Fake News - what it is, what it isn't....

[Coyote]

Learn how to evaluate and question and critically think before just accepting it and defending it. You can't censor media beyond libel/slander. But you can learn to be a bit more critical.

And I think this is something the left and right can both agree on. You need to be more critical in evaluating ANY news. Period! However, the emphasis here is personal responsibility. It's not up to anyone else to do this for you. It's not up to government to protect you from "fake news" ...it's YOUR responsibility to disseminate information on your own. We are never going to agree on some Czar of News Truth. That's the rabbit hole the left wants to go down and I will reject that.

I don't hear many leftists calling for banning media. I think that's a bit of rightwing fake news.

Now you can certainly act like sugar won't melt in your mouth and claim,... no, no... that's not what I want at all... but those of us on the right are keen to your tactics... we're just not buying it. We know exactly where you're headed with this latest "cause" and we're nipping the fucker in the bud!

I don't care what you think and what you will or will not buy. You "know" exactly nothing. You just assume.

The entire Congress is calling for a ban on media, not just the left, but the neo-cons as well. I already posted, and you already remarked on the Senate and House Bills that will ferret out any media that has been influenced by the Russians.

Where in that bill does it call for banning? I scanned the synopsis of one of the bills and didn't see anything about banning media.

SO, you think the government should have the right to shut down RT, is that it?

What is "RT"?

Even though that chart you posted had Al jazeera right smack in the middle of it, is that it?

smdh.

You're surprisingly wrong about Al jazeera. Your assuming that simply because it's run out of the Middle East it can't a) be a reputable news source and b) run like a BUSINESS. IE - responsive to it's customer base which for Al Jazeera US - is the US viewers.

 

[Vigilante]

We have a nice graphic to explain it to the uninformed....

 

[Coyote]

 

[yiostheoy]

Fake news isn't the media "getting it wrong".
Fake news isn't making a mistake and printing a retraction.
Fake news isn't making wrong predictions.

All of the above are part and parcel of the media business.

Fake news is a story that is completely false.

What is interesting isn't that it's something new, it isn't, but social media has given it an engine and the mainstream public doesn't seem to have the tools to untangle truth from fiction yet. The media is also behind the ball in taking responsibility, fact checking before a story is passed on and also - taking fake news to task and dissecting the story. The reason fake news has become such a player recently may be as simple as economics (earning money through ad click revenue) combined with the rather lawless playing field of social media and the lack of will to factcheck material that confirms with one's own preconceptions or bias.

What's interesting about fake news however, is not the story itself but what lies beneath the surface....

Craig Silverman was interviewed on Fresh Air this evening.

Our guest, Craig Silverman, has spent much of his career as a journalist writing about issues of accuracy in media. He wrote a column for the Poynter Institute called Regret the Error and later a book of the same name on the harm done by erroneous reporting. He also launched a web-based startup called Emergent devoted to crowdsourcing the fact-checking of fake news.


He's now the media editor for the website BuzzFeed, and he spent much of this year writing about fake news, rumors and conspiracy theories that gained currency in the presidential campaign - where they came from, why they got so much engagement on social media and what should be done to reduce their impact on public discourse.
​

Fascinating interview. Some of the main points covered:

Fake election news outperformed real news sites in social media such as facebook - significantly so 3 months and closer to election. 9 months and 6 months prior to the election, real news sites performed better. What is interesting is he provides the data: BuzzFeed News: Election content engagement and everyone of those fake news articles was a thread in Politics here on USMB. Less then half of the real news articles were.


