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Since the end of the Election and the beginning of the end times, one of the biggest influences appeared to be news that was later deemed inaccurate, misleading or under the guise of "satire." It's concerning and relieving that it's made a bit more clearer that Americans (and pretty much the world, let's be real) has a distinct lack of media literacy. It's unfortunate that we had to fall flat on our face in order to do so. Whether its your low key racist aunt spreading articles about people being trucked in to protest Trump, to major news networks reporting that CNN played 30 minutes of porn in Boston based off of a single loving tweet, this thread is to discuss the impact of fake or misleading news. Totally cool with this thread being used to debunk fake news, media literacy as a whole, and the rise of clickbait journalism. Down to discuss biases among news orgs. Links to check out: (recommendations are highly welcome!) Politifact Not perfect, but drat near close. A bit quicker than Snopes. Snopes.com The ground floor of debunking. How Fake News Goes Viral: A Case Study - NYT How to Spot and Debunk Fake News - Lifehacker A decent list of fake, satirical, and pretty lovely news sites (it's a Google Doc that links to a PDF) caveat emptor: Silver2195 posted:I think the Zimdars list is rather unhelpful, since the way it includes websites that are merely heavily opinionated or have a clickbaity tone alongside sites that make things up out of whole cloth leads to a conflation of distinct issues. She does state that not everything on the list should be considered "fake news," but this point got lost, ironically, by the mainstream news sites reporting on it, and she really should have realized that would happen. Literally Unbelievable (or: why we desperately need Media Literacy taught in school) teen witch fucked around with this message at 16:15 on Dec 1, 2016 |
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Dec 1, 2016 16:01
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teen witch posted:A decent list of fake, satirical, and pretty lovely news sites (it's a Google Doc that links to a PDF) I think the Zimdars list is rather unhelpful, since the way it includes websites that are merely heavily opinionated or have a clickbaity tone alongside sites that make things up out of whole cloth leads to a conflation of distinct issues. She does state that not everything on the list should be considered "fake news," but this point got lost, ironically, by the mainstream news sites reporting on it, and she really should have realized that would happen.
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Dec 1, 2016 16:09
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Silver2195 posted:I think the Zimdars list is rather unhelpful, since the way it includes websites that are merely heavily opinionated or have a clickbaity tone alongside sites that make things up out of whole cloth leads to a conflation of distinct issues. Good point, going to edit the OP to reflect that!
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Dec 1, 2016 16:12
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I think that fake news highlights the human tendency to only believe in "facts" that closely aligns with their worldview. I've even corrected people on factually inaccurate statements like "Obama wants to introduce death panels for seniors" only to be met with "well it's the concept that concerns me!". I tend to blame conservative media for making it easy to not apply critical thinking due to claims of "liberal bias". Facts are irrelevant in the face of media distrust.
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Dec 1, 2016 17:14
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Vargatron posted:I tend to blame conservative media for making it easy to not apply critical thinking due to claims of "liberal bias". Facts are irrelevant in the face of media distrust. Sometimes the same co-worker who brings up disprovable lies or conspiracy theories will respond to your correction reply with "You don't always have to be right!" Really, what's the point of having any discussion about news or politics for those types? You shouldn't read that stuff to feel comfortable
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Dec 1, 2016 17:41
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Vargatron posted:I think that fake news highlights the human tendency to only believe in "facts" that closely aligns with their worldview. I've even corrected people on factually inaccurate statements like "Obama wants to introduce death panels for seniors" only to be met with "well it's the concept that concerns me!". Yeah; my dad is a liberal, and I'm pretty sure that if I wanted I could convince him that Trump (or some other prominent Republican) did some random horrible thing that I made up. I think a big part of it is that, on a social level, people enjoy the feeling of agreeing with others and dislike conflict, especially if they know them personally. It's more pleasant to say "wow really, that's great/awful!" than it is to say "hm are you sure that's actually true?"
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Dec 1, 2016 18:33
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James Harvey Robinson, writing at the turn of the 20th century posted:A third kind of thinking is stimulated when anyone questions our belief and opinions. We sometimes find ourselves changing our minds without any resistance or heavy emotion, but if we are told that we are wrong we resent the imputation and harden our hearts. http://grammar.about.com/od/classicessays/a/On-Various-Kinds-Of-Thinking-By-James-Harvey-Robinson_2.htm People have always been avoidant of cognitive dissonance and most resist exposure to anything that would challenge their current views. The only thing that has changed is a) the increasing volume of fake news that aligns with people's beliefs and b) the ability to monetize the production of these stories, which creates an incentive to make more of them, and thus a).
