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A story in The Conversation may be of interest to Soylentils:
"Fake news" is the buzzword of 2017. Barely a day goes by without a headline about president Donald Trump lambasting media "bias", or the spread of "alternative facts".
Many articles on the subject suggest that social media sites should do more to educate the public about misinformation, or that readers should think more critically about the sources of news stories before sharing them. But there are fundamental problems with this. First, there isn't a clear definition of what "fake news" really is. And second, it overlooks important aspects of people's psychological makeup.
"Fake news" can be classified in a number of ways and represented as a series of concentric circles. First, in the centre of the concentric model, we have actual fake news. These are the stories that we commonly see shared on sites such as News Thump and The Onion. These satirical stories are written for comedic purposes and are put together to entertain.
Next, we have propaganda articles. Typically, these pieces do not actually contain any real news value. They may, for example, detail an individual's past behaviour and suggest that that it reflects something about their current intentions. Alternatively, these pieces may contain some kernel of truth, but this may be twisted in such a way that it totally misleads audiences and misrepresents a story's true news value.
These propaganda articles take numerous forms. The Huffington Post, for example, included a caveat about Donald Trump's alleged bigotry whenever mentioning him in a story before the US election last November, while British readers will likely recall the Daily Mail's much-maligned attacks on former Labour leader Ed Miliband's late father in 2013, calling him a "man who hated Britain".
Finally, and occupying the outermost ring of the model, there are the stories that are technically true, but reflect the subtle editorial biases of the organisation publishing them. This reporting is commonplace within the mainstream media, through selective storytelling and politically-driven editorials. Whether this is reflected in the left-wing bias of The Guardian or the right-wing approach of the Murdoch media empire, this practice is less malicious and more a political interpretation of events.
There once was a precise word for the term "fake news" is trying to describe. Oh yes, it's "propaganda."
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 01 2017, @04:28PM (3 children)
"there are parts of the country where the number of subscribers per mile is simply too low to make a profit"
I don't believe that for one minute. Wiring downtown Manhattan, the wires pay for themselves in just a few months - many, many, MANY subscribers per mile. Hell, it may not take months, if you charge an "installation fee" for each customer. Wiring some small towns in upstate New York, it might take a year for the wires to pay for themselves. Again, depending on those installation fees, they might pay for themselves half a year. Wiring smaller towns out in the sticks might mean it takes five years for the wires to pay for themselves. And, the installation fees might not make much difference. Coming all the way out here, where I live, in Outback, Nowhere, it might take a decade for the wires to pay for themselves - EXCEPT that it won't!! You see, the nation is crisscrossed with cable. It exists, already. There is no need to run a wire from the studios in New York, out to me. There are existing wires only five or six miles from my house, for cable service. In fact, there is existing fiber optic about 20 miles from my house, maybe even closer. Anything, and everything, exists within fifty miles of my house. All the major cities are connected, and almost all of the not-so-major cities are connected. Texarkana, Arkansas is connected to everything. Red River Army Depot is connected to everything. Greenville, and Paris, Texas are connected. Everything within ten miles of Interstate 20 can be connected with minimal effort. Me? For cable, I need about five or six miles installed. For fiber, I need 20 miles at most.
It may take my service a year or two to pay for itself, but, let's remember, everyone close to the highway between me, and where it already is, can subscribe too, if they wish. It won't be only me paying for the installation work! Ditto for fiber. If they brought fiber across the Red River, and up to my house, they couldn't avoid putting fiber into one medium small town, and two small communities along the way. To get fiber to me, they'll gain more than 1000 potential customers, possibly as many as 3000.
I just loaded a fiber service page that tells me, in Philadelphi, people pay between 30 and 50 dollars for fiber. HOLY SHIT!! I'D WILLINGLY SIGN A CONTRACT TO PAY $100/month FOR THE NEXT FIVE YEARS IF THEY OFFERED IT TO ME!! I'd consider more than that, but I'd jump at the chance to get fiber for $100.
chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/http://www.bbpmag.com/2011mags/marchapril11/BBP_MarApr_CostOfFiber.pdf
At an estimated cost of $5-10,000 per mile, how long would it take 3000 customers to pay for approximately 40 miles of fiber, assuming they are all willing to pay $100/month? It's not rocket science, after all. 3000 x 100 = $300,000/month Let's say 50 miles of fiber are needed to service my town, communities, and outlying customers. We'll take that upper estimate, so $10,000 x 50 = $500,000
So, I've got a half million dollar outlay, and a presumed 1/3 million dollar income - MONTHLY!! Uhhh, no matter how you chop and dice, no matter how you cook the books, this tells me that people in my end of the county could pay for their fiber installation IN LESS THAN HALF OF A YEAR!!
And, oh yeah. To sweeten the deal, getting fiber to us, would incidentall position the company to extend service into another somewhat larger town, as well as three other minor communities along the way.
The last mile isn't undoable. It isn't unprofitable. You've been misled, and lied to. The best that this country has to offer could arrive at MY HOUSE at any time, and it would be profitable for any company willing to bring it to me. My own, personal "last mile" may not pay for itself as rapidly as the people living in town, but as part of a package deal, it is doable.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday June 01 2017, @04:42PM
Sorry about that link that's not a link - http://www.bbpmag.com/2011mags/marchapril11/BBP_MarApr_CostOfFiber.pdf [bbpmag.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 02 2017, @02:22AM (1 child)
I think you are seriously underestimating the shitshow that is under the streets of Manhattan https://installingsocialorder.files.wordpress.com/2014/04/capture3.jpg [wordpress.com] Then add in a gov that is in the pockets of the incumbents and unions and mafia. Then you go slicing it open means you are going to mess up some sort of service for someone. Then come in the inspections and fines.
The last mile isn't undoable. It isn't unprofitable. You've been misled, and lied to.
For much of the country this is very true. We just have been lied to by both of our parties. Both pretending they have our interests in mind.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday June 02 2017, @02:58AM
"I think you are seriously underestimating the shitshow"
You may be right. I really only have a vague idea how complex everything is under the ground in the major cities. A person would have to work in the system to really understand it. But, for something like fiber that doesn't use a lot of room to work it's magic, surely a lot of "conduit" already exists. Much of the excavated space belongs to the city anyway, so there would be no need to deal with private corporations to gain access.
I'm sure it's expensive, complicated, and time consuming, but there is ample proof that the corporations find the big cities to be highly profitable. They are all competing for the same customers within those confined spaces, after all. None of them want to compete for the less profitable audiances out in the countryside, despite the fact that there IS profit to be made here.