from the no-more-profits-from-false-prophets dept.
Google and Facebook finally announced steps to tackle fake news on their respective platforms this week following increasing pressure from critics eager to halt the flow of falsehoods online.
Both companies said they will prohibit fake news websites from advertising on their platforms, thus reducing the exposure of such articles to the public while also starving the companies of an important source of advertising income.
The move comes after the companies received a wave of criticism over its role in propagating misinformation, particularly in this election cycle in which many observed that a bitter partisan war was potentially worsened by polarizing news sources touting untrue assertions. While the technology companies have in the past been hesitant to mediate the flow of news, this change might signal a change in thought as they come to grip with the real-life implications of lackluster surveillance on their platforms.
Wrongthink will not be permitted, citizens.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @08:34AM
> Wrongthink will not be permitted, citizens.
Uh no.
Those sites were just the latest iteration of SEO link-farming for profit.
Just because they figured out how to hack people instead of PageRank to accomplish the same goal doesn't make them any more legitimate than SEO spam.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @08:47AM
In those rare times I log into facebook, I don't think I've ever seen a REAL ad. They're all for some brain booster wonder pill or vitamin supplement.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by quintessence on Friday November 18 2016, @09:02AM
So where does the Onion figure in all this? Weekly World News? Fnord?
Yeah yeah yeah, their platform, their rules, but this will have backlash as people are essentially getting false assurances from google that all their advertised news is vetted to be true. That can't backfire.
And this essential puts a target on both facebook and google for OM.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @09:42AM
Conflating parody with manipulating is willful ignorance.
If your standard is perfection, everyone is a failure.
And sure, it puts a target on them. Just like there is a target on other media companies.
They chose to get into this business, this is part of the price. TANSTAAFL
(Score: 2) by quintessence on Friday November 18 2016, @01:20PM
Manipulation is in the eye of the beholder. It isn't like this is black and white, from news commentary to even satire. Poe's law exists for a reason.
The only thing willfully ignorant is thinking this won't be abused. It's not like google and facebook are apolitical. And even the most gullible would look askance at the circumstances of being stalwarts for the truth now.
(Score: 5, Informative) by BasilBrush on Friday November 18 2016, @04:09PM
Actually, there is some black. There was lots of completely false news, such as for example The Pope endorsing Trump. It's not political bias to filter out complete lies.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by quintessence on Friday November 18 2016, @06:21PM
Just to be clear: this is taking an article researched by Buzzfeed
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442291/buzzfeed-facebook-fake-news-study-methodology-questioned [nationalreview.com]
especially when Clinton was claiming Pepe was a symbol of white nationalism.
You sure you want to die on that hill?
Oh and
http://www.usapoliticshome.com/pope-francis-endorses-hillary-clinton/ [usapoliticshome.com]
(Score: 1, Troll) by BasilBrush on Monday November 21 2016, @04:37PM
Far right web-site claims right-wing fake news phonomenon didn't exist.
Meanwhile person posting said far-right link denies white supremacist symbol was a white supremacist symbol.
Yes, there was an enormous problem with fake news supporting Trump.
And the green frog-like image was a white supremacist symbol.
And it's pretty obvious you are far-right.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday November 18 2016, @06:56PM
It's not political bias to filter out complete lies.
Yeah, you can say that, but when complete (and incomplete!) lies is all the alt-right has, if we filter these we will be banning a whole political, um, orientation? conspiracy? disinformation operation? something. Banning2. So, it would be political bias. Justified, but bias none the less.
(Score: 2, Troll) by jmorris on Friday November 18 2016, @08:45PM
You can still say that with a straight face after WikiLeaks? You have big balls on ya, give ya that.
If we are discussing the banning of fake news and ANY of the outlets named there escape the list, it is just a political purge of dissent. Somehow I do not think nytimes.com, huffingtonpost.com, cnn.com, etc. are what you are salivating over seeing banned though.
Now to your slander against the Alt-Right. Care to back that bold assertion up Champ? Link to a lie on any of the more main steam alt-right outlets. Not a difference of opinion, not a hatefact, not even a error of fact checking. A lie is a very specific thing, a falsehood knowingly uttered. Show us. You assert that it is all we do, demonstrating this should therefore be simple. So go, read the latest post from the Supreme Dark Lord, or the headline of Breitbart.com[1], anything posted TODAY and fisk it here for our amusement. Show us these lies if they are so obvious to your discerning eye.
Demonstrate for us the Three Laws in action. ikanread was practice target yesterday, your turn!
[1] Breitbart isn't really alt-right but you guys (who generally don't read it and don't really know what the alt-right is anyway) insist it is so whatever.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday November 18 2016, @10:26PM
Show us these lies if they are so obvious to your discerning eye.
No.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @12:12AM
I have no idea why anyone bothers to engage with you anymore, particularly as you have no affinity for truth.
