Questionable Journalism and Fake News

[dawei]

 

Facebook Mounts Effort to Limit Tide of Fake News

Facebook’s fake news tools are no match for the Facebook echo chamber

 

 

The company says it will use those reports, “along with other signals,” to send stories to third-party fact-checkers who will work to determine whether those stories are fake. Stories found to be fake by fact checkers will be flagged as “disputed” to users and will lead to a pop-up warning about accuracy before they can be shared. Disputed stories “may also appear lower in News Feed,” Facebook said.

 

 

One obvious danger of that approach is that Facebook’s users end up reporting stories not along fact-based lines, but on ideological ones. It’s easy to see that happening when American trust in media is at an all-time low, and partisan sites like Breitbart are quick to declare reporting from established outlets like the New York Times a “sham.”

 

 

Or consider the partnership with third-party fact-checkers more specifically. People who don’t trust media outlets to be disinterested observers will recoil at Facebook handing over the “arbiter of truth” role to those sorts of fact-checkers. “The idea that Facebook is going to let a handful of self-interested organizations decide what’s fake is ridiculous,” Aaron Renn, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a free-market think tank, tweeted shortly after Facebook’s announcement this afternoon.

 

 

FIrst off... I think that FB has been treated a bit unfairly about fake news... meaning, they don't generate it but I understand the concern is they will share it without any any consideration.

 

I heard one of their first comments that, FB is not an editorial platform; they're not trying to control what folks read and that is what editors do (aka: newspapers or new stations).    That seemed as well tempered position at the start.

 

Now it seems they want to have a means to let users flag news and enough "reports" could cause the review of an item that could then be marked in some way.

 

I would prefer to see this get pushed back to news organizations as needing to adhere to some standard of compliance and they rate their news and if they later find this is fake new, they would be required to reset that rating accordingly... as 'data', this would pass to FB and be updated if they update the rating.    

 

FB can make the source very prominent along with the source's rating.   Somewhere else, they can have statistics on how often a sources articles get changed... Google ought to be the one interested in this kind of data idea too.

 

 

Others thoughts?

 

 

 

[Taoist Texts]

 Others thoughts?

 

Nineteen Eighty-Four - Wikiquote

Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984 film based on the novel) ... Then the face of Big Brother faded away again and instead the three slogans of the Party stood ......

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a bootstamping on a human face — forever.

 

 

yes. that bad.

[Enishi]

Fake News = News that contradicts the narrative of the Mainstream Media, Washington D.C and the Globalists.

[Brian]

Who would establish this standard of compliance, dawei? And who would enforce it?

[Aetherous]

They can try to limit free expression, but it will only make a dent. Perhaps this is finally the time for the mass exodus from Facebook to begin. We've started to see that happen with Twitter users moving to gab.ai

[Leif]

Fake news are usually published knowing it's fake. It's done in effort to boost readership, or the portal alone serves that type of audience (interested in such kind o news), or it's political fake news (paid by secret services of certain countries and similar groups). They will not participate in rating.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Leif

[vonkrankenhaus]

It's all fake.

 

Nobody set up the media and any networks just to tell you the truth.

 

They did it to influence and manipulate.

 

Like King James did with his "Bible".

 

 

 

 

 

 

- VonKrankenhaus

[MooNiNite]

efforts by facebook and google to limit information will only cause people to migrate and use other websites.

By not doing a good job, these major companies are going to help other companys rise to power

[dawei]

Who would establish this standard of compliance, dawei? And who would enforce it?

 

I think news organizations would have a vested interest to come together, with tech companies to create some data feeds that pass with news articles.   That's why I mentioned google as another player.   So let's say it is all passed in something like XML... these connections to FB (or whoever wants it) would re-query the data constantly to update the article and rating.  So there would have to be a schema created and news organizations adopt it as a shared platform for their news.

 

One thing I see is that some articles are being updated several times and I think that is a good thing but the problem is, most people don't go back to read the same article... but still an improvement, IMO.

 

An early issue would be few adopt and thus FB would be feeding from few... but they could be feeding from others and just marked as not part of the standard yet... and they get like a '0' Rating to mean... reader beware, unless rated.

[dawei]

Fake news are usually published knowing it's fake. It's done in effort to boost readership, or the portal alone serves that type of audience (interested in such kind o news), or it's political fake news (paid by secret services of certain countries and similar groups). They will not participate in rating.

 

Exactly... and they should be branded as such... refusing to be a part of a news standard on accuracy vs fake...   I know my idea is like wishful thinking but in this day and age, I actually think someone should be considering it.

[dawei]

efforts by facebook and google to limit information will only cause people to migrate and use other websites.

By not doing a good job, these major companies are going to help other companys rise to power

 

To be honest... I find it rather shocking that anyone would use FB for news...   That is why I think if FB wants to funnel news they need a better idea than reader's ratings.   

[Brian]

I think news organizations would have a vested interest to come together, with tech companies to create some data feeds that pass with news articles. That's why I mentioned google as another player. So let's say it is all passed in something like XML... these connections to FB (or whoever wants it) would re-query the data constantly to update the article and rating. So there would have to be a schema created and news organizations adopt it as a shared platform for their news.

 

One thing I see is that some articles are being updated several times and I think that is a good thing but the problem is, most people don't go back to read the same article... but still an improvement, IMO.

 

An early issue would be few adopt and thus FB would be feeding from few... but they could be feeding from others and just marked as not part of the standard yet... and they get like a '0' Rating to mean... reader beware, unless rated.

