On Fake News, Clickbait & Hoaxes: Verified by Snopes to be True

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > On Fake News, Clickbait & Hoaxes: Verified by Snopes to be True

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

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)

# ¿ Dec 2, 2016 11:21

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 14:10

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

A Deacon posted:

The point was that numerous media & news outlets were blaming Russia and Putin for Hillary's loss rather than the abundance of horrible positions she had on domestic and foreign policy that repelled many voters.

The real McCarthyite horseshit was the immediate turn around where anyone critical of Clinton was accused of being a Putin stooge. See the godawful PropOrNot list that accused Naked Capitalism of being in the Kremlin's pockets.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2016 12:35

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Byolante posted:

It lists Zero Hedge, Naked Capitalism, Truth Dig and the daily stormer as pro-russian propaganda fonts. The one thing I can say uniformly about those 4 outlets is they aren't in favour of Russia. Its essentially a dumping ground of clickbait idiocy like that guy from California who made fake news to try and discredit the right then realised there was good money in it and turned it into a business consequences be damned, Scaremongering conspiracy theorists and anyone who attacked Clinton who was notionally leftist. They don't comment on why you are on the list and offer to take you off if you bend the knee and run only news they approve of.

The Zero Hedge article they use as an example of absurdly pro-Russian propaganda is a blog saying that Russia is hosed and the rest of the world is headed the same direction. I'm not sure they've read half the stuff they cite.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2016 08:55

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

FactsAreUseless posted:

America's strong protections for the press against libel allow the press to investigate public figures in a way that wasn't possible before those protections were put into place

I'd be interested in more info on this, if you're up for it. Or if you have some links to read, that'd be nice as well.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2016 12:59

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

FactsAreUseless posted:

Wikipedia lays it out pretty well, but the key case is New York Times v. Sullivan, if you want a different source. It established a precedent that public figures can't sue for libel simply because something is false. They have to demonstrate "actual malice." So public figures can't just go through stories to find any minor inaccuracy ("Oh, it was actually five attack dogs, not six") and use it as the basis for a suit.

Thanks!

Potato Salad posted:

Can't look into it yourself? Australia's low-simmering issue with <word I'm not allowed to use on the internet anymore> dates back a decade. Do you read any international news outlets?

And yes, I assert that libel crackdown of the sort <name I'm supposed to respect now> has explicitly called for and Australia has is categorically <word I'm not allowed to use on the internet anymore>.

I didn't quote the part about Australia since I wasn't asking about Australia.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2016 13:21

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Potato Salad posted:

I made a mistake here. I read this and assumed that, between libel policy abroad that favors the plaintiff and the protections citizens enjoy in the States, you'd have been informed about the one that is a component of your rights -- assuming you live in the US.

My apologies for reading your post with the prejudice that you even knew the extent of protection we enjoy on free speech in the states, nonetheless on how it's actually something of a novel idea that free speech is so strictly protected even in a democratic society. That's my bad, I'll make sure to avoid assuming you know more than what's explicitly in your posts.

If you want some breadcrumbs on the Australia tangent I included by mistake anyway, read up on free speech issues in superficially more progressive nations like Germany, the UK, and Australia. My (unprompted, unwanted) hot take is that progress isn't a sliding bar -- you can be a nation like Germany that's experimenting with progressive economic ideas like basic income yet be somewhat regressive on topics like free speech. In the UK, and you may or may not agree with this if you look into it yourself, what essentially amounts to burden of proof is placed on the reporter as opposed to the plaintiff in libel cases. That stands in contrast with what happens here in the US, where a plaintiff has a steep burden to prove falsehood, intent, and damage to silence libelous speech / collect damages from a defendant.

Edit 1: If there's a warning I want to convey with my post, it's that we can indeed lose some of what we loosely understand yet often don't as a populace have the capacity to enumerate as our rights in short order without vigilance. Plenty of the free world's population lives under government that does not place the same sanctity on speech as we can fail to appreciate in the states. I certainly believe we can become similarly complacent should the US flip the starting prejudice in libel law to favor corporate / moneyed interest.

I don't live in the US.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2016 15:54

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Potato Salad posted:

What is your citizenship?

I'm not interested in having a debate with you, Potato Salad. There are smart posters here I'd love to have a discussion on free speech with, but you're not one of them.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2016 21:26

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

Potato Salad posted:

I'm not really interested in debating anyone. Hopefully a thread on fake news can really just be about fake news and not personal stuff. Low-effort half-sentence posting however

I don't know what the gently caress you want from me, I asked somebody else a question and you posted a full on paragraph accusing me of being an uninformed idiot for no reason. If you're not interested in getting personal, maybe don't do it.

# ¿ Dec 5, 2016 23:57

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

EugeneJ posted:

The Pizzagate shooter's father ran a private group called Protect-A-Child and was later appointed to a Commission on Child Victimization by the governor of North Carolina.

Now this could run both ways - did the Pizzagate shooter learn about child abuse from his father's work, hear about Pizzagate, then choose to investigate Comet Ping Pong? Or is his family involved in some kind of cover-up of child abuse?

what

# ¿ Dec 9, 2016 17:02

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 14:10

botany: Apr 27, 2013; by Lowtax

EugeneJ posted:

http://harrywelchjr.com/

Yeah how did you get from that to "his family is covering up child abuse", like what the gently caress. I wasn't sure if you were trying to be extremely meta by coming up with your own idiotic conspiracy theory in the fake news thread.

# ¿ Dec 9, 2016 17:22

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