posted by
n1
on Saturday November 19 2016, @11:52PM
from the so-when-does-real-news-become-fake-news dept.
from the so-when-does-real-news-become-fake-news dept.
Earlier this week Google announced that its advertising tools will soon be closed to websites that promote fake news, a policy that could cut off revenue streams for publications that peddle hoaxes on platforms like Facebook.
The Verge reports:
The decision comes at a critical time for the tech industry, whose key players have come under fire for not taking neccesary steps to prevent fake news from proliferating across the web during the 2016 US election. It's thought that, given the viral aspects of fake news, social networks and search engines were gamed by partisan bad actors intending to influence the outcome of the race.
What constitutes 'fake' news?
Who decides what is 'fake'?
Who is a 'partisan bad actor'?
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(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Sunday November 20 2016, @12:03AM
It's all lies...
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @12:59AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @02:12AM
Just make sure that your news comes from professional journalists, like those working for the ever-diligent Hearst corporation (Esquire, Cosmo, ESPN, etc). Also, don't believe anything coming out of Spain, because those bastards killed our young lads on the USS Maine by torpedoing her in Havana harbor.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Sunday November 20 2016, @08:29PM
I think the biggest problem with news, news being any format, is that it's NOT about selling news. It never really was. It's about selling advertising. After years of refining their business models, news companies fine tune for maximum eyeballs to drive advertising revenue. So it's easy for them to doctor stories, bend truths, and in some cases make shit up to entice users.
Honestly, I don't trust any news sources. Left, right, alternate, wing nut, etc. It's all the same crap.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @12:04AM
If a news site runs a bunch of articles lying about Snowden (for example) and his reasons for being in Russia, as well as simply repeating the statements of government officials without investigating to see if they're true (in the case of the NSA spying, they were often outright lies or misleading), will sites like Google ban it or will it have its advertising revenue threatened? If they're going to start policing fake news, news sites are going to pretty much vanish from search results. That wouldn't be so bad, but I doubt they're going to be consistent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @12:04AM
Well then... I'm glad that this is a problem that is solved.</sarcasm>
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @12:13AM
I came across the "Gell-Mann Amnesia effect" the other day. It fits well with my experience, most likely almost all "news" is worse than nothing at explaining what is going on.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday November 20 2016, @12:14AM
Block sky news thx.
News as given elsewhere> Migrants in greek island attacked, their tents put on fire, earlier some migrants had broken into a firework place and started detonating stuff around the island.
Misleading (Some migrant idiots play with stolen firework, some locals react badly, migrant camp on fire, this is the way to report the truth), but complete.
Sky news Italian edition of 19 november around midday takes its time to show the fire in the camp and does not mention THE REASON THAT TRIGGERED THE LOCALS. When what where who WHY.
I expect to not see anything about Sky in my news bubble anymore, right? right?
SMH
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Sunday November 20 2016, @12:20AM
I have the solution:
We need to start a religion. The fundamental tenant of it is that humans are totally impure due to all the lies they've told and been told. Only facts can purify our imperfect existence. It's what must be done to save our very souls*. That's phase 1. Phase 2 is that we get people to start distributing pamphlets jehoviah's witness style to people. These pamphlets are designed to (in addition to proselyting) provide news as noninflammatory, nonbiased, and honest as we can possibly muster. Thus, I publicly unveil "Factology".
* The existence of the soul is not provably true and as such we don't directly condone it's existence as fact, but if the soul does exist, we're reasonably sure this is the only means to "save" it. As a religion, we're probably as wrong as all of the others, but we're operating in good faith, and you'll get to wear cool robes**.
** The robes will be screenprinted with still captures from CSPAN afterhours video of pages shuffling papers and shit. We'll also have stained glass windows of Neil Degrasse Tyson and Stephen Hawking.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Sunday November 20 2016, @12:34AM
Sorry not to be able to contribute, I started my own religion last month and I am already into my first holy war so my resources are pretty limited right now.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Sunday November 20 2016, @12:56AM
http://discordia.wikia.com/wiki/Pope_cards
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:23AM
Google is essentially declaring war on the favored tactic of discordians (playing jokes, seeing the outer extreme of gullibility).
Pox and Jake Day be upon them. The Jihad has started.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @12:54AM
Starting next week.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @01:20AM
More like, soylent to start posting more fake news.
