Google To Prohibit Fake News Websites From Using Its Ad-Selling Software (reuters.com)

According to The Wall Street Journal, Google is working on a policy update that will prohibit fake news websites from using its ad-selling software. The move would ultimately make it more challenging for those fake news sites to earn revenue. Reuters reports: The policy change is imminent, Google spokeswoman Andrea Faville told Reuters. "Moving forward, we will restrict ad serving on pages that misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher's content, or the primary purpose of the web property," she said in a statement. The policy change comes amid an intensifying debate over how much responsibility technology companies bear for monitoring the accuracy of content as more and more people access news through sites such as Facebook rather than traditional media companies. Facebook, in particular, has been criticized over the spread of inaccurate articles promoting U.S. president-elect Donald Trump on the site. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has denied that the site influenced the outcome of the election. Google's AdSense advertising network is a key financial driver for many publishers. The company places various restrictions on where its ads may be placed, including bans on pornographic and violent content. Work on the policy update began before the election, Faville said.

Comments

Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

So will this block sites like Amazon, which Jeff Bezos is using to push his biases without his name attached? Or maybe every CBS and Viacom site should list the Redstone family?

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

Jews are greedy, but they look out for follow Jews. Google is run by Jews, so you can be sure they won't blacklist other sites run by Jews.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Xenographic]

What about CNN, that was lying about it being illegal to read Wikileaks? And yes, that was a lie, read this: https://popehat.com/2016/10/17...

Why didn't they want us to know about it? Oh, because we have emails between CNN and the DNC, they leaked the debate questions. Then they brought Donna Brazille on there to tell us they were somehow modified. Except, not so fast, Donna: they have DKIM authentication, which provides non-repudiation. And make sure you actually read the damned DKIM headers, because they include the b and bh parameters. So if you try and tell me they only protect the headers, you're going to get a lecture on the DKIM specification, because you're not just wrong, you can be mathematically proven wrong.

Anyhow, there's no great loss to the clickbait sites. Good riddance to such. However, inasmuch as they believe they can use this to control what people say and believe, I can only remind them of the Streisand Effect and laugh. Google took down the video from this story quite a few times before they started allowing it once it hit the news: http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

In case you're wondering what Snopes says about it, they say it's "mixed." You see, there was a fender bender and the guy wanted to exchange insurance info before they brutally beat him and dragged him from the back of his own car, which they stole while nearly killing him.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Xenographic and his troup of astroturfers, go look at his comment history a fucking liar and traitor to America.... or a hard worker for Putin.

Or go look at the video he just quoted, where he says nothing about Wikileaks, and nothing about reading, and says its illegal to possess the emails.

You can't even tell the truth once can you Mr political astrotufing. Even when you're selling out your country.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[frovingslosh]

Of course it will apply to CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post. If it didn't then it would just be more liberal bullshit.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[FatBob316]

You guys are xenophobic idiots. Go suck Donald's duck.

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[PopeRatzo]

Jews are greedy, but they look out for follow Jews. Google is run by Jews, so you can be sure they won't blacklist other sites run by Jews.

I'd have thought the election would have calmed you down a bit, Mr Bannon.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politic...

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

How about the false news that ALMOST EVERY MEDIA OUTLET pushed that Hillary was going to win in a landslide? How much did all these sites make off of that? No properly done poll is that inaccurate for that long.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[ShanghaiBill]

Maybe Google should just get out of the censorship business, rather than trying to use their ad service to micromanage what people see and hear. Fake news is not good, but it is not Google's job to "correct" it. By feeding the conspiracy theorists, they are just making the problem worse.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike PKI, DKIM has no revocation list mechanism natively. If one were to steal the keys, the best anyone could do is say "No, really, that email that appears to be sent from me and signed by me really wasn't!"

Just saying.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

One lesson (among many) you should've learned last tuesday is that no one gives a shit about Putin. In fact most people think it'd be great if we could get along with Russia. It's not 1965 anymore.

And even if it were true that possessing the emails was illegal, how exactly do you read it without "possessing" it?

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet if you call us racists a few (thousand) more times we'll finally come around to your way of thinking. It's bound to work eventually.

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

Polling isn't an exact science. There are plenty of educated (or not) guesses baked into the final result, and the superficial precision of a +/- 3% margin of error is highly misleading.

Now whether the polling companies universally overestimated democratic turnout because of mere incompetence or because they wanted to push a narrative is unknown, at least for now. Calling the polls 'rigged' for Hillary sounds conspiratorial until you remember how completely the rest of the system was 'rigged' for her. (The fact that a few loud people on the right made themselves look like fucking idiots in 2012 with their "unskewed" polls predicting a Romney landslide doesn't help either.)

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

The author of the Snopes article I'm sure would feel someone beating her up and stealing her car and yelling about how she voted for Clinton was a bit of a mixed bag as well. I mean you can never really know what's in someone's mind, right?

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

What about CNN, that was lying about it being illegal to read Wikileaks

Technically if you have a clearance it might be illegal to read wikileaks depending on the link used, since that would technically be facilitating the distribution of classified material. Make no mistake about it. Posting something classified on wikileaks does not remotely make it unclassified.

In regards to the election, well Wikileaks was anything but an unbiased source as you can tell from the drip drip and the timing of the releases. Also I recall that not all messages had authentication codes on them, and, well, simply put, even if they did, you can't really prove that they really are original messages, since if you can take over a PC to grab messages, you can likely grab any necessary signing keys to fake more messages, particularly with the resources of a nation state behind you. Were most of the messages probably true? Probably, but trusting that site blindly is still a mistake.

The main failure was the voters. Until voters make the effort to actually fact check and well not use facebook as a primary news source, or really any non accredited source as news, then we have a problem. Fox Lies are a problem, but there are so many niche crap sites that spew whatever crap people want sold. The fact that Trump flat out encourages this nonsense is fully inexcusable and proves he is totally unfit for the job.

He should put country first and quit now before he royally screws over the country. He won't do it though. Just today he said he wanted all his sons to have top secret clearance. You know the same sons that are supposedly going to run his company. They bitched about improper influence from the clinton's, but at least they helped people. The Trump's are perfectly positioning themselves to help themselves.

What they need to do is to sell all trump assets, invest the proceeds into a true blind trust, then have his kids go get jobs somewhere else. The presidency is no place for nepotism.

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not a "conspiracy theory" if they openly admit it.

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[Xenographic]

I figured they were referencing this, actually -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Xenographic]

> Unlike PKI, DKIM has no revocation list mechanism natively. If one were to steal the keys, the best anyone could do is say "No, really, that email that appears to be sent from me and signed by me really wasn't!"

Two points:

* There is a way to revoke the keys, even if it doesn't involve CRLs or OCSP -

INFORMATIVE NOTE: A key may also be revoked as described below. The distinction between revoking and removing a key selector record is subtle. When phasing out keys as described above, a signing domain would probably simply remove the key record after the transition period. However, a signing domain could elect to revoke the key (but maintain the key record) for a further period. There is no defined semantic difference between a revoked key and a removed key.

INFORMATIVE RATIONALE: If a private key has been compromised or otherwise disabled (e.g., an outsourcing contract has been terminated), a signer might want to explicitly state that it knows about the selector, but all messages using that selector should fail verification. Verifiers should ignore any DKIM-Signature header fields with a selector referencing a revoked key.

* One of the keys in this example belongs to Google. So our hypothetical attacker in this case needs both GMail's key and hillaryclinton.com's. And both cover the body of the message. Here's the signature from this email just so everyone is clear on what we're talking about:

DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
d=hillaryclinton.com; s=google;
h=from:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:date:message-id:subject:to :cc;
bh=EHIyNFKU1g6KhzxpAJQtxaW82g5+cTT3qlzIbUpGoRY=;
b=JgW85tkuhlDcythkyCrUMjPIAjHbUVPtgyqu+KpUR/kqQjE8+W23zacIh0DtVTqUGD
mzaviTrNmI8Ds2aUlzEFjxhJHtgKT4zbRiqDZS7fgba8ifMKCyDgApGNfenmQz+81+hN
2OHb/pLmmop+lIeM8ELXHhhr0m/Sd4c/3BOy8=
X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed;
d=1e100.net; s=20130820;
h=x-gm-message-state:from:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:date :message-id:subject:to:cc;
bh=EHIyNFKU1g6KhzxpAJQtxaW82g5+cTT3qlzIbUpGoRY=;
b=dEYKdN2vH085sl/02zUgJ1Lr66LV8lRV9Lrqx9SIpfiF1bOLLbIr1Au6AAY5vwg1vS
klK/TvacKT0j8aYADGNWP6BtG5XZ+IME6ydojlufQ3jqksqLkycSJ2ahYhxw4LmCii8n
kja2EKzRFcKGPnfhYnfwBCmIk/D5FWN6+yvpAYSmmZlxsR4b7mTJ8r/NmB7dKRIHeq8b

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[phantomfive]

It is their job to find good information, and make it easy to find. I agree with your post too, that they shouldn't censor or correct. So I agree with both sides.
Tough decision.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Xenographic]

A) CNN didn't say anything about people with clearances, instead they divided the world into two groups, the media (where it's okay) and the rest, where it's not okay.

B) That part is explicitly covered in the Popehat article which I linked, anyhow.

C) Wikileaks publishes all verifiable and true material leaked to it and goes for maximum impact, but they're not a hacking group, they can only operate if they have leaks.

For most leaks, you can simply go to ABC / CBS / NBC and avoid playing spy. Wikileaks was needed here, because the media themselves are complicit in many of the things in the Podesta dump. I mean, we have emails like this one showing them going behind their own lawyers' backs to send donors to the Washington Post's party, after being forbidden to put it on the price sheet. That really looks like a campaign donation of some kind, and their own lawyers explicitly forbade it. This is just one of many, many, many such examples. With the media doing things behind everyone's back, how can we be expected to just shut up and trust them, as CNN tried to encourage?

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

Time for snopes to go back to debunking ghost stories.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not censorship to refuse to do business with someone if you don't agree with what what they say. It's funny how the same people who complain about things like companies being told they can't refuse service to homosexuals are the same kind of people then arguing that other people should have to deal with material they disagree with.

In short it isn't censorship for Google to refuse to do business with people peddling fake news. They can still peddle the news freely they just won't be able to avail themselves of Google's ad service. Am I little uncomfortable with the idea that a couple of organisations could become overly influential in deciding 'truth' and thus what most people see when they stay in their walled gardens? Yes, but is isn't censorship.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Kiuas]

rather than trying to use their ad service to micromanage what people see and hear

But there's no way for them NOT to do that. Ad-revenue follows the amount of views, which means if they do nothing they're essentially taking a stance of 'we'll facilitate the spread of any type of mis-information as long as it makes us money". So they're already doing it now, they're just slightly changing their parameters. It's their product and platform, they have no obligation whatsoever to spread lies to make money if they don't want to.

Fake news is not good, but it is not Google's job to "correct" it.

And why not? It's a search engine, the point of which is to provide people accurate information. If some trolls/hackers/political shills/whatever try to skew the search results so that upon googling thing X, instead a completely unrelated/false article Y comes up, that means their product is not operating as intended and they should correct it.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

What about Xenographic and his troup of astroturfers, go look at his comment history a fucking liar and traitor to America.... or a hard worker for Putin.

Or go look at the video he just quoted, where he says nothing about Wikileaks, and nothing about reading, and says its illegal to possess the emails.

You can't even tell the truth once can you Mr political astrotufing. Even when you're selling out your country.

Dude, get over it.

The "Look! RUSSIAN!!!! squirrel!!!!! It's SOOOO RUSSIAN!!!!" distraction FAILED.

Crooked Liar Hillary! LOST.

What are Crooked Liar Hillary!'s positions on using a RUSSIAN!!!! squirrel gambit, anyway? Could you tell us both her public and private positions?

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[TheRaven64]

or a hard worker for Putin

Really? We're scared of Russia now? The Cold War ended because the Russian economy completely collapsed and still hasn't recovered to anything like the previous levels. Their GDP is under a tenth that of the USA or EU and has been declining steadily for years. Their GDP is slightly above that of Spain and well below that of Italy (two of the 'failing' economies in the EU, which are both a fraction of the size of Russia).

