Most media have nothing to do with the real truth.
William Shirer wrote in his book "Berlin Diary" that before the U.S. got involved with WWII he would travel out of Germany and became aware of the Nazi's propaganda. When he returned to Berlin, despite his knowledge of their lies, he fell in as well to the propaganda the media conveyed.
Filling empty space and selling advertisers on buying space is what's important.
Read the speech by journalist Stephen Birmingham to a large audience of other journalists"On Filling White Space".
He said, "Our job is to fill white space."
Today that would be empty computer screens and websites. He never specified what it should be filled with; politics, murders, calamities, nonsense, opinions, propaganda, agendas, etc.
It is just a job to fill media space with anything that will hook in readers so advertisers can reach them.
There are few "gentlemen"or "gentlewomen" in the world of media.
See the old movie "Meet John Doe" with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck (a woman journalist) who connives a story of a homeless man who is going to commit suicide—no matter what.
It was a complete concoction of her imagination.
The newspaper interviews men who are homeless and pitiful to use one as the stooge so she could drum up continuing interest for days and gain more readers.
Regina Rini has misconstrued the role of “fake news”. It is not about belief and testimony. If is about propaganda and discrediting reliable sources. The objective is not to counter a particular account, but to discredit news media altogether and sow confusion. To render the public so cynical that they become unable to rely upon any account from any source except Trump. It is a standard ploy of would-be totalitarians since time immemorial, and documented thoroughly by Hannah Arendt in her account of the rise of fascism in Germany.
2
Ms. Rini’s well-intentioned discussion confuses the difference between belief and knowledge: Testimony causes belief, never causes knowledge. Reliability of belief is coorborated by reputation, but knowledge requires accessible justification and ready reference to factuality.
It’s not that “Testimony happens any time you believe something...” Testimony happens when you ASSERT something genuinely, indeed relying on your reputation. BELIEF happens when testimony is accepted. “Most of our [BELIEF] about the world is secondhand [TESTIMONY].”
It’s NOT that “All of this relies upon norms of testimony.” All of this relies on norms of ACCEPTIBILITY (i.e., assessment of OTHERS’ genuineness). “Making a factual claim in person” is about that genuineness. Ms. Rini confuses the difference between positions in interaction: real genuineness vs. acceptability of the appearance of genuineness. “The reliability of secondhand [BELIEF] comes from...norms,” which is a kind of warrant for knowledge. But reliable belief is an accepted validity pretense of genuineness ABOUT justifiable evidential belief.
To fight fake news, we need inquiring minds and astute reasoning skills. Reliability algorithms can work against factual assertion, for given cases, as well as against phoniness.
Talk about phoniness: Regarding tens of software CONNECTIONS with little-known (if not unknown) others as “Friends” is a disease of vacuousness that has indeed gone viral.
2
Many of the "Times Picks" comments suggest that this battle is already lost. The commenters cannot make a distinction between fact and opinion.
It's a fact, for example, that the global climate is warming, there is near-unanimous agreement among scientists that it is caused by human activity, and very sophisticated computer modeling predicts that there are going to be disastrous consequences.
Those are facts. You may have any number of opinions about those facts, but their rationality should be judged based on the facts themselves, not your opinion.
The political right wing in this country has successfully hijacked the language of deconstructivist philosophy and twisted it to political ends which are fascistic. This is my opinion, but it is based on historical precedent of fascist regimes conflating fact and opinion, e.g. Nazi eugenic pseudo-science.
This is the reality that we now face as a nation, except the stakes are even higher than with the fascist regimes of the last century. In those regimes, the fate of "races" were at stake; now it is the fate of humanity as a whole.
5
This is an excellent idea!
To some of the objections that other leaders have raised:
1 - Educating people to recognize fake news would you take a long time, and we might not make it even passed the midterms
2 - Of course motivated reasoning is the main problem, and this does not address that directly. But it would create an environment in which motivated reasoners would have to swim upstream instead of downstream, and that would have a powerful effect.
