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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
How the biggest peddler's of fake news are also the biggest complainers of it.
I guess it's easier to believe that people bought the clickbaity fake news about lizard people than to admit that you lost the election because people are sick of being lied to, when they can prove from DKIM authenticated emails that you're lying to them, both about the email and about it being modified.
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.
Propaganda is most effective when it's least expected. Citizens of the USSR knew the government was lying to them regularly, and developed a healthy skepticism of its statements. I think many Americans believe their free-speech society is propaganda-free, and as such, have a poor "immune response." Maybe a pervasive fake news problem will hone the citizens' bullshit detectors. Here's hoping.
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."
Sounds like someone is testing memes to use in "improving" the First Amendment.
Personally, I like that one the way it is, so I'll have to give him a "fail" on his first attempt to spin things as "if only we didn't have that nasty Freedom of the Press..."
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
For some years now, the media has lacked the revenues to afford investigative journalism. Instead, they have pursued propaganda. Now they are outraged that they have competition.
Alternative Right.
Well, we gained those no thanks to you, Mr. Obama. In fact, you spent most of your administration attacking and slowly degrading our democratic freedoms, market economy, and prosperity. Naturally, you progress to attacking the First Amendment.
This is the same as it's always been with the mainstream press. The only difference between the New York Times and Facebook is that the barriers to entry have been lowered, and now everybody can play.
It's like comparing poisons. One makes you sick and kills you quickly and the other has no symptoms and you die without realizing you have been poisoned. Which is more dangerous?
love is just extroverted narcissism
You want to preserve democratic freedoms by censoring fake news? Wouldn't that be like... taking away the most important democratic freedom of them all, free speech?
Because sooner or later, the entity tasked with determining what's fake and what's not could fall into people currently not on your side.
Solution to fake news is to have people ignore obviously stupid shit. The more intelligent ones already do so. If stupid people wanna keep reading stupid shit, well then by golly that's the god-given right.
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 find it remarkable that people who consider themselves to be skeptical of authority should be so slavishly gullible when it comes to Fox/Drudge/Breitbart.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
In post election polls 78 percent of people said the media was biased.
Even if you don't trust that source (and seeing as how you believe some fantasy about people trusting the media I'm pretty sure you think Breitbart is the devil) there are many other polls that say similar things.
Never have people been more sure the media is lying to them; the fact is we all know the news today is propaganda. Why else do you think trump won when the media was posting false stories about him daily?
Not to mention they continue to do so; but once you've cried wolf a thousand times the times after become rather droll and inconsequential. Which is a shame because, over time there will be wolves...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This new narrative is doing nothing more than trying to lay the groundwork for later action. You see, if information can be labeled "fake" - using whatever standard they plan to use - then the next logical step is to put legal limits on the "fake" information.
Ultimate, AM talk radio will be the in the gunsights. The left is PISSED that their usual main stream media tricks and gotchas didn't work this time so instead of changing their message, they want to change the rules of the "news" game.
P.S. It won't work. They blew their wad on Trump and now nobody believes what they say anymore.
Yes, that's what I'm stating. Stories may have been wrong in part, but the main news outlets weren't inventing 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?
I still don't know which is worse; 1000 little lies or a big lie.
I guess the big lie is easier to falsify?
Russia spends over $1B annually on disinformation, and that's just the money we know about.
Facebook and Twitter build them the perfect playpen.
I still don't know if a thousand little lies is worse than a big lie.
At least the big lie is easier to falsify.
Well, I hope so to but currently the "wisdom of the masses" is generally trusted among internet cranks, Facebook moms and social crusaders over rationality.
I mean, "this image of a tweet went viral - it HAS to be true!" is startling to me because of how such diverse groups all seem to be manipulated by this sort of pre-packaged confirmation bias (I don't know if that's the right term).
Even after junk like Kony 2012 people still don't stop themselves and think first, particularly if it fits their own personal outlook and in the case of most cranks/crusaders if it comes from a "non-authoritarian" source.
I'm not saying I'm superior either, god knows I've been fooled by seemingly legitimate "news" the difference is like you say, I've grown skeptical of things I hear... from all sources.
Like you say, let's hope
crazy dynamite monkey
The one she stole from Sanders?