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Dec 1, 2016 19:12
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gently caress, even today on CNN. I was nearly expecting her to mention Infowars.
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Dec 1, 2016 20:38
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The other thing that comes to mind is the echo chamber principle. You won't ever challenge your own beliefs so long as you don't here an opposing view. Fake news just reinforces lovely opinions even though the facts my be inaccurate. The intent of the article is enough for many people. From personal experience I used to be very homophobic and biased against minorities (ex-redpiller/MRA here) but the more exposure I had to those people the more I realized that my own beliefs were ethically wrong. I don't think that I would have made that change of heart had I consumed media that reinforced those beliefs. Would have been doubly true if I was reading patently false articles but never questioned them because it made me "feel good" about my own beliefs.
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Dec 1, 2016 20:50
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Someone in another thread said it best, "Family friendly is out; 'edgy' is in". These types of articles -- both the fake ones and the fact-debunkers -- generate clicks which generate revenues. This poo poo is making money, and in an environment where real journalism is less and less profitable, we are probably going to see it ramp up. Fake news isn't going anywhere.
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Dec 1, 2016 22:56
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teen witch posted:gently caress, even today on CNN. It's infuriating to watch her excuses change as she's questioned for details.
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Dec 1, 2016 23:41
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QUACKTASTIC posted:It's infuriating to watch her excuses change as she's questioned for details. It's like deep down she knows it's horseshit but man does it feel good to say!
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Dec 1, 2016 23:52
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It's like watching a thousand simultaneous games of telephone play out. It's gossip masquerading as a 24 hour news cycle. At the end there, she even knew that she didn't want to outright agree with the idea that California condones voter fraud even though seconds beforehand she had literally said California allows it, because that's loving insane, and so you just watch the argument adapt in real-time.
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Dec 2, 2016 00:01
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Thanks to the free market, I can find the news that best supports my ideas. That would never happen if the government controlled things like in Russia!
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Dec 2, 2016 00:49
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The existance of fake news is not a new development and per-capita there was probably actually more of it in the 19th century What's different is the sheer ease of finding it. Hell, most people don't even voluntarily seek it out, a computer algorithm points them to it.
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Dec 2, 2016 00:52
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Is this the thread to talk about Trevor Noah interviewing some lady? No fewer than 3 people have brought that up despite my best efforts to preserve my sanity
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Dec 2, 2016 00:52
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roymorrison posted:Is this the thread to talk about Trevor Noah interviewing some lady? No fewer than 3 people have brought that up despite my best efforts to preserve my sanity With the lady who literally does not read books? My coworkers were watching that and basically said they both made good points which really means "I don't want to think about the way the things the nice black man said made me feel"
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Dec 2, 2016 01:04
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roymorrison posted:Is this the thread to talk about Trevor Noah interviewing some lady? No fewer than 3 people have brought that up despite my best efforts to preserve my sanity It was very bad, she's like a more repulsive, dumber, less self-aware version of Ann Coulter. It was shocking that there can exist such a disgusting person, really.
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Dec 2, 2016 01:10
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Fojar38 posted:The existance of fake news is not a new development and per-capita there was probably actually more of it in the 19th century Yeah I'm reminded of the Orwell essay on looking back on the Spanish war. The whole thing is worth reading, but I liked this line: quote:Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines’. How little things have changed. It's interesting how much attention this stuff is getting lately though. At least a lot of people are questioning this kind of bullshit.
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Dec 2, 2016 05:07
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rscott posted:With the lady who literally does not read books? My coworkers were watching that and basically said they both made good points which really means "I don't want to think about the way the things the nice black man said made me feel" I thought her points were like a frozen lake full of sewage: on the surface they could be seen as vaguely reasonable but would crack under any pressure. The problem is that Noah would crack the ice but then move on (or get shifted to) an unbroken section where he had to start over, and never really exposed the sewage. There were a couple times he could have really attacked because she was on the ropes (like whenever the KKK was brought up) but he wasted a lot of time trying to get her to answer questions that a smarter version of her would be able to manage. The interview is like a distillation of the current talking head trend of high-speed pivoting and modifying, though. The people in that CNN video have nothing on her. Don't like a question? Pivot away. Getting pressed on the question? Reframe the questioning to make it look like you're being personally attacked.