3 - Of course Fox News would claim liberal bias. They should then be challenged to a) come up with a better procedure for determining what is fake news, and who is a trustworthy news source, and b) show that they are following whatever standard they want to impose on everyone else. This would in effect force them to become accountable for the "news" they are reporting. If for some reason that didn't work, we could also have two credibility ratings, one for Fox News and one for everybody else. In either case, they would become accountable for what they do, and they would be doing the work of making themselves accountable.
1
It is not difficult to spot fake news if one has a reasonable handle on critical thinking. Of course, most Americans don't. But the way to "fix" that is to improve education--teach a man to fish, and all that.
4
This idea is all well and good but we cannot discount the fact that people in general ( so yes that means people on both sides of the political spectrum) are actually ruled by instinct/emotion NOT reason. Reason is something people come up with ex post facto to justify their gut instinct reaction to something. Read Jonathan Haidt's the Righteous Mind for deeper understanding of this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/the-righteous-mind-by-jo...
Unless we all agree that we all will only use new sources that prioritize objectivity, I'm afraid "fake news" will not go away
since its prevalence results from people's tendency towards confirmation bias--that is finding "news" that support their already existing world view.
Maybe I'm too pessimistic and resigned to the negative, but frankly I don't think there is any antidote to willful ignorance. After all, the ignorant has CHOSEN to be ignorant, much like the ostrich sticks its head in the sand. No amount of training will train that instinct out of it.
The real question is why do people ignore reality? Simple answer: they're terrified of it, and simplistically believe that "What I don't know won't hurt me". And they cannot be dissuaded from this belief, because if the thing they tried to ignore actually does hurt them, they won't blame their ignorance, but instead will blame outside factors. This is why the Republican-Conservative message is so powerful: they imbue everything with fear and terror. Once made afraid - of terrorists, communists, unions, immigrants, abortions, equal rights - ignorant people swarm to those who promise to save them from these terrors, and close their ears to anything that contradicts their beliefs.
The "antidote" if any, can only come from education of people before they become infected with fear and choose ignorance as their defense mechanism. This is why a revamping of our education system is critical. Teaching critical thinking, and encouraging curiosity instead of teaching to tests and meaningless "standards" has to happen. It's no coincidence that R-C's have gutted education outlays for decades.
Ignorance is like addiction: once you have it, you can't undo it.
2
The author of this article reminds me of the Logic class I had to take in college. Working through syllogisms was mildly amusing but not worth the time. I asked the instructor why we were doing more and more complex syllogisms and he responded that we could employ them to test whether the declarant was telling the truth—lying or not. Sort of like that time your algebra teacher told you that you would use algebra in your ordinary, daily life someday. Uh-huh says me, the future litigator.
This is so simple. Stay off of social media, read 10 sources like The Economist before forming an impression of the facts, and use common sense. The last element is most lacking. Realize that most journalists are not trained in a critical-thinking discipline such as biology or medicine or even the law, so even reputable news sites are only accurate about 20% of the time. And the absence of common sense which afflicts readers (and more do, non-readers) also afflicts journalists.
Got it kids?
2
@Duane Coyle Yes. But you are aware, I hope, that you DO use algebra daily?
1
I got tired of explaining to my mother that not everything on Facebook was entirely accurate or reliable.
At this point I just tell her its all lies, all of it, even the true things, lies, all lies.
Just stop asking me about!
I love the premise that there is true news and there is fake news, as if every posting was akin to "1+1=2" or "1+1=3". Instead of using an algorithm to determine truth, recognize this - in some universe, 1+1 can actually equal 3, even though in your empirical world you would disagree.
