Fake news and the way it spreads on social media is emerging as one of the great threats to modern society. In recent times, fake news has been used to manipulate stock markets, make people choose dangerous health-care options, and manipulate elections, including last year's presidential election in the U.S.
Clearly, there is an urgent need for a way to limit the diffusion of fake news. And that raises an important question: how does fake news spread in the first place?
Today we get an answer of sorts thanks to the work of Chengcheng Shao and pals at Indiana University in Bloomington. For the first time, these guys have systematically studied how fake news spreads on Twitter and provide a unique window into this murky world. Their work suggests clear strategies for controlling this epidemic.
Journal Reference:
arxiv.org/abs/1707.07592: The Spread of Fake News by Social Bots
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @02:01AM (8 children)
how does fake news spread in the first place?
Well, first you need a democrat... and then, it's just snowballs. It's what special snowflakes do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @02:08AM (7 children)
Uh... Preemptive "SHHH!" to the grammar nazis... It just snowballs
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @03:14AM (6 children)
But "it" is Republican yellow snow! The NPR interviewee was asked precisely the question of whether the other side didn't do it is well. The stats pointed out that there was a 5-1 preponderance of pro-Republican social media bots to Democratic ones. Fake news is a Republican meme, they own it, and they are it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @03:48AM (5 children)
The republicans need the bots. Democrats can spread fake news without them. You start with the DNC. These people committed actual fraud and successfully deflected attention to republican.ru And what with all their whining it turns out that the democrats are more fanatical than the republicans by far, your numbers game notwithstanding.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:14AM (4 children)
Or, just maybe, the Dems don't need fake news the way Republicans do, because they actually have policy, like health care for all and jobs for everyone, as opposed to the Republican failed proposal of cutting health insurance so we can give tax cuts to the wealthy. Or, what you said is actually correct, because, you know, reasons. Russian Reasons!
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @07:24AM (3 children)
Yeah, they support health care for all, which is why they didn't do any such thing when they had a super majority under Obama. The reality is that there are many corporate democrats, and they obstruct policies that would otherwise be implemented.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday August 10 2017, @05:38PM (2 children)
Republicans fillibustered single-payer out of the ACA. Put the blame where it belongs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @08:53PM
Remember the crowd you're talking to, it took months of trunk fuckups for them to even consider he isn't a god emperor...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 11 2017, @12:30AM
Put the blame where it belongs.
That would be the democrats' refusal to change the rules to eliminate the filibuster problem. And this is because their politburo [urbandictionary.com] didn't want single payer either. They didn't even want to discuss it once the campaigning was over. So, any 'fake news' coming out of that came straight from the democrats. Same with this whole Russia thing, they don't want people to actually read the DNC emails documenting real election fraud. I do have to give them credit for successfully projecting that onto the republicans though. The stupid/ignorant/antipathic voter is a fatal flaw of democracy.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @02:09AM (12 children)
Maybe we should focus on creating citizens who are educated enough to evaluate an idea instead of mere slogans.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday August 10 2017, @02:17AM (11 children)
If their IQ is too low, education won't bite unfortunately.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by unauthorized on Thursday August 10 2017, @03:41AM (10 children)
Herd immunity also works with viral ideas. You only need a critical mass of the populace not buying bullshit for bullshit to become ineffective as a driver of society.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:32AM (7 children)
I noticed you avoided defining what constitutes a critical mass.
We educate a significant percentage of young people in this country. Most of them well beyond the level needed to function in the world, and spot bullshit.
You would think we had some approximation of a critical mass by now.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:52AM (2 children)
But after the Not-so great Recession under Reagan, we gave up on this and starting education for STEM. This produces a bunch of technocrats that could not thing their way out of a sexist stereotyping situation. And this is why these same under-educated folks voted for a grifter flim-flam real-estate developer. Any other questions?
