Fake News Sharing In US Is a Rightwing Thing, Says Oxford Study (theguardian.com)

It's really a low IQ thing by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 15:32 · Score: 5, Insightful

Tomayto, tomahto though.

Re:It's really a low IQ thing by quantaman · 2018-02-06 17:27 · Score: 5, Interesting

Tomayto, tomahto though.
It's not IQ.
I don't accept that there's a significant IQ gap between left and right, but even if there is there's a massive amount of overlap and it doesn't predict susceptibility to conspiracy theories.
Heck, I just saw a guy I went to High School with on FB, he was the smartest guy in his year and he bought the Nunes memo hook, line, and sinker. His intellect didn't do squat to stop him from being taken in by a smear job.
At a basic level the right celebrates authority (everyone in the tribe works together) while the left embraces individuality (everybody free to be themselves). This means the right tends to believe their authorities without question, while the left tends to question everything.
That alone doesn't advantage the left or right with finding the truth. But mainstream religion is a thing that really hates being questioned, so religion and the political right eventually merged. And religions' antipathy to intellectual authorities spread to the right as a whole. You don't even need to be religious, if you're on the right you're taught to accept your authorities without question and reject opposing authorities outright.
And once the right declared intellectually rigorous authorities to be part of the left then the left started to embrace them. Hence the right became prone to conspiracy theories as they rejected intellectual authorities and the left became resistant as they embraced them.
Of course, one can easily imagine an alternate universe where the right embraces the authority of serious scholars while the left embraces crackpot skepticism.

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Re: It's really a low IQ thing by Reverend+Green · 2018-02-06 17:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

I, too, thought that listening to NPR and reading the New York Times made me smarter and more sophisticated than all those dumb country bumpkins. When I was 17 years old. Then I grew the fuck up.
Please consider doing the same.
Re: It's really a low IQ thing by Reverend+Green · 2018-02-06 18:05 · Score: 1, Flamebait

Lay off the Kool Aid, broham.
Re:It's really a low IQ thing by yuriklastalov · 2018-02-06 18:26 · Score: 2, Insightful

This means the right tends to believe their authorities without question, while the left tends to question everything.
So what you're saying is that the Left, which has adopted a policy of "Listen and Believe" and "Lived Experience > Facts" is actually the side that tends to question everything?
Fucking LOL. The only way this could possibly be true is if you assume that all the "classical liberals" pushed out of the left by the rise of Progressive Culture Communism aren't really right-wing even though the "Right" only exists in terms of "The people Leftists don't like," so I'm not sure how you plan on getting that to work out logically.
Furthermore, if you really think that authoritarian thinking exists solely on the right... well, I don't know what to say to someone who believes something so absolutely ludicrous.
Re:It's really a low IQ thing by quantaman · 2018-02-06 18:44 · Score: 4, Insightful

This means the right tends to believe their authorities without question, while the left tends to question everything.
So what you're saying is that the Left, which has adopted a policy of "Listen and Believe" and "Lived Experience > Facts" is actually the side that tends to question everything?
"Tends to", I'm describing human behaviour, there's obviously some oversimplification. The left generally backs institutions that embrace skeptical questioning, like Universities and the legal system. And they're more trusting of institutions that seem to have checks built in.
I'm not sure where you get "Lived Experience > Facts" from, that's hardly an ethos I'd associate with the left, in fact I'd weakly associate it with the right.

The only way this could possibly be true is if you assume that all the "classical liberals" pushed out of the left by the rise of Progressive Culture Communism aren't really right-wing even though the "Right" only exists in terms of "The people Leftists don't like," so I'm not sure how you plan on getting that to work out logically.
Again, oversimplification. But classical liberals would have been better fits as conservatives. Either way I'm talking about people who currently make up the main blocks of the political left and right and I don't think there's many classical liberals left in the GOP. Some are rebranding to libertarian, some moderate or even democrat, and some abandoning classical liberalism and embracing trump.

Furthermore, if you really think that authoritarian thinking exists solely on the right... well, I don't know what to say to someone who believes something so absolutely ludicrous.
I'd say take the argument seriously rather than dismissing it through oversimplification. I hardly think you would have bothered to stick around for the series of books where I made sure asterix was fully explored.

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Re: It's really a low IQ thing by Reverend+Green · 2018-02-06 22:00 · Score: 2

Sure. Anyone who still believes in the Repuglican or Demonrat faces of the Financialist Party is a little bit daft. Your point?
Re:It's really a low IQ thing by Applehu+Akbar · 2018-02-06 22:03 · Score: 5, Insightful

At a basic level the right celebrates authority (everyone in the tribe works together) while the left embraces individuality (everybody free to be themselves). This means the right tends to believe their authorities without question, while the left tends to question everything.
You haven't visited a college campus in this century, have you?
Re:It's really a low IQ thing by Bongo · 2018-02-06 23:45 · Score: 5, Interesting

At a basic level the right celebrates authority (everyone in the tribe works together) while the left embraces individuality (everybody free to be themselves). This means the right tends to believe their authorities without question, while the left tends to question everything.
That alone doesn't advantage the left or right with finding the truth. But mainstream religion is a thing that really hates being questioned, so religion and the political right eventually merged. And religions' antipathy to intellectual authorities spread to the right as a whole. You don't even need to be religious, if you're on the right you're taught to accept your authorities without question and reject opposing authorities outright.
And once the right declared intellectually rigorous authorities to be part of the left then the left started to embrace them. Hence the right became prone to conspiracy theories as they rejected intellectual authorities and the left became resistant as they embraced them.
Of course, one can easily imagine an alternate universe where the right embraces the authority of serious scholars while the left embraces crackpot skepticism.
Yes, and there's actually another level to this. It is that there are two axes or variables.
There is the aspect of, individual versus collective. That's one axis. Then there is another axis which runs vertically, called "levels". It is levels (or stages) in that societies develop and each new stage brings certain new things, over hundreds, and thousands of years.
First, levels: pre-modern to modern to post-post-modern. The pre-modern is what you are calling "authoritarian religion" which is true, most of the pre-modern world going back across the ages of empires, was authoritarian hierarchies. That's where much of religion remains today. It brought "order" to the world, by authoritarian force. And in as much as some people today continue to want a stable ordered society, they are looking to these authoritarian values. And in and of itself that's not a bad thing, because the modern world came after conditions were right, ie. stable enough, so modernity is built on top of the previous stage of authoritarian order, and if order in a nation breaks down, well democracy also goes out of the window.
Now what's interesting is that the left in America tends to be more in the modern to post-modern range, whilst the right tends to be more in the pre-modern to modern range. And to many on the left this looks like "low IQ" but that's not quite it. Rather, if you are living in more agrarian conditions, then your morals tend to be more traditional and pre-modern and authoritarian, whereas if you are living in more urban modern conditions, then your values and moral outlook tend to be more liberal and post-modern.
But what few realise is that the post-modern is built on top of the modern and the modern is built on top of the pre-modern, and that's basically what a film like Mad Max illustrates, that the moment you weaken the underlying authoritarian order of a society, all the high ideals collapse and your precious liberal values along with them. Which is why bombing Afghanistan was never going to turn it into a liberal democracy.
If you are liberal, you are affording the luxury to be liberal thanks to the existing wide social order which is the concern of the authoritarian structure, it is just that the authoritarian structure is just not the most prominent anymore, but it is still there, part of the fabric.
And in addition to the pre-modern to modern right, and the modern to post-modern left, there is also the individual/social dimensions. The modern left tends to assume that problems are because society is bad, and so you have to fix society, and for example, level the playing field, and so they favour taxes and redistribution. Whe
Re:It's really a low IQ thing by swillden · 2018-02-07 02:56 · Score: 2

It should be pointed out that several recent studies have found that the safe-space, anti-speech snowflakes on college campuses are a small but loud minority. Their existence doesn't prove anything other than that about 20% of the population is stupid.

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Re: It's really a low IQ thing by Reverend+Green · 2018-02-07 04:00 · Score: 1

Good morning, Sasha! How's the weather in Kiev today?
or should it be...
Good morning, Comrade Wang! How's the air pollution in Beijing today?
and also...
Vladimir Putin stole my pocket change - and he'll steal yours too, if you're not careful!
or, lest we forget...
Kim Jong-un nuked my neighbor's poodle!
Re:It's really a low IQ thing by ChristTrekker · 2018-02-07 04:01 · Score: 1

At a basic level the right celebrates authority (everyone in the tribe works together) while the left embraces individuality (everybody free to be themselves). This means the right tends to believe their authorities without question, while the left tends to question everything.
Dude, seriously?
The right (traditionally) is individualistic. They support gun rights in case the authority gets out of control and starts usurping their rights.
The left promotes central authority. Of everything. More money to government programs, "it takes a village", etc.
That said, one has to draw a distinction between the paleoconservative/libertarian right (the traditional branch mentioned above) and the neoconservative right (who also want to expand central authority, just with different aims than the left).

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Re:It's really a low IQ thing by Applehu+Akbar · 2018-02-07 04:04 · Score: 4, Insightful

They may be a minority, but in their ability to shut down entire dissenting campus events and to dominate the cultural scene, they have an influence behind their numbers.
Re:It's really a low IQ thing by Assmasher · 2018-02-07 05:08 · Score: 1

As much fun as it is to believe that, and while that may be the case sometimes, the more likely scenario is that people - even smart people - are susceptible to subscribing recursively to their own belief system because *it feels good*.
I suspect that there are intelligent people who believe in faith healing despite God's spectacular inability to heal amputees... Doesn't make them stupid, but instead makes them wishful and clearly wanting the world to be a certain way.

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Re:It's really a low IQ thing by pastafazou · 2018-02-07 05:41 · Score: 1

Heck, I just saw a guy I went to High School with on FB, he was the smartest guy in his year and he bought the Nunes memo hook, line, and sinker. His intellect didn't do squat to stop him from being taken in by a smear job.
Funny how you talk about intelligence but dismiss the Nunes memo as a smear job because you don't believe it, and that's very likely because you politically align with the Democrats.

At a basic level the right celebrates authority (everyone in the tribe works together) while the left embraces individuality (everybody free to be themselves). This means the right tends to believe their authorities without question, while the left tends to question everything.
The right celebrates freedom of the individual and individual responsibility. Smaller government, not bigger government. The authoritarians tend to be the socialists, who want to force their beliefs on everyone else.

That alone doesn't advantage the left or right with finding the truth. But mainstream religion is a thing that really hates being questioned, so religion and the political right eventually merged. And religions' antipathy to intellectual authorities spread to the right as a whole. You don't even need to be religious, if you're on the right you're taught to accept your authorities without question and reject opposing authorities outright.
This is nonsense. Religion tends to align with the right because the left tends to use anti-religious issues as a wedge, such as abortion, gay marriage, lax drug enforcement, and moral relativism. Nobody on the right gets "taught to accept your authorites without question". And what the hell is an opposing authority?

And once the right declared intellectually rigorous authorities to be part of the left then the left started to embrace them. Hence the right became prone to conspiracy theories as they rejected intellectual authorities and the left became resistant as they embraced them.
More nonsense. Nobody declared intellectually rigorous authorities to be part of the left. It's simply a fact that university and college faculty have been shifting more and more to the political left of the spectrum over the past 40 years. Why? Perhaps it's got to do with hiring practices and groupthink. Perhaps it's the massive expansion of the arts and social studies programs leading to an influx of leftists. But there was no declaration. And regarding conspiracy theories, the left is just as prone to them as the right. Anti-vaxxers are left-wing hipsters. Chemtrails is a left-wing conspiracy. GMO foods. The moon landings were faked is big in left-wing circles. The "vast right-wing conspiracy" that was trying to smear the Clintons. AIDS was created by the CIA to kill gays. 9/11 was an inside job, or an Israeli job.
Re:It's really a low IQ thing by Kielistic · 2018-02-07 06:27 · Score: 2

Lived experience is confirmation bias. If you want lived experience to count as evidence you are giving a lot of power to actual racists- because that's their justifications.
Re:It's really a low IQ thing by nwaack · 2018-02-07 06:55 · Score: 1

This means the right tends to believe their authorities without question, while the left tends to question everything
This is the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time. If you actually believe this, just spend 30 minutes at a college campus. You'll change your tune real quick.
Every liberal millennial I've met. Every. Single. One. was completely incapable of thinking for themselves. They did exactly as their professors indoctrinated them to do and think, without question. Talking to a group of liberal millennials about social issues really is like trying to talk to a flock of sheep.
Re:It's really a low IQ thing by kiminator · 2018-02-07 08:25 · Score: 1

No, no it is not.
IQ is a largely racist construction that has long been used to "prove" that undesirables don't deserve to be treated as people.
The main problem is that they have an ideology which rejects critical thinking. They see universities as liberal brainwashing centers. Their own ideology has no checks and balances to reject bad ideas, making it virtually impossible to expel bad ideas once they get in. They believe that they are on a particular side in an ideological war, and their opponents are trying to cheat and lie to get them to leave. So they believe people who they see as being on their side (the side of God), and disbelieve everybody else.
So what we've had for decades now are politicians who have learned to convince these voters that they're on their team (typically using some combination of racist dog whistles and evangelical Christian rhetoric). Once they've convinced them that they're on their side, it becomes easy to convince them of all sorts of other things. Such as the idea that global warming is a myth, or the free market is good, or the social safety net is bad. None of these things have anything to do with their voters' core ideology, but they're popular among the Republican party's wealthy donors, and easy to foist off on the larger population of Republicans.
After many decades of this, the Republican party's platform has diverged so far from reality that it is utterly insupportable by facts. When the core of their system is a nest of lies, it becomes impossible to push their ideology with anything but fake news. Leading to stuff like this.
There is nothing physically or mentally wrong with Republicans. It's just that fake news is all they have because their entire political ideology is founded on huge lies.
Re:It's really a low IQ thing by quantaman · 2018-02-07 12:06 · Score: 1

At a basic level the right celebrates authority (everyone in the tribe works together) while the left embraces individuality (everybody free to be themselves). This means the right tends to believe their authorities without question, while the left tends to question everything.
You haven't visited a college campus in this century, have you?
Have you? It's hard to say hello without getting in an argument about something.
Yes, there's a current trend where left-wing student groups protest and try to exclude speakers whom they consider to be particularly objectionable. But that's based on more on perceptions of hate-speech than the ability to ask questions. I think it's a different discussion.

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Re:It's really a low IQ thing by quantaman · 2018-02-07 12:13 · Score: 1

I don't accept that there's a significant IQ gap between left and right . . .
I do.
Within an ideological homogeneous group you're probably going to see a strong correlation between education and IQ.
But Liberals and Conservatives are anything but ideologically homogeneous.
Given two equally intelligent individuals I'd expect the Liberal to be far more likely to seek additional education than the Conservative for the sole reason that Liberals place more value on education and educational institutions.
So I don't think those stats tell us anything about the IQ of Liberals vs Conservatives.

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Re:It's really a low IQ thing by quantaman · 2018-02-07 12:14 · Score: 1

This is the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time. If you actually believe this, just spend 30 minutes at a college campus. You'll change your tune real quick.
Every liberal millennial I've met. Every. Single. One. was completely incapable of thinking for themselves. They did exactly as their professors indoctrinated them to do and think, without question. Talking to a group of liberal millennials about social issues really is like trying to talk to a flock of sheep.
Welcome to young people since the dawn of time.

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Re:It's really a low IQ thing by werepants · 2018-02-08 03:04 · Score: 1

You haven't visited a college campus in this century, have you?
Have you? Sure, there are professors that want you to parrot their opinions back to them. However, there are also political groups of every stripe, political demonstrations (sometimes of very graphic stuff like aborted fetuses), speakers on all sorts of topics... I can think of no place that promotes the free exchange of ideas more than a college campus.
Re:It's really a low IQ thing by Cinnamon+Beige · 2018-02-08 08:23 · Score: 1

It should be pointed out that several recent studies have found that the safe-space, anti-speech snowflakes on college campuses are a small but loud minority. Their existence doesn't prove anything other than that about 20% of the population is stupid.
They're a small but loud minority which is being allowed to control the environment, ironically making college campuses less of a safe space for anybody who might question their beliefs, since there is functionally no assurance that anybody within the administration will act to protect you if they decide to bully you. You might even find yourself being blamed for it.
Their behavior is that of intolerant religious fundamentalists who are determined to make everybody convert to their belief system, just without something that fits the usual Western assumptions of what is required to be a religion.

Hmmmm.... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 15:36 · Score: 1, Insightful

A leftist institution publishes a study that only the rightists news is fake? Naaaaaah... no possible way for bias in that!

Re: Hmmmm.... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 15:47 · Score: 5, Informative

Isn't it wonderful that you can repeat their study? That's the nice thing about actual science.
Good luck with the random pictures that get corrupted and photoshopped to further their own beliefs. Left wing news might be biased and some recent even wrong... But you can mostly go back to the source to verify.
Re: Hmmmm.... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 16:15 · Score: 1, Informative

But the study is biased. So why repeat it? Their bias is embedded in their method. They had a conclusion and made their study fit it. Classifying news as "right wing" is subjective. There is no scientific basis for the evaluation. And you've been taken in by it.
Re:Hmmmm.... by zieroh · 2018-02-06 16:44 · Score: 5, Insightful

A leftist institution publishes a study that only the rightists news is fake? Naaaaaah... no possible way for bias in that!
The fact that you think Oxford is "leftist" says all we need to know about your relative level of education.

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Re:Hmmmm.... by eriks · 2018-02-06 17:12 · Score: 5, Funny

Uh, isn't Oxford in the UK?
Re:Hmmmm.... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 17:23 · Score: 5, Funny

"Graduated Oxford USA in '4006 with honors." - Anonymous Coward, Oxford USA University President 1991-2014, Graduated Magnum Cums Loud don't check wikipedia it's all leftist lies - trust my authoritah as a Lepubrichaun, comrade!
@TheREALDonaldJPrison
"I graduated from everywhere, the best. Pretty sure Oxford is in the USA. No? I guess the Democrats gave it to the queen or something, people are saying treason. I love treason, why not? Oh it's bad? Democrat treason then."
"Comey tried to kiss me, I swear to God."
Re:Hmmmm.... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 17:39 · Score: 1

It is a perfect testament to the accuracy of this report that you have been moderated insightful for a lie that is so stupid that it involves claiming one of the world's most famous universities is located in another country.
"Graduated with honors". As if that were a thing at Oxford anyway. Tell you what is a thing at Oxford: laughing at stupid pricks like you.
Re:Hmmmm.... by dgatwood · 2018-02-06 17:40 · Score: 2, Funny

Graduated Oxford in '06 with honors.
It was a Leftist shithole then, and it's only gotten worse like every other college and university in the US.

Uh, isn't Oxford in the UK?
It used to be, before it moved about 3300 miles to the left.

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Re:Hmmmm.... by DNS-and-BIND · 2018-02-06 17:43 · Score: 1, Flamebait

It's not? In what way, exactly? You're saying it hasn't been infected by the PC far left SJW culture that is widespread throughout the ivory towers of academia? You're going to need to cite some sources with examples of tolerating conservative thought.

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Re: Hmmmm.... by another_twilight · 2018-02-06 18:00 · Score: 5, Insightful

Their bias is embedded in their method
Can you elaborate? Which part was biased?

They had a conclusion and made their study fit it
That's an assertion. It's not obvious, so it really requires an argument, maybe some facts or examples.

Classifying news as "right wing" is subjective
They don't seem to have classified the news by either 'left' or 'right', but by whether it was sensational, extremist, conspiratorial, fake or otherwise junk. They then looked at who was sharing that news the most and identified them a 'right' by such things as the fact that was how they self-identified. I think you've skimmed the summary (if that) and read what you wanted to find.

There is no scientific basis for the evaluation.
Hmm, you haven't read the paper, have you.

And you've been taken in by it.
Ah, the smugness of ignorance. The Dunning-Kruger effect in action with just a hint of delicious irony.
Re:Hmmmm.... by nedlohs · 2018-02-06 18:02 · Score: 1

That's not what the phrase "every other" means. Try and follow along with basic English usage.
Re: Hmmmm.... by nedlohs · 2018-02-06 18:04 · Score: 2

Since news wasn't classified as "right wing" in their methodology, maybe you just don't understand it?
Re: Hmmmm.... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 18:10 · Score: 1, Informative

Can you elaborate? Which part was biased?
They classified the news by whether it was sensational, extremist, conspiratorial, fake or otherwise junk. This is completely subjective and the source of their bias.
Re: Hmmmm.... by MrL0G1C · 2018-02-06 19:09 · Score: 1

So you like to read right wing nut job sites then.

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Re:Hmmmm.... by sg_oneill · 2018-02-06 19:19 · Score: 4, Informative

A leftist institution publishes a study that only the rightists news is fake? Naaaaaah... no possible way for bias in that!
Well the Guardian might have bias , but this does not reflect on what the actual study says.
So heres the abstract

What kinds of social media users read junk news? We examine the distribution of the most significant sources of
junk news in the three months before President Donald Trumpâ(TM)s first State of the Union Address. Drawing on a
list of sources that consistently publish political news and information that is extremist, sensationalist,
conspiratorial, masked commentary, fake news and other forms of junk news, we find that the distribution of such
content is unevenly spread across the ideological spectrum. We demonstrate that (1) on Twitter, a network of
Trump supporters shares the widest range of known junk news sources and circulates more junk news than all the
other groups put together; (2) on Facebook, extreme hard right pagesâ"distinct from Republican pagesâ"share
the widest range of known junk news sources and circulate more junk news than all the other audiences put
together; (3) on average, the audiences for junk news on Twitter share a wider range of known junk news sources
than audiences on Facebookâ(TM)s public pages.
Suggestion: Argue the topic, dont shoot the messenger

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Re:Hmmmm.... by dgatwood · 2018-02-06 19:36 · Score: 2

Wow. Troll? Somebody doesn't like geography jokes.

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Re: Hmmmm.... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 20:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

If you read the study, you'll see what plenty of others have commented on.
They started with a "seed" list they created themselves out of thin air of 91 sources they decided were "fake". You know, sites like the National Review and Sean Hannity. 95% of their initial manual seed list lean right, 5% lean left. Then they did some math and a relationship matrix to show that right-wing-leaning people view right-wing-leaning news on social media more than left-wing-leaning people do. (That's all the study actually shows, even if taken completely at face value.) Then they labeled their conclusions as something else. To have any chance at proving their conclusion, they'd need to start with a list evenly divided between left and right news sites. Of course, even then they'd need to figure out some way to ensure they had a reasonably representative seed list. Instead, they did a study with a foregone conclusion, which is why so many people find it naively biased.
Re:Hmmmm.... by AmiMoJo · 2018-02-06 20:39 · Score: 4, Insightful

Oxford University is a "leftist institution"?
You actually just demonstrated why the right is often so gullible. Anything that contradicts your established view is written off as a conspiracy by your enemies, no matter how outlandish and divorced from reality that conspiracy theory is.

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Re: Hmmmm.... by driblio · 2018-02-06 20:55 · Score: 1

Facts are not subjective. Fake news is generally very simple to identify, objectively.
See anything Trump says about TV ratings, for example.
Re: Hmmmm.... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 21:06 · Score: 1

But you can mostly go back to the source to verify.
I strongly encourage people to do this, btw. There's no better way to create a rightwinger than to actually read the reports quoted by lefties.
Re: Hmmmm.... by Stephan+Schulz · 2018-02-06 21:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

They classified the news by whether it was sensational, extremist, conspiratorial, fake or otherwise junk. This is completely subjective and the source of their bias.
So you say there is no objective way to distinguish the reporting of, say, the NYT from that of the National Enquirer? Let me guess, you also think that the Institute of Creation Research publications are just as valid as those in PNAS?

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Re:Hmmmm.... by Opportunist · 2018-02-06 21:56 · Score: 1

If you can't refute them, discredit them?

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Re: Hmmmm.... by Opportunist · 2018-02-06 21:59 · Score: 1

Great, now the left AND the right want to destroy science and replace it with "what I feel is right is right" narrative. The right in the name of their imaginary friend, the left in the name of what they consider equality.
If you have a semblance of sense left in you, get out of this country. Now.

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Re:Hmmmm.... by Opportunist · 2018-02-06 22:01 · Score: 1

Could we have your definition of "tolerated", please? I have this hunch that you feel "oppressed" by those leftist liberal pinkos because you can't tell the fags that they'll go to hell no matter whether they give a shit about your imaginary buddy or not.

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Re: Hmmmm.... by Opportunist · 2018-02-06 22:04 · Score: 1

Hey, Trump is the president of the little guy, too, so of course a school that oozes tradition and where everyone looks down at you if you can't show your lineage at least 'til the battle of Hastings is the epitome of liberalism.

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Re:Hmmmm.... by VeryFluffyBunny · 2018-02-06 22:05 · Score: 1

A leftist institution publishes a study that only the rightists news is fake? Naaaaaah... no possible way for bias in that!
I hope you realise that UK politics and popular values are to the left of the furthest left-leaning politics in he USA. For example, try comparing Bernie Sanders to Theresa May. Although I consider Sanders to be a more competent politician and leader than May, he's still to the right of May.
So I guess you're right. Any seriously scholarly study from a UK institution is likely to have a left-wing bias in the eyes of Americans.

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Re: Hmmmm.... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 22:15 · Score: 1

They define left wing political journalism as "mainstream" (literally their words).
Their "junk news classification" is a joke. It reads like a summary of your average left wing news article: emotional, ad hominem, generalizations, untrustworthy sources, hyper-partisan, ideologically skewed, present opinions as news, etc.
Then there's their list of "confirmed" junk news. Notorious left wing sites are strangely absent. Whereas at least some conservative sites are listed with articles that are full of proof to back up their stories.
Re:Hmmmm.... by DNS-and-BIND · 2018-02-06 22:25 · Score: 1

The field of psychology is rife with progressive bias and intolerance of conservatives.
If I had to define "tolerance" it would be something like "respect and kindness toward members of an outgroup".
The Emperor summons before him Bodhidharma and asks: "Master, I have been tolerant of innumerable gays, lesbians, bisexuals, asexuals, blacks, Hispanics, Asians, transgender people, and Jews. How many Virtue Points have I earned for my meritorious deeds?"
Bodhidharma answers: "None at all".
The Emperor, somewhat put out, demands to know why.
Bodhidharma asks: "Well, what do you think of gay people?"
The Emperor answers: "What do you think I am, some kind of homophobic bigot? Of course I have nothing against gay people!"
And Bodhidharma answers: "Thus do you gain no merit by tolerating them!"
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/30/i-can-tolerate-anything-except-the-outgroup/

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Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Re:Hmmmm.... by TheRaven64 · 2018-02-06 22:30 · Score: 1

Here's a thing: he said 'graduated with honors'. In the US, that's a thing people care about. In the UK, it means 'didn't get a thing that was a borderline failure, but we let them scrape through'. Anyone who boasts about graduating with 'honors' (note the US spelling) almost certainly didn't go to a UK university.

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I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Re:Hmmmm.... by TheRaven64 · 2018-02-06 22:33 · Score: 3, Informative

You realise that about half of the cabinet in the UK's Conservative government have degrees from Oxford? And that they're regularly invited back to speak, as are other members of their party (in which Oxford graduates, particularly Oxford PPE graduates, are severely overrepresented)? And that the last two Conservative Prime Ministers (along with 25 previous Conservative Prime Ministers) are Oxford graduates, and that all of them have kept ties with the institution after they left?
Oh, and that Oxford is not a campus university, so 'tolerated on campus' is a meaningless idea.
Conservatives are not 'tolerated' in Oxford, they are cultivated, groomed, and sent to join the party.

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I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Re:Hmmmm.... by cpbright · 2018-02-06 23:03 · Score: 1

You actually just demonstrated why the LEFT is often so gullible. Anything that contradicts your established view is written off as a conspiracy by your enemies, no matter how outlandish and divorced from reality that conspiracy theory is.
Re:Hmmmm.... by DNS-and-BIND · 2018-02-06 23:05 · Score: 1

According to the Cherwell, an independent Oxford student newspaper, 74 student government leaders from the universityâ(TM)s colleges have signed an open letter calling on Patten to âoegive a full apologyâ or step down.
One student at St. Johnâ(TM)s College told the paper that he would settle for nothing less than resignation. âoeâVisible actionâ(TM) â" as far as I am concerned is a resignation. Thereâ(TM)s no excuse for the continued racial insensitivity which is being promoted by the very top of this University. Change must happen â" Patten must go.â

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Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Re:Hmmmm.... by Opportunist · 2018-02-07 00:18 · Score: 1

So you're not allowed on campus? Or how are you not tolerated there?

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Re:Hmmmm.... by asylumx · 2018-02-07 00:37 · Score: 1

Oh, I misunderstood. Turns out YOU are rubber and AmiMoJo is glue in this case... Sorry, it's been a while since I've dealt with schoolyard logic.
Re: Hmmmm.... by Cederic · 2018-02-07 01:36 · Score: 1

You'll fucking love these then:
http://reason.com/blog/2017/04...
http://www.independent.co.uk/n...
Re: Hmmmm.... by budgenator · 2018-02-07 02:22 · Score: 1

They don't seem to have classified the news by either 'left' or 'right', but by whether it was sensational, extremist, conspiratorial, fake or otherwise junk. They then looked at who was sharing that news the most and identified them a 'right' by such things as the fact that was how they self-identified. I think you've skimmed the summary (if that) and read what you wanted to find.
If you are judging news sources based on 3 out of 5 in Professionalism, Style, Credibility, Bias and Counterfeit; then everything except maybe "The Christian Science Monitor" is fake news!

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Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Re: Hmmmm.... by PmanAce · 2018-02-07 02:23 · Score: 1

Since when does the left want to destroy science?

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Tired of my customary (Score:1)
Re:Hmmmm.... by nedlohs · 2018-02-07 02:51 · Score: 1

What does that have to do with the phrase "X like every other Y" in basic English usage meaning that X is in the group Y.
You say things like "cats like every other animal" and "America like every other western nation". You don't say things like "cats like every other bird" and "America like every other nation in the southern hemisphere".
Re: Hmmmm.... by tbannist · 2018-02-07 04:50 · Score: 2

Since the right decided they should accuse the left of doing everything that the right actually does?

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Fanatically anti-fanatical
Re:Hmmmm.... by Assmasher · 2018-02-07 05:09 · Score: 1

Oxford is not a leftist institution, it's more conservative than Cambridge and Cambridge isn't some hippie hotbed of progressive thinking either...

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Re:Hmmmm.... by Pfhorrest · 2018-02-07 06:03 · Score: 1

Oxford is not a campus university
I expect this is a language difference between US and UK, but can you explain what that means? In my experience here in the US, the "campus" of a university (or for that matter of a large business or really any large institution) is just the grounds on which their buildings are located and their activities conducted. The only way I can conceive of a university without a campus would be if the university activities (classes, etc) were carried out in a distributed collection of random private offices all over the place or something, but I imagine that that is probably not what you mean?

--
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Re: Hmmmm.... by Archangel+Michael · 2018-02-07 06:13 · Score: 1

The National Enquirer is fake news most of the time. Occasionally it actually scoops the MSM press with real stories. I call it the broken clock of News Outlets. And the NYT has been proven wrong on a number of stories over its career.
The ONLY conclusion I can come to is that both sources need additional verification and corroboration and nobody should blindly follow their lead.
And, it isn't the news that they publish that affects bias, but it is the news they don't cover. Bias is more than how something is reported, but also what isn't reported that should. I mean how important is it to report that he drinks a twelve-pack of coke a day? Did the news report on Obama's smoking habit in the same manner?

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Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Re: Hmmmm.... by Stephan+Schulz · 2018-02-07 07:23 · Score: 1

A serious question for you: if an equivalent study to this one came out of a right-wing think tank, saying that fake news is a left-wing thing, would you simply accept the results? Even if their definition of "fake news" was based on subjective criteria applied by their own internal assessors?
Probably not. But this was not work done by any think tank, left or right. It was done by the University of Oxford, the oldest university in the English-speaking world, and generally recognised as one of the best universities in the world - and that consistently for at last the 30 years I'm aware of university rankings. If such a study came out of, say, Stanford or even GMU, I might at least take it serious.

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Stephan
Re: Hmmmm.... by Stephan+Schulz · 2018-02-07 07:33 · Score: 1

The National Enquirer [and] the NYT [...]
The ONLY conclusion I can come to is that both sources need additional verification and corroboration and nobody should blindly follow their lead.
And both moonshine and orange juice contain alcohol - yet they are very much not the same.

Bias is more than how something is reported, but also what isn't reported that should. I mean how important is it to report that he drinks a twelve-pack of coke a day? Did the news report on Obama's smoking habit in the same manner?
Well, spending a minute with Google tells me that the NYT did in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2012 - and that is just a small selection from one newspaper.

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Stephan
Re:Hmmmm.... by slinches · 2018-02-07 07:51 · Score: 1

I haven't read the full study yet, but it's coming from the "Computational Propaganda Project" at Oxford and this is the about description on their website:

The Computational Propaganda Research Project (COMPROP) investigates the interaction of algorithms, automation and politics. This work includes analysis of how tools like social media bots are used to manipulate public opinion by amplifying or repressing political content, disinformation, hate speech, and junk news.
We use perspectives from organizational sociology, human computer interaction, communication, information science, and political science to interpret and analyze the evidence we are gathering. Our project is based at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford.
Note that they don't state that they are trying to minimize propaganda, just study it. And how better to do that than create it yourself?