I see things dramatically different than almost every poster on here. I plugged my nose when I voted for Trump and now I unabashedly say I support Trump. There's plenty I don't like, but there's a lot I do. In my world, the news The Times reports is 1+1=3, and trust me, I am not as dumb as you may think. But rather than looking at you as being fake news, I look at you as being a different perspective - often one I don't necessarily agree with, but one I can empathize with and understand.
The idea that there is a dogma of truth and fakeness in news is no less different than blinding yourself by believing you perceive "the truth." Instead, you should embrace the idea that "in my limited knowledge and empirical view of the world, I agree with this, and disagree with that." And let's agree to disagree on many issues. It's ok. It doesn't make either of us stupid.
The real danger is noise. It is hard to dig through all the fake stuff to find anything of value, and much of this is on purpose. So embrace the idea that there is no real right or wrong, learn to listen to people with true empathy, and use your common sense. Your common sense is the true "truth" algorithm.
5
Of course, it is never true that 1 1=3.
That is because 1 1=2 is a tautology that involves only agreed upon definitions, unrelated to fact or observation. So in the same vein as 1 1=2, anything Trump calls “fake” IS fake according to Trump’s accepted definition of “fake”, which notion is unrelated to fact or to observation. It means simply that he disagrees with it because it makes him uncomfortable.
But many folks have a definition of “fake” different than Trump’s. We shouldn’t confuse these separate definitions, even though Trump intends us to do so!
2
@William
To me, you seem very confused.
First, in no world does 1+1 equal anything but 2. In other words, if 1+1=3, I would like to see how you came to that conclusion. Show all work.
But it appears you're confusing math, where the numbers don't lie, with a Kurosawa movie where, depending on your prejudices and perceptions, truth is a moving target and is whatever you might think it to be at the moment whatever information is presented to you. Because it could be something different five minutes later. Or, like Trump, you can make stuff up, lie and change your opinions based upon the last thing you heard.
2
Fine, but what about when Conservatives notice that they're disproportionately getting red dots? Will they question their own standards or the system that's assigning the dots?
4
@A Brown
You and I both know the answer to that. So too does Dr. Rini, I'm afraid.
Best just to quit social media altogether.
1
Unfortunately, my experience is that social media is not the only method of propagating fake news. In addition to my personal experience, where I do not own a twitter or Facebook account I know many people who neither own a smartphone nor have use for one. Yet, I have challenged these acquaintance on many occasions trying to propagate fake news e.g. Sandyhook shooting was a hoax, Stoneman Douglas shooting was a hoax, and much worse. Their source of fake news have been radio and TV - usually talk show hosts (although I am not sure if show hosts are the only ones distributing fake news.)
All the same, taking your idea further, should this ranking of opinions in colored dots be extended to other media too - including print media? Using your recommended system, by now all of Laffer's and Gramm's op-eds would have such a big red dot on it that would cover the whole article. LOL. I actually like the idea.
1
Bring back the Fairness Doctrine. If only everyone would have been aware what abolishing it would mean when Ronald Reagan convinced Congress to kill it. Won’t happen now, unfortunately, nor in any foreseeable future.
This is a topic well worth pursuing, especially since we have a president who predictably calls accurate news "fake," and then incessantly tosses out made up/fake statistics and information to push his biases and agenda.
The sociopath and con artist Trump knows that lies work, and in fact, serve to raise people's fears and uncertainty--nothing is at it seems. And when that happens, people become much more receptive to rumors, conspiracy theories, and the opposite of what is true. Trump is only too happy to fill in the confusion with his version of reality.
As Mark Twain said: "The most outrageous lies that can be invented will find believers if a man only tells them with all his might."
I heard an interview on NPR with Trump supporters, and when asked what they find so appealing about Trump, several said they like the way he is so "forceful."
And I am pretty sure Trump, Fox News, the Putin regime, and all the rest of the GOP propaganda machines know this one from Mark Twain: "A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its boots."
And pretty soon truth no longer matters, and when that happens, we are toast.
So how do we Make America Truthful--Again?