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.
*Clinton* sunk the Clinton campaign years ago with her own poor decision making and convoluted strategy to avoid pubic scrutiny.
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.
Oh yes! So true!
It's not like the MSM invents news at all...
Hey What's this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
or this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Nothing to see here right?
CNN is an "official" source so it must not be fake....
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
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.
it's called The Baloney Detection Kit.
So subscribe to both a very liberal and a very conservative newspaper that are well known that actually still do news - I know - that's getting tougher and tougher as more and more go to just running feeds. Pick up a local paper subscription as well if you don't live in a major city. Hard to pick good examples but maybe the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times/Washington Post. Read all three thoroughly. If the facts of a story are similar in each, then there is a greater chance (not in any way approaching 100%) that what you are reading is truth. If they are diametrically opposed, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
Pick a few more diametrically opposed pairs for variety (Christian Science Monitor vs. Freethinker). Extend as needed.
It's not perfect, but it's certainly better than just relying on a single source for news.
Over here, anyone publishing anything is required to run a retraction at the same size in the same font on the same page for the same amount of time (and so on, you get the idea) as the original story if said story turns out to be fake.
That sure shut up a lot of tabloids that loved to invent shit. Enforce this on blogs and you'll see that bullshit stop pretty fucking quickly.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You do understand the difference between free speech and slander, yes?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
But just because you don't like the "approved" news you turn around and listen to someone spouting baloney? That's like those idiots that don't want to believe what science showed to be real and instead turns to any quack trying to sell snakeoil, from flat earth to virus-denial.
Being skeptic of what you're told is fine. But turning around and going "I don't want to believe what A tells me, so B must be right even if it's harebrained nonsense" is prime grade bullshit.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
CNN is an "official" source so it must not be fake....
You just need to understand the decision-tree involved.
Q: Does this news impact Progressives/liberals/Democrats positively and/or Conservatives/Republicans/Libertarians negatively?
A: Authentic news!
Q: Does it impact Progressives/liberals/Democrats negatively and/or Conservatives/Republicans/Libertarians positively?
A: Totally fake bullshit, likely Russian propaganda!
See? Easy-peasy!
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
...just educate our citizenry better so they're not so entirely fucking GULLIBLE?
And perhaps be a little more skeptical of news generally? I don't care WHAT source, it all comes from a place of bias, and should be read in that context.
No, not all bias is identical; the slavering bias of MSNBC or the worst Fox programs is NOT the same as the subtle pervasive bias of the NYT. But they all have it, it's endemic to being human.
-Styopa
Seems like the Democrats and media are doing all they can to set up a meme about fake news being everywhere just as an escape route, right before Trump gets in office and follows through on his promise of draining the swamp.
There were several reporters on Diane Rehm's show this morning talking about that. One of them mentioned that his efforts to correct articles that were obviously wrong, were in fact proof to the people who believed the article that he was biased and lying himself. So there you go, the effort to try to point out that an article is fake is met by its believers with a belief that you are the one lying. They'll go on believing the fake news, but now they also think you're a liar also.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
At least the big lie is easier to falsify.
Funny, you should say that Hitler and Goebbels thought the big lie was harder to falsify.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
The mainstream media is at least as bad as the supposed "fake" news sources.
No it really isn't. The mainstream media is far from perfect, but that does not make it equivalent to the completely fake crap which is much, much further from perfect.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Wrong "in part" is completely wrong when it's all that's played. Same crap happening today after the loss a week ago. Most of us figured out that the media in the democratic party pocket won't change because they lost. Slander and lies are all they know and all they do. Sticking labels on people worked to a point, but now they just hate both the DNC and Media even more.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Hey, folks. There's a couple places I could probably post this, but figured this was as good a place as any. ;) With fake news being a big problem, I wrote a quick open-source browser extension to highlight articles from comedy or low-quality news sources. Tried not to be biased, but I'm sure there's some present.
Anyway, you can check it out on the Chrome web store: https://chrome.google.com/webs...
Or hit up the GitHub repo: https://github.com/Fortyseven/...
BytesTemplar.com
No? The mainstream media is not as bad as fake news?
You should take a bit more of a look. Start plugging those names into wikileaks clinton email and DNC databases. You're in for a wild ride son.