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Knowledge Brings Fear
Re:Hmmmm.... by DNS-and-BIND · 2018-02-07 09:54 · Score: 1

The more liberal someone is, the more likely they are to unjustly discriminate on the basis of politics. Source:http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2002636 Conservative psychologists face discrimination that liberals do not notice. Source:http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2002636 82% of psychologists are explicitly willing to discriminate against conservatives. Source:http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9945048 The field of psychology is rife with progressive bias and intolerance of conservatives. Source:http://cdp.sagepub.com/content/23/1/27.abstract Liberals consistently underestimate the compassion of conservatives. Source:http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0050092 Liberals view themselves as more compassionate than they really are. Source:http://heterodoxacademy.org/2015/09/23/how-marcuse-made-todays-students-less-tolerant-than-their-parents/ Young people who advocate for social justice are less tolerant than their peers. Source:http://heterodoxacademy.org/2015/09/23/how-marcuse-made-todays-students-less-tolerant-than-their-parents/ Conservative and rural Whites are discriminated against in college admissions. Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/19/opinion/19douthat.html?_r=0 Liberals value the lives of Black people and foreigners more than the lives of White people and Americans. Source:http://www.wired.com/2010/09/kill-whitey-its-the-right-thing-to-do/ 72% of American college faculty are liberal, while only 15% are conservative. Source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8427-2005Mar28.htmlAtelite American colleges, 87% of faculty identify as liberal. Source:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8427-2005Mar28.html

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Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Re: Hmmmm.... by another_twilight · 2018-02-07 10:36 · Score: 1

This

The 91 sources of political news and information, which we identified over the course of several years of research and monitoring, produce content that includes various forms of propaganda and ideologically extreme, hyper-partisan, and conspiratorial political information.

beats

This is completely subjective.
If you'd like to actually quote or reference their methodology and provide specific criticism rather than a hand wave, your position would be more persuasive.
Re: Hmmmm.... by another_twilight · 2018-02-07 11:22 · Score: 1

A serious question for you: if an equivalent study to this one came out of a right-wing think tank, saying that fake news is a left-wing thing, would you simply accept the results?
No more than I accepted these, and, to be frank given the massive amount of AC name calling from both sides I've seen since the election I wouldn't be terribly surprised _IF_and_only_if_ they had decent rigor, a well described methodology, provided enough data to at least understand how they arrived at their conclusions etc. You're doing it here by equating a study from Oxford University to be equivalent to a piece from a 'right-wing think tank', implying that Oxford is a left-wing think tank.

Even if their definition of "fake news" was based on subjective criteria applied by their own internal assessors?
One of the first things I was curious about was their definition/s.
News is subjective. There are enough debates on Slashdot about whether an article is really 'news for nerds' or not to prove that, if nothing else.
Creating a categorisation that attempts to define whether something is 'junk' or not is subjective, but you can create conditions that attempt a degree of objectivity and then be transparent about what those are and how they were applied. Pointing out that this is 'subjective' scores no points. If you want to convince me that the study is flawed, I'd ask either that you show that the standards they chose are inappropriate, or that they were applied in a way that led to some kind of bias (you've kind of hinted at that, but offer nothing more than an assertion).
Re:Hmmmm.... by Opportunist · 2018-02-07 22:19 · Score: 1

Dude, learn 2 things: First, how to make links and second, how to find free versions of paywalled articles. Even if people would copy/paste your URLs, they sure as fuck won't pay someone just to see whether your articles have any merit.
What I get out of your post is 4 abstracts that may or may not belong to articles that are good, one dead link, an article showing how white people get discriminated (I wasn't aware that white=conservative now), an article that gets its results from the trolley problem with people more willing to kill the hypothetical white guys than the black guy (showing off virtue signaling more than anything else, like, say the "kill the white man" narrative of the article), an article telling me that more college teachers are liberals than conservatives without giving any reasons (and which makes it really easy to spin something like "only liberals are smart enough to teach at colleges, conservatives are too dumb to teach anywhere but at bible colleges").
I'm pretty sure I missed one or two URLs in the process, but that's what you get when you don't FUCKING MAKE LINKS! And that's embarrassing twice, first, because this is fuckin' /. and second... well, with a username like yours, one would assume you have a clue about how the internet works.
Then again, considering the quality of BIND...

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Re:Hmmmm.... by TheRaven64 · 2018-02-07 22:20 · Score: 1

The only way I can conceive of a university without a campus would be if the university activities (classes, etc) were carried out in a distributed collection of random private offices all over the place or something, but I imagine that that is probably not what you mean?
Pretty much. Most of the older universities such as Cambridge and Oxford are scattered over a large part of their host city. I suppose you can think of them as a large campus that someone has built a town in the middle of. Oxford and Cambridge run a collegiate system, so they're actually federated institutions with students being admitted and awarded degrees by colleges, which are independent of the university, but primarily taught in departments, which are part of the university. Each college will have its own (fairly small) campus, but often departments are individual buildings scattered throughout the town. Each department will have some lecture halls for teaching their students. Colleges run supervisions (small group tuition with 2-3 students) and, in humanities, they'll also run seminars with around 10 students. Departments provide lectures and set exams.
This decentralisation means that some college may invite a speaker that another wouldn't tolerate. It also means that you get quite a spectrum of political affiliations, though several Oxford colleges have close ties to the Conservative party and their PPE degree produces more conservative MPs than any other university in the UK.
In Cambridge (and, presumably, Oxford), it's common to see American tourists get onto a bus and ask to be taken to the university, not realising that this makes absolutely no sense as a request.

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I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Re:Hmmmm.... by DNS-and-BIND · 2018-02-08 04:12 · Score: 1

Yeah, sorry, that was my bad.
A lack of political diversity in psychology is said to lead to a number of pernicious outcomes, including biased research and active discrimination against conservatives. The authors of this study surveyed a large number (combined N = 800) of social and personality psychologists and discovered several interesting facts. First, although only 6% described themselves as conservative "overall," there was more diversity of political opinion on economic issues and foreign policy. Second, respondents significantly underestimated the proportion of conservatives among their colleagues. Third, conservatives fear negative consequences of revealing their political beliefs to their colleagues. Finally, they are right to do so: In decisions ranging from paper reviews to hiring, many social and personality psychologists said that they would discriminate against openly conservative colleagues. The more liberal respondents were, the more they said they would discriminate.
Composite scores of perceived hostile climate for conservatives (a = .85) were significantly correlated with political orientation, r(263) = .28, p the hostile climate reported by conservatives is invisible to those who do not experience it themselves.
At the end of our surveys, we gave room for comments. Many respondents wrote that they could not believe that anyone in the field would ever deliberately discriminate against conservatives. Yet at the same time we found clear examples of discrimination. One participant described how a colleague was denied tenure because of his political beliefs. Another wrote that if the department "could figure out who was a conservative they would be sure not to hire them."
-- Yoel Inbar and Joris Lammers, "Political Diversity in Social and Personality Psychology"

For simple problems or fully resolved technical matters there is little need for viewpoint diversity. Sometimes there is just one answer, or just one way to approach a problem. But for âoewicked problemsâ â" those that can be framed in multiple ways and that may trigger passions or partisan motivationsâ"viewpoint diversity is essential.
The surest sign that a community suffers from a deïcit of viewpoint diversity is the presence of orthodoxy, most readily apparent when members fear shame, ostracism, or any other form of social retaliation for questioning or challenging a commonly held idea.In these contexts, it is likely that the dominant idea is not entirely correct because it is protected from challenge and change. If, however, the response to dissent is civil discussion and evidence-based argument, then the community does not suffer from orthodoxy.
The question, then, is whether colleges and universities welcome and celebrate viewpoint diversity. While some individual institutions do (see our Guide to Colleges), many American universities are typiïed by an ideological monoculture.
For example, as the graph shows, in the 15 years between 1995 and 2010, the American academy went from leaning left to being almost entirely on the left. Similar trends and problems are occurring in the UK and Canada, and to a lesser extent in Australia.
A lack of viewpoint diversity on campus undermines the academyâ(TM)s ability to realize the goals of scholarly inquiry and education. Instead, research and learning spaces become self-afïrming echo chambers in which ideological validation displaces critical inquiry.

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Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Re:Hmmmm.... by DNS-and-BIND · 2018-02-08 04:13 · Score: 1

The greater than symbol screwed up one of the paragraphs.
Composite scores of perceived hostile climate for conservatives (a = .85) were significantly correlated with political orientation, r(263) = .28, p (greater than) .0001: The more liberal respondents were, the less they believed that conservatives faced a hostile climate. This correlation was driven entirely by more conservative respondents' greater personal experience of a hostile climate: Controlling for personal experience, the relationship disappeared (r = -.01), suggesting that the hostile climate reported by conservatives is invisible to those who do not experience it themselves.

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Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Re:Hmmmm.... by Opportunist · 2018-02-08 04:31 · Score: 1

You know, when you replace "conservative" in your postings with "women" (or "black people" or some other minority du jour), you'd come across like a SJW...
What you present here is how people "feel" about conservatives. I don't give a shit about how people feel about anyone. What I care about is how they treat people.

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Re: Hmmmm.... by david_thornley · 2018-02-08 05:52 · Score: 1

They examined a large collection of tweets (about 22 million) to make up the list. There's no evidence that the tweets were selected by a biased process. The wording is a trifle unclear, but it looks like they got the sites from the tweets. If they got the list of known propaganda sites by an unbiased process, it's valid.
If fake news is overwhelmingly right-wing, then one would expect that a selection of propaganda websites would be overwhelmingly right-wing. If the propaganda websites are overwhelmingly right-wing, and the sites were selected by an apolitical process, that's an interesting result in itself. It doesn't invalidate the study. Read the abstract: it says that the identified propaganda sites were primarily Trump supporters and extreme right-wing people.

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"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Re:Hmmmm.... by Pfhorrest · 2018-02-08 06:18 · Score: 1

Thank you, that explanation was quite informative!

--
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Re: Hmmmm.... by david_thornley · 2018-02-09 04:10 · Score: 1

So, in a study that claims to show an asymmetry between left and right, the damning thing is a lack of symmetry between left and right?

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"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes

If you believe in lies, then you become extremist by gurps_npc · 2018-02-06 15:37 · Score: 3, Insightful

If you believe something that the rest of society disagrees with, that is the definition of extremist.

In America, the liberals have focused on the college educated while the conservatives focused on the blue collar workers, at least over the past 10-20 years.

It is harder to trick college educated people into believing false statements.

QED, fake news gets picked up by the blue collar workers, and certain conservative politicians have decided to appeal to this demographic, so they don't publicly fight against the fake news.

The liberals on the other hand are led by college educated people that disbelieve and fight against the fake news.

It's not that the liberals are immune nor that the conservatives are susceptible. It's just a result of demographics.

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excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com

Re:Except for the Fact that Leftist CNN.... by Zurkeyon3733 · 2018-02-06 15:43 · Score: 1, Insightful

Says the Anonymous Coward :-D CNN was SO afraid of the Comment section... They removed it ENTIRELY. Isn't that Funny? LOL!

Junk news by zm · 2018-02-06 15:43 · Score: 1

Junk news != Fake news
Although there are significant overlaps.

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Sig ?

So, what are the sites? by l0n3s0m3phr34k · 2018-02-06 15:45 · Score: 4, Interesting

the 91 sites the researchers had manually coded as “junk news” I want this list; I could then put them into the corporate firewall to see which users are the most easily manipulated with gossip and rumors!

Re:So, what are the sites? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · 2018-02-06 17:16 · Score: 1

They don't run Oxford University like Fox News or CNN, neither. You can try hard to pretend Oxford University can be rebutted with an idiom, but that's just proving their point once again isn't it? You can't major in idioms, idiot.
You wouldn't know that to read the list of new words "they added to the Oxford English dictionary" every year.

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(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Re:So, what are the sites? by serviscope_minor · 2018-02-06 20:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

Study confirms that the authors write left wing junk research to re-enforce their liberal bubble.
See, this is the problem with right wingers. There's an article about a study about you.
Your only reply is "NO theres a study that says YOU like fake news", except there isn't. That would be a fake claim.
The 91 sites of far left wing phd's selected a
Also a fake claim, you have no evidence to back it up.

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SJW n. One who posts facts.
Re:So, what are the sites? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 21:13 · Score: 1

Can you find examples of other left-leaning sites that regularly post deliberate and provably-incorrect facts? What did they miss?
Re:So, what are the sites? by AmiMoJo · 2018-02-06 21:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

Here is a list of the sites (page 6 onwards): http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp...
As you can see, it does include a number of left leaning sources. However, it does have to be said, most of the junk "news" is coming from the right, particularly sites like Infowars, Hannity etc, and there are simply not left leaning equivalents. The left just doesn't have conspiracy theorists with TV show/online soy pill shops pumping this crap out.
A whole community of pretend news sites and blogs has built up around sites like Infowars, dedicated to spreading and amplifying that content and getting it distributed on social media. It was a deliberate effort, and it wasn't replicated on the left.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:So, what are the sites? by AmiMoJo · 2018-02-07 00:50 · Score: 1

Have you ever seen an Alex Jones broadcast?
If there is any kind of left wing equivalent to that I really, really want to see it. No joke. Bonus points if it tries to sell you soy based brain pills.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:So, what are the sites? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-07 01:05 · Score: 1

I see ShareBlue and OccupyDemocrats alone among three pages of conservative-leaning sites. The study was biased from Table 3, as it would have been virtually impossible using such inputs to find many examples of left-leaning users linking to sources from that table. This study is reprehensible. The least they could have done would be to include Bezos’ propaganda outlet, the Washington Post. Where is Buzzfeed? Where is the Huffington Post? If you are looking for Infowars’ left-wing counterpart, it is very likely HuffPo.
Re:So, what are the sites? by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-07 02:04 · Score: 1

You're forgetting sites like Huff Po, Mother Jones, etc. which frequently spew agitprop the same as Infowars and company.
Re:So, what are the sites? by apoc.famine · 2018-02-07 03:56 · Score: 1

Don't those turn the frogs gay? Or am I confusing those with something else? It's hard to tell with all the shouting, crying, and incoherent sentence fragments.
But I agree. I'd love to see the left wing equivalent. I'm not convinced that anyone can exceed Alex Jones' level of crazy without being institutionalized. I'm frankly amazed that he's been able to do it himself for so long.

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Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Re:So, what are the sites? by AmiMoJo · 2018-02-07 06:19 · Score: 1

Infowars does indeed claim that soy will feminize you, and their brain pills do contain soy so...

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:So, what are the sites? by argStyopa · 2018-02-07 06:32 · Score: 2

It's listed as an excel in the report. "seed list" http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/re...
http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp...
"Hard right wing junk news":
Daily Caller?
Drudge?
gatewaypundit?
National Review?
Yet no democraticunderground.com? slate.com? wonkette.com?
Seems like that list is pretty fuckin' hard-skewed by selection bias.

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-Styopa
Re:So, what are the sites? by Train0987 · 2018-02-08 04:48 · Score: 1

Rachel Maddow and The Young Turks are indistinguishable from Alex Jones.
Re:So, what are the sites? by AmiMoJo · 2018-02-08 05:14 · Score: 1

So they also try to sell you soy based brain pills, while telling you that soy makes your dick fall off?

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extrem by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 15:46 · Score: 1

You of course believe that the guy who racked up $250K in debt for a degree that interferes with getting a job I smarter than the guy who earned a union card and close to a six figure salary.

Here's an Idea :P by wolfheart111 · 2018-02-06 15:47 · Score: 1

Find a (news) String in peoples browsers, and replace the div content with an adjusted version of your own. :) Opps

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[($)]

Killian Documents by PPH · 2018-02-06 15:48 · Score: 1

n/t

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Have gnu, will travel.

/. commenters will unleash fire and fury by Bobrick · 2018-02-06 15:49 · Score: 1

This is Slashdot. Expect most commenters to react to this story with "leftist" bashing, completely irrelevant mentions of antifas and somehow linking this to CNN. Also BeauHD bashing, because that's how it has to be.

Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 15:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

So accusing Donald Trump of being a Russian agent isn't extremist leftist globalist fake news? Nothing that they try to throw at this guy can stick, and even Wikileaks has come up dry on him.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 15:51 · Score: 2, Insightful

It is harder to trick college educated people into believing false statements.

It's funny that you say that, because the so-called "blue collar workers" that you're ridiculing are often the most independent and honest thinkers out there.

They haven't spent 80% or more of their lives sitting in safe space classrooms being told exactly what to think by some professor or other academic "expert".

They don't waste their time with quizzes and tests and papers and exams where they mindlessly regurgitate whatever their professors told them.

These "blue collar workers" have been out practicing a trade or a craft, and spend their days neck-deep in the realities of the world at large.

They know more about reality than any college student, or especially an academic, likely ever will.

They see things as they really are.

Having seen the world with their own eyes, they know when academics or the media are full of shit.

And it turns out that academics and the media are full of shit a lot!

Here you are trying to paint "blue collar workers" as being "dumb", yet they're often the people with the highest degree of real-world intelligence.

You wouldn't be aware of that, of course, because you're probably never left the confines of whatever sorry campus you're trapped within.

Yeah, how about turnabout is fair play by Snotnose · 2018-02-06 15:51 · Score: 2, Interesting

I've been paying attention to the news since the late 70's, when the Iran Hostage Situation was going on, and I was a teenager with a 4 to midnight job that let me listen to the radio at work. I listened to TV news instead of the "music" on the FM band. (others got to smoke at their desks at the time, and for coffee/lunch breaks we went into Charlie's van and smoked some of the best weed you could buy at the time). I had this job when Ted Koppel started his Nightline show, and I listened to him every night.

Even stoned me at 11 PM, after having been up since 6 AM for that 7 AM class, knew the news was heavily biased towards the left wing/liberal/progressive/whatever.

Don't believe me? Watch an abortion story, it's clear the network wants abortion to be legal. Watch a gun story, it's clear that not only does the network want to outlaw guns, they can't be bothered to learn the difference between a Ruger 10/22 and an AK-47. Watch a tax/budget cut story, it's clear they want the government to have more money.

Now the right has figured out how to get their message to more of their peeps (albeit a much smaller pond to fish in), and the lefties are going nuts.

Note I did not mention my party preference, abortion position, gun control position, nor tax/spending position. The mainstream media has been biased towards "progressive" causes for at least 40 years, now folks on the pointy end are squealing like stuck pigs.

This whole fake news thing is new and I don't know how to deal with it. Except I don't have a single social media account, I devote at least 12 brain cells to every story I read, and I assume Trump and his sycophants are lying through their teeth when they open their mouths.

Re:Yeah, how about turnabout is fair play by KingAlanI · 2018-02-06 18:44 · Score: 1

If I read the likes of Fox News it'll angry up the blood. National Review I can at least approach intellectually, understand where they're coming from even when I don't change my mind. I used to feel similarly about the Wall Street Journal, but their website is heavily paywalled now.

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I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by Mr307 · 2018-02-06 15:51 · Score: 1, Interesting

What a stunning load of horseshit that is.

Somehow blue collar workers are just less smart than college educated people. Pure nonsense. There are stunningly smart people in all walks of life that didn't go to college or other.

I'll bet its no harder to trick a college person than any other person. Maybe its even easier to put one over on some so called schooled peoples because of built in prejudices like you demonstrate.

What arrogance.

Re:Except for the Fact that Leftist CNN.... by Zurkeyon3733 · 2018-02-06 15:51 · Score: 2, Funny

Says the Anonymous coward who is Crying like a bitch right now! :-D

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by Antique+Geekmeister · 2018-02-06 15:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

> If you believe something that the rest of society disagrees with, that is the definition of extremist.

If I may say, no. Violently enforcing your opinion would be extremist. Mere disagreement is hardly extremist.

> It is harder to trick college educated people into believing false statements.

It is certainly possible to do so.

It's a Mythos vs. Logos thing by jlowery · 2018-02-06 15:55 · Score: 2

Facts get in the way of a good story.

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If you post it, they will read.

You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by shanen · 2018-02-06 15:57 · Score: 5, Interesting

I think this story (and the research it reports) is fundamentally misleading. In terms of psychological warfare, of course you need to target your victims carefully. Some targets like (or are suckers for) fake news, others not so much. Time for a bit of anecdotal evidence:

In general there are few so-called Republicans in my neck of the woods, but when I did meet a couple of them for beers before the election, I noticed that they had also been drinking the strange Kool-Aid, and hard. In particular, each of them thought Hillary was a demonic monster, but they were completely orthogonal about what was wrong with her. At the time I was mostly amused that they could believe such silly things. Looking back, I think that each of them had been successfully targeted with different flavors of fake news and the most interesting aspect is how they could be so unified in their hatred while being so divided in their peculiar reasoning.

Now in my own case, I think I was successfully targeted by a different kind of divide and conquer strategy. I was encouraged to get overly enthusiastic about Bernie to the point of firing my wallet at the wrong target. I can't prove it was done by the Russians, but I think I was quite probably targeted by pro-Bernie news and propaganda that helped divide the Democratic Party quite effectively. I never swallowed the anti-Hillary bait (beyond my basic dislike of lawyers), but I should have shot my wallet at a more useful target, perhaps the Democratic Party in Michigan?

The much more serious question is how much Putin's goons learned from the prior elections and how well they will apply those lessons going forward. Right now it looks like the Bolshevik Republicans are much more concerned with defending PARTY discipline than with defending the nation. (Kind of laughable if you know the history of the original Bolsheviks.)

Still anecdotal, but I miss the rational Republicans. Long time since I've spoken to one.

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by wonkavader · 2018-02-06 17:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

Stand down, there. You weren't conned into funding Bernie. Bernie was the better candidate in almost every way. We should vote for the better man. We should fund the better man.
There's fake news and there's problematic news. The bots will push both if they think either is useful, but that doesn't make problematic news fake news. The Democratic party really did shoot itself in the ass by intentionally hamstringing Bernie. If they hadn't for example delayed the debates (which are massively helpful for putting candidates on the map such that you start to look into what he/she candidate offers) Bernie's numbers would have been enough to win. If you look at his progress as a graph you can see he passes Clinton if the race goes on longer or starts earlier -- and the race really only gets started after the first debate, so delaying the debate made Clinton, who had more brand recognition at the outset, inevitable. And there's no way Trump could have beaten Bernie -- He was shown in multiple polls to be significantly further ahead of Trump than Clinton. (The polls had a systematic anti-Trump bias, but in a Trump vs. Bernie vs Clinton poll that would even out and so doesn't matter for these polls.) We have the Democratic party to thank for Trump.
So long as you didn't vote for Trump or stay home, you did the right thing.
As for your money needing to go to Hillary, it wasn't lack of money which kept her from winning. She outspent Trump almost 2 to 1. In large part it was HOW she was spending it. TV advertising costs a fortune, doesn't do much to move people, and is the primary expenditure for most campaigns (second to payroll for Clinton). It gets the most spending because the campaign folks who place the ads get a percentage back from the TV stations. It's TV spending that makes campaign folks rich. For numbers, look at these URLs: http://metrocosm.com/where-doe... and https://www.bloomberg.com/poli... In retrospect, it's clear she needed more legal staff to contest voter suppression and more ground staff to get people to the polls.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by PhrostyMcByte · 2018-02-06 17:01 · Score: 1

Now in my own case, I think I was successfully targeted by a different kind of divide and conquer strategy. I was encouraged to get overly enthusiastic about Bernie to the point of firing my wallet at the wrong target.
Yes, this! The manipulation of Trump's supporters was so overt that it's mostly uninteresting and just tragic. The manipulation of Bernie supports is the really fascinating thing to me.
Someone manipulated things to make Hillary and the DNC so vilified that these emotion-driven voters, feeling betrayed and upset, flipped from Bernie to his polar opposite. I think it just goes to show how little Americans actually pay attention to policies during an election.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by RazorSharp · 2018-02-06 17:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

Still anecdotal, but I miss the rational Republicans. Long time since I've spoken to one.
I think what made them really disappear was Alan Greenspan crying in front of Congress, admitting that the economic theories he based our fiscal policy on for decades were based on flawed premises. When guys like Paul Ryan try to argue for supply side economics, knowing full well that the only true test for economic theories—history—has proven the theory to be everything its critics have accused it of, it's almost more infuriating to hear them pretend to be rational.
Something had to replace the intellectual libertarians who lean on their highly theoretical ideas about how to optimize the economy. Hopefully populism, jingoism, and a complete disregard for rationality are just stop-gap measures while the GOP rediscovers itself. Unfortunately, the GOP has long been the party of convincing the ignorant to vote against their own interests. The "supply side" rationality of Reagan and his ilk and the xenophobic rancor of Trump and his cronies are just different methods for convincing those who know nothing about economics to vote for those who seek political power as a means for reinforcing their economic power.

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 17:06 · Score: 1

I doubt there is anyone who is politically active and engaged that has not been the victim of some form of political manipulation (in the latest election campaigns particularly). Every faction is now using all the big-data they can and all the psychology tricks and techniques they can to influence the course of events. And there is a lot of money from a lot of sources behind it (Russians, Chinese, Republicans, Democrats, economic elites, Hard Right, Hard Left, Religious fundamentalists, etc).
There's been another phenomenon that plays a role: Confirmation Bias. When someone hears what they want to hear, that aligns with the beliefs they'd like to believe are right and correct, that gets more weight. Which set of beliefs those are depends where and how you came up.
The public school quality in the US has declined significantly and there have been far more influences from the Hard Right in the last 15 to 20 years. That's showing up now in voting patterns.
The fly-over states have also been left behind by the advancement and growth that has occurred along both coasts. They aren't very populated, but they have a lot of political clout if they choose to make themselves heard (as they did this last election).
In the long run, all this polarization has achieved is making America a bitterly divided place. I don't recall that (to the extent we see today) in presidencies of Reagan, Bush the Elder, and Clinton. It was there, but nothing like today. Those bitter divisions will only lead to more internecine strife politically and thus diplomatically, financially, and culturally over the years in our near future. If Trump loses the next election and a lot of things get taken another direction, there will be more trouble. If he wins again, same result.
Ultimately having America gutting itself, being divided and angrily and intractably so, and having America preoccupied with isolationist agendas only serves ISIS, China, Russia, and tinpots like Kin Young-Loon with his lovely button. The best way to get America out of a global leadership role and away from paying active attention to dictators, oligarchs, and long term strategic foes (China, Russia - you seem to fit here) is to push Americans into more divisiveness (and convince them they're doing it in their own best interests). That's where we sit now and what took a handful of years (less than 10 say) to bring to today will take more than one decade to sort out (likely a lot longer).
With what's going on between the Executive and Judiciary, between the Executive and the Media, between the Executive and Congress and the Senate, between Republican Party hardliners and their political opponents, and between the Executive and Law Enforcement Agencies and Intelligence Agencies... if this sort of stuff continues, violent confrontations and even a second US Civil War could be imaginable. The rise of the fascist/isolationist branch of the Hard Right just puts one in mind of the early years of the 20th century and we know where that got us (in Europe where it is happening and then by extension to the rest of the World).
I don't think most of us would have seen that 10 years ago. Things are definitely worse off. And the left is 'resisting' and the right is 'getting its turn' and nobody is paying any attention to the net effects of the conflict and how that affects American power globally or her ability to project diplomatic and political power.
Also being ignored is how Mr. Trump is helping the rich (and their corporations) gut the country. That's going to have lasting impacts as the wealth gap grows.
And any student of history will realize that's the sort of thing that led to the French Revolution (and others). When the elite get too far out of touch and the wealth gap is too great and the greed to obvious, violence will ensue.
Can't help feeling the US will be in a more violent and polarized state over the next handful of decades and in far less of a position to show any global leadership. And Mr. Putin and the Chinese leadership a
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by PhrostyMcByte · 2018-02-06 17:33 · Score: 1

Every good propaganda is truth, twisted and magnified.
Hillary and the DNC were definitely doing underhanded things that didn't deserve to be rewarded. I still think the DNC needs to clean house and rework themselves. But that was what I was getting at. My point was that people voted for the polar opposite candidate -- in theory this should be an incredibly difficult thing to pull off, but someone executed a plan to make it happen masterfully.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by Solandri · 2018-02-06 17:38 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm conservative and disagree with almost everything Bernie believes in. But I would've voted for him over Trump. Bernie was pretty much the only candidate with a shot to win the nomination that I felt was genuinely honest. And I'd rather have someone honest that I disagree with as President, than someone who'll lie and cheat to win the office. (Since the choice ended up being Clinton and Trump, I ended up voting third party).

However, I think it's fascinating that you seem to have accepted all this propaganda about Russian manipulation. I'd been wondering how well that story had been playing among the Democratic faithful. Aside from the DNC emails (which are really what should've been the news, not who the messenger was), the evidence I've seen of Russian manipulation of the election has been extremely thin. A few tens of thousands of dollars worth of ads (much of which was spent in 2015) in an election where billions of dollars were spent. A little over a thousand fake accounts on a platform which claims billions of accounts. A bit over a million page views on a site where the average person sees 8000 pages per year, means with 214 million users in the U.S. a million views of Russian propaganda pages in 2016 amounted to 0.00006% of the average American's FB pages viewed.

These things are far more likely to be statistical noise than a real conspiracy. IMHO the problem isn't little two-bit sites spreading fake news conspiracy theories over social media. It's when the mainstream media starts spreading fake news conspiracy theories.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by Whatsmynickname · 2018-02-06 17:57 · Score: 1

But that was what I was getting at. My point was that people voted for the polar opposite candidate
An alternative hypothesis could be that a lot of people looked at the two choices they were given and said "fuck it, we're doomed and I'm staying home. I'm not validating this shit we were given." So Trump won not because people turned to him, but because of the people who were left over to vote voted for him.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by J-1000 · 2018-02-06 18:37 · Score: 1

The Hillary thing was just a nudge, taking advantage of confirmation bias. The real damage to her was done back when Bill was first elected. The Republican media has had it out for Hillary ever since. Source: consumed a lot of it myself back in the day.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by quantaman · 2018-02-06 19:41 · Score: 2

Stand down, there. You weren't conned into funding Bernie. Bernie was the better candidate in almost every way. We should vote for the better man. We should fund the better man.
I'm not sure I agree with this. Bernie was a fantastic speaker but he had three big flaws. First, his ideas were far-left, even for the Democratic party, that really can scare off voters. Two, he was naive in the sense that he oversold how much he could get accomplished. Three, a lot of his policy was very hand-wavy, now some of that was Clinton denying him top-end advisors, but he didn't have the same policy chops.
Now Clinton was outrageously competent and was much closer policy-wise to the average voter, but she had her own flaws. Other than the email thing (which was massively overblown) she had a bad relationship with the media and she never figured out the art of coming up with a coherent campaign message. Oh, and "I'm with her" was a TERRIBLE campaign slogan.
Honestly, the one things that did give me pause about her executive abilities is how incompetent some aspects of her campaigns were.

There's fake news and there's problematic news. The bots will push both if they think either is useful, but that doesn't make problematic news fake news. The Democratic party really did shoot itself in the ass by intentionally hamstringing Bernie.
This was a big mistake, I don't know if Bernie would have won, but Clinton never really learned how to win a competitive race. She played defence the whole time against Bernie instead of defining herself or establishing a vision, and bringing that to the general election is what cost her.

And there's no way Trump could have beaten Bernie -- He was shown in multiple polls to be significantly further ahead of Trump than Clinton. (The polls had a systematic anti-Trump bias, but in a Trump vs. Bernie vs Clinton poll that would even out and so doesn't matter for these polls.)
Really there's no way Trump could have beaten Clinton either. It took an email investigation that already had way too much media focus and compounded it with a pair of Russian hacks that involved the word "email". Then you had the freak occurrence of the FBI "reopening the investigation" days before voting and some really weird voter patterns.
Bernie could have had his own series of bizarre misfortunes. Republicans (and Russians) were rooting for Bernie because they thought he'd be the weaker candidate in the general election. They may have been wrong, but it's not obvious they were.

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I stole this Sig
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by Tablizer · 2018-02-06 19:48 · Score: 1

Both parties have been lax on immigration enforcement and visa worker screening, but for different reasons. Business wants cheap labor, and bribes GOP to ignore enforcement. Therefore, cracking down on it is not a Republican stance.
Trump is not really a Republican: he's just using them. Partly what got him elected is that he scratched an itch most politicians ignored. (Or at least gave it lip service. You'll have to audit business hiring, not just build walls, and business, including Trump Inc., don't want to be snooped on.)

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Table-ized A.I.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by shanen · 2018-02-06 20:08 · Score: 1

I'll just note that I basically agree with quantaman and Bernie Sanders more than wonkavader. However just because I agree with Bernie on more issues doesn't mean he would have been the better candidate or that he would not have been attacked at least as viciously as Hillary was attacked. I actually think that Hillary hatred had been pretty much maxed out by decades of vilification and demonization. She is kind of used to it by now. In contrast Bernie would have been totally inexperienced against that level of attack.
I admit I didn't much like her personally, mostly because of the lawyer thing, but I respected her competence and think she would have kept the country moving in the correct direction. I had no reservations about voting for her against any of the so-called Republican candidates, let alone the monstrous #FatNixon. It would NOT have been a surprise if she backed off a bit from some of Obama's initiatives, but I actually think it more likely that she would have gone farther than he did, especially if she had had a solid Congressional majority behind her.

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by shanen · 2018-02-06 20:11 · Score: 1

On this branch I just want to say I mostly agree with PhrostyMcByte on this branch, but I will clarify that I NEVER considered voting for Trump. I knew full well he would be terrible, though I didn't know he would become such a archetype that I can't figure out whether to describe him as #PresidentTweety or #FatNixon. (There's apparently some AC junk in there, but I can't see it.)