1
This article is both intellectually brilliant and technically pragmatic. Our society is being destroyed by runaway Fake News. Finally, there is hope!
Thank you!!
2
It's "Dr Rini" -- she's a professor with a Ph.D
2
A quick glance at the URL of the news source often solves the question. While I wouldn't be surprised if Mike Pence subsists off the blood of children, an article posted on a site with a name like "Blue State Resistance" isn't going to persuade me that it's true. Neither is something coming from a "news" site with a name containing "Eagle," "Freedom" or "Patriot." The so-called MSM gets a bad rap, but they're far more credible than the fringe sites that don't adhere to any journalistic standard.
Having FB friends on both sides of the spectrum provides me with a troubling observation. We can now look at the same set of facts and come away with completely opposing interpretations. I'm not sure my most polarized friends could agree on the color of the sky at this point.
Ebay and other sites where money changes hands show reputation scores to protect buyers and sellers. This is an essential part of doing business within those communities.
On social media, there is less at stake in the "transaction" - the posting of an opinion. But in the long run, truth in society is a lot more important that the used gadget I bought. Publicizing reputation scores make a lot of sense.
2
This article is an example of searching for simple machine implementable solutions to human problems.
Facebook is algorithm based. That is necessary because cheap and rapid decisions and classifications are necessary, precluding slow and expensive human judgments.
To expect complex and wise solutions from algorithms is polyannish, especially when they are focused on machine efficiency, not society’s health.
2
Here's the thing: Trump is expressing emotional truths. He is talking about how he feels about something. He is not putting forward a position he has thoughtfully considered and researched. He has not weighed the pros and cons. He has not consulted "the facts."
Basically, Trump is too emotional to be president. He uses emotional logic for all his positions. His followers react and judge him emotionally. They relate to the news based on their feelings, and Fox News caters to their emotional needs.
Facebook and social media are social networks. Humans form social networks based on emotional needs, not through logic and facts and rational discourse. The original internet was used by scientists to share information on fact-based research. This still happens, but it is a tiny sliver of the internet today.
Today, the internet reflects the whole human psyche, and the human psyche is predominantly emotional. Reason and logic are a tiny part of the mind. No amount of red, blue, green buttons is going to change that. Sharing information based on likes and dislikes is emotional sharing.
Lived experience is the only way to cut through the b.s. Lived experience shapes a person's emotional relationship with life. Social media cuts people off from lived experience and that makes them prey to all the nonsense.
Social media should be treated as entertainment, not a source of facts of any kind.
6
Facebook is not what Trump and his supporters think is fake news. They think The New York Times is fake news. They think CNN, Atlantic Magazine, The Washington Post, NPR, and other legit news sources are fake news. They think a shadow government is running these organizations, and that Trump is the only major figure in modern history to have seriously challenged this group, which they believe wields supreme power. And many of these fake news believers are educated, They believe in an array of conspiracy theories, ranging from the idea that the Bushes and the CIA were the real perpetrators of 9/11, to the contention that Sandy Hook and other shootings never happened, but were staged by actors.
Facebook fact checkers cannot affect this sector of America. Neither can the philosophy departments of all the world’s universities. They believe that the people who claim to be fact checkers are corrupt, that the universities are under the power of the hidden government, and that Trump is telling the truth.
The author of this article has rightly pointed out that most of our knowledge is testimonial and not direct. What is needed is hard evidence (and consensus about what that is) for why we should believe university professors, scientists, and real news organizations over Alex Jones, ForbiddenKnowledge.com (which has some very good articles in addition to nonsense) and Donald Trump.
10
The proposed system as described will misclassify users who are interested in fact-checking articles. I participate in several Facebook groups focused on identifying and countering misinformation in several technical areas. The ability to post links to questionable subject matter is essential to the discussion. I engage with other users who do the same with political content. If a system like this is to be implemented, it needs to allow users to link to questioned content with some sort of flag that identifies it as being posted for the purpose of fact-checking or discussion.