There are so many devotees already here. Just cut out the middleman.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @12:57AM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyS3Ghevf2I [youtube.com]
but yeah, basically anything even remotely right-leaning that goes against their narrative is going to get blocked. I really enjoy watching this blatant fascism unfold from a generation of people who were never taught to be a good loser because they were told right from the start they were special snowflakes and everybody was a winner. PC culture is fucking awful.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @01:30AM
Yeah, PJW has progressed from an eyelinered loon ranting about chemtrails to a fairly well rounded political commentator and agitator. He's a star who called it exactly on the US presidential race and is actually belittled by his association with Alex Jones. What people fail to understand is that if the guy had been born just a few years he'd identify as left wing. In fact the (real) left are completely dismissive of identity politics [spiked-online.com] and social marxism. [consortiumnews.com]
We saw this with gamergate though, there should be little surprise to readers here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @02:03AM
agreed, Alex Jones really does drag PJW down a lot, which is why I only follow him and not the whole of infowars.
the thing though that I really hate is how there is so much contempt for bipartisanship by the MSM, but I suppose that's mostly due to the cultural marxists that control it, along with the advertisers who fuel it. everything has to be "extreme" to generate any emotion now. hell I wouldn't be surprised if in the near future we're holding some battle-royale type thing to decide the winner of an election. though I suppose even that wouldn't be as bad as it is now, at least there could be some credibility and campaign funding wouldn't gain you any advantages.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:12AM
> cultural marxists
No wonder you guys are treated to so contemptuously
You are only reaping what you sow
Enjoy the taste of those tears while you can
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @09:20AM
there is no other word best suited to describe them.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:51PM
I have to agree with him thou, "cultural marxist" is actually very very fitting from what I been able to gather. It is insane the lengths to which the narrative has gone, and everything we see now is the society convulsing after realizing it swallowed this poison. Shit even I started thinking some social equality is good, and then the slippery slope started and now I'm on the total opposite. They scared the shit out of me and turned me into a meritocrat now that I see where the "cultural marxists" will take their arguments once they have their foot in the door.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @04:29AM
PJW? WTF PJW est? SJW en alia nomen? Cui est "Alex Jones"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @11:40AM
Bellatores Pajama.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:02AM
You're an idiot to think it is PC culture and "everyone is special" which is the problem. You just play into the stereotype which promotes this kind of fascism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:04AM
oh really now? because last I remember, the losers of an election didn't go outside and start destroying their own fucking neighborhoods when they lost in the past, what else could explain that?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @05:33PM
O rly? [revelist.com]
Nice selective memory you've got there. [thehill.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @12:53AM
yeah, totally dude. because the Right were physically assaulting blacks en-mass for voting Obama in 2008, burning down their own neighborhoods and other disgusting acts, all while the media cheered them. /s
now, I'm not saying there weren't a few outliers, but turn the tables, and actually have whites physically attacking blacks, and its a hate crime, but when its blacks attacking whites, its not racism, it's just anti-racism and anti-oppression, or whatever else the MSM want to promote it as to keep a divide among the populace.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday November 20 2016, @06:11AM
Political correctness is not a bad thing as it was originally intended, which is to prevent the use of phrases like "Chinese fire-drill."
The problem with the progressives and PC is what is the problem with is with damn-near every movement which goes to shit -- being co-opted by extremists who thrive on division by exacerbating non-issues and tearing at the scabs which are there.
Before it was merely annoying. Now, huge interests which reach far beyond any one nation are stoking discord in America, attempting a color revolution. Modern PC is not about saving feelings from being hurt, rather, it is a means to stifle debate and shout down or otherwise intimidate reasonable and alternate points of view with hyperbolic comparisons. It is an indirect means of censorship though compulsory self-censorship, and, more disturbingly, has advanced into violence against those with alternate viewpoints.
The good news is that these "movements" are planned by those who are out of touch with reality, and so cannot predict accurately if their movements will succeed. Additionally, since the movements are hypocritical and illogical (racism is the most evil thing in the world, but racism against White people is good) they will have the effect of pushing the moderates away from them.