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by shanen · 2018-02-06 20:17 · Score: 1

I'm ignoring Tablizer's branch because he seems to be feeding some AC troll. (Why do they bother? Why don't I care?)
On your [RazorSharp's] branch, I think I mostly disagree. I don't think principles have much to do with any of this self-destruction of the GOP, except for the one principle of "winning" at any cost. They are dedicated to the most basic and well established military principle: Divide and conquer. Not just the Democratic party, not just the public school system, but the nation itself at this point.

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by shanen · 2018-02-06 20:22 · Score: 1

I'm not saying I believe ALL of the reports, but I definitely believe the consensus of the national security organizations. Also I believe that Putin's hackers were extremely strategic and leveraged a relatively small amount of funding extremely effectively. Finally, in the end the election result was so close that EVERY little bit was crucial for #FatNixon to claim the victory. In as sense you can argue that #PresidentTweety owes his occupancy of the White House to EVERY lunatic fringe that delivered on the order of 70,000 votes (though that's an oversimplification, since the real key is WHERE those votes were).
The punchline is that Trump never pays his debts. Suckers!

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by shanen · 2018-02-06 20:34 · Score: 1

On the one hand, I'm not really following you here. On the other hand, I admit that my first vote for Bill Clinton was very much a vote AGAINST Dan Quayle. The second time was more complicated, but still largely a negative vote against what the GOP was becoming (or had already mostly become).
Between the two Clintons, I'd say I always liked Hillary better than Bill. Though in some ways I think they are quite similar, I think they are quite different at the highest level. I think Bill is a humanist who really puts people first, while Hillary is probably a materialist who puts material goods (including money as a token thereof) first. The most dangerous politicians tend to be idealists who put bad ideas first (like the Libertarians), though I suspect Obama (ditto Bernie) is an idealist with good ideas. That's why I didn't think #PresidentTweety would be so harmful, since he's mostly a humanist (of a sick and inverted sort) without the competence to be a serious materialst (except that the KGB pumped him full of dirty money).
In terms of the original story, I think idealists are also the easiest to con with fake news, which is why the evangelicals are such an important part of #PresidentTweety's base. Idealists already know what they want to believe, so if you say that, then they will follow you anywhere.

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Re: You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by houghi · 2018-02-06 20:36 · Score: 1

WTF do you mean that you gave money to the wrong thing? Just because he lost does not mean it was wrong.
That is like saying that giving to cancer research is wrong, because my mom still doed from it.

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Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Re: You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by houghi · 2018-02-06 20:41 · Score: 2

I think Trump would still have won. Many swingvoters (and they are the ones that count) didi not vote for Trump, bit against the political establishment. Remember that Trump was not the Rep favorite either.

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Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Re: You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by shanen · 2018-02-06 20:46 · Score: 1

I mean I am not so rich that I don't have to consider carefully where I spend my money. I have concluded that Bernie (who I still largely agree with) had his campaign deliberately boosted by Putin's hackers as part of a divide-and-conquer strategy to weaken the Democratic Party. This was the flip side of their decision to support Trump's campaign.
Putin's goal was NOT to give America the best possible leadership, but rather to weaken Hillary so that she would only have a weak mandate. I think the actual victory of #FatNixon shocked Putin as much as anyone, but he certainly would have loved a civil war with Trump's supporters rejecting Hillary.

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-06 21:07 · Score: 1

I can't speak to your story specifically, but you must have found the only two conservatives so inebriated that they couldn't stand up, because that's the only way a conservative can't rattle off what was wrong with Hillary. Hillary has been in the national political spotlight for more than 25 years, and conservatives know exactly who and what she is. Off the top of my head:
- Married to and enabler of the serial rapist and female abusing Bill Clinton. Multiple counts of demonizing his victims, even with mountains of evidence. Hillary was Bill Clinton's feminist beard for their entire marriage.
- Zero accomplishments as a politician
- Managed to spell the Russian reset button wrong, allowed the murder of our Ambassador and others at Benghazi, Libya by refusing to send requested increases in security because of the "optics" and then tried to cover it up.
- Violated federal laws on the handling of classified information and records retention laws by running a private, unsecured server in her bathroom to shield her activities as secretary of state from FOIA requests and legal review and discovery. Lied to congress that all business related emails were handed over, destroyed 40,000 plus emails. Received and sent dozens of emails containing classified information including SCI classified information unencrypted and unsecured in direct violation of federal law.
- Was the driving force behind the failed Hillary care
- Anti 2nd amendment, including lobbying for the AWB and numerous other activities
- Has had numerous people murdered, including Vince Foster, Jim McDougal and Ron Brown. The Clintons are clearly mob connected and have had numerous people killed: http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2... The body count of close friends and associates who have died mysteriously at very opportune times for the Clintons is massive beyond all coincidence for any reasonable person. Ask yourself, how many people do you know in any capacity have died under mysterious circumstances? The Clintons have almost 50...
Everyone knew who Hillary Clinton was long before she ran for president. Conservatives have loathed her since 1993.

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by shanen · 2018-02-06 22:18 · Score: 1

You [4697521] are obviously insane. Is that sufficient rebuttal? Please don't bother me again.

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by drinkypoo · 2018-02-06 22:37 · Score: 2

However just because I agree with Bernie on more issues doesn't mean he would have been the better candidate or that he would not have been attacked at least as viciously as Hillary was attacked.
Hillary is a hypocrite and a warhawk and she would have been another typically shitty president. Sanders represented something new, at least in living memory; a politician who wants to help people, and who knows Washington. Trump, of course, is more of the same usual republican shit, only worse. The republicans would have loved to do all the things he's doing now long ago.

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"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by drinkypoo · 2018-02-06 22:38 · Score: 1

I didn't know he would become such a archetype that I can't figure out whether to describe him as #PresidentTweety or #FatNixon.
After his latest comment about democrats being traitors for not clapping for his lies, I'm going to go with #cheetohitler

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"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by dwpro · 2018-02-07 01:04 · Score: 1

they were completely orthogonal about what was wrong with her.
Though I didn't vote for Trump, I found myself in a similar situation to this regarding my own mistrust of Hillary. Here's my argument:

There are a hundred smaller events such as the 'public and private positions' and a couple larger events like the 'deplorable/irredeemable' comments (I'd put that in the same category as the 43% comment from Romney) that hurt her reputation. The Clinton foundation accepting large donations from enemies and tyrants didn't help.

However, when you get down to brass tacks , it was Hillary's exceedingly calculated and orchestrated campaign that gave the impression that we weren't getting the 'true' Hillary. Even listening to her on Ezra Klein's podcast after the election when presumably she'd have no reason to be cautious, I still left with the view that she was not being forthcoming.

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by McGruber · 2018-02-07 01:37 · Score: 1

Stand down, there. You weren't conned into funding Bernie. Bernie was the better candidate in almost every way. We should vote for the better man. We should fund the better man.
I agree and I voted for Bernie during my state's primary.

So long as you didn't vote for Trump or stay home, you did the right thing.
I did the wrong thing -- I voted for Trump. I believed that Trump was much less likely to start another war than Clinton.

As for your money needing to go to Hillary, it wasn't lack of money which kept her from winning. She outspent Trump almost 2 to 1. In large part it was HOW she was spending it.
Her problem was not how she spend money. She lost because she is not the natural extrovert that politicians need to be, plus she has been a national political figure continuously since 1992. I think voters are tired of her.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by Dixie_Flatline · 2018-02-07 04:22 · Score: 1

Given the way the electoral college works, very small shifts in certain areas can lead to unusual results. Thus, you have a situation where Clinton received an extremely large number of votes, by far the plurality, and managed to lose despite that. It's not at all a stretch to think that extremely specific targeting may have turned the tables.
Did it happen? I don't know. Is it possible? I believe so, yes. There are dozens of examples through history, in various arenas (wars, elections, sporting events, what have you) where the weaker force deployed its resources more effectively and managed to win. In this case, it may have been well targeted propaganda.
Anyway, I'm not disagreeing with you per se—it probably did end up being noise. I just think that it's worth considering the possibility that it was more than that.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by Voyager529 · 2018-02-07 05:55 · Score: 1

I'm not sure I agree with this. Bernie was a fantastic speaker but he had three big flaws. First, his ideas were far-left, even for the Democratic party, that really can scare off voters. Two, he was naive in the sense that he oversold how much he could get accomplished. Three, a lot of his policy was very hand-wavy, now some of that was Clinton denying him top-end advisors, but he didn't have the same policy chops.
Now Clinton was outrageously competent and was much closer policy-wise to the average voter, but she had her own flaws. Other than the email thing (which was massively overblown) she had a bad relationship with the media and she never figured out the art of coming up with a coherent campaign message. Oh, and "I'm with her" was a TERRIBLE campaign slogan.
Honestly, the one things that did give me pause about her executive abilities is how incompetent some aspects of her campaigns were.
I'll agree that Bernie's ideas were far left. Really, I think basically everyone heard "free healthcare; free college" and made their decisions based on that, either on the "we need that" side or the "we don't want to pay for that" side, but basically every discussion I had with someone about him early in the election boiled down to that message. I think Sanders' heart was ultimately in the right place, but as an example, I don't think he would have been much better dealing with North Korea than Trump, just in the polar opposite direction of his policy consisting entirely of asking nicely to cease using uranium in his missile tests, and if not that's totally fine too because we don't want to hurt his feelings.
If you have a chance to take a look at some of the archived Slashdot discussions about Hillary's e-mail server debacle, yes the news outlets took it in a ridiculous direction, but there was far more to it. First off, the fact that she individually selected e-mails for submission instead of turning over the server wholesale showed her as being 'above the law' - if you or I had an e-mail server that was the subject of an investigation, we'd never see it again. When asked if she wiped it, her response of "with a cloth?" showed either a problematic level of ignorance for someone in a position to be making policy on topics of net neutrality, cyber terrorism, right-to-repair, DMCA extensions, and whether Apple should be compelled to put a back door in iOS, or Hillary was being willfully dismissive of something that ultimately happened. Then, she has the e-mails printed and shipped, thus removing header information and other relevant data, and being obtuse about the investigation? As much as I loathe the "nothing to hide" argument, I'll give an exception for someone looking to be POTUS - it would have been in her best interest for her to hand over the server, have everyone see there was nothing there, and have that as ammo to use against the people performing the witch hunt...unless, of course, she wasn't as innocent as she claimed.
As for her bad relationship with the media, sure, some of it is playing the game , but a lot of it is self-inflicted. If you can't roll with the punches, you're only going to get airtime by people who love you and people who hate you. Hillary was never one to speak in interviews about areas where there was common ground with her opponents, except in the "we need to work together" context used by every politician, which frequently involved polarizing topics and never seemed to involve concessions to try and get even the moderates to try and get on board to get something done. This goes hand in hand with her inability to get the coherent message situation under control; most of her message was centered around identity politics. "First woman president" was an oft-touted thing that she brought to the table regardless of whether it was relevant. I would argue that this paradigm is what made the "I'm with her" slogan make sense - it was less about policy and more about identity. By extension, it made her a tough sell for those who didn't share that identity.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by dinfinity · 2018-02-07 06:15 · Score: 1

First, his ideas were far-left
Which ones? Because besides people pretending and clamoring that they were, I've heard very little actual reasoning as to why they were particularly 'far'-left.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-07 06:52 · Score: 1

Your ability to refute factual evidence and logical prowess are lacking to the point of comedy, and it would remain comedy if you would only keep your opinions to yourself.
But you post here and get up-modded +5 for what is clearly either a fictitious story or an extreme outlier, so I posted to give you some exposure to an actual conservative who has disliked Hildabeast and her rapist husband since 1992. Sorry for your obvious discomfort.
On second thought, maybe your story is 100% true, and your conservative friends were just being polite when they avoided the subject of Hillary Clinton because you are a rabid alt leftie who can't handle a real political discussion without devolving to name calling...

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by drinkypoo · 2018-02-07 07:42 · Score: 1

Bernie was a fantastic speaker but he had three big flaws. First, his ideas were far-left, even for the Democratic party, that really can scare off voters.
You're engaging in the same quality of thinking as the Democratic party. His far-left ideas were precisely the reason why people wanted to vote for him. It's why many of us who have been independents for years bothered to register so that we could vote in their primary. It's why he could have beaten Trump, like the polls showed. And the polls showed that Clinton couldn't. There were literally people who wound up voting for Trump because they want to crash the system, or at least shake it up, who would have voted for Sanders. I'd love to know what percentage of the vote they were; the anecdotes stacked up to the point that I suspect it was measurable.

Two, he was naive in the sense that he oversold how much he could get accomplished.
What? That's what presidential candidates do. Trump did it. Was he naive, or playing to the crowd? Clinton didn't do it. She basically told coal miners they were fucked. Sanders told us we could all not be fucked. Trump told them they could not be fucked. Only one of these things is not like the others for people like coal miners.

Three, a lot of his policy was very hand-wavy, now some of that was Clinton denying him top-end advisors, but he didn't have the same policy chops.
That's really part of #2. But even if we take it as a separate point, as president he would have been in position to hire a lot of people who were working for Clinton; they wouldn't be working for her any more, after all.

The Democratic party really did shoot itself in the ass by intentionally hamstringing Bernie.
This was a big mistake, I don't know if Bernie would have won,
The polls said he would.

but Clinton never really learned how to win a competitive race. She played defence the whole time against Bernie instead of defining herself or establishing a vision, and bringing that to the general election is what cost her.
She didn't need to define herself, because we all knew what she was: the "business as usual" candidate. The problem is, most people want change. You can't run on the "we will keep doing what we are doing" platform and expect to win. That is a losing game unless everyone is happy. Maybe you can get away with it in one of these Nordic countries with high levels of happiness and life satisfaction, but not here.
I forget what the exact numbers are, but ISTR that something like 75% of the US population claims to want change, but we re-elect the incumbent about 95% of the time. (Maybe more?) Presumably, this is mostly due to partisan politics, at least where it is not the result of gerrymandering.

Republicans (and Russians) were rooting for Bernie because they thought he'd be the weaker candidate in the general election. They may have been wrong, but it's not obvious they were.
Again, I don't know what percentage it actually was, but a vocal segment of registered republicans wanted Sanders for president. When he did not appear on the ballot, it's safe to assume most of them voted for not-Clinton.
TL;DR: Polls said Sanders could beat Trump, and polls said Clinton could not, and the DNC decided that (against the wishes of registered democrats) they would run Clinton. The rest is the horrifying present.

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by Optic7 · 2018-02-07 09:32 · Score: 1

Someone manipulated things to make Hillary and the DNC so vilified that these emotion-driven voters, feeling betrayed and upset, flipped from Bernie to his polar opposite. I think it just goes to show how little Americans actually pay attention to policies during an election.
I think that you missed a critical connection between Bernie and pre-election Trump that indicates that little to no manipulation of Bernie supporters was necessary. Something that would have appealed to a large overlapping section of the voters for both is that they both focused on the fact that middle- and lower-income Americans had been shafted economically by several decades of administrations from both parties. Then they both emphasized their intention to move boldly to change this trend at every opportunity. This was the main focus of both Bernie and Trump in their campaigns.
Bernie outlined specific plans, while Trump kept repeating his intention, but with plans and statements that shifted within hours. Still, I think a lot of people just appreciated the fact that Trump focused on this issue. This is in contrast to Hillary, who espoused basically the same ideas of the last several decades, which people rightly associated with getting shafted economically.
Long story short is that there was a lot more overlap between Bernie's and Trump's message than what you seem to acknowledge. It's no surprise that people who cared a lot more about the economic issues than the social issues (racism, sexism, etc) and were gullible enough to fall for Trump's stone cold lying flipped from Bernie to Trump.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by tsotha · 2018-02-07 10:47 · Score: 1

Still anecdotal, but I miss the rational Republicans. Long time since I've spoken to one.
I feel the same way about Democrats. Democrats around me seem to believe a president who was a tiny bit left of center his entire political life, who donated to Hillary Clinton's campaign in 2008, who put women in powerful positions in his corporate empire, is somehow the next coming of Hitler. Literally. Like, they literally believe Trump is poised to disband Congress and rule by diktat.
So cry me a river.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by quantaman · 2018-02-07 12:02 · Score: 1

If you have a chance to take a look at some of the archived Slashdot discussions about Hillary's e-mail server debacle, yes the news outlets took it in a ridiculous direction, but there was far more to it. First off, the fact that she individually selected e-mails for submission instead of turning over the server wholesale showed her as being 'above the law' - if you or I had an e-mail server that was the subject of an investigation, we'd never see it again.
I think that part was actually properly done. Initially it wasn't an investigation, it was just 'sort out the emails'. The rule is that when you use a private account for something you're responsible for sorting them out and giving the government your official emails.

When asked if she wiped it, her response of "with a cloth?" showed either a problematic level of ignorance for someone in a position to be making policy on topics of net neutrality, cyber terrorism, right-to-repair, DMCA extensions, and whether Apple should be compelled to put a back door in iOS, or Hillary was being willfully dismissive of something that ultimately happened.
She was an old lady, I don't mind that she was ignorant about technology, a POTUS doesn't have to be knowledgeable about everything. Though it is concerning that she didn't recognize the importance of the issue and get up to speed.

it would have been in her best interest for her to hand over the server, have everyone see there was nothing there, and have that as ammo to use against the people performing the witch hunt...unless, of course, she wasn't as innocent as she claimed.
Here I disagree. The GOP and Fox News were doing everything they could to find or create dirt. Do you really want your worst enemies digging through your personal email looking for ammo?
Her best strategy was to release as little as possible, it was just a strategy that wasn't well executed.

"First woman president" was an oft-touted thing that she brought to the table regardless of whether it was relevant. I would argue that this paradigm is what made the "I'm with her" slogan make sense - it was less about policy and more about identity. By extension, it made her a tough sell for those who didn't share that identity.
The problem was two fold. First, it seemed egotistical because instead of making her campaign about a message or a value it made it about her individually. Second, saying "I'm with her" really emphasizes the idea that you're following a woman, and even for a very forward thinking guy it sounds kinda dorky. It's basically daring guys to be a little bit misogynist.

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by quantaman · 2018-02-07 16:25 · Score: 1

Sanders represented something new, at least in living memory; a politician who wants to help people, and who knows Washington.
I don't know, I still remember a guy named Obama.
Sure he went in a little naive, but he certainly knew Washington by his second term. And I think he was easily as empathetic and idealistic as Sanders, as competent as Clinton, and a better speaker than either.
The problem Obama discovered is that the simple response to "yes we can" is "no, we won't let you".
I think Clinton played the game well enough that she could have circumvented Republican resistance, probably better than Obama.
Sanders was not good at the game, he wasn't even able to stop the DNC from turning on him. If he won the Presidency I think the GOP would have eaten him alive.

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by werepants · 2018-02-08 03:53 · Score: 1

Has had numerous people murdered, including Vince Foster, Jim McDougal and Ron Brown. The Clintons are clearly mob connected and have had numerous people killed: http://lasvegas.cbslocal.com/2...
Do you realize just how susceptible you are to fake news? This study is about you, and the kind of conspiracy theories you subscribe to. Honestly, your posts start out semi-rational, but then you just devolve into full-out lunacy.
Here's a measure for you: do you believe the sexual assault allegations against Trump less than, as much as, or more than the allegations against Bill Clinton? Your answer to that will reveal whether you are a mindless partisan or someone who attempts to evaluate evidence rationally.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-08 06:32 · Score: 2

I along with most conservatives have no illusions about Trump. He has had multiple affairs and slept around quite a bit. However, I give exactly zero credence to any women who were happy to say nothing for years after the event (even though it was consentual, many women regret one night stands after the fact and there are tens of thousands of cases where they have falsely accused rape to varying degrees of success for myriad reasons including regret, revenge, mental instability, etc.)
However, to wait until someone from the alt left came by with a monetary offer (or until your partner is president) to claim sexual assault taints any the claims beyond credibility. To be fair minded, men and women have sex, a lot more than most people want to admit, and if you don't go to the police immediately (assuming you are not physically restrained from doing so), IMO you had a consentual sexual relationship and you should be barred from ever making a claim.
Classical feminism wanted parity between men and women, that also means equal responsibility for having consentual sex, regardless of how you feel about it or the other person the next day, week, year or decade.
It is so bad these days that most college campuses require some kind of recorded consent to prevent this kind of baseless after the fact accusation.
Allegations years later any reason should be suspect by critical thinkers and should be made illegal if made for monetary gain. http://thehill.com/homenews/ad...
With Bill Clinton, several of the sexual assault and misconduct allegations were made and confirmed shortly after the act.

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by werepants · 2018-02-08 07:42 · Score: 1

I along with most conservatives have no illusions about Trump.
To me, it sounds like you have plenty of illusions about your guy, and total gullibility regarding the other guy. Which seem to fit exactly with your preconceptions regarding political parties.
There are lots of reasons for not reporting a crime immediately - fear of retaliation, confusion, shame at being a victim, a reluctance to begin the drama of a criminal trial. It seems to me that a much more objective view is that men with power tend to use it to get sex, and that where there are accusers, Occam's razor says that the most likely result is that the accuser is being truthful. And for any financial incentive for reporting, there is at least as much financial incentive for keeping quiet (there's clear use of hush money with Stormy Daniels, and that wasn't even criminal).
There are MANY, MANY men in power who are loathed by both the left and the right, and yet we only see accusations of sexual assault for a small (but troublingly significant) subset. GWB was loathed by the left, but we never saw any accusations of sexual crimes. Obama was loathed by the right, yet nobody claimed improper sexual behavior. Trump has a history of words, behaviors, and reports suggesting he's a sexual criminal, full stop. Anybody who says otherwise is a shameless partisan.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by shanen · 2018-02-08 09:20 · Score: 1

Why did you waste the time to write that totally unpersuasive post? I'm trying to imagine some flavor of the honest person who, basically due to projection, can't recognize a liar when he gets most thoroughly Trumped by the YUGEST. Or maybe some kind of rationalized defense against the cognitive dissonance?
Self-contradiction is the lowest level of lying. You don't even have to check the facts to know that at least part of it must be a lie. Just a bit of a logical joke, but self-contradictions are most interesting when one false statement is contradicted by another false statement. Can't do that with pairs of true statements (ceteris paribus).
I actually find it remarkable that #FatNixon contradicts himself so often and so quickly. However it's more remarkable that each of his supporters is convinced Trump is only lying when he disagrees with that supporter's favorite weirdness.

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by shanen · 2018-02-08 10:13 · Score: 1

You seem to be proving my point about the effectiveness of the decades of vilification and demonization? No one is perfect, not Hillary and not even whoever you did vote for, but #FatNixon least of all.
I think I, too, was effected to some degree, but I still saw good and sufficient positive reasons to support Hillary. However even I have to acknowledge that the negative reasons against Trump were heavier. MUCH heavier, and now I feel supported (even vindicated?) by the evidence of a year of AMAZING incompetence and his total failure to learn anything from his YUGE mistakes.

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by shanen · 2018-02-08 10:30 · Score: 1

Basically just an ACK and agreement with the sentiments of both of you, but I would add that the fabulous founders actually did want "No, we won't let you" to be an acceptable response. Not the way the so-called Republicans apply it on Bolshevik principles, but along the lines of "When you don't know what to do, then you probably shouldn't do anything." Their idea was that the government should rationally discuss the options, and when they can achieve a pretty good consensus on how to tackle a problem, then they should go ahead and try, but if there isn't any clear consensus, then it generally wasn't too bad to wait until the problem and the solutions became more clear.
Instead we have reached the point where the ONLY concern of the GOP from day one of Obama's presidency was to stop him. Purely personal and political and to hell with the country and the Constitution. Today's GOP stands for and wants only three things: (1) Partisan politics, (2) Personal power, and (3) Private profits.

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-08 12:01 · Score: 1

"suggesting he is a sexual criminal." And that is the problem right there. There is no actual proof that would stand up in a court of law (or the statue of limitations has long since expired) so all you are engaging in is character assassination, and that is total bullshit and a travesty of legal fairness. This is exactly the reason we have a statue of limitations, but it doesn't go far enough since public persons cannot sue for libel or slander. We MUST make it illegal to make criminal allegations after the statue of limitations has expired (at the least) or fix the damn law regarding liability for libel and slander so that this can actually go to court.
I am not saying that some women may not chose to come forward, that is entirely possible, but that is their choice. They are making a choice, and like the rest of us they have to live with that choice the rest of their lives. If they make that choice, the can't wait 30 years and then come back with totally un-substantiateable, at that point baseless accusations, because at that point it is un-knowable and un-provable if they are true or false, and to have a society based on justice, we can't have that shit.
Trump has had 3 wives and a number of affairs. No one is disputing that. But for women to come out years later to complain is just character assassination by weaponizing past lovers.
And you are at least partly wrong: http://time.com/5019182/george...

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Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by werepants · 2018-02-09 03:41 · Score: 1

And you are at least partly wrong: http://time.com/5019182/george...
In that particular case, there's no real doubt about the groping - he's a well-known lecherous geezer who makes a joke about "David Cop-A-Feel" before grabbing someone's ass, and that was consistent with the claim - he admitted as much and apoligized. It really just proves my point though - that in the vast majority of cases, claims are not manufactured, and when they are, they are usually easy to disprove. (There was one politician where claims were made recently, but he had solid proof that he wasn't even in the same state during the dates in question).
Whether or not something is actionable in a legal sense has nothing to do with whether it is moral or not - a murder is a murder, even 20 years after the fact, and a rape or any other kind of sexual crime continues to be morally wrong, whether it has been 1 year or 30. It's also directly relevant to concerns about the character of political aspirants, or at least it ought to be. It's tragic that the party that used to stand on "family values" and morals has been furiously defending adultery, sexual assault and pedophilia in its candidates.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by tsotha · 2018-02-09 12:46 · Score: 1

I'm amazed you say my post was unpersuasive and then vomit this garbage onto my screen.
Do you not realize you're so comfortably ensconced in your own bubble you can't even see the bubble and think everyone else is projecting. It's sad. It's really sad.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by Uberbah · 2018-02-13 08:05 · Score: 1

Thus, you have a situation where Clinton received an extremely large number of votes, by far the plurality, and managed to lose despite that.

Because there is no such thing as a popular vote for president in the USA. Hillary's margin of "victory" came from two large states that Trump didn't bother to campaign in, CA and NY, because he knew he wasn't going to win them. As opposed to Hillary, who didn't bother to campaign in blueish Rust Belt States that went for Trump in the general.
If the elitists electoral college was jettisoned, Trump would have campaigned in CA and NY, and by the same token a non-stupid Democrat would have campaigned in Texas. Because everyone's vote would have actually counted; it would have been an entirely different race if the rules were entirely different to start with.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by Uberbah · 2018-02-13 08:10 · Score: 1

I'm not saying I believe ALL of the reports, but I definitely believe the consensus of the national security organizations.
You mean the same people who lied you into Iraq? If you want to play Charlie to their Lucy with the football, that's your business. Oh, and there is no consensus and never was.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by Uberbah · 2018-02-13 08:59 · Score: 1

Yes, this! The manipulation of Trump's supporters was so overt that it's mostly uninteresting and just tragic. The manipulation of Bernie supports is the really fascinating thing to me.
As opposed to the mountains of 'schrooms necessary to be a Hillary supporter? This is the woman who said her Iraq vote was a mistake (while blaming Bush) but went on to repeat that same "mistake" in Libya and Syria. This is the woman who spent years being harassed by the GOP and the media for trumped-up scandals on Vince Foster - yet knowing the scrutiny she'd be subjected to, thought it would be a great idea to spend months lying her ass off about being shot at in Bosnia? And to blast the Bush Administration for using private email, only to set up her own private email server within two years?
Serious question time: with Hillary's track record of incompetence, bloodlust and hypocrisy, what business does she have running a Keurig machine, much less a country?
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by Uberbah · 2018-02-13 09:26 · Score: 1

I did the wrong thing -- I voted for Trump. I believed that Trump was much less likely to start another war than Clinton.
Was and still is. Hillary campaigned on shooting down Russian jets in Syria. The fact that you're not a year into a nuclear winter is a pretty good sign you did in fact vote for the "lesser of two evils". Sure, Trump has talked smack about North Korea, but it was Bill Clinton who started the practice invasions of North Korea held every year, which was a huge impetus for North Korea's desire to get nuclear weapons in the first place.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by Uberbah · 2018-02-13 09:27 · Score: 1

Almost every way? How 'bout only one way? He had one message, on the economy. Sure, that's an important one. But I don't recall him speaking with much depth on any other topic.
Neat how willful ignorance works that way.
Re:You have to know your suckers... Er, audience. by Uberbah · 2018-02-13 09:30 · Score: 1

You're talking about a person who thinks a Scandinavian mixed economy model based on the honor system will work with 300+ million people
Why wouldn't it. It's not like your precious capitalism is working for half the country.

and who literally said that "If you're white, you don't know what it's like to be poor"
No, he didn't.

Re:It's really a Treasonous Hillary thing by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 15:58 · Score: 1, Funny

Sexist!

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by shanen · 2018-02-06 16:01 · Score: 1

If I ever got a mod point to give, you'd get one for that. I think you made the main points better than my anecdotes below (which I was apparently composing at the same time).

Right now I'm reading What's the Matter with Kansas? , which covers much of the same territory. A bit dated, but I actually think most of these problems are actually based on the destruction of public education, which started decades ago, back when the rich real estate speculators realized they could cut their own property taxes by reducing the need for school budgets by first of all destroying the public schools.

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Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 16:01 · Score: 3, Informative

Who accused him of anything he didn't do? Obstructing justice is a felony. By any account he's more guilty of that than Nixon.

Trump isnt a Russian spy... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 16:03 · Score: 4, Insightful

Trump isn't a Russian spy... He is a dupe, a sucker, a useful idiot for Putin. He's gone from mere dupe to a willful participant though.

Trump's a chump. How are those coal mining jobs? Pennsylvania hiring tens of thousands of coal miners yet? Guess Trump isn't the sucker. He got his.

Re:Trump isnt a Russian spy... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 16:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

Man I can't wait until the 2020 election... where Trump & Co pay an ex foreign spy for dirt on the opposition, provided by a second foreign nation... then use the official apparatuses of government to spy on the campaign. Worst case, all they get is a few charges related to lying to the FBI (which is rather tricky for most to do if the interview goes broad enough).
Sure, there will be screams of despotism, fascism, etc... and all Trump has to do is say "Funny how you were ok with it when Obama did it to me? Shame about that Overton window... Thanks Obama!"
Re: Trump isnt a Russian spy... by Reverend+Green · 2018-02-06 22:02 · Score: 2, Funny

Anti-Trump trolls sure do have a lot of pent-up homosexual feelings.
Re:Trump isnt a Russian spy... by Hal_Porter · 2018-02-06 22:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

Laundering the funds for Steele through a law firm broke campaign finance laws too.

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Re:Except for the Fact that Leftist CNN.... by Zurkeyon3733 · 2018-02-06 16:06 · Score: 1

When you have them on camera with 2 reporters FAKING a Split Screen dual-location Shot, not once, but at least 2 different times. THEN you come talk. Till then. You all make us laugh :-P

Re: Except for the Fact that Leftist CNN.... by Zurkeyon3733 · 2018-02-06 16:08 · Score: 1

CNN has been busted faking multi-location split screens in the same parking lot... like 3 times :-) Those asshats are like the Lie report. The ONLY reason to visit that site, is to see what lie they are trying to spin that day. You don't REMOVE your comment section, unless what is being said FRIGHTENS you or your Shareholders.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by amiga3D · 2018-02-06 16:11 · Score: 1, Insightful

And yet WAPO still, to this day, has a twitter post up that says "RUSSIANS hacked US power grid." Despite the fact that it's been admitted, even by them, that they were wrong. In light of the fact that we see MSM outlets give up their integrity and journalistic principals in pursuit of bringing down Trump to the point they've decided the end justifies ANY means at all, you can't blame people for not trusting proven liars.

Re:Except for the Fact that Leftist CNN.... by Zurkeyon3733 · 2018-02-06 16:12 · Score: 1

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=CNN+caugh... There ya go!

Very flawed study by Okian+Warrior · 2018-02-06 16:13 · Score: 3, Informative

Has been busted fabricating news ON VIDEO, no less than 2 DOZEN times in the past decade alone... This "Study" is likely just more leftist BS.

I'm just going through the paper right now, but there's a ton of sketchy and indefensible assumptions.

For example, the study relies on a list of sites known to have fake news, with a "representative article" for each site.

Taking one at random, apparently this news article was enough to get Breitbart listed as a "fake news" site.

The problem is that the article in question is completely and totally accurate, but was probably branded "fake news" because it went against the narrative of many Hillary supporters.

Another entry shows hannity.com, and the link (no longer working at Hannity) was about an undercover journalist who managed to impersonate Huma Abedin at the polling station; effectively, able to vote as someone else.

A quick search shows that this actually happened, it's a Project Veritas sting, and there's a youtube.com video of the incident.

It is immediately apparent that neither of these "representative" articles is fake in any way. I couldn't even find inaccuracies or bad framing in the articles - there's no sound reason to say that these are examples of fakery.

This paper does not at all rise to the level of quality and fact-checking that a published paper should have!

It's nothing more than a leftist hit piece.