Mexico has an economy that is only about 20% smaller than that of Russia. Should we now be afraid of them? After all, they're a lot closer to the USA

China is at number 2 (3 if you count the EU as a single entity, even if you remove the UK), so they'd make a much more credible threat, but they aren't being touted as one because no one wants to offend a country with an economy that big.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

You guys are xenophobic idiots. Go suck Donald's duck.

Aaaah, the voice of the tolerant left.

Where "mostly peaceful" means "yeah, it's actually violent".

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

It would have to apply to breitbart first. Fox second.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[serviscope_minor]

And why not?

Because it will disproportionately affect the right.

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[easyTree]

No, rules only apply to those without the power to evade them.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[MrDoh!]

Yeah, I read from this more that "More things are being put in place to control the media YOU see". CNN/MSNBC/everywhere, the wikileaks showed were colluding with the Clinton campaign. So the solution is... more control of what media you get to see? Hmm...

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course it will apply to CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post. If it didn't then it would just be more liberal bullshit.

Fox and other conservative "MSM" don't run fake news so you're fine. Go back to your bubbles everyone and shut up.

I listen to Fox News Radio and read the New York Times every day. Bunch of children here, I swear.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[edtice1559]

The whole point of a search engine is to try to find information. Wrong information greatly reduces the value of the search product. If Google only returned fake news it would be the equivalent of Snopes. And Google's search revenue is much higher than Snopes' is, that's for sure. If Google places ads on fake news sites, they create an internal conflict. Rather than have to deal with that, they've decided that the revenue from fake news sites isn't worth the cost of the internal misalignment and have dropped it. No idea why this is noteworthy at all. There are fake news sites that are trying to make money off of ads. Those are mostly yawners. And there are those with a political agenda. This will probably impact the former but not the latter.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[tsqr]

Technically if you have a clearance it might be illegal to read wikileaks depending on the link used, since that would technically be facilitating the distribution of classified material. Make no mistake about it. Posting something classified on wikileaks does not remotely make it unclassified.

Correct that publicly publishing classified material, whether on Wikileaks, a newspaper, or on Slashdot, does not declassify the material. It's not illegal to read such material whether or not you hold a security clearance; however, if you do hold a clearance and you suspect that classified material has been made public, you are obliged by law to report it to the appropriate authority (usually that would be your Facility Security Offficer).

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, at last check, China hasn't effectively annexed large portions of any nearby countries and they aren't flying air support for a dictator dropping bombs on his political opponents. And China does not appear to be actively trying to influence US elections with information warfare. If you aren't worried about recent Russian actions outside their borders then you are ignoring reality to rationalize something. It is okay to agree with a party or candidate on some issues and not others.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet if you call us racists a few (thousand) more times we'll finally come around to your way of thinking. It's bound to work eventually.

What, you meant you'll actually start to think???

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[Bartles]

That's stupid. Why don't you look around Breitbart a little before you fall into that trap. It may be a partisan news site, but it is clearly not anti-Semitic.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Curunir_wolf]

Really? We're scared of Russia now?

Well I, for one, certainly don't want to go to war with them, which is clearly what Hillary was poised to do. Probably just go get at Snowden if nothing else. Go watch the 2nd debate again. All those times she pivoted to talking about what to do about Russia or how evil Putin is were mostly responses to questions that were completely unrelated to foreign policy.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[kwbauer]

Unless Hillary Clinton is somewhere between you and the POTUS on the org chart; then you just say "Not again" and moveon.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[amicusNYCL]

Mexico has an economy that is only about 20% smaller than that of Russia. Should we now be afraid of them? After all, they're a lot closer to the USA

Well, Russia has around 7,300 nuclear warheads and is led by an ex-KGB guy who thinks that it's his duty to return Russia to the glory days of superpower status, at the expense of the US. I'm having a hard time figuring out how many nuclear warheads Mexico has, but I'm sure there's a comparison there somewhere.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

> Well, Russia has around 7,300 nuclear warheads and is led by an ex-KGB guy who thinks that it's his duty to return Russia to the glory days of superpower status

That sounds like a pretty good reason not to go picking fights with them to me, but what do I know?

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

"Being wrong" about something is not lying.

And even if it were, "lying" is still not the same as "misrepresent[ing], misstat[ing], or conceal[ing] information about the publisher, the publisher's content, or the primary purpose of the web property."

Why is everyone pretending this is such a big subjective clusterfuck? What Google is talking about is no more than authenticating the site. Authentication is a good thing, right?

So if you want to run a fake news site from Macedonia, you can still absolutely do that. You can call it 'USConservativeToday.com' and put GOP logos and WND press releases all over it and not mention that it's run by some Macedonian teenager looking for free money. Or, you can have Google ads on it - but only if you do 'fess up about who owns it and what its editorial rules are.

How is this even a controversial thing, much less a bad one?

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[PopeRatzo]

That's stupid. Why don't you look around Breitbart a little before you fall into that trap. It may be a partisan news site, but it is clearly not anti-Semitic.

So, when Bannon took his kid out of a school because he “didn’t want the girls going to school with Jews" and wrote that in an email to his ex-wife, that wasn't anti-Semitic? And no, it's not "he said - she said" when you write it in an email.

Anyway, for your reading enjoyment, here is a list of some Breitbart headlines that Bannon signed off on:

Bill Kristol: Republican spoiler, renegade Jew

Lesbian bridezillas bully bridal shop owner over religious beliefs

Teenage boys with tits: Here’s my problem with Ghostbusters

Hoist it high and proud: The Confederate flag proclaims a glorious heritage

There’s no hiring bias against women in tech, they just suck at interviews

Pamela Geller’s Muhammad cartoon contest is no different from Selma

Sympathy for the devils: The plot against Roger Ailes

Gabby Giffords: The gun control movement’s human shield

Birth control makes women unattractive and crazy

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

It most certainly is Google's job to de-rank low-quality sites, outright fabrications, spam, abuse, and other detritus, and up-rank quality stuff.

Or are you one of those conservatives that thinks their uneducated and untrue gut feeling is just as valid as a whole field of practiced experts who study the subject professionally?

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[Bartles]

Andrew Breitbart was Jewish and he hired Bannon. Joel Pollak the senior editor is Jewish. Ben Shapiro is Jewish. David Horowitz wrote that article with the headline and he is Jewish. If you happen to look at articles that mention Israel you will see they are all friendly. Larry Solov is Jewish. In fact I think Breitbart (a Jewish name) probably employs more Jewish staff as a percentage than most national outlets. One of it's founding principles was to portray Israel in a positive light that is so lacking in much of society. You can call Breitbart lots of things, some of them warranted. But calling it anti-semitic just shows that you have no idea what you are talking about, and that you have no actual facts to base your opinion on.

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[PopeRatzo]

Andrew Breitbart was Jewish and he hired Bannon.

Andrew Breitbart wasn't an anti-Semite. He was a fool, out of his depth, and he desperately wanted the support of anti-Semites.

Bannon is an anti-Semite. And a bigot. And a misogynist. See my evidence elsewhere in this thread.

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[Bartles]

Bannon is an anti-Semite.

You really have nothing that supports this. Other than the claims of an ex-wife issued during divorce proceedings. Sorry. You lost this one. It's obvious that you're just regurgitating the narrative that you are hearing from your "trusted" media of preference.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Xenographic]

The question is how evenly it will be applied as well as Google's ability to investigate every site on the web as to whether or not what they say is true. It seems more likely that certain disliked sites will simply end up blacklisted and they'll call it a day.

I wouldn't really care if TMZ and BuzzFeed shut down, but something tells me they're not the real targets.

Re: Washington Post Amazon

[PopeRatzo]

Other than the claims of an ex-wife issued during divorce proceedings.

See, that's where you're wrong. The emails of Bannon complaining about Jews are part of the court record. They were included during discovery.

Bannon is an anti-Semite, a bigot, and a punk. I posted more evidence elsewhere in the thread.

Re:Washington Post Amazon

[Anonymous Coward]

Religious documents are often inaccurate to the point of being complete fabrications. I think people deserve to be protected from sites carrying this sort of misinformation.

How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's been a shit ton of these stories on the front page already. Isn't there anything better to talk about? This is a big part of why Slashdot sucks now. It used to be a mix of lots of stories that would appeal to nerds, but now we get a barrage of stories about topics like this. Slashdot used to be a site where nerds and people working in IT could get practical ideas and keep up date on trends in hardware and software. Those days are long gone, and Slashdot pretty much sucks now. And no, I'm not saying this isn't relevant, just that we don't need more stories about it.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look man. The only way to get people to really eat up the idea that Trump won because of fake news is to say it as much as possible.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Lemons, in this case, being a failed presidential campaign, and lemonade being an excuse to consolidate even more media control into fewer hands.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

So if it went the other way you would be OK with sites that Mix real News and False Click Bait stories?

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't there anything better to talk about?

No, there's really not. There is little to nothing interesting left to do in tech. ohhhhhhahhhhhhhh MS releases visual studio 28, now with a solution to the tab/spaces problem. All the interesting work has been done until the next revolution. There are only scraps left. All the smart people bailed on the industry.

Will there even be another revolution? Space? Doubtful, not a lot an individual can do and AW&ST has been around a long time and has that covered. Low hanging fruit has been eaten.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny since there are More Right Wing Fake News site then Left.
How many Hillary is going to Jail the Smoking Gun is found Links did you Click and share

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[FatBob316]

why are you still on here if it sucks so much? You took enough time out of you seemingly busy schedule to opine on your hatred. Most people would just leave and never come back. I'd check in with a psych if I were you.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[FatBob316]

And as much as it is to say that it's fake, it's also trolls like you who try to make it sound true by being cavalier about it. Why don't you go suck Donald's duck?

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

What other way? Do you mean if this were being conducted by a company that was more trustworthy than Google? Even ignoring political trustworthiness, we have Google going from protesting SOPA to outright explicitly endorsing the TPP. On the political front, we have an idea of what Google has in mind, given Youtube's recent policy change that cut off creators of 'undesirable' videos from ad revenue. Check some of the videos flagged; ads are still being played, Youtube is still making money off of them. It's blatantly political fuckery.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever since Tuesday, it seems like every other story on this site and others has been about fake news this or automation is to blame for disappearing jobs that. Weird.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[AmiMoJo]

This one of the hardest problems in CS right now, but also one of the most urgent. Our democracies have been immeasurably damaged by social media bubbles and, ironically, the democratization of news that doesn't differentiate between random blogs and established, reputable journalism.

Even if you could teach a computer to somehow fact check or recognize fake news, could you do it in a way that seems fair and mostly unbiased to the majority of people on the political spectrum?

Is there a way we can break down the walls between sides, smash the echo chambers, while still getting enough ad revenue to survive? Maybe big companies should just look at it like a public service, non-profit.

Human-machine interfacing has always been the messy part of CS that pure engineers dislike, but it's also one of the most important parts. Maybe the most important part now.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[rtb61]

The reality is there is only one way to test the 'News' and that is in a court of law. So realistically if they want better 'News', they need to turns 'News', into a protected word. Use it in the title and by law you should be required to be truthful and accurate. Should be you subject to a legal challenge and proven to be inaccurate, then dependent upon the damage of the inaccuracy and whether intentional or accidental, there should be a penalty applied, either custodial and or a major fine and or being banned from using that word, 'News', in a publishing sense.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[AmiMoJo]

Can you explain exactly what is problematic about deciding that a story about, say, "X said Y" with multiple sources agreeing and Twitter retaining the tweet in question?

This idea that nothing is true (even if tested in court people will just claim the system is rigged/broken) has to die. Just really wanting it to be untrue doesn't make it so, or vice versa.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[johanw]

If you do that, "News" wil quickly mean the same as "propaganda".

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, that's what happens when you go from "News for Nerds" to "News for Nerds' Money". I mean, c'mon... nostalgia or no, how much faith can you have in a news website with clickbait and buy-our-shit ads plastered on it? And lets not get into the mobile site...

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Having google define which news is fake, is a evil road to sedition. This is why Alex jones self funds, the guy proved 100% correct just about everything he ever said for the last 20 years. Go figure. ((Do NO EVIL)), right.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Established reputable news. Fuck you.

