3 ms·

Does Fake News Create Echo Chambers?

1 points by h2odragon 4y ago

h2odragon 4y ago
> echo chambers are minimal, and the most avid readers of false news content regularly expose themselves to mainstream news sources. ... we find that being exposed to false news content causes households to increase their exposure to countervailing mainstream news
alldayeveryday 4y ago
I was curious how the abstract goes about classifying fake news VS mainstream news (which they seem to imply means non-fake news)... > There exists no general consensus on a list of false news sources. We follow Allcott et al. (2019)’s compilation of websites (that they call “Fake News Sites”) that regularly produce false news stories > We further identify as mainstream news sources those that are acknowledged in surveys as authoritative websites that possess major national readership and produce false news content exceedingly rarely > To compile mainstream news sources, we searched under the keyword “news” in Alexa. From the results categorized under “news”, we selected for our study the top 12 websites in Alexa traffic I disagree with their classification method here, as well as their usage of the term fake news. Their classification model implies that all content emanating from fake news sources are false and that content emanating from mainstream sources are not false. For example in answering their primary questions (cited below) they assume that merely because someone has viewed a fake news website it implies that the content they consumed was false (or visa versa, that if the person viewed a mainstream website the content was true). Oh, and they dont define what true/false news content even means. > how prevalent is false news content? ... we study the behavioral antecedents behind news readership at the household level ... we prescribe how online platforms should tailor their content moderation policies to manage false news exposures at the individual household level So that last question really shows their hand imo. This entire abstract is about how the system can get people back onto the mainstream propaganda train - you know, where all the "true" news content can be found. Heavy eye roll.
incomingpain 4y ago
>However, echo chambers are minimal, and the most avid readers of false news content regularly expose themselves to mainstream news sources. Very curious how they seem to make the assumption that mainstream media isn't fake. This invalidates the entire study. >Based on a structural model of household decisions whether to diversify their online news sources, we prescribe how platforms should moderate false news content. They prescribe eh? They made a biased assumption the mainstream isn't the problem and they they prescribe a fix? lol... Here's the thing. It takes virtually no effort to see the echo chambers over at twitter, reddit, etc. It takes virtually no effort to see literal lies from CNN. Which is why they have a new boss who has publicly made it clear his people need to pull themselves out of their echo chambers. Which is why CNN ratings are so low you have to go back to the early 90s to find similar numbers. 30 year lows...

1 points by h2odragon 4y ago

> echo chambers are minimal, and the most avid readers of false news content regularly expose themselves to mainstream news sources. ... we find that being exposed to false news content causes households to increase their exposure to countervailing mainstream news

alldayeveryday 4y ago

I was curious how the abstract goes about classifying fake news VS mainstream news (which they seem to imply means non-fake news)... > There exists no general consensus on a list of false news sources. We follow Allcott et al. (2019)’s compilation of websites (that they call “Fake News Sites”) that regularly produce false news stories > We further identify as mainstream news sources those that are acknowledged in surveys as authoritative websites that possess major national readership and produce false news content exceedingly rarely > To compile mainstream news sources, we searched under the keyword “news” in Alexa. From the results categorized under “news”, we selected for our study the top 12 websites in Alexa traffic I disagree with their classification method here, as well as their usage of the term fake news. Their classification model implies that all content emanating from fake news sources are false and that content emanating from mainstream sources are not false. For example in answering their primary questions (cited below) they assume that merely because someone has viewed a fake news website it implies that the content they consumed was false (or visa versa, that if the person viewed a mainstream website the content was true). Oh, and they dont define what true/false news content even means. > how prevalent is false news content? ... we study the behavioral antecedents behind news readership at the household level ... we prescribe how online platforms should tailor their content moderation policies to manage false news exposures at the individual household level So that last question really shows their hand imo. This entire abstract is about how the system can get people back onto the mainstream propaganda train - you know, where all the "true" news content can be found. Heavy eye roll.

incomingpain 4y ago

>However, echo chambers are minimal, and the most avid readers of false news content regularly expose themselves to mainstream news sources. Very curious how they seem to make the assumption that mainstream media isn't fake. This invalidates the entire study. >Based on a structural model of household decisions whether to diversify their online news sources, we prescribe how platforms should moderate false news content. They prescribe eh? They made a biased assumption the mainstream isn't the problem and they they prescribe a fix? lol... Here's the thing. It takes virtually no effort to see the echo chambers over at twitter, reddit, etc. It takes virtually no effort to see literal lies from CNN. Which is why they have a new boss who has publicly made it clear his people need to pull themselves out of their echo chambers. Which is why CNN ratings are so low you have to go back to the early 90s to find similar numbers. 30 year lows...