Snopes.com Editor on Fake News: Social Media Is Not the Problem (backchannel.com)

"Honestly, most of the fake news is incredibly easy to debunk because it's such obvious bullshit..." says Brooke Binkowski, the managing editor of the fact-checking at Snopes.com. "It's not social media that's the problem. People are looking for somebody to pick on." mirandakatz shared this article from Backchannel: The problem, Binkowski believes, is that the public has lost faith in the media broadly -- therefore no media outlet is considered credible any longer. The reasons are familiar: as the business of news has grown tougher, many outlets have been stripped of the resources they need for journalists to do their jobs correctly. "When you're on your fifth story of the day and there's no editor because the editor's been fired and there's no fact checker so you have to Google it yourself and you don't have access to any academic journals or anything like that, you will screw stories up," she says.
I found this article confusing. Snopes seemed to be trying to steer the conversation back to erroneous stories from "legitimate publications," which erode the public trust in all mainstream outlets. (Which I guess then over time hypothetically makes people more susceptible to fake news stories on Facebook.) But her earlier remarks suggest it's not really credibility that's lacking there -- it's the absence of someone convenient to pick on. So what is the problem? Is it the news media's lack of credibility? Algorithms that disproportionately reward alarming stories? A human tendency to seek information that confirms our pre-existing biases? What do Slashdot readers think is causing what this article describes as "our epidemic of misinformation"?

Comments

Re: Fake News?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's your answer, the alt right is an internet phenomenom well versed in the use of memes. They spout shit like this wherever they can to steer opinion in their direction.

Cherry Picking/Poisoning the Well

[s.petry]

The leftist controlled media (and yes, I mean leftist in the most derogatory sense) has for years cherry picked content to frame arguments and poison the well. This has been done to promote the leftist agenda, which is completely anti-American. They do so with culture as much as politics. Those two tactics of Sophistry that have been around for at least 2500 years but are very effective with people who are ignorant. Trump just made it blatantly obvious, not new. IMHO, the leftists thought they were further along in the game than they really were so at this point it's largely backfiring.

We not only need to get rid of the leftist media, but the leftist educators and system, and leftists in politics. For you people with a D in front of your party, leftists pretend to be on your side but really are not. Bill Ayers is a leftist, as was Saul Alinsky. Look at who is being pushed to head the Democratic party, yet the "news" won't talk about Ellison. When the news calls Bannon antisemitic but ignores Ellison it becomes apparent that they are so far gone there is no coming back.

Stop paying tuition to idiotic schools who censor people they dislike and sponsor safe spaces. Stop watching and listening to media that lies to you. And tell friends why you are boycotting and ask them to consider joining. The best thing Citizens can do to work on this issue is to remove them from their money.

Re:The "Trump Hate Crime Epidemic" is Fake

[dywolf]

a) its Reason.com. they're about as bad as anything Breitbart publishes. they just make it look more intellectual
b) it refutes one single attack, out of the 700+ now catalogued in the 2 weeks since the election (that's 50 per day btw). way to draw conclusions from insufficient evidence.