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:11AM (1 child)
Elite shits on the productive public, response is had. Not that complicated.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:13AM
Poor kazss, not elite. Words hard to write. Comment he did. Not Complicated.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @07:28AM
We educate them at a very basic level and anything even remotely complex is taught using rote memorization and mostly forgotten. The best you can say about this is that it's better than nothing, though maybe you could also throw in a 'At least we're better than Somalia!' for good measure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @07:44AM
-took because it leads kids to disobey their parents
(Score: 3, Informative) by unauthorized on Thursday August 10 2017, @08:17AM
No, you school them. Americans are vastly under-educated relative to the amount of time spent in education institutions.
Furthermore, it's not enough to just tick the "spent X years in education" checkbox, it also matters what kind of education you receive. There are many key intellectual skills that seem to lack in American education, such as poor civic knowledge, inadequate logic training (and I mean practical, not just formal), being trained with anti-patterns of logic, lack of research skills, under-developed intuition for identifying deceptive rhetoric, etc...
Of course, many of these skills are also undesirable for the powers-that-be, which could be contributing factor as to why they aren't there, but that's speculation on my part.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday August 10 2017, @10:12AM
No, you don't educate them. you just tame them.
With a sizable loan already at the start in their adult life, the likelihood is high they learn to obey and eat whatever bullshit those applying the golden rule rain on them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:18AM (1 child)
Leadership, group think, leader-vs-follower ratio, overrating source over content, not checking etc also plays in. And with internet those herds instead becomes gigantic multidimensional Venn diagram filter bubbles bypassing most protections.
The unfortunately conclusion might be that some people just are not up to handing internet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:23AM
"Handing" internet? But down that tablet full of porn, young man! You will go blind! (Can see you are already almost there, politically.)
(Score: 2, Troll) by jmorris on Thursday August 10 2017, @02:17AM (23 children)
How does #FakeNews get created and spread? The Blue Checkmark Mafia on Twitter create the Narrative and the Legacy Media spreads it through the New York Times, CNN, NBC News, Politico, The Washington Post, etc. Compared that that multi-billion dollar machine with millions and millions of eyeballs some bot on the Internet is a rounding error.
(Score: 4, Informative) by MostCynical on Thursday August 10 2017, @03:28AM
In other news, jmorris dismisses science, and refuses to RTFA, especially when he disagrees with the findings.
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2, Insightful) by unauthorized on Thursday August 10 2017, @03:47AM (21 children)
Dear mods, stop abusing negative moderation just because you don't like what the author has to say. We all know jmorris genuinely believes what he is saying, this is obviously not trolling.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:17AM (20 children)
Dear complainer about the mods: jmorris is not trolling because he is saying things he does not believe, he is trolling because he is saying things he believes in the face of all reason and fact! So of course he is to be modded down. Do we really want a site where Alex Jones is our role model?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by aristarchus on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:46AM (12 children)
Now it is my turn to complain about mods. But I won't. Someone mods me "flamebait" for dissing Alex Jones? Wow, this site is further gone than I thought. Alex Jones lost his kids. His lawyer said he is an "entertainer". My first encounter with his was in Linklater's "Waking Life", where he is driving around Austin with a loudspeaker on the top of his car (think, BluesBrothers, on the beach) spouting incoherence. Certifiably insane. Probably a Russian SALT. Or the Lizard People have their claws up his . . . just to deflect criticism of the craziness of the Republican party in general. And he posts under the nom de internets of jmorris on SoylentNews.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 10 2017, @05:11AM (9 children)
This place has a RWNJ infestation. I find that a lot of the smaller splinter tech sites do, for some reason, and it mystifies me as to why. The answer may be that I'm being solipsistic and assuming everyone has a generalist's outlook and wants to see how it all fits together, rather than a narrow focus. But still.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:22AM (2 children)
RWNJ means?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:25AM
Take "SJW", reverse it, and spell out the acronym.
(Score: 2) by stormreaver on Thursday August 10 2017, @10:58AM
Right Wing Nut Job
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:30AM
When people get banned (or shadow banned) on all the larger sites the smaller sites form a refuge.