2
Attaching colored dots to users won’t stop lying. It’s effect is to make all those with the same colored dot a tribe reinforced in their paranoia or, worse, united as trouble makers.
3
Stop treating fake news like it's some special internet unicorn. That's leading everyone down the wrong path.
Fake news websites are websites just like any other.
The question isn't how can Facebook build some complex algorithm to stop the spread of fake news while balancing free speech concerns from every perspective across the political spectrum, it's how do you get any generic website to shut itself down.
The answer is you make it unprofitable to run.
Don't target social media for letting stupid people post stupid links (they always will).
Target the advertising platforms that show ads on these websites and pay the purveyors of propaganda every time an ad is clicked. Boycott the brands that advertise directly. Target referral programs that enable owners of fake news websites to sell products on their websites. Stop paying "firebrands" to speak and stop quoting "provocateurs" in newspapers. Target each and every method that fake news websites use to make money.
Think about it. Even if Facebook and Twitter with all their data analytics could perfectly block all fake news, those sites would still be out there. People could still visit them, share them, and be influenced by them. Content creators would just have to use different channels to reach their audiences. And they would because it'd still be profitable.
Destroy the ability of these websites and people to make money by spreading lies and they will, naturally, stop spreading lies.
8
Superb! Here is someone who knows the value of a good reputation and is a problem-solver along with it. Thank you! It also reminded me of a factor in trying to talk with people who cry "fake news" about respected, highly credentialed journalism. Those news publicans alone hold reporters and people giving opinions responsible for what they share, and woe to any who plagiarize or fabricate of spread sheer rumors. FOX News people are rewarded for doing such things, while responsible journals and periodicals punish and fully report it, too. It's so clear to me why FOX News and Trump point the finger elsewhere--it's normal to think that everyone else is like yourself, except they deny it does pertain to them, too. Pathological! I think sharing this difference between lies and responsible journalism could help with even the rejection of fact-checkers by some people in the cult of Trump, even if only somewhat. Remember, now we are focusing on the normal majority and stop wasting time on a lost cause of trying to convert those Trump "true believers."
The only way to fix it, I'm afraid, is do what they do in Australia make hate speech, and writing a crime. A free press was meant, by the framers of the Constitution, to report the truth. And freedom of speech was meant to voice your opinion and to protest, where need be. However, there are certain limits to both rights. Slander (speech) and libel (press). Not to mention, for public safety reasons, inciting fear (like yelling fire in a crowded place) is deemed an offense.
In the world of the printed press, there are editors to verify stories before they are printed, to make sure they are the truth. While this does not happen 100% of the time, what is published is the truth, unless it is "The Onion" or "National Enquierer".
Those who provide the means to post "news" on social media sites, should be held responsible for content, just like TV and print media are.
The New York Times moderates these blogs, for example. They do so to fro many reasons, but also to make sure that proper opinions are posted and there is truth to them. Most legitimate news source sites do this. Social media does not, as we have seen with Facebook. There needs to be an accountability, be it by statute or by peer pressure from the rest of the industry that provide news.
If there is blame fro "fake news", start with cable news channels. They have pushed the limits of what is really news, and what is opinion they claim as news. Like social media, they need to pressured to report, not create news.
1
The worst enemy of the GOP?
Critical Thinking.
I spent 2 years (a decade ago) finding a school that teaches it, for my son to attend. ALL schools should teach critical thinking from age 10 onwards.
3
Interesting suggestions from this writer. I'm wondering why we can't reinstate the FCC Fairness Doctrine that was eliminated by the Reagan administration in 1987? This surely has contributed to the rise of the polarization of politics (while also helping feed the extreme right wing media, FOX, Limbaugh, etc.). A rating system on Facebook for accuracy is fine, but one must get to the core of the issue in terms of the vast right wing propaganda machine that emerged on the right since the elimination of these rules.