Other than P.T. Barnam's old saw: "there's a sucker born every minute."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @03:14AM
To whom are you responding, my dearly beloved and possibly self-identical AC? I cannot tell if you are talking about jmorris or aristarchus! Since aristarchus is refusing to to engage, as you suggest, I assume you are referring to jmorris? You are not alone, bro!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday November 19 2016, @05:19AM
Yes, versooth! At least P.T. Barnham was only fleecing the Americans of their money, and actually provided some entertainment! Siamese twins, bearded lady, the incredible Fiji Mermaid!!! But jmorris and the alt-right can only produce fake news, like the Pope endoring Trump, Hillary's emails and endless Benghazi!!!!! Plans to take Runaway's 9-11, sorry, his 1911 from him. Profit motivated abortionists, chem-trails, Mormon versions of the Constitution, Vaxxers, Holocaust deniers, Climate change deniers, White supremicists. (This last one is particularly egregious: anyone who has spend any time around the alleged "superior" whites realizes rather quickly that there must be significant genetic damage affecting native intelligence among these volk.)
.
And now it comes out that David Ickes has outed Steven Banning as one of the Lizard People! Jmorris! I am calling you out! Prove to SoylentNews that Banning is not one of the Lizard People! Ickes has this on high authority, by direct supernatural subimbularization, or some thing. Can you prove that he is wrong? Well, punk, can ya?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @06:11PM
Yet parody shows are considered news for some. For example 'the daily show' and 'last week tonight'. Those shows are comedy shows dressed up as news organizations. They even repeatedly admit as much. But they once and awhile look in the camera and go 'i am being serious'. So they are 'news'.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday November 18 2016, @06:26PM
Conflating parody with manipulating is willful ignorance.
Well, I'm sure the right parody sites won't get conflated with manipulation by these businesses. But what about the wrong parody sites?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @03:55AM
There is no such thing as "right" parody programs, sites, or persons. Conservatives run on hate. They do not get, nor understand, humor. Faux News did try to ape the Daily Show, and failed miserably. Not Funny, at all.
It was Will Rogers, a Cherokee from Oklahoma, probably embarassed kin of the Milky Buzzbreit, that said: " Nowadays we have to get our news from our comedians, and our comedy from our journalists." No time to look up the exact quote, may have been "comedy from our politicians", so reality show president that! Rogers died in 1935.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday November 19 2016, @02:04PM
There is no such thing as "right" parody programs, sites, or persons. Conservatives run on hate. They do not get, nor understand, humor. Faux News did try to ape the Daily Show, and failed miserably. Not Funny, at all.
I'm glad we got that all cleared up.
(Score: 2) by Username on Friday November 18 2016, @11:40AM
The Onion leans left, they will never be targeted.
(Score: 3, Funny) by BasilBrush on Friday November 18 2016, @04:11PM
As the Fake News problem leading up to the election was universally right-wing, that's probably true.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday November 18 2016, @07:12PM
They won't be targeted because they lean *establishment*. Particularly now that they're owned by one of Hillary's major supporters...
(Score: 2) by quintessence on Friday November 18 2016, @07:52PM
To me it's less a question of left or right, but more a philosophical stance that the best way to address this is through more speech.
Any of these stories could be debunked. People could engender a more skeptical perspective, especially given it is a political season.
That people are focusing on such a blunt approach for what amounts to a chain email with better graphics speaks more to the continued degradation of free speech, especially from people who supposedly at least pay lip service to the idea.
It use to be the right moving to ban/restrict debil music and like due to undue influence, and now it's come full circle under the banner of people protecting "the truth".
These campaigns never end well, and instead just mark the idiocy of the age.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @09:00AM
Right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @09:44AM
> Right?
That's the job of the non-fake media. And while some are uncritical kiss-asses, not all are.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @10:59AM
What non-fake media? Better still, what is "fake"?
Is it fake to sensationalize to gain marketplace buzz? They all do it. It's a business, after all.
Is it fake to adopt an unbalanced opinion-shaping narrative? They all do that too.
Is it merely positing the empirically false?
Maybe the core question is, "What is journalism?".
(Score: 1) by moondoctor on Friday November 18 2016, @03:51PM
>Maybe the core question is, "What is journalism?".
Now we're getting somewhere... it's a very interesting question. Journalism is not a business in the sense that it's purpose is to create wealth, and holds to different ethical standards. A frightening amount of what is represented as 'journalism' these days is opinion, innuendo and worse.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @04:41PM
Journalism requires standards and accountability. If you won't print retractions, if you won't fire people who fail to apply standards like fact-checking, then its not journalism.
(Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Friday November 18 2016, @08:53PM
Given that MSM (WTVT: Fox channel 13 in Tampa Bay, FL) did fire journalists who refused to present false information as fact I'm not sure where you think you are going to get 'non-fake' news in the land of the free.
There is a very old joke from the 80s about communist Russia and the press. "The difference between the US and Russia is that the Soviets know their press is controlled." Here we live in the delusion that the US has a free press .. and we do, sort of, to a degree, kind of, or we did, once, a long long time ago.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday November 19 2016, @03:52AM
The US does have a free press. Free in the sense that the press can publish most whatever it wants, whether true or not. This goes back at least till, IIRC, Jefferson vs Adams, where each bought newspapers to publish their versions of the truth, whether actually true or not.
It's the problem with freedom, it includes the freedom to do dishonest shit and as long as people support it, what can you do?
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Friday November 18 2016, @10:19AM
But that isn't fake. One terrorist phone or message or email couldn't be read due to encryption is all the proof needed - see the entire plan for every terrorist attack in the next decade are in there, we just can't read it, therefore the terrorists are winning due to encryption. Proved.