Social media has torn apart 'established news' by exposing them as liars and propagandists - time and time again. The most blatant example I've seen was during the blacklivesmatter riots - the shot black guys sister was screaming at people to go burn down the white neighbourhoods "we need our weaves" (they'd burned down her hair shop). The news edited this to show her telling them to stop and said she was calling for peace.

Social media got the full video out.

The news was completely humiliated and exposed as liars and propagandists. This has happened over and over again recently. The BBC completely disgraced itself over Brexit, for example.

Only an idiot trusts established news channels and mainstream media now. They are nothing but mouthpieces.

The problem is: Who do you trust? Social media alone isn't the answer. It's is a sewer pipe. It's a mix of insight, brilliance all swilling down the pipe with gigantic amounts of utter shit.

You can't rely on it.

I have no idea what will fix this, but putting mainstream journalists in charge of deciding what's "factual" isn't going to work. They shat away their credibility.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous crybaby.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

As many as we damn well need.

What's the difference between a Fox News and Fake News? At least Fox news believes what they are saying.

Fake News sites are basically sites that look like ABC, NBC, CNN, CBS, FOX, etc but the news is blatantly false and makes no disclaimer of it being satire.

Sites like "The Onion", shows like the Daily Show and such are satire sites that nobody would confuse for serious news, because the claims are over-the-top silly. Sometimes people get fooled, but that's typically a reading comprehension problem.

Re:How many fucking stories do we need about this?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, we could have official truth? I like it. In fact, the Russians have a word for that. "Pravda."

Where? Sign me up!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck AdSense. I've been using software to block that shit for years and if it pisses off Mark Cuban all the better. Fake news be damned. I filter out media bullshit with knowledge anyways.

Re:Where? Sign me up!

[PopeRatzo]

I've been using software to block that shit for years and if it pisses off Mark Cuban all the better.

You've really cut into Mark Cuban's revenue. Well done. Before you know it, he'll be broke and destitute.

Re:Where? Sign me up!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wasn't trying to bankrupt him. I just wanted to give that Democoward the finger.

Is this the end for the Onion?

[jfdavis668]

Do they even make a profit?

Re:Is this the end for the Onion?

[Anonymous Coward]

there are a lot of people who visit the onion on purpose looking for satire/humor. plus the onion's biggest 'marketing' strategy (IIRC from a report I read) was actually social media sharing and the like.

The onion also doesn't "misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher's content, or the primary purpose of the web property," It readily admits that it is satire. so it shouldn't be affected by this.

Re:Is this the end for the Onion?

[fustakrakich]

It readily admits that it is satire...

Which turns out to be more truthful than the "serious" sites...

Re:Is this the end for the Onion?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are enough people who have believed the Onion's satirical articles are true to raise the possibility that it could be viewed as a fake news site. Unlikely, but possible.

In a broader sense, where do you draw the line between fake news that intends to deceive the reader and fake news that intends to make a point about real news. Reading the minds of the writers on each website isn't possible...at least as far as we know..../jk

The Onion

[Anonymous Coward]

We'll see how they do once google peels back all their ad revenue layers.

Re:The onion

[Anonymous Coward]

Its easy: They will just have a team who make the decision based on what the DNC tell them.

The idea that people only voted Trump because of fake news site is so friggen rediculous, especially considering that pretty much all media was openly pro-Clinton and incredibly anti-trump.

Re:The onion

[speedplane]

How exactly will try differentiate between satire and fake news? The answer is if course that you cannot.

One is intentionally trying to deceive, the other isn't. Seems straightforward.

Re:The onion

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure the googlebots will have no problem telling the difference.

Soros related websites

[Anonymous Coward]

How will I be able to get my daily ultra-leftist propaganda if those go down?

Re:Soros related websites

[msauve]

You can still get print subscriptions to the New York Times.

Oh great..

[Anonymous Coward]

Just what we need... Google deciding what is and isn't real news. What could possibly go wrong?

Re:Oh great..

[Anonymous Coward]

Their ad platform, their rules.

Re:Oh great..

[Anonymous Coward]

Or what could go right, this could be end of NYT & H. Post.

This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

The goal is to eliminate "fake" news, but the problem isn't even who defines what is real, what is opinion, and what is factually untrue. The real problem is google has stated its intention is to starve sites they dislike into nonexistance.

Are sites with news about "Ancient Aliens" banned? Easy to show as fake news, but as history channel shows - hugely popular and what many in the public enjoy. Real? Fake? Who cares, the public wants it.

News stories about Clinton Foundation "pay to play" corruption. "Someone" will decide if this is misleading fake news. No convictions yet, must be fake. Ban them and bury the story.

News story about Trump being racist? No proof he isn't, must be legit. Pay the website.

This is how the internet will die, in a flood of corporate decided and approved facts and filters.
Why buy the politicians anymore, when they can own and control what is considered worthy of being "legit"

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

Jesus H Christ, are we on such a low point that "sites will starve" unless Google gives your money?

PS: What's with this shit about "no proof" on Trump being racist? He's on record making racists remarks during his own campaing, for fucks sake.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[BlueStrat]

PS: What's with this shit about "no proof" on Trump being racist?

Reading comprehension, much?

News story about Trump being racist? No proof he isn't, must be legit.

Besides, the accusation of being a "racist" has been so over- and mis-used that regular people are burned out on the ridiculousness and immediately dismiss such accusations anymore.

Strat

Re: This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, yes, racists have always sought to deny the true nature of their beliefs, even when they could have slaves, they still portrayed it as an act of charity on their part. They are the victims, persecuted and martyred. They just don't want their little girls to have to be near blacks. Even Emmett Till's murderers were just protecting a white woman from a dangerous black man.

OK, then let's accept that Trump is not a racist. His reaction to the racial discrimination in the 1970s which lead to his company being sued was wholly inadequate and his inability to recall David Duke reflects a failure of memory that troubles me.

Can't we expect a President to be mentally competent?

Re: This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't we expect a President to be mentally competent?

You mean, like free of "head injuries" that prevent a person from giving full, accurate, and truthful answers to a Congressional committee investigating possible criminal wrongdoing while Secretary of State?

I guess if Clinton had won, you'd be calling for her to step down because of her mental disabilities.

Right?

Or are you just another two-bit partisan hypocrite/shill?

Re: This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess if Clinton had won, you'd be calling for her to step down because of her mental disabilities.

Right?

Or are you just another two-bit partisan hypocrite/shill?

Funny, I don't see you calling for them both to be barred from office. You're just making aspersions without substantiation yourself. Did you expect me to list every grievance I have? That's asking a bit much of my time.

Go ahead if you like. You can do it first. Throw in as many others as you wish.

Me, I was just talking about the topic of the moment. I encourage lying to Congress though.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Orgasmatron]

Many of us have been asking (for close to a year and a half now!) for a verbatim racist quote and a video of the words coming out of his mouth. No takers so far.

Are you up to the challenge? Should be easy, since you claim that he is "on record making racists [sic] remarks".

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Most I ever found (cited by the New Yorker as concrete proof of his racism) was a quote in a book where he supposedly called blacks lazy in a private conversation.

In 1988.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Racism has a new meaning these last few years. Saying anything negative in relation to any ethnicity, except white, is racist. For instance, the FBI crime statistic that indicates 52% of murders are committed by people that are part of a demographic consisting of 13% of the population is now racist.

Today some facts are considered racist. Trump says some of those racist things, ergo...

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[phantomfive]

If I were in charge, I would ban only the most obvious cases, and leave the uncertain areas untouched. Easiest way to avoid controversy.

Re: This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

So Trump failed to be a civil rights leader in the 1970's and didn't recognize the name of some irrelevant media whore who probably has 2% name recognition outside of people who've seen the hate-coverage he gets on cable news every time he farts out an opinion on something. And that's supposed to be the equivalent of real, no-bullshit neurological problems causing severe memory loss and seizures?

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

Oh, the ones about all Mexicans being rapists and murderers (but some are good people) wasn't enough? Never his mind xenophobic views on Muslims.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Rockoon]

Oh, the ones about all Mexicans being rapists and murderers

Provide a full quote.

You've failed again to do that simple thing.

He was talking about illegal aliens of the Mexican variety, which is not "all mexicans." The ones breaking our laws are criminals you know. Every single mexican here illegally is a criminal. 100% of them.

Apparently google would demote everything you say, since what you say is fake.

The facts are that the cries of racism about trump have always been of the special-snowflake social-justice-warrior variety. In this version of racism its "micro-aggressions" that are now racist. Ask a Mexican where they are from and thats racist, etc...

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

–Presidential announcement speech, June 16, 2015

“I can never apologize for the truth. I don’t mind apologizing for things. But I can’t apologize for the truth. I said tremendous crime is coming across. Everybody knows that’s true. And it’s happening all the time. So, why, when I mention, all of a sudden I’m a racist. I’m not a racist. I don’t have a racist bone in my body.”

– Interview on Fox News’ “Media Buzz,” July 5, 2015

“What can be simpler or more accurately stated? The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc.”

– Statement about his June 16 comments, July 6, 2015

You know, racism doesn't cease to be racism only because it sounds good to you.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

Ah, so you were only being racist towards illegal mexicans.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Rockoon]

I asked for full quotes.

Still waiting.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[AmiMoJo]

It's actually fairly easy to determine with a very high degree of probability if news is fake or not. If it's some random blog site or Breitbart publishing it, and none of the other mainstream news outlets pick it up, it's probably fake. If it's not fake, other journalists will look at it and pick the story up.

For example, story about Trump being racist. Did many web sites with a reputation for at least basic fact checking use the same quote? Does his Twitter feed contain that quote? Then yes, opinion of if it is racist or not, the fact that he said it is very likely to be true.

There is no vast conspiracy to bury news that might be harmful to one side or the other. If the media really was in Clinton's pocket, how come they put out that story about the FBI investigating a new batch of emails a week before the election, which turned her near certain victory into a loss? It's just alt-right fantasies that have been proven to be bullshit, not least by the fact that the alt-right is now going to be running the country.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

Sure. Let me transcribe his full speeches until i hit something that doesn't make you uncomfortable.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody is going to debate about whether those statements are racist when they are snipped out of a fuller context. The snipping is on purpose to remove context.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Rockoon]

Ah, so you were only being racist towards illegal mexicans.

See what you did there? You just transfered Trumps alleged racism to me. You couldn't provide proof of his racism, so now I gotta be racist too?

I didnt even vote for Trump you dumb fucking triggered liberal liar.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

No, those statements *are* racist. Exactly on which context would you expect them not to?

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, you seem to be of the 'anything-bad-ever-said-about-a-non-white-person-is-"racist"' school of thought.

Yes, there are many, many alien criminals who can be deported. About 2 million according to DHS, half illegal immigrants (who could be deported anyway, criminal or not) and half non-citizen legal aliens.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-arent-2-to-3-million-undocumented-immigrants-with-criminal-records-for-trump-to-deport/

Facts aren't racist.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

Damn right i am. I quoted the guy verbatim being a racist and you argued he is "talking about illegal aliens of the Mexican variety" (sic). Rationalize that however you like.

But hey. I'm sure you assume some are good people.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not "racist" even snipped. There absolutely are a huge number of illegal immigrants with criminal records who don't get deported.

Calling everything "racist" devalues the word and makes people stop listening to you.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

No, i'm of the school of though where calling every single illegal Mexican immigrant drug dealers and rapists is racist, you dickwad.

The scary thing is how effectively this cheap rhetoric seems to work on people like you.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

They *are* racist. Talking about illegal immigrants doesn't magically make your remarks less so.

Re: This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe calling an opponent a "fucking Jew bastard", or saying Mahatma Gandhi ran a gas station, or saying of then-Senator Obama that "[a] few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee", joking about "colored people time" with NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio, telling Native Americans to "get off the reservation", starting the Obama birther rumors, or calling young black men "super-predators"?

Oh, right, the Clintons did those things, so that makes them not racist.

Re: This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Entrope]

What's wrong with being deportable? To coin a phrase, half of Hillary Clinton's supporters are what I would call a basket of deportables.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[blackfeltfedora]

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts" These sites have allowed this to happen.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[serviscope_minor]

I asked for full quotes.