1
Memo to the mainstream media. Stop call Trump's lies misstatements. Start calling them what they are, lies. To the NY Times, start putting above the fold in bold print a list of lies that Trump told the day before. Start challenging Trump's enablers in the West Wing by calling out the lies they tell on a daily basis. Start challenging the senators and congressmen who tell lies daily. Sarah Sanders is making fools of the press by lying every day. Stop attending these press briefings.
4
Facebook won’t release the ratings because they know Trumpists will simply delete their Facebook accounts and start their own Facebook. FB loses half its membership and gains a competitor.
Guess what Trumpbook’s background color will be.
1
Conservative politicians have been consistently accusing Facebook of censoring their speech. I can already hear them complaining that fact checkers are liberals only.
The characterization of mainstream media newsrooms as left-leaning hives indeed has documentary backing.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/01/27/dear-main...
1
the best way to stop fake news is to do away with anonymous postings. they must be real people, with rea, verifiable addresses to get to post anything on the internet.
This is fine, but why not use non-social media as your primary news source? CBS, ABC, CNN are free and they try to serve all sides politically- and even if you think they are biased, they have journalistic standards, are financially independent, and have been in business for decades. People that say you can't trust these organizations are not being serious.
The obvious complaint with the proposed system of green/yellow/red dots next to user posts, is that righties will cry that social media is biased against them: those prone to buy into ‘alternative facts’ find fact-checking meaningless, and grounds for whining about unfair prejudice. The more conspiratorial will suggest social media is part of some vast cabal intent upon suppressing the truth.
The larger problem is that many (most?) social media users are already under the false impression that epistemic reputation is directly correlated with numbers of friends/followers. Unfortunately, most people will place more faith in a large ‘shared’ count than in any sort of fact-checking assessment, especially one done algorithmically. Epistemology for most people – that is, the differentiation of recognized opinion from believed truth – depends far more upon repetition than anything else. The true testimonial norm is that hearing a lie 100 times means it is vastly more likely to be believed than the truth uttered but once. Trump, Stone, Bannon, et al, know this; they are indeed students of propaganda – fortunately for us all, not (yet) masters.
Finally, social media is vulnerable to manipulation via the ubiquitous and mostly failed mechanism of flagging. I have never flagged a single comment; what is the norm? I would suggest a very few people out there abuse the system to advance their own agendas. It should not be hard to track such users – put a red dot next to them.
Incredibly, even though Trump has made more than 5,000 false or misleading statements as president, major news organizations’ social media feeds continue to inject his unadulterated lies into the political bloodstream without clearly informing readers that they are just that — lies.
Yes, NBC’s story on this new lie did say it’s “evidence free.” But the fact that the social media feeds themselves are regularly awash in Trumpian falsehoods represents a serious institutional failing. As Brian Beutler notes, this “should be the easiest problem in the world to solve,” but instead, we’re getting “abject professional failure after abject professional failure.”
On Wednesday, USA Today published a piece by Trump in which “almost every sentence contained a misleading statement or a falsehood,” as Glenn Kessler put it. All these went initially uncorrected, and USA Today’s feed featured multiple tweetsspreading its falsehoods and distortions. We have seen this againand again.
This may seem trivial — who cares about single tweets? — but they all add up to a gushing Amazon River of disinformation. In my forthcoming book, “An Uncivil War,” I have a chapter called “Disinformation Nation” that discusses this problem and what to do about it. An adapted excerpt follows:
Greg Sargent
Ban the Mother of All Fake News - Fox. Regulate Google, Facebook, Twitter, and all technology and tech media. Re-regulate all of the news media that was once regulated until we threw those laws into the trash can. Enforce those laws. Allow a new generation of fact-checking and truth-telling real journalists to return to doing their jobs. Fire every beautiful talking head. Limit cable news to 12 hours per day. Limit media ownership, break up Fox, WB, Clear Channel and the rest of the media conglomerates. Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. Fully fund PBS. Mandate five minutes of public service ads for every one hour of TV, radio, internet, etc. Throw Rupert Murdoch in prison. Throw Zuckerberg in with him.