Om, nomnomnom...
This!
Everyone clearly knows that willful ignorance leads to better government elections.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
What's more likely
It's much more likely that they screwed up than they were nefarious.
What you are suggesting is that the entire ordeal in that wikipedia article was a giant orchestrated charade done at great expense. I generally don't like to throw Occam's razor around carelessly, but I think it pretty clearly applies here.
Someone had to do it.
No it really isn't. The mainstream media is far from perfect, but that does not make it equivalent to the completely fake crap which is much, much further from perfect.
No, the fake crap put out by the MSM is FAR more dangerous, as people will be more likely in general to trust it as opposed to some random article on the interwebs.
What I see happening is the laying of groundwork for the implementation of a US version of "1984"'s "MiniTruth".
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Maybe. However, to use examples from the Donald Trump campaign, when confronted with clear cut evidence that something he said was factually incorrect, The Don would usually double down; never admit that his original statement was mistaken, or exaggerated, or simply wrong. And his supporters would take his side, and continue not only spreading a fact that was demonstrably not true, but wholeheartedly believing it themselves.
And so the American populace ends up making decisions based on Truthiness, rather than Truth. I would not be so naive as to say that this was a one-sided phenomenon, but it certainly reached new heights of boldness and baldness in the Trump campaign.
http://i.imgur.com/fsMzsS8.png
The other news sites are simply the DNC propaganda division.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
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.
Unless I'm mistaken those come from a review of Megyn Kelly's book, here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11...
The excerpt about poisoning:
Her story becomes more byzantine. On the day of the debate, Ms. Kelly writes, she woke up feeling great. Then an overzealous, suspiciously enthusiastic driver picked her up to take her to the convention center. He insisted on getting her coffee, though she’d repeatedly declined his offer. Once it was in her hand, she drank it. And within 15 minutes, she was violently ill, vomiting so uncontrollably that it was unclear if she’d be able to help moderate that evening. It was so bad that she kept a trash pail beneath her desk throughout the debate, just in case.
Ms. Kelly never says outright that someone tried to poison her. (A stomach bug was going around, she notes.) But the episode spooked her enough that she shared it later with Roger Ailes and a lawyer friend of his. Foul play? Again: She reports. You decide.
About Trump getting the questions for the debate beforehand, they simply wrote:
Then, the day before the first presidential debate, Mr. Trump was in a lather again, Ms. Kelly writes. He called Fox executives, saying he’d heard that her first question “was a very pointed question directed at him.” This disconcerted her, because it was true: It was about his history of using disparaging language about women.
She doesn’t speculate where the leak came from. (She reports. You decide.)
I have not read her book, but that was in the NYT review on November 10.
Maybe she refuted those claims somewhere besides in two separate Tweets, but I haven't found them yet.
For the record, my book "Settle for More" does not suggest Trump had any debate Qs in advance, nor do I believe that he did.
Also for the record, I believe the reason I got sick the day of the first debate was I contracted a stomach virus, just as Rand Paul did.
Even if the NYT played up those two anecdotes from her book, they didn't make it up completely.
Free Speech, always always fight for free speech.
ALL limitations on free speech are a path that eventually leads to subjugation....
Professor Melissa Zimdars' list of "fake news" sites, which is now making the rounds as some sort of authoritative resource, even making its way into browser extensions to "protect" users from fake news sites.
http://www.dailydot.com/layer8...
http://nymag.com/selectall/201...
http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/...
http://reason.com/blog/2016/11...
There is a danger that all the sites providing this news are, in fact, fake news sites themselves...
Just think what CBS' Dan Rather did with the Bush reports years ago. They made them up out of thin air.
Yes, Dan Rather of 60 Minutes did report a story based on documents that were turned out to be fake. And, guess what? A day and a half later, The Washington Post, The New York Times. USA Today and the Associated Press all ran stories disputing the documents. If you're tallking about the mainstream media running fake stories-- how about the mainstream media reporting that fake news was fake. 60 Minutes eventually ran a public retraction of the story, and subsequently fired the people responsible.
This is the mainstream media doing self-correction. That was back in those halcyon days of yesterday when integrity in journalism was actually an ideal that the media tried for, before all the internet media started going with the plan "who cares it it's true? If it gets clicks, run with it!"