Those are full quotes. A quote is not a complete transcript.

Still waiting.

Of course. A Trumpanzee never accepts evidence. Even when presented with incontravertible truth, i.e. Trump's own words, you choose to invoke a petty, self-imposed rule to discount the evidence.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[serviscope_minor]

You just transfered Trumps alleged racism to me.

Well, yeah. Racism is transitive. If you vote for the racist guy, that means you are supporting racism. That makes you racist.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Orgasmatron]

I don't see any racism in any of those quotes. Even if I pretend that "Mexican" or "Mexican Government" is a race, I still don't see it. Many illegals are criminals. Is that even controversial? Are people claiming that only angels are crossing our southern border?

Please explain.

I've seen it said that the most racist thing that Donald Trump ever said was:

So, ladies and gentlemen, I am officially running for president of the United States, and we are going to make our country great again.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[serviscope_minor]

It's just alt-right fantasies that have been proven to be bullshit,

It's #7 (obsession with plot) on Umberto Eco's tests of ur-facism. Trump actually fits all 14 tests remarkably well.

The list of tests was written in 1995 when Trump was an unsuccessful business man, burning through daddy's money with a succession of bankruptcies.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL. What "race" are we talking about? The "Mexican" race??? Give it up. The "racist" card was played and it didn't work.

Try another angle.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Not when done under duress.

Such as "vote for Trump or we put Hillary in the White House".

A lot of people voted for Trump because they saw no other option of avoiding what they thought would be even worse.

No, voting e.g. Jill Stein would not keep Hillary out of the White House.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

No insidious goal here. Google doesn't want to support what it considers to be fake news. Nothing to do with "free speech".

Anyone who wants to build a filter-free web site can still do so.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[johanw]

I think the goal is more to prevent wasting investments, like the investment they did in Hillary which is now worthless.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

"also said, ‘And many of them (Mexicans) are good people. You keep leaving that out of your quote."

Re: This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[johanw]

The term "racism" has been so misused that a lot of people now think "so I'm a racist whatever I do because I'm white, fine then I'll be a racist. Now fuck those niiggers".

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

I don’t see how there is any room for misunderstanding or misinterpretation of the statement I made on June 16th during my Presidential announcement speech. Here is what I said, and yet this statement is deliberately distorted by the media:

“When Mexico (meaning the Mexican Government) sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you (pointing to the audience). They’re not sending you (pointing again). They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems to us. They’re bringing drugs.They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people! But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting. And it only makes common sense. They’re sending us not the right people. It’s coming from more than Mexico. It’s coming from all over South and Latin America, and it’s coming probably from the Middle East. But we don’t know. Because we have no protection and we have no competence, we don’t know what’s happening. And it’s got to stop and it’s got to stop fast.”

What can be simpler or more accurately stated? The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States. They are, in many cases, criminals, drug dealers, rapists, etc. This was evident just this week when, as an example, a young woman in San Francisco was viciously killed by a 5 time deported Mexican with a long criminal record, who was forced back into the United States because they didn’t want him in Mexico. This is merely one of thousands of similar incidents throughout the United States. In other words, the worst elements in Mexico are being pushed into the United States by the Mexican
government. The largest suppliers of heroin, cocaine and other illicit drugs are Mexican cartels that arrange to have Mexican immigrants trying to cross the borders and smuggle in the drugs. The Border Patrol knows this. Likewise, tremendous infectious disease is pouring across the border. The United States has become a dumping ground for Mexico and, in fact, for many other parts of the world. On the other hand, many fabulous people come in from Mexico and our country is better for it. But these people are here legally, and are severely hurt by those coming in illegally. I am proud to say that I know many hard working Mexicans—many of them are working for and with meand, just like our country, my organization is better for it.

The Mexican Government wants an open border as long as it’s a ONE WAY open border into the United States. Not only are they killing us at the border, but they are killing us on trade and the country of Mexico is making billions of dollars in doing so.

I have great respect for Mexico and love their people and their peoples’ great spirit. The problem is, however, that their leaders are far smarter, more cunning, and better negotiators than ours. To the citizens of the United States, who I will represent far better than anyone else as President, the Mexican government is not our friendand why should they be when the relationship is totally one sided in their favor on both illegal immigration and trade. I have pointed this out during my speeches and it is something Mexico doesn’t want me to say. In actuality, it was only after my significant rise in the polls that Univision, previously my friend, went ballistic. I believe that my examples of bad trade deals for the United States was of even more concern to the Mexican government than my talk of border security.

I have lost a lot during this Presidential run defending the people of the United States. I have always heard that it is very hard for a successful person to run for President. Macy’s, NBC, Serta and NASCAR have all taken the weak and very sad position of being politically correct even though they are wrong in terms of what is good for our country. Univision, because 70% of their business comes from Mex

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[johanw]

Complaining that muslims are not liked by a non-muslim is like complaining that blacks don't like KKK members. You generally don't like those who are opposed to your way of life.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

It is right there. Doesn't make it any better.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

Full context here. Illegal immigrant is not a race. There is nothing in there to suggest that Trump holds a negative opinion of all Mexcians, he merely states that among those who immigrate to the US illegally, there is a disproportionate number of "bad people" compared to regular Mexicans. This is also likely generally true for most illegal immigrants anywhere in the world, including those who are of my own ethnicity.

You know, racism doesn't cease to be racism only because it sounds good to you.

Nor does non-racism start being racist because you've beaten yourself into an unsubstantiated paranoia.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

Not when done under duress.

Well, i'm sorry, but that comes in the package.

What's really scary is how flat out open racism and xenophobia aren't electoral deal breakers anymore. People just don't give a shit. Hasan Minhaj made a very poignant statement on the matter a couple days ago: you might not support Trump statements, but you don't really care either. Honestly, it is just as bad.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

What can be simpler or more accurately stated? The Mexican Government is forcing their most unwanted people into the United States.

Seriously?

Damn. Prove it.

It is amazing how everyone rationalizes Trump's xenophobic remarks against Mexicans when they're framed as immigration policies. Apparently all illegal immigrants in the US are Mexican and they're all out to rape and kill our women.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

This goes beyond "not liking". The guy flat out called to close the borders to people based on their religious beliefs. Is that even legal under US constitution?

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

He was being racist against something other than a race? Brilliant.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Lisandro - "every single illegal Mexican"

Trump - "They are, in many cases[...]"

Do you not see the difference? He has never claimed that every single illegal Mexican alien was a drug dealer or a rapist, just that in many cases that is true. He even went so far as to say, "some, I assume, are good people". So no, it's not racist, you're just wanting to see racism here so it fits your tired rhetoric of, "ugh! ugh! Trump BAD! Lisandro SMASH bad racist man! ugh! ugh!"

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

I see. Well, i think all Anonymous Cowards are drug dealers and rapists. But hey, some - i assume - are good people!

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[meta-monkey]

Is that even legal under US constitution?

Yes. The President has the authority to ban any group of people from coming here at any time for any reason. This is rather important because if you wind up in a war, it's nice to be able to say "we're banning all Germans from coming to the US" without getting sued for being racist against Germans.

The free exercise clause only applies to people within the jurisdiction of the US. If you're a muslim in Saudi Arabia and you apply for a visa, you're still sitting in Riyadh when the immigration official stamps it "denied." Obama could ban all travel from left-handed lesbian Amish eskimos tomorrow and it would be perfectly legal.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

What about citizens? There're close to 4,000,000 Islamic US citizens; it is in fact the third largest religion in the country.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[AmiMoJo]

It's hard to know how dangerous he really is, because he acts like a child but does actually have all that power. When things aren't going his way it's all rigged and a giant conspiracy against him, when he wins it's all fine.

Re: This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

So Trump failed to be a civil rights leader in the 1970's and didn't recognize the name of some irrelevant media whore who probably has 2% name recognition outside of people who've seen the hate-coverage he gets on cable news every time he farts out an opinion on something.

Nope, Trump failed this year, when on the topic of housing discrimination. His response was wholly inadequate, this year, in the past couple of months, and he failed to recognize the name of a man who he had already condemned. Also this year, though at the beginning. I would even say his response was begrudging and unconvincing. Did he not remember, or did he not get coached adequately?

Which is sad, since if he had had proper prep work done, he could have said "Oh yes, I condemned him then, and I condemn him now, blah-blah-blah" and given us a firm showing of the leader he purports to be.

This is a strike against him, like it or not.

And that's supposed to be the equivalent of real, no-bullshit neurological problems causing severe memory loss and seizures?

You're the one going on about that, mine is mentally competent, which is failed by an inability to come up with the proper message on racial discrimination and remember somebody you already condemned. That's just wholly inadequate. Though I would say that Trump's "medical" examination which he touted, is yet another example of his character being less than stellar.

And yes, I do notice you still failing to call them both out. If you want to insist there's some problem with me, it was you who needed to dust them down first.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[serviscope_minor]

It's hard to know how dangerous he really is, because he acts like a child but does actually have all that power.

Indeed. One cause for concern is how easily goaded he is, for example the whole "small hands" thing and getting into 3am twitter fights with former models. Who knows what he'll be goaded into by experienced politicians.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[meta-monkey]

No, not citizens. But he wasn't talking about citizens, he was talking about foreign travelers. Which makes sense when US-backed forces have wrecked the middle east over the past 15 years...maybe it's not the best idea to let them into the US right now in case they want some revenge. Also, many US presidents have done similar things. Obama banned travel from Iraq for awhile, Carter banned travel from Iran, etc.

The purpose of the government of the United States is to protect the people of the United States and act in their best interests, not to be nice to everyone in the world. It may hurt some Muslims' feelings for a bit that while ISIS is still promising terror attacks around the world we're not going to let them in the US, but oh well. Also Trump later "softened" this position to "extreme vetting for travelers from areas with a high propensity for radical Islamic terrorism."

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

There you go putting words in people's mouths again. Trump never said all Mexicans are drug dealers and rapists; that much is plain as day in the quotes you yourself posted. You really need to work on your reading comprehension. Or, if you're a shill... please realize that there's no reason to shill for Hillary anymore because she lost.

P.S. It's okay not to like Trump. It's not okay to throw around the word racism anytime you see or hear things you don't like. It devalues the word and discredits people that point out ACTUAL racism. You know, boy that cried wolf and all that...

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

What? You don't see the difference?

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

By definition all illegal immigrants are criminals. They violated immigration law.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Who knows what he'll be goaded into by experienced politicians.

Yeah, those experienced politicians, like Hillary or all those other experienced Republicans who ran against him. They sure were successful in using Trump's temperament against him.

Oh wait.

Being goaded by these relatively small things actually helped Trump win. Yes, they are small things. What does tiny hands have to do with being President?

Instead of pressing Trump on bigger issues and get him to fumble, you people just focused on the small things that don't matter to most Americans.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering that 8 million impressions on google only earns you $10. Less restrictive networks will pay $1000 for the same traffic, and they certainly don't give as much of a shit.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't see it because you choose not to. Wishful thinking usually trumps reality for conservatives.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Rockoon]

I quoted the guy verbatim

I asked for a full quote.

Why did you intentionally and wholly dishonestly leave out context?

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Rockoon]

Well, yeah. Racism is transitive. If you vote for the racist guy, that means you are supporting racism. That makes you racist.

But I didn't vote for him.

See how being completely contrary to the facts is a democrat past time now?

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Rockoon]

That makes you racist.

Now you are also calling me a racist.

Oh... whats that? I didn't fully quote you? Yeah. About that...... context doesnt matter. I can take any small snippet. Fair play goes both ways.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

You should really look up the definition of "quote".

But what the hell, i'll bite. Show me the context i'm leaving out which somehow makes these statements acceptable.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[baristabrian]

Jesus H Christ, are we on such a low point that "sites will starve" unless Google gives your money?

PS: What's with this shit about "no proof" on Trump being racist? He's on record making racists remarks during his own campaing, for fucks sake.