[ The smart reader will immediately notice the flaw in the argument and produce a new terrorist plan that couldn't possibly be in the encrypted device/message because it is newly created. The smarter reader will STFU about the flaw in the argument to avoid being jailed as a example of a terrorist who didn't use encryption, thus proving the argument by exception. ]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Friday November 18 2016, @09:03AM
If the prior arbiters were not nearly-all universally headquartered in NYC, and held urban-area views, this would never had become a problem. The Left's endless attacks on tiered government [slate.com] and everything else that isn't orthodox to big city beautiful people created a credibility gap that Fox News and these shady sites fill. The former titans of opinion are now running shock articles themselves [washingtonpost.com]. At what point does "legitimate news" become more than titillation and trolls with typewriters?
Hopefully some right-minded folks will make their own Googles and Facebooks and we won't need to fill the pockets of those trafficking in opinion shaping, or at least ones that aren't opposed to the views of half the country.
Tips for better submissions to help our site grow. [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Informative) by choose another one on Friday November 18 2016, @12:43PM
> Hopefully some right-minded folks will make their own Googles and Facebooks and we won't need to fill the pockets of those
> trafficking in opinion shaping, or at least ones that aren't opposed to the views of half the country.
Is "right-minded" the opposite of "left-minded" or the opposite of "wrong-minded" ?
Is "wrong-minded" definable other than "has a different opinion to me" ?
Is "left-minded" definable other than "has a different political opinion to me" ?
Having a social media platform that isn't opposed to the views of half the country, yeah, great idea, but umm... which ****** half ?
More echo chambers is not the solution, echo chambers are the problem, losing the ability to see things from another's point of view because we are so wrapped up in our own movie (see http://blog.dilbert.com/post/152900725676/the-last-confirmation-bias-test-of-this-election [dilbert.com] ) that we regard any other version as "false" because it doesn't fit with our version of "true" is the problem. We have lost perspective. We need to regain it somehow, get out of the echo chambers, out of our movies, because we all have to live in the same real world.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday November 18 2016, @05:10PM
Come to gab.ai and see how it works. The only censorship from the system itself is for things that are illegal and would bring liability to Gab itself. They then give YOU tools to filter what you get and YOU are free to use or not use them as you think wise.
That is how the Right builds social media. We know we can win the argument on a level field and build with that assumption in the design plans. Of course the legacy social media platforms SAID they were open platforms, but we all should know what the 1st Law of SJW is by now, right? Difference is Gab and the new Alt-Tech being built is being explicitly designed to resist SJW entryism to prevent their being consumed and converged to serve social justice instead of their original purpose.
The Left depends almost entirely on controlling the Narrative to win. This time they controlled the Legacy Media, the Academy, the Entertainment Industry, all the 'commanding heights of the culture'. The only thing they didn't have a firm grip on was a few spergs and shitlords posting memes on the Internet. So it is totally obvious that the solution is to drop heavy handed censorship on em, right?
More echo chambers is not the solution, echo chambers are the problem..
Ok, so now that you know the legacy social media can't avoid being echo chambers, by virtue of adopting policies to purge all opposing views, are you closing your accounts and moving to open systems? Have you registered for a Gab account yet?
(Score: 1) by evil_aaronm on Friday November 18 2016, @05:54PM
"Win the argument"? The Right's argument is that "government should be small," but yet intrusive in our personal lives - dictating against abortion, gay marriage and butt sex, as if any of that concerns them. The Right's argument is that minorities and non-Christian religions are certainly *not* equal to white Christians, and often not worthy of any sort of decency. The Right's argument is that men rule, women drool: fuck equal pay for equal work; women should be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. The Right's argument is that everyone else should suffer so the 1% can profit.
If that's the kind of shit you believe, there's nothing for us to discuss; I have no use for you.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @06:54PM
Sounds like your mind's made up, with no chance of fact or reason intruding into your awareness. "There are only two labels, and everyone who has a label slapped on them is 100% for the best/worst of everything attached to the label."
Grow up, small child.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday November 18 2016, @06:56PM
Nice strawman you are debating. Lemme clue in to what your actual opponents want.
The Right's argument is that "government should be small," but yet intrusive in our personal lives..
This only seems a paradox because you can't escape your narrow thinking. Government doesn't need to be one global entity settling policy for everyone on the planet. It doesn't even need to make all decisions in Washington D.C. Accept that new idea and your confusion will begin to resolve itself.
Diversity is more than people of every color and preference for where and what they use their genitals for coming together to think exactly alike.
dictating against abortion, gay marriage and butt sex, as if any of that concerns them
Question, and it is a serious question. Did you know that most Constitutional scholars, even Progressives ones, are in agreement that Roe v Wade was a bad decision from a Constitution Law point of view? That it was a textbook case of judges making law? Even the ones who like the result admit it can't be defended with reason. Stop here and use Google to confirm what I just wrote because you aren't going to believe it from me. It is important that you understand this idea.
So it was an error and is going away, it is only a matter of when. Now what happens after that error is corrected? Fifty States had various laws on the books when the SCOTUS swept them all away; those laws will return and likely be revisited by the States. CA, NY, etc. will probably go as far as Congress allows, full on infanticide if they can get away with it, meanwhile most States will restrict it more than current Supreme Court Law permits. The end result is more people are going to be happy.