Do the fake news sites ever run retractions? Has Breitbart ever retracted anything they've said?
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Do you even know how Occam's razor works?
Apparently better than you do.
Someone had to do it.
Like the You Tube Video that caused Benghazi ? THAT was fake news.
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
...the main news outlets weren't inventing news.
All news stories based on predictions of the future is "invented".
I usually ask for a proof that passes scientific rigor. I.e. must apply universally where it makes a claim, has to account for all the "but if" cases and doesn't discount everything that contradicts it as some conspiracy by the powers that are.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Sources who have asked to remain anonymous say that...
This station has been told that...
A few lead-ins like this would certainly allow a "news" organization to be entirely truthful while at the same time presenting completely fictitious stories.
Or some good old fashioned apophasis? I don't for one second think its true that Hillary Clinton drinks the blood of aborted babies.
OTOH, even the National Enquirer from time to time actually scooped other news organizations with real news, so blanket bans seem misguided too.
I also recall back when Fox News was all the rage, that the left was unable to distinguish between the segments that were clearly talk-shows (i.e., opinion as entertainment) like Hannity and O'Reilly and the straight news segments. Perhaps not too surprising, since they also thought CNN programs like Anderson Cooper and Piers Morgan were straight fact-based programs and not opinion-as-entertainment.
This has always been Obama's problem. He wants groups of Americans to "fight" other groups of Americans. That's why his Presidency is a failure: Americans fought back. If he had tried to be President of us all, he might have been able to lead and accomplish something instead of just wasting 8 years going nowhere.
*cough* Gulf of Tonkin... Yeah, I blame facebook for that one also.
We don't call it 'lapdog media' for nothing. The official narrative is no less a bunch conspiracy theories than Alex Jones. "Fake news" is a natural response to fake news... If you really want to deal with the issue, demand real official transparency, don't allow all the secrecy. This whole thing, along with 'hate speech' is just another push for censorship. Don't fall into their trap.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Here since you are too stupid to bother looking up for yourself.
She never claimed she was poisoned, NYT made it up. She never claimed Trump got questions early, he was mad about her interview before, NYT made it up.
Sorry you are so stupid you believe the NYT even after their quoted source says they lied about what she said. You are here complaining about fake news, while promoting news you KNOW to be fake as real. Its fascinating to me that you would try and refute an easily debunked lie (takes 5 seconds).
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
No, they just broadcast false narratives. They parrot official fake news from 'anonymous sources' that aren't 'authorized to speak to the press'. It's the same bloody difference!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
The same thing can be seen in conspiracy believers. (Understandable because the whole "fake news" thing is rife with conspiracy theories.) If you tell a "Moon Landing Hoax" believer that men actually landed on the moon, they won't believe you. If you show them proof, they'll say the proof was faked by the people who run the conspiracy. If NASA came out with a "No, we really did land on the moon" statement, they would take it as further proof of the reach of the conspiracy.
When people get deep enough in the conspiracy hole, there's no way to get them out of it.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Your sig is more than a little ironic.
But you probably don't know why.
If it seems ironic to you it's probably because you believe Progressives cannot be Republicans. Progressives in both major Parties have been the driving force behind the vast majority of privacy and civil rights infringements and violations in the US in the 20th and 21st centuries. Both GHWB and GWB were Progressives for example, as is "Jeb!". They have more in common with Progressive Democrats than conservatives/libertarians.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
No seriously, keep it coming. This is comedy gold. Best self-satire I've seen all day.
Someone had to do it.
Fake news has always circulated, but before the only entities capable of spreading fake/manipulated news en masse were those in power... Regular people could only spread things on a very small scale so it didn't really have any effect.
People just need to learn to be cynical, and to do proper research before blindly believing what they read...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
jk
... than the comments on this story for an example of the problem.
No, the mainstream media is not as bad as the fake news.