Here's How Fake Election News Outperformed Real Election News On Facebook

Of the 20 top-performing false election stories identified in the analysis, all but three were overtly pro-Donald Trump or anti-Hillary Clinton. Two of the biggest false hits were a story claiming Clinton sold weapons to ISIS and a hoax claiming the pope endorsed Trump, which the site removed after publication of this article. The only viral false stories during the final three months that were arguably against Trump’s interests were a false quote from Mike Pence about Michelle Obama, a false report that Ireland was accepting American “refugees” fleeing Trump, and a hoax claiming RuPaul said he was groped by Trump.​

...These developments follow a study by BuzzFeed News that revealed hyperpartisan Facebook pages and their websites were publishing false or misleading content at an alarming rate — and generating significant Facebook engagement in the process. The same was true for the more than 100 US politics websites BuzzFeed News found being run out of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

...All the false news stories identified in BuzzFeed News’ analysis came from either fake news websites that only publish hoaxes or from hyperpartisan websites that present themselves as publishing real news. The research turned up only one viral false election story from a hyperpartisan left-wing site. The story from Winning Democrats claimed Ireland was accepting anti-Trump “refugees” from the US. It received over 810,000 Facebook engagements, and was debunked by an Irish publication. (There was also one post from an LGBTQ site that used a false quote from Trump in its headline.)​

Now, that leads to another point - WTF - Macedonia? The other point it found was these sites were overwelmingly pro-Trump. What interest or knowledge does a small town in Macedonia (and a large number of those sites are run out of one town) have in American Politics?

Back to the Silverman interview on Fresh Air.

The Guardian months earlier had pointed to over a hundred websites about U.S. politics in this small town of Veles. So we did our own research and we turned up a number of 140 sites...And as I filled out the spreadsheet it became very clear that they were overwhelmingly pro-Trump. And as I visited the websites and read their content, I saw that a lot of the stuff that they were pushing was misleading, was to the extreme of partisanship and also occasionally was false. And so we dug in even more and realized that among the top shared articles from, you know, these range of sites, the majority of, like, the top five were actually completely false. So at that point, once we understood the content that they were publishing and how many there were, we really wanted to understand so who are the people behind these sites?​

These sites came out of a Veles, a town in Macedonia. The owners were mostly young people - teens and early twenties, and college students. They weren't driven by ideology but by econonics. They could earn money directing traffic to their sites through Google AdSense and they were "using Facebook to drive the traffic to the websites where they had ads from Google and where they would earn money from that traffic" They don't create the content - they find it elsewhere, but they copy it and proliferate it.



The article goes into a lot more, including what should be done or shouldn't be done to combat it, but this statement was particularly compelling because we're all susceptable to it:

Silverman:

We shouldn't think of this as just being something for people who are very partisan. We love to hear things that confirm what we think and what we feel and what we already believe. It's - it makes us feel good to get information that aligns with what we already believe or what we want to hear.

And on the other side of that is when we're confronted with information that contradicts what we think and what we feel, the reaction isn't to kind of sit back and consider it. The reaction is often to double down on our existing beliefs. So if you're feeding people information that basically just tells them what they want to hear, they're probably going to react strongly to that. And the other layer that these pages are very good at is they bring in emotion into it, anger or hate or surprise or, you know, joy. And so if you combine information that aligns with their beliefs, if you can make it something that strikes an emotion in them, then that gets them to react.​

Anything on Face-Book is FAKE NEWS.

Zuckerberg should shut down his company and do the world a favor.

 

[MisterBeale]

....

Intelligence indicates it could be the Russians. . . but then, it could be a myriad of any others as well.

Precisely, and that is what the corporate news, including NPR is doing. They are claiming Entity A says X happened when they say that Russians have spread fake stories or hacked the election. They won't offer solid proof. Nobody in the intelligence agencies will.

Nobody tells you who entity A is. Gee, I wonder why?

US officials: Putin personally involved in US election hack

Fake news.

It's a crap lie put out by partisans at the CIA, they even tell you that in the story.

Can't you read?

Here's the guy behind the partisan attack.

Get a clue.

A subtle takedown of Donald Trump by Homeland Security's Jeh Johnson

It's all bullshit, partisan motivated and FAKE NEWS.

What evidence do you have that it's fake news?

That's not how this works skipper.

You have to have evidence that this isn't some politically motivated attack upon American's freedom of Press, or on the legitimacy of the election.