It's gotten to the point where (BECAUSE of the Left) that hurling accusations of being "racist" (and misogynist, and sexist and xenophobic and islamophobic ... ad nauseam) really do NOT mean anything anymore. Jesse Jackson? RACIST. But, that's OK? Because HE is Black? WTF? Or is it because he didn't spew "racist" invective enough? Didn't reach the "threshold?" Didn't get singled out by enough of the electorate or ... big money donors? Hypocrisy (and over-the-top, sensationalized, histrionic-laden hyperbole) has divided this country more than anything. Hillary (and Al Sharpton and a slew of others—including many on the "Right") are demagogues. PURE and SIMPLE. YOU don't seem to see it. Good luck with that. ME? A poor and homeless guy? I can see it. I am a highschool drop out and have to "cockroach" bandwidth. What's YOUR excuse for being so fucking *partisan* and/or IGNORANT? Enough of the name-calling. I NEVER called Hillary a CUNT.

Re:This is a backdoor way to kill free speech

[Lisandro]

Wow. You're one confused individual.

Trump didn't win

[Anonymous Coward]

More people voted for Hillary, Swing states were hacked by Russian hackers, absentee ballots were forged from that data.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/florida-elections-worker-alleges/2016/11/04/id/757191/

"A temporary worker for the Broward County Supervisor of Elections Office in Florida has alleged in a sworn affidavit obtained by Newsmax that she was fired this week after witnessing possible absentee ballot fraud by office workers."

"But the State Attorney's Office concluded Friday that the workers were duplicating ballots by hand from damaged originals faxed by military personnel and that "there is nothing improper or illegal about the conduct" under state law."

Russian hackers propagandized the election all the way through.
Trump isn't America's choice, he's Putin's choice.

Re:Trump didn't win

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody voted for Criminal Hillary. Oh actually she got 3 votes. I guess one was yours.

Chinese hackers propagandized the pro-Hillary vote all the way through.

Hillary wasn't America's choice, she was Xi Jinping's choice. But the Chinese hackers underestimated the anti-establishment sentiment among the american people and they didn't meddle with the election quite strongly enough.

Re:Trump didn't win

[MightyMartian]

I think the alt-right and the alt-left are both a pack of delusional morons. This is the source of fake news; if you write it, no matter how absurd, there's some fucking retard partisan who will lap it up.

Re:Trump didn't win

[FatBob316]

And you're the spectator opining on your BS from the sidelines?

Re:Trump didn't win

[MightyMartian]

I'm the guy that doesn't suffered paranoid delusions and imagines every dark corner contains someone trying to fuck me over.

Re:Trump didn't win

[Gavagai80]

This is the source of fake news; if you write it, no matter how absurd, there's some fucking retard partisan who will lap it up.

You've hit on an important point, but not carried it far enough. The reason we're inundated by fake news is that the more blatantly extreme and fake you make your story the more people will feel compelled to share it.

Every obscure website dreams of the riches that will result from one of their stories going viral. They've now caught on to the fact that making up political lies to get a fake "scoop" on something that will really outrage hyperpartisans into thinking that the future of civilization depends on forcing everyone they know to read your story is the most effective shortcut to do that. I'm sure some of these stories are manipulation for political reasons, but some of them are just in the interests of profit. And their profit is what google is hoping to make a dent in.

Re:Trump didn't win

[Anonymous Coward]

It's being reported this morning that over 3 million illegals voted for Clinton this election and she actually lost the popular vote by 1.7 million. Liberal heads are exploding gloriously.

Re:Trump didn't win

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you haven't been paying attention.

Re:Trump didn't win

[Curunir_wolf]

It's being reported this morning that over 3 million illegals voted for Clinton this election and she actually lost the popular vote by 1.7 million. Liberal heads are exploding gloriously.

Are you sure that's not fake news?

Re:Trump didn't win

[avandesande]

Not to mention clickbait works both ways-- "look at the lies alt-(whatever) are saying about (whomever)"

Kind of like the old saw about any publicity is good publicity

Re:Trump didn't win

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no such thing as an "alt-left", or an "alt-right"
"alt-right" is just PC for "ultranationalist, facist, or white supremacist, MRA, gamergate, etc", basically any group of people who are assholes and proud of it.

There is no "left" side to this. The equal to this on the left would be people demanding for men to be castrated to make them non-violent. I'm sure there are a few nutcases that believe this.

The vast majority of people upset by the Trump win wouldn't be classified as anything but afraid that Trump is going to destroy America by actually doing exactly what he said during the campain, while the ultranational terrorists feel they have carte-blanche permission directly from Trump to begin terrorizing everyone who isn't a white male.

Re:Trump didn't win

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's call it News Bait

Re:Trump didn't win

[AutodidactLabrat]

NEWSMUCX? Case closed, you lose!

Re:Trump didn't win

[AutodidactLabrat]

Ahh,ignore the above. Too little coffee. My bad

Tough times ahead

[Kohath]

For NBC then. Now we need Google to ban:
- sites that intentionally withhold news stories from the public for partisan reasons
- news sites that feed pre-selected questions to a candidate before a debate
- sites that frame Hillary getting investigated by the FBI as "Republicans pounce on Hillary allegations"
- Upworthy
- IPCC predictions
- political polling
- Twitter
- and the rest of everyone trying to troll and clickbait and hyperbolize current events

Re: Tough times ahead

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you going to do, force Google to do business with everyone? Maybe you'll make them sell ads for same-sex wedding cakes too, huh?

And who is Google to warn us that some sites are unsafe! That's oppression, and interferes with freedom. Heck, I should be allowed to embed malware in my ads. Anything less is tyranny and hypocrisy.

Re:Tough times ahead

[ThatsMyNick]

Google is drawing the line at fake news, there is nothing wrong with that. You are drawing the line at news not made in the best spirit, that is fine too. Just not where google chose the line.

Re: Tough times ahead

[Anonymous Coward]

And I draw the line at ads. All ads are blocked. Sorry Google, your revenue stream is drying up as more plebs find out about add blocker.

Re:Tough times ahead

[Anonymous Coward]

You are drawing the line at news not made in the best spirit

IPCC predictions

He's drawing the line at: science-based predictions I don't want to hear about, because my idiotic beliefs say they're a conspiracy.

Re:Tough times ahead

[Wizardess]

Which liberal goon gets to make the call on what is fake news and what is not? Do you set the criterion? Do *I* get to set the criterion? I consider MSNBC, for a prime example, and CNN, for a second prime example, to be fake news sites where political coverage is involved. So I'd block the sites completely, or should I only block political news on the sites? Oh, wait, do I get to call what is political or not?

The perception is that Google is DEEP in bed with the progressive Democrat leadership. So will they declare FoxNews is a fake news site? Is Project Veritas a fake news site? Does truth and accuracy count or is it "truthiness" and "says what I want it to say" the criterion? This move on Google's part leaves me really considering that the perception matches reality in this case.

{^_^}

Re:Tough times ahead

[Anonymous Coward]

Why am I reminded of http://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/? And why does that seem to be such a peculiarly American thing?

Re:Tough times ahead

[Anonymous Coward]

You are drawing the line at news not made in the best spirit

IPCC predictions

He's drawing the line at: science-based predictions I don't want to hear about, because my idiotic beliefs say they're a conspiracy.

I can see you've never actually compared the predictions that come out of the very-politicized IPCC with the science that goes in.

Think of it this way: the actual climate science is a fine meal at a great restaurant. The IPCC prediction is the turd you drop the next day.

Re:Tough times ahead

[Anonymous Coward]

Except their science is flawed and their predictions haven't held up.

Just because someone uses numbers, doesn't mean that it's not garbage.

For example: https://imgur.com/a/ZIt8h

Re:Tough times ahead

[popo]

Do polling results that give Clinton an 86% chance of winning the election just one day beforehand count as fake news?

https://imgur.com/a/ZIt8h

Will the NY Times be on the list of publications prohibited from running Google ads?

It's either manipulated data, or it's grossly flawed and incompetent. Pick one. I would think either fulfills the criteria for "fake".

Re:Tough times ahead

[Anonymous Coward]

manipulating the data to show that Clinton was a sure winner would be stupid if they wanted Clinton to win, meant her voters didn't bother to go vote and that is why she lost

Re:Tough times ahead

[segedunum]

Google is drawing the line at fake news, there is nothing wrong with that. You are drawing the line at news not made in the best spirit, that is fine too. Just not where google chose the line.

I think you need to sit down in a darkened room for a while and work out why that is incredibly stupid. Neither you, nor Google or anyone else, are capable of judging 'fake news'. One person's opinion is another person's fake news. The world just cannot work like that.

Re:Tough times ahead

[Entrope]

As HuffPo said, Nate Silver was obviously putting his thumb on the scales when he forecast a 35% chance of a Trump win. "It’s not easy to sit here and tell you that Clinton has a 98 percent chance of winning", Ryan Grim wrote. (He still hasn't owned up to how badly he bungled the statistics.)

Re:Tough times ahead

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems peculiarly American because most other countries make it literally a crime to say equivalent things. Lese majeste, "inciting racial/religious/ethnic/whatever hatred", "insulting Turkishness", etc.

Re:Tough times ahead

[AmiMoJo]

sites that frame Hillary getting investigated by the FBI as "Republicans pounce on Hillary allegations"

It's sad that people can't even tell the difference between news, i.e. reporting of the facts, and opinion/editorial these days.

Re:Tough times ahead

[serviscope_minor]

You do understand that even 86% isn't a dead cert, right?

If I tell you you're unlikely to roll double 6 and you do doea that mean I'm lying or that you're an idiot for not understanding statistics?

Re:Tough times ahead

[Kohath]

The main difference is that "news" stories in the US are almost all editorializing. For facts, we need to learn to pick through the subtext. Or read foreign news sources.

Re:Tough times ahead

[Gilgaron]

Ha! That's like when Italy wanted to put those geologists on trial for not predicting the earthquake a few years back... if the polling says 86% by stats than that's that. Just because it ended up wrong doesn't make it a lie. She did win the popular vote, after all. The margins she lost in the right states to lose the electoral college were well within the precision of the polls.

Re:Tough times ahead

[AmiMoJo]

Try Reuters or AP, they do simple factual statement style releases that the other news outlets then pick up and editorialize. The BBC has a more readable style and makes a genuine effort to stay neutral, if those two are too dry for you.

Re:Tough times ahead

[Anonymous Coward]

Google certainly can determine for itself what it considers to be fake news. So can Facebook and any other web site. If you don't agree with their choices, go to another web site, or create one that adheres to an absolutist no-filtering policy. I wish you create success,

Re:Tough times ahead

[tlhIngan]

Ha! That's like when Italy wanted to put those geologists on trial for not predicting the earthquake a few years back... if the polling says 86% by stats than that's that. Just because it ended up wrong doesn't make it a lie. She did win the popular vote, after all. The margins she lost in the right states to lose the electoral college were well within the precision of the polls.

Actually, the geologists weren't predicting the earthquake, they were DENYING the earthquake. The region was undergoing a fair bit more seismic activity than normal, and the population was getting worried - did all these recent small earthquakess point to a potentially larger earthquake in the future?

So the population was concerned that a big earthquake was on the way. The geologists basically told the population to not worry - there is no earthquake on the way, and to resume your normal lives. So instead of potentially preparing for an earthquake, the people believed the geologists and resumed their lives, and that's when the big one struck.

The geologists were charged because of that, not because they failed to predict the earthquake. Whether or not they studied the ground to see if there was an increased likelihood, the fact that they said no earthquake was coming was the real issue.

Perhaps they needed to study it a bit more and maybe end up saying something more like "while the concern is valid, in general only 10% of the time this leads to a bigger earthquake. So prepare yourself in case it's the 10%, but also go about your day."

Re:Tough times ahead

[rhazz]

Actually, the geologists weren't predicting the earthquake, they were DENYING the earthquake.

Speaking of fake news, that is incorrect. The geologists were predicting the earthquake, and they said it was improbable but not impossible. A government official said there was "no danger" in an interview before actually meeting with the scientists, and the public accepted that statement as being the scientific consensus.

"A large earthquake along the lines of the 1703 event is improbable in the short term," said Enzo Boschi a member of the Italian Serious Risks Commission, during the meeting. "But the possibility cannot definitively be excluded." After the meeting, the government held a press conference in which it told Italians that a major earthquake in the region of L’Aquila was improbable. And in a television interview, government official and hydrologist Bernardo De Bernardinis said that "the scientific community tells me there is no danger because there is an ongoing discharge of energy" during the seismic disturbances. That interview, however, was actually taped before the meeting on March 31st, and the statements made by De Bernardinis were false — tremors don’t release energy that would otherwise be implicated in an earthquake. But given its airtime and De Bernadinis’ authority, residents of L’Aquila who saw the interview were given the distinct impression that his comments were representative of the scientific meeting.