The bad news is that the movements are well-entrenched in academia and the media and the globalists are doubling-down in their efforts of censorship and intimidation rather than accept defeat. What you experienced during the election was not even close to their ultimate strength or final form -- which means that those in favor of liberty and free speech are potentially facing a larger battle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @07:32AM
I think it is actually the start of the end.
It's much like when a protest starts and people gather only to realize they aren't the only ones pissed off; Trump's election is the start of dismantling the excesses of the left, and if they're not careful, being obliterated from political life for a decade or more.
Google can afford to be partisan now, but 8 years from now? Time will tell.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 20 2016, @07:50AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @08:00AM
This isn't about Republicans per se, but the strident PC aspects of the left.
The Republicans can lose everything tomorrow and it won't matter to the people who are sick to death of the left. They know now they have the political clout to even get Trump elected, and that is the death knell of PC culture.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 20 2016, @04:04PM
The Republicans can lose everything tomorrow and it won't matter to the people who are sick to death of the left. They know now they have the political clout to even get Trump elected, and that is the death knell of PC culture.
Well, the other side might not go gently into that dear night. And they have a stronghold in academia which probably isn't going away any decade soon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @05:49PM
FFS if you make these issues out to be about left vs right, you're part of the problem! Authoritarianism is the problem and the left and right both are in love with it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @08:31PM
I had to stop watching and close the window when the narrator said that occupy wallstreet was "extreme left liberal media" or something to that effect.
The guy is a right wing blowhard upset that he behaves like the lady he is whining about.
She just provided the list of "approved" sites without asking him first. He was right in that there should be no one to decide who makes the list unless they are netural; and proceeds to describe without irony how it cannot be done as he lists out the sites he doesn't like.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday November 20 2016, @01:00AM
is news that isn't approved by the powers that be - namely the rich fucks who own the media and the government.
Partisan bad actors are people who disagree with said rich fucks and voice it.
It's quite simple really...
(Score: 2) by rigrig on Sunday November 20 2016, @01:16AM
Some of the obviously fake news items that really need banning:
Companies providing "free" service not trying hard enough to prevent fake news stories from circulating
Multinational companies using barely legal constructions to avoid paying taxes
Kim Jong Un is the Sexiest Man in the World
Search results extremely biased towards what search engine wants you to read
Handing over all your data to a single company turns out to not be such a great idea after all
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @01:17AM
Anything published by the corporate media!
Anybody with the intelligence or intuition to see through the establishments wedge issues and divisive bullshit!
George Soros [counterpunch.org]
Next???
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Sunday November 20 2016, @02:05AM
Or Google blocks MSNBC. Or blocks CBS/ABC/NBC. What's fake and what is spin? Hell, National Enquirer had an awfully lot of ridiculous stories that turned out to be true.
Where is the line between fake and biased?
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:14AM
> National Enquirer had an awfully lot of ridiculous stories that turned out to be true.
In snotnose world 0.0001% is "an awful lot"
No wonder you can't figure out what news is fake and what news is real.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Sunday November 20 2016, @02:06AM
if you can't afford to pay to have your news displayed or promoted, or you can't afford to buy advertising on a "search engine site", then your news *must* be fake.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @02:23AM
maybe with all the attention about eavesdropping and lose of privacy enough people have gone "underground" with their communication that now enough information is reliably flowing over secured channels that the powers that are are getting cold feet. so instead of outright banning unofficial eavedrop proof communication they are resorting to seeding false information to make their monitored and censored com channels look more thrustworthy?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:05AM
Once people realize the fascism that is Google/fb/twitter then we may finally see some adoption of distributed / open networks designed to prevent this sort of control. Let idiots share fake news, only by making such colossal mistakes might any of them learn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @03:50PM
4 years of learning ahead buddy...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @06:05PM
What? How dare you insinuate something like that you leftist baby killer! I'm not your buddy guy :p
(Score: 2) by fishybell on Sunday November 20 2016, @04:08AM
We're not talking little news companies being beaten down by the man. We're talking companies that literally make up the most crazy things they can think of to get people to share their articles to sell advertising.
Fake news != the little guy. Fake news = made up bullshit.
(Score: 2) by BK on Sunday November 20 2016, @05:28AM
This guy [wikipedia.org]. And this one [wikipedia.org]. Oh, and this one too [wikipedia.org].
