Fake News

[gatito]

As fake news takes over Facebook feeds, many are taking satire as fact

A lie can spread on Facebook before the truth has even been posted, and even the most savvy news consumers can be tricked. What can we do about it?

 

www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/17/facebook-fake-news-satire

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/nov/17/facebook-fake-news-satire

 

[Karl]

Nothing. It's another of those 'wars on terror' and is the way of censoring the Internet. It is not up to the Government to regulate what we read, it is up to us to use our brains to pick out the trash by critical thinking.

 

If you look at the words 'fake news' it is pretty obvious that it means nothing. Is exaggeration fake news, or underestimation, or error of fact ?

[gatito]

In fact, to bring it back on-topic, it's about Skinner's pigeons.

 

[Brian]

In fact, to bring it back on-topic, it's about Skinner's pigeons.

 

An astute observation, gatito.

[redcairo]

I've noticed how often the re-definition of reality for spin reasons begins with the re-definition of terms.

 

Nobody ever said that an individual posting a meme picture was news.

 

CNN however bills itself as news. And the rest.

 

So "fake news" cannot by default be the free speech of individuals.

 

But it sums up a shocking % of the propaganda on the alleged news channels.

 

But the minute that started to become an openly stated thing, they instantly started pointing the finger at OTHER sources -- not other news channels, that is too close to home, but "social media" -- one of only three sources that is actually supplying the public with legit information about stuff the 'news' sources lie about.

 

(Wikileaks, some alternative news sites most people have never heard of and that are internet-only, and social media -- much of which is totally wrong of course. But I'd never heard of standing rock outside forums and facebook for example.)

 

Mirror imaging, they call that...

 

And "how to bury any search inquiry people make, behind so many results from you and your buddies, they will likely never see the references pointing out that you're the ones guilty."

 

RC

[dawei]

I saw something this morning being labeled as 'fake news' but it seemed the person making the accusation simply disagreed with the 'news'...  so would that be like faking fake new ?

[thelerner]

Fake news is like the 'report' that the Hillary camp paid $3,500 to an instigator to disrupt a Trump meeting.  It was debunked, the original author came forward saying it was satire but it caught on for the alt-right and was repeated often, even here.  A savvy reader should have known $3500 was simply too much. 

 

Its not that such things aren't done by both sides.  For example, Trump had a talent agency pay people $80 to appear in Trump T-shirts and wave Trump signs at his election notification.   News organizations talked to the 'extras' being paid and the talent agency he went through.  And for a few hours work, even in New York, $80 is about right. 

 

More and more news plants are being done.  Worse there does seem to be an industry on spamming message sites.  Not that all messages are fake but its not a small amount either.   An increasing amount seem to be bots and or paid provocateurs. 

[redcairo]

Yes. The news sources that are fakers, are running stories about fake news pointing the finger at others, while plenty of people now familiar with the term, are referring to all news they don't like as fake news. Give it another month or three and the term will have no recognizable meaning worth paying attention to at all. Which will probably, by accident or design, perfectly serve the purpose of the news sources that started it all to begin with!

 

RC

[MooNiNite]

It is actually scary that Facebook and Google will begin censoring things they believe are "untrue."

 

More-so Google..

[redcairo]

Well it is not just that some stories range from completely untrue to varying degrees of accurate.

 

It is also a fake at the whole level of being a news source PERIOD -- like blacking out riots in france 20 years ago for nearly a week, then reporting them as 'disaffected youths' rather than hordes of male middle eastern men yelling allah akbar and throwing molotov cocktails. Like not even mentioning the standing r--- oh look! A pony! Did you hear about Kim's new dress? Like carefully not featuring the most amazing things from wikileaks about current elected leaders while obsessing on some quip Trump said privately in passing to some guy many years ago.

 

It's really a problem far more fundamental and encompassing than merely the accuracy of a given story.

 

Oh yeah, And a TON of allegedly objective 'journalists' are on record as being in collusion with the Clinton campaign to sway readers in that favor --- ahhhhh wikileaks.

 

RC

Edited November 22, 2016 by redcairo

[redcairo]

It is actually scary that Facebook and Google will begin censoring things they believe are "untrue."

 

More-so Google..

 

And twitter's primary investor (aside from one of the original founders) at over 5% stock is a middle eastern prince.

 

Twitter arbitrarily just removes some hashtags (the labels that topics group by and are found by) they decide are inappropriate. To say their decisions have been called into question is a massive understatement. As an absolutely amazing coincidence, the people complaining about this seem to be on the conservative side (e.g. James Woods) rather than the other... they banned what they call 'alt-right' but actually support openly jihadist stuff. So.... https://twitter.com/RealJamesWoods 

 

Also there are numerous screenshot examples of the precisely same things said by black vs. white people or sometimes, rather extreme things by one and not the other, and the white people get literally banned for terms violations while "no violations were found" after complaints against the other -- which is really kind of bizarre -- but it seems like some kind of reverse racism. Really the list goes on.

 

I KNEW that having privately owned social media that became huge would be an open social control psych experiment, and end up arbitrary and political. It was inevitable.