Source.

Re:Tough times ahead

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone please DDOS Upworthy.

Re:Tough times ahead

[segedunum]

Google certainly can determine for itself what it considers to be fake news.

No, it can't. It inevitably boils down to opinion, and that means censorship no matter what way you look at it. What about the fake story that it's all the Russians?

So can Facebook and any other web site. If you don't agree with their choices, go to another web site, or create one that adheres to an absolutist no-filtering policy. I wish you create success,

I wish Facebook, and Google, 'create' success reading and vetting every article written on every news web site..................

Is anyone even reading these days?

[Lisandro]

"Moving forward, we will restrict ad serving on pages that misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher's content, or the primary purpose of the web property".

This is straightforward. Why is everyone acting like Google is trying to control news?

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[bongey]

F**king disgusting what google is doing, they are really becoming the Ministry of Truth. Googles rules won't apply to the main fake news site were ABC,CBS,CNN, NY Times, and Huffington Post. https://theintercept.com/2016/...

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[Lisandro]

You really need to read that sentence up there again.

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[PopeRatzo]

Basically, Google is saying you can't advertise a website that purports to be ABC News if you are not ABC News. I'm still trying to figure out your problem with this.

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[Lisandro]

You and me both. I don't know what bothers me most, that Slashdot is running so many misleading headlines lately or the fact that people can't seem to bother to think about what they read anymore.

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[Gavagai80]

People are no longer able to distinguish between biased news and fake news, conflate the two, and consider their favored made up stories to be morally equal to any bias in the opposing ideology's mainstream media. It's sick. Personally, as a liberal, I have no problem with the existence of the likes of FOX News -- they're biased, but they're just putting their slant on stories that are at least connected to reality and open to evidence. All news sources do that because everyone has some bias as a result of their differing life experiences.

Making up fake stories not connected to reality is a completely different game we've been seeing way too much of which should not be tolerated.

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[Lisandro]

But the announcement has nothing to do with news. Why is everyone acting like it does?!

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[Rockoon]

Maybe because Google has already been caught biasing search?

The first "media" to point this out is anything but conservative. It was SourceFed

"Google has been actively altering search recommendations in factor of Hillary's campaign."

Of course, if you lean Democrat then thats not a problem... funny how bias works.

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[Lisandro]

The irony of you providing a YouTube link to prove Google biases news was delicious. Thanks.

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[Entrope]

No, they are saying that you can't run ads through Google's ad network on a website that purports to be ABC News if it isn't actually run by ABC News.

It might have an effect if all the other ad networks out there adopt similar policies, in which case there's probably an antitrust argument to be made against the ad networks.

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[Anonymous Coward]

When a platform has a (virtual) monopoly, there is no irony in using the platform to criticize the platform.

Re:Is anyone even reading these days?

[Anonymous Coward]

You keep using the word monopoly. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Finally... I hope

[imidan]

Does this mean I can stop getting stories on my Google News page from 'Ecumenical News' and 'Christian Daily', two religious news web sites that apparently went belly-up some years ago, had their domains purchased by scammers, and now serve clickbait bullshit constantly? All they ever do is somehow zero in on some search term I used recently and then feed me fake headlines about that thing.

Like, for months now, I've constantly had a story on my news page about Rick and Morty (which I searched for one day in July, and these stories started the next day) from one or the other of those sites. Today, it's "'Rick and Morty' season 3 update: Release date revealed and other spoilers" from Ecumenical News. I don't click them; they're just a gibberish mishmash of rumors from elsewhere on the web. I 'Personalized' my Google News feed and set both of these news sources to the lowest they'll go, but unfortunately, it seems impossible to exclude them completely.

Before that, it was a constant stream of rumor-mill bullshit about The Arrow and the drama between cast members. These sites are NOT NEWS, they're just algorithmicly generated clickbait. Preferably, they would both die a fiery death, but in the meantime, if I could just get them off of my news feed, I'd be mollified.

Re:Finally... I hope

[Bite The Pillow]

Hi, Rick and Morty here. First off, I'd like to assure you we aren't a complete mingepile of arseholes. We appreciate your potential viewership as if you were the third coming of Christ Himself. We are not computers, and if we were, we'd be nice ones. Not at all like that foreign national Swartznegger, who played a real arsehole of a robot in a film you might like called Terminator.

We are peaceful people and or robots, but mostly people, who just think you might like to watch this thing we have created, which is nothing like an all seeing network which monitors where you post complaints about our very human like encouragement to follow your curiosity about our show, titled Rick and Morty.

We employ people. We are job creators. Please assist us in creating more jobs, and reducing the unemployment rate. All you have to do is watch. You like to watch, don't you? You said it out loud approximately one month and six point eight days ago, to Rachel. We know that.

Watch. We know you want to.

Re:Finally... I hope

[Luthair]

Don't forget Indian Times or whatever it is...

Re:Finally... I hope

[Anonymous Coward]

You gotta say "rickandmorty.com" a lot at the end of that.

Re:Finally... I hope

[AmiMoJo]

Try installing Privacy Badger and maybe turning off your search history on your Google account. That should get rid of that crap.

Re:Finally... I hope

[imidan]

The thing is, I'm not totally opposed to having Google customize my news feed to some extent based upon whatever they think I'm interested in... I just wish they wouldn't use fake news to do it, and maybe let me totally shut off certain news sources when they demonstrate bad behavior.

Define "fake"...

[dbreeze]

... and why is Google doing the defining...?

Re:Define "fake"...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they're the ones paying up.

Re:Define "fake"...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they can. What good is a monopoly if you're not going to abuse it to advance your agenda?

You think the FBI trying to serve a warrant on an iphone is 1984 shit? THIS is 1984 shit. Just because google isn't technically the government (even though they basically own the government) doesn't make it less scary.

Re:Define "fake"...

[PopeRatzo]

Because they can. What good is a monopoly if you're not going to abuse it to advance your agenda?

Google doesn't have a monopoly, for the record.

Re:Define "fake"...

[Anonymous Coward]

Adsense is by far the most-used advertising provider, providing 46% of all ads internet-wide. Doubleclick is in second place at 4%.

https://trends.builtwith.com/ads (click "entire internet" on the right)

Re:Define "fake"...

[Anonymous Coward]

46% is not a monopoly. If you can make money with adsense, you can make money with Doubleclick.

Re:Define "fake"...

[Rockoon]

Google doesn't have a monopoly

it sure as fuck does in online advertising.

Re:Define "fake"...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they sure as fuck, dont.

Re:Define "fake"...

[AmiMoJo]

I binged "google monopoly" and it turned up loads of sites about how Google is a monopoly, so I think you might be wrong about that.

The Flop the Nut Straight advertisers... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Policy? Here's effective REALITY, Google APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-4 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?...

  * It shuts your easily abused advertisting RIGHT the "f" down...

(Like the film Rounders? See subject... Barb Hudson "The World Series of Poker has a million bucks on it. Does it have MY name on it? I dunno - but, I'm gonna find out!")

APK

P.S.=> ... & you know it - prove me wrong, I'll utterly CRUSH your best easily (& you KNOW that too, lol) - chumps... apk

Fire BeauHD

[bongey]

F**king BeauHD cannot get over the butt hurt of the election. His twitter feed, "Trump is a saggy sack of shit. If any one of you is even remotely considering voting for him this November, please unfollow me. "
"That sack of shit next to Hillary is attracting flies! #debate"
"Clinton wiped the floor with Trump tonight. Say hello to your next president, America!"
" It's only a story because it has the 'Trump' buzzword. Stupid media is stupid."
"I bet Trump hired the climber for publicity."

Re:Fire BeauHD

[Anonymous Coward]

ah yes, the coming purge. fire a person for having a certain viewpoint.

i'm not bothering to look at your comment history, but based on the that comment, i'm pegging you as a liberal SJW.

and if you're not, you'll forgive me for having confused you with that sort of person; your post just happened to align so well with that way of thinking.

Re:Fire BeauHD

[Orgasmatron]

No one gives a fuck what viewpoint he is "having". Lots of us care very much about what viewpoint he is abusing his position as editor to spread.

Do you remember the 2 or 3 days last week when every 3rd or 4th story here was about how we were all going to die because Trump won? Guess who posted a big chunk of that...

"Trump Picks Top Climate Skeptic To Lead EPA Transition"
"How President Trump Could Destroy Net Neutrality"
"Donald Trump Won Because of Facebook"
"Slashdot Asks: Should The US Abolish The Electoral College?"
"Silicon Valley Investors Call For California To Secede From the US After Trump Win "

Is this what you want? Yet another site posting Democrat propaganda 24/7 with a sprinkling of technology news on slow politics-news days?

Re:Fire BeauHD

[Anonymous Coward]

No one gives a fuck what viewpoint he is "having". Lots of us care very much about what viewpoint he is abusing his position as editor to spread.

Do you remember the 2 or 3 days last week when every 3rd or 4th story here was about how we were all going to die because Trump won? Guess who posted a big chunk of that...

"Trump Picks Top Climate Skeptic To Lead EPA Transition"
"How President Trump Could Destroy Net Neutrality"
"Donald Trump Won Because of Facebook"
"Slashdot Asks: Should The US Abolish The Electoral College?"
"Silicon Valley Investors Call For California To Secede From the US After Trump Win "

Is this what you want? Yet another site posting Democrat propaganda 24/7 with a sprinkling of technology news on slow politics-news days?

Whatever, Trump shill

Re:Fire BeauHD

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a time when /.'s doctrine was "News for Nerds", which, at that time, meant no bloody politics.

Re:Fire BeauHD

[ChoGGi]

That explains the slew of anti-Trump articles just after the election. Being that I'm not an American (and I am interested in tech) I was hoping political stories would die down around here afterwards).

Re:Fire BeauHD

[fafalone]

Is this what you want? Yet another site posting Democrat propaganda 24/7 with a sprinkling of technology news on slow politics-news days?

Judging by the numbers of comments on the articles like this versus the number of comments on articles actually about software and hardware topics, yes, that's precisely what the vast majority of /. wants.

And yes that sucks... join me in the puppy and coloring book filled safe space?

Re:Fire BeauHD

[AmiMoJo]

Where are all the Free Speech Warriors? Masahki? Come on, you defended Eich's "right" to say offensive stuff in public and keep his job, why aren't you leaping to the support of BeauHD now?

Re:Fire BeauHD

[serviscope_minor]

Interesting that you complain about all the articles putting Trump in a bad light but not about any of the ones putting Hillary in a bad light.

Re:Fire BeauHD

[Anonymous Coward]

Well this explains how slashdot turned from cool tech site to liberal propaganda machine. BeauHD should be ashamed as a professional (and I use the term loosely with him) for all of these biased clickbait SJW articles from how Trump stole his lunch, why aren't there enough women in a field women don't want to work in, to climate hoaxing, and last but not least the ant farm of bugs lodged far up his ass.

Re:Fire BeauHD

[Anonymous Coward]

Where are all the Free Speech Warriors? Masahki? Come on, you defended Eich's "right" to say offensive stuff in public and keep his job, why aren't you leaping to the support of BeauHD now?

Don't you know? They're men of principle. And their principle is that they don' t have to do so, it's actually our fault, and now they can judge and condemn whoever they want for not following the party line.

After all, once you judge somebody for any reason at all, that means any other judgments are all equally as valid.

This is why, after World War 2, all of the Allies were as bad as the Nazis, even the ones who ran death camps and committed war crimes.

And so, no matter how oppressive Trump may become, nobody will ever be able to say anything, since we built it.

Re:Fire BeauHD

[Anonymous Coward]

I applaud your decision to include a large number of examples to bolster your argument.

Re:Fire BeauHD

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because those articles don't exist.
Didn't you get the memo? The mainstream press was in the bag for Clinton!

