Slashdot Mirror
President Obama On Fake News Problem: 'We Won't Know What To Fight For' (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader shares a TechCrunch article: President Barack Obama spoke in Berlin Thursday during a visit to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and during his remarks he addressed concerns about fake news circulating via social platforms like Facebook. On the subject of fake news, Obama noted that the ease with which we can make false information seem like genuine facts on platforms including "a Facebook page" means there's a great risk for audiences. Here's is what he said, "Because in an age where there's so much active misinformation, and it's packaged very well, and it looks the same when you see it on a Facebook page or you turn on your television, where some overzealousness on the part of a U.S. official is equated with constant and severe repression elsewhere, if everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won't know what to protect. We won't know what to fight for. And we can lose so much of what we've gained in terms of the kind of democratic freedoms and market-based economies and prosperity that we've come to take for granted.
You should only be reading *our* fake news.
love is just extroverted narcissism
No, the mainstream media is not as bad as the fake news. It's not perfect, but the idea that it is as bad as people who just willfully invent rumors out of thin air and disseminate them as truth is absurd. It's a classic fallacy of the false equivalency.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
How's that "you can keep your doctor", and "you can keep your health plan" thing working out?
I knew this guy was full of shit all along, but once he signed a bill extending the PATRIOT act, the rest of you clowns should have figured it out.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
The fact that it's done by names that people used to trust is irrelevant. Or did you miss Jayson Blair? Perhaps the scandals are coming too fast and furious for you to keep up, but they've lost all credibility whatsoever. Their obvious political bias all in one direction does nothing to help them, of course.
Goebbels' propaganda machine was ultimately disbelieved by the German people based on the postwar US Strategic Bombing Survey's result. The majority of Germans had realized the war was lost shortly after Stalingrad, even though bombing and privation had not started to bite. People see right through the lying. A similar result here - people just don't believe the shit and aren't going to start believing it again without a wholesale teardown of the whole edifice and rebuilding, with a focus on ethics.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
I don't think anyone is suggesting censoring fake news. But I do think organizations like Facebook, if they're going to get into the game in any way, have an obligation to fact check anything they're claiming is news. It will never be perfect, even where you have perfect journalistic ethics, but at the moment we are literally seeing people fabricating stories out of thin air and then getting them promoted by the likes of Facebook as actual news.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Sure. They played along with the whole "new batch of emails" claim that probably sunk Clinton's campaign.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
No, the mainstream media is not as bad as the fake news. It's not perfect, but the idea that it is as bad as people who just willfully invent rumors out of thin air and disseminate them as truth is absurd. It's a classic fallacy of the false equivalency.
Like... CNN, "The mistrusted name in news!" ;)
This dancing around a Ministry of Truth is extremely uncomfortable.
Nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition!
I mean, it's really odd. Everybody who's so fucking concerned about fake news now didn't seem to be too upset when Dan Rather was pushing fake news.
Kind of like everybody who's so bothered by Trump being a pervert didn't seem to mind when Bill Clinton was being a pervert.
Weird, like there's a double standard or something.
Do you have ESP?
In the last week...
NYT reported Trump poisoned Megyn Kelly and got debate questions before the debate. Their source, Mrs. Kelly, said neither was true. Looks like they made it up completely.
A guy making "fake news" on Facebook said he made up a story about protestors at Trump rallies were being paid by Clinton. Project Veritas has a video proving this is actually true, specifically Chicago and Arizona rallies disturbed by a woman bragging about it and on the Clinton campaign payroll.
So we have a "mainstream" news making up false stories, debunked by asking their claimed source, and a fake news story that is proven true with video evidence and public FEC records.
The mainstream media is not as bad as fake news, it is far worse. Provably so.
They made them up out of thin air.
No, they didn't. They were provided the documents and fell way short on properly vetting them. This was exposed by other mainstream media outlets, and resulted in a huge internal investigation. It is all very well documented.
Now, if one of these fake news sites was called out for, I dunno, lying that Trump won the popular vote, what do you think they would do... seriously try to improve their processes by finding out what went wrong, or try to sell you some viagra?