Your team framed the argument as "Marriage Equality" in an attempt to win by control of the language. Now consider a different way to frame the debate. We see it as "Marriage Redefinition". We believe that marriage is a concept common to every known human culture and that though we use a different word in every language they all mean basically the same thing. With one exception[1] they mean one male mated to one or more females. It isn't about love, it isn't about inclusion or any of that new age babble, it is about organizing a civilization in ways best for propagating the species and thus the civilization. Your team demanded that, without the slightest justification other than feelz, everyone redefine the concept in ways we believe make the institution less useful for the intended purpose. When we raise reason based objections we get HATER yelled at us, which we don't consider a valid argument. So what I want from you is for you to try considering the issue from both sides and at least admit that there ARE two sides to the debate. Then again, ponder the idea that the magic of Federalism would help allow both sides to live in the same country.
As for butt sex, we were ok with tolerance. But your team made it clear that wasn't nearly good enough. Acceptance wasn't even good enough. No, they thought they had the whip hand and doubled down to full on submission. Never again would there be a day without gay rammed in everyone else's face. Not content with winning the war, doubling down with World War T before they even finished bayoneting the wounded from the Gay Wars, Queer progs joined the racist progs declaring they were looking forward to the extinction of cis white males. And we aren't really shocked that mentally unstable people given a little power went totally batshit crazy and became some of the sorest winners ever seen in history, mostly saddened; because the backlash is probably going to be stuffing their ass all the way back into the closet for decades.
If you would like to see the rest of your strawmen ignited I can do that, but since I'll probably just get a "Fuck you!" as reply.....
[1] I got called for saying without exception, and got schooled.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @07:18PM
Ugh, there really is no hope for a valid discussion here. I agree the GP threw around some pretty nasty labels, but quite a few are true.
full on infanticide if they can get away with it
See, its not a lie to say the conservatives want to ban gay marriage because it hurts their "feelz". How does it impact you? How do straight marriages suffer from the fact that two homosexual people are married??? The conservative base is authoritarian and the opposite of freedom (except within your confined modes of thinking) and spewing shit like infanticide just shows how much kool-aid you've swallowed.
Sweet baby jesus, jmorris you make me understand why some people predict that civil war is the only next step. There is no reasoning with you at all, your viewpoints are so polarized that there is no discussion. Just angry yelling back and forth.
(Score: 2) by dry on Saturday November 19 2016, @04:17AM
It does seem that the enforcement of basic human rights does have to come from the top down. Otherwise you end up with jurisdictions denying basic rights such as the freedom of expression. Perhaps you like the idea of your State/county/municipality being able to illegalize various forms of speech.
Then there is the question that you raise about who gets human rights. Do dead people have the same rights as the living? What about potential people? You bring up infanticide and then seem to equate it to killing a potential. Where do we draw the line. Where I am, it's pretty simple, a human being is a living breathing person. When you're born (alive), you're a person.
In most societies, marriage is a union of 2 (and sometimes more) people. Lots of societies haven't cared about what genitals those 2 people have. Seems to be a Jewish Christian Muslim thing based on some goat herders morals. Having people in society without children to help raise other children is a net positive. Americans knew this before the crazy followers of the bible showed up.
You seem to be like whats his name who said "Give me Liberty or Death" so he had the freedom to go home and whip the 55 slaves that he owned. Should liberty include the freedom to own people and do what you want with them? Most of your speech seems to be that is what you believe, or at least to remove others freedoms as your personal social justice war.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Sunday November 20 2016, @12:30AM
This only seems a paradox because you can't escape your narrow thinking.
Yup.
We see it as "Marriage Redefinition". We believe that marriage is a concept common to every known human culture and that though we use a different word in every language they all mean basically the same thing. With one exception[1] they mean one male mated to one or more females. It isn't about love, it isn't about inclusion or any of that new age babble, it is about organizing a civilization in ways best for propagating the species and thus the civilization.
And there is your narrow thinking.
See, your definition is not my definition, it isn't even the definition of the mainstream church I was raised in (so that must be at least two exceptions). In fact (it isn't clear - ambiguous parse failure) you may to be trying to conflate _two_ very different definitions (monogamy and polygamy, raising the quesiton is polygamy many people in one marriage or one person in many marriages?) into one in order to argue that everyone thinks the same. In my reality, monogamy and polygamy are a classic example that proves there is no universal definition of marriage - not even close.
You've also left out of your definition the duration / permanence of marriage (e.g. until death, until divorce, until husband says certain words three times, or only for a few hours) and who organises and controls marriage (church or state). Those are rather important, some would say the most important, features of marriage. Throughout history many many people have died in disputes around those parts of the definition (at least since the English reformation but probably before that too). Where I live, "church vs state" is still not decided, and each couple has to decide if they want a religious marriage, a civil marriage, or both - and for most religions the definition is _not_ the same as the civil marriage, and some people may not even qualify for one or the other because the rules are so different.
With so many definitions of marriage, and so many changes in definitions over the centuries, it should not be surprising that there are some people who would not _need_ to redefine marriage in order to facilitate an equality-of-access argument for same-sex couples. To you it seems illogical without a fundamental redefinition, to them it is not, because your definitions are different to start with. Note: "different", not "wrong", on both sides.