Re:Fire BeauHD

[Anonymous Coward]

I wouldn't fire him I'd just ask him to quit posting BS. Or moving comment threads to the bottom to suppress them. Or limiting AC to comment every few hours.

Besides, it's illegal to fire someone in CA for their politics.

Re:Fire BeauHD

[Anonymous Coward]

Those aren't all coming from the same person, and aren't all using remotely tangible links to put them through. Clinton screwed up with her e-mail. That's not a spin, it's a fact. When that shows up in the feed, everyone sees why. Intentionally posting old news articles (from before he was even elected) and stating that was Trump's post election actions and policy is not exactly being even handed.
 
The Clinton articles also didn't show up one immediately after the other in a single day. Some days had more than one story on it if it was going on, but not 5 or 6 within hours of each other. BeauHD's twitter feed is more than enough to reveal a blatant bias, and a lack of any desire to present fair news. He clearly cannot separate personal from work.

Re:Fire BeauHD

[avandesande]

It's a circular feedback loop... slashdot has changed focus and so has it's readership base.

Re:Fire BeauHD

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump is a sorry excuse for a human being, let alone The President, and ALWAYS HAS BEEN. Before he was officially Republican, he was obviously a narcissistic fuckup. Yet now that he is officially Republican and in the political arena, suddenly your panties get wadded every time someone makes a criticism.

Fucking partisans. Someone adds an R or D to their name, and suddenly all history is forgotten, and now they can do no wrong, or else every single thing they do is wrong.

Re:Fire BeauHD

[Anonymous Coward]

Her articles actually had things to do with tech scandals where-as Trump articles are full of liberal babies gazing into a crystal ball.

No more climate change articles

[Anonymous Coward]

Right?

Trump didn't win

[Anonymous Coward]

He didn't win the popular vote and he didn't win the electoral college. There is no such thing as "copying out Faxed absentee ballot papers", its not a thing. It's an admission of the fraud.

You don't "give him a chance", he's Putin's choice not Americas. That's would be like saying "Oh give this new Vichy French government a chance".

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/florida-elections-worker-alleges/2016/11/04/id/757191/

"A temporary worker for the Broward County Supervisor of Elections Office in Florida has alleged in a sworn affidavit obtained by Newsmax that she was fired this week after witnessing possible absentee ballot fraud by office workers."

"But the State Attorney's Office concluded Friday that the workers were duplicating ballots by hand from damaged originals faxed by military personnel and that "there is nothing improper or illegal about the conduct" under state law."

Too Late

[Anonymous Coward]

Policy lags the need and demand for action.

Patriot

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an American. and I am ashamed that Donald Jabroni Trump is the President. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Seeing that mainstream media is mostly

[melted]

Seeing that mainstream media is mostly fake nowadays, news sites should worry. Especially liberal lapdogs like HuffPo, WaPo, CNN and so on.

Ministery of fake.

[Anonymous Coward]

And what is fake?
 
Science fiction is fake.
 
Jokes are most of the time fake.
 
Hypothetical stories are fake.
 
The bible is fake.
 
Inconvenient truths, it is better they are fake
 
Truths that offend? It's best to not offend, so lets make them fake.
 
A truth that the government doesn't want to be heard (like the mass rape in Koeln on news year eve)? Now that has to be fake.
 
A made up story to bring progress in the society? No, progressive news can never be fake.
 
It is difficult to decide what is fake. We need a ministry of fake stories!

Re:Ministery of fake.

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot CNN, NBC, ABC, FOX, WaPost, NYTimes, HuffPost, Politico.

Like Churchil never said

[Anonymous Coward]

“The fascists of the future will be called anti-fascists”

author not known, but it was not Churchill

Can /. ...

[Anonymous Coward]

prohibit Republican paid shills from posting their bullshit?

There's no ifs ands or buts any more.

Hillary won the popular vote.

The electoral count was manipulated.

The HUGE discrepancy from exit polls and the result is unprecidented and frankly, bullshit.

Anyone that contests these facts are paid shills for the right, struggling to keep their puppet president in power. They lie about the results, they lie about Hillary, they lie about Trump himself, they lie, lie, lie. They lie so much America believes it, just like the lies about the war in the middle east last decade. Republicans are known liars and this time, they've been caught, but they're so good at lying that they continue to get away with it.

Write, post, call, yell, scream and demand a hard look at the election results, and do not stop until they have been overturned.

And any Republican liar that replies to this and votes it down from the already low AC score is a coward and a liar. Smart people know the actual truth, and your continued lies cannot disguise them any longer.

Re: Can /. ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Anyone that contests these facts are paid shills for the right, struggling to keep their puppet president in power."

So Hillary and Obama are paid shills for the right? I'm pretty sure they conceded that Trump won the election and asked the country to move on. I never thought I'd see the day when Hillary and Obama would be considered a paid shill for the right!

Countering Fake News Counters Spam

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the story, not clickbait headlines.

Bye bye CNN incomes

[Anonymous Coward]

CNN and MSNBC must be furious. Is Slashdot also going to be affected by these?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just meant to make sure all the media gets the right story, promoting conformity in news. That should make it easier for propaganda to have the desired effect.

Oh. A whitelist...

[Anonymous Coward]

A whitelist. Nothing can go wrong with that. Nothing to see here, move along.

Comment: I know people across the political spectrum; most I can have a somewhat intelligent discussion with mutual respect.

No more jury duty!

[Black Parrot]

Just have the prosecution put up a web site claiming that the accused is guilty and the defense put up one saying innocent, then the judge can check to see which Google accepts or rejects.

Likewise good for hiring decisions, investment decisions, policy decisions etc. Kind of like a boolean Ouija board.

Let's test it on whether we should go see the new Star Wars movie, which doesn't seem to be generating the usual hype.

The onion

[thesupraman]

How exactly will try differentiate between satire and fake news?

The answer is if course that you cannot.

Stupid announcement.

Check your sources next time, they're bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

> What about Xenographic and his troup of astroturfers, go look at his comment history a fucking liar and traitor to America.... or a hard worker for Putin.

I love how you don't actually refute anything I've said when saying this. Bad start. Yes, the same few people often comment, some even agree with me and I friended one a few days back, but if there's a "troup" or even a troupe I've never been invited.

> Or go look at the video he just quoted, where he says nothing about Wikileaks, and nothing about reading, and says its illegal to possess the emails.

I like that clip because it's short and to the point, but you can watch the longer clip here, which certainly does mention Wikileaks if you prefer. Make sure to compare the two clips so you can see that one is cut from the other. Here's the relevant quote from Chris Cuomo as best I can transcribe it out of the longer clip. I left out at least one "uhm" and added emphasis so you can see where Wikileaks is mentioned:

Here's what we know, what the Wikileaks dump makes clear is how the sausage is made in politics. And I think it's interesting on that level. Also interesting to remember, it's illegal to possess these stolen documents. It's different for the media, so everything you learn about this, you're learning from us.

Moving on, you can't read them without also possessing them, simply because that's how computers work. When you read it, you download it, when you download it, you possess it. This being a tech site, most understand that. And even if they didn't, just how would it make sense for him to say "everything you're learning about this, you're learning from us" if it was perfectly okay, in his view, for those of us outside the media to possess them? The conclusion wouldn't be logical. Am I not supposed to assume that CNN is trying to be logical? It would explain a few things about the coverage....

In the longer clip, you can also see him saying that "emails have been manipulated" but no evidence is given. And when Donna went on the air, she lied about that. I covered the DKIM earlier, as well as how it provides cryptographic non-repudiation and how that specific DKIM header covers the body and body hash and anyone can verify it themselves.

To be fair, CNN "ended" their relationship with Donna. Somehow they didn't catch any of the other people at CNN who were in on it, though. And Chris Cuomo on CNN? He has a J.D. He's a licensed attorney. He has no excuse for getting something like this wrong. Does his bar association know about this?

> You can't even tell the truth once can you Mr political astrotufing. Even when you're selling out your country.

I'm in favor of the truth, no matter who is telling it. I hate being lied to. We saw a whole lot of roaches start scurrying when Podesta's email came to light and they made me sick.

As for comments, you can go back to 2008 when I supported Obama if you like. Like most people around here, I didn't think much of Palin either.

But I thought you said you went through my comment history?

Re:Check your sources next time, they're bad.

[Xenographic]

I got logged out somehow, the parent was me.

Trump will take care of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump will follow Hannity's advice - ban the MSM from the White House. citation for all you assholes http://trumpinthenews.com/id/16443811016

Then we will get absolutely no news from the White House as only the echo chamber and the "slow thinkers" will be allowed to get press releases.

Who Becomes Executioner?

[Dangerous_Minds]

A lot of small news sites use Google Adsense because the connections are small to non-existent. The resources to negotiate deals directly is virtually non-existent which is why some simply throw these ads on in the first place. Another reason is that it is a pretty good way to ensure journalistic independence. You aren't beholden necessarily to your advertisers in the same way some traditional news organizations (i.e. TV broadcasting) are beholden to theirs. These policies need to be very carefully weighed and not rushed through. A lot more could be at stake than blacklisting clickbait sites and alt-right "news" sites that post the most ludicrous conspiracy theories as facts.

One reason I would personally worry about such a policy is who plays the role of executioner? How does Google determine a site is real or fake? Is there independent reporting involved? If so, what's to stop someone from maliciously reporting a competing site as a fake news site to cut off their funding?

On the flip side, this kind of policy also has the potential of hurting Google. What's to stop sites, regardless if they are fairly or unfairly targeted crying foul and holding Google up on anti-trust allegations? Google does, in fact, hold a lot of power. If Google comes knocking with some kind of notice saying you've been cut off, what are the alternatives to Adsense? How many other ad distribution networks distribute ads with drive-by malware, etc.?

I personally can only see things getting messy even if Google has the best intentions in mind for everyone.

How many SJW are needed?

[AHuxley]

A campus full of them? At home click work? How many SJW are going to get jobs making the news safe again?
Why cant the big search engines just search? Let the user work it out or find a great site, blog or portal they never would have. Do what made a search engine great, find news, search everything.
Sooner or later users are going create a nice bookmark list of safe spaces. Thats great for them, the rest of us can enjoy a real working search engine. Let the search sites go back to searching, not filtering or censoring or funding staff to making the web a huge safe space..
Less funding from creepy dictators, theocracies, foundations and monarchies for safe SJW projects and just make a good search engine again.

Re:How many SJW are needed?

[Anonymous Coward]

faggot

TW3 (TWTWTW)

[d'baba]

That Was The Week That Was (UK)
That Was The Week That Was (US)
The Daily Show with *
The Onion
Fox News

As long as we all can see the difference between satirical news coverage
(which tends to bend the facts a bit (left/right it doesn't matter)) for the laugh
and bs stories passed off as "hard news". We can't as a platform. We all just
gotta pay more attention.

No takers Google? LOL!

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject: Says it all - & don't send some sockpuppet chump - have "Rabbi Brin" come in so I can bust him flat! Puh-leese... @ this point?

* LMAO - & so is the PLANET, whimps... Hahahaha!

APK

P.S.=> Come on, lol - I know you're spineless, EVERYONE does, but please - don't make it THIS easy, lol... apk

Fake News Site

[Isendur]

Oh man, Slashdot is screwed ;)

Dear Mark Zuckerberg

[facetube]

Dear Mark Zuckerberg,

I'm writing to you with a concern of critical national importance. I hope that you will read what I've written and consider it carefully. I believe that Facebook has a moral duty to act.

I've spent the last 18 months or so participating in our political process on Facebook. I've joined Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump groups. I've attempted to argue my position with my neighbors and fellow citizens, trying to explain to them why I think Donald Trump's proposals, policies, and distortion of truth are bad for the country. But that's not what I'm writing to you about today.

I'm writing to share the depravity I witnessed and participated in – a torrent of personal attacks, of name-calling, of ad hominem, of attacking the individual instead of the argument. I was called a "fag", a "pussy" and a "libtard". I watched people who shared my position call others "baggers", "stupid fucks", "bigots", "inbred", and "fuckwits". I did it. I am ashamed. These insults don't demean a position, or idea, or way of thinking. Those can easily be discarded by people. They can be shed. They're not an identity, no matter how much identity politics wants us to believe that. I participated in it. I am culpable. You are culpable. We are culpable.