Otherwise, it's a non-story. I've already proved that the source for your aritcle that you posted from CNBC is partisan, and more than likely bunk. I have kept repeating to you and Pogo ad nauseum, WHY won't any of these MSM sources reveal WHO is behind these accusations. The only thing I get back from you two is "unnamed source in the CIA, or the CIA."

The reason they won't reveal the name of the accuser, is for this very reason.


That is not how we do things in the United States. In this nation, you are supposed to know the name of the person leveling these accusations, and how they made this "assessment." As of yet, we have gotten neither.

All we have gotten since October is the same thing, ad nauseum, like a skipping record. If you are at all intellectually curious, this should make you curious, raise your hackles, and make you doubtful.

You don't care, you just swallow the bullshit they are feeding you b/c you hate Trump so much.


Listen, I don't trust him either. What I don't trust more? Folks trying to destroy the freedom in the Constitution.

"...You have to have evidence that this isn't some politically motivated attack upon American's freedom of Press, or on the legitimacy of the election...". Umh no. Skipper.

That's not how it works. You don't prove negatives.

YOU made a claim. (that it is false news) It's up to you to support your claim with evidence.

I already did.

You ignored it.
A subtle takedown of Donald Trump by Homeland Security's Jeh Johnson

Here, I'll try it again.

Exclusive: Top U.S. spy agency has not embraced CIA assessment on Russia hacking - sources
Exclusive: Top U.S. spy agency has not embraced CIA assessment on Russia hacking - sources

"While the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) does not dispute the CIA's analysis of Russian hacking operations, it has not endorsed their assessment because of a lack of conclusive evidence that Moscow intended to boost Trump over Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, said the officials, who declined to be named."

<snip>

"In an angry letter sent to ODNI chief Clapper on Monday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes said he was “dismayed” that the top U.S. intelligence official had not informed the panel of the CIA’s analysis and the difference between its judgment and the FBI’s assessment.

Noting that Clapper in November testified that intelligence agencies lacked strong evidence linking Russian cyber attacks to the WikiLeaks disclosures, Nunes asked that Clapper, together with CIA and FBI counterparts, brief the panel by Friday on the latest intelligence assessment of Russian hacking during the election campaign."

IOW, it seems the only thing the Russians may be guilty of, is letting the American voter know the truth about the corruption in their system.

Oh gee, what terrible people they are. Hmmm . . . how terrible.

 

[Billy_Kinetta]

Wrong. The best lies contain a little truth.

Horseshit.

You sound grumpy.

 

[MisterBeale]

So post another one then and we'll tear apart it's obvious bias

Oh it's all in good fun.

I'm not the one posting a thread trying to convince folks that "fake news" exists. It doesn't, not to any large degree to where it is a problem. (Not in the alternative press anyhow.) A case might be made that the crony corporate press cartel that has made media so concentrated has cause people to lack the ability to grasp the reality of what is going on in the world.

I'm not so dumb to believe that any particular news source is guilty of creating and exclusively propagating and trading in false news, or thinking this is a problem which needs addressing, it isn't.



Did you ever learn about this in American History?

Did you know that Yellow Journalism was one of the major causes of both the Spanish American war, and the Iraq War? That's all on the MSM buddy, not on "fake news" as defined by the establishment.

I don't fall for CFR establishment journalist's lies. Apparently you're the sucker if you believe this chart you've posted.

 

[MisterBeale]

Why should it matter who published it?

That is a fallacy, you know that, right?

 

[Coyote]

Why should it matter who published it?

That is a fallacy, you know that, right?

You mean like you attack NPR as a source by calling it state media?

 

[Coyote]

Not all sources are equal. Junk is junk. That doesn't mean bias or that you shouldn't try to read news from a variety of sources. Should I take the National Enquirer seriously? Occassionally, it's right. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

 

[MisterBeale]

Learn how to evaluate and question and critically think before just accepting it and defending it. You can't censor media beyond libel/slander. But you can learn to be a bit more critical.