My father was a conspiracy theorist par-excellence. He had a HUGE library filled with the stuff. Take it from me...when immersed in a conspiracy milieu, the only way to fix it is to develop good epistemological skills. Epistemology - the theory of knowledge - is taught by mainstream graduate schools.
The Cliff notes version of this is to use peer-reviewed sources and cross-check as many references as you can. And don't rely on third-party fact checkers (do it yourself). I found that the basic problem in my Dad's conspiracy-laden world was the use of circular references. One conspiracy book fed off another, and you ended up going round-and-round. The modern term is an 'information echo chamber'.
All of this assumes that you care about what you believe. The basic problem is that most people tend to seek out information that conforms to previously established beliefs.
An interesting proposal, but the evaluation should go to the original supplier of the news. A story from the NY Times carries different weight than some newly minted blog site. I like to read both, but I evaluate them differently. This would reward the NY Times with taking the time to do research, rather than the scoop. True news sources would want to protect their reputation. And readers could easily identify the difference between even oblique conscientous sources and rumor-mongering blog sites. (Yes, some blog sites are conscientous is the information they post.) Give readers assistance in evaluating sources (website explaining and showing questionable facts could enable a reader to evaluate the sources). Other wise, posters may not know how to evaluate their sources and might become angry with a low rating and cry censorship or political bias.
This is an excellent idea. I hope Facebook implements this quickly.
If we could go back in time and eliminate Fox News, we'd be more than half way there.
This is a good idea, albeit flawed, as indicated at least in the comments that don’t misunderstand or misconstrue it. All the comments imply the need for education in media literacy and information literacy. Schools and public libraries need to join academic libraries in recognizing the importance of this to civic life and civil discourse, and make this an essential part of their educational offerings. Media outlets—broadcast, cable, and internet—should also step up and take responsibility for this.
So the same people who believed Hillary Clinton was in charge of a child-sex ring in the back of a pizza parlor are now going to believe a note from Facebook warning them that this post has not been corroborated by their fact checkers?
2
When you’re sinking in the middle of a swamp, in the middle of the night, any ray of light is worth looking at. Yes, we should have taken maps and charts. Inspecting the boat would have been smart. We probably shouldn’t have left the oars back at the dock. The clear light of philosophy could genuinely help us sort out our alternatives and plan a course of action.
The problem, though, is that we were driven to the swamp by mobsters that set us adrift and shot our boat full of holes. Then they started tossing T-bone steaks like frisbees into the water around us.
But thanks, anyway, for the tips on good boating practice.
2
This paper could start by stopping the censorship of comments that go against their projected narrative and personal political agendas. Especially when comments are calling them out on their fake news. Especially in regards to immigration.
"a green dot could indicate that the user hasn’t chosen to share much disputed news, a yellow dot could indicate that they do it sometimes, and a red dot could indicate that they do it often"
Now I know why we see a LOT of red dots during presidential rallies. MAGA!!
1
Ooooh...just like my FICO...only much worse...an awful idea, Rigina... PJS
Step one is to stop thinking that Fox is a news channel.
1
The problem with this proposal is that a lot of supposedly objective "fact checking" is actually biased opinion journalism.
Today's New York Times: "They posed as fans of pop stars and national heroes as they flooded Facebook with their hatred. One said Islam was a global threat to Buddhism. Another shared a false story about the rape of a Buddhist woman by a Muslim man."
"The Facebook posts were not from everyday internet users. Instead, they were from Myanmar military personnel who turned the social network into a tool for ethnic cleansing."
Facebook removed 18 accounts and 52 pages associated with the Myanmar military in the wake of months of criticism of the company for failing to combat the spread of hate speech on Facebook in Myanmar to foment anti-Rohingya sentiment.