 

RC

Edited November 22, 2016 by redcairo

[dawei]

Its similar to places that channel 'what's trending' stuff... I sometimes say to myself, "really?"...   I have wondered if what is 'trending' is someone behind the curtain of Oz pulling levers. 

[redcairo]

Its similar to places that channel 'what's trending' stuff... I sometimes say to myself, "really?"...   I have wondered if what is 'trending' is someone behind the curtain of Oz pulling levers. 

 

Oh, well that too, that was actual testimonials by numerous former Facebook staff, saying that what was 'trending' was either removed in some cases, or the links sent to certain kinds of sources not others for a given topic, or suppressed altogether, or simply put there when it wasn't trending at all, to 'make' it trending. The complaint wasn't that facebook doesn't have the right to do as they wish given they are privately owned, but rather, that the 'trending' implies that the listing is based on a technical reading of reality and not arbitrary human staff decisions with agenda.

 

RC

[dawei]

Oh, well that too, that was actual testimonials by numerous former Facebook staff, saying that what was 'trending' was either removed in some cases, or the links sent to certain kinds of sources not others for a given topic, or suppressed altogether, or simply put there when it wasn't trending at all, to 'make' it trending. The complaint wasn't that facebook doesn't have the right to do as they wish given they are privately owned, but rather, that the 'trending' implies that the listing is based on a technical reading of reality and not arbitrary human staff decisions with agenda.

 

RC

 

I think it was Yahoo trending that seemed to mimic some of my own searches... right after I searched for them 

 

What I should of done was log into another computer and seen if the trending changes to those computer cookies 

[Brian]

A couple years ago, Obama gave a college commencement speech in which he warned about the danger of too much information and hinting at how something was going to need to be done (presumably by the federal government) to reduce the amount of information available online.

 

Earlier this year and without much fanfare, the Administration declared the Internet a commodity with nation strategic significance which now falls under their purview, much like radio frequencies and running water.

 

Right before this year's general election, I commented here on a press release about how The White House was taking the lead on a coordinated program by various DHS agencies (NSA, CIA, military cyber units, etc.) to counter and take care of propaganda and undesirable activities on the Internet, including on social media.

 

I think this has been in the works for a while...

Edited November 22, 2016 by Brian

[blackstar212]

It is actually scary that Facebook and Google will begin censoring things they believe are "untrue."

 

More-so Google..

It would not come to that if people would stop being trolls and telling make believe stories as true. These fake news sites are as damaging as yelling fire in a crowded theater, maybe worse.

[redcairo]

It would not come to that if people would stop being trolls and telling make believe stories as true. These fake news sites are as damaging as yelling fire in a crowded theater, maybe worse.

 

1. "News sites" are not what is referenced on facebook. News sites have their own websites. They may have a page there like the gazillion individual, but FB is more a personal platform.

 

2. I think it goes without saying that what people think is 'true' is very much in the eye of the beholder. Who chooses? And a lot of actually-fake news sites (e.g. tabloid magazines) often turn out to have stories that later are found to be true. What then.

 

3. Since the allegedly 'real' news sites are lately the ones lying/fake/suppressing, it's a whole lot of gall for them to point the finger at some tiny by comparison, independently owned websites for not being "real news" -- when they are massive, behemoth, country-changing "news" organizations, yet can be as bad or worse as the sources they accuse.

 

4. The problem is in the corporate-owned, megalithic-sized 'news' sources that are "politicized" to use the PC term, or "corrupt and trying to sway people to their opinion even when it means ignoring or even contradicting facts" in plain english.

 

Any censoring done -- as it is already such as on twitter -- is not done "for the good of truth and the children," ok. It's mostly done for political disagreement, it seems.

 

RC

Edited November 22, 2016 by redcairo

[Brian]

It would not come to that if people would stop being trolls and telling make believe stories as true. These fake news sites are as damaging as yelling fire in a crowded theater, maybe worse.

The solution is obvious.

 

We need an international law (can start at the national level) prohibiting unvetted news and an international enforcement agency (again, starting at the national level) to ensure that only properly approved information is spread. Only missing part is a name for this review & enforcement authority...

 

 

 

[blackstar212]

The solution is obvious.

 

We need an international law (can start at the national level) prohibiting unvetted news and an international enforcement agency (again, starting at the national level) to ensure that only properly approved information is spread. Only missing part is a name for this review & enforcement authority...

 

 

 

I think it is called the FCC ?????

[Brian]

I think it is called the FCC ?????

Yeah, leaving aside that whole pesky Constitution thing, the FCC seems to be the agency at the national level. We probably want something with more gravitas and a ring of "truthiness" to it for the coming international authority, though...

[redcairo]

The solution is obvious.

 

We need an international law (can start at the national level) prohibiting unvetted news and an international enforcement agency (again, starting at the national level) to ensure that only properly approved information is spread. Only missing part is a name for this review & enforcement authority...

 

 

 

 

I know! I know!  We'll call it TASS!

 

RC

[Brian]

I know! I know! We'll call it TASS!

 

RC

We're getting closer...

 

[Brian]

I know! I know! We'll call it TASS!

 

RC

Minitrue, perhaps?

[gatito]

Pravda?