How Big Is The Fake News Problem?
Discussion
durbster said:
Don't know if anyone saw this story the other day about a "Christian child" being corrupted by evil Muslim foster parents. The Mail Online (of course) took it and spun it into something for their readership to be furious about:
The image they used to accompany the article was stock photograph taken in Dubai, and they even Photoshopped an extra veil to make sure it provoked the full reaction from their readership. Gotta keep that website traffic flowing.
The story was largely b
ks, if you compare the press version against the court documents:
https://tompride.wordpress.com/2017/08/31/how-the-...
And this is the problem. Trump is a moron banging on about Fake News, but how can you argue when the established press roll out this guff. When there's no clear distinction between clickbait like the above, and proper journalism, our free press - our best weapon against corruption - is catastrophically undermined.
No one apart from those who posted in the 50(?)page thread about it.The image they used to accompany the article was stock photograph taken in Dubai, and they even Photoshopped an extra veil to make sure it provoked the full reaction from their readership. Gotta keep that website traffic flowing.
The story was largely b
ks, if you compare the press version against the court documents:https://tompride.wordpress.com/2017/08/31/how-the-...
And this is the problem. Trump is a moron banging on about Fake News, but how can you argue when the established press roll out this guff. When there's no clear distinction between clickbait like the above, and proper journalism, our free press - our best weapon against corruption - is catastrophically undermined.
This was doing the rounds recently.
When Fake News is Actually Fake News. That people shared the photo thinking it was real shows how far we’ve fallen.
When Fake News is Actually Fake News. That people shared the photo thinking it was real shows how far we’ve fallen.
babatunde said:
Funkycoldribena said:
No one apart from those who posted in the 50(?)page thread about it.
It's the Daily Mail, they aren't really a newspaper it's like calling fox news a "news station" there is a reason here on PH we "qualify" any links to the DMrscott said:
Wikipedia don't hold the Mail in high esteem - https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com...
That's hilarious! The Gurdian crowing that Wikipedia doesn't trust the Mail.There are no newspapers, or news media. Not in the sense the words suggest. All of them are beholden to advertisers, or owners, or editors, or political parties. You would have to be stupid to trust what you read in any of them.
grumbledoak said:
rscott said:
Wikipedia don't hold the Mail in high esteem - https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com...
That's hilarious! The Gurdian crowing that Wikipedia doesn't trust the Mail.There are no newspapers, or news media. Not in the sense the words suggest. All of them are beholden to advertisers, or owners, or editors, or political parties. You would have to be stupid to trust what you read in any of them.
rscott said:
grumbledoak said:
rscott said:
Wikipedia don't hold the Mail in high esteem - https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com...
That's hilarious! The Gurdian crowing that Wikipedia doesn't trust the Mail.There are no newspapers, or news media. Not in the sense the words suggest. All of them are beholden to advertisers, or owners, or editors, or political parties. You would have to be stupid to trust what you read in any of them.
‘'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'........Government to step in and tackle fake news.
Theresa May is set to authorise the creation of a rapid response unit to stop fake news spreading online. The team, which will be based in the Cabinet Office, will be tasked with monitoring social media to identify and challenge disinformation. It follows a slew of false stories that were distributed on the internet even after they were shown to be false, many of which were damaging to the Conservative Party, the government or both. The new unit will set itself the ambitious target of seeking to “reclaim a fact-based public debate
Non paywall link...
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/01/21/uk-governme...
Theresa May is set to authorise the creation of a rapid response unit to stop fake news spreading online. The team, which will be based in the Cabinet Office, will be tasked with monitoring social media to identify and challenge disinformation. It follows a slew of false stories that were distributed on the internet even after they were shown to be false, many of which were damaging to the Conservative Party, the government or both. The new unit will set itself the ambitious target of seeking to “reclaim a fact-based public debate
Non paywall link...
http://www.thedrum.com/news/2018/01/21/uk-governme...
Jonesy23 said:
So who decides what the official facts are then? Will they be calling themselves the Ministry of Truth?
There's this thing they used to use in the old days called evidence. The problem is, the internet has demonstrated how terrible people generally are at critical thinking, and now we're bombarded with bulls
t all day long the only solution is surely better education. The money would probably be better invested in a Government campaign that showed people how to read the internet critically, and parse fact from fiction.Poor science education is at the heart of a lot of the problem with fake news. The booming "wellness" industry is testament to that.
durbster said:
Jonesy23 said:
So who decides what the official facts are then? Will they be calling themselves the Ministry of Truth?
There's this thing they used to use in the old days called evidence. The problem is, the internet has demonstrated how terrible people generally are at critical thinking, and now we're bombarded with bulls
t all day long the only solution is surely better education. The money would probably be better invested in a Government campaign that showed people how to read the internet critically, and parse fact from fiction.Poor science education is at the heart of a lot of the problem with fake news. The booming "wellness" industry is testament to that.
Meanwhile basic stuff like sexual health is going backwards and young people are inaware of actual facts that could have real impact on them:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-42747892
I really think the BBC should have a mandatory "boring but important" section of five mins every half hour on 24hr news and the second story on it's website.
The media let us down terribly and we vote and treat each other according to our ignorance. It leaves us ripe pickings for the politically unethical.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/bri...
11 MPs have flown from London to NY, before travelling to DC to spend three hours questioning Google, Facebook and Twitter executives who had offered to come to the UK to be questioned. All in the name of tackling fake news.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/markdistefano/we-...
https://www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/markdistefano/we-...
Only one survey, but this has worrying implications and would also explain some of the total nonsense some people believe.
Only one in four correctly distinguish facts from opinion.
Only one in four correctly distinguish facts from opinion.
glazbagun said:
Only one survey, but this has worrying implications and would also explain some of the total nonsense some people believe.
Only one in four correctly distinguish facts from opinion.
On this theme, this is well worth a listen:Only one in four correctly distinguish facts from opinion.
https://youarenotsosmart.com/2018/02/26/yanss-122-...
It explains how we will put our tribal connections over and above even the most obvious facts. Our natural instinct to be accepted by others overrides our critical thinking skills.
This is why the idea that you can convince people of something by simply presenting them with the facts just doesn't work. We are just not programmed that way.
This is why so much of our discourse is framed in tribal ways now. Information is presented as us vs them all the time, and it's created this distorted reality on a number of issues.
We need to understand this stuff to realise none of us are immune to it, and then we need to figure out how to get around it.
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