Note: Check out the people who post one-line insults as a response to an organized argument with links. To mis-quote Chris Farley: "They're awesome"! :-)

Re:Very flawed study by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 16:23 · Score: 3, Informative

At no point does the paper say that those example URLs are examples of fakery. They're merely members of the set of URLs used in the study. The paper pretty clearly explains that they judged the outlet as a whole on those fakeness criteria.
I mean, you could still disagree with the study authors that breitbart.com and hannity.com are fake news sites. Just don't say that the paper claims that those specific articles are fake, because it doesn't.
Re:Very flawed study by Mr307 · 2018-02-06 17:08 · Score: 1

Yes we get it, 'they judged' so dont think citizen just believe us instead.
I dont care who wrote/said it or what site its on, I only care if its true or not and whether I can determine that for myself.
Yes I admit that over time some sources rise to the top and for convenience I will tend to be preferential because of a history of good results, but each individual thing is still evaluated on that fundamental basis.
I reserve the right to decide for myself and not be told what to think or where to get my information.
Re:Very flawed study by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 19:53 · Score: 1

Yea, for reading comprehension, or lack thereof.
Sites were listed as "fake news" if they matched 3 of 5 criteria outlined by the researchers. They were not classified by the one example URL listed for each.
Re:Very flawed study by AmiMoJo · 2018-02-06 23:01 · Score: 4, Insightful

For example, the study relies on a list of sites known to have fake news, with a "representative article" for each site.
The classification they use is "junk news", not "fake news". They describe the criteria for fake news in the paper, and if you read it carefully you will see that a story being true does not exclude it from also being junk news. It's entirely possible to present the truth in a way that distorts it, for example.
In other words they are not providing you with examples of fake news, they are providing you with the URLs they looked for to collect data on how often sites to junk news were linked to.
They are NOT commenting on the accuracy or truthfulness of the linked articles.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by walterbyrd · 2018-02-06 16:17 · Score: 1

> It is harder to trick college educated people into believing false statements.

Evidence? No, of course not. It's true because somebody said it, and you mindlessly believe it.

I am guessing you went to went to college.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extrem by Wycliffe · 2018-02-06 16:22 · Score: 1

If you believe something that the rest of society disagrees with, that is the definition of extremist.

That's a terrible way of defining extremist. The rest of society once disagreed that the earth rotated around the sun and that slavery was wrong.
There are always going to be fringe beliefs and some of those fringe believes can become mainstream and change the world.
One of the problems with society today is the rampant thought police that try to suppress opinions they disagree with.
Extremists should be defined not on their opinions but on their actions. If someone peacefully wants to say that we should bring back slavery or stop eating meat or that the earth is flat then we should allow them to say it.

Re:Except for the Fact that Leftist CNN.... by Zaelath · 2018-02-06 16:26 · Score: 1

Is that it? Really? That's even more pathetic that I thought it would be.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 16:29 · Score: 1

If I may? I studied at Harvard and MIT. I've *published* with both of them on hardware I designed. And I've worked in the physical trades, construction, security, and ambulance. Brother, college was *not* cheap for me. I am personally as tough as hell to fool or lie to because I've been on both sides o the town/gown wall, and I've heard what the expert bullshit artists on both sides say. And yes, I can still be fooled. It takes different techniques for the townies than the gownies. But yeah, they (or we, I try to stay in touch with both groups!!) can still be fooled.

And frankly, which is more easily fooled depends on their experience with consequences. If they never suffer consequences because they're got too much money, or because the jails are too full to bother with the piddly stuff they do as kids, well, they don't learn.

"news for nerds stuff that matters" by AbRASiON · 2018-02-06 16:29 · Score: 1, Insightful

"Fake News Sharing"
"Rightwing"
"theguardian.com" (dingdingding)
"extremist"

What does this have to do with Slashdot in any way?
I never thought I would advocate the members having the ability to up or downvote submissions but would someone PLEASE
_*_*_*PLEASE*_*_*_ get rid of the editors /moderators / owners who continue to approve this endless political stuff here.

If I wanted to be tugged to the left or the right, I'd have continued posting on twitter or facebook, or some parts of Reddit.

I come here for the lack of that idiocy, for tech news, for comments from seasoned old IT workers with great tales, for futuristic cool stuff.

I AM TIRED OF RUSSIAN STORIES
I AM TIRED OF "ALT-RIGHT!!" stories

Stop.
STOP.

Re:"news for nerds stuff that matters" by modmans2ndcoming · 2018-02-06 16:53 · Score: 1

Translation:
I am tired of stories that disrupt my false world view!
Re:"news for nerds stuff that matters" by AbRASiON · 2018-02-06 17:06 · Score: 3, Insightful

I don't come here for that stuff in the first place, I don't care for your reply, I don't care for your message or your tone, I'm not here for divisionist political crap. US VS THEM!
The entire internet has become nothing but a battleground the last few years and it's ridiculous, I'm here for /stuff that matters/ catered to /news for nerds/ not news for political science graduates or arts students.
This is slashdot for goodness sakes.
Not the daily stormer or huffingtonpost.
Groan.
Re:"news for nerds stuff that matters" by bongey · 2018-02-06 17:58 · Score: 1

They don't care they want the click bait stories to piss off the long time slashdot readers, unfortunately we are slowly reading less and less and this site will die.
Re:"news for nerds stuff that matters" by Howitzer86 · 2018-02-06 19:27 · Score: 1

If you use Reddit, you can subscribe to tech related subreddits and install the Reddit Enhancement Suite to filter out news you don't want to see. That should more than replace Slashdot, and provided you don't read the comments you should feel pretty safe there.
Re:"news for nerds stuff that matters" by AmiMoJo · 2018-02-07 00:59 · Score: 1

We build this incredible tool for communication. Now it's destroying our democracies. We have to figure out how to use it for good, to make our democracies better, not worse.
This is extremely relevant to news for nerds and stuff that matters. Understanding the nature of the problem is key to finding a solution.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC

We already knew this by rsilvergun · 2018-02-06 16:30 · Score: 1, Interesting

one of the chief purveyors of the stuff during the last pres election lamented the fact that he couldn't use the same tactics with the left because the stories got debunked too fast. He wasn't interested in politics, just the ad revenue from all the sharing on Facebook & the like. He tried it with the left and it'd get debunked & shut down before he made any real money off the adverts.

The real question is how do you get the right wing folks to stop voting for stuff like trickle down economics so they'll stop thinking of themselves as a bunch of temporarily inconvenienced millionaires. Bottom line, the right is unified. They want low taxes, no regulations and religion in government. The left is just a mess. It's a lose group of Unionists, socialists, Feminists, Gun Control advocates and a hundred other things the right oppose. Folks like Bernie Sanders needs to crack the right's strong coalition if they want to get anywhere with policy. They need to get folks to start voting with their wallet instead of their gut.

--
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Re:We already knew this by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 19:41 · Score: 1

Agreed. The states with the smallest populations are the most productive, patriotic, and God fearing. If you could rake the earth of our largest cities and reform their populations into an agrarian lifestyle you'll start to see some *real progress* in the world.
Re:We already knew this by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-06 21:15 · Score: 1, Interesting

Please feel free to link to this guy and his actual posts. There is a shit ton of innuendo and junk from the left on all the fake right wing news, but I haven't actually seen any concrete examples with numbers of either revenue or shares indicating the reach of these fake news stories.
This study out of Oxford used a bunch of conservative websites, but as was indicated above, the stories they cite as junk (not fake mind you, but junk) turn out to be 100% accurate and legitimate news that apparently the alt left hacks at Oxford don't agree with... https://politics.slashdot.org/...
While it might give the alt left warm fuzzies to think they are smarter than conservatives, the facts, at least in this case, just don't support it. And furthermore, if you believed this Oxford study, you would be the one believing in fake news...

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Re:We already knew this by AmiMoJo · 2018-02-07 01:11 · Score: 1

the stories they cite as junk (not fake mind you, but junk) turn out to be 100% accurate
You came so close to figuring it out. They are not saying that the stories are necessarily untrue (some are, some aren't), they are saying that the site itself is junk news. They actually define junk news in the paper.
Even when sites like the Infowars happen to say something that is true, that doesn't mean the site itself isn't junk news. It doesn't make all the other stuff on the site true, or less biased, or less deceptive.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Re:We already knew this by kz45 · 2018-02-07 04:55 · Score: 1

" They actually define junk news in the paper."
Right. Painting an entire site with the same broad brush.
"Even when sites like the Infowars happen to say something that is true, that doesn't mean the site itself isn't junk news. "
If that's the case, nearly all news sites are 'junk news'. I've seen junk articles on nearly every news site, mainstream and independent.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by RazorSharp · 2018-02-06 16:31 · Score: 1

Somehow blue collar workers are just less smart than college educated people. Pure nonsense.

It depends. If one means that blue collar workers are "less smart" in the sense that they have less academic potential than college educated people, then I would disagree. Most people, college educated or not, have a lot of untapped intellectual potential. Inherent intelligence has less to do with our intellectual accomplishments than hard work and opportunity. The college educated usually tap into more of their intellectual potential because that's the whole point of college.

Therefore, it wouldn't be incorrect to say that blue collar workers tend to be "less smart" in the sense that they don't tend to be well educated.

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"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."

depends on how you define fake news by Karmashock · 2018-02-06 16:32 · Score: 2

for example, the Russia collusion story... fake or real? Some will say real... some will say fake. Which is it? There's no evidence but it could be real... it could also be fake.

The problem here is that you have dueling narratives and what is real or not is often not relevant to anyone. We've found this with all the political factions.

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Re:depends on how you define fake news by Bobrick · 2018-02-06 16:36 · Score: 1

No evidence? Are you fucking serious?
Re:depends on how you define fake news by modmans2ndcoming · 2018-02-06 16:55 · Score: 1

The Russian Collusion story...plenty of evidence but douche bags on the right pretend it is fake with their fake news propaganda for dip shits to keep living the Orwellian dream.
Re:depends on how you define fake news by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 17:07 · Score: 1

Like this evidence?
Re:depends on how you define fake news by bug_hunter · 2018-02-06 18:41 · Score: 4, Insightful

> for example, the Russia collusion story... fake or real? Some will say real... some will say fake. Which is it? There's no evidence but it could be real... it could also be fake.
Well to say there was guaranteed collusion from Trump is fake, or at least currently unverifiable.
To say there's proof of Trump being blackmailed due to Russian prostitutes is baseless.
However all the following are verifiable:
There's an ongoing investigation into the matter by the FBI.
That Trump's form National Security advisor Michael Flynn pleased guilty to lying to the FBI about discussions with the Russian Ambassador.
That Trump Junior was happy to meet with Russians for dirty on Hillary without thinking of the consequences.
If it turns out Trump is innocent on any collusion, or only guilty of minor misconduct because he didn't stop and think, it wont have made most stories about it "fake".
Normally fake news (by its pre-Trump usage) is so fake it's painful, e.g. pizzagate.

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It's turtles all the way down.
Re:depends on how you define fake news by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 20:17 · Score: 2, Informative

See this is where it's proven fake news. Trump junior meets with a lawyer in the US to receive freely offered information he didn't get, apparently illegal according to everyone on the left. At the same time, Hillary hires a foreign spy to pay for information from Russian government officials, completely magically legal because reasons. When the left is howling for both of them to be locked up, I'll agree there might be something wrong with what Trump's team did.
Also, wasn't Trump's electoral team being wiretapped fake news, right up until it wasn't?
In general, republicans no longer believe your "rational" sources, because they've been caught helping Hillary cheat the nomination away from Bernie, cheat in the debates, and have repeatedly been caught lying about Trump, and won't touch the stories that will make or break our nation, like a sitting president using the DOJ/FBI to spy on the other team's people during an election. We know these things happened, without a doubt, yet the left are still spinning it as something "normal people can't understand" (that's from Pelosi, who thinks Republicans should just shut up and trust her for some reason).
Re:depends on how you define fake news by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 23:39 · Score: 2, Informative

> That Trump Junior was happy to meet with Russians for dirty on Hillary without thinking of the consequences.
Which is funny because the DNC was just pranked by some Russian radio hosts in the same way and he was all to eager to get naked photos of Trump.
I'm sure someone will cry "fake news" but there are recordings. His claim is that he didn't actually fall for it and that he reported it, but that seems a bit off.
Re:depends on how you define fake news by Archangel+Michael · 2018-02-07 07:26 · Score: 1

1) Investigation doesn't indicate guilt or innocent. However, if the implication is that investigation indicates something nefarious, then by all means, why was Hillary even allowed to run for President, while being investigated (and exonerated at the same time)? I'm just trying to figure out by what standard does an investigation mean anything or nothing. It seems to me that it all depends on which side your sitting.
2) Michael Flynn plead guilty to lying under oath. The rest is actually irrelevant, as there was no crime actually committed. Or else you'd point to that. Call it the Scooter Libby conviction. It doesn't matter that they were innocent of the crimes they were supposedly accused of.
3) A Russian Lawyer (not the "Russians). The same Russian Lawyer who is tied to Fusion GPS, and the whole Russian Dossier thing, going back to REAL Russian sources, bought and paid for by Hillary Clinton, and the DNC. You might also ask who approved her Visa application to come to the US.
What is fake news is the ongoing repeated repetitions of Russia Trump Collusion that was daily fodder in the news, that was one sided with scant if any evidence. IT was a narrative that was being pushed, and that was about it.

--
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Re:depends on how you define fake news by Uberbah · 2018-02-13 05:05 · Score: 1

Did you even read what you just typed?
Did you? Not only did Hillary do exactly what Democrats have accused Trump of doing, she paid for it. This is a classic case of Swiftboating - accusing your opponent of something you are far more guilty of.

Re:Except for the Fact that Leftist CNN.... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 16:35 · Score: 1

There are comment sections in: The NY Times, the Washington Post, Slate, Salon, Huffington Post. Those are just the ones I can name off the top of my head - I'm sure there are more.

Your research skills leave a bit to be desired.

Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 16:35 · Score: 5, Informative

Wanting the FBI Director to go easy on investigating his crony, and firing him when he refused to pledge loyalty.

Bragging to a foreign power (***Russians***) that firing the FBI director lifted a weight off his shoulders

Wanting to fire the NEXT FBI Director when it became clear the investigations were reaching closer to his inner circle.

And I won't go into the sordid details about Sessions.

And the kicker is, its not even just about obstruction. Follow the Russian money, through Deutsche Bank, to various Trump Organization entities. Ok, you dont have to, Mueller is.

All this idiotic "there is no proof of collusion/crime" is either willful ignorance or desperate pleading. Do you think a smart prosecutor/investigator reveals his/her intentions or evidence before an indictment is ready? Not everyone has the self-discipline or neediness of a 4 year old boy.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by LynnwoodRooster · 2018-02-06 16:41 · Score: 3, Informative

We spend more than any other OECD country on K-12 education - and our students typically end up near the middle, or in the bottom half. Spending != performance, at least in the US.

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Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!

Re: Reality has a well-known liberal bias by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 16:41 · Score: 1

If that were actually true then why are lefties always engaging in 'resistance' and 'revolution', and pushing for 'change' and 'progress'? Reality leans to the right. That's why the left is constantly engaged in 'struggles'. They're fighting against reality, which is not on their side.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 16:46 · Score: 1, Insightful

None of this is obstruction of justice. You either don't understand the concept, or more likely are purposefully ignorant.

There continues to be no evidence of "Russian Collusion". You cannot, by definition, obstruct justice when you did not commit a crime. It requires malicious intent, which does not exist without the crime in the first place.

Once you have proof of a "crime of collision" then we can talk. Until then, you're just another fucking moron who got tricked by the biggest fake news story in history.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extrem by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 16:48 · Score: 5, Interesting

That's not what he's saying, really.

The point is that people with higher education usually gets far more training in critical thinking, rhetoric and generally gets a wider view on things. It's like standing on an elevated platform, looking at the world as opposed to looking through a periscope. Being on a mental submarine doesn't mean you're stupid, it means your view on the world outside is limited.

There's also a second point to be made, which is that people with higher educations probably generally are more manipulative and dishonest than people without, have better understanding of the weaknesses of human reasoning and better tools to exploit them. As such they tend to be more cynical about the motives of other people. I remember from my own education actually being encouraged to deliberately use fallacies, half truths etc to "win" the debates, something I found thoroughly disgusting. Again, this doesn't mean people with higher educations are all liars, it means they have been educated in a different world. Some found the thought repulsive and don't argue that way. Others revelled in it, and the worst of them seem to work for oil and coal companies and right wing politicians these days.

Speaking of that; Have you thought about how none of the people heralded as "the heroes of the average Joe", the people who supposedly will make "America great again" all have higher education, and in fact usually all have been borne with a silver spoon in their mouth, while the reviled "leftists" usually have some sort of connection to the common people? How can that be?

Food for thought.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by h33t+l4x0r · 2018-02-06 16:50 · Score: 1

It is harder to trick college educated people into believing false statements.

That doesn't explain the willful ignorance of Trump's college-educated administration. Trump himself somehow went from a democrat who got news from reliable sources to a Fox News bubble viewer.

So... were the sites used to test... by Izuzan · 2018-02-06 16:51 · Score: 1

Evenly distributed between left leaning and right leaning sites ? or is there a distinct bias to one side or the other. being someone that follows both. both sides are more than guilty of pushing news that is easily debunked and the number of people being led by the nose by this news is about equal.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by zieroh · 2018-02-06 16:53 · Score: 4, Insightful

No? They are certainly democrats, and not moderate democrats by any stretch.

This is completely unsupported by the actual facts. The FBI is overwhelmingly conservative and Republican, both the rank & file and the leadership. This has been true for many years. To claim otherwise is probably a side effect of the cognitive dissonance you are currently experiencing.

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People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.

Fascinating by Brett+Buck · 2018-02-06 16:56 · Score: 1

I can see the Slashdot echo chamber is working particularly well today.

Re:Fascinating by Kielistic · 2018-02-07 07:00 · Score: 2

Have you ever considered that there are a lot of people that think the things you post are stupid? (I sure think you do.) You are very quick to handwave away any criticism you receive as just trolling. Maybe people have just finally written you off as a troll and ignore you now?

Re:Except for the Fact that Leftist CNN.... by zieroh · 2018-02-06 16:58 · Score: 2, Insightful

Says the Anonymous Coward :-D

Okay, I'll bite. I'm not an anonymous coward, and I think you're a fucktard too. Also, you're incredibly gullible. The sooner you admit that to yourself, the better off you'll be.

CNN was SO afraid of the Comment section... They removed it ENTIRELY.

Lots of websites have removed their comment section. Mostly because of the fucktards.

Isn't that Funny?

It's more of a statement about how persistent fucktards can be.

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People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 17:04 · Score: 1

Here's a study from Oct 2016 showing relative percentages of donations from federal workers, broken down by candidate and department.

97% of donations from the Department of Justice went to Hillary.
84% from the Department of Defense went to Hillary.
Every other department was around 90% Hillary.

Conclusion: The actual facts show that you're full of shit.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by hey! · 2018-02-06 17:06 · Score: 5, Interesting

First of all, what makes you an extremist -- left or right -- is being unable to see any validity in points of view that differ even modestly from yours. This means extremists have trouble perceiving any middle ground... or even middle-shading ground. Either you agree with them completely, or you are not a true liberal or conservative in their eyes.

Extremists subscribe to sets of ideas rather than think for themselves. If you want to know whether you truly think for yourself, ask yourself, "do I really fit in with the people who usually agree with me?" If the answer is "yes", you probably don't.

Secondly, a college education is only an opportunity to learn critical thinking, one that relatively few people take advantage. I see no evidence that college educated people as a body think more critically about news sources than blue collar people. Someone who is inclined to genuine skepticism will that hone mindset with more education, but someone inclined to be credulous will go through whatever motions he needs to graduate, and come out as intellectually defenseless as he went in.

People are not demographic robots. There are sharp-witted janitors and fools with PhDs (morosophs). Had their opportunities in life been switched the world might be a better place.

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Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by hey! · 2018-02-06 17:07 · Score: 1

Well, I don't know about that, but I'm a liberal who finds the WaPo unsatisfying, because it's too predictable.

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Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by Solandri · 2018-02-06 17:09 · Score: 3, Insightful

It is harder to trick college educated people into believing false statements.

It is harder to trick people with experience in a topic into believing false statements about that topic. Come up with seductive false statements about blue collar jobs, and college educated people will believe it just as easily as blue collar workers will believe seductive false statements about white collar jobs. Likewise, after having managed and run businesses for 10 years, I've found many college graduates and academics with no real-world business experience to be astonishingly naive in their beliefs about how business works.

The problem isn't primarily lack of education as you've concluded. The problem is once people want to believe something (like believing education is the primary distinguishing factor), they stop being objective. Once they want to believe something, they've already decided a certain conclusion is desirable. Any evidence they see will be filtered through that desire. Conforming data will be accepted with little to no skepticism. Contradictory data will be sifted with a fine-toothed comb and the tiniest flaw will be seen as permission to disbelieve the whole thing even if that flaw has minimal impact on its veracity. You're supposed to review the data, and use it to reach a conclusion. But it's human nature to jump to a conclusion, then pick out the data which supports that conclusion.

Very few people I've met are honest enough with themselves to accept contradictory data at face value. Real world experience is one of the few things that can force people to accept contradictory data, and usually they still need to be kicked in the pants by it several times before they'll start to accept that it might actually be correct. Education based on that experience can be useful, but outside of STEM I've found a lot of education is just selecting and presenting the subset of data which supports the viewpoint the instructor believes.

What left wing? by AnthonywC · 2018-02-06 17:10 · Score: 1

There is no real left or right in US politics, at least not anymore in recent memory. They are both in bed with the corporation and deep state. I think it was CIA that reported the last real left-leaning US president was Jimmy Carter.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by Oligonicella · 2018-02-06 17:13 · Score: 1

You might want to watch a few videos of college students signing petitions against dihydrogen monoxide, disagreeing with Obama SOTU statements when they believe they're from Trump, and other choice bits showing college students are anything but "harder to trick" into believing false statements.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 17:14 · Score: 2, Insightful

EXACTLY,

Simply wanting something does NOT constitute a crime!

Yes, the poster is a moron.

Re:Except for the Fact that Leftist CNN.... by Mashiki · 2018-02-06 17:14 · Score: 1, Insightful

Lots of websites have removed their comment section. Mostly because of the fucktards.

Really? It seems that most sites have removed comment sections because the comment sections would point out contradictory or incorrect information that the site was presenting. Want a couple of good examples? NPR. They even pushed the narrative that removing the comment section would *increase* the quality of the news. During the brexit campaign, the telegraph.co.uk went out of their way with heavy-handed moderation against anyone who corrected their narrative on UKIP and brexit in general then shut theirs down too. The CBC pulled something similar, now they only allow comments on articles that push very specific agendas and will shut down comments in 30 mins to 1hr sometimes especially when people point out that it's either a lie, or them pushing an ideological agenda.

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Om, nomnomnom...

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by Mr307 · 2018-02-06 17:16 · Score: 2

This is true, actually. And that kind of skill is to be commended. But it's not the same as critical thinking.

Surely you are not suggesting that only so called educated people engage in critical thinking every day just doing their jobs day in day out? Let alone just navigating life in general.

I think that would be a silly thing to say.

A new strategy emerges. by Gravis+Zero · 2018-02-06 17:22 · Score: 2

It seems to me that the promotion of conspiracy theories and fake news will play a larger part in future elections. I can easily see it being used to drive a wedge between the hard right and the primary candidate of the right. By driving a portion of their voters to someone with no chance of winning (e.g. a Libertarian candidate), Democrats could make it far easier to win elections due in part to the first-past-the-post voting.

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Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.

Re:A new strategy emerges. by AHuxley · 2018-02-06 19:43 · Score: 1

What "promotion of conspiracy theories and fake news"?
One candidate can travel the USA and give speeches that people are interested in.
The other candidate stays in the coastal states and gives short press statements to the tame party political media.
The election shows the candidate that traveled the US and gave speeches wins the needed states. No "'conspiracy theories" in been able to do politics and win the needed states.
Listening and talking to real people all over the USA is not some new strategy, not some new idea. Get the votes and win elections.
Want to win? Find a candidate with some charm and energy to give a speech on any topic in different parts of the US.
Talk in positive ways about all of the USA.

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Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Re:A new strategy emerges. by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-06 21:29 · Score: 1

The true fake news (not that which is cited by this study https://politics.slashdot.org/... ) is a symptom of the alt left in the US media completely abandoning the pursuit of the truth and the story no mater where it leads. They have opted instead to further their agenda by any means necessary. Their goal today is to "change the world" the problem is that is not their job, so the people are searching for a new source for news, and they are not willing to let the technocrat pinheads at Google and Facebook dictate the news to them any more than fake news CNN or MSNBC or the alt left academics at Oxford or any other festering atl left cespool university.
The solution to the fake news media is an independent journalism association that evaluates and rates news and outlets based on the facts as known as well as track records of outlets. The evaluation has to be transparent and accountable and based on the simple question of getting the facts right, complete and with background and context. Not reporting major stories would also get a news outlet down rated, as story suppression is tantamount to lying by omission. Politifact and fact check.org started out with that goal, but they have both been completely infiltrated by the alt left, to the point where they are now actually just as bad if not worse with rabid bias than the MSM...
The MSM has no one to blame but themselves for any infiltration of fake news.

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Re:A new strategy emerges. by Gravis+Zero · 2018-02-07 02:19 · Score: 1

the alt left in the US media completely abandoning the pursuit of the truth and the story no mater where it leads. They have opted instead to further their agenda by any means necessary. Their goal today is to "change the world"

You sound like an ideal target for conspiratorial fake news because apparently, reality has a liberal bias. ;)

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Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Re:A new strategy emerges. by Gravis+Zero · 2018-02-07 02:21 · Score: 1

What "promotion of conspiracy theories and fake news"?
Seems like you failed to read even the summary! Bravo! ;)

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Re:A new strategy emerges. by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-07 06:05 · Score: 1

reality has a liberal bias
The last recourse of those caught red handed manipulating the news for their own agenda. First it was "No we don't have a bias" (the left tried that for 20 years) but it is so blatant that something like 75% of the US population now clearly sees the bias, so now this. Only in the alt left bubble would this be viewed as anything but utter irrational BS.
Those of us who deal with reality have a far better BS filter than the atl left sycophants, among other things.

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Re:A new strategy emerges. by penandpaper · 2018-02-07 06:05 · Score: 1

"reality has a liberal bias"
Or is it that 90%+ media are liberals who are biased? You sound like an ideal target for confirmation bias. I would imagine those susceptible to confirmation bias are more apt for conspiratorial fake news.
Re:A new strategy emerges. by Gravis+Zero · 2018-02-07 06:54 · Score: 1

Of course... please resume your screaming about "Chemicals in the water are turning the fucking frogs gay". ;)

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Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Re:A new strategy emerges. by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-07 07:13 · Score: 1

Sorry, that must be a straw man used by the left to demagogue conservatives because I don't even know what you are talking about...

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Re:A new strategy emerges. by werepants · 2018-02-08 05:11 · Score: 1

The solution to the fake news media is an independent journalism association that evaluates and rates news and outlets based on the facts as known as well as track records of outlets. The evaluation has to be transparent and accountable and based on the simple question of getting the facts right, complete and with background and context. Not reporting major stories would also get a news outlet down rated, as story suppression is tantamount to lying by omission. Politifact and fact check.org started out with that goal, but they have both been completely infiltrated by the alt left, to the point where they are now actually just as bad if not worse with rabid bias than the MSM...
Hmm... Except politifact is exactly what you ask for, and when THEY have been rated by outside, third-party organizations, they have done very well. Heck, it's simple to see with a momentary wiki search that they are critical of the left: The 2013 Lie of the Year was Barack Obama's promise that "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it". As evidence, PolitiFact cited 4 million cancellation letters sent to American health insurance consumers.
What if politifact IS generally accurate? What if your side IS based more on mistruths? What would convince you of that? Is there any level of evidence that would ever cause you to question your allegiance to Republicans and hatred of the left?
Re:A new strategy emerges. by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-08 06:09 · Score: 1

Except there is this thing called objective truth and actual facts as well as actual history and context.
When politifact first came out, they were pretty good, but a few years in, they were infiltrated by either Sorros money or just an alt left mentality.
I personally have caught politifact on numerous occasions taking a perfectly legitimate statement by a conservative, twisting the meaning out of context to create a straw man argument that was neither stated nor intended explicitly or in context and then rating that straw man mostly false. After they did that a few times, they lost all credibility in the eyes of those who pay attention including me.

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Re:A new strategy emerges. by werepants · 2018-02-08 07:51 · Score: 1

You've failed to answer the most important question:

Is there any level of evidence that would ever cause you to question your allegiance to Republicans and hatred of the left?
If you can't answer that, then it means that your partisan identity determines your worldview, not facts. The third-party fact-checking organizations you ask for exist, and they show that many Republicans lie more than their counterparts, particularly your boy DJT, who is the least honest politician on record.
Re:A new strategy emerges. by bugs2squash · 2018-02-08 10:08 · Score: 1

isn't that the one between the spacebar and the windows key ?

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Re:A new strategy emerges. by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-08 11:11 · Score: 1

I did answer that, but let me say it again even more slowly:
If after a thorough investigation in a year or two no one is charged and convicted for fabricating the Trump Russia collusion story, then I will assume that there was at least enough evidence to justify the investigation and it was not an abuse of power.
Furthermore, I don't have ANY allegiance to the Republicans, I am a registered independent conservative with strong libertarian leanings (you know, people who used to be the mainstay of the Democratic party back in the 1950s). There are plenty of big government, establishment Republicans that are a problem too. I have principles and ideals I follow, not people or parties. If the Democrats tomorrow switched from their fascist progressive positions to strong libertarian positions, I would probably start voting for them.
Lastly, I don't hate anyone politically. I am sure that Obama was probably a nice guy to have a beer with, and if you don't talk politics, most citizens who identify as left wing are decent enough human beings. However, I have a very dim view of the radical fascist alt left progressives (who are actually totalitarianists, not liberals in the accurate meaning of the word). On a political level I view them as cynical man/woman-childs who are driven by emotion and virtue signaling and group-think within their insular bubbles. I don't want them in government or in power for the same reason I don't want a 6 year old walking around with a gun.

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Re:A new strategy emerges. by Areyoukiddingme · 2018-02-08 12:17 · Score: 1

Sorry, that must be a straw man used by the left to demagogue conservatives because I don't even know what you are talking about...
Not a straw man. A direct quote of Alex Jones, the WWE commentator of right wing politics. He's ranted about gay frogs on his radio show more than once, among many other similar things.
Re:A new strategy emerges. by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-08 12:36 · Score: 1

I had to Google Alex Jones because I had never heard of him. It looks like he has about 400K devout followers and is the nut job straw man punching bag that the alt left trots out to confirm that all 180,000,000 conservatives in the US are crazies. (That's about 0.002% of conservatives) If you think there aren't nut job crazies on the left, I have news for you.
I'm sorry, but if you can't see the problem with that math, I can't help you.

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Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by CrankyFool · 2018-02-06 17:25 · Score: 5, Informative

Impeding an investigation is by itself a crime, irrespective of whether or not the investigation is into a crime that is later proved to be prosecutable, or the prosecution wins. As https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... notes, "If the person willfully and knowingly tried to protect a suspect." Key word here is "suspect". So when Flynn was being investigated -- by definition, a suspect -- Trump attempting to take the heat off of him was "willfully and knowingly" trying to "protect a suspect."

Here's a simple test for news source fakeness. by hey! · 2018-02-06 17:27 · Score: 5, Interesting

Does it routinely issue corrections and retractions? If so it may be biased, but arguably that's unavoidable. It might even be a lousy news source. But at least it's trying to be real news, to get things factually right.

We live in an age when many people have in effect given up on objective reality. That is dangerous. Hannah Arendt, in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism, notes that totalitarian regimes strive to make their subjects gullible and cynical at the same time. Purely cynical people don't go along when you need them to. Gullible people are hard to manage when they realize the truth. But someone who is gullible and cynical at the same time is perfectly tractable and docile.

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Re:Here's a simple test for news source fakeness. by Howitzer86 · 2018-02-06 20:04 · Score: 2

I imagine that it's really easy to be a right winger these days. You wouldn't question God, so why would you question the Party of God? There's only a few people and news outlets you trust, and a single narrative that's shared by them all. If there are any questions, it's answered quickly by The Party. There's no reason to investigate, collect data, or consult specialists - in fact, to do so would mark you as an enemy, or at the very least, someone who has lost his way and needs to get with the program.
Re:Here's a simple test for news source fakeness. by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-06 21:32 · Score: 1

And yet, the Oxford study is demonstrably fake news https://politics.slashdot.org/... , so who again is gullible?

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Re:Here's a simple test for news source fakeness. by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 22:58 · Score: 1

Does it routinely issue corrections and retractions?
If you go by that criterium a lot of "mainstream" media goes out the window. Barely anyone issues anything. Best case, they publish one article and then stealthily edit headlines or contents and pretend nothing happened.
This happens so often that I think it's being done intentionally to draw people in with outrageous clickbait or to spread some talking point, and then later they "fix" the article to maintain a shred of credibility.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by PopeRatzo · 2018-02-06 17:30 · Score: 3, Informative

Surely you are not suggesting that only so called educated people engage in critical thinking every day just doing their jobs day in day out?