(Score: 0, Troll) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 10 2017, @10:32AM (4 children)
FTFY
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:12PM
Hey look, here is one now! Hi nutto :)
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 10 2017, @09:47PM (2 children)
I was this close to modding you Spam, but since you haven't pizdetz'd up the entire thread proper with your useless horseshit, just that one post, Troll it is.
Crawl back under your rock, will you? Adults are talking here.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 11 2017, @12:02PM (1 child)
You should reread the moderation rules [soylentnews.org]. It will keep you from temporarily losing moderation privileges and me from having to listen to any complaining.
Troll or Flamebait were quite warranted there should you have felt the need but Spam would not have been.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 11 2017, @04:58PM
Put that tiny thing away, Uzzard. I *know* a Spam mod wouldn't have fit the situation, hence why I didn't use it.
But you...you've admitted to purposefully trolling this place and deliberately shitting up the pipeline with hard-right stories. You are an editor. Any claims you make to neutrality or a hands-off approach are stenching-to-high-heaven bullshit. If there were a such thing as a "-1, Not Arguing in Good Faith" mod, or even better a "-10000, Dereliction of Duty as a Managing Editor" mod, you'd see it coming at you fast enough to emit Cherenkov radiation.
And we're all onto you. Every single one of us.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by unauthorized on Thursday August 10 2017, @07:33AM (1 child)
<sarcasm>I'm sure it was for the Alex Jones thing and not for responding to a completely cordial comment with condescension.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @07:54AM
Actually, I am sorry for your condition. I hope you get better. Perhaps a local community college could help?
(Score: 3, Informative) by unauthorized on Thursday August 10 2017, @07:50AM
I don't know what you think "trolling" means, but it doesn't mean what you think it means. The level of wrongness is not a valid criteria.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 10 2017, @10:27AM (5 children)
That, my incorrect friend, is not Troll-ing; that is a Disagree. Be extremely glad that nobody around here polices moderation outside Spam abuse and mod-bombs.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:15PM (4 children)
Fascist partisan motherfucker. It is good you went the libertarian route, helps keep your natural tendencies in check.
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 10 2017, @05:46PM (3 children)
Fascist and partisan while being a libertarian? You really need to look those words up. You obviously lack any understanding of their meanings.
Motherfucker is accurate enough though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @09:01PM (2 children)
Will add incest to your long list of character deficiencies, along with stupidity.
Partisan: a firm adherent to a party, faction, cause, or person; especially : one exhibiting blind, prejudiced, and unreasoning allegiance.
You display these traits all the time. As an admin you should be more objective, yet you only weigh in on discussions where you support someone's ideology. You are a biased piece of crap, only your ideological adherence to no censorship / bans keeps you in check. If it wasn't for getting booed out of other sites you would probably not care so strongly about bans / mods when they go your way. Defend against shitty downmods by your fellow nutters if you truly believe yourself objective.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 11 2017, @01:14AM (1 child)
I never said my mother, you sicko.
Yes, I have a blind, unreasoning allegiance to liberty. I'm an irrational bastard like that.
Get this clear in your head: we're every last one of us volunteer staff. We keep this beastie running because we enjoy using it. You're here saying "keep it running for me but don't use it"? What's this on the bottom of my back. Oh, why it's my ass! Feel free to kiss it.
Why do you think everyone gets mod points? It's not so you'll feel all special; it's so anyone who feels the need can correct a bad downmod. We the community, every one of us, are responsible for bad moderations. It's not a perfect solution but it's a hell of a lot better than any one person or group doing so according to their feelz and ideology.
See, you're giving me shit and entirely wrong in everything you've said except the motherfucker bit and I haven't once downmodded you, much less banned you. Care to rethink your position?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday August 11 2017, @05:54AM
Unfortunately, this is one of the perverse tendencies of Buzzards: they fuck their own mothers. Do you need a citation?