And I think this is something the left and right can both agree on. You need to be more critical in evaluating ANY news. Period! However, the emphasis here is personal responsibility. It's not up to anyone else to do this for you. It's not up to government to protect you from "fake news" ...it's YOUR responsibility to disseminate information on your own. We are never going to agree on some Czar of News Truth. That's the rabbit hole the left wants to go down and I will reject that.

I don't hear many leftists calling for banning media. I think that's a bit of rightwing fake news.

Now you can certainly act like sugar won't melt in your mouth and claim,... no, no... that's not what I want at all... but those of us on the right are keen to your tactics... we're just not buying it. We know exactly where you're headed with this latest "cause" and we're nipping the fucker in the bud!

I don't care what you think and what you will or will not buy. You "know" exactly nothing. You just assume.

The entire Congress is calling for a ban on media, not just the left, but the neo-cons as well. I already posted, and you already remarked on the Senate and House Bills that will ferret out any media that has been influenced by the Russians.

Where in that bill does it call for banning? I scanned the synopsis of one of the bills and didn't see anything about banning media.

SO, you think the government should have the right to shut down RT, is that it?

What is "RT"?

Even though that chart you posted had Al jazeera right smack in the middle of it, is that it?

smdh.

You're surprisingly wrong about Al jazeera. Your assuming that simply because it's run out of the Middle East it can't a) be a reputable news source and b) run like a BUSINESS. IE - responsive to it's customer base which for Al Jazeera US - is the US viewers.

I'd say the same thing about RT. Just because they are funded by the Russians, doesn't mean that the dissident American voices to the Anglo-American establishment which they commonly host aren't valuable to the functioning of our Democracy.

Naturally RT is extremely biased, but not so much more than Al Jazeera or Western media that it isn't useful information outlet. IMO, it's critical for balanced POV if you really want to get a complete view of world events. It is a crucial voice American should have a right to hear, and if the US government keeps the citizens of the US from hearing it, we risk moving that much closer to war by not understanding the Russian government and it's POV.


I watched an interview the other day between the Grand daughter of Eduard Shevardnadze, Journalist Sophie Sheverdnadze, and the Donald Trump of Germany, hard right AfD leader Frauke Petry. It was rather interesting. With out RT, who would do this?

What Is Russia Today?
The Kremlin's propaganda outlet has an identity crisis
What Is Russia Today?
“Maybe people watch us like a freak show,” Shevardnadze told me, “but I’ve never been even slightly embarrassed. This point of view has a right to exist. We don’t have the pretension of being like CNN, or being as good as bbc, because we’re not. You may totally disagree with what we’re doing, and it’s meant to be that way.” She adds, with a touch of exasperation, “It’s a job. They pay you for it.”

<snip>

"When there’s nothing for the propaganda channel to propagate, RT’s message becomes a slightly schizophrenic, ad hoc effort to push back against what comes out of the West. And if there’s nothing to push back against, other than the ghosts of a bygone era, then what, really, is left to say that others aren’t already saying, and saying better?"

It should be noted, I got a laugh over what partisan shill of an author of this piece recently found herself in hot water.

Like she is one to criticize journalistic integrity. Still, it's a good analysis of RT, and she is a good establishment left journalist.

 

[sealybobo]

View attachment 102119

You keep parroting the same bullshit, and it keeps getting ridiculed and refuted.

Get a a new fucking record bed wetter.

No its not. What you are doing is spreading more fake news. Fake news won the election. It was tweeted and shared more than real news. And it overwhelmingly favored Trump and hurt Hillary. Fake news.

Fake News Expert On How False Stories Spread And Why People Believe Them

You are a fucking idiot. Fake news didn't win the election... Hillary being a corrupt piece of shit candidate is why she lost. Hillary failing to connect with working class Americans in flyover country is why she lost. It wasn't that most of America is sexist.... wasn't because of Russian hackers... wasn't because of fake news... She was a crappy candidate who didn't inspire people.

I love how we now all of a sudden out of the clear fucking blue, have "Fake News Experts!"

When the left is not in power, they are hilarious!

Perfect example of how the public swallowed your bullshit narrative. Hillary wasn't even close to being a corrupt politician.