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Dec 2, 2016 07:15
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Vindicator posted:It's like watching a thousand simultaneous games of telephone play out. It's gossip masquerading as a 24 hour news cycle. At the end there, she even knew that she didn't want to outright agree with the idea that California condones voter fraud even though seconds beforehand she had literally said California allows it, because that's loving insane, and so you just watch the argument adapt in real-time. Yeah, that's what I picked up too. Also, notice how when she's first asked that question, she tries to claim that she heard it on CNN. Why would someone who, in all likelihood believes that CNN is the Clinton News Network, want to defend their BS by pointing to that very same network? Because at some level, even she realizes that she can't bring up Fox News or Breitbart or FreedomPatriots.org. She wants her garbage to have some actual legitimacy.
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Dec 2, 2016 08:07
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I found this piece on billmoyers.com Who’s Really to Blame for Fake News : Look in the mirror, America. It made a good point that people themselves are complicit in falling for fake news when they submit to their own biases. I recall a TED talk back in 2010ish where someone brought up how google perpetuates information bubbles and filters with their algorithms. It has become unavoidable to fall into this trap if these search engine algorithms are tailored to seek and filter your interests. Combine this with tribalism and the echo chamber becomes harder to defeat. I disagree with that author that people are lazy to gather real news but their world view is just simply different . quote:Consider for a moment the oxymoronic concept of “fake news,” which we have been hearing so much about lately. This isn’t your typical disinformation or misinformation — generated by the government, or foreign adversaries, or corporations — to advance an agenda by confusing the public. It isn’t even the familiar dystopian idea of manipulated fact designed to keep people lobotomized and malleable in some post-human autocracy. Those scenarios assume at least an underlying truth against which nefarious forces can take aim.
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Dec 2, 2016 09:00
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I think the fake news argument at it's core is fundamentally flawed because there doesn't seem to be anyone talking about it being a problem on the left, which it absolutely is. I posted a example from a few days ago of the Guardian posting up a sotry of a guy who got radicalised into the alt right through new atheism. The first warning bells should have been how large tracts of it were very close to word for word lifts from a article published a few days before by a staff writer on the same topic, but it fit the narrative the Guardian wanted to press forwards in the fallout from the US election so they ran it without what would be obvious checks. Turned out it was written by an alt-right troll proving that the left is only too happy to run bullshit if it confirms their biases. Greenwald was among the people signal boosting the story on twitter, which seemed cynical on its face since the article attacked someone he had a public and messy feud with previously. The left either needs to do better and not let things like Rolling Stone or this happen, or accept its part of the game and stop trying to characterise it as a purely right wing phenomenon they are not guilty of. The way it is currently portrayed is ultimately a losing strategy because it leaves you open to easily provable accusations of wallowing in the same filth you protest against.
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Dec 2, 2016 09:34
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You're kind of conflating the sides. An entire crop of false news sites with what, the rolling stones and a guardian article? How is the Rollingstones rape debacle even something on the head of the left? Walk me through the logic, because I dont see it.
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Dec 2, 2016 09:51
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I joined a Facebook group called "TRUMP REVOLUTION" (26,000+ members!) and let me just say that the amount of blatantly false, unbelievably idiotic articles posted, and then the number of people commenting on the links who clearly buy it all without the slightest reflection or hesitation, is really really something. I've followed the Freep and Right-wing media threads for years, so none of it surprises me all that much, but I find it surprisingly jarring and lovely when experienced through that particular medium.