It would take about a nanosecond for the central government to take it over -- for the good of "the people," naturally.

 

The FCC would carry the ball first, and then the Department of Justice -- then maybe Homeland Security. Until the UN formed a High Commission, that is. I doubt they'd be so bold as to name it MiniTrue but it wouldn't surprise me.

 

EDIT: It will be interesting, though, to see which tech companies and media companies jump on board. In fact, that will be very interesting, I think.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Brian

[ralis]

It would take about a nanosecond for the central government to take it over -- for the good of "the people," naturally.

 

The FCC would carry the ball first, and then the Department of Justice -- then maybe Homeland Security. Until the UN formed a High Commission, that is. I doubt they'd be so bold as to name it MiniTrue but it wouldn't surprise me.

 

EDIT: It will be interesting, though, to see which tech companies and media companies jump on board. In fact, that will be very interesting, I think.

 

In general, the media is incrementally making use of 'the memory hole'. And not to forget Emmanuel Goldstein as the supreme enemy of the state.

Edited December 16, 2016 by ralis

[Brian]

In general, the media is incrementally making use of 'the memory hole'.

And doing so in broad daylight. Conspiracy need not be secretive -- in fact, they are most effective when boldly executed and just as boldly denied.

[Brian]

In general, the media is incrementally making use of 'the memory hole'. And not to forget Emmanuel Goldstein as the supreme enemy of the state.

Nor forget the relationship between Bokonon and Papa Monzano...

[Aeran]

What would be nice is a way to "crowd-source," if that's the right term, reviewing of the news. So maybe create a website where people can go and different articles/sources are ranked by readers, in the same way that places like metacritic and imdb provide consumer ranking of entertainment media, instead of consumers being forced to rely upon "official" reviewers who tend to have all sorts of unexposed motivations and incestuous ties to the industries they're supposed to be reviewing.

 

Of course, ideology would still be a factor, as it always will be, but at least this way it might be a bit more upfront and reflect the demographics of the public as a whole (especially if there was a way to label and sort news based on ideological perspective as  well as quality, making people more conscious of these distinctions), instead of things being sorted into an invisible echochamber by algorithms or preselected teams who all share the same worldviews.

[ralis]

And doing so in broad daylight. Conspiracy need not be secretive -- in fact, they are most effective when boldly executed and just as boldly denied.

 

Lest we forget 'the big lie' which was masterfully refined by Hitler and his murderous henchmen. Larger than life lies are always based on a small morsel of truth and are commonly use by politicians and wannabes

 

Paring down the vocabulary to a grade school level.

[ralis]

What would be nice is a way to "crowd-source," if that's the right term, reviewing of the news. So maybe create a website where people can go and different articles/sources are ranked by readers, in the same way that places like metacritic and imdb provide consumer ranking of entertainment media, instead of consumers being forced to rely upon "official" reviewers who tend to have all sorts of unexposed motivations and incestuous ties to the industries they're supposed to be reviewing.

 

Of course, ideology would still be a factor, as it always will be, but at least this way it might be a bit more upfront and reflect the demographics of the public as a whole (especially if there was a way to label and sort news based on ideological perspective as  well as quality, making people more conscious of these distinctions), instead of things being sorted into an invisible echochamber by algorithms or preselected teams who all share the same worldviews.

 

 

What about critical thinking/self analysis so as to understand why one is susceptible to the subtleties of propaganda? 

[Aeran]

What about critical thinking/self analysis so as to understand why one is susceptible to the subtleties of propaganda? 

 

This would also be nice, but is it realistic on a widespread level? A cultural shift towards greater critical thinking and analysis of news sources would be excellent, but seems like it would also be very difficult to achieve and sustain, at least in the short term.

 

Creating a croudsourced news-review website/app, on the other hand, seems fairly achievable (although I admit I know nothing about creating websites or apps), and could be a good step towards a shift in our approach to analyzing news sources, although of course there is the hurdle of dealing with resistance from within the news industry.

Edited December 16, 2016 by Aeran

[Astral Monk]

To be honest... I find it rather shocking that anyone would use FB for news...   That is why I think if FB wants to funnel news they need a better idea than reader's ratings.   

 

Not shocking--one stop shopping.

 

Ppl add pages of news sites etc to their FB feeds to keep abreast of what the headlines are etc. Hence 'if its not on FB its not on'. If I'm following Fox or BBC or whatever, they have FB pages and clickbait, which are not much different than external site.

 

FB shouldnt be in the business of altering or massaging or tuning the feed.  But they are.  Because when you give ppl power, esp over information, they JUST. CANT. HELP. THEMSELVES. SO rather than being an open platform that allows ppl to connect and express themselves, we have a regulared platform that is specifically tuned according to marketing principles and algorythms to give us a false picture..of ourselves and our 'friends'.

 

8)

[wilfred]

the internet routes around censorship like a virus.

 

god bless the internet.

[idquest]

So Soros will be determining whether a news is a fake or not? Interesting development.

[Kar3n]

http://www.fakenewschecker.com/

[Brian]

http://www.fakenewschecker.com/

I found it darkly amusing that one of the sample articles provided from one of the sites they identified as conservative fake news was about a system being created to label conservative sites as "fake news" on social media platforms.

 

I think it is also interesting to note which names are conspicuously absent from their list...

 

FWIW, as of right now (it may be a brand-new registration), the ownership records for this domain are not just obfuscated but missing.

[Kar3n]

Interesting. I have had time to look at it yet. I saw the url in a Facebook comment and plopped it here until I can get to my laptop.

 

Fake news and Facebook