It's not about education. It's about political orientation. This peer-reviewed article from Oxford University's Computational Propaganda Project, would seem to indicate, very specifically, that when it comes to fake news, people on the Right are less likely to engage in critical thinking and more likely to "listen and believe". That's not me saying that, it's the study (which you can read here and also learn about their methodology). And that's just the most charitable interpretation. It's also possible that they know the fake news they are sharing is fake, but just don't care.

http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/re...

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Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by PopeRatzo · 2018-02-06 17:32 · Score: 5, Informative

It is amusing to watch, isn't it? First you define anything Republicans like as fake. Then you check to see if Republicans or Democrats absorb more fake news. Of course, your results confirm your selection process.

I know it's heretical to even suggest it, but if you read the (peer-reviewed) article, you will learn that your characterization of this research is completely wrong.

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You are welcome on my lawn.

Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 17:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

I am not a Trump supporter but his election really upset the apple cart. People invested billions in the Presidential election and ended up not getting a ROI on their investments. That tend to piss off the back room power brokers. Clinton understood she was 100% obligated to reward those who paid to get her voted President. 8 years as co-President, serving in the US Senate, and heading up the US State Department taught her how the game is played. Trump's election has reeked havoc by playing a new game. A game where he can say things that a lot of people have wanted to say for some time. Letting US allies across the world know that outsourcing their military protection comes with a price. Making NK understand they are one button push away from having their country totally annihilated. Ridiculing the little "Rocket Man" has also been a novel approach instead of genuflecting to the little fucker and succumbing to NK extortion over the past 50 years. Throwing the annihilation threat on the negotiating table should have happened 50 years ago. At least it finally got China to take their thumbs out and actually enforce the international sanctions. The Chinese are smart enough to know that unlike the US they are well within range of the nuclear fallout. NK today is the result of over 50 years of failed diplomacy that Trump had nothing to do with. A US President publically attaching conditions to US monetary handouts has also been refreshing turn of events. Trumps election also outed the media bias and politically targeted "editorial lines" and removed all doubt about there ability to publish unbiased and fact based news. Trump will be gone in a couple of years but the all the attacks on the Presidential Office will be visited upon Trumps successors. The people who are accusing the President of all types of crimes represent the scariest artifacts of the era we are living in. Their accusations and attacks have abandoned the US Constitution and Bill of Rights. They have shit canned the whole "innocent until proven guilty" idea. The ones normally railing about the FISA court are now embracing that courts actions. There will be no winner when all is said and done.

Read it wrong. by Mr307 · 2018-02-06 17:36 · Score: 1

Another way to read that study is to suggest that one group is looking for the truth more than the other group.

Rather than being told what to think, you may want to sift through more sources and decide for yourself. And then on top of that the inherent assumption that people fully accept everything they are told is false.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by BBF_BBF · 2018-02-06 17:37 · Score: 2

I don't know what pansy college you went to... but most college graduates didn't go to college with "safe zones". On the extreme end of things, the ones that went to a certain American college in late sixties, early seventies were shot at and four were killed by the National Guard for protesting.

The overly PC sentiment among college students and lack of respect for others that disagree with their views is a fairly recent phenomenon.

Re:Reality has a well-known liberal bias by DNS-and-BIND · 2018-02-06 17:38 · Score: 1

That is precisely what living in a bubble looks like. You don't get any outside information and everything you see confirms your existing beliefs. It has long been a truism that a conservative is just a liberal who has been mugged by reality. Why else was Trump such a gargantuan surprise? Liberals were genuinely ignorant of what life was like outside their bubbles.

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Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!

Re: Except for the Fact that Leftist CNN.... by OYAHHH · 2018-02-06 17:39 · Score: 1

You can't get much more fake than having a host of debate feed one side the questions beforehand.

And that is not a "production detail", just ask Bernie Sanders fans.

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I am Jack's absolute lack of surprise by dschiptsov · 2018-02-06 17:40 · Score: 1

An educated person would have a healthy aversion to that kind of utter bullshit which uneducated far-right and conservatives consume on daily basis. Education, among other things, gives one ability to correctly classify, mark and filter out large amounts of bullshit, significantly reducing the burden of being bombarded by lowest quality emotionally charged visual and linguistic bullshit (memes). Simpleminded lower half of a population does not even know that what they take seriously is an utter, primitive bulshit memes, crafted especially for them by those who are a bit smarter.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by shilly · 2018-02-06 17:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

This notion of "real"-ness is really fucking irritating. The shits that blue-collar workers shite are no more or less real than the shits that college-educated workers shite. They stink the same. The same is true of the rest of people's lives. Intelligence is by no means the preserve of the college-educated, but neither is it the preserve of blue-collar workers. Stop spouting cliches and accept the world for what it is: a complex place.

Oxford study is an exercise in navel-gazing by Jane+Q.+Public · 2018-02-06 17:54 · Score: 1

This oxford "study" never bothers to define in any objective way what they mean by "junk news", so what they are "measuring" is completely subjective.

Even worse, their 2 primary references about what constitute "junk news" are papers by some of the same authors, which in turn do not clearly define what "junk news" is.

So we have incestuous junk science trying to lecture us about fake news.

I never thought I'd see 'research' sink this low. And from Oxford... shameful.

Re:Oxford study is an exercise in navel-gazing by sg_oneill · 2018-02-06 19:34 · Score: 1

This oxford "study" never bothers to define in any objective way what they mean by "junk news", so what they are "measuring" is completely subjective.
Even worse, their 2 primary references about what constitute "junk news" are papers by some of the same authors, which in turn do not clearly define what "junk news" is.
So we have incestuous junk science trying to lecture us about fake news.
I never thought I'd see 'research' sink this low. And from Oxford... shameful.
Or you could read the paper and see they do in fact outline, quite extensively, their criteria, and how it was determined.
But hey, don't let facts get in the way of a dummy spit. For those following along at home however, I'll reproduce an excerpt of their definition here. Apologies for the humiliation "Jane Q Public".

These sources deliberately publish misleading, deceptive or incorrect information purporting
to be real news about politics, economics or culture. This content includes various forms of
propaganda and ideologically extreme, hyper-partisan, or conspiratorial news and information.
For a source to be labelled as junk news at least three of the following five characteristics must
apply:
â Professionalism: These outlets do not employ the standards and best practices of
professional journalism. They refrain from providing clear information about real
authors, editors, publishers and owners. They lack transparency, accountability, and do
not publish corrections on debunked information.
â Style: These outlets use emotionally driven language with emotive expressions,hyperbole, ad hominem attacks, misleading headlines, excessive capitalization, unsafe
generalizations and fallacies, moving images, graphic pictures and mobilizing memes.
â Credibility: These outlets rely on false information and conspiracy theories, which they often employ strategically. They report without consulting multiple sources and do not
employ fact-checking methods. Their sources are often untrustworthy and their standards of news production lack credibility.
â Bias: Reporting in these outlets is highly biased and ideologically skewed, which is otherwise described as hyper-partisan reporting. These outlets frequently present
opinion and commentary essays as news.
â Counterfeit: These outlets mimic professional news media. They counterfeit fonts, branding and stylistic content strategies. Commentary and junk content is stylistically
disguised as news, with references to news agencies, and credible sources, and headlines written in a news tone, with bylines, date, time and location stamps
Only an excerpt. The full sections around 4 pages, including the links and weightings.

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Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Re:Oxford study is an exercise in navel-gazing by Cederic · 2018-02-07 02:02 · Score: 1

By those criteria, the BBC is fake news.

They lack transparency, accountability, and do
not publish corrections on debunked information.
I've written to the BBC debunking their flawed and incomplete information, and their response has always been, "That extra data isn't relevant to our story" - no, because it fucking contradicts it.

These outlets use emotionally driven language with emotive expressions
Reporting in these outlets is highly biased and ideologically skewed
Holy shit, take your pick. Brexit, men, innocent white girls in Rochdale.. they're all demonstrably targets to the BBC ideologues.
So basically this study says that anybody linking a BBC news article is propagating fake news. Good work Oxford.
Re:Oxford study is an exercise in navel-gazing by Cederic · 2018-02-07 02:06 · Score: 1

(reposting because my previous attempt had a typo that broke it)
By those criteria, the BBC is fake news.

They lack transparency, accountability, and do
not publish corrections on debunked information.
I've written to the BBC debunking their flawed and incomplete information, and their response has always been, "That extra data isn't relevant to our story" - no, because it fucking contradicts it.

These outlets use emotionally driven language with emotive expressions
Recent BBC headline: "My vagina tried to kill me"

Reporting in these outlets is highly biased and ideologically skewed
Holy shit, take your pick. Brexit, men, innocent white girls in Rochdale.. they're all demonstrably targets to the BBC ideologues.
So basically this study says that anybody linking a BBC news article is propagating fake news. Good work Oxford.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by PopeRatzo · 2018-02-06 17:57 · Score: 2

Written by Left-Wing liberal acedemics with a strong left wing bias making the results utter none-sense.

Oxford University is hardly a bastion of liberal thinking.

Some of the famous arch-conservatives who have come out of Oxford include, Theresa May, David Cameron, Margaret Thatcher, Edward Heath, Harold Macmillan, Anthony Eden, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Louise Mensch and Dan Hannan., to name a few from the past and present.

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BS gap by Tablizer · 2018-02-06 18:04 · Score: 4, Funny

Us progressives gotta up our bullshit game. Trump's hair is really a covered satellite dish streaming to Russian satellites. And it's orange due to deregulation at the hair-dye factory. Hannity made Haitian babies eat Tide Pods. Ted Cruz was caught screwing goats behind Olive Garden. The goats gave him an 8. Sarah Palin's re-translation of the Bible is really Mein Kampf in reverse if you replace every 3rd "r" with "z".

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Re:BS gap by Tablizer · 2018-02-06 18:12 · Score: 1

Correction: "We progressives..."
(Sorry, "gotta" stays.)

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Re:BS gap by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 19:49 · Score: 1

Why do you need to try to out-ridiculous Donald Trump's treason defense? Sad. Do you think Don Jr and Jared will be bunkmates?
Re:BS gap by AmiMoJo · 2018-02-06 21:32 · Score: 1

I don't think we need to lie, we just need to stop playing defence.
Just watch the way people on the right argue. They throw accusations and conspiracies at you, so you try to debunk them and defend the ideas and people they are attacking. You make a good argument, but they just ignore it and move on to the next copy/paste attack.
Technically you won, but it really looks like they did because you are constantly trying to defend your position and they never acknowledge that they were wrong about anything. And most of them don't even realize they are doing this, they are just doing what they saw work for other people.
You also have to remember that they are presenting the whole thing to their side in a way that makes you look bad. They use a lot of coded language, selective quoting/editing and simply ignoring things that are problematic for them.
So trying to debunk them or defend your ideas is always a losing proposition. Instead, take a leaf out of their book. Put out your narrative, make your argument without constantly referring it to theirs. Look like you are winning instead of getting bogged down in their bullshit.

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Re:BS gap by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-06 21:46 · Score: 1, Insightful

The root problem is all the alt left progressive bullshit. If the MSM stayed focused on the facts and reported the entire story, they wouldn't have the lowest trust ratings in 40 years. Conservatives get enough truth from talk radio and conservative news outlets like Fox to see a clear and disturbing pattern of lies, half truths, obfuscation and omission to know that the MSM is not playing straight. The alt left slurps it up because they never developed a BS filter or enough real world experience to know better.
Its cute that you think this is a funny problem. Pray to God that the Dim politicians stop straight up lying on prime time national TV and the MSM gets back to chasing actual facts instead of reporting slander and innuendo as gospel, because if they set off a revolution in the US (for instance with this fake Russian collusion investigation predicated on the fake Russian dossier generated by a foreign agent at the direction of Russian operatives), it will not end well, which was, I suspect, Putin's goal all along. But the Dims and the MSM are playing right into his hand with their rabid slander and innuendo campaign.

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Re:BS gap by Tablizer · 2018-02-07 21:05 · Score: 1

If the MSM stayed focused on the facts and reported the entire story, they wouldn't have the lowest trust ratings in 40 years.

I'm not convinced ratings are any measure of accuracy. If WWE ratings are higher than Olympic wrestling, does that mean WWE is more real?

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Re:BS gap by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-08 10:57 · Score: 1

It means they are more viewed, and you are conflating entertainment with news, two completely different genres with different importance and different purposes...
Consistently falling and low ratings for MSM outlets other than Fox news http://static4.businessinsider... indicate people are voting with their feet and leaving MSM for the simple reason that news outlets are supposed to get you as many facts, as accurately and quickly as possible. It only takes a few conversations with others/viewing sessions of Fox/other alternative news outlets where it is clear you have been mislead by the MSM via withholding key facts for most people to switch their primary source of news (assuming that they are truth seekers and not rabid partisans).

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Re:BS gap by Tablizer · 2018-02-08 15:37 · Score: 1

and you are conflating entertainment with news
Oh, the irony.
And your chart shows that Fox's ratings only shot up when Obama was elected. There's a reason for that.

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Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by PopeRatzo · 2018-02-06 18:10 · Score: 3, Informative

Start with a bias end with a bias.

That is addressed in the methodology. Pardon this lengthy quote from the article:

We identified sources of
junk news and information, based on a grounded
typology. Sources of junk news deliberately publish
misleading, deceptive or incorrect information
purporting to be real news about politics, economics
or culture. This content includes various forms of
extremist, sensationalist, conspiratorial, masked
commentary, fake news and other forms of junk news.
For a source to be labeled as junk news it must fall in
at least three of the following five domains:
Professionalism: These outlets do not employ
the standards and best practices of professional
journalism. They refrain from providing clear
information about real authors, editors,
publishers and owners. They lack transparency,
accountability, and do not publish corrections on
debunked information.
Style: These outlets use emotionally driven
language with emotive expressions, hyperbole,
ad hominem attacks, misleading headlines,
excessive capitalization, unsafe generalizations
and fallacies, moving images, graphic pictures
and mobilizing memes.
Credibility: These outlets rely on false
information and conspiracy theories, which they
often employ strategically. They report without
consulting multiple sources and do not employ
fact-checking methods. Their sources are often
untrustworthy and their standards of news
production lack credibility.
Bias: Reporting in these outlets is highly biased
and ideologically skewed, which is otherwise
described as hyper-partisan reporting. These
outlets frequently present opinion and
commentary essays as news.
Counterfeit: These outlets mimic professional
news media. They counterfeit fonts, branding
and stylistic content strategies. Commentary and
junk content is stylistically disguised as news,
with references to news agencies, and credible
sources, and headlines written in a news tone,
with bylines, date, time and location stamps.
Sources of junk news were evaluated and reevaluated
in a rigorously iterative coding process. A
team of 12 trained coders, familiar with the US
political and media landscape, labeled sources of
news and information based on a grounded typology.
The Krippendorff’s alpha value for inter-coder
reliability among three executive coders, who
developed the grounded typology, was 0.805. The 91
sources of political news and information, which we
identified over the course of several years of research
and monitoring, produce content that includes various
forms of propaganda and ideologically extreme,
hyper-partisan, and conspiratorial political
information. We tracked how the URLs to these
websites were being shared over Twitter and
Facebook (see online supplement for details)

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Re: Gee, Commie paper says Right Wing news is fak by Reverend+Green · 2018-02-06 18:13 · Score: 1

Ukrainian trolls sure are gay.

The list is in the supplemental docs by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 18:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

Basically, these leftists at Oxford labelled everything "right wing"/"conservative" as "junk" (which it arguable IS from the perspective of a snarky post-modernist leftist troll) and then they conclude that right wingers and conservatives consume junk news.

They Ranked sitesd like William F Buckley's "National Review" (one of the most respected conservative publications and sites in the USA) and "American Thinker" as "junk".

From the perspectives of most conservatives, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, WaPo and BYT are all "junk" and therefore liberals/leftists consume the most "junk news"...how do ya think they'd like them apples?

This "study" is not a study at all... it's an illustration of propaganda masquerading as an academic study.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by dgatwood · 2018-02-06 18:15 · Score: 5, Interesting

Conclusion: The actual facts show that you're full of shit.

Statistically, as of just a couple of years ago, federal government employees were only somewhere in the neighborhood of 44% Democrat, about 40% Republican, and the rest independent. (Source: Government Executive) And in the FBI, I'm pretty sure the percentage of Democrats is significantly lower than average. So what this tells is us not that most people in government are Democrats (far from it), but rather that Republicans within our federal government found Trump so absolutely terrifying that they either did not contribute money or actively contributed to the opposing party rather than support him.

That decision had nothing to do with their political affiliation, but rather their recognition of risk. Workers in those parts of our government have seen Trump's brand of political rhetoric coming from the lips of far too many dictators and autocrats over the years, some of whom have been quite brutal. When they hear it coming from the mouth of someone running for President, they get scared sh*tless, and rightly so. Words have power, and when a president (or candidate) uses words like "treason", attacks the free press, attacks the independent judiciary, attacks the independence of Congress, etc., he is basically swinging a wrecking ball at the very foundations of our democracy. These are the actions of an autocrat—of a despot—and the ability of our country to survive with such a person as its president is the true test of our constitutional democratic system. And most people in the government were hoping that they wouldn't have to see if it can survive that test.

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Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extr by Reverend+Green · 2018-02-06 18:20 · Score: 1

Fake-progressive Hillaryists sure do hate organized labor.

TL:DR dont check the message, attack the messenger by Noishkel · 2018-02-06 18:25 · Score: 2, Informative

There's so much wrong with this study that it could be a study itself in how bad research is done. The most glaring is that the author of this tripe laid out an arbitrary categories of what the author believes to be what is and is not a legitimate news site. Many of which have little to do with what the information reports actually is, but the style in which it is presented. One of the most glaring examples of which is that The Drudge Reported is considered fake news. Drudge is little more than a basic news aggregator. It's also very questionable that while there is a list of sites that are considered 'junk' it does not say why exactly each site is considered 'junk'.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extrem by Reverend+Green · 2018-02-06 18:27 · Score: 1

Yup my brother, we programmers have been proletarianized. We're blue collar factory workers now. It's time we got over our bourgeois pretensions and started facing reality.

Join the Software Workers Union. One big union for the whole industry. When we strike we'll shut down the Internet. Solidarity forever.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by fredgiblet · 2018-02-06 18:41 · Score: 1

Hillary is establishment, they were almost certainly going with the devil they know. That's very different from being liberals themselves.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extrem by Reverend+Green · 2018-02-06 18:42 · Score: 1

Stalin's Red Army literally killed a couple million real live fascists.

I doubt they've analyzed things properly by HiThere · 2018-02-06 18:43 · Score: 1

Oxford University sounds plausibly reliable, but I don't know British groups, so I don't really know whether this comes from a reliable source. I'm guessing it probably does...

OTOH,
People who think of themselves as outsiders are more likely to trust sources that they think of as by outsiders ("in our group"). I remember during the 1960's I'd trust news from the Berkeley Barb before I'd trust news from the San Francisco Chronicle. Partially this is because in my mind they lied about different things, and the things I was interested in were the ones the Chronicle lied about "to support the man".

So I don't think they've analyzed the matter properly, even though I'd guess that their data, as organized, show what they say it shows. But it's not a matter of left or right, it's a matter of whether or not you trust those in the spokesman seat to fairly present your data.

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I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extrem by fredgiblet · 2018-02-06 18:44 · Score: 1

Their own. Blue collar workers are relatively easy to get to fall in line and can be reliably duped into voting for the best interests of the rich.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extrem by Reverend+Green · 2018-02-06 18:45 · Score: 1

But MUH FACTS!!!!1!!2!!

Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by friedman101 · 2018-02-06 18:47 · Score: 3, Informative

So accusing Donald Trump of being a Russian agent isn't extremist leftist globalist fake news? Nothing that they try to throw at this guy can stick, and even Wikileaks has come up dry on him.

No, it's not "fake news". In fact, it's so compelling a case that his own deputy attorney general saw fit to assemble an special counsel to investigate. Further, his attorney general had to recuse himself from the investigation into Trump's ties with Russia because of, uh, ties to Russia.

There is 100X more meat to this than Benghazi, Hillary's emails, Obama's birth certificate, or whatever else the GOP conspiracy theory du jour is.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extrem by Reverend+Green · 2018-02-06 18:48 · Score: 1

If you don't like Izvestia, maybe try Pravda instead?

Re: Except for the Fact that Leftist CNN.... by Reverend+Green · 2018-02-06 18:53 · Score: 1

The semi-official news institutions you mention do still have comment sections. However they are heavily censored. Dissident comments are quickly and silently purged.

Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by The+Cisco+Kid · 2018-02-06 19:00 · Score: 1

Got a link to a site or story that accused Trump of being a Russian agent?

If not, then your post is the exact sort of "fake news" that the story is about - putting words in other people's mouths.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by dgatwood · 2018-02-06 19:04 · Score: 1

Compared to the early 60s, we have QUADRUPLED per pupil spending. Are we getting four times the results?

Our schools actually are chronically underfunded, because the actual cost of materials and facilities has skyrocketed. The cost of textbooks is way more than 4x what it was in the 1960s. It's probably closer to 20x. And in the 1960s, we didn't need computers for students, nor network infrastructure. You can't compare education now to the 1960s by just comparing dollars, because if you educated someone today in the way that you educated kids in the 1960s, they would not be hirable. Too much has changed in those fifty years, and jobs that pay well tend to also require skills that do, in fact, cost way more to teach.

Also, infrastructure costs can be significant in some districts. If buildings don't get torn down and rebuilt often enough, the repair costs creep up and up, until suddenly you're using your entire facilities budget just to keep the roof from leaking. And during this time, efficiency standards have improved, everybody else is using less power and gas, and you've slowly become one of the outliers in that "top usage" bracket that get hit with the highest utility rates.

That said, one big cost that can be improved upon is administrative bloat. The districts with the worst test scores are typically the ones that have the highest administrative overhead, i.e. above a certain threshold, the administrator-to-student ratio is negatively correlated with graduation rates. That overhead generally reduces the quality of instruction by reducing the number of teachers you can hire, thus increasing classroom size and reducing the ability to give special attention to kids who actually need it. Now to be fair, sometimes that administrative cost is in part because of external factors (such as having to hire extra security people because of gun problems), so you can't necessarily say that there's causation there, but it seems pretty likely, IMO.

Either way, the ratio of teachers to students is strongly correlated with graduation rates. It stands to reason that once the non-teacher staff size increases past a baseline level, every additional administrator, counselor, or other staff person who isn't part of the teaching process is effectively reducing the number of teachers you can hire, which means increased class sizes. Because larger class sizes are correlated strongly with a lower graduation rate (independent of other factors), it seems very likely that excess staff and administration, then, would be a major contributing factor to reduced quality of education in some school districts.

Now obviously there's also a bottom threshold below which things stop working. You have to provide lunch. You have to have enough counselors to meet certain needs (though teachers can and should be encouraged to do some of that, too). You have to have someone to maintain the library. You have to have a functioning network (though multiple small schools sharing an IT admin is not necessarily impossible if you don't cut corners on the equipment). And so on. So it isn't negatively correlated at first, but becomes negatively correlated as the non-teacher-to-student ratios get too big.

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Re: Except for the Fact that Leftist CNN.... by h33t+l4x0r · 2018-02-06 19:14 · Score: 1

When Fox News fakes or gets something wrong, they just delete the story and pretend it never happened.

And then they throw to a high speed chase.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by PopeRatzo · 2018-02-06 19:15 · Score: 4, Informative

So basically in their methodology, the effluence of semi-official propaganda organs is described as "real news"; and dissenting views are labeled "fake news".

No, that's not even close. They didn't describe "real news" at all, only "fake news" which had to fit a set of very specific criteria, including 1) the lack of transparency in listing the names of the authors, 2) whether they illustrated their stories with lots of capital letters, memes, emotional language, etc., 3) Not listing sources or giving attribution, 4) whether the site has a distinction between news and opinion 5) whether the stories were "counterfeit". For example, several of the sites used linked to web sites that were designed to look like a well-known news source, including using a URL that mimicked the well-known source. Basically, spoofing. The sites had to meet all of these criteria in order to qualify for the seed group.

The methodology is entirely laid out in the study's text and in the supplemental documentation provided.. Your characterization isn't even close to the methods that they used. In a way, your willingness to misrepresent what the study said is a pretty good example of what the study showed: The desire to spread mis-information in order to try to advance a right-wing agenda.

Again, here is the link to the full peer-reviewed study:

http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/re...

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Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by PopeRatzo · 2018-02-06 19:18 · Score: 3, Insightful

CNN amongst others would fall into 3 of those categories easily.

Which three? Remember, the sites had to meet ALL of the criteria in order to qualify for the seed group.

The point of my post was to show that they started with a 'known' list of sites, and not ALL sites with an objective standard.

Except that's not what they did at all. Your still arguing from what you want the study say rather than what the study says. You are a good example of the study's findings.

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Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by quantaman · 2018-02-06 19:19 · Score: 4, Informative

So accusing Donald Trump of being a Russian agent isn't extremist leftist globalist fake news?

Except I see very few people on the left accusing Trump of being a Russian agent, I won't say no one, but I haven't seen anyone on my FB feed claim it, and I have a lot more FB friends on the left than the right. And I've seen a ton of claims on the right that are at least as conspiratorial as that.

Now there's suspicion it's possible, it was alleged by the Steele Dossier, and people discussed the possibility at the time, but when no evidence of that accusation turned up people generally stopped talking about it.

Nothing that they try to throw at this guy can stick

You mean nothing aside from 4 members of his campaign already being charged (and two pleading guilty), including his campaign manger and National Security advisor.

Not to mention proving multiple instances of members of the Trump campaign contacting or seeking contact with Russian officials and lying about that contact, including Trump's Attorney General and his son.

And we know there are active investigations into money laundering that involve Trump's son in law, obstruction of justice involving Trump, and probably a lot of other things that, like the Papadopoulos plea, we haven't heard about yet because it's being kept secret.

and even Wikileaks has come up dry on him.

What do you think Wikileaks is? They're not an elite investigative body, they post documents that people give them. How is them not having been given dumps on Trump exculpatory in the slightest?

Hell, they haven't posted his tax returns despite those being one of the single most sought after documents out there. Does that mean you think Trump never got tax returns?

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Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-06 19:21 · Score: 1

Well said!

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Re: Except for the Fact that Leftist CNN.... by dgatwood · 2018-02-06 19:27 · Score: 1

Faking a production detail. That's pretty fucking minor. When they are wrong on news, they retract it publically and apologize.

When they are caught being wrong on news. Ask yourself how often they aren't caught.

I take everything I read on CNN's website with a grain of salt. Their articles are often riddled with minor factual errors, typographical errors, grammatical errors, and other problems that make me want to put my communications double major hat on, climb through the screen, and smack them upside the head with a clue bat. And they've not only taken down the comments sections, but also have made it nearly impossible to send them feedback, so these errors rarely (if ever) get corrected. And if I'm noticing those sorts of problems at a casual glance, with almost no knowledge of the subjects in question, it makes me suspicious that someone more familiar with the subjects might find much more serious problems with their articles—the way I do every time I read almost any article about technology, for example.

Every time you read an article about technology and think to yourself, "This is full of crap. It doesn't work that way," you should also be thinking to yourself, "Are all the news articles out there really just as bad?" and be afraid. Be very afraid.

This is not to say that I consider any of it "fake news" or such B.S.; I merely think that journalistic standards have fallen to an all-time low, and the entire industry needs to up its game.

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Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by PopeRatzo · 2018-02-06 19:49 · Score: 2, Insightful

The final list was chosen by humans. Humans are biased. This will cause issues.

It's more than just a group of "humans" sitting around and picking sites at random.

From the study:

Sources of junk news were evaluated and reevaluated
in a rigorously iterative coding process. A
team of 12 trained coders, familiar with the US
political and media landscape, labeled sources of
news and information based on a grounded typology.
The Krippendorff’s alpha value for inter-coder
reliability among three executive coders, who
developed the grounded typology, was 0.805. The 91
sources of political news and information, which we
identified over the course of several years of research
and monitoring, produce content that includes various
forms of propaganda and ideologically extreme,
hyper-partisan, and conspiratorial political
information. We tracked how the URLs to these
websites were being shared

Their typology is interesting to say the least. It includes professionalism and style.

It includes a lot more than professionalism and style. There is a larger set of criteria, and the sites had to fit ALL of the criteria to be included in the seed group.

You are cherry-picking sentence fragments from the study in order to spread misinformation about it.

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Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extrem by Reverend+Green · 2018-02-06 19:54 · Score: 1

Featuring obscure Slavic slang in you replies does little to enhance your credibility, Sasha. How's the weather in Kiev today?

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-06 19:55 · Score: 2

I actually read the full article since you wrote a halfway reasonable defense, however, there are glaring problems. As I see them, the first and probably key problem with their study is how they defined junk news (not fake news as is asserted in the misleading headline of the article on slashdot).

Professionalism: These outlets do not employ the standards and best practices of professional journalism. They refrain from providing clear information about real authors, editors,
publishers and owners. They lack transparency, accountability, and do not publish corrections on
debunked information.
Style: These outlets use emotionally driven language with emotive expressions, hyperbole,
ad hominem attacks, misleading headlines, excessive capitalization, unsafe generalizations
and fallacies, moving images, graphic pictures and mobilizing memes.
Credibility: These outlets rely on false information and conspiracy theories, which they
often employ strategically. They report without consulting multiple sources and do not employ
fact-checking methods. Their sources are often untrustworthy and their standards of news
production lack credibility.
Bias: Reporting in these outlets is highly biased and ideologically skewed, which is otherwise
described as hyper-partisan reporting. These outlets frequently present opinion and
commentary essays as news.
Counterfeit: These outlets mimic professional news media. They counterfeit fonts, branding
and stylistic content strategies. Commentary and junk content is stylistically disguised as news, with references to news agencies, and credible sources, and headlines written in a news tone,
with bylines, date, time and location stamps.

The problem here is that these criteria are incredibly subjective, and some of them are just fallacious. All news outlets sensationalize news (I'm looking at you CNN, MSNBC etc.), all news outlets are sometimes wrong (CNN tanking the stock market and sweeping the fake news awards, anyone?), all news outlets use emotional language, and are you telling me that using capitalization and punctuation "excessively" NOW MAKES YOU A FAKE NEWS OUTLET!!! WTF DO CAPS AND PUNCTUATION HAVE TO DO WITH BEING RIGHT!!!

True fake news are news stories that are demonstrably false after the facts come out. True fake news outlets are outlets that are constantly putting out false or misleading stories that use un-named sources, leave out historical facts and context. Everything else on the Oxford study's list is just bullshit so they can try to make themselves look smart and their opposition look dumb. Nice try but I wipe my ass with Oxford's credibility, and this study drives my point home.

To the discerning consumer of news, this is a BS political masturbatory hit job designed to stroke the ego of the alt left who are in the process of going down in flames as their house of cards collapses and the curtain is pulled back to reveal the corruption and criminality of the left in the US.

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Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by shanen · 2018-02-06 19:58 · Score: 1

While I agree with your premise that educational results are not directly correlated with spending, your link does NOT address the problem I was talking about. I'm going to start on the premise that you are sincere and spend a bit of time clarifying what happened.

The public school system was divided and conquered. There is a small division of excellent public schools, but that is largely like a lottery for the parents who care a lot and who are not rich enough to send their kids to private schools. The bulk of the public schools were converted into obedience schools you wouldn't send your dog to. They also created escape hatches to allow as many students as possible escape from the public schools, sometimes with subsidies from public funds. Some of those students went to religious private schools or to home schooling, and of course the rich people have always had the option of elite private schools.

Your focus on performance is actually misleading. What that measures is how well those students have been indoctrinated to produce the correct answers. The important aspect of that kind of education is to narrow their minds so that they cannot conceive of questioning the "correct" answers. The real goal is to produce docile wage slaves and model prisoners (for the ones that wind up in prison), and the real test is that they obey the advertising for toothpaste or political candidates. This is the crop of mindless mushrooms we ourselves created (for Putin to harvest).

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Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by PopeRatzo · 2018-02-06 20:09 · Score: 3, Informative

So basically in their methodology, the effluence of semi-official propaganda organs is described as "real news";

No again. Nothing in the study describes (or mentions) "real news". There is a set of criteria which are indicative of fake news. If a site meets a certain threshold for those criteria, then it was eligible for inclusion in the seed group.

Please stop mis-characterizing this work. Or if you're going to mis-characterize it, try to find a basis that is not so easily refuted by the actual study, which is freely available and makes its methodology clear.

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Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-06 20:12 · Score: 1

There are/were a cabal of 6-10 hard core alt left fascist Democrats at the top of DOJ and the FBI (politically promoted during the Obama administration) that were in on this dumpster fire that is the Trump Russian surveillance farce. They will be ferreted out, arrested and charged with violation of 18USC 242. https://www.law.cornell.edu/us... its just a mater of time.

With any luck they will roll on high ranking officials in the Obama administration and Clinton campaign, who it is clear were also involved in the facilitating and encouraging the illegal surveillance of the Trump candidacy and presidency. https://www.politico.com/story...

The wheels of justice are turning, but slowly. Without Obama's corrupt DOJ to protect them, the corruption of the Obama executive branch is coming to light, and you can bet under Trump it will be prosecuted.

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Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 20:12 · Score: 3, Insightful

If a junior FBI agent wants to pursue something and the senior agent in charge tells him he prefers he work on something else, that's not obstruction of justice.