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Dec 2, 2016 09:58
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Byolante posted:. Turned out it was written by an alt-right troll proving that the left is only too happy to run bullshit if it confirms their biases. Greenwald was among the people signal boosting the story on twitter, which seemed cynical on its face since the article attacked someone he had a public and messy feud with previously. Also "i almost became an alt right racist haha just kidding im already an alt right raci-" is the dumbest attempt at a liberal media takedown done, by somebody not named james okeefe, yet
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Dec 2, 2016 10:06
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roymorrison posted:Is this the thread to talk about Trevor Noah interviewing some lady? No fewer than 3 people have brought that up despite my best efforts to preserve my sanity In case people missed it, let me sum up the interview: Tomi Lahren: "I don't see color" Also Tomi Lahren, about 5 minutes later: "IS IT BECAUSE I'M WHITE!?!!?" "I'm a Millennial, so I don't like labels" Me, after that loving comment:  "Really though, what did the KKK do?" "Black Lives Matter is just this generation's KKK" *Duck and dodges the tough questions. Refuses to answer, instead deflects and rapidly changes subjects* Trevor Noah (paraphrasing here): Black people can't march, because they're labeled thugs. They can't protest because they're "rioting", they can't kneel in a corner by themselves, because it's disrespectful. So how can the black community protest, in ways that you're ok with? Tomi: BLACK MEN ARE 18.5% MORE LIKELY TO KILL A POLICE OFFICER THAN A POLICE OFFICER TO KILL A BLACK MAN! WHY DON'T WE TALK ABOUT THIS!?!??! Trevor: ... Ok, uh, well, okkkk... But back to my question, how can the black community protest? Tomi: HOW CAN YOU DISRESPECT THE FLAG AND THE ANTHEM!?!?!????? Trevor (at this point he's chuckling because he knows this bitch has the IQ of a grapefruit): Ok, but you still haven't answered my question... So, how would YOU protest? Tomi: .... Well, I wouldn't protest  It was at that point that I needed to pause the interview, and go  to be able to finish it, because I can only take so much of that vapid oval office. The rest of it was, unfortunately, uneventful. I was kinda disappointed that Trevor didn't just crush her and really drive the point home to her that she's nothing but a mouthpiece and a honeypot for the conservative base who need an objectively attractive, blond haired, blue eyed woman to tell them what to think. She's lost without cue cards, has absolutely no worldly experience (she's like, 23 or 24) that would justify her lovely opinions, and in general is just dumb as a loving brick. Her only hope is she somehow pulls her head out of her rear end and see's that she's just a pawn and cuts ties... Yeah, like that'll happen 
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Dec 2, 2016 11:15
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I feel like I would understand your message better if you could somehow use even more emoticons, thanks. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Dec 2, 2016 11:21
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I think there's a pretty big gulf between the media reporting on someone who turned out to be lying about something that would otherwise be pretty mundane and the never ending stream of insanity that the fake news stuff is about. Like college rape is a pretty common thing, and there's not actually much fact checking a news site can do for that. Compare that with say, "Dearborne is under sharia law as MUSLIM savages rape your pure white women" poo poo that there's a whole literal loving industry built around. Not an industry around making claims or reporting garbage like that. A large well funded speaking circuit and think tanks built around that one single claim. Like even if you don't trust anyone but the dumb assholes who spawned the lie, you can GO VISIT DEARBORNE.
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Dec 2, 2016 11:28
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Nevermind the fact that the truth eventually broke in those stories, while we are literally watching the breitbart crowd double down on the dumbest, most easily disproven poo poo over and over. It's a huge false equivalence on the level of the soviet unions crap about lynching during the 1960's while they were shipping people off to the gulags to claim that both sides are just as bad.
