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posted by martyb on Tuesday April 25 2017, @10:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the honesty-is-the-absence-of-the-intent-to-deceive dept.

[...] what exactly is "fake news" and what effect is it having globally?

"I think there is a fundamental problem that fake news became a catch-all term to mean anything that we don't particularly like to read," explained Alexios Mantzarlis, who heads the international fact-checking network at the Poynter Institute.

[...] Renate Schroeder, director of the European Federation of Journalists, said countries "should be extremely prudent" and seek to balance freedom of expression and freedom of the press with combating hate speech and fake news.

Any effort to regulate social media should not go too far, either, since it can lead to censorship, she said.

"Our view is [that] to fight such propaganda, to fight such fake news, we need to invest in journalism. We need to invest in media pluralism. We need to invest in media literacy," Schroeder told Al Jazeera.

[...] Only 32 percent of people in the US said they had a great deal or a fair amount of confidence in the media "to report the news fully, accurately and fairly" in 2016, according to a Gallup poll. That is the lowest level recorded in Gallup polling history – the question has been asked annually since 1997 – and eight points lower than in 2015.

Trust in media declined overall across all EU countries in 2015, a European Broadcasting Union survey also reported.

Mantzarlis of the Poynter Institute said that to fight the fake news phenomenon, journalists should promote greater transparency in their work, and develop a robust corrections policy when mistakes do occur.

That may include "making [corrections] more detailed, explaining why the error was made, who made it within the newsroom, and how exactly the existing procedures failed," he said.

Schroeder added that the focus on fake news could potentially serve as a catalyst to reinvigorate the field of journalism.

Idea #3: Stop helping politicians cheat at debates. Idea #4: Stop reprinting corporate press releases as 'news.' Idea #5: Stop shilling.

Your ideas, Soylent?


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  • (Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Tuesday April 25 2017, @03:53PM (2 children)

    by Taibhsear (1464) on Tuesday April 25 2017, @03:53PM (#499344)

    "Combating" hate-speech and "censoring/silencing" hate-speech are two entirely different things. The former is pointing out how much of an idiot you are with facts, reason, and empathy. The latter is sticking your fingers in your ears or covering someone's mouth and hoping the problem goes away. The former is the right thing to do. The latter is unconstitutional (for the government to do).

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @04:00PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @04:00PM (#499350)

    I'd love to side with you, but my cynicism is tingling. I'm 100% sure they will not make that distinction, they will only tell you they are making that distinction. Under the hood it's the same BS. Because even if they start out trying to just counter it with their own arguments, as soon as that doesn't work they will revert to more authoritarian measures. In a marketplace of ideas, most of their "ideas" do not pass the BS smell test.

    Also, anything that is unconstitutional does not mean it will not be tried. Things that are unconstitutional are used everyday by the government. Only things that are challenged get stopped in the courts, and even then a slew of things that should be stopped does not even get touched (FISA court for example). And I am rapidly losing faith in institutions that are supposed to stop government overreach because they appear to be taking a very strange side on a lot of issues.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @07:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 25 2017, @07:35PM (#499510)

      > I'd love to side with you, but my cynicism is tingling. I'm 100% sure they will not make that distinction, they will only tell you they are making that distinction.

      Well, if what they say doesn't count, why do you even believe they care at all? Why don't you assume they are secretly promoting hate speech?
      Or do conspiracies only work one way?