The good news is that you probably don't need to change your definition (unless you personally want a same sex marriage - but that is your internal conflict to resolve), with the caveat that I am not sure where you are, but everywhere that I have looked at this issue is handled in the same way as the church-vs-state issues around marriage definition - agree to disagree. Your rights to get married according to your definition are not affected, and (typically) religions retain control of their definition and can make their own decisions on it, as they always could - the first place you could get married as a same sex couple here was in fact in a church, purely by decision of that church, civil marriages came later.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday November 20 2016, @08:47PM
See, your definition is not my definition, it isn't even the definition of the mainstream church I was raised in
But you just agreed that it IS a question of definition, not equality. And I can assure you that not so long ago, back when your church was a religious institution instead of a social justice converged organization, it agreed with my position because the very idea there could be a different one was such heresy it has no place in any major world religion a hundred years ago, hell, you would be hard pressed to find one thirty years ago that wasn't just a Communist front group. Just depends whether you hold to the religious belief that History only flows one way, to the Sunny Uplands or do you hold a more pessimistic view (I say realistic) that societies rise and fall again and that we have been in a decline toward decadence and decay for quite a while now. Anonymous Conservative says it is natural r/K selection at work as resource availability varies over time. Take your pick, opinions are like assholes.
With so many definitions of marriage
Not really. Every human culture used marriage as part of their customs to regulate the sexual practices and mating behavior of their society. The definition was remarkably stable until the last couple of decades. In cultures with large gender imbalances (usually due to violence) they almost always permitted men to marry multiple wives, otherwise they tended toward 1-1 because they were all solving the same basic problems. Men must have (reasonably) certain paternity and rights be to motivated to perform the support function needed to permit females to perform their vital function of producing the next generation. Large numbers of unattached men must be discouraged to prevent the social instability they cause, unattached single women cause different but equally destabilizing problems. Every civilization evolved very similar solutions to these similar problems. Men and men, women and women are not problems that required solving. Redefining civilization itself for their feelz makes for a less functioning civilization. As does the rest of the sexual revolution btw, no fault divorce, shame free single motherhood, PUAs sluts and hookup culture, etc.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @07:02PM
Do they have a "jmorris" filter? Can we get one of those here?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Friday November 18 2016, @09:18AM
Worth a read: The Term "Fake News" Joins "Hate Speech" As A New Tool for Ideological Speech Suppresion [coyoteblog.com]
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @10:06AM
Not really.
Some rando blogger with his panties inatwist.
Seen that a million times before.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @12:17PM
Wrong! [gatestoneinstitute.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:09AM
Some rando blogger with his panties inatwist.
Wrong! [gaintestineinstutute.org]
So, I take it the randy blogger's panties were untwisted? How does that concern SoylentNews? Soylentils what to know!
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday November 18 2016, @03:19PM
I agree that there seems to be a lot of stuff conflated under the term "fake news" right now, from parody and satire to deliberate ideological lies, to sites which simply have a strong political slant (but which tend to interpret facts and stats "creatively" sometimes). That last category, as discussed in your link, doesn't seem to fall under "fake news" to me.
But rather than blaming this conflation entirely on what you call "SJW censorship," I'd propose that part of the issue is the way all of the above types of sites have been used similarly in this election. It's well-known that many satire and parody headlines have been passed around Facebook as if they were "real news," and many of those stories are reposted and "liked" because they SOUND kind of like the rhetoric found on a more "real" political blog/news site like Breitbart or whatever. (Frequently, many people who pass the stories around don't even seem to get past the headline or first paragraph, where they are even some obvious clues that it's a hoax.)
So, while we should be concerned about "censorship" of alternate viewpoints, the fact of the matter is that lots of people -- on ALL sides of the political spectrum -- have completely stopped "fact checking" or even bothering to read the propaganda (or humorous satire!) they're spreading. And to some people, it's become hard to even figure out what's parody or serious anymore. Frankly, when I have read some extremist "news articles" meant sincerely by both extremist right-wing and extremist left-wing sources, I've sometimes wondered, "Can these people possibly be serious?"
That's not to excuse inappropriate attempts at censorship, but the increasing polarization and feedback loops of media "filter bubbles" facilitated by various internet services that provide you more of "what you like to hear" means that people literally seem to be living in different "realities" governed by different sets of "known facts." It's hard to be objective in characterizing the validity of news sources given that situation.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday November 18 2016, @04:31PM
The interesting (scary) thing to me is that it provides a path to delegitimize any sort of news that's not sponsored by one of the major networks. Someone actually finds something out and hands it off to the "correct news" orgs only for them to ignore it because it doesn't satisfy their narrative, and then gets angry and screams it from the rooftops on their own site? Swept under the rug. Any new news site that pops up that might actually BE legitimate? Poof. Wikileaks? Wikileaks is gone unless you go to them directly and do your own trawling, and then you can't share it. It's a snappy two word response to make anything inconvenient disappear rather than actually attempting to refute the content. Meanwhile, blatant content-free HuffPo tabloid articles and NYT hit-pieces are firehosed all over your face.
Disinformation is forever.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @04:51PM
"some people"? Saudi Arabia was recently re-elected to the UN's Human Rights Council but there are countless examples where the known facts make a parody of the official narrative.
This is confirmation bias combined with functional illiteracy [wikileaks.org]. Rational individuals will give both sides of an argument equal weight and consideration before making a judgement call.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @10:04AM
never believe it will be exploited. or sold.
today it's 'fake news'. tomorrow it's pirate sites. next it's places like soylent. (it's obviously ripping off slashdot a well known brand owned by a large company....)
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @10:40AM
By that logic, we are already doomed since google and facebook have refused to run ads on all kinds of content for years now. Google for over a decade.