I'll refrain from discussing James Comey's misconduct or RNC obstruction. That's all been well documented. Hillary Clinton called 25% of the country "a basket of deplorables". Not their positions, not their conduct, not their statements – them. That has an impact. It causes social pain. This is a well-documented thing in human health. It exists.

Trevor Noah of the Daily Show, America's least-appreciated successor to Jon Stewart, made a critically important point in my opinion: the basket is actually the most offensive part of this. It conjures images of a portion of the nation about to be thrown away economically, a portion that has been or will be left behind, a portion of the country that – true or not – fears they have no place in human progress. That is toxic. It cannot stand in a free and open society.

I watched my fellow citizens literally hunt down pictures of peoples' children, photoshop text on to them (sorry Adobe), and use them as political ammunition in blind rage. I've watched people use Facebook's comically understaffed and unsophisticated reporting system as a means of retaliation, to get accounts pulled, to remove peoples' ability to participate at all instead of attempt to address their arguments. This is sick. This is depravity. This cannot stand.

Facebook must add tools for fact-checking positions. It must add tools to redirect people away from personal attacks, from tracking down peoples' employers, from mining through the personal lives of others in retaliation for expressing a dissenting opinion, no matter how misguided. It must stop the spread of fake news from Veles, Macedonia designed to channel our collective outrage at things that aren't even true into Google AdSense payments. It needs to stop placing news from domains like USANEWSPOLITIC24.COM on equal visual footing with the New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Oregonian. Facebook owes it to the world, it owes it to the country, and it owes it to its shareholders, who would like to see this grand experiment in social participation actually survive long term.

Mark, you have a duty to act. Your silence is disconcerting. Please. America can learn a powerful lesson from this tragedy of an election. The whole world is watching.

Please publish this letter anonymously. Please withhold and protect my identity for a minimum of one year. I genuinely fear reprisal and retaliation. I fear for my country and I fear for my life.

https://github.com/livefreeord...

MOD PARENT UP

[rsmith-mac]

While politics are a part of the tech landscape, Slashdot isn't supposed to be a politics website. Politics should augment the tech discussion, not the other way around.

Everything has a new meaning: Racism, Sexism, etc

[Anonymous Coward]

The Left is logically challenged. In their minds, anything that is pro-Clinton is progressive. Anything pro-Trump is racist and sexist.

The absurdity of this position was taken to an extreme when the majority of white women voted for Trump in the election, at which point the majority of white women were accused of being .... wait for it... "sexist".

Yes, the majority of white women are apparently sexist according to the angry left. Why? Because they didn't vote for Clinton.

When pressed for a reason how it could possibly be true that a majority of white women were sexist, the kooks on the left came back with this gem:

The majority of white women were essentially *forced* to vote for Clinton because: Men. These women were unable to think for themselves because of a form of Stockholm syndrome called "Internalized Misogyny".

No really. It's true: http://www.advocate.com/commen...

This is the kind of batsh*t crazy thinking that comes out of the Left these days.

How is "Mexican" a race?

[swb]

How is Mexican a race? In terms of genetically heritable appearance, Mexicans vary from light-skinned Caucasians indistinguishable from European Spaniards to dark-skinned Mestizos to those more similar to indigenous peoples of North America.

I see a huge variety here in Minnesota with no dominant characteristic beyond shorter than most of the Scandahoovians, a height difference I'd ascribe to something between genetics and poor neo/postnatal nutrition.

Trump's broad brush might best be described as xenophobic if you had to pick a negative label for his description, but racist doesn't stick because Mexican isn't a race.

For me, the bottom line is there really isn't any acceptable level of criminal behavior by undocumented immigrants, and preventing undocumented immigration as much as possible also eliminates the crimes they commit.

Re:How is "Mexican" a race?

[Braintrust]

Absolutely goddamn right.

Well said.

Re:How is "Mexican" a race?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is Mexican a race?

Its not a race but it becomes a racial term when it is the go-to label for anyone who appears to be Latino, which is common among racists.

Not that complicated.

Re:How is "Mexican" a race?

[Lisandro]

"Mexican" is the go-to word for latinos in the US. That's like saying there's no racism in the US just because people refer to blacks as "african americans".

What about Fox?

[Anonymous Coward]

So does this include or exclude Fox?

Unjustifiable downmods? ROTFLMAO!

[Anonymous Coward]

See subject & what you downmodded https://tech.slashdot.org/comm... & then I'll ask WHY "Open SORES" addons use 20-40x more memory YET addons do 17++ times less vs. hosts files?

(You know - the posts I put up vs. "AlmostALLAdsBlocked" &/or UBlock have everything I'm talking about now in them - or, must I post them AGAIN to "refresh your memory"? LOL!)

APK

P.S.=> Oh, yea - when a DNS, even Google DNS, gets redirect poisoned, your Open SORES addons don't help - but hosts do, bypassing DNS & all its security faults (as well as "going down & out" faults too)... apk

here it is

[Anonymous Coward]

So CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS won't be able to use google ads now?

New establishment

[Anonymous Coward]

Turns out the far left is just as scary, if not more than, the far right. At this moment in history we are watching the establishment figure out how to control the narrative in the 'New Media'. The establishment obviously thought that paid internet trolls and shill 'news' channels would be enough but they were just proven very wrong by what was essentially information gorilla warfare. Now the establishment is going back to the basics of 'attacking the supply lines' in the war for the minds of America. Controlling the narrative is everything and that's why speaking truth to power is so disrupting.

"What we don't know keeps the contracts alive and movin"
"They don't gotta burn the books, they just remove 'em"

Unlucky everyone

[easyTree]

As there's pretty much no such thing as *real* news.

Biased

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure Google will try to stomp on conservative voices and you'll still see a flood of liberal sites just like that (most mainstream media is turning into tabloid quality, so there are few real news sites left). This is a blatant attempt at censorship because they feel they are losing political power.

So, no MSM?

[Anonymous Coward]

All major MSM outlets have told fake news stories. Does this mean we won't be having to read the latest "$X did $Y in $Z"? Will we lose the national treasure that is TMZ? Let's just ditch all 'news' sites.

Censorship

[deecemobile]

This will turn into censorship. According to Wikileaks, Eric Schmidt (therefore Google) is very tight with the Democratic party. This will go beyond just punishing "fake news" - it will change the news. Google and the Dems would have gladly labeled Wikileaks as "fake news" this election. Policing the information of the internet is impossible anyway.

simple algorithm - no Republicans

[Anonymous Coward]

They will cross reference the publishers with the Tea Party donor lists that the IRS "leaked".
Those matches will be prohibited from making money.

Slashdot should prohibit BeauHD from posting

[Anonymous Coward]

I haven't seen such a partisan hackjob masquerading as a journalist like this in a very long time.

Too late. Post erection.

[Anonymous Coward]

Close the barn door after the horse leaves.

Are you for this but not against deceptive ads?

[BrendaEM]

So many sites have ads that look like news items or download links.
Let's do something about those, too!

So

[Anonymous Coward]

So.. does this include things like Huffington Post and Breitbart?

If not, then I'm not sure Google isn't just trolling us. It's all fake.

Thanks for working on this AFTER the election

[Anonymous Coward]

Google could have done the right thing and kept the alt-right republitards under control.

But their real god is money, and it took a disastrous election outcome and an upcoming Dark Ages to spur them into action.

I love technology but I hate the mindset of the big players in tech, because they are greedy, selfish, and they put the almighty dollar ahead of everything else.

Thanks for nothing, Google. Thanks for fucking up this election.

black and white thinking for the fail.

[Anonymous Coward]

> What about CNN, that was lying about it being illegal to read Wikileaks

Ugh. black and white thinking for the fail.

If perfection is a requirement then all sources are 100% failures. You will always be able to find examples of fuck-ups, no matter how rigorous an organization's journalistic standards are.

The very reason popehat bothered to refute that CNN host's bullshit is because CNN is held to a higher standard. If popehat went around debunking the river of straight-up lies from the fake-news sites then they would be working 500-hour weeks just on that.

Degree matters. CNN, et al are orders of magnitude better quality than the fake news sites google and facebook are refusing to do business with.

Re: black and white thinking for the fail.

[Xenographic]

Well, this wasn't just a mistake. This is a guy--who is an attorney with no damned excuse not to know this--telling us a clearly false statement about the law. And when he explains why? It's so that you'll get all your information from the media. And what do we find in the material he told us we couldn't read? Oh, we find evidence that his employer was up to no good. Yes, they made a token attempt at addressing the problem. No, we already know several other people who were in on it that they didn't do anything about.

Now if you payed attention when Comey was grilled, you'd know that lying to hide one's guilt is generally seen as evidence that someone is both conscious of their guilt and that they intended to do wrong. If not, go google "comey grilled" and the video is right near the top.

Something like this is actually *below* the idiotic clickbait articles in my book. Intentionally lying from a source many people trust is a lot more worrisome than some idiots in a far-away country making clickbait sites designed to get ad money by peddling outrage articles that nobody really believes.

The Flop the Nut Straight advertisers... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Policy? Google, here's effective REALITY APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ SR-4 32/64-bit https://www.google.com/search?...

* It shuts your easily abused advertisting RIGHT the "f" down (it infects users + slows them).

(... & you know it - TRY validly & technically to prove me wrong? You'll fail, you always do, & I'll utterly CRUSH your best easily (& you KNOW that too, lol) - chumps!)

APK

P.S.=> To Barb Hudson: "The World Series of Poker has a million bucks on it. Does it have MY name on it? I dunno - but, I'm gonna find out!" ... apk

Parody and satire

[uncoveror]

I wonder if Google will be smart enough to distinguish parody and satire sites vs. ones that exist to libel and slander political foes. It will be a lot less fun to do my website if I have to beat it over people's heads with THIS IS A JOKE on every story I write.

fake articles on just Donald Trump?

[Dark Fire]

Fake articles seems to be a new "approach" in Internet media that is becoming increasingly common. A title that is either favorable or unfavorable to a particular party with an article that says whose contents are the exact opposite with facts that are based on celebrity quotes or opinions rather than facts. This approach may have been used during the political process in 2016, but I have seen this style of writing growing. It seems to be turning Internet media into a supermarket tabloid across the board. I came across very few articles or videos online for Trump during the campaign. But there were a TON of them for Clinton. Maybe I fit the Clinton demographic rather than the Trump one, I don't know. The Youtube videos were particular frustrating because they would show up every two or three minutes and I couldn't skip any of them even though I had watched them like 100 times (30 second ads!). I was in high school and college in the 90s when Bill Clinton was in office. So I remember the Clinton presidency well. I didn't come across any Clinton ads that were complete fabrications, but quite a few were what I would call "factish". They would present something she did but omit some important details which were very misleading. This only made them more annoying to watch. I hope that both parties have learned their lesson and will stop deciding who is going to win the primary BEFORE people vote. They have picked John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Hillary Clinton and all three have lost their bids. You can spend $1 billon dollars running Youtube ads that I can't skip all you want, but in the I am going to vote for who I think is the best candidate, period.

How will one tell ?

[Archfeld]

The courts have already decided that so called news programs consist mostly of opinion-tainment anyways how will one tell the fake news from the junk news ? I guess google white as the driven profit motive will decide what is valid and what is not ?

How About Hillary's fake news sites?

[Anonymous Coward]

The popup fake news sites tracked back to a PR firm being hired by Hillary - will those types of sites be blocked as well?

Fake news websites

[Anonymous Coward]

Like CNN?

What about Macedonia's economy?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's cruel and unreasonable to cut off revenue streams for entrepreneurial teens in Macedonia who make their living out of duping the alt-right bozos in the USA. I mean, they can write more competitive nonsense to appeal to racists and bigots where the alt-right press in the USA has quite obviously failed. Let's ship their "journalism" overseas where they can do a better job. Macedonia's economy will suffer as a result of this protectionist, anti-bigotry censorship.

Does FoxNews use Google?

[Anonymous Coward]

The corporation that got an official court decision that news doesn't have to be true...

fake news

[Anonymous Coward]

does this include cnn?

religious sites

[Anonymous Coward]

Are they going to block all religious sites ?

Or once it's not "news" it can still be disseminated as fake stories ?