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Crowdsourced Volunteers Search For Solutions To Fake News (wired.co.uk)
Upworthy co-founder Eli Pariser is leading a group of online volunteers hunting for ways to respond to the spread of fake news. An anonymous reader quotes Wired UK:
Inside a Google Doc, volunteers are gathering ideas and approaches to get a grip on the untruthful news stories. It is part analysis, part brainstorming, with those involved being encouraged to read widely around the topic before contributing. "This is a massive endeavour but well worth it," they say...
At present, the group is coming up with a list of potential solutions and approaches. Possible methods the group is looking at include: more human editors, fingerprinting viral stories then training algorithms on confirmed fakes, domain checking, the blockchain, a reliability algorithm, sentiment analysis, a Wikipedia for news sources, and more.
The article also suggests this effort may one day spawn fake news-fighting tech startups.
At present, the group is coming up with a list of potential solutions and approaches. Possible methods the group is looking at include: more human editors, fingerprinting viral stories then training algorithms on confirmed fakes, domain checking, the blockchain, a reliability algorithm, sentiment analysis, a Wikipedia for news sources, and more.
The article also suggests this effort may one day spawn fake news-fighting tech startups.
https://theintercept.com/2016/...
Seeing as the Fake News idea is being promoted by people who won't even come out into the open.
In other words, the individuals behind this newly created group are publicly branding journalists and news outlets as tools of Russian propaganda – even calling on the FBI to investigate them for espionage – while cowardly hiding their own identities.
The credentials of this supposed group of experts are impossible to verify, as none is provided either by the Post or by the group itself. The Intercept contacted PropOrNot and asked numerous questions about about its team, but received only this reply: “We’re getting a lot of requests for comment and can get back to you today =) [smiley face emoticon].” The group added: “We’re over 30 people, organized into teams, and we cannot confirm or deny anyone’s involvement.”
And if you really want to stop fake news, you can ask questions. A good one to start with, is where is the proof that Russia did any of this ?
In 2013 Obama signed a bill which part of allows the use of propaganda in the USA legal again (made illegal in 1947). Which is why we have so much fake news now, media sources aren't required to fact check since that would expose the government backed fake news.
So how about we make this sort of shit illegal again?
Be seeing you...
Would this system flag fake news like the Michael Brown "Hands up, don't shoot" fake news that falsely claimed he had his hands up and was not charging at the police officer after already attacking him and attempting to take the officer's sidearm?
I have doubts that such a system will flag false/fake stories that nevertheless fit certain agendas and narratives.
I believe there's a lot of fake news about "fake news" in order to lay the groundwork for "officially-sanctioned news and facts" a la "MiniTruth", and systematic suppression of independent news sources that don't fit certain narratives and agendas. I think HRC's election loss and all the independent news sources that published/posted/outed inconvenient facts about her has scared TPTB, and they are now attempting to marginalize, discredit, and destroy those who publicize that which they prefer be kept from the public.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
"Fake news" is a social problem. And social problems, generally speaking, don't have technological solutions.
For example, all these suggestions for better and smarter algorithms to detect fake news. But why? It's not like fake news are hard to tell apart in general. Filter out anything that uses ALL CAPS anywhere in the title (acronyms excepted), and you've already solved 90% of the problem. And there are numerous guides already on the Internet that go over all these basics... the problem is that people who do read and spread those fake news don't believe that they're fake. And just because it's an algorithm in their browser or Facebook telling them that it's fake, they're not going to suddenly start believing it, regardless of how perfect it is. They'll just say, "Whoever implemented this is biased, and they're just trying to censor my trusted sources - fuck them", disable or ignore the feature (or switch to a product that doesn't have it - and there will be one if this becomes a thing; free market will always fill a niche), and move on.
So the real problem is, "How do you convince most people who currently believe that those news are real, that they're actually fake." And that is entirely a social problem, which tech cannot and will not solve.
There's only one solution to fake news, and that is for people to take interest in the world around them, to be informed about politics outside of the 3 final months of the US presidential race and to have enough information to be able to weigh the probability that a source is trustworthy and that a story is plausible. Implausible, sensational stories and stories from unknown sources have to be verified. Either do this, or be lazy, stay dumb, do not participate and let others decide how you'll live. An easy first step - don't get your news from facebook and twitter!