But if she met with Goldman Sachs and Exxon you'd go ape shit but trump appoints them to his cabinet.

Or that the economy was bad but in reality it's not.

You really are fucking dumb. You don't even know you got conned.

 

[MisterBeale]

Learn how to evaluate and question and critically think before just accepting it and defending it. You can't censor media beyond libel/slander. But you can learn to be a bit more critical.

And I think this is something the left and right can both agree on. You need to be more critical in evaluating ANY news. Period! However, the emphasis here is personal responsibility. It's not up to anyone else to do this for you. It's not up to government to protect you from "fake news" ...it's YOUR responsibility to disseminate information on your own. We are never going to agree on some Czar of News Truth. That's the rabbit hole the left wants to go down and I will reject that.

I don't hear many leftists calling for banning media. I think that's a bit of rightwing fake news.

Now you can certainly act like sugar won't melt in your mouth and claim,... no, no... that's not what I want at all... but those of us on the right are keen to your tactics... we're just not buying it. We know exactly where you're headed with this latest "cause" and we're nipping the fucker in the bud!

I don't care what you think and what you will or will not buy. You "know" exactly nothing. You just assume.

The entire Congress is calling for a ban on media, not just the left, but the neo-cons as well. I already posted, and you already remarked on the Senate and House Bills that will ferret out any media that has been influenced by the Russians.

Where in that bill does it call for banning? I scanned the synopsis of one of the bills and didn't see anything about banning media.

SO, you think the government should have the right to shut down RT, is that it?

What is "RT"?

Even though that chart you posted had Al jazeera right smack in the middle of it, is that it?

smdh.

You're surprisingly wrong about Al jazeera. Your assuming that simply because it's run out of the Middle East it can't a) be a reputable news source and b) run like a BUSINESS. IE - responsive to it's customer base which for Al Jazeera US - is the US viewers.

Actions are taken by the codes that are enacted by the administration. When a law is passed, the bureaucracy enacts it by creating codes and regulations. This is how administrative agencies enforce legislative edicts.

Do you think Congress critters have actually decided how much everyone is going to receive in Social Security benefits every month, is that how you think this works? Or that they are responsible for deciding what is safe for you to eat, or what environmental regulations are going to be enforced, etc.?



Once the government sets up a ministry of truth to tell the public what news is fake, and what news isn't, some dimwits will actually believe the government. Seriously.

Did you know that there are people that actually believe that the FDA, EPA, SEC, etc. have the people's best interests in mind, rather than the industries they regulate, isn't that a hoot? Most folks don't know that these agencies are staffed by the very insiders that once were in the industries that they are tasked to regulate.

What does that mean? What it means, is that once they set up this "Center," they will have folks like, oh, Brian "I was there" Williams, and maybe, Mary "fact check" Mapes to tell the public what is "fake news." And you folks will believe them, because they are the government.

Then you will tell us, in all our disagreements, when we source something, if it doesn't have "Center" approval, it isn't' reliable.

Then I'll have to tell you that you don't know shit.

 

[MisterBeale]

Why should it matter who published it?

That is a fallacy, you know that, right?

You mean like you attack NPR as a source by calling it state media?

I listen to it every morning . . . . and when they aren't lying about something, I'll be the first to use them as a source.


It is my prerogative to call out their bias though. YOU are the one the believes they don't have one. I am simply making the case that they have extreme bias b/c they are establishment media. I hell, I'll use everything, even the National Enquirer if I have to. Do you?



You are the one telling us that we can dismiss out of hand w/o reading/watching/listening too anything the source even has to report.

 

[MisterBeale]

Not all sources are equal. Junk is junk. That doesn't mean bias or that you shouldn't try to read news from a variety of sources. Should I take the National Enquirer seriously? Occassionally, it's right. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

So Americans need a ministry of Truth to hold their hand huh?

 

[Pogo]

I don't hear many leftists calling for banning media.