Claiming that the fourth estate is "corrupt to the core" and suggesting we believe random people posting click-bait online instead puts you squarely in the "utter lunatic" camp in my book.
Someone had to do it.
I'd disagree, a semi-valid but highly biased "real" news outlet is much more dangerous, because people are more likely to trust it.
This was one of the problems this election season: How do you falsify a lie?
Suppose Breitbart ran a story with the title "Obama calls off Trump's transition, Declares self Emperor." Now you and I might know that this is complete bull, but how do you prove it to someone who thinks it might be true? Show them the Pants On Fire rating on Politifact? "That's obviously a liberal site." Show them the New York Times or Washington Post debunking? "I don't trust the mainstream media." Show them a report on FOX News? "FOX used to be good but it's gotten taken over by liberals." (Yes, there are a group of people who think FOX News is too liberal!)
When people decide they're only going to trust news from sources that we know make up stories (and repeat stories from similar sites), how do you prove anything to be a lie?
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
We won't know what to fight for.
Fight for the USS Maine! Fight for the causes approved by our responsible, professional journalists, and avenge those brave, American sailors slaughtered by Spanish treachery!
Nothing is ever new. What happens today has already happened before and will happen again.
Agreed. Funny how only the establishment Left complains about "fake" news. They've lost control of the narrative and know it; Obama's impotent farewell lecture tour is a last-ditch effort to discredit the "alt" sites and networks that helped defeat Hillary Clinton.
Whatever you think of him as a person or his policy recommendations, Donald Trump is a genius political operator who enjoys outfoxing the establishment media. It's like watching a master-level troll repeatedly outplay every smug asshole in NYC-NOVA-DC. That's why he calls the New York Times "failing" in his tweets to millions of people and decides to let TMZ of all networks air a documentary about him. (And lest anyone pity the Times, remember how they were in bed with the establishment during the run-up to the Iraq War, promulgating all sorts of lies to drum up support for that fiasco.)
When the First Amendment was ratified, every newspaper in the republic was blatantly partisan -- if your operatives weren't discrediting your enemies through anonymous columns, you were doing it wrong. I much prefer an environment where everyone knows where everyone stands, instead of putting on airs about being some unbiased source of truth even though you're actually in bed with the state.
Besides, blatant newspaper partisanship back then in no way precluded genius works like the Federalist and Antifederalist letters from being published and shared. Ignore the smug elitists on the Left who think only they can decide what's "fake" and what is not.
Editorial bias is one thing, blatantly burying a major news story(WikiLeaks) because it doesn't fit the agenda is equal to being "fake news site". Oh sure, they ran a one or two minute piece once, but TRUMP IS A RACIST runs for 38 minutes every night.
There is bias (accidental unintentional) and then there is rigged reporting. Calling it bias is ... cute.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Can't both be correct statements? I get that lots of people in the election were fed up, bring the roof down on their heads, and voted that way, come what may. But I also think that there were plenty of people who based that choice in no small part on things that they thought were true, but that with a small amount of critical thinking and investigation, could be demonstrated to be false.
All major news outlets are too close to the political parties. You want to know who is to blame for that? The NEWS OUTLETS. (FTFY)
Moderator note: your personal disagreement with the following analysis does not make it less relevant or true. Please keep your post election rage/safe space down-mod votes to yourself.
