Fake News 'Crowding Out' Real News (bbc.co.uk)

The volume of disinformation on the internet is growing so big that it is starting to crowd out real news, the Commons Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee chairman has said. From a report: Tory MP Damian Collins said people struggle to identify "fake news." MPs in their committee report [PDF] said the issue threatens democracy and called for tougher social network regulation. The government said it plans to introduce a requirement for electoral adverts to have a "digital imprint". This would mean that all political communications carried online would need to clearly identify who they were published by. Labour said the government "needs to wake up to the new challenges we face and finally update electoral laws". The report follows the Cambridge Analytica data scandal earlier this year. The London-based data analytics firms and tech giant Facebook were at the centre of a dispute over the harvesting and use of personal data - and whether it was used to influence the outcome of the US 2016 presidential election or the UK Brexit referendum.

Comments

Re:Fake news like the deleted story?

[Train0987]

Because it was clickbait nonsense, even by modern Slashdot standards.

Fake news is a meme

[sjbe]

The volume of disinformation on the internet is growing so big that it is starting to crowd out real news

I think this article is a perfect example since that isn't actually true except in the minds of those who want it to be so. Back here in the real world "fake news" is something that mostly exists in the mind of one Donald John Trump and his supporters and it means news he doesn't like. He actually acts as if sources like Fox News report actual facts reliably. There is some actual false or misleading reporting but that is nothing new and will never go away.

And frankly if you actually use twitter or Facebook (or Fox News) as your primary or worse, sole news source then you are the problem.

Re:Starting?

[apoc.famine]

I know. A decade or more ago I was trolling with fake news pretty successfully. I was just doing it for laughs, however. I think the real issue is that we've learned to monetize outrage very effectively, which means there's a real market for it.

Now, you can even point to real, factual news like the fact that collusion isn't a crime and therefore Trump is indeed suffering from a witch-hunt and people won't believe it.

The fake news has gotten so deep that it's countering fake news with fake news about factual information. Fucking fake news all the way down.

Re:Just to set the record straight

[Anonymous Coward]

The +5 moderation of this comment is truly laughable.

MSM is ALWAYS lying.

Trump is simply the first President with balls enough to say so.

Re:Just to set the record straight

[DNS-and-BIND]

These would be the same "real journalists" who cheerleaded the invasion of Iraq? And took the mask off and became full throated partisans for Hillary Clinton, the most corrupt candidate to ever run for president? Look at all these newspapers: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C4...