Glad we cleared that up.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday November 20 2016, @05:31AM
I have no doubt a system like this can and will be abused. I'll start out by saying that. And for those of you who are responding just by saying, "Oh, who gets to determine bias?" or whatever -- believe me, when I first started reading about this stuff, that was my first reaction too.
But since we've been getting headline after headline on this stuff in the past couple weeks, I started trying to really look into it. Going out and seeing actual examples of ACTUAL *fake* news. No, not Fox News or MSNBC. No, not things like Breitbart or some other overtly partisan source of news, which may sometimes play a little "loose" with facts.
No -- I'm talking about news that is literally, undeniably FALSE, referring to events that never happened, where the author is clearly aware of this fact. And I'm not talking about something that requires opinionated "fact-checking" -- did this many people REALLY show up to the rally, or is this estimate a bit off or whatever.... no, not that kind of somewhat ambiguous stuff.
I'm talking about a report that says, "Man in city X does Y, Z happens" and there's no man in X who did Y, and Z never happened to any person who ever did Y. A specific fact is asserted that is known to be false -- not exaggerated or a "matter of opinion" -- simply MADE UP and FABRICATED.
There are various reasons people have done this. Some people are clearly partisan hacks, spreading false propaganda. But there are plenty of others who are comedians or satirists, doing stuff like "The Onion," only not as well-known. They want to make money off of their parodies and fake stories, and some of them (in political areas) even have hoped to embarrass the other side by getting them to pass along fake news and then having it exposed. Regardless, there are many, many reports of such parodies or hoaxes passed around as factual "news" in social media. And some authors of fake news clearly just "do it for the lulz."
Whatever their motivation, there are PLENTY of "news" stories out there which are NOT just "slanted" or "biased" or manipulated to fit some political ideology. They are LITERAL FABRICATIONS.
We can certainly have lots of debates over the problems with a system to ferret out "fake news" and we can express concern over attempts to censor political speech. But let's all take a step back and realize there actually is a "line" somewhere here, where stories are actually "fake" according to any rational definition, but nevertheless get passed around as if they were legitimate.
That is a concern. I don't know if the Google or Facebook or whatever method is going to be a good way to address it, but pretending this is ONLY about people who dislike Fox News or whatever is either ill-informed about how many "hoaxes" are out there or is being a bit disingenuous.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Sunday November 20 2016, @12:56PM
You're not wrong, but:
(a) So what? People have been telling lies as long as there have been people.
(b) Where do you draw the line? We have fiction - every novel ever written is a lie. We have parody sites, like The Onion, that are happy to sucker people into taking them seriously. We have April Fools' Jokes [youtube.com]. Where are you going to draw the line on "fake news", and who are you going to empower to draw it?
The US ideal of freedom of speech should hold; it's too important to relinquish, just to save a few people from being confused...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @05:40PM
Cue the rightists jumping all over themselves to scream that Google and Facebook are private companies and aren't bound by the constitution, so they can do whatever they want.
...Curious why they haven't yet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @06:10PM
Actually this time they're silent on that regard because "freedom of speech"!! It is amusing, I wish I could pull up the comments whee constitutional worries were blown off by "its a private company, don't like it? Go somewhere else!"
All because they think it is some attempt to dethrone their guy or come down on conservatives.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @08:36PM
Actually, I see this argument more from leftist when a company is doing something to promote their narrative, and more resignation from the right that the market will eventually correct itself.
But yes, they are private companies, and they can do as they wish.
And people are free to complain about it (event though news of such will never get reported now) and take their business elsewhere.
But now we have a clear indication that google and Facebook are in the business of yellow journalism, and I'm happy to watch it all burn.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday November 21 2016, @12:28AM
(b) Where do you draw the line? We have fiction - every novel ever written is a lie. We have parody sites, like The Onion, that are happy to sucker people into taking them seriously. We have April Fools' Jokes. Where are you going to draw the line on "fake news", and who are you going to empower to draw it?
The US ideal of freedom of speech should hold; it's too important to relinquish, just to save a few people from being confused...
I don't claim to have a practical solution. And I certainly AM NOT ADVOCATING for actual suppression of speech. But I could, for example, think it reasonable if a site that aims at deliberate parody actually displays with some sort of "parody" tag somewhere, or a work of actual fiction is somehow flagged as such.
