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Google Executives Are Floating a Plan To Fight Fake News on Facebook and Twitter (qz.com)
Fake news, bots, and propaganda were hot topics at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos last month, and Google executives there floated an intriguing idea to some fellow attendees -- what if the company could tell users whether information is trustworthy before they shared it on social networks like Facebook and Twitter? From a report: Representatives from Google and its parent company Alphabet eagerly discussed how the company can play a greater role in reducing misleading information online, several Davos attendees involved in and briefed on these conversations told Quartz. A notification system, perhaps via an optional extension for Google's Chrome browser, was an idea that these people said was broached more than once. Such a browser-based system controlled by Google could alert users on Facebook's or Twitter's websites when they're seeing or sharing a link deemed to be false or untrustworthy.
Right now, this appears to be merely an idea company executives are discussing, not a product in development.
The james damore case clearly shows us that google is not like a computer system that neutrally handles data, it has a specific narrative which is emotional and based on current political leanings and the soft 'gut' feeling of the population.
Would we be seeing things which google does not like, say perhaps that some of their hardware was being manufactured by slave labor et al? Or would this suddenly become 'fake news'
The problem is not really fake news, the problem is the lack of anything like a credible media source. Everyone has cross mergered to the point where what we see and hear as 'news' is generally only the things we are allowed to see.
See for example the court case in which fox news bought out WTVT and then buried a story about Monstanto's posilac product and the harmful effects it had on the animals and on anyone drinking it (hint, it is on the market, will remain so, and is not safe to consume)
Now try and look around at any major news corp that has mentioned that monsanto's roundup weed killer is also a known active carcinogen (again, on the market, not safe, will remain that way).
We are already living in the age of fake news from our highest sources. This whole thing just stinks of a way to cripple what little independent media is left so that the rich can write the narrative of our reality. I believe russians probably did purchase and attempt to sway public opinion on matters if only to create a divide, I also believe that corporations do this as a matter of daily operations like one might take a solid dump in the morning.
There is no cure for this situation save one which is unappealing....we need to start to kill the rich similar to the french revolution. The only reason we have rights today the way we recognize them is because an angry mob started to cut rich peoples heads off until an agreement of fair treatment was made. You may know such agreements as the bill of human rights, principle of equality, separation of church and state, congress and/or a group of representatives of the people, removal of the feudal system, etc. These effects rippled across the planet to give us much of what we know today as modern civil society.
Again, unappealing, but beneficial without a doubt. Perhaps the time has come again to remind those in power who we are
We'll fight bias with even more bias! That'll fix it!
I'm sure Google will start with removing truly fake news, but they will quickly slide into removing anything that reflects badly on Google or the people they support. They have already proven to put ideology first.
Modern journalism is about covering the important stories... with a pillow until they stop moving.
Part of the reason no one trusts NBC, CNN, etc. anymore is that half the stories they run with have no cited sources, just BS like "said one source with inside knowledge who was not allowed to speak on the record". And sometimes those leaks are just that - BS fed to reporters too lazy to check out the stories they were handed.
So before "Big News" gets to complain about "Alt News" running with poor sourcing, "Big News" needs get their own house in order first.
Such collusion among monopolies to control the flow of information should have been denounced by all Slashdotters, and attracted attention of the Justice Department enforcing anti-trust laws...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Not sure which is worse; government censored "news", or leftist techie executive censored "news".
"We play both kinds of music here: country, and western!"
The News has always been manipulated.
What has he media's panties in a bunch is the fact that the ability to do so is no longer limited to them.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
All of your "fact checkers" said that the Democrats didn't pay for the Steele Dossier... They screamed for months that it was a five-alarm pants-on-fire lie.
They had said there was no public evidence supporting this claim, and until October of 2017 that was a true statement. In October a Washington post article showed that while it was originally funded in 2015 by Republican donors, the Clinton campaign began funding the research in 2016 as opposition research.
Within 24 hours of the Washington post article, and other corroborating research from CNN and Fox News, Snopes updated their information on the topic. This is what good fact checking looks like.
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Most things are simply True or False.
Attempting to nuance it or explain how it's "misleading" is called spin.
It is also called editorializing.
"Yeah, but..." is not fact checking. It's spinning.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.