But yeah, the end is coming because refusing to fund content via advertising is censorship.
BTW, you are now required to give me $100 so that I can afford to write another post. If you don't pay up, you are a damn dirty censor.
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday November 18 2016, @04:20PM
I think you have the order wrong, wasn't it pirate sites, then fake news?
I am not sure about that. I think that banning sites similar to larger ones has heretofore been outside the scope of the "no thanks" advertising purges.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Friday November 18 2016, @03:39PM
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
- H.L. Mencken
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Username on Friday November 18 2016, @11:36AM
Facebook has been hiding right wing news for years, until they were called out for it by Louder with Crowder when they paid Facebook to advertise their articles and they did the opposite and suppressed them. Now they can continue that agenda by labeling it “Fake News.” Nice scam they got going, almost as good as the apple store.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Friday November 18 2016, @10:59PM
Facebook has been hiding right wing news for years
On the other hand, the left can't meme, and I "liked" about 5000 memes over the course of the campaign.
The primary result is 10% of my friends came out as a step or two short of 1488 including some folks I never would have guessed, and maybe 5% occasionally posted what the left thinks are memes but they mostly sucked, disinfo crap from content farms, mostly. "The world is absolutely starved for love" and stuff along the lines of if only we call white people stupid and ignorant one more time THEN they'll vote for us. Which worked really well LOL. Meanwhile countering her 5 low energy posts I liked about 50 rare pepes where at least 10 were LOL funny.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @06:25AM
Facebook has been hiding right wing news for years,
Found the problem! You are wrongly assuming there is such a thing as "right wing news"! That is the "fake news" we are all talking about! News is just news, facts, stuff that is true. "Right wing news", if there could be such a thing, is just what the right wing wishes were the news, but is not, so it equates to "fake news". Do you understand, now? I could repeat. As Stephen Colbert said, reality has a well know liberal bias, and that bias is otherwise called, "reality", also known as "truth". So, I want you, illiterate and uneducated right winger, to go out and do something stupid, like discriminate against one of your fellow citizens because of one of your idiotic "right wing" values. Do it right now, because Trump won! Yeeee hahhhh! Of course, such behavior is illegal, and so we will be able to identify you, arrest you, incarcerate you, and spit on your stupid racist ass because you were too stupid to recognize that "right wing news" is not news. So act out! Do it now! Although it doesn't really matter, because this is not going to change. Discrimination is against the law, and will always be, no matter who is president. Feel lucky, punk?
Well, do ya?
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Friday November 18 2016, @11:44AM
Because youtube falls in the category 'fake news' as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyS3Ghevf2I [youtube.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @06:59PM
No need; I do that for them already. Thanks, Adblock Latitude!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @11:46AM
I look forward to the end of 'fake news'. Instead of hearing about violence at Trump rallies from Trump supporters, we would have heard about the DNC paying professional agitators in an attempt to create an unfavourable media narrative? Instead of hearing about 'Trump protests', we would hear only about the Soros funded MoveOn coaching in paid protesters? Instead of hearing about war crimes committed by Syrian and Russian forces, we would hear about the US arming terrorist groups?
Yes, we all look forward to the end of 'fake news' and salute Google and Fakebook for their valiant efforts.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday November 18 2016, @06:38PM
“I think Trump is in the White House because of me. His followers don’t fact-check anything — they’ll post everything, believe anything,” Horner, 38, told the Washington Post. [nypost.com] “His campaign manager posted my story about a protester getting paid $3,500 as fact. Like, I made that up. I posted a fake ad on Craigslist.”
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @07:37PM
Wow, did he also fake the video evidence where DNC affiliates admit inciting violence at Trump rallies? [projectveritasaction.com] Did he also fake the Chicago video with all the busses? [zerohedge.com] Did he also fake the public record showing George Soros contributing to MoveOn and groups around BLM? This guy sure has faked some unacceptable violence [youtube.com] huh?
None of this stuff really happened. It was all 'fake news', made up some douche on facebook. That's right citizen; Go back to sleep, keep paying taxes and keep supporting 'real news' sources like your eternally benevolent corporate media.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday November 18 2016, @12:36PM
OTOH I still think that Google and FB should be able to censor whoever they want, it is impossible for them to get regulated without law enforcement taking over the whole infrastructure. The only regulation I would like to see would be for them to stop using propaganda terms.
Google is not a search engine, it is a search bubble manufacturer. Facebook is not a social site but a news bubble manufacturer. And let's not get into Federal reserve...
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Friday November 18 2016, @02:41PM
Ah yes, if only it weren't for that “fake news” (WaPo excepted of course!) we'd have unlocked the “female head of state” achievement. Yeah, I get how upset y'all are. I've been on double secret probation since the election. Then why the hell did you nominate Wall Street's lizard person liaison (with a worse record on LGBT stuff than the sleazeball the other team was nominating)? Speaking of the nomination process, why not just as well put WaPo on double secret probation instead for acting like Sanders wasn't even running?
No, Google, you don't get it. You can't stop the signal, Mal! And the more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers? Yeah, something like that.
This isn't about any process happening on an intellectual level, and Google should know that the best way to make something popular is to make it forbidden. At least we got somebody who isn't completely terrible. Imagine if Lyin' Ted had won! It's bad enough that Pence is one unfortunate event away from the Oval Office.