Oh no, of course not... they don't want to ban media any more than they want to ban guns! That's just crazy talk! ...This is a classic example of how the left always plays.

Got an example then?

Oh wait ----- look who I'm talking to...
Never mind.

The liberal left wants to control the information the media can report. I believe in the free press so I am opposed to this.

So is Liberalism. By definition. And btw Gummo "Liberal" and "left" are two different things --- you know that right?

Still looking for this evidence of --- whoever --- wanting to "control the information the media can report". Still not seeing it.

Not all sources are equal. Junk is junk. That doesn't mean bias or that you shouldn't try to read news from a variety of sources. Should I take the National Enquirer seriously? Occassionally, it's right. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

So Americans need a ministry of Truth to hold their hand huh?

Where does anyone suggest that?

aaaand STILL not seeing it.

 

[Pogo]

Once AGAIN ---- where does she say she "wants to get rid of outlier sources"?

See what I mean about the irony of you charging somebody else with assumptions?

That's ALL this "fake news" meme is about! It's where this is headed because there is no other "reasonable" resolution. We have to do something about all these various sources of news who don't report the preordained "truth" according to the liberal left.

--- So you have no answer. You just postulated your own strawman and the tagged on the end, "according to the liberal left" (which again is two different things). No quote. No link. No nothin'.

 

[Pogo]

Learn how to evaluate and question and critically think before just accepting it and defending it. You can't censor media beyond libel/slander. But you can learn to be a bit more critical.

And I think this is something the left and right can both agree on. You need to be more critical in evaluating ANY news. Period! However, the emphasis here is personal responsibility. It's not up to anyone else to do this for you. It's not up to government to protect you from "fake news" ...it's YOUR responsibility to disseminate information on your own. We are never going to agree on some Czar of News Truth.

All true, all sound reasoning, all agreed. Now let's go to Fantasyland....

.....That's the rabbit hole the left wants to go down and I will reject that.

Now you can certainly act like sugar won't melt in your mouth and claim,... no, no... that's not what I want at all... but those of us on the right are keen to your tactics... we're just not buying it. We know exactly where you're headed with this latest "cause" and we're nipping the fucker in the bud!

The old "I know what you said but here's what you really mean" fallacy.

I guess it's typical of fake news followers that they think they can just declare something exists, present no evidence whatsoever, and with the aid of magic Flooby Dust® --- it becomes a real thing.

This is how Fake News finds its audience. Targets people with a shaky hold on reality.

 

[Pogo]

Five Arrested in Egypt for Staging Fake Aleppo Video

"Truth is the first casualty in war"....

>> Five people in Port Said allegedly making fake videos purporting to show the wreckage of air strikes in the Syrian city of Aleppo have been arrested, the Egyptian Interior Ministry has said.

The videographer, his assistants and the parents of two children who appear in the footage were detained after police managed to trail the would-be camera crew to a building site awaiting demolition, a statement on Monday said.

The team reportedly admitted they had planned to distribute their work on social media, pretending it showed scenes of the injured and destruction in Aleppo, the embattled northern Syrian city which has just fallen back under government control after four years of fighting between the regime and Sunni rebels.

.... The girl’s dress, covered in red paint, was what caught the attention of a police officer driving by, the ministry said. <<
​

Of course there's a great deal of fake news generated about the Middle East by propagandists, many of which find their way into their own thread topics here without the poster bothering to vet the story or its source. This set of fake news long predates the recent election so there was plenty of knowledge base as to what would sell to the gullible.

This Nosebook post for example:.

In reality this is from a singing competition and the girl, clammed up with stage fright, is being consoled by the MC. Nor is she even Christian. Nothing more sinister than that. But the propagandists insist on making shit up to foment hate.

The original even video:

​

Many more debunks here.

Clearly fake news has a long and checkered history which spiked with the internet. The difference between on the one hand internet blogs/Nosebook posts/fake news sites and on the other hand legitimate journalism is that there's no Editor on the internet to filter what's real and what's absolute bullshit.

 

[Coyote]

Maybe we ought to use this thread to debunk fake news....