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The guardian reports on a sobering event in Washington DC.
US police have arrested a man wielding an assault rifle who entered a pizza restaurant that was the target of fake news reports it was operating a child abuse ring led by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her top campaign aide.
[...] The suspect entered the restaurant and pointed a gun at a restaurant employee, who fled and notified authorities, police said. The man then discharged the weapon inside the restaurant. There were no injuries.
[...] [Police] said the suspect during an interview with investigators revealed that he came to the establishment to "self-investigate" Pizzagate, the police statement said. Pizzagate is a baseless conspiracy, which falsely claims Clinton and her campaign chief John Podesta were running a child sex ring from the restaurant's backrooms.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday December 06 2016, @06:21PM
There is concern however that the mainstream media's sudden infatuation with "fake news" isn't necessarily aimed only at the types of sites your showing.
I agree that there is concern about that. And I too am concerned in all the discussion about Facebook and Google "stopping" fake news, perhaps with overzealous algorithms and "screeners" who might go beyond the actual "fake news" and start targeting sites that are merely slanted the "wrong" way politically or whatever.
But it seems like in many discussions online that everyone who is responding is assuming that sort of censorship is the only possible rationale for all the hubbub about "fake news." What's lost -- to my mind -- are the thousands of sites out there like the one I linked, many of which aren't merely hoaxes or parodies -- they're peddling made-up BS with no planted clues that they're just making it all up, either to get people "fired up" on one political side or the other, or even simply for commercial gain with no concern about the consequences of their actions.
Frankly, I think many who assume this is only about censorship or criticizing political sites don't have a clue about how much ACTUAL "fake news" is out there, and how much of it actually is being spread like wildfire on Facebook and Twitter. I too thought the same as you when I first started seeing these "fake news" headlines even before the election. Then I started actually reading the stories (I know, I know) rather than just reacting to what I assumed was a censorship movement... and I realized how big the actual "fake news" problem is getting.