No, it's worse than fake news. I used to work in Radio. Whenever an entertainer ( Talk show host ) was terminated they would pile us into a room and explain the issue the host had and why they were irrelevant. It was explained that all forms of media. Radio, Talk shows, TV, Newspapers, all of it is classified as the 'entertainment industry' with no compunction other than getting a broader audience, and better ratings so advertising revenue
There is an FCC policy "against federally licensed broadcasters deliberately distorting the news." but as you will see from the following snopes article it's extremely easy to bypass, and inexpensive for them if they get caught at it.
http://www.snopes.com/politics...
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
You can't cure wilful self-deception, but reality will, once the problem gets bad enough. Of course, since we now have nukes it could well be there's nobody left to dig themselves out of the ashes.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
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.
That's the stuff they're talking about. But it's not the stuff that's going to be targeted for censorship. Gotta get the nose in the tent first.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I think many Americans have become very distrusting of the mainstream news.
Why? Because, mainstream news has become entertainment, and entertainment has become the news.
We cannot have competing points of views or news that doesn't talk about the Kardashians.
Silly people, you can't handle alternative news, we have to filter it for you for your own good.
Bake in logic and argumentative science courses into K-5 curriculum. Any later is too late.
In a post truth world, people know what they are reading is a lie. You can't "prove" it to them, they already know it's untrue but chose to ignore it because they like the feeling they get from believing.
It's a lot like religion. Many people don't literally believe that there is an invisible flying spaghetti monster, but going to church and praying and imagining being touched by his noodly appendage makes them happy. They feel their lifestyle is justified by it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I find it remarkable that people who consider themselves to be skeptical of authority should be so slavishly gullible when it comes to CNN/NYT/MSNBC/ABC/CBS.
I agree.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
Bullshit. First, there is a big difference between the acknowledged failings of our current media (Me, I watch PBS Newshour and read The Economist) and "fake news" which is just pure made-up horseshit. Having said that, they have a right to spew nonsense and we have a duty to ignore it.
It takes a lot of self-discipline and the right kind of role models to balance of open-mindedness and skepticism. It's expensive in terms of time and mental work. Because of this cost, it's too easy to be stuck wherever you are, left or right, and dismiss/distrust new input.
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.
This is one of the most frustrating things about Slashdot - On this site, perfect is the enemy of good.
Also manifests itself in discussion of police states, when, on Slashdot, the USA is claimed to be a 'police state.' Usually people making these claims have never experienced an actual police state.
I agree that MSM has an agenda. The point is that Fox/Drudge/Breitbart also have an agenda, but many who follow them simply take them at their word like simple mindless zombies. I point this out and the response is to say that MSM has an agenda. No duh.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
Suppose Breitbart ran a story with the title "Obama calls off Trump's transition, Declares self Emperor."
Breitbart would never run something like that. Are you too stupid to realize this or are you just using this to smear Breitbart?
Honestly, I think they would.
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
> For example, he wrote a story that someone who was protesting a Donald Trump rally in Arizona was paid $3500 to protest. He thought that was satire.
Not sure which person they're talking about, but Zulema Rodriguez was paid over $30k all told, or $27.5k if you don't count travel expenses, etc. She's on this video starting at about 10:30: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... as the person blocking the road and lying to the cops about it.
You can verify what she was paid by looking here: https://beta.fec.gov/data/disb...
As for how I know she was paid to be at the protest, etc., there's a full explanation here: https://slashdot.org/firehose....
To be fair, she claimed on video to have been at multiple protests. Anyhow, the broader point--that people should fact check things--is a good one. CNN and others have straight-up lied to us in recent memory. I can (and have) provided sources and video for that previously in my Slashdot comments.
The mainstream media is at least as bad as the supposed "fake" news sources.
This analysis by BuzzFeed pretty much proves the exact opposite.
They took ~1000 POSTS from 3 specific large hyperpartisan right-wing Facebook pages (Eagle Rising, Freedom Daily, Right Wing News), 3 specific hyperpartisan large left-wing Facebook pages (Addicting Info, Occupy Democrats, The Other 98%) and 3 specific large mainstream media Facebook pages (ABC News Politics, CNN Politics, Politico).
Rigth-wing pages made 666 posts combined, out of which 82 (12.3%) were "mostly false" while another 169 (25.4%) were "a mixture of true and false" - while another 14.4% were "no factual content" posts. I.e. "Like if you...", "We rule they suck" and similar partisan memes.