I'm not in favor of censorship, but I am in favor of education and information. If there's a potential way to inform people of the status of certain fictional or parody sites in a straightforward way (while not censoring them), I'd be all for it. I don't know if there's a practical way to do it... but that's one sort of thing I might be in favor of.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @01:36PM
(adapted from an anonymous /. comment that hit the nail on the head)
If they want to ban fake news, they can start with fake stories like...
Reports that Trump was racist to Mexicans when he said that smugglers were raping women.
Reports that Trump's son's use of Pepe the Frog makes Trump a white supremacist.
Reports that Clockmed Achmed had invented a clock and the school was racist, and not that the school was legally required to report him to the police for the felony he committed by making a hoax bomb or else they could be charged with misprision.
Reports that Michael Brown had his hands up and was saying don't shoot.
Reports that George Zimmerman had stalked and murdered Trayvon Martin.
Reports that there was nothing at all to Benghazi and no reason to investigate.
Reports that Muslims were mad about a movie about Mohammed and not celebrating the anniversary of 9/11 by showing their strength and attacking US embassies around the world.
Reports that Huma Abedin had been vetted and there was nothing to suggest she had a connection to the Muslim Brotherhood when every member of her family was MB and their journal was funded by one of the first financiers of al-Qaeda.
Reports that Peter King was racist for wanting to investigate al-Shabaab recruiting from within the United States.
Reports that Hillary Clinton's email scandal was only about the use of a private server and not about putting classified SCIF and GAMMA data on unsecured systems, destruction of evidence, and lying to federal investigators.
Reports that Gamergate was a harassment campaign.
Reports that there is a Palestinian people under Israeli occupation.
Reports that the 2nd Amendment gives the National Guard the right to bear arms.
Reports that transgender rights are being violated by making them use the correct bathrooms or referring to them by their real names or with the correct pronouns.
All of this is fake news. All of it is equally as bad as the latest "report circulating in the Kremlin" that Sorcha Faal pulled out of his ass. If Google wants to ban fake news, why not start with all of this fake news that is published by the New York Times, Reuters, AP, Washington Post, ABC, etc?
See also:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2016, @05:59PM
Palestinians are not under Israeli occupation?
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Sunday November 20 2016, @04:41PM
Time to ban the NYT, idiots!
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Sunday November 20 2016, @09:22PM
So the Globe and the National Enquirer are fake news, this is well known. Yet the Enquirer did break the John Edwards cheating on his cancer wife story that was true and completely changed an election. As well as the campaign fund fraud story involving that same mistress.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Monday November 21 2016, @07:43PM
You can't fight disinformation with censorship. You can only fight it with real information, explained.
(Score: 2) by gidds on Wednesday November 23 2016, @01:30PM
As I see it, the problem isn't fake news — there will always be news which is misleading, biased, or completely false.
The problem is that people believe it.
People seem to have a 'default-believe' rule set. They mentally blacklist fake sites, instead of whitelisting good ones.
Until people learn to treat what they read with a little more suspicion, this will continue to be a problem.
Over the last century or two, people have generally got used to good journalism and responsible publishing; we've learned to associate the printed word with reliability and integrity. (There are always exceptions, of course; but they've been relatively easy to spot, and people have learned to ignore just those.)
But I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that over the last three decades or so, some of the existing media have grown more biased, more sensational, and less interested in honest and true reporting. More recently, we've seen the rise of web journalism — and attributed our beliefs about the reliability of the printed word to web sites too. And even more recently, web journalism has taken a lot of the money away from printed journalism too, leading to fewer staff reporting, investigating, and checking stories, and more regurgitating press releases and fabrications — and the rise of promoters and manipulators using them to spread their messages. All of which should be hugely reducing our trust in the media.
And yet it's not! We're outraged by fake news sites because we still expect news sites to be honest and trustworthy. And I suspect that that expectation is the real problem here.
We should not trust media unless/until that trust has been earned. (And I don't mean unless/until we judge that their prejudices match ours. Though we could all do with some lessons on how to separate the two.)
When the majority of people learn to do that, Google and Facebook and similar won't need to censor or ban or restrict.
Until then, this will continue to be a problem, whatever they do.
[sig redacted]