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I very much doubt this. I think the main difference is that the companies and experts who decide on our behalf what is, and is not, fake news tend to be more s

by tharne 6y ago

I very much doubt this. I think the main difference is that the companies and experts who decide on our behalf what is, and is not, fake news tend to be more sympathetic to the left wing than to the right wing. There aren't a lot of conservatives working in tech, media, and academia. The result of this is that a much wider swath of right-wing content is likely to get labelled as fake news in the first place, even things that may be in a gray area or under honest dispute.

evgen 6y ago
When your world-view is in conflict with reality and objective fact it makes it hard to succeed in tech, media, and academia. The stories in question are marked as fake news by third parties because they are easily dis-proven lies.
- tharne 6y ago
  I don't think that's necessary true. When it comes to success in a given field, what's (sadly) most important most of the time is how aligned your views are with others in that field, not how aligned your view are with reality. If you don't believe me, grab lunch with a group of academics in your area.
whalesalad 6y ago
> There aren't a lot of conservatives working in tech, media, and academia. That is because intelligent people can see right through the bullshit. Smart people can be conservative, I used to consider myself one, but lately the delusion and outright commitment to ignorance is too hard to ignore. Cognitive dissonance is at an all time high.
kiliantics 6y ago
I don't think I've ever seen fake news that was left wing, unless you consider something like the New York Times left wing (it's not, it's centre-right), in which case there is a lot of spurious news in the "left wing" of mainstream media. That said, they usually at least get the facts right, they just like to lie by omission, pushing an agenda by cherry-picking data. Far right media goes one step further and often just directly publishes false data to mislead its readers.
cygx 6y ago
I very much doubt this. Why? This may be my ignorance speaking, but I can't think of anything equivalent to QAnon and 'stop the steal' from the left side of the American political spectrum. Russiagate, maybe? That had at least some grounding in reality, and from what I could see, never inspired the same fervor...
drewcoo 6y ago
Example: Russiagate We also have a President who is a known serial plagiarist but suddenly all the fact checkers have disappeared. It's hard to believe, based on his history, that Biden's not scoring some Pinocchios.
- dangoor 6y ago
  On Politifact, at least, Biden does score the proverbial Pinocchio: https://www.politifact.com/personalities/joe-biden/ https://www.politifact.com/personalities/joe-biden/ I used Politifact because their UI makes it easy to aggregate by person.
jfengel 6y ago
There aren't a lot of conservatives working in tech This site seems to belie that. Just looking through this thread I see a lot of conservative posts. That represents "HN posters" rather than tech in general, which does apparently lean liberal. But it also has a large libertarian-leaning-right streak who will defend the rights of right-wing misinformation while calling out left-wing misinformation, asymmetrically.

by tharne 6y ago

evgen 6y ago

When your world-view is in conflict with reality and objective fact it makes it hard to succeed in tech, media, and academia. The stories in question are marked as fake news by third parties because they are easily dis-proven lies.

tharne 6y ago
I don't think that's necessary true. When it comes to success in a given field, what's (sadly) most important most of the time is how aligned your views are with others in that field, not how aligned your view are with reality. If you don't believe me, grab lunch with a group of academics in your area.

whalesalad 6y ago

> There aren't a lot of conservatives working in tech, media, and academia. That is because intelligent people can see right through the bullshit. Smart people can be conservative, I used to consider myself one, but lately the delusion and outright commitment to ignorance is too hard to ignore. Cognitive dissonance is at an all time high.

kiliantics 6y ago

I don't think I've ever seen fake news that was left wing, unless you consider something like the New York Times left wing (it's not, it's centre-right), in which case there is a lot of spurious news in the "left wing" of mainstream media. That said, they usually at least get the facts right, they just like to lie by omission, pushing an agenda by cherry-picking data. Far right media goes one step further and often just directly publishes false data to mislead its readers.

cygx 6y ago

I very much doubt this. Why? This may be my ignorance speaking, but I can't think of anything equivalent to QAnon and 'stop the steal' from the left side of the American political spectrum. Russiagate, maybe? That had at least some grounding in reality, and from what I could see, never inspired the same fervor...

drewcoo 6y ago

Example: Russiagate We also have a President who is a known serial plagiarist but suddenly all the fact checkers have disappeared. It's hard to believe, based on his history, that Biden's not scoring some Pinocchios.

dangoor 6y ago
On Politifact, at least, Biden does score the proverbial Pinocchio: https://www.politifact.com/personalities/joe-biden/ https://www.politifact.com/personalities/joe-biden/ I used Politifact because their UI makes it easy to aggregate by person.

jfengel 6y ago

There aren't a lot of conservatives working in tech This site seems to belie that. Just looking through this thread I see a lot of conservative posts. That represents "HN posters" rather than tech in general, which does apparently lean liberal. But it also has a large libertarian-leaning-right streak who will defend the rights of right-wing misinformation while calling out left-wing misinformation, asymmetrically.