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Dec 2, 2016 11:52
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botany posted:I feel like I would understand your message better if you could somehow use even more emoticons, thanks. Ah, ok! Thanks for the advice! I'll keep it in mind for the next time that I decide to give a poo poo what you think 
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Dec 2, 2016 12:07
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What is fake news? News that is cleqrly false? that seems unlikely or incredible? Is the line that easy to draw? Anyone on this forum who posted anything suggesting Trump was close in the month leading up to the election was shouted down mocked and ran out of politics threads with a new red title. If it was put to a vote, most of those guys would have said anyone predicting a Trump win was crazy, biased, or lying, when in fact they would have been correct. This false news thing is way less interesting and is a distraction from the real issue: a) that media is now incapable of serious, critical reporting of complex issues, and b) even if they were, no one trusts or listens to them or is interested in complexity Hunter S Thompson said in his time that traditional media had a blind spot to a crook like Nixon. Trump glided through that same blind spot albeit in a different way. While they were freaking out about pussy grabbing or whatever, their breathless reporting about every minute stupid thing the orange frog did while talking endlessly about emails and horse race enabled him while obscuring that they were doing so
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Dec 2, 2016 12:10
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terrorist ambulance posted:Hunter S Thompson said in his time that traditional media had a blind spot to a crook like Nixon. Trump glided through that same blind spot albeit in a different way. While they were freaking out about pussy grabbing or whatever, their breathless reporting about every minute stupid thing the orange frog did while talking endlessly about emails and horse race enabled him while obscuring that they were doing so
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Dec 2, 2016 12:27
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'Fake News' is a manufactured scapegoat. The problem isn't that the corporate media was pushing a false narrative they wanted to come true, no it's just that the stupid idiots of our country couldn't hear it over that drat Facebook. The problem isn't that third way democrats have done nothing to help the working class and the recession never really went away for a large portion of the country, it's the false article saying that Obama wants to ban the pledge of allegiance that allowed Trump to steal those people away. The problem isn't that what's left of our manufacturing jobs are leaving the country and there's no real alternative for what we're losing, it's just that dumb (soon to be unemployed) union worker doesn't know that more manufacturing jobs were created under Obama since the 1990s and we have to prepare for the jobs of the future when they come (arrival date: TBD) People aren't going to believe Nobel laureate Paul Krugman when he shreds his credibility by saying that Trump is a puppet installed by the Kremlin. People aren't going to believe President Of The United States (and strangely enough, Nobel laureate) Barack Obama when he says things are getting better when they can clearly see that they aren't. People aren't going to believe the prestigious media outlets when they say that Hillary Clinton is a great progressive when there's decades worth of information saying otherwise. If you want to neuter the power of 'fake news', you don't ghettoize it, you have to regain your own credibility. That means journalists have to behave like journalists instead of pundits. That means politicians actually have to do the things they say they're going to do for a decent amount of time. That means corporate owners of publications have to stop using their platforms like a pulpit. (And yeah, stupid people sharing 'Dearborne is under sharia law' or 'fema is building death camps' articles isn't good but that has always taken place in various forms. It just wasn't as noticeable. Somebody would pass on some stupid thing they heard to their friend and their friend would tell their limited number of friends. Or somebody would FWD: some chain letter they got. Now, everything's connected and public for the world to see. It's one of those things regarding the internet where you have to take the bad with the good. You'll never win by ghettoizing things because the second Facebook starts flagging links as false, that's when people will start to think that Facebook is bias against conservatives and can't be trusted. 'Maybe there's some truth to this since they don't want me to see it' That's a real thing a lot of people believe.)
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Dec 2, 2016 12:54
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If only there were some piece of legislation that would require journalists to report both sides of a story...
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Dec 2, 2016 14:37
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People keep saying "echo chamber" and "people believe what they want to believe" but another factor is simple media literacy. It's just flat out easier now to make news sites that look real but aren't. People that grew up with newspapers or broadcast news kinda didn't come prepared for the wild west internet of news where anyone can write anything.
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Dec 2, 2016 15:14
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Shame not everyone got taught about the validity of sources in school when they were doing their first research papers. Also lol at the perfect example of why the problem is so bad showing up in the thread.
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Dec 2, 2016 15:22
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Byolante posted:I think the fake news argument at it's core is fundamentally flawed because there doesn't seem to be anyone talking about it being a problem on the left, which it absolutely is. Interesting piece from NPR: We Tracked Down A Fake-News Creator In The Suburbs. Here's What We Learned http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/11/23/503146770/npr-finds-the-head-of-a-covert-fake-news-operation-in-the-suburbs quote:We've tried to do similar things to liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You'll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out. On the other hand: CheeseSpawn posted:
I had no idea that this story was also from a likely fake source (and it appears Rolling Stone was the first to attack it).
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Dec 2, 2016 15:27
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Even if you can trust them to be factual in what they do report, you can't trust establishment news outlets to be unbiased, or to hold different politicians to the same standards, much less report on what's actually important to begin with. How much reporting did the NDAA get when Obama signed it into law in 2013? Did CNN or Fox have any constitutional or legal scholars on to raise the warning flags? The MSM has completely abdicated any sense of responsibility and is complicit in creating a narrative that facts are subjective and reality is a la carte. It's no surprise that people are just taking that to its natural conclusion.
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Dec 2, 2016 15:29
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Zipperelli. posted:In case people missed it, let me sum up the interview: She also kept trying to argue that she wasn't part of the "mainstream media", but rather was just mainstream in terms of number of views or some poo poo.
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Dec 2, 2016 15:40
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