidthrow 6y ago

What about "correcting" fake news well after publishing? How does that impact the effects of fake news? Case in point, NYT effectively reframed The 1619 Project well after it was published, after they ignored a significant number of criticisms from some of the best historians, and after winning a Pulitzer Prize. I'm going to guess that most people are completely unaware that they eventually acknowledged that it was fake news. I ask because I don't see social media posts about the project labeled as "disinformation". Is that because it's self-acknowledged at this point, despite already establishing itself as "real"? Is that because the fact-checkers are unaware of the updates? I'm very curious how a more complicated scenario such as this affects people's understanding of the fitness of a piece of work. Any insights or studies that I've missed?

temp8964 6y ago
And the "senior White House official" "disinformation".
- covidthrow 6y ago
  I would like to affirm your criticism, because the NYT, WaPo, et al have used such tactics (and others) in misleading ways, which is dishonest and subsequently could be viewed as "fake news". Sometimes such sources turned out not to be anyone of significance. In other cases, they turned out to be instances of hearsay, or even outdated and irrelevant to the context. It is shocking that a community such as Hacker News can assert demand for all manner of sources in the scientific and technical fields, but when it comes to news, they are more than willing to accept articles in which anonymous, unverifiable sources dominate. One could argue that they defer their trust to the integrity of the news source. And to a point, this is reasonable. But it is also reasonable to draw attention to its potential for abuse, especially in "technically true" but "functionally dishonest" ways. I just think that's hard for some people to acknowledge this potential point of failure/abuse.
TeaDrunk 6y ago
This study said debunking afterwards is more effective right in the abstract. The question is whether or not people saw the debunk.
rriepe 6y ago
The standards are for the opposition only.
- covidthrow 6y ago
  I think you are being downvoted in part because your comment is not 100% factual and because it triggers offense by some. But as a centrist, I want to be one to affirm that your statement has been demonstrably true in many (but not all) instances over the last many months and years. (And as a general trend throughout history.) Those who have power in a given domain tend to—at least eventually—wield their power in an unbalanced way. This criticism does not legitimize actual fake news, but does acknowledge that such tools to limit fake news can—and often are—used to also limit undesirable opposition speech. Case in point: Facebook, which tends to favor right-leaning speech, recently banned (and then revoked said ban) of several socialist groups on their platform. While they cite technical reasons, it is feasible that it was a human decision among those in power who wished to limit "opposition" speech. Of course, it could have legitimately been a bug, but it's certainly not believed so by those affected.

colllectorof 6y ago

More research about "fighting misinformation" that doesn't deal with the core issue of what will happen if its methods will be used to label true information as false. In other words, this is a paper that is all about finding better ways to manipulate people.

ceilingcorner 6y ago
Because the objective is not to get people to believe the truth, it’s to get them to agree with your views. A cursory glance at the “top media sources” of the day should make this obvious. All news is propaganda, in the original sense of the word, I.e. propagate.

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago

I’d love to see a follow up of basically the same study with different kinds of fake news. If you looked at the 18 fake and 18 true headlines used here, it’s mostly stuff like “woman found 15 years dead on Clinton property” and “trump makes gun comments that anger french.” I’d like to see whether this same effects generalize to the “zomg: coffee cures cancer” sort of scientific illiteracy bad reporting.