Similarly, when the President tells his subordinate the FBI Director what he thinks about an investigation, that's also not obstruction of justice. He literally can't obstruct justice by telling the FBI head to stop investigating someone. The President is the head of the executive branch and as such, he is constitutionally the head law enforcement officer and prosecutor. He has every legal right to make decisions, recommendations or whatever he wants as part of that authority. In fact, the Constitution goes so far as to give him the unilateral power to completely pardon someone for any crime against the Unites States for any reason whatsoever. The only remedy against his decision making is for Congress to impeach him, and even then they can't un-pardon someone he's already pardoned. That's it.

Also, as borne out by your own WIkipedia link, Obstruction of Justice is typically about lying about or hiding information from an investigation. It has nothing to do with expressing your views to the head of the FBI.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by dgatwood · 2018-02-06 20:24 · Score: 2

Comey was a registered Republican for most of his life, and now considers himself an independent—presumably because of Trump. Try again.

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Re:Liars, Damn Liars by f3rret · 2018-02-06 20:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

All of Western Europe is a flaming dumpster fire of deranged stupidity that will collapse on it'self in the next 20 years or so and all of Europe will soon be one great Caliphate with the heads of the infidels on steel pikes at every city entrance. And they will have done it to themselves... That or they will all have a mass conversion to hard core conservatism, arm themselves and take back their countries, but I am not holding my breath, too much inbreeding and beta males in Europe. All the alphas moved to he colonies generations ago.

Cool.
I didn't know that, last time I checked we were doing pretty well for ourselves here in Western Europe.
I mean, granted, we do have a vocal minority of fear-mongering racists, but eh, what can you do?

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Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extrem by houghi · 2018-02-06 20:31 · Score: 1

Both can be dumb and smart. Iften at the same time. The subject does not even matter if it is outside their profession. The blue collor street smart and wise worker does exist. Just as his stupid brother. The stupid scientist does exist, just like his smart sister.

There is also a difference in street smart and world smart.

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Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by Kiuas · 2018-02-06 20:32 · Score: 3, Informative

The entire Trump Russia investigation was predicated on the 100% false Steele Dossier

Based on what I just recently read this is not true.

Notably, the Republican memo does not assert that Mr. Steele’s information was the fountainhead of the broader Russia investigation as many Republicans and conservative media commentators have insinuated.
The Republican memo does not provide the full scope of evidence the F.B.I. and Justice Department used to obtain the warrant to surveil Mr. Page, and it is not clear to what extent the application hinges on the material provided by Mr. Steele. In December 2017, the Republican memo said, Andrew G. McCabe, then the deputy director of the F.B.I., told the House Intelligence Committee that no surveillance would have been sought without Mr. Steele’s information.
But the people familiar with the Democratic memo said that Republicans had distorted what Mr. McCabe told the Intelligence Committee about the importance of the information from Mr. Steele. Mr. McCabe presented the material as part of a constellation of compelling evidence that raised serious suspicions about Mr. Page, the two people said. The evidence included contacts Mr. Page had in 2013 with a Russian intelligence operative.
Mr. Page’s contacts with the Russian operative led to an investigation of Mr. Page that year, including a wiretap on him, another person familiar with the matter said.

(emphasis mine)

From what I've gathered so far es a European trying to stay on track on current events, the main issue is this: FISA applications are not public information. It is not possible to know what evidence besides the memo was used in the application and how much (if at all) the memo eventually influenced the decision. Now. to me it seems the republicans are taking full advantage of this fact and trying to portray the memo as the singular piece of evidence on which the whole thing hangs upon, because they know that they cannot be disproven without the releasing of classified material, meaning their backs are covered.

Stop slurping up the shit being shoved by the MSM and actually read it

So instead we should believe a memo written by a party that has a vested interest in the investigation and does not (cannot in fact due to the classified nature) release full details on the state of the investigation and seems to be crafted precisely to appear to say something it indeed does not say (that the memo was the primary reason/piece of evidence used for the application) and thus to give a misleading picture of the state of things? Huh? How does that make sense?

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Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-06 20:32 · Score: 1, Troll

Our problem with school performance has nothing to do with spending. I can push US schools to new highs with the following steps, but it would cripple the funding of the Democrat political party:

- Institute a federal school voucher system. Force the states to kick the cash to the federal government for any parent who wants a voucher. Vouchers are valid at any school that is accredited, no other strings attached. Homeschoolers get 100% coverage of all school supplies, books and any related expenses, including field trips, up to the total annual voucher. There would still be shit schools where parents who didn't care would send their kids, but that happens already, at least this way, the parents who did care (which is hardwired biologically) would make a significant positive difference.
- Eliminate the NEA and all teachers unions.
- Privatize all schools and require them to operate as non-profits with a cap of 3x local average salary for any employee and institute parental oversight on all expenditures each year. Require all finances to be published monthly.
- Require all immigrants to speak English fluently or attend a 6 month immersion course before entering regular school. Require all courses to be taught only in English, except when teaching a foreign language specifically.

I guarantee you that the US would rise dramatically in the scholastic rankings because that is what works phenomenally well when tested. Smart kids will excel, and lower IQ kids will attend trade schools so they actually have a marketable skill when they graduate (not everyone is a rocket scientist, and there is no harm in admitting that or benefit to pretending that they are.)

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Re:Reality has a well-known liberal bias by serviscope_minor · 2018-02-06 20:42 · Score: 1

So the somewhat popular "viewpoint" that Obama wasn't a citizen: that was reality?

Liberals were genuinely ignorant of what life was like outside their bubbles.

And you are so ignorant you don't even realise that applies to you too.

I don't know which supposed libreal enclave you like to hate on through lack of understanding... San Fran? New York? but you know as little about them as you claim they know about you.

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Re:Can't argue with that summary by serviscope_minor · 2018-02-06 20:47 · Score: 1, Funny

Left-wing fake news does indeed have higher production values.

It's so well funded (by Soros? The Jews? the illuminati? The Lizard people?) that they actually get reality to manufacture the fake news. Disgusting.

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Re:Liars, Damn Liars by mwvdlee · 2018-02-06 21:18 · Score: 1

I've seen InfoWars; you may keep your "alpha" males.

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Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by driblio · 2018-02-06 21:18 · Score: 1

No one is saying you need a university education to be roofer.

The augment is that designing, implementing and analysing studies (particularly those which investigate the veracity of political news, and credibility of various sources) in a way which can be peer reviewed and have their methodology and sources clearly embedded in them - which enables repeatability and denies accusations of bias - is the domain of academics.

The roofer may well have more real world intelligence, and definitely has like domain specific knowledge. But they are not trained and experienced in critical thinking, which forms the basis of academic life. That doesn't make them dumb - and the GP didn't say it did, you mentioned that first.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by driblio · 2018-02-06 21:23 · Score: 1

GP didn't say less smart. You did, because of your inability to think critically.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by driblio · 2018-02-06 21:26 · Score: 1

The thing with academic studies is that they are repeatable.

They strive to eliminate basis by there very nature.

That's something you learn at university.

Yeah but we knew this. by qe2e! · 2018-02-06 21:31 · Score: 1

For instance, the Buzzfeed article about the Macedonian fake news farm said they tried it both ways, but the right wing stuff was shared much more, ergo more profitable. Not to mention if you use social media, you would have noticed.

Re:Except for the Fact that Leftist CNN.... by AmiMoJo · 2018-02-06 21:37 · Score: 2

When your bar for how willing to engage with critics is the comment section of a news website, you have lost all perspective on what journalism is.

Hint: it's not trying to defend yourself against a barrage of trolls with Brietbart links and conspiracy theories. It's not turning your website into a cesspit of unmoderated sewage, or opening yourself up to accusations of bias by deleting troll posts.

Anyway, look at Brietbart. Often the very first comment completely debunks the story, and they just ignore it anyway. Anyone going there for news is already so far down the rabbit hole they aren't going to be convinced by the contradictory comments anyway, so what's the point?

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by ilguido · 2018-02-06 21:56 · Score: 2, Informative

It is not possible to know what evidence besides the memo was used in the application

Well, another piece of evidence used in the application was the infamous Yahoo News article, which was based on a controlled leak by Steele himself. So there are at least two pieces of evidence which were invalid. Not only that, it is clear that someone tried to inflate the available evidence for the application with a classical propaganda tactic, that is the controlled leak (the same tactic used by Dick Cheney as a pretext to start the Iraq War).

Now. to me it seems the republicans are taking full advantage of this fact and trying to portray the memo as the singular piece of evidence on which the whole thing hangs upon, because they know that they cannot be disproven without the releasing of classified material, meaning their backs are covered.

The burden of proof is on the accuser. You can say that the Democrats are taking full advantage of that fact to downplay the undisputed fact that (some of) the evidence given in the FISA application was fabricated, by them and the Clinton Campaign (which was the same thing given what Donna Brazile and Wikileaks said).

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by Opportunist · 2018-02-06 22:06 · Score: 1

And this, kids, is how it's possible today that science is shunned and charlatans of all trades can get a foot on the ground at all. "I feel that way" trumps reality or facts.

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

Re:Reality has a well-known liberal bias by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-06 22:14 · Score: 1

Liberals were genuinely ignorant of what life was like outside their bubbles.

And you are so ignorant you don't even realise that applies to you too.

Whether it applies to him or not is irrelevant. He was making an assertion about a group of people, not an individual. He didn't say he wasn't in a bubble, you moron. He said that Trump was a surprise because a group of people were under the delusion that their views were more widely accepted than they thought they were.

Admit it - you were thoroughly surprised to find out that sexist policies as espoused by the Democratic party were not really that popular.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extrem by Opportunist · 2018-02-06 22:15 · Score: 1

More accurately, they are less trained to apply rigorous testing to a presented hypothesis. Because for their job, doing so would probably lead to a catastrophe.

When you're in a blue collar job, you don't have the time to second guess everything you're told. Your foreman says "do that, and do it this way", and you do it. Why? Because he's foreman for a reason, he's responsible for what's going on here and he's in charge. Do it or you'll find yourself on the street again with someone else doing it. This is how you're trained and this is how you work. Not because you're dumb and wouldn't understand why you should do it that way, but because the foreman doesn't have time to explain to every single worker why something should be done this way and not another. There's work to be done, and talking about it doesn't build a house.

In a scientific environment, such a behaviour would be fundamentally wrong. There, questioning and testing someone else's hypothesis is basically your job. There is no foreman who knows best, even if Stephen Hawking said that there's a little blue man at the center of every black hole you cannot take it at face value because the smartest and best astrophysicist said it, he still has to defend this position and present a conclusive proof for it.

Expecting from either to radically change his behaviour in a private environment is asking a bit much, don't you think?

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by Jesus+H+Rolle · 2018-02-06 22:17 · Score: 4, Informative

General Flynn was an honorable man. I don't know what he did to make the dark state so angry - but clearly he did *something* to precipitate his purge. I believe he was trying to protect the Republic from its many enemies within.

General Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI regarding his Russian contacts. Drop the conspiracy theories already.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by Saunalainen · 2018-02-06 22:34 · Score: 1

I am willing to bet that you couldn't find a single conservative professor at Oxford in the last 30 years.

How about Roger Scruton?

Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by Hal_Porter · 2018-02-06 22:35 · Score: 1

Let's hope President Trump sends them where they can get the help they need.

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echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;

Re:Reality has a well-known liberal bias by DNS-and-BIND · 2018-02-06 22:37 · Score: 2

I can't help notice the very popular "so you're saying" followed by a hallucination of what the other person didn't say. It was used to great effect during the BBC interview with Jordan Peterson when the interviewer repeatedly restated his views to him, wrongly. She did it again and again, and you're doing it now.

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Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by pots · 2018-02-06 22:41 · Score: 2

And yet WAPO still, to this day, has a twitter post up that says "RUSSIANS hacked US power grid." Despite the fact that it's been admitted, even by them, that they were wrong.

This is usually referred to as "issuing a correction," and it doesn't generally involve changing history. I don't know about this instance, though the track record of accusations against the Washington Post is such that I'm skeptical of your claim, but assuming that it's true as you say then erasing the record of their mistake doesn't seem like the right move.

Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by johnsie · 2018-02-06 22:45 · Score: 1

Why would wikileaks go after him? Their agenda has always been anti hillary.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by AmiMoJo · 2018-02-06 22:49 · Score: 3, Informative

The closest thing to "RUSSIANS hacked US power grid" that the WAPO appears to have ever tweeted is this: https://twitter.com/washington...

Breaking: Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont

Which is true. Where is this inaccurate tweet you speak of?

I'm not interested in supporting WAPO here, I'm just suspicious when people frequently claim that tweets and articles exist but don't bother linking to them.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC

Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by phantomfive · 2018-02-06 23:11 · Score: 4, Informative

Except I see very few people on the left accusing Trump of being a Russian agent, I won't say no one, but I haven't seen anyone on my FB feed claim it, and I have a lot more FB friends on the left than the right

This comment was posted directly above yours. You have unusual friends tbh. You're lucky, I get tons of "Russia Trump" spam in my feed.

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"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."

-- Right out of Saul Alinsky's rules for radicals by cpbright · 2018-02-06 23:15 · Score: 1

This is right out of Saul Alinsky's rules for radicals - Clearly the left has the lions share of fake news with the main stream media - including subbies article. 11) If you push a negative hard and deep enough it will break through into its counterside. The winner in politics is almost always whoever is on offense. Liberals understand this in an intuitive way that most conservatives don't. We think because we have this wonderful, honest, logical response to a charge that we're scoring major points -- but, except in rare cases, it's not true. If you're spending all of your time refuting the charges that you're extreme, racist, hate women, and despise the poor -- you're losing. That's because some people will assume where there's smoke, there's fire, and disbelieve you no matter how good your explanation may be. Additionally, if you're busy defending yourself, you can't go after the other side. Defend when you absolutely have to, but make sure most of your time is spent attacking relentlessly attacking.

Re:Except for the Fact that Leftist CNN.... by Mashiki · 2018-02-06 23:17 · Score: 1

I remember Fox News comments section before they shut it down, that place was a magnet for all kinds of vile idiots.

Fox News still has comments just a FYI.

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Om, nomnomnom...

This Guardian Article is Fake News by Kneo24 · 2018-02-06 23:29 · Score: 1

From the study it's using, it describes 1. JUNK News, and 2. that junk news includes wrong, or misleading headlines and articles. The Guardian is literally junk news by their own admission.

What they consider "junk" isn't FAKE. by aliquis · 2018-02-06 23:57 · Score: 1

"Low-quality, extremist, sensationalist and conspiratorial news"

Except nothing of that is fake.
"Fake" clearly is new-speak for "stuff we don't agree with", just as their definition of democracy isn't freedom of thought, speak, information, raising opinion and voting but rather what they consider the best for the collective/society and their "freedom" is what they grant you and their "equality" is "discrimination for the sake of enabling equal outcome."

I've kinda wondered whatever the first "alternative facts" were actually straight up lies of what Trump thought was also facts / equally valuable beliefs but for an alternative conclusion / pointing in the other direction.

The sad part is of course that so many will believe that fake actually mean fake and that fake news are lies just as they believe immigrants, children and people of their nationality actually mean refugees, children and people of their nationality rather than whatever immigrant / person on their soil, human claiming to be a child and (at-least this one is less of a lie) people whom actually have some "been living in that country" connection at-least.

The only fake here is calling those things fake because the ideologists at Oxford doesn't like the opinions expressed of those people.

Low quality - Possible. But it exist because the other media doesn't cover it. It's alternative additional information not necessarily a replacement. Also shouldn't you consider main-stream media low quality too when it also doesn't cover everything and leave this gap in the information and coverage it provides?

Extremist - Things which they consider far from their own ideas. Boho ... Meaningless shaming of other people and their ideas.

Sensationalist - All media are guilty. And it become a big deal I guess because it's new information not found in their stupid lying press.

Conspiratorial - This one I actually do consider a problem. Just because it's not the widely believed story though doesn't necessarily make it false. Though it may definitely be.

Re:Liars, Damn Liars by KozmoStevnNaut · 2018-02-06 23:57 · Score: 2

That's funny, because Northern Europe is doing really goddamn well currently, despite the doom-and-gloom spewed by mostly right-wing tabloids.

You can keep your "alpha male" bullshit. We don't need it.

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Eat the rich.

Re:Liars, Damn Liars by butzwonker · 2018-02-07 00:03 · Score: 1

It's way easier to lie without statistics than it is with statistics, though. As I'm sure you know.

Clinton colluded with Russia by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-07 00:18 · Score: 3, Informative

Here is one for you...

Clinton PAID for Russian propaganda to affect the election, this is now proven.
FBI and DOJ used this propaganda to illegal get a FISA warrant on Carter Page, lying 4 times to get it, and allowing them to wiretap most of Trump's staff because of how FISA warrants work, this is now proven.

So we have ACTUAL EVIDENCE of Clinton, FBI, DOJ, and State Department colluding with Russia to affect an election, yet no investigation.
So claiming an investigation means nothing. EVIDENCE means something and we have a LOT of it, just pointing the wrong way.

Please note WaPo and NYT printed tons of articles that colluding with Russia is NOT ILLEGAL once it was found out Clinton was colluding with them. You SHOULD be asking, what are they investigating then?

Re:Clinton colluded with Russia by Uberbah · 2018-02-13 07:28 · Score: 1

It isn't proven at all. Just another RW conspiracy theory.
Another stubborn donkey, so fitting that it's the party mascot.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by ganjadude · 2018-02-07 00:25 · Score: 1

I would believe that if i didnt see "occupy democrats" "nowthis" and "mtvdecoded" and "salon" pop up all over my facebook feed I might believe it. I would bet that if they ran the test with accounts who had different groups being followed, different results would populate

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have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by FuzzyDaddy2 · 2018-02-07 00:44 · Score: 2

If a senior fbi official Bob tells a junior officer Joe to stop investigating one of Bobâ(TM)s friends, that is certainly obstruction of justice. Motivation, and not just actions, matter in the law.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by stinkyjak · 2018-02-07 01:11 · Score: 1

So how is Hillaryâ(TM)s husband meeting with Lynch, on a private plane, during her investigation, not obstruction of justice?

Re:-- Right out of Saul Alinsky's rules for radica by Miles_O'Toole · 2018-02-07 01:27 · Score: 2

These days, objective reality has a strong liberal bias.

Sorry, kid.

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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by JoshuaZ · 2018-02-07 01:36 · Score: 5, Informative

Thank you for demonstrating fake news in a nutshell. Even in the Nunes memo acknowledges that the Steele dossier wasn't the only input in question. Moreover, Carter Page was under US law enforcement surveillance before the Steele dossier even reached the attention of the FBI. Facts matters. The idea that the FBI and DOJ were somehow biased in favor of Clinton is simply silly when James Comey, a Republican appointee, was the one who announced a few days before the election that he was reoppening the Clinton email investigation when he has no legal requirement to make such an announcement.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-07 01:39 · Score: 1

The, so-called, research is a load of tripe.
"professionalism" = not a funded media conglomerate. Bloggers and individual journalists fall under this banner. "They do not publish retractions to debunked information" = "When the media conglomerate mouthpiece claimed it was wrong they stood by their assertion"

This "Counterfeit" methodology is equally dubious. "These outlets mimic professional news media. They counterfeit fonts, branding and stylistic content strategies"

OMG - they used a WEB TEMPLATE and a common news print FONT! FAAKKKKEEE.

As for the remaining three - ALL MEDIA sources, today and unfortunately, fall under those "conditions". When CNN and MSNBC and FOX all hire high placed political employees and then take paid campaign ads it makes the organizations defacto political organizations.

Look at some of the headlines from the past year from CNN and MSNBC and ABC - "sources say they heard Trump say some inflammatory statement". Then Trump denies along with several other eye-witnesses from the same discussion. That's debunked. Do you see a retraction? No - huh, strike 1. Do you see them cite their sources? No? Huh, strike 2. Inflammatory style? Yup, Strike 3. Credibility - fact checking their sources? Nope - Strike 4. Oh and they use news print font. Strike 5

Smells like a source of junk news and information to me.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by amiga3D · 2018-02-07 01:42 · Score: 1

It is NOT true, that's my point. They found malware on a laptop that was in an office at a power plant. How in the hell do you equate that with "penetrating the power grid?"

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by rickb928 · 2018-02-07 01:51 · Score: 1

"It is harder to trick college educated people into believing false statements."

Is it. This certainly explains a lot, but not in the way you present it. For starters, the false statements are inculcated in those people before they are educated. And those statements form the foundation of their education.

You can dis blue-collar workers, but no amount of fake news will deny the leaky faucet you call them to fix, and so the blue-collar type knows truth in a visceral, necessary way that no amount of philosophy studies can replace. They know the smell that comes from failure, and the inevitable results of that.

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deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by Cederic · 2018-02-07 01:55 · Score: 1

Which is true.

Which is not true, as the Washington Post themselves acknowledged:

Editorâ(TM)s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid.

-- https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Was it even the Russian government doing anything at all anyway?
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

Where is this inaccurate tweet you speak of?

I do believe you fucking linked it in your comment.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by rickb928 · 2018-02-07 01:58 · Score: 1

"Just because he makes that much doesn't make him smart."

Ah, then earning a more than adequate salary isn't smart. Sure.

Without a doubt every single over paid, uneducated union worker I know is living paycheck to paycheck and in debt above his eyeballs.

I cannot corroborate that. Most of the union workers I know are in fact educated in union-sponsored trade schools. One was in class last night at a community college, on his nickel, to ensure his career advances and his salary increases. He has a mortgage, but no student loans.

"...in debt above his eyeballs. The college educated are not, for the most part. You can easily go to 4 years of college and exit with a degree with no debt. This is something the lazy union workers who have a difficult time putting in a single full day of work in a single month can't fathom.""

Where is this reality you seem to refer to, where even many of the 'college educated' are not in fact saddled with student loan debt, subsidized by the federal government, for college educations that have increased in cost due to that subsidized student loan system? The complaints about college expenses are ubiquitous. And while you can go to 4 years of college and exit with a degree and no debt, that is not the norm by most accounts. This statement, more than your others, is pure BS. Why would you bother to make such a claim?

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deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.

Re:Left's overconfidence in themselves by mi · 2018-02-07 02:04 · Score: 1

I highly doubt that the person you replied to ...

In many debates — indeed, in nearly all debates on politics — the intent of each debater is not to convince the opponent, but rather the audience.

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In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by AmiMoJo · 2018-02-07 02:18 · Score: 1

Okay, fair enough. But they also published a correction, which is the done thing. Journalists don't normally go back and burn every copy of the inaccurate edition they accidentally printed and sold, they leave it there for posterity and publish a correction.

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const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC

500+ comments, no one actually read the study... by RedK · 2018-02-07 02:30 · Score: 3, Interesting

At least from the most top moderated comments. The study is a biased hack job, and anyone with an ounce of objectivity can see it.

Essentially, they picked 91 sites that they deemed "junk", through 5 criteria (3 of which had to be met). The problem is that they picks do not normalize for traffic and breadth, and they didn't study the actual content being shared. You might not like Breitbart, but it's not much worse than Vox/Mic/Buzzfeed and heck, even CNN, which also met at least 3 of the criteria on their list of "junk". Breitbart is also not all fake and junk. Without bias, it's hard to say they don't get some things correct. And they do offer corrections when they are wrong.

Look at the actual list of sites, it's funny Breitbart is picked (a popular right wing biased site), but not the aforementionned "popular" left sites :

http://comprop.oii.ox.ac.uk/wp...

DailyCaller, Breitbart, Hannity (you can not like the guy and his "tick tocks, it annoys everyone)... where are the big left sites ?

So a popular right site gets shared more than a bunch of unknown left sites ? Color me shocked. The study is about how a website with a larger audience gets more interaction on social media. It has nothing to do with their premise.

IE : they set out to prove something, and picked their sample to confirm their own bias. Next time include Vox and Mic and buzzfeed and let's see how balanced this truly is.

--
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by XxtraLarGe · 2018-02-07 02:32 · Score: 1

It is harder to trick college educated people into believing false statements.

Aside from the indoctrination they've already received in college.

The liberals on the other hand are led by college educated people that disbelieve and fight against the fake news.

Unless it comes from the mainstream media. There are bountiful examples.

I don't like Trump, and I didn't vote for Trump but the way the mainstream media is covering him shows a complete lack of journalistic integrity. If what is being done to Trump with the whole Russia investigation was initiated under a Republican administration to support a Republican presidential candidate and the Democrat won, the mainstream media would be calling for heads to roll. Instead, they're calling the whole thing a "nothingburger".

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Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by swillden · 2018-02-07 02:51 · Score: 4, Insightful

The burden of proof is on the accuser.

Which in this case is those trying to discredit the investigation. They not only need to prove that there was something improper about the warrant, they also need to prove that the alleged impropriety of the warrant is relevant to the Mueller investigation. Neither of those things has been even substantiated, much less proved.

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Re:Liars, Damn Liars by swillden · 2018-02-07 03:02 · Score: 1

I mean, granted, we do have a vocal minority of fear-mongering racists, but eh, what can you do?

Yeah, you should come to the USA where we don't have... oh, wait. Never mind.

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Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by swillden · 2018-02-07 03:09 · Score: 1

Right. Responsible, non-fake news organizations publish retractions when they make a mistake. Whether or not a given site does that is actually one of the criteria the researchers applied to distinguish fake news.

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Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by AdamStarks · 2018-02-07 03:14 · Score: 3, Insightful

James Comey, a Republican appointee, was the one who announced a few days before the election that he was reoppening the Clinton email investigation when he has no legal requirement to make such an announcement.

He had no legal requirement, but one of the interesting things that came up in his testimony is that it was because of Bill Clinton's highly irregular boarding of Attorney General Lynch's plane that Comey felt there was a duty to be as clear as possible that that event hadn't impeded the investigation. In other words, if Bill Clinton hadn't pulled that stunt, then Comey wouldn't have announced the re-opening of the investigation (since if he hadn't announced it promptly, and that later came to light, it might have appeared to be because of Bill Clinton's influence).

I'm not saying his decision was the right one, but I can appreciate that he was between a rock and a hard place there.

(I originally up-modded your post, which I generally agree with, but then decided a comment was preferable)

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by budgenator · 2018-02-07 03:15 · Score: 1

In America, the liberals have focused on the college educated while the conservatives focused on the blue collar workers, at least over the past 10-20 years.

It is harder to trick college educated people into believing false statements.

I don't except that College Educated are harder to trick than Blue Collar Workers as a broad statement. People can graduate college without ever taking a college level Math, Laboratory Science or Philosophy course. Taking 4 years of fluff courses only serves to give a person an over-inflated estimate of their critical thinking skills. Whereas the Blue Collar Worker is used to elitists trying to pull shit on him.

Additionally that attitude is a big reason why the Democrats got their asses handed to them in the last election.

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Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by burtosis · 2018-02-07 03:17 · Score: 2, Insightful

Maybe explain why article 1 states Nixon obstructed justice because you make it sound like a sitting president is not capable of obstructing justice. Secondly the pardoning powers were never intended to self pardon so that you may continue your crime spree in office while congress tries to act fast (fast is months to years), there is absolutely no precedent for that. The real danger is the creep we are seeing in political openness to stating they are openly corrupt - this is getting worse on both D and D sides as they get more and more comfortable being above the law.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by burtosis · 2018-02-07 03:18 · Score: 1

D and R goddamn you auto errect.

What the memo shows should worry liberals by mr.mctibbs · 2018-02-07 03:20 · Score: 1, Insightful

That memos shows the FBI lying on a probable cause affidavit, to a secret court, to get a warrant for nearly godlike power to spy on a member of an anti-establishment political campaign.

This undermines the credibility of any other evidence that may have been presented in the affidavit, and it's exactly the kind of behavior liberals were rightly screaming about during the Bush era, when conservatives were saying "you can't prove that the court's a rubber-stamp."

But now that it's Trump who's in the FBI's sights, suddenly this horrendous abuse of power is ok? Get the fuck outta here.

Re:What the memo shows should worry liberals by mr.mctibbs · 2018-02-07 03:23 · Score: 1

*Note that a material omission of fact is a lie.
Re:What the memo shows should worry liberals by tbannist · 2018-02-07 04:02 · Score: 3, Informative

That memos shows the FBI lying on a probable cause affidavit, to a secret court, to get a warrant for nearly godlike power to spy on a member of an anti-establishment political campaign.
No, it doesn't. For the simple fact that the Trump campaign had already fired Page (Sep 2016) when the warrant was granted (Oct 2016). Furthermore, Page claims to have never talked to or met Trump. So your claim can not be true unless the FBI has invented wire taps that can travel back in time.

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Fanatically anti-fanatical
Re:What the memo shows should worry liberals by fafalone · 2018-02-07 05:37 · Score: 1

So when the news came out that the affidavit *did* in fact mention the political nature of the dossier, did you just plug your ears and hum? Or are you deliberately lying in your post?
Re:What the memo shows should worry liberals by Mal-2 · 2018-02-07 09:58 · Score: 1

Not if the question isn't asked properly. The firs thing an attorney will tell you is that you do not volunteer information. Just answer the questions.

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How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by kilfarsnar · 2018-02-07 03:23 · Score: 1

None of this is obstruction of justice. You either don't understand the concept, or more likely are purposefully ignorant.

There continues to be no evidence of "Russian Collusion". You cannot, by definition, obstruct justice when you did not commit a crime. It requires malicious intent, which does not exist without the crime in the first place.

Once you have proof of a "crime of collision" then we can talk. Until then, you're just another fucking moron who got tricked by the biggest fake news story in history.

I always find it amusing when someone exposes their own ignorance while accusing others of being ignorant.

Obstruction of justice can be committed by interfering with an investigation into a crime. You know, the investigation to find out if a crime has been committed. We then have trials to determine if a person accused of a crime is guilty. That has not happened yet. The investigation is not finished. While Trump is presumed innocent until proven otherwise, it is quite premature to say that he has committed no crime. That's what the investigation is working to determine.

So, let's recap, shall we? There is no evidence of Russian collusion because the investigation into that has not yet completed. Once it has, we will see what evidence they present. Of course, Trump, Jr. has admitted to meeting with a Russian lawyer to discuss how she could help them against the Clinton campaign, in return for revisiting the Magnitsky Act if they are elected. Why that doesn't look to you like collusion to you, I'm not quite sure. Regardless, moving on, trying to interfere with the investigation could rise to the level of obstruction, regardless of the eventual findings of the investigation. The whole point of obstruction is to try to prevent the discovery of wrongdoing, after all.

Is that a bit clearer now?

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"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by sycodon · 2018-02-07 03:33 · Score: 2

So what do you call it when Hillary responds almost exclusively, "I don't recall"?

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When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.

Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by mark_reh · 2018-02-07 03:36 · Score: 1

So you think the Russian run wiki leaks, not having anything incriminating on Trump, is proof he is innocent of colluding with Russia?

I guess it's like Putin keeps telling Trump, he had nothing to do with hacking US elections. He wouldn't say that if it weren't true, right?

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extrem by budgenator · 2018-02-07 03:49 · Score: 1

Blue collar workers aren't less smart. They are less trained to think critically.

I'm pretty sure you've never seen a millwright tweeking a worn $100,000.00 die to squeeze out another 3 months of life out of it while keeping the parts within 0.005 inches tolerances or a Pipefitter build a 100 feet of 6 inch steel pipe welded from parts that has 5 bends and have the flanges land within an 1/8 of a inch and the bolt holes line up perfectly; and still think blue collar workers don't have developed critical thinking skills.

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Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by apoc.famine · 2018-02-07 03:51 · Score: 1

Secondly, a college education is only an opportunity to learn critical thinking, one that relatively few people take advantage.

I think that there's more to a college education that's relevant to this discussion than just critical thinking. I do agree that a lot of people do make it through college without learning how to do that.

One really important part of college is exposure to cultures, ideas, concepts, religions, etc. that you just don't get if you remain in a small town all your life. That wider world-view gives one an edge when considering whether or not something is true. Being required to take courses outside of your major tends to force college kids to at least get a taste of some things that they never knew existed. Once you realize how big the universe really is, I think most people are more conscious of potentially looking at it through a periscope. And while college isn't required for this shift in perspective, it definitely can help facilitate it.

Secondly, if you're getting passing grades in college at any respectable place, you've most likely got some bare-bones skills in searching for info and writing a coherent paper about it. A lot of the crap that gets shared between crackpots is really not in any way coherent or logical. If you know that what you're reading would be an obvious 'F' if you turned it in, I think that it immediately raises red flags. If your only point of comparison is stuff you wrote in high school 20 years ago, I think it's got to be a little harder to spot the obvious lack of quality that a lot of these articles have. Again, college isn't required for this, but being forced to do that level of personal scrutiny for a few years of your life must help, I would think.

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Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by budgenator · 2018-02-07 04:05 · Score: 1

How does one judge qualities like professionalism, bias and reliability without being vulnerable to bias themselves? I remember when sites parroting trump's claim of being wiretapped was labelled fake news, now we are trying to determine how the FBI got the FISA warrant to wiretap Trump.

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Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by JoshuaZ · 2018-02-07 04:06 · Score: 1

Yes, I'm in complete agreement that his announcements (both the first and the second one) were reasonable given the irregularity surrounding the situation. My point wasn't that his behavior wasn't reasonable, just that it makes it very hard to argue that there was some sort of pro-Clinton conspiracy in the FBI given his decision.

No Surprise by DaMattster · 2018-02-07 04:08 · Score: 1

This comes as absolutely no surprise. Why is it that the right-wing extremists always seem to have a lack of education and intelligence? They goble up this shit like its gospel and never bother to use the space between their ears that god gave them to critically think about any of this. Case in point; the flat-earthers are astoundingly stupid. In the case of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I cannot fathom how they can continue to believe that drivel.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by Goetterdaemmerung · 2018-02-07 04:09 · Score: 1

The closest thing to "RUSSIANS hacked US power grid" that the WAPO appears to have ever tweeted is this: https://twitter.com/washington...