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Buzzard&page=2 [urbandictionary.com] Right there on Urban Dictionary, you prevert.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 10 2017, @02:18AM (8 children)
A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.*
* Yes, I know Twain likely never said anything of the sort. Whoosh.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:29AM (7 children)
Hmm, Fake Republican News?:
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/02/weekinreview/may-26-june-1-never-the-twain.html [nytimes.com] Hmmm. 1996. Republicans been at it a while.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 10 2017, @10:28AM (6 children)
Dude, read the footnote. I shouldn't have to type "Whoosh" twice.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:17PM (2 children)
A shit turd learning from a shit sandwich how to misquote. Get an original thought once in a while, putting a disclaimer on a bad quote is stupid.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 10 2017, @05:47PM (1 child)
"Shit turd"? Really? You're such a butt ass.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @09:07PM
For a connosieur of shit I'd have thought you of all people would be aware of the different qualities of turds. I'll give you a hint, "shit turd" is composed of only one noun.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday August 11 2017, @06:32AM (2 children)
Oh, but Megantily Buzzing-in-the-ears, if you had followed the link, and read the paragraph just posterior to the one quoted. This is why conservatives, and even libertariantard trending conservatives, fail. Reading comprehension. Always cite your sources, and always track down the citations of those you disagree with. So triple Whoosh to you, oh Malignant Busstardumbrary!
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday August 11 2017, @12:09PM (1 child)
Believe it or not, I read that link before you posted it. I knew perfectly good and well that Twain could not be verified to have ever said that. That was half the point of the original post in general and the entire point of the footnote. I even added the preemptive "Whoosh" for people who're a little slow. Apparently you've passed "a little" though. Have a cup of coffee; it could help with that.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday August 12 2017, @01:07AM
But obviously you did not read all of it. Go ahead, ask me how I know!
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday August 10 2017, @03:31AM (1 child)
http://kazu.org/post/fake-news-bots-are-here [kazu.org]
http://dashboard.securingdemocracy.org/ [securingdemocracy.org]
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @05:18AM
Heard an interview with the Dashboard site creator on NPR earlier today.
From the linked page (click on the "First Time" button),
"This dashboard displays data about Russian propaganda efforts on Twitter in near-real time. Our analysts use the dashboard and other sources to discover Russian propaganda themes."
In the interview, they describe how they work out where various Tweets are coming from and how many of the tweets in the echo chamber come from Russia or Russian controlled bots (there are other sources for these bots too).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:55AM (4 children)
The study was intentionally and fundamentally biased, there was 0 control, there were numerous single points of failure, and so on.
- Find fake news. It was not stated how they decided what was fake news. For their selection of fake news sites, they choose an average of more than 3,200 stories - so it seems they took anything published on these sites as fake.
- Their fake news sites included Breitbart and TheOnion. They made no distinction offering up a superficial justification of "fake news sources" labeling articles as satire.
- Analyze an average of 35 Twitter posts that reference said news. No reason was given for the incredibly small sample size, or how the chosen posts were selected.
- Unilaterally decide whether or not these are bots based on what seems to be a completely opaque tool. One they specifically state [iu.edu] should not be used as a replacement for 'human judgement.'
- Now connect all these really shakey dots to try to paint a picture.
Their entire process was fundamentally broken, but perhaps even worse is that they did not take a control. For instance what of stories on Breitbart that are not 'fake'? What of click bait but otherwise true stories on other sites? Is how the story spreads in any way fundamentally different? What of regular news stories? While not explicitly stated the headline implies a disproportionate role for fake news as opposed to just news, yet their study made no effort to actually show this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @05:35AM
*an average of more than 3,200 stories per site
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @05:54AM
No, it wasn't, you Russian bot! Now, go away.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @07:52AM
OMG, good point! Mistake?
(Score: 3, Touché) by Nobuddy on Thursday August 10 2017, @07:24PM
Brietbart and TheOnion both intentionally post fake stories. Their goals differ, but the methodology is the same.
(Score: 2, Touché) by jmorris on Thursday August 10 2017, @05:43AM (2 children)
Might as well fisk this thing in the published order. So full of deliberate misinformation it is of course #FakeNews in a meta spiral of bogosity.