Keep on going down this path, and next time we might just get literal Hitler!
(Score: 0, Troll) by oldmac31310 on Friday November 18 2016, @04:41PM
off your meds?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @10:52PM
Take a nap, your humor reserves are running low.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @02:54PM
so now we need facebook and google to filter our news for us? supporters of this shit deserve what's coming. you are disgusting, groveling slaves. way to tow the party, csmonitor! not that i'm surprised. next the powers that be will have all the mega churches preaching censorship as religion, if they don't already.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday November 18 2016, @03:09PM
I'm wondering just how good an idea the NSA's and CIA's enablers now think it was to give them a free pass on their crimes and even encourage them to do more. Do you think they're re-thinking that issue at all? How sanguine are they now about normalizing assassination-by-drone? Extraordinary rendition? How about government-sponsored hacking? Putting backdoors in all encryption?
It's a bittersweet moment for all of us who warned them then to be saying, "I told you so," now.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday November 18 2016, @07:08PM
so now we need google to filter our news for us?
You understand that the entire purpose of a search engine is to filter stuff, right?
When searching for news most people don't actually want to find completely fake BS.
(Score: 5, Informative) by jmorris on Friday November 18 2016, @03:47PM
We know how this is going to end up. Not in years, not months, days.
We see Twitter out front already wildly swinging the banhammer at the exact same time the other two monsters of the midway announce efforts. If they really just dropped the few really egregious examples of sites registering domain names really close to mainstream news outlets and posting fake stories, that would probably be a net improvement of the net. But they wouldn't need a big press release for that and they wouldn't be doing it right after a huge electoral loss while they are still #salty.
Notice they went out of their way to avoid actually saying what they are planning on banning. But we can get clues from what YouTube (an Alphabet Company) was doing before election day by putting content warnings on the ads coming out on the official Trump campaign channel and not making them searchable. You could still follow a direct link in to view them but they were otherwise made invisible. Let that sink in for a moment. We aren't talking about 4chan peeps posting videos with dank memes featuring Pepe, we are talking about professional campaign ads from the nominee of one of our two major political parties. Doesn't matter what side you were on, do you think that is a healthy thing for a near monopoly company to be doing? Now raise your hand if you think these new rules will be less blatant than the heavy handed political suppression they are already engaging in.
Btw, regarding the YouTube antics, if Trump used anti-trust law to smash Google into bits in revenge for that stunt, I for one would say nothing. Because stupid needs to hurt if we are to Make America Great Again.
But finally, we know what they are doing here because all three (Google, Facebook and Twitter) are all SJW converged companies. What are the Three Laws of SJW? More important, what is Law 1?
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Friday November 18 2016, @04:13PM
I feel like the last question is checking if we read your linked articles a few days ago...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @05:26PM
how is this different from draining the swamp?
I'd much rather people did nice things than bad things, but I can tell you this -- if soylent ever accepts money to promote political ads, I'll visit here as much as I do twitter -- which is never.
I dont need a social machine shaping my bubble, I already have my own outlook to do that.
It sounds like what you want is for these companies to be regulated like broadcast television networks, and to rendered unable to twist the results in the ways you have described by filting content in the ways you describe.
Libertarians do not have a problem with this. The companies can be run however the companies want to run them, and our free market lets us pick a solution that can replace it, correct?
I believe the gab.ai fills this role for libertarians that don't believe its right for other libertarian tendencies to compete with their own. Conservatives, too.
Perhaps it would be easier for all offended parties to simply not post offending things, or take it to a private forum. I don't care to read propaganda, but on these free sites, I should expect nothing more than what I pay for.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday November 18 2016, @05:52PM
Actually, I would settle for honesty. Let them come out and say they are enforcing a Progressive SJW code of conduct and my objection vanishes. Same for the legacy media, stop pretending to be journalists (after WikiLeaks only the ignorant could still believe anyway) and admit to being the Public Relations wing of the Democratic Party and again, no objection. I do not like liars but they hold lying to be a virtue. That is what i do not like.
Once they admit what they are, anyone who uses their services or reads/watches their media know exactly what they are getting. And we can ramp up alternatives at warp speed. Although the ramping up is happening pretty fast anyway. People no longer trust the media and are seeking out alternatives, that is why the banhammer is being wielded. Many of the alternatives aren't any better than the legacy outlets, but so long as the marketplace of ideas grows more open the invisible hand will sort it out. Same for social media, now that everyone (if you are paying attention) realizes building a presence on legacy Progressive social media runs the risk of sudden loss of the account, people will quickly adapt. And don't think the purging will stop with the Alt-Right, left wing holiness spirals have a way of getting out of control in unpredictable ways. The Revolution has had a tendency to eat itself going back to the French Revolution.
Most people have better things to do than carefully keep up with what is politically correct as it changes faster and faster. Right now it all about [current year] but soon it will be [current day].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @07:36PM
Next you'll be telling us you're the next incarnation of Jesus, what with your persecution complex and all.
These come after a string of false news that trended throughout the campaign season that ranged from Hillary Clinton calling for civil war to Mike Pence insulting Mrs. Obama.
I see fake news on both sides being mentioned. You're just getting off on some more News Outrage, its the new hip thing!
I for one would like to focus on the censorship side of this issue and not "liberal media is being meaaannnn to meeeee". Let us wait and see if fake liberal news sticks around and only fake conservative news is marginalized.