Breaking: Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont

Which is true. Where is this inaccurate tweet you speak of?

I'm not interested in supporting WAPO here, I'm just suspicious when people frequently claim that tweets and articles exist but don't bother linking to them.

This is a FALSE statement that should be deleted by WaPo. Come on, do some research at least. Snopes says Mostly False and an article here http://fortune.com/2017/01/06/vermont-utility-burlington-electric-manager/ which says the electric grid was not penetrated and WaPo posted the story without even contacting the utility first.

False news is not limited to the right.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by amiga3D · 2018-02-07 04:09 · Score: 1

The thing is that the twitter post is still up. "Breaking: Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont" and that is getting retweeted ever since. WAPO knows full well that most twitter users never read past the headline. That's the effect they get. The number of retractions that WAPO and many other MSM outlets have been forced to make have grown astronomically since Trump arrived on the scene. The most charitable reason I can think of for this is that they've decided that they must get everything out to the public as fast as possible and that their normal vetting of info must be suspended. I suspect they know though, that if they're wrong and forced to retract, the damage will still be done to their target. Almost all media in this country have ceased to be journalists with honor and integrity and are instead advocates. I include FOX in this before you start on that, they clearly share in this game.

Re:Liars, Damn Liars by Dixie_Flatline · 2018-02-07 04:09 · Score: 1

Cool.
I didn't know that, last time I checked we were doing pretty well for ourselves here in Western Europe.
I mean, granted, we do have a vocal minority of fear-mongering racists, but eh, what can you do?

Sorry, you're actually doing very badly. Any reports that you're doing well are fake news, and your lived experience has no bearing on the FACTS. You should just accept that you're a beta cuck and lay down in the street and wait for the ISIS to take over.

Re:TL:DR dont check the message, attack the messen by apoc.famine · 2018-02-07 04:10 · Score: 1

So you didn't bother to read the paper, but the summary made you angry enough to rant about what you think they did?

Friend, you really, really need to read it. It was pretty much written for you personally.

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Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by amiga3D · 2018-02-07 04:12 · Score: 1

Truly responsible check their facts at least nominally before rushing to publish. When it comes to any information about Trump this is not being done. They publish first and check later. The incredible number of retractions they've had to make is evidence of this.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by Dread_ed · 2018-02-07 04:14 · Score: 1

It wasn't Bill Clinton's "highly irregular" meeting with the AG. It was the fact that people outside of the AG, Bill, and their staff learned about it.

The meeting itself was intended to be secret. The misfire on that attempt is what led to the announcement, not the meeting itself.

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Garbage by bwt · 2018-02-07 04:20 · Score: 1

Academia is the biggest fake news of all, so no I don't trust an Oxford leftist's conclusions about who produces more fake news between the left and the right. Seriously, go to hell.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by tbannist · 2018-02-07 04:22 · Score: 2

There is nothing to prove there: there is something improper about the warrant.

Not until you prove it.

Those who filed the application used fabricated evidence and they knew it.

No one has yet proven that any substantial amount of the material in the Steele dossier is actually false. It is unverified and the FISA courts deal with unverified information all the time. Warrants are frequently granted on the word of known drug addicts and petty criminals, they're not the most trustworthy people, but if the evidence seems credible enough, then further investigation is warranted.

I repeat it, because it seems that many here do not get it: someone used fabricated evidence knowingly to get a FISA warrant. That is a very serious, concerning fact by itself.

First of all, it's not "fabricated evidence" because the FBI didn't make it up. It's questionable evidence because Steele or Steele's Russian sources might have lied. Secondly, that's only a problem if the FBI concealed those facts from the judge and the judge was incompetent enough to not ask about the providence of the Steele document. There is no claim that the FBI lied to the judge in the memo. However, Nunes' memo may have cleverly led you to believe that the judge was misled by stating something that may be true (that the FBI evidence submission didn't indicate that Hillary Clinton's campaign paid Fusion GPS for the dossier) but irrelevant (for example because the FBI evidence submission indicated it was opposition research paid for by a political campaign). Since neither your nor I will likely be allowed to see the warrant evidence until it long past having any meaning except to historians, I'm sceptical of the claims in the Nunes' memo. Which unlike the FBI warrant application, has no legal duty to state the truth, the whole truth and nothing but truth.

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Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by tbannist · 2018-02-07 04:27 · Score: 2

I believe that is called "Reagoning" your testimony.

For clarity, "Clintoning" your testimony is when you question the meaning of every word in every question.

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Re:TL:DR dont check the message, attack the messen by Noishkel · 2018-02-07 04:29 · Score: 1

So you took statements about problematic study methodology and try to deflect away with an example of an isolated example of a nut that bought into some actual fake news.

Well actually there is an example that's somewhat like that. The 2017 shooting in Alexandria, Virginia, of Republican politicians by a far left partisan at a congressional baseball game.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by PopeRatzo · 2018-02-07 04:35 · Score: 1

I remember when sites parroting trump's claim of being wiretapped was labelled fake news, now we are trying to determine how the FBI got the FISA warrant to wiretap Trump.

The FISA warrant was to wiretap Carter Page, not Donald Trump. And since Donald Trump and his spokespeople have said on numerous occasions that Carter Page was a "nobody", I don't see how Trump could have been caught in such a warrant.

The story that "Trump was wiretapped" is fake news.

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Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by budgenator · 2018-02-07 04:35 · Score: 1

Workers in those parts of our government have seen Trump's brand of political rhetoric coming from the lips of far too many dictators and autocrats over the years, some of whom have been quite brutal. When they hear it coming from the mouth of someone running for President, they get scared sh*tless, and rightly so.

So basically unelected bureaucrats used to running amuck are frightened of a President who promised to drain the swamp. Somehow I'm not surprised.

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Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by stephenmac7 · 2018-02-07 04:51 · Score: 1

> If I may say, no. Violently enforcing your opinion would be extremist. Mere disagreement is hardly extremist.

If this is true, then most people are extremists, as they believe in violently enforcing their opinions, albeit indirectly through government. I think the dictionary definition of "a person who holds extreme or fanatical political or religious views, especially one who resorts to or advocates extreme action" is more accurate.

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Obstruction - starts with... by See+Attached · 2018-02-07 04:53 · Score: 1

How about demanding Fealty (to My Team) over impartiality, and that Constition thing - ya know, for the good of the nation. Fealty is for Kings (and some Kims apparently) so that absolute power is above all other imperatives.

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Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by See+Attached · 2018-02-07 04:54 · Score: 1

Truthiness - the more you say something, the truer it is!

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Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by AdamStarks · 2018-02-07 04:56 · Score: 1

Agreed

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by See+Attached · 2018-02-07 04:56 · Score: 1

Telling a subordinate to stop pursuit of injustice is indeed a crime. Its depriving that subordinates mandate to uphold the constitution.

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Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by pastafazou · 2018-02-07 04:56 · Score: 2, Interesting

The FISA application was against Carter Page. Here's what you need to know about Carter Page.
In 2013, the US Department of Justice announced an indictment against Evgeny Buryakov.

During the course of the investigation, the FBI recorded Sporyshev and Podobnyy speaking inside the SVR’s offices in New York, known as the “Residentura.” The FBI obtained the recordings after Sporyshev attempted to recruit an FBI undercover employee (“UCE-1”), who was posing as an analyst from a New York-based energy company.

That undercover employee ("UCE-1") was Carter Page. He was the primary witness and worked for the FBI up to May of 2016.
But then, suddenly, in October of 2016, the FBI applies for a Title 1 FISA application against Carter Page. What is a Title 1 FISA? It says the target "is working on behalf of a foreign government". Why???
Let me tell you why! A Title 1 FISA allows the FBI to retroactively monitor all communications of not just the target, but ANYONE he communicated with as well!
The FISA warrant was an excuse that allowed the Obama WH to spy on Donald Trump's entire team.

Re:TL:DR dont check the message, attack the messen by Noishkel · 2018-02-07 04:57 · Score: 1

Speaking of shit-fucks that didn't read the study

What I just said about Drudge isn't even from the abstract. It's from the Online Supplement that came with it. I did in fact read through this tripe, which is why I understood the very serious flaws in it. Specially about how this study laid out a list arbitrary attributes about what constitutes 'junk news'. Many of which are absolutely pointless in terms of the quality of the reporting itself. It should also be noted in the list of websites that the author of this BS declares as 'junk' seem to be entirely right wing.

Beyond that, to think that there are no left wing junk news sites is laughable. By the standards set in this study sites like Slate, Buzzfeed, Raw Story, and the Huffington Post would all be 'junk news'. Yet not a single one of these websites are labeled as junk news in this study. And if you think these sites are not junk news by the standard set in the study then you yourself are beyond partisan.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by AdamStarks · 2018-02-07 04:59 · Score: 1

Six of one, half a dozen of the other.

1) If Bill Clinton had just stayed away from the situation, Hillary may have ended up president.
2) If Trump had left Flynn to Comey, there may not have been the same scope of investigation we're currently seeing.

The takeaway is this: leave the shit alone that you're supposed to leave alone, otherwise you risk getting it all over yourself.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by Green+Mountain+Bot · 2018-02-07 04:59 · Score: 2

Wanting something is not a crime. Taking concrete actions to impede an investigation, such as firing someone when they refuse to shut down an investigation, is by definition obstruction of justice.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by pastafazou · 2018-02-07 05:02 · Score: 1

The FISA warrant was against Carter Page, and was signed by Assistant AG John P Carlin. The same John P Carlin that a few months ago was prosecuting a case against Evgeny Buryakov in which Carter Page was the undercover FBI employee who gathered the evidence. John P Carlin KNEW Carter Page wasn't a Russian spy. He LIED to the court.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by budgenator · 2018-02-07 05:02 · Score: 1

MSM outlet simply can't compete with the internet in regards to getting breaking stories out to the masses, what they should concentrate on is getting the news out later but have more thoroughly vetted the sources and investigational reporting that internet news simply doesn't have the manpower to do.

The days of "Stop the Presses!" are long over for MSM.

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Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extrem by i286NiNJA · 2018-02-07 05:03 · Score: 1

He does touch on something though. Many people go to college and apply everything they learn incorrectly.
We have all encountered an internet asshole who is wrong and screams ad hominem because people call him an obnoxious asshole and don't bother trying to "debate" him. He struggles to understand that nobody cares if he is correct and the current topic of debate is his character and not what he want to talk about.

Then there is the we're having an internet argument "I have citations" and "show me your citations"... but absolutely not wikipedia. I have encountered LOTS of people who think all citations (except wikipedia) are created equal. It's the kind of thing you'd think a middle school kid could understand but yet somehow many students seem to leave college less capable of critical thought than they arrived.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extrem by i286NiNJA · 2018-02-07 05:05 · Score: 3, Insightful

None of those are critical thinking but they are skills.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by pastafazou · 2018-02-07 05:05 · Score: 1

Sorry, but you're completely wrong. Carter Page was not under US law enforcement surveillance. That's fake news. He worked for the FBI undercover in the case brought against Evgeny Buryakov. As late as March of 2016 he was in court testifying against him.

fake news by kz45 · 2018-02-07 05:10 · Score: 1

I think people seem to forget that Trump brought up fake news and Russian meddling during the election. We had people on the left coming out in droves saying that this was against our democracy to say this.

Then after he wins, it's now somehow turned against him (like children that don't know how to respond when they are in trouble).

Why are we also not mentioning that many of the Russian bot accounts were posting about anti-trump, BLM, and other leftist protest events (so many liberals also fell for fake news). Intentionally leaving out facts to smear the opposition is fake news. This is why Trump won and will most likely win again in 2020.

I think both the Russians and the Chinese have both been meddling with our elections online since at least the Obama administration. Reddit had many bots posting support for him during both elections and he even spammed Facebook/used a flaw during the 2008 election that helped him win (which was closed conveniently after the election). If Trump did this, there would be blood in the streets and he would probably be sued.

The sick part is that if Hillary won, we would see business as usual. Nobody would care about Russian meddling (especially the media) and anyone that mentioned it would be laughed out of the room...like when Obama tried to say that the Russians weren't are enemy in a debate against Mitt Romney. The mainstream media is clearly biased. During Obama's 2 terms, I don't think I saw even one negative article about him on any of the mainstream news sites (besides Fox).

The leaked DNC emails also clearly showed the media bias during the election (feeding Hillary questions, dinners at her house) and that she colluded with our local press to smear Bernie Sanders and essentially destroy any chance he had at winning. If you don't see something wrong with this, you are the problem.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by Cederic · 2018-02-07 05:12 · Score: 1

Yeah, pots already made that point. There's an interesting question whether the original tweet should have been deleted, but that's a tricky ethics question with no obviously right answers.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by budgenator · 2018-02-07 05:14 · Score: 1

I don't know what sand pile you have had your head buried in but the Unions have always been a bastion of the Democratic party line. I've never seen a UAW news letter endorse a Republican or Independent.
Democrats always say they are against Evil(tm) Corporations, but that's all blue smoke and mirrors, Democrats need the Unions and the Unions need Evil(tm) Corporations.

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Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by cyberchondriac · 2018-02-07 05:16 · Score: 1

Fire Comey! He screwed up Hillary's election! OMG he fired Comey! Traitor!

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Its Truthiness that matters by jzarling · 2018-02-07 05:25 · Score: 1

At least with my GOP supporting family members - it seems to be the truthiness that matters more than actual truth.

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Well obviously... by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-07 05:36 · Score: 1

Because even the supposed "left" of the US could, at best, be considered to be "center-leaning right." There's been almost zero representation of actual leftist interest in American politics for decades. Both Clinton and Obama were neoliberals that supported free trade and low regulation, and it's really only been since the election of Trump that something vaguely resembling an organized left has started to coalesce.

There's still a long way to go before we've got anything approaching the influence or momentum of the right, though, which should come as no surprise since a powerful contingent of people have spent over half a century turning that into a synonym for "evil."

The longer we put off dismantling capitalism, and the longer we delay the inevitable need for global egalitarianism, the more painful that transition will be for everyone. Do we really need to wait until we're living under direct, unambiguous corporate hegemony before we do something to stop the destruction of human culture and value?

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by Archangel+Michael · 2018-02-07 05:50 · Score: 1

The FBI and Obama Justice Department are guilty of obstruction of justice?

Because the people that have discredited the investigation are the high ranking FBI and Justice Department officials that screwed the pooch trying to nail Trump, with Hillary Clinton/DNC propaganda from Russian intelligence. There is way more smoke coming from that fire than anything Trump has actually done.

Mind you, I didn't vote for Trump or Hillary, and Trump has his own issues (namely himself).

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Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by Archangel+Michael · 2018-02-07 06:01 · Score: 1

Because "everything Trump has done.... " was clearly stated in the GP post!

You are clearly hallucinating something that wasn't stated. You can actually DISAGREE with the conclusions the GP posted without hyperbole. You really ought to try it sometime.

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Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by swillden · 2018-02-07 06:13 · Score: 1

The FBI and Obama Justice Department are guilty of obstruction of justice?

That's possible, but would be unrelated to the Mueller investigation.

Mind you, I didn't vote for Trump or Hillary, and Trump has his own issues (namely himself).

Same here.

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Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by AmiMoJo · 2018-02-07 06:17 · Score: 1

If they deleted the tweet they would be accused of trying to cover up their mistake. They can't win, the best they can do is stick to tradition and publish a correction in the linked article and a follow up tweet.

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Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by Archangel+Michael · 2018-02-07 06:21 · Score: 1

Comey has himself to blame for a lot of the mess he is in.

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Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-07 06:26 · Score: 1

Surveillance of Carter Page, which has been going on for multiple years prior to the Trump candidacy without any evidence or legal action is not it'self actionable, regardless of whatever bullshit they have been spinning on MSNBC. The only thing that that reveals is that the FISA court was broken for a long time under the Obama administration. When they can surveil an American citizen for multiple years on suspicion without producing actual evidence, in clear violation of his constitutional rights it is broken as shit, not evidence to justify additional surveillance... idiot.

They have the head of the FBI testifying before congress on the record that without the Steele dossier there would not have been a FISA warrant pursued or approved on the Trump candidacy. Period full stop.

No one is indicting the entire FBI, they are indicting under 10 high ranking and top level FBI and DOJ officials, politically placed and/or promoted who pulled this shit. James Comey is facing perjury charges at minimum because he testified to Congress that the Steel Dossier was salacious and unproven, but 6 weeks before he signed off on the FISA warrant using that same dossier as key evidence, along with a circular second source that was also actually sourced to Steele as well (the Yahoo news article). He further pursued, leaked and eventually achieved an independent council investigation loaded with Trump haters based on that falsely obtained FISA warrant and subsequent investigation.

You might want to try thinking for yourself and listening to multiple sources rather than regurgitating the MSM alt left talking points, you will be better off in the long run. It is a mater of time before these people are arrested and charged, when they do you will be freaking out, believing whatever BULLSHIT the MSM feeds you straight from the shrills of the Dim party.

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Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by Mr307 · 2018-02-07 06:26 · Score: 1

All except for the part where he was indeed 'wiretapped', you need to get up to speed on current events.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-07 06:31 · Score: 1

Oh, and the reason that Comey had to re-open the investigation into Hillary Clinton was because Andrew McCabe sat on and concealed the existence of the Wiener laptop for almost a month before he was forced to turn it over for discovery. Had he managed to conceal it for another week, Hillary would probably have been president and swept all of this corruption under the rug never to be heard about... http://www.foxnews.com/politic...

Not conspiracy theory, facts my friend.

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Invalid sorting is invalid by MSTCrow5429 · 2018-02-07 06:34 · Score: 1

This "study" claims that nationalreview.com is a "junk news site." Also, it seems they classify a site as a "junk news site" if they find a single story that is, using their three-factor test, junk news. This list should be a lot, lot, lot longer if they were being honest about their own criteria.

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Re:Liars, Damn Liars by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-07 06:35 · Score: 1

Not if you want to spread your lie effectively, as in this case.

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Re:TL:DR dont check the message, attack the messen by apoc.famine · 2018-02-07 06:36 · Score: 1

For a source to be labelled as junk news at least three of the following five characteristics must
apply:
* Professionalism: These outlets do not employ the standards and best practices of
professional journalism. They refrain from providing clear information about real
authors, editors, publishers and owners. They lack transparency, accountability, and do
not publish corrections on debunked information.
* Style: These outlets use emotionally driven language with emotive expressions,
hyperbole, ad hominem attacks, misleading headlines, excessive capitalization, unsafe
generalizations and fallacies, moving images, graphic pictures and mobilizing memes.
* Credibility: These outlets rely on false information and conspiracy theories, which they
often employ strategically. They report without consulting multiple sources and do not
employ fact-checking methods. Their sources are often untrustworthy and their
standards of news production lack credibility.
* Bias: Reporting in these outlets is highly biased and ideologically skewed, which is
otherwise described as hyper-partisan reporting. These outlets frequently present
opinion and commentary essays as news.
* Counterfeit: These outlets mimic professional news media. They counterfeit fonts,
branding and stylistic content strategies. Commentary and junk content is stylistically
disguised as news, with references to news agencies, and credible sources, and
headlines written in a news tone, with bylines, date, time and location stamps.

So lets take Slate for an example. A quick look shows that they pass the bar for Professionalism, as they identify their authors, and they make corrections. They're not counterfeit, as they don't mimic another news organization. And a quick look (I'm not a normal reader, obviously) shows that they seem to pass the Style and Credibility sniff test. Biased? Potentially. But they'd need to fail all 3 of those to get picked up as fake news.

Lets look at Drudge. Fails the Professional test on a couple accounts. While yes, it's an aggregator, it doesn't have any accountability, authors listed, and doesn't publish corrections. Obviously fails on Style. And I think the Credibility is a fail as well, as they don't seem to be doing a lot of vetting at all - it's a giant unorganized mess of links to both pretty legitimate MSM sites as well as some crackpot ones.

I'm honestly unsure why you feel that these two are on the wrong side of the fake news line. It seems pretty clear-cut to me, based on their metrics. And while I agree that some of these are somewhat unrelated to the quality of the reporting, without doing a deep analysis of the reporting itself, which would be a hurclean effort, I think it's a reasonable proxy for the quality of the stories.

I don't see any real bias in how they laid out their selection method. Given that this is coming out of Oxford in the UK, I have a hard time believing that they would be manipulating this research to favor one US political party over the other. That's a rather serious claim, and I'd expect such a claim to come with some serious evidence to back it up. You being angry that you are fed fake news isn't really that sort of evidence.

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Re:Liars, Damn Liars by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-07 06:36 · Score: 1

History will tell the tale, and I'm happy to be wrong, but I doubt it.

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Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-07 06:44 · Score: 1

OMG you found the one conservative professor who is 73 who may still be teaching at Oxford! Impressive research skills, but he is still a little outnumbered by the other 12,999 Oxford staff and only slightly diminishes my hyperbolic but no less accurate point.

I concede that there may be dozens of conservative professors at Oxford. Hell, I am a conservative professor, but I also know for a hard fact that we are a rare breed and only survive in the hard sciences where liberal BS is killed by the antiseptic of objective truth.

My point still stands that this study was a liberal hit piece and that virtually every university on the planet is rife with alt left fascists who can't tolerate the thought of anyone thinking differently than they do.

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Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by PopeRatzo · 2018-02-07 06:50 · Score: 1

https://www.factcheck.org/2017...

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You are welcome on my lawn.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by apoc.famine · 2018-02-07 06:58 · Score: 1

Surveillance of Carter Page, which has been going on for multiple years prior to the Trump candidacy without any evidence or legal action is not it'self actionable...

Either you are lying and have no idea, or you are publicly releasing classified information. Which is it?

They have the head of the FBI testifying before congress on the record that without the Steele dossier there would not have been a FISA warrant pursued or approved on the Trump candidacy. Period full stop.

Once again, either you are lying and do not know that, or you are publicly releasing classified information. Which is it?

You might want to try thinking for yourself and listening to multiple sources....

Not sure that's going to help, because look where it got you! You're here ranting about things that you can't possibly know, absolutely certain that you're correct.

Ask yourself this: Why do I believe all these things with no hard evidence of them being true? Then go and read the paper that started this whole discussion.

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Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor

Re:Reality has a well-known liberal bias by Archangel+Michael · 2018-02-07 07:06 · Score: 1

Wow. I just watched the whole thing, and that is a great example of what I have started to call "hallucinations'. People hearing things that aren't there, jumping to kneejerked reactions. The most interesting point to me, was the point right about 23 minutes in, he basically got her to realize offending people isn't a crime, "you got me". Free speech is at odds with not wanting to be offended.

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Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by pastafazou · 2018-02-07 07:09 · Score: 1

I love it, someone has modded my comment down. Way to try and bury the truth, you partisan hacks!

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-07 07:12 · Score: 1

The other supporting evidence was a Yahoo news article which was actually leaked to the author by Steele (and thus circular and not an independent second source). Further, we have on record in closed hearing (but which will be used in the criminal trials) that the head of the FBI confirmed to congress that without the Steele dossier, the FISA warrant would not have been pursued or approved. The alt left is further grasping at straws claiming that the unfounded prior surveillance of Carter Page is also somehow supporting evidence for the FISA, which is utter BS and everyone who is paying attention knows it. The bottom line is perjury and abuse of power for sure was committed by top officials at the FBI and DOJ and maybe the Obama administration and Clinton campaign and those people are going to prison and the left is apoplectic that they will be out of power for the next 25 years and at this point are straight up lying (claiming the Nunes Memo contained sources and methods) to try and obstruct the truth from coming out.

FISA warrants are indeed secret, but when they are approved, they must be signed off on under criminal penalty of perjury. This falsely acquired warrant puts every person who signed off on it in jeopardy of perjury as well as the abuse of power act I cited above. There is no hiding from this, the Trump Russian collusion investigation has found no criminal activity, the newly created independent council will be arresting and convicting at least 5 and maybe up to 15 high ranking FBI, DOJ, Clinton campaign and Obama administration officials and employees of perjury, conspiracy and potentially treason (depending if the new reporting that Steele was actually being fed his information by Russian operatives in order to subvert the Trump presidency and foment the current political climate). If I were Trump, as well as a number of other people who have been dragged through the mud, I would bring a multi billion dollar suit against the MSM and the Democrats for slander and libel. The threshold is very high, but from what I have seen, it has clearly been crossed on a myriad of occasions.

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If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like

Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by Anonymous Coward · 2018-02-07 07:16 · Score: 1

I don't get it. The linked comment is titled "Trump isnt a Russian spy," are you citing it as evidence supporting him? Because it sounds like you're using it as evidence to prove him wrong, in which case you've done a fine job of demonstrating right-wing fake news...

this is fake news by micahraleigh · 2018-02-07 07:23 · Score: 1

The study just confirms its own presuppositions (i.e. which articles they declared as fake news)

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-07 07:25 · Score: 1

Surveillance of Carter Page, which has been going on for multiple years prior to the Trump candidacy without any evidence or legal action is not it'self actionable...

Either you are lying and have no idea, or you are publicly releasing classified information. Which is it?

The information is already out there, (released by the Dims, I believe) when they tried to use the fact that he was under surveillance as evidence to justify the FISA on Trump (nice try though).

They have the head of the FBI testifying before congress on the record that without the Steele dossier there would not have been a FISA warrant pursued or approved on the Trump candidacy. Period full stop.

Once again, either you are lying and do not know that, or you are publicly releasing classified information. Which is it?

This was revealed by a Republican on the intelligence committee and is not classified as it reveals no sources or methods, only a point of fact which the Dims were trying to obfuscate to cover their criminal asses.

You might want to try thinking for yourself and listening to multiple sources....

Not sure that's going to help, because look where it got you! You're here ranting about things that you can't possibly know, absolutely certain that you're correct.

Ask yourself this: Why do I believe all these things with no hard evidence of them being true? Then go and read the paper that started this whole discussion.

Give it a week and try to watch Fox (Shep Smith doesn't count) news once in a while (I know it burns, disinfectant is often painful).

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If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like

Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by kiminator · 2018-02-07 07:29 · Score: 1

For not being a Trump supporter, you sure are saying a lot of things in support of Trump.

Trump may be saying things, "that a lot of people have wanted to say for some time," but you failed to specify which people. Those people he's been channeling? White supremacists and xenophobes with absolutely no understanding of how our government works, let alone how other nations work or how to talk to them.

These are "novel approaches" because everybody who had his position before him had ten times his sense, and most were far less racist (at least in the last century).

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-07 07:32 · Score: 1

His political affiliation is irrelevant, he presided over a dumpster fire at the FBI and did nothing to stop it. It is entirely possible that he is an incompetent PHB who didn't know WTF he was doing, also possible that he was convinced that Hillary was going to get elected and wanted to keep his job and didn't give a shit about breaking the law to make sure that happened. R or D politicians in many cases are just as bad (have you seen the traitor John McCain?)

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If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by ilguido · 2018-02-07 07:46 · Score: 1

There is nothing to prove there: there is something improper about the warrant.

Not until you prove it.

Prove what? The fact that they omitted to say that dossier was paid by political adversaries of Trump? The fact that they omitted to say that the corroborating source Yahoo News was in fact the same source? The fact that Steele was a known critic of Trump, per Ohr testimony? They used a libellous source at best.

No one has yet proven that any substantial amount of the material in the Steele dossier is actually false.

Because it is mostly unverifiable and the author knew it when he wrote it. The few verifiable parts are false, like the fact that Trump's lawyer was in Prague to meet Russian officials. The rest is just unverifiable gossip (e.g. who can prove the existence of a Russian dossier on Trump to blackmail him, if not the Russian themselves?) retold by anonymous sources.

Warrants are frequently granted on the word of known drug addicts and petty criminals, they're not the most trustworthy people, but if the evidence seems credible enough, then further investigation is warranted.

If that is not worrisome to you, I do not know what to say. However in this case it is not just unverified information, it is also a matter of unverified sources. A drug addict probably knows a given drug dealer, so he may not be trustworthy, but he is surely an informed source. In this case the source is an anonymous guy, who claims to know everything about the most protected secrets of the Kremlin. It is untrustworthy the information and the source.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by apoc.famine · 2018-02-07 07:47 · Score: 1

If factual evidence is out there, please provide some links. Everything I've seen so far is just heresy, and that includes the Nunes memo.

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Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor

Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by kiminator · 2018-02-07 07:51 · Score: 2

I doubt that's the main inroad the Russians had.

My bet is it's more a matter of two things: 1) Trump is utterly ignorant of the boundaries of law for the presidency, such that he really doesn't understand that "you scratch my back and I scratch yours" behavior can be severely illegal, and 2) Trump's #1 guiding star is always his ego, and Putin was willing to stroke that ego.

My guess is that there has been a lot of direct collusion with the Russians from some of Trump's subordinates (it's the only explanation for the dismantling of State department I can see), but that Trump's knowledge and understanding of that collusion has been limited. He's probably been fed some oversimplified explanations of what's been going on, and probably supports the effort in the main, but hasn't had much direct interaction. My bet is his subordinates would prefer it that way: it keeps him in power, which keeps them protected (for now).

It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out as Mueller's probe comes to a head. I'd honestly be shocked if his subordinates who did the most collusion didn't take the care and effort to retain some evidence that pointed the finger directly at Trump. Trump's protection only matters as long as they themselves aren't targeted, and I doubt they're strong enough ideologues to continue following him once it no longer serves their interests. If Mueller's probe gets to them, they benefit greatly by pointing the finger up the chain, and can only do that effectively if they've retained some evidence. Trump's only hope is that his subordinates are just as incompetent as he is, or that the Republicans try something dramatic to halt the investigation (though that will only buy him until next year, if the midterm elections turn out like the special elections we had last year).

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by kiminator · 2018-02-07 07:53 · Score: 1

I believe we called you racists because you kept claiming white people are better than everybody else. Funny, that.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by Mr307 · 2018-02-07 07:54 · Score: 1

Like I said get up to speed on current events:

http://docs.house.gov/meetings...

And there is more to come.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by TopherC · 2018-02-07 08:07 · Score: 1

Yes, this! I don't often read the slashdot discussions, but I did here looking for exactly this kind of comment. Finally! How many other posters here have actually RTFA? Here that means the full PDF. I've read some of it, but not enough. (So I don't count yet.) Most everything else, even my own meta-post here, is off-topic, irrelevant, reactionary blather.

So far I'm impressed by the techniques used. I cannot tell yet if there is room for bias in the results but I don't see any yet.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by jedidiah · 2018-02-07 08:15 · Score: 1

> Trump would still be a Russian stooge

This is all anyone needs to see to know that you are a MORON. You are a reflection of current liberals who have contempt for the idea of personal responsibility. The entire Russian collusion narrative is an attempt to deflect blame for a spectacular failure.

It's not the 80s any more. The Soviet Union is dead. Russia is no longer communist. World wide communist revolution is dead except in the mind of modern liberals (who are the reds now).

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A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.

How is that possible . . by Joey+Vegetables · 2018-02-07 08:18 · Score: 1

when there is no substantial right wing in this country, just varying degrees of far-left and further-left????

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Nonaggression works!

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by CanHasDIY · 2018-02-07 08:31 · Score: 1

In America, the liberals have focused on the college educated ...

Milo Yannopolis is college educated, as are a number of conservative pundits who are regularly (and often violently) prevented from speaking their college-educated opinions on college campuses.

It is harder to trick college educated people into believing false statements.

Nah, you just have to play to their egos; it's amazing how quickly most people will fall for any old bullshit, so long as it's something they already believe in. After Sandy Hook, a "study" was published that stated "98% of Americans agree that we need stronger gun control laws." Trouble is, 98% of Americans have never agreed on anything.

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An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese

Re:Reality has a well-known liberal bias by serviscope_minor · 2018-02-07 08:36 · Score: 1

I can't help notice the very popular "so you're saying" followed by a hallucination of what the other person didn't say.

You do realise that "the person" is you. And we are not unkown to each other.

You have me marked as a Foe, whcih likely because you think I spout left wing drivel and I have you marked as a Foe which means I think you spout right wing drivel.

You see: this is where reality rears it's ugly liberal biases again; you have to be responsible for the things you said. A history of spouting crap means I know the stuff you have said even if it wasn't that post.

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SJW n. One who posts facts.

Re:Liars, Damn Liars by CanHasDIY · 2018-02-07 08:43 · Score: 1

That's funny, because Northern Europe is doing really goddamn well currently

Is that the part with xenophobic, homogeneous populations and exceedingly strict immigration controls?

I love Scandinavia.

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An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese

Not peer reviewed yet by AutodidactLabrat · 2018-02-07 08:45 · Score: 1

Take this with a grain of salt.
Granted, the paper DOES describe blockchain tracking of source material, demonstrating the preponderance of fake news site ultimate sourcing, BUT without peer review, it's just an opinion
And I AM A LIBERAL!

Re:Reality has a well-known liberal bias by DNS-and-BIND · 2018-02-07 09:51 · Score: 1

No, I don't use Slashdot's marking system. Honestly I miss the old days when there were tons more users. You respond to way too many of my posts and it just gets dull after a while.

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Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by TopherC · 2018-02-07 10:32 · Score: 1

I disagree. Those criteria, while they do allow for judgement calls, seem like good ones. Requiring 3 out of the 5 is a little arbitrary though.