The infographic / whatever is of course referencing spirit cooking. That one was most certainly not a bot operation, that was pure weaponized autism from [48]chan, reddit and gab. I was watching that one in fascination. Those guys were digging like mad and then memeing the holy crap out of it. Don't take that away from them.
Then of course they are still pretending that snopes.com hasn't been totally discredited as a "fact checker". The other two mentioned aren't a lot better.
Now their examples of "fake news". Breitbart might be as biased as CNN but they are probably less likely to publish actual false information. After all they don't have the rest of the blue check mafia to run cover for them. And no, satire is NOT fakenews. Leave The Onion alone. Although The People's Cube is funnier these days. And I certainly hope everyone who visits Infowars more than once isn't confused as to what they are, conspiracy theorists. But notice how left conspiracy theorists aren't mentioned, such as trufers, the CIA created AIDS, the CIA created crack, etc. lefty nutters get a pass.
But the most interesting part was this accidental admission against interest:
Oh really? Tell us more! Come on, you can't drop a deuce like that into the public conversation and not provide some examples of The Narrative being spread by bot, the ones performing "important roles".
Finally, notice that like most of the hysteria about #FakeNews no specific examples are provided. And while Russia isn't specifically named the implication is obvious, they must sustain that Narrative at all cost; Hillary would have won without those dastardly Russians. Which is of course #FakeNews. She was a horrible candidate who got her ass spanked by a pussy grabbing reality TV star.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:03AM
Really, jmorris? Totally discredited? I smell a russian bot, his user id is "jmorris". Do you even understand the extent to which you are being used? Let me explain it to you. The story is that the Black Panther member who sought asylum in Cuba came across a KGB agent. He asked him if it was true that the Russians had funded the Black Panthers, and the KGB dude said, "Of course! But we also funded the KKK, so it's just all about destabilizing the United States." This is what is happening now. The Trump presidency is just an attempt to split America into warring factions, and jmorris is working as hard as he can to make it happen! Snopes.com is not discredited. Hilary's emails are relevant to nothing. And jmorris is to be modded down, as he is covertly transgendered Russian agent of influence. Bad jmorris, bad!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:20PM
It is sad to she jmortis constantly modded insightful. Guess there is nothing left in the RWNJ arsenal but bullshit and vote manipulation. #sad
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:28AM (1 child)
It's called CNN, full of talking heads. :P
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:31AM
But, kaszz, these talking heads are all just in your head. You poor thing. Get help.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by shortscreen on Thursday August 10 2017, @06:52AM
"manipulate stock markets, make people choose dangerous health-care options, and manipulate elections"
Oh, they mean advertising.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Bot on Thursday August 10 2017, @11:11AM
Bots on twitter? you don't say.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Informative) by turgid on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:25PM (3 children)
In my day we got a thing called an education. Apart from being taught reading, writing and arithmetic we were taught to argue about things. They beat Shakespeare into us (just to goad us with gobbledygook and the fact that he got to invent words when he couldn't think of them but we're not allowed to) there was ripping appart poetry and essays (hello George Orwell) and we even had a debating society. This wasn't at posh persons' expensive school, this was at scumbag comprehensive in boney Scoteland before the Tories had a go at it. So we had critical thinking beaten into us using tax-payers'money. It makes it easier to spot fake news.
Sadly, in this world of the race to the bottom, such things are not value for money and have gone out of fashion.
If you appreciate this post, please thank my uncle who has plied me with whisky and beer this afternoon.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @04:45PM (2 children)
we have educations, too -- they teach us now to learn the controversy by forcing creationist views into science classes. You'd think right wingers would claim that is a SJW approach, but no, it's SJW when people that trust the science don't want their kids getting someone else's religious beliefs taught to them with public tax dollars (or taught these beliefs at all, regardless of price).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 10 2017, @09:11PM (1 child)
∆
Probably need more than one character. The projection is strong with those cons.
(Score: 4, Touché) by aristarchus on Friday August 11 2017, @01:13AM
Δελφοί
Give me that ol' time religion! Good enough for Apollo, good enough for me.