Personally I avoid FB most of the time, but when I do log in I always see some conservative craziness from the handful of friends who lean that way. I am not worried about only conservative fake news being censored, but I am worried about any censorship at all. Who watches the watchers?
(Score: 2) by jcross on Friday November 18 2016, @07:21PM
I'm curious whether we know that google was directly behind the youtube behavior, or if it could have been created by an angry mob (or opposition campaign staff) clicking some "report content" button? Obviously the fact that the feature is easy to abuse would be a problem in the latter case, but at least it's equally abusable against anyone, although google could magnify any specific abuse by being slow to review and clear the content. I just thought it sounded similar to DMCA takedown abuse, but I'm not familiar with the specifics of this case.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by oldmac31310 on Friday November 18 2016, @04:31PM
Seriously.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @07:42PM
I was shocked to see it coming form CS Monitor, I thought the article was actually pretty balanced and not inflammatory. It mentioned fake liberal and conservative news. The real questions will come after we see their plans in action. I for one want to end the reign of advertising on the internet, let us lose the millions of pages that belong in the garbage and whose sole purpose is to get eyeballs on their sidebar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @05:30PM
It is very telling how the conservative user base comes out of the woodwork about potential censorship by those "leftist" corporations, but complain about shady business practices done to maximize their profit and they reply with, "It is their job to maximize profit!". So private businesses have the blessing of conservatives to do whatever they want right up to the point where it triggers their outrage.
Yeah, its totally just the liberal minded folks who are close minded. Yup, 100%. Those conservative folks are never hypocritical or paradoxical.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @06:00PM
YOU are the real problem. Journalism has gone downhill because there are very few journalists any more, from the national level all the way down to the local level. And the reason for that is that YOU don't want to pay for it. The news industry cannot support itself. You don't want to pay for the news, AND you don't want any ads either. You want it all to be free. Well, you get what you pay for.
Newspapers and networks used to have offices in all the major cities of the world and you used to get journalism from all over the world. Now, you get regurgitated AP wires. Now, you want to just get your news spoon-fed to you on Facebook, and you can't even put in the 5 seconds to verify the crap you read. But, you will sit back and bitch about "elites" or whatever manipulating the news. No. YOU are just too damn lazy to care.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @07:23PM
In every town I ever lived in, the paper with biggest circulation (often the ONLY paper) was always the one promoting a big, overbearing nanny state. After the first dozen, I just started to assume that all the major papers were propoganda producers fit only for lining birdcages.
No one wants to pay for trash. Come up with something worthwhile and prove me wrong. SN isn't a producer of news, but a forum based around newsy things, and while it doesn't appear to be making a living for anyone, the monetary bills seem to be getting covered. Even my broke butt bought a year's subscription (more than a year ago).
(Score: 2) by Username on Friday November 18 2016, @10:03PM
That’s because most newspapers in a region are usually made by one company. That company is probably Gannett (in the United States). Gannett came out and publicly endorsed Hillary Clinton this year, throwing off all obligations they’ve previously made about being impartial.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @12:23AM
I know I'm quibbling about anecdotes, but I've lived in towns and cities all over the USA, with the exception of the east and west coasts. It's uncanny - "everyone" refers to their local paper as "that liberal rag", and has for decades. (It's a little different in the larger cities, but that shouldn't be a surprise.)
Good - let the current crop of journalists die. Deception should never be rewarded with success.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @07:38AM
Gannett came out and publicly endorsed Hillary Clinton this year, throwing off all obligations they’ve previously made about being impartial.
But, but, endorsing Clinton is impartial! Even Arizona newspapers did it! The only ones that did not were white-supremicist or owned by crazy Korean religious cults. Not endorsing batshit crazy does not mean you are not being impartial. And just wait, after the Electoral College votes, Hillary might still be your president! I only mention that because I know it throws fear and loathing into you gullet, and then all that will be forced down your throat as you are waterboarded into supporting the new, true! president of the United States of America, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Wait. It's gonna happen! But even if it doesn't, I image just visualizing the possibility with be enough to put you off your feed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 19 2016, @02:16AM
The top selling newspaper here is jokingly misspelled as "the liar" in our native tongue. Make of that what you wish.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @07:02PM
Damn I wish the elections were over.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @08:29PM
Please explain to me what the difference between "fake news" and "real news" is, and why is it just a problem now even though tabloids have been around for decades?
What is the difference between what I regard as "real news," and YOU regard as "real news?" I've seen heaps of "fake news" about the Syrian War reported by CNN et al. yet have seen heaps of "real news" (i.e., eyewitness testimony and actual video) about the Syrian War from Twitter accounts (unless, of course, it's a fabrication and is, indeed, "fake news").
So what makes it "real" or "false?" Help me out here.
(Score: 2) by PocketSizeSUn on Friday November 18 2016, @09:33PM
Real: What the current establishment wants you to think.
Fake: Stuff that runs counter to the above narrative.
HTH
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @10:47PM
The people running the show and implementing these decisions (the executives and the employees) at these companies need to be beaten down every week or every day by Trump supporters until they decide to stop this.
If they do not, then they should be beaten to death.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 18 2016, @11:18PM
wrongthink -> wronglink.... get it?
(Score: 2) by Thesis on Saturday November 19 2016, @12:30AM
I guess CNN is really fucked now...