The fake news awards were pure white house propaganda, as are claims of CNN and the stock market. Not all news outlets use *highly* emotional language, and to do so would be obviously unprofessional. All-caps and bad punctuation also point at lack of professionalism. Junk news outlets use all these techniques a lot because they are trying to persuade, not inform.

Limited use of unnamed sources is understandable, as long as you don't do this all the time. CNN does usually cite its sources. The logical fallacies and other propaganda techniques are obvious to spot with a little training, and junk news sources use these regularly. It's baffling that it isn't more obvious to people.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by stdarg · 2018-02-07 10:34 · Score: 1

Our schools actually are chronically underfunded, because the actual cost of materials and facilities has skyrocketed. The cost of textbooks is way more than 4x what it was in the 1960s. It's probably closer to 20x. And in the 1960s, we didn't need computers for students, nor network infrastructure. You can't compare education now to the 1960s by just comparing dollars, because if you educated someone today in the way that you educated kids in the 1960s, they would not be hirable. Too much has changed in those fifty years, and jobs that pay well tend to also require skills that do, in fact, cost way more to teach.

When talking about funding in general, you have to talk about funding for a particular thing. Not just "underfunded" or "overfunded." I am underfunded to buy a million dollar house. I am not underfunded to buy a smaller house. Do we need computers for students? I don't think so, at least not to the extent that schools are stuffing into their budgets today. My school had a computer lab in the late 90s. "A" meaning "one." Enough for one class of kids at a time. Did it prepare me for the jobs of today and the future? Yes. Today schools districts are issuing laptops or tablets to each individual student, it's ridiculous.

Schools are just bad with their money, and they get away with it because it's for the kids. People affiliated with education become infected with the inability to save money. You know donorschoose.org I presume? Take a look at the projects and see the expensive garbage teachers want for their classrooms. One in my area wanted chargers for all the tablets that the kids use so they wouldn't die in class. So they put their project on donors choose and specified the most expensive "charging station" they could find. I searched amazon and found many competing models ("charging stations" not just chargers) with the same number of charging ports for half the cost. So I sent the teacher a note and did not donate.

Either way, the ratio of teachers to students is strongly correlated with graduation rates.

I'm sure it is, but you have to consider the size of the effect, not just strength of correlation.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-07 10:41 · Score: 1

Read through the rest of the +5 posts (assuming it hasn't been mod bombed by the alt left sock puppet accounts like I have), one of those has several of the articles that were cited as the reason mainstream conservative news sites were added to the junk news list, and they are 100% true and accurate, so no, the Oxford study was not being honest or accurate at quantifying fake news. Sorry.

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If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-07 10:47 · Score: 1

The evidence is unofficial at this point and it has not yet been officially declassified, so we will have to wait a few weeks as the Dems drag their feet and obstruct, but the sources I pay attention to on Fox news and online sources are rarely wrong (I pay attention to that specifically and have been for 30 years) so I have no qualms that the truth will eventually become officially known.

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If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by kenai_alpenglow · 2018-02-07 10:58 · Score: 1

Trying to be objective (hard, I know), I'm not sure I agree. 1. HRC beat HRC. She ran the worst campaign I've ever seen. Maybe health, who knows, but it appears her arrogance is what killed her shot. PA/WI/MI. 2. After Trump won, the opposition (not just democrats) were out to get him. No matter what he did w Flynn/Comey, we'd still be in this mess. Details may be changed, but objective wouldn't

Re:Reality has a well-known liberal bias by serviscope_minor · 2018-02-07 11:18 · Score: 1

No, I don't use Slashdot's marking system.

Yes you do.

https://slashdot.org/~DNS-and-...

You have labelled me as a foe.

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SJW n. One who posts facts.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by AdamStarks · 2018-02-07 11:41 · Score: 1

I agree that Hillary was a fundamentally weak candidate, but there's evidence to suggest that Comey's announcement was the straw that tipped the camel over in Trump's favor.

And yeah, Trump would still be hounded, but I find it hard to believe he wouldn't have been better off this whole time without Mueller's investigation (which directly stemmed from firing Comey).

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by PopeRatzo · 2018-02-07 13:01 · Score: 1

Like I said get up to speed on current events:

That letter from the President's lawyer is not evidence that "Trump was wiretapped".

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You are welcome on my lawn.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by tbannist · 2018-02-07 14:19 · Score: 2

Prove what? The fact that they omitted to say that dossier was paid by political adversaries of Trump? The fact that they omitted to say that the corroborating source Yahoo News was in fact the same source? The fact that Steele was a known critic of Trump, per Ohr testimony? They used a libellous source at best.

These are claims. You are not able to prove they are true, and I am not able to prove they are false because neither of us is allowed to see the actual warrant applications, hearing transcripts, or any of the related classified materials.

Nunes says there is something improper, but he has all the motivation in the world to find something improper and other people say he's wrong. Furthermore, Nunes' chose to prevent the minority party on the intelligence committee from releasing their opposing viewpoint, which tells me that he is not confident that his criticisms will withstand actual scrutiny. You can't be "for transparency" while only allowing half of the story to be told.

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Fanatically anti-fanatical

Re:500+ comments, no one actually read the study.. by Qwertie · 2018-02-07 14:44 · Score: 2

they picked 91 sites that they deemed "junk", through 5 criteria (3 of which had to be met). The problem is that they picks do not normalize for traffic and breadth, and they didn't study the actual content being shared.

Look, their criteria was:

For a source to be labeled as junk news it must fall in at least three of the following five domains:

- Professionalism: These outlets do not employ the standards and best practices of professional journalism. They refrain from providing clear information about real authors, editors, publishers and owners. They lack transparency, accountability, and do not publish corrections on debunked information.

- Style: These outlets use emotionally driven language with emotive expressions, hyperbole, ad hominem attacks, misleading headlines, excessive capitalization, unsafe generalizations and fallacies, moving images, graphic pictures and mobilizing memes.

- Credibility: These outlets rely on false information and conspiracy theories, which they often employ strategically. They report without consulting multiple sources and do not employ fact-checking methods. Their sources are often untrustworthy and their standards of news production lack credibility.

- Bias: Reporting in these outlets is highly biased and ideologically skewed, which is otherwise described as hyper-partisan reporting. These outlets frequently present opinion and commentary essays as news.

- Counterfeit: These outlets mimic professional news media. They counterfeit fonts, branding and stylistic content strategies. Commentary and junk content is stylistically disguised as news, with references to news agencies, and credible sources, and headlines written in a news tone, with bylines, date, time and location stamps.

Granted, the criteria seem a bit subjective. For instance, if a web site uses a lot of "hyperbole, misleading headlines, unsafe generalizations and fallacies, emotionally driven language" but very little "ad hominem attacks, excessive capitalization, moving images, graphic pictures and mobilizing memes", does it count as "bad style" or not?

But it's interesting that none of the top-voted comments here responded by saying "I'm conservative but I prefer conservative sources that don't meet these criteria, and I'm concerned about the prevalence of conservative sources that do." Instead I'm seeing responses like "they should have counted CNN as junk news!" (really, CNN should be on the list when Fox News is not?) or "these criteria are unfair because they single out conservative hyperpartisan media! so the criteria should have been changed!"

Perhaps "they didn't study the actual content being shared" as RedK suggests, but in order to evaluate the 5 criteria they must of course have evaluated samples of each site's content.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by apoc.famine · 2018-02-07 15:39 · Score: 1

Interesting. So you admit there's no evidence to be had by anyone except those involved at the highest levels of the FISA court, yet are happy to believe people telling you what's going on, despite knowing that they don't have access to that evidence either. I definitely do not have that level of faith in any news organization, and I'm a little amazed you do.

And your claim that Fox is rarely wrong really contradicts your claim to be paying attention to their accuracy for 30 years. For one, it's only been around for 20 years. For another, Fox is definitely wrong pretty often, and rarely retracts stories or offers corrections.

How, exactly, have you come to the conclusion that Fox is rarely wrong? What was your methodology?

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Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor

Thanks Oxford...Big Surprise.... by Tulsa_Time · 2018-02-07 16:14 · Score: 1

Fake research....

What do they say ?

https://science.slashdot.org/s...

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5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy

eh by bobmajdakjr · 2018-02-07 17:40 · Score: 1

living in texas it sure feels that way but given the scope if the internet that data set is both nothing and suspect.

It's not an IQ thing... by denzacar · 2018-02-07 18:18 · Score: 1

Right-wing in the USA has a far longer "tail" of "quite insane" fringers who are basically "the base" of the main right-wing party.

Not because left-wing fringers are less insane per capita, but because many fringe lefties weer off into apolitical interests (until you harm their photosynthetic soulmates)...
AND because there was never a comparable level of pandering to the left-wing fringe groups from the main party.
E.g. No one is insane enough to embrace communists - and they are nowhere near to the far end of fringe on the left.

I.e. Once you call loons over for tea, then let them take over the whole tea party...
That's just the tip of the iceberg of fringe insanity floating out there, now aligning itself not with you (the RINO establishment deep state commies) - but with all those loons you allowed in.

And that's AFTER you condition the party for decades to expect secret code words everywhere while basing the party itself on the idealization of some past which never was and rejection of reality when it doesn't fit the ideological narrative.
Pretty soon, no one can tell the difference between own propaganda and reality.

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Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens

Re:Reality has a well-known liberal bias by DNS-and-BIND · 2018-02-07 19:33 · Score: 1

LOL! I don't remember that at all. Yeah, you must have said something really vile and hateful for me to use the system for the one and only time. Geez, I have a ton of fans! I never knew...

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Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!

Re:Liars, Damn Liars by KozmoStevnNaut · 2018-02-07 19:39 · Score: 1

It's the place that has historically been very welcoming of "guest workers", as we called them in the old days, and of anyone interested and willing to make the trip here and integrate. There are so many descendants of immigrants here that you don't even take special notice of them. Or did you think Scandinavians originally had olive skin, brown eyes and dark hair?

Hell, both sides of my family are filthy dirty gypsy immigrants from who-knows-where, and I'm as Scandinavian as they come, you'd think I was a direct descendant of Gorm the Old.

Things started turning to shit when various right-winger forces in government insisted on concentrating immigrants into ghettos.

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Eat the rich.

Re:Liars, Damn Liars by KozmoStevnNaut · 2018-02-07 19:41 · Score: 1

You obviously don't know Northern Europeans very well at all. Or Europe. Or people in general, actually.

We will right this ship. And we will stand tall and look down upon the shattered remnants of xenophobia and racism.

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Eat the rich.

Re:Reality has a well-known liberal bias by serviscope_minor · 2018-02-07 19:59 · Score: 1

Yeah, you must have said something really vile and hateful for me to use the system for the one and only time.

I have to get quite annoyed at people before I bother, so you must have said stupid things many many times.

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SJW n. One who posts facts.

Re:Liars, Damn Liars by f3rret · 2018-02-07 20:11 · Score: 1

Yeah, you're doing real well in western Europe when journalists, film makers and cartoonists all have to fear for their lives if they don't self-censor. Where a state of emergency had to be extended in France five times, with military posted to street corners. Where rape and no-go zones are becoming endemic. That vocal minority of fear-mongering racists really are deluded, aren't they?

Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.

Exactly.

Cool. Learn something new every day, pretty cool how you guys know more than people actually living here.

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Admit nothing. Deny Everything. Make Counter-accusations.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by Saunalainen · 2018-02-07 22:08 · Score: 1

OMG you found the one conservative professor who is 73 who may still be teaching at Oxford!

It only took me a second or two to think of a very high profile conservative thinker who has recently been a professor in Oxford - enough for you to lose the bet you were prepared to make (that there had been none in 30 years).

liberal BS is killed by the antiseptic of objective truth

and sweeping, unsupported statements can be disproved by one data point. Can you point me to your evidence that less than 1% of Oxford academics are conservatives?

Re: Liars, Damn Liars by KozmoStevnNaut · 2018-02-08 00:55 · Score: 1

Good luck picking me out in a lineup, I'm tall, blond and blue-eyed, text-book Scandinavian looks :-)

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Eat the rich.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by shilly · 2018-02-08 01:55 · Score: 1

It takes a special kind of stupid to read my comment and think it represented a *conservative* point of view, but congratulations, you just achieved it. I was, seeing as you were too stupid to notice, responding to a ridiculous authoritarian will-of-the-people nobility-of-the-working-man screed, not a left-of-centre argument. But never mind, you carry on being angry with the wrong people about the wrong things.

Cult of the personality by DarthVain · 2018-02-08 02:05 · Score: 1

I don't think it has to do with education, but it likely is a contributor. Similarly some have mentioned IQ, but perhaps more aptly generically stated "intelligence" (to which education itself could be called a factor), is also likely a contributor. That said neither of those things explain it thoroughly. I've seen people who've I'd thought were educated and/or pretty smart parrot a lot of pretty far right bs.

I think it has more to do with personality. I also notice the same (causal or not) folks are usually religious, perhaps for the same reasons. They seem to have the ability to hear what they want to hear, and to be able to discount anything that might threaten that no matter what it is. This may also be attributed to perhaps (and I don't know for sure), understanding, but just not caring as it doesn't match your world view. As to why they share it so often, it is almost certainly propaganda. Repetition is key. It is hard to say if this is done intentionally because they are looking to further their cause, or unintentionally in that it reinforces their own beliefs so gives a kind of credence to their own world view. Kind of like proving to someone something by citing 8 papers, all of which you wrote yourself... Though in this case it is more like being able to site papers written by other people simply parroting the same thing.

I mean I have a couple people I know from high school, that post so much right wing stuff that I find myself actually wondering if they are seriously considering running for public office sometime in the near future.... That said I rarely post any retorts to this kind of stuff though I occasionally get galled into something. I know as soon as I do, all I am doing is adding more people that are able to see it because posted on it, and so on and so forth until it snowballs into something viral which is the ultimate end game of these stupid posts in the first place to get the widest audience as possible for their soapbox. They don't necessarily care if all people agree, because some of them will, and will start the whole insidious process all over again. It is very self perpetuating. In fact, the more ludicrous and crazy it is, the more left wing folks will also comment, which will only further help propel it into prominence. Which is funny in a depressing way, as those leftists are the same ones calling into question the right wing IQ, and then by their own actions helping them to perpetuate their propaganda. I've had the conversion with people about not engaging them, that I agree with your arguments, but by feeling your need to speak your mind, you are only helping them further.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by leathered · 2018-02-08 02:21 · Score: 1

> They stink the same.

Not true, blue collar workers are more likely to eat at Taco Bell.

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For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by werepants · 2018-02-08 03:16 · Score: 1

We spend more than any other OECD country on K-12 education - and our students typically end up near the middle, or in the bottom half. Spending != performance, at least in the US.

"We" meaning the average of the country. Kansas is at the bottom of the barrel in education spending. There are some states (generally blue ones), that spend far, far more, which pulls the average way up. Exorbitant spending isn't required to have effective education, but there is such a thing as funding so low that it becomes impossible to run a school properly. Kansas has been in that situation for quite a while.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by gurps_npc · 2018-02-08 03:31 · Score: 1

You are using the definition of Terrorist as the definition of extremist.

There are people that sit at home and do no violence what so ever, yet believe that women should a) not work, b) not vote, c) wear clothing that covers their whole body.

This view is an extremist view. These people are not violent.

Also, I said it is harder to trick college educated people, not impossible. Anyone can be tricked, that's how professional magicians make their money.

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Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extrem by gurps_npc · 2018-02-08 03:38 · Score: 1

I disagree tremendously with you. I find your viewpoint to be disgusting and evil.

First, you think being an extremist is wrong and evil. That is NOT true. Extremists hold extreme views. that is the definition.

Extremists does not and SHOULD not be defined by actions. We have a word for that, it is TERRORIST. Terrorists take violent actions on their extreme views.

LOTS of people held extreme views and were extremists. People like Martin Luther King Jr. People like George Washington. People like Mahatma Gandi.

All these people were extremists. The people that held power before them hated and despised them for holding views different than the general society.

They happened to take action that convinced the rest of the world to take up their extreme views, but that does not make them bad or evil.

Stop defending the status quo. Accept the fact that extremist is not a bad word or a criminal word. If you have extremist views, you are an extremist. That does not make you evil.

You only become evil based on your ACTIONS. That might make you a revolutionary, a terrorist, or merely a famous writer.

There is nothing wrong with being an extremist, stop trying to change the definition of the word to be someone that takes evil actions on their extreme views.

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excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by werepants · 2018-02-08 03:38 · Score: 1

What evidence would be sufficient to convince you that your conspiracy theory is wrong? If you don't have a specific standard in mind, that suggests that your theory is not falsifiable, and therefore not really evidence-based. You hate "hard core alt left fascists" because it feels good.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by bugs2squash · 2018-02-08 04:29 · Score: 1

I think there's a third category. People who see something, know it to be incorrect and forward it anyway in the hope it will boost their standing with their friends or maybe in the hope it will catch on. eg. I've seen printed handbills stating that the election day was different for a certain class of voters, and I get endless amounts of claptrap from some of my friends.

I'm pretty sure they see the bias and falsehoods in it (or at least would acknowledge them when they are pointed out), they see it as either harmless fun or perhaps helping to sharpen their tribal definition.

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Nullius in verba

Saul Alinsky would be proud by kattisch · 2018-02-08 05:25 · Score: 1

how liberals keep spreading the fake news even about this.

Re:Liars, Damn Liars by CanHasDIY · 2018-02-08 05:44 · Score: 1

It's the place that has historically been very welcoming of "guest workers", as we called them in the old days, and of anyone interested and willing to make the trip here and integrate.

Look up "Danish Expulsion Law." I've found articles as recent as last year.

Like I said, I love Scandinavian countries - American Liberals are constantly pointing to them as examples of perfected socialist utopias, and I thoroughly enjoy pointing out that those countries are able to achieve such success mainly due to the fact they they have small populations and extremely strict immigration controls - something American liberals don't think would work in our own nation.

I think it's great that you're not a xenophobe. I don't think it's great that you believe you can speak for all Scandinavians.

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An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese

Re:It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by MotherErich · 2018-02-08 05:49 · Score: 1

Case in point.

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You have to be smarter than the machine you're working with.

Subjective Definitions are Subjective by Jalon · 2018-02-08 05:55 · Score: 1

Of course, their definition of what constitutes a "junk political propaganda site" is entirely subjective, so this is a completely meaningless study. I consider CNN to be junk political propaganda, how do the statistics vary when you include THAT? If they really wanted to make a meaningful study, they would publish statistics for several definitions of "junk lists", collected from varying perspectives. I suspect that would just be another way to show the stark polarized digital corners we've all painted ourselves into. As is, this is, ironically, more political propaganda....

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extrem by david_thornley · 2018-02-08 05:58 · Score: 1

That higher education makes people more critical is at least plausible. That it makes them more manipulative, more exploitative, and less honest is less plausible. I'm finding this a lot less plausible, and would like some sort of cite to confirm this.

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"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by david_thornley · 2018-02-08 06:02 · Score: 1

Blue-collar workers are very familiar with the reality that they typically live in. There is no a priori reason to think them more aware of reality where they don't typically go.

Blue-collar workers are, by definition, at the lowest levels of larger companies (since management is white-collar). If anything, they have less ability to see the bigger realities than white-collar workers.

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"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by TopherC · 2018-02-08 06:21 · Score: 1

Their list of junk news sites seems reasonable to me when I spot-check it. Come on, people are actually defending Breitbart, InfoWars, hannity.com, and others like these? Really?

If I need to prove objectively that 100% of their list is indeed junk, I cannot. But a strong majority of them are obviously so. Browsing through their sample articles, the problems are unmistakeable.

But I do see a conspicuous lack of hard-left hyper-partisan news sites, which is a real problem. They most certainly exist. It's hard to imagine that there isn't a strong selection bias going in, before their criteria is applied. I don't see how they came up with an original list, though I suppose it could be derived from twitter and facebook posts. Regardless, the lack of alt-left sites is conspicuous.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by TopherC · 2018-02-08 06:30 · Score: 1

Ack I hit submit too soon. Forgot to add a criteria that they don't use but that's pernicious, which is a filtering bias. What stories do you publish? If you only publish stories that put your favorite political party in a good light or all others in a bad light, you're being manipulative and dishonest even if the stories themselves are accurate. I think most moderate news outlets have some filtering bias but they will still publish stories both for and against any and all political parties. I could not find any examples of unfiltered/counterspin articles in any of the "junk" sites listed in this study.

Conspiracy theory or Criminal Corruption? by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-08 06:40 · Score: 1

I am content to give it time. There is a new special prosecutor investigating this entire corrupt Obama group. If in 2 years (the current duration of the fraudulent Trump-Russian collusion investigation) there are no indictments or convictions, and the allegations about still classified evidence turn out to be inaccurate, then clearly there was no there there.

Unlike the rabid alt left, conservatives are not losing our collective shit and putting on black masks to go beat up those we disagree with (Antifa anyone?) We believe in the rule of law and the integrity of the rank and file at the FBI and DOJ to do their job to faithfully uphold the law.

It will be interesting to see how things develop.

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Re:Conspiracy theory or Criminal Corruption? by werepants · 2018-02-08 07:48 · Score: 1

We believe in the rule of law and the integrity of the rank and file at the FBI and DOJ to do their job to faithfully uphold the law.
What? Your leader is saying that the FBI is "in tatters" and playing shamelessly partisan politics with the agency. He's fired people and tried to use his political power to influence investigations into his buddies. Many of these "deep state leftists" are people that TRUMP himself appointed. The "Rule of Law" is a fucking joke with this administration, and there has been no greater threat to the constitution in generations.
Re:Conspiracy theory or Criminal Corruption? by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-08 11:44 · Score: 1

Your atl left media sources are showing. Trump, the PRESIDENT (the leader of the entire country, regardless if you like it or not) is reacting to shameless corrupt partisanship within the corrupt Obama FBI and DOJ leadership and top brass. Trump was actually non-partisan for a long time, which is why he left in and appointed many Obama holdovers (a clear misjudgment in retrospect).
Your conflation of the FBI rank and file with the corrupt top brass is straight from the alt left MSM and Dims who are apoplectic that their criminality has been found out.
I suspect that in 6 months, it will be clear to everyone but the 15% alt left fringe that the alt left has completely lost their minds, along with all credibility. I can already see it in your response. You all will be screaming about abuse of power by Trump as the 15 actually corrupt FBI and DOJ officials are frog marched out, tried and convicted of actual crimes. The alt left and the democrat party will be unhinged for the next 10 years, and out of power for the next 25, until the main stream of America forgets how corrupt and crazy the alt left was.
You had better strap in, take a chill pill and prepare for MAGA (or move to Canada, that works too).

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If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
Re:Conspiracy theory or Criminal Corruption? by werepants · 2018-02-09 03:30 · Score: 1

You all will be screaming about abuse of power by Trump as the 15 actually corrupt FBI and DOJ officials are frog marched out, tried and convicted of actual crimes.

I was screaming about abuse of power by Trump before he was even elected, when it was painfully clear from his own statements that he's an authoritarian wannabe dictator, who can't tell you the first thing about the constitution. He's happy to discriminate based on religion, he wants limits on free speech, and he's transparently using Soviet-era techniques to demonize his opponents... he happily called democrats treasonous for NOT CLAPPING. That's downright Orwellian. It's not like his tweets are filtered by the "MSM" - I can just read his opinions for myself, and see that he's the kind of guy I wouldn't hang out with, hire, work for, or associate with on any level if I could help it - he's an untrustworthy narcissist.
It's honestly just sad for me to see how willing people are to follow him. Your very use of the "alt-left" terminology shows that you're playing into the fake news... because the "alt-left" only exists as a term since Trump made it up. It's not in any way comparable to the alt-right, which is a movement that actually named itself, and which has many different players and ideological branches, and a substantial online community. Leftist extremists do exist, but the ones that exist in government are the people like Bernie.
The level of cognitive dissonance I see makes me suspect that there is no evidence whatsoever that would ever convince you that Trump did indeed obstruct justice, or potentially collude with the Russian government, or is otherwise just an aspiring dictator. That's what I really want to understand - have you considered that you could be wrong? That maybe there isn't a conspiracy theory against him? Is there any realistic scenario where you abandon your support for him? Because it seems to me that even if there is unambiguous evidence that he's broken the law, his supporters will continue to support him and demonize his opponents.
And, for what it's worth, I think the FISA courts are easily abusable and I've been concerned about the erosion of civil protections and intelligence accountability ever since the Patriot Act - overall I think it's a positive thing that there's some light being shed on these secret courts. That said, in this case, it's plainly obvious from the timing and circumstances of the release that this isn't an attempt to improve government accountability, but instead is a baldly partisan move to discredit the FBI and take some heat off of DJT. And, before you cry "MSM", these are opinions I've formed just from reading the goddamned memo itself.

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-08 06:48 · Score: 2

This study is just utter garbage. As you indicate, they have rampant selection bias and that is part of the problem, but the stories that they cite to classify Breitbart and Hannity.com (as just a random sampling) are 100% true and accurate https://politics.slashdot.org/... revealing that this study it'self is fake news, which is highly ironic considering every alt leftie on the planet likely believes adamantly it is accurate.

The study is just a fake news alt left hit piece to try to portray their opposition as stupid and themselves as intelligent.

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If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like

Re: If you believe in lies, then you become extre by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-08 07:04 · Score: 1

Get off your pedantic high horse, you are either completely ignorant or trying to get my goat, neither of which will fly.

I am a yank and not terribly familiar with Oxford, other than respecting it's historical role and many of it's graduates of the last century. However, I am intimately familiar with the university system and environment. Aggressive alt left liberals outnumber conservatives on virtually every university campus in Western Civilization by a huge margin.

From the selection bias of this study to it's classifying legitimate news stories that were 100% true as "junk news" https://politics.slashdot.org/... they have lost a lot of credibility for putting out what is clearly a fake news story themselves. It is unfortunate for the reputation of Oxford.

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If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-08 07:12 · Score: 1

Paying attention for 30 years, and enjoying Fox news since it was started in 1996. Before that I was referring to talk radio, assuming you were genuinely confused and not just being pedantic.

Fox is actually extremely accurate, but they have for many years had two sides, their hard news (which is very rarely wrong) and their news commentators (something that is always conflated by the alt left fact checkers). The news commentators very often engage guests who are willing to come on and debate the issue of the day, one on each side of the issue. This can lead to one side or the other getting a fact wrong in the heat of the discussion, which is often corrected after the segment, if not by the opposing debater but has no bearing on the hard news. These segments are not news, they are discussion, and to conflate them with news is dishonest and deceptive, you shouldn't fall for it.

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If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by LynnwoodRooster · 2018-02-08 09:18 · Score: 1

Kansas spends about $10K per student which is above average for the OECD (which is around $9300 per student, per my link from CBS News). So Kansas is low for the US, but above average for the OECD. And Kansas ranks 14th overall, even though it's spending is near the bottom.

Using the sources I've provided, Utah is at the absolute bottom in spending per student (over $3000 less per student than Kansas), but ranks 9th nationally. Perhaps it's not how much is spent - but HOW it is spent, and what the State and school districts see as the the goal of the educational system.

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Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by werepants · 2018-02-08 10:39 · Score: 1

Kansas spends about $10K per student which is above average for the OECD (which is around $9300 per student, per my link from CBS News).

Again, you are committing the logical error of considering that because the average is acceptable, that general funding is acceptable. Kansas has some very well funded schools in affluent areas, but recently the Kansas supreme court ruled that the funding was "unconstitutionally low" for many districts.

Perhaps it's not how much is spent - but HOW it is spent

I'll raise you one more - WHERE it is spent matters a great deal. On aggregate, it can look like we spend plenty on education. But due to the fact that schools are generally funded by local property taxes, we've got a combo of schools that have enough money that they've reached the point of diminishing returns in spending, alongside schools that are struggling to provide basic services and just stay fully staffed. Which is a great way to get an education system where there's a lot of spending, and also a lot of students that aren't doing well.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by Hal_Porter · 2018-02-08 11:52 · Score: 1

That undercover employee ("UCE-1") was Carter Page.

How does the NYT article you linked to show that UCE-1 and Carter Page are the same person?

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echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by apoc.famine · 2018-02-08 12:52 · Score: 1

How do you determine which is which? Does Fox keep a list somewhere?

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Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by LeftCoastThinker · 2018-02-08 13:29 · Score: 1

It is explicitly stated frequently on the air. Furthermore grown ass adults can fairly easily differentiate between straight news reporting and commentating (with multiple guests debating issues, talking all around an issue including historical background, context and expected results and effects.

Can you tell the difference between the 10 o'clock news and 60 minutes?

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If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by apoc.famine · 2018-02-08 16:15 · Score: 1

You've moved the goalposts significantly here. First it was "Fox is rarely wrong", then it was "Fox's Hard News is rarely wrong", now it's "The stuff on Fox News that I call straight news is rarely wrong".

Regardless of your goalpost moving, and the much, much smaller subset of Fox you're now ok with calling mostly correct, you still haven't identified how you determine if it's true or not.

And I'm still somewhat confused about how you can cleanly parse Fox's "straight news" from all the rest of their programming. Are there particular segments that you consider that? Particular anchors? Given their very large amount of programming, and not being a normal viewer, I'm not sure I'd even know where to start.

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Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by eddeye · 2018-02-08 16:34 · Score: 1

If a junior FBI agent wants to pursue something and the senior agent in charge tells him he prefers he work on something else, that's not obstruction of justice.
Similarly, when the President tells his subordinate the FBI Director what he thinks about an investigation, that's also not obstruction of justice. He literally can't obstruct justice by telling the FBI head to stop investigating someone. The President is the head of the executive branch and as such, he is constitutionally the head law enforcement officer and prosecutor.

Please stop. You're so wrong it hurts.

Intent matters. Intent is everything. If the senior FBI agent tells the junior agent to stop investigating his family and associates, that absolutely IS obstruction of justice. Moreover, it's a clear conflict of interest that would never be tolerated under Dept of Justice rules - you don't allow an agent to work on a case involving family or close associates. The President is no different. The ethical conflicts that make this wildly inappropriate don't magically disappear.

Under your flawed logic the President is above the laws. He can commit any crime he wants and just tell the Justice Dept to stop investigating it. He could shoot someone on the street and tell the FBI to ignore it. That's madness.

Take your crackpot theories elsewhere. They're no good here. Yes IAAL.

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Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch.

The leftists are just far more sophisticated by doccus · 2018-02-08 19:29 · Score: 1

The leftists are just far more sophisticated in how they dress up their fraudulent information... so it's not so readily apparent. The right, unfortunately, has all these boors like you know who .. can't recall the names of the top three offenders due to a memory issue, but I'm sure y'all know who they are! They're pretty vrude so it's easy to see their agenda.

Re:Liars, Damn Liars by KozmoStevnNaut · 2018-02-08 20:42 · Score: 1

The very strict immigration rules are a very recent development.

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Eat the rich.

Re: It's really a Hillary For Prison Thing by pastafazou · 2018-02-09 01:34 · Score: 1

You have to connect the dots...
From the NY Times article: "The businessman, Carter Page, met with one of the three Russians who were eventually charged...The court documents say that Mr. Page, who founded an investment company in New York called Global Energy Capital, provided documents about the energy business to one of the Russians....To record their conversations, the F.B.I. inserted a listening device into binders that were passed to the Russian intelligence operatives during an energy conference".
From the Reuters article: "According to prosecutors, in April 2012, Sporyshev met an undercover FBI employee posing as an analyst at a New York energy firm...In 2013, the FBI employee began providing Sporyshev with the binders containing purported industry analysis he wrote, supporting documents, and “covertly placed recording devices,” ".

Just as I warned.... by Tulsa_Time · 2018-02-09 03:56 · Score: 1

http://www.foxnews.com/politic...

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5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy

Public masterbation of 720379 by shanen · 2018-02-10 08:51 · Score: 1

Z^-1

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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.

Re:Public masterbation of 720379 by tsotha · 2018-02-13 21:03 · Score: 1

... and you can't spell. Why am I not surprised?

Public masturbation of 647458 by shanen · 2018-02-13 21:18 · Score: 1

Z^-2

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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.

Re:Public masturbation of 647458 by Uberbah · 2018-02-14 04:03 · Score: 1

https://youtu.be/Cg_8knBHEyw
Re:Public masturbation of 647458 by shanen · 2018-02-14 08:44 · Score: 1

If you have something to say, then say it and I'll consider whether or not a link is worth following.
If you have nothing to say, then perhaps you should say nothing.
For now, I'm dismissing you as a probable troll who wants to be fed. Not worth an actual click.

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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Re:Public masturbation of 647458 by Uberbah · 2018-02-15 03:35 · Score: 1

If you have something to say, then say it and I'll consider whether or not a link is worth following.
From the guy who's reply consists of "public masturbation" and a UID? Get lost, dipshit.
Re:Public masturbation of 647458 by shanen · 2018-02-15 08:16 · Score: 1

Z^-4

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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.

Public masturbation of 720379 by shanen · 2018-02-13 21:29 · Score: 1

Z^-3

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Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.

Re:If you believe in lies, then you become extremi by driblio · 2018-02-16 07:02 · Score: 1

Haha, very good.

This is not an academic paper of course, just my opinion. But since you asked.... Yes, do. Just a couple of links I found pretty easily while in the train:

http://roofindustryalliance.co...

https://info.lse.ac.uk/current... :p

Slashdot Mirror

Fake News Sharing In US Is a Rightwing Thing, Says Oxford Study (theguardian.com)

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