There are tools like Genius that allow web pages to be annotated beyond the control of the publisher (attaching comments to highlighted text), allowing lies to be challenged in-situ, before their sharing reaches critical mass.
But for this to make a difference, you'd have to ensure that the annotations are widely seen. An annotation system should come with the default install of web browsers (including the Facebook internal one), and if not enabled by default, the user should be asked whether they want it enabled.
But this wouldn't fix the problem of fake articles being popular simply because they tell people something shocking that panders to what they want to hear. Readers sometimes don't care about the truth. They want the entertainment, smugness, and social bonding of an interesting and validating lie. The National Enquirer problem. So it's acceptable if annotations just damp the problem down, rather than eliminate it.
To the left, "fake news" is a smear given to anything that doesn't fit their narrative.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
The nice thing about having a free press is that they can report just how it is and needn't toe the party line. Unfortunately people equated "can tell the truth" with "do tell the truth".
You can actually see that very well in the development of the former East Bloc. Back in the day of the Iron Curtain, the people in the former East Bloc were pretty good at spotting bullshit news. Why? They knew that most of what they read, hear and see as news IS bullshit. And yes, that ability deteriorated quickly after their media became "free".
The problem is that the same still applies. Most of what is reported as news is bullshit. Fake. Blended with opinion (to the point of being more opinion than information). At the very least distorted by omission. But people never learned to notice that. Because they were used to having "free" media, and they trusted them for the reasons mentioned above: They equated "can say the truth" with "do say the truth".
This has to change. "Filtering" fake news at some higher level will not work. Because the fakers will just cry censorship and find enough idiots to fight their fight. You need an informed population that is able and willing to invest the time necessary to tell fake from real themselves.
And no, I don't think either that this is possible. At best you can do it for yourself and at least keep yourself from falling for the next news item that belongs into Weekly World News rather than some reputable news outlet.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
What? Someone apparently needs a civics lesson. That's not how our democracy works. We have a "democratic republic". What you're referring to is a "direct democracy", which we don't have (for good reason).
As a test though, I suggest you take a vote and ask how many Americans want free housing, free food, free education and free Netflix. Then come back to me and tell me how well your juvenile "Winner takes all" voting is working out.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
As you said, you are NOT a USA person/citizen/American. CNN and MSNBC have decidedly supported Leftist causes to the detriment of reporting "all" the news. The reluctance to report concerning the Clinton email scandal (until they were "forced" to report). The ignoring of the Clinton health question (which could have actually reduced the impact of the reports on her health). The stated support for Leftist causes. As a person who can decide what to think, I greatly prefer a non-slanted news report. MSNBC is much the same but I don't carry the details around in my head.
To whatever degree that fake news was successful, its success was a result of traditional news sources being unreliable. If the Washington Post, the New York Times, et al had not completely committed themselves to getting Hillary elected, no matter what lies they needed to tell to do so, people would have been able to spot the fake news. Unfortunately, "real news" no more reflected the facts than "fake news".
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Is the mass media responsible for fabricating stories and inciting riots? Seems to me the media routinely fans the flames of racial division by releasing false information.
Remember the Charlotte riots? The media first reported that Keith Scott was unarmed. This was a major factor that led to the riots. Turns out, Keith Scott was armed. Is this a case of media fabrications causing riots?
In the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown, the media first reported that Brown was on his knees with his hands up. Turns out, that was another media fabrication which also led to riots.
In the Ahmed Mohamed clock incident, the media first reported that Ahmed was just building a clock, as a project for his electronics class, but the principal called the police because Ahmed was a Muslim. Turns out, that was another media fabrication. Ahmed used a clock that he bought at a department store, along with a briefcase and other props, to make a fake bomb. In a post-Columbine world, what should the principal have done? What if it had been a bomb? BTW: although he was richly rewarded for this stunt, Ahmed has been posting extremely anti-American rants: he called the 9/11 attacks self defense, he supports BLM, and much more.
When George Michael Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin, the media first posted photos of an 11 year old Trayvon. Months after the incident, some people still believed that Zimmerman attacked a small child, which was not the case. Trayvon was an athletic 5'11" and 160 lbs. and was beating the snot out of Zimmerman. Maybe Zimmerman was not justified in shooting Trayvon, but Trayvon was not an 11 year child, and the media tried to insinuate.
Like claiming the riot was due to a badly produced Mohammed video on YouTube.