Left-wing pages made 471 posts combined, during that same period, 22 (4.6%) being "mostly false", 68 (14%) "mixed" and 24.6% of "no factual content" memes.
With individual pages posting between 12.3% and 23.6% false and mixed stories on the left - and between 29.4% and 46.4% on the right.
I.e. While one in eight to one in four stories on 3 hyperleft pages can be bogus - on 3 hyperright pages it's between one in three and up to one half that are bullshit.
Mainstream media was 0.0% "mostly false" and 0.4-1.0% "somewhat false".
In other words, even disregarding "fake for profit" sites, while "somewhat false" news IS a possibility for mainstream media - fake news ranges from being symptomatic to an absolutely necessity for fake news sites.
When only about 40% of posts are actually true and actually news... that's not a question of being a credible news source or not.
That's being a gossip site.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I actually blame the liberal media for this too!
I'm not joking- the media spending so much time shilling for Hillary (both apparently and in some cases confirmed by wikileaks) has destroyed their ability to be recognized as a source for ANY FACTS AT ALL. They gaslit Republicans about polls, focused on alarmist bullshit, and generally ran propaganda for at least a year straight, and probably longer.
The result of this? Republicans, and conservatives in general, are left with no neutral media to actually fact check stuff- AND THEY KNOW IT. Democrats, and liberals in general, are ALSO left with no neutral media left to fact check stuff- they just DON'T know it.
If you want some one to fact check stuff in a neutral fashion, don't have them run by an organization with a Clinton on the board. Don't have them run by a liberal newspaper which can't stop sucking Hillary's tits. Once the media has provable financial links to the political establishment (especially Democrats), there's no reason to trust them. Yet here they ALL are, doing that!
Knowing CNN is full of shit is better than not knowing that fact. But it does leave you able to be preyed upon by actual fake news, which is what we are seeing now. This is not a "fake news" scourge- that's trying to set the frame. The real frame is, the media abandoned neutrality and facts entirely, and the vacuum is being filled with garbage.
> They played along with the whole "new batch of emails" claim that probably sunk Clinton's campaign.
Are you talking about the ones resulting from top Clinton aide Huma Abadeen's marriage to the infamous sexter Anthony "Carlos Danger" Wiener that the FBI told us to ignore just before the election or the Podesta email dumps from Wikileaks which did continue beyond the election?
Have you actually looked into that list? It seems to just be reporters who are mentioned in the emails. The ones I looked at seemed to be because they asked Hillary Clinton a question and the reporter, the question and the answer were emailed to someone else. Other times there's a link to a story or video by that particular reporter.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
What I see happening is the laying of groundwork for the implementation of a US version of "1984"'s "MiniTruth".
Of course you do.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
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
It seems to me this is a very honest comment from Obama, surprisingly unvetted for a US president. Why? Simply because he does a piss-poor job of calling anyone to action here. This is a lamentation, and it seems Obama genuinely has no idea how to deal with the problem he's describing. I feel I should note, in this context, that my username is derived from a Sam&Max quote, and does not reflect my political views. I sympathize with Obama's frustration, but am worried that he and his cohort (much like me) seem unable to do anything about it other than complain.
Forget the mainstream media, what about the government itself? Remember when we were assured that our communications weren't being tracked? There are punishments set up for people that break these laws, but they're not enforced. The government flat-out lying and the mainstream media's bias turned people away from traditional news sources. They have nobody to blame for this current situation but themselves.
This just means you're gullible enough to believe other people's interpretations of the Wikileaks emails.
Thanks for correcting the record there fam. $0.0125 dollars have been deposited into your account. Read the emails yourself. There's a difference between "communicating" with people, and then handing them draft articles so they can "correct the view points" like many of those reporters did.
The fact that you think there was no scandalous material in there says you haven't read them at all.
Om, nomnomnom...
Bullshit. While mainstream media may have flaws, you are implying that it is very often worse than fake news or at least no better. To use an automobile analogy, tha'ts like saying a Ford Focus is at last as bad as a Lada. If you reject all news sources then you will end up knowing NOTHING, unless you are secretly hinting that you found a truthful source somewhere out there after just declaring them all bad (probably some mimeographed conspiracy newsletter?).