The reality is that for about 30 years, the MSM has been in the tank for the progressive left. They started teaching journalists in school that their goal shouldn't be to "get the scoop" or "get to the truth" or "accurately report the facts." They started teaching them that their goal should be to "change the world." Once that happened, objective journalism died a quick death but the American people have been slow to catch on, but they have caught on, and only 6% of the population now believes that the MSM gives the news without bias/selective filtering/manipulation etc. In the 90s, Rush Limbaugh and later Fox news began providing a counter point to this pervasive bias, and in the case of Fox news, their formula is quite simple, they have guests on from both positions, and their commentators provide relevant history, background, and challenge both positions with facts. (If you are a Fox news hater, realize that doesn't change why Fox has been so successful or what their formula is or why they are the most trusted news network in the US.) Fox is also one of the best researched, best sourced news outlets on the planet. The news they put out is more accurate than most of the other MSM outlets (not necessarily what guests say though, who by definition are supporting a POV but whom are usually challenged by the host/other guest when they are wrong on the facts)
While the MSM usually does not outright fabricate a lie, what they do is source lies from Media Matters/HuffPo/other alt left sources. They take half truths, clips out of context etc that fit their narrative, irregardless of the complete facts. Occasionally they get caught and a producer somewhere gets fired. The level of dishonesty has created an atmosphere where fake news sites have more credibility than the MSM, which is a credibility problem for the MSM, not a commentary on the gullibility of news consumers. The fake news sites have still lied less than the MSM, which has a history of lying going back decades. Why the younger generation is using social media as its news source shows just how hard the MSM has fallen and how low their credibility is. The solution is for Fox news to improve and extend it's online presence so that all those who see the MSM for the shills they are can have a reliable, accurate online news outlet.
The more mature and wiser conservative crowd moved to Fox news or main stream talk radio news sources 20 years ago, and those left consuming MSM pap have been so brainwashed that even the mention, let alone watching Fox news is like salt on a slug. I challenge anyone reading this to take the Fox news challenge. Tune into their primetime lineup for a week before you call them the great satan. Un-brainwashing may be a little unpleasant at first, but it is a liberating experience on the whole.
http://www.washingtontimes.com...
http://www.poynter.org/2014/th...
http://www.newsweek.com/faults...
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
All major news outlets are too close to the political parties. You want to know who is to blame for that? The NEWS OUTLETS. (FTFY)
You, you didn't fix that for me. The parties created the pay-for-play system, and the media companies are all too happy to play along. They love those sweet debate dollars. And Fox News is not immune, they are also part of this system. This system was created by the 2 major parties, the networks just went along with it.
The reality is that for about 30 years, the MSM has been in the tank for the progressive left.
Yes, reality has a liberal bias and all that.
in the case of Fox news, their formula is quite simple, they have guests on from both positions, and their commentators provide relevant history, background, and challenge both positions with facts.
This is misleading though, it is not balanced. It still serves their own bias. When they have a discussion about whether or not global warming is caused by human activity, and they have one guy who agrees, and one who disagrees, that is not balanced. It would be much more accurate if they have that discussion and they have the guy who disagrees and 49 scientists who agree, that would more closely resemble the state of the debate. When they claim that it's a split issue they're not doing a service to anyone, and they're showing their own bias. That's the fallacy of their model, presenting issues like that in a 50/50 light when they are not.
why they are the most trusted news network in the US
It's not such a ringing endorsement to say that Fox is the network that is the most trusted by people who will believe anything that fits their bias. The reason their ratings are so much higher than other stations is because they are the only one who has a strongly conservative bias, so if that fits your view and that's the particular echo chamber you want to watch, you only have 1 option. If you prefer a different bias there are several other options which split the vote.
Keep in mind that this entire story is how the election discourse was affected by conservatives or right-wingers believing fake news. They're the ones who were roped into believing this stuff. I'm not saying they're the only ones with that problem though, maybe over the next 4 years it will be more profitable to create fake stories to anger liberals and then you'll see it go the other way, but for now the story is right-wingers believing anything they read without question. So, yeah, Fox may be the most trusted network but consider the critical thinking skills of their audience.
The news they put out is more accurate than most of the other MSM outlets
Do you have any source for that claim, considering the whole thing how we're talking about fact checking and accurate reporting? Or did you just say that because it feels right? Here's a summary from 2014 giving the least false rating to CNN, over half of Fox's claims were false. Here it is from 2015, with the same results. Here are the current ratings for Fox and CNN. If you have other sources which support your claim, feel free to show them. In the past I've consistently seen NPR as the most factual (not included in the above, which is for cable news). BBC and WSJ are also well-trusted. As for Rush Limbaugh, he's trust just slightly more than Buzzfeed.
If you want to cite some other study or numbers which show that Fox is more accurate, feel free. If yo
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black