The news media is trying, and sometimes failing, to bring us factual information. Sometimes they fail to tell the difference between information and editorials, sometimes they have bias, sometimes they take shortcuts and don't do the necessary fact checking, sometimes they have someone who is lazy and makes shit up but that's rare. Whereas "fake news" is fake and was never intended to be accurate and is not coming from any corporation that ever intended to be a news source. The fake news is there to lie to people intentionally, as a means of swaying opinion or just petty click baiting. The mainstream media tells the truth every now and then, whereas the fake news though is always fake news.
Most people who say they can't trust anything from the mainstream media instead turn to the fringe news outlets instead, which is even less reliable and and which commonly relies on the fake news. Ie, American News, World Net Daily, etc. (ironic that the more religious that a news outlet claims to be, the more often it uses misinformation and outright lies)
Right. Because Obama was going to destroy the country, declare himself king, and enslave us all to his Kenyan Muslim rule.
Sorry. The shit that Fox News watchers believe is just a little less crazy and stupid than the alt right. Breitbart et al. just say out in the open what Fox News would only insinuate.
~X~
Here since you are too stupid to bother looking up for yourself.
She never claimed she was poisoned, NYT made it up. She never claimed Trump got questions early, he was mad about her interview before, NYT made it up.
Sorry you are so stupid you believe the NYT even after their quoted source says they lied about what she said. You are here complaining about fake news, while promoting news you KNOW to be fake as real. Its fascinating to me that you would try and refute an easily debunked lie (takes 5 seconds).
The source isn't some unrecorded statement from Megyn Kelly, the source is her book. Are you claiming that the NYT broke into her publisher are re-wrote her book?
I stole this Sig
It's ironic you're referring to 1984 because you are claiming that the one that lies less is more liey than the one that lies more.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
With mainstream journalism demonstrably unable to accurately report any story that is not Hollywood or Sports and get things right for more than one paragraph; how to you tell a fake story from clueless reporting with only a passing nod to facts?
NRRPT/RCT
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Note that just because the click counters show someone viewed something, does not necessarily mean they believe it. 8-P
Now, when someone reports it to others, that might mean something... ;-)
Nice straw man from someone who apparently never watches Fox news. The only crazy stupid here is you if that is what you believe the right believes or Fox news reports.
You need to get out of your echo chamber and actually watch Fox news for a few weeks or talk to someone who holds different world views than yours. Geez.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
"the parties created the pay-for-play system and the networks went along with it"
My point exactly, they are the lap dogs, not the watch dogs. If the networks didn't go along with it, it wouldn't happen. No one can blame the parties for wanting the most favorable coverage they can get, thats politics, but the networks have a responsibility to give us ALL the facts on BOTH candidates.
"reality has a liberal bias etc."
Oh really, and that's how every Obama liberal fantasy policy came up shit, real unemployment is at ~13% (the labor participation rate is down big time, and not just because of baby boomers retiring; age 20-24 participation is down 7% from 1994, 25 to 54 is down 3%) the economy is crap with just barely positive growth (compare it to Bush 43, Clinton or Regan after their respective recessions), Obamacare is doubling our monthly insurance premiums and doubling everyone's copays, ISIS is on the rise and committing genocide and millions of refugees are fleeing the middle east, we have had the slowest recovery from a recession since the great depression, record numbers of people on food stamps and welfare, the middle east is on fire and Europe is being invaded? You have to be a mental defective to stand here and tell me that reality has a liberal bias, based on the implementation of these liberal progressive ideas and how well they have worked out.
Don't blame it on Bush, Obama has had 7 years, 2 with both houses and Bush inherited a recession too (dot com bubble) followed by a massive terrorist attack, but managed to help the economy recover and chug along for 5 years afterwards. Tell me again how reality has a liberal bias, or pull your head out of the echo chamber and look at the facts.
"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."
You seem confused about how balanced debate works. If anthropogenic global warming is a fact, the guy who is for global warming should be easily able to get up there and rattle off facts and quotes by experts and take apart the guy who is against global warming. The reality is that there are a lot of problems both historical and currently for global warming; with the models vs. reality, the methods and integrity of the global temperatures database, and the science is far from settled, no matter how many times liberals stomp their feet and yell that everyone who is smart (aka everyone who agrees with me) believes in it.
What you advocate is neither fair nor balanced nor the proper format for a debate. 49pro and 1 against global warming might give you a liberal orgasm, but it would neither inform the viewer on both sides of the issue, nor be fair to the opposing position. In debate, majority does not make your argument more or less valid, the facts and well reasoned positions do, regardless of how many hold any one position. Just because a position is not popular does not make it wrong, and just because a position is popular, it doesn't make it right. By your logic, we should still believe the earth is flat, because that was at one time the most popular position and the round earth theorists were the minority, so their views should be marginalized and drowned out by the majority.
Fox is the most trusted network in the country, regardless of the insults that you spray at them and their viewership (here is a clue, you are neither smarter nor more clever than their viewership; the O'reilly factor has more college grads tuning in than MSNBC or CNN). You are free to go dig up the study naming Fox most trusted and poke holes in it, or maybe just watch Fox for a while. I suspect that liberals are afraid to watch because after the first hour or two, your anger will fade and the truth laid out there will start to seep in and your liberal convictions on which you base your entire life will start to erode, leaving you with no foundation (don't worry though, that is how you become a conservative/true libertari
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
the networks have a responsibility to give us ALL the facts on BOTH candidates.
That's where I disagree, and that statement is a good illustration of the way the system is set up to work, and how it actually works. I think that networks should show people more than just 2 candidates. I think that any candidate who has the ability to win (i.e. is on the ballot in enough states to win the electoral vote) should be included in televised debates. But, the 2 major parties don't want that to happen, so they make agreements with the networks to say that if the network shows any debate featuring any candidate from any party other than the 2 major parties, then that network will not receive any presidential debates. I think that's bullshit, and that's the system I'm talking about. That's the system that was created and is perpetuated by the parties to favor themselves, to make sure that one of them will always be in power. It used to be different, but the parties formed the Commission On Presidential Debates to perpetuate this fraud that we only have 2 choices. And every single network plays along so that they can sponsor, moderate, or air presidential debates. Presidential debates should be publicly funded and any network that wants to show them should be allowed. They should belong to us all, but instead we get this bullshit political theater created by the parties and pushed by the networks. The Commission On Presidential Debates needs to end, and political parties should be banned from organizing presidential debates. We can do that by ourselves, we don't need their collusion in order to get debates. And people should be presented other candidates so that everyone knows that they have a choice other than Dumb or Dumber. If Johnson or Stein would have been included in the debates then they would have gotten a lot more votes, and we probably would have had higher turnout also.
You have to be a mental defective to stand here and tell me that reality has a liberal bias, based on the implementation of these liberal progressive ideas and how well they have worked out.
All of the problems you mentioned sit squarely on the shoulders of liberals, huh? It was Obama's fault for that recession, wasn't it? He caused those problems, right? Also, Obama founded ISIS, right? How did ISIS form again? It was because of some war, I can't remember which though. Maybe you can tell me who led the country into that war. I suppose the answer is endless war until we kill everyone that needs killing though, right? Maybe that will stop the "invasion" of Europe, which is also totally a thing and definitely not made up by conservatives to scare people.
Don't blame it on Bush
Nice debate tactic. "Don't blame the problem".
Obama has had 7 years, 2 with both houses
Let's go to Mitch McConnell for some quotes about how much they wanted to work with Obama, shall we? The Congress over the last 8 years has been shit, they have accomplished nothing. They have been historically bad. Every single one of them should be kicked out.
You seem confused about how balanced debate works.
Thanks, but I'm not. If 95% of people agree on a particular issue, then it would make sense for a debate to feature 19 people in favor versus 1 opposed. Let's take another example. If Fox shows a debate with 1 guy who believes that the Earth is round, and 1 who believes that it is flat, then that makes it look like a 50/50 issue, right? But it's not. If Fox shows a debate with 1 guy who thinks that the Earth goes around the sun, and 1 guy who thinks that the sun goes around the Earth, then that makes it look like a 50/50 issue, but it's not. The same thing applies to climate change. It's disingenuous to put 2 people up there and let them argue and then say "well, the science obviously isn't settled, so we'll leave it up to you, dear viewer." That's the bias of Fo
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black