“We want to prevent them from using our service to further inflame ethnic and religious tensions,” the company said. The pages and accounts that were removed had a total of almost 12 million followers.
Can one hold Facebook partially accountable for some of the estimated 25,000 Rohinga people who have been killed and 700,000 who have fled over the border to Bangladesh? Facebook's social network has spiraled out of control when it is used as a tool for genocide.
In the horrific case of Myanmar the removal of 18 accounts, 52 pages and 12 million Facebook followers came too late for the victims of ethnic cleansing. Where will future crimes against humanity take place at the hands of evil social media users and can they be preempted by companies like Facebook?
2
Can you please publish the scores for epistemic reputation and reliability for Donald Trump. Of course, he is a total looser in both areas, too, but people living on Facebook and Twitter should see these; they don't spend their time with newspapers.
1 Trump consorted with prostitutes in Moscow.
2 Obama was born in Kenya.
3 Kavanaugh participated in serial rape.
Whatever your dearly held world view/political beliefs are there is no single news source that can be trusted to report the straight facts.
Comments written on these pages indicate a sizable number of folks take 1 and 3 as fact.
Alex Jones followers believe 2 to be true.
Solution...ban access to those advocating #2.
The biggest piece of fake news of the current century was the lie that Saddam Hussein had WMDs. And the NYT, WaPo, and other so-called "mainstream" outlets propagated that lie with reckless abandon.
Physicians, heal thyselves.
7
China, Egypt, Israel, North Korea, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Turkey have all solved their fake news problem. Filling Donald Trump with envy and respect. If only he could lock them up or klll them along with leaving Fox News and the Wall Street Journal as the only acceptable mass media truth tellers. MAGA!
Leave the "fake" news screamers and the Faux News people alone. You'll never convince them and I want to see their faces when we all stand in front of God and he tells them they followed false prophets (and profits) !
Don't believe everything you read might be a good place to start.
Fake News? Here’s my story. April ’68 Wilmington DE, King riots. Gov Terry sent & kept National Guard in longest occupation since Civil War. Fall ’68, students peacefully protested in downtown Wilmington (Rodney Square?) This ROTC cadet was there. Hundreds, maybe over 1000 students stood there listening. A local ABC network truck parked near me. 7 or 10 cameramen got out. Maybe 40 minutes later, I saw scuffling by the hotel. It was over in a couple minutes.
That night I saw ABC Nightly News. The coverage was about 70 seconds. 90% was that scuffle. 10% was hundreds of kids just standing there listening. Friends watching this later said they thought I was part of the riot!!
Far Right Fake News? Yup. A real problem. But let's remember the Main Stream Media will “tip” coverage in favor of “ratings".
The Holocaust did not happen is an historical falsehood.. How did it arise.?
Anything reported by the news media that can not be corroborated because it's from an unnamed source is being considered "fake news" by a lot of people. To avoid this, DO NOT report anything that is not investigated, followed up and cross checked. This type of reporting is just lazy.
Could we just put a red dot on Mr. Trump every time he says something?
1
@John V But red and orange clash so!
2
Oh, what the heck ... Just ignore the news that you do not like and think of the output of the mercenary scribbles (i.e., reporters, journalists, etc.) as a manifestation of the etrnal struggle in life of Good and Evil.
Maybe we just need to ask a question or two: Do you have empirical evidence to support your claim? If not, Does your source? And, How credible is that source? This is just basic critical thinking.
Daniel Kahneman would agree—slow down and engage reasoning. Our founding fathers would agree; after all, theirs was the Age of Reason.
We as consumers should require letters to the editor—and the equivalent in other forums—to provide evidence, and not to simply assert unsupported claims, name-calling, oversimplifications.
A liberal could ask a conservative, Is all news from the national media, fake news? If not, Is there some evidence you’d agree with? (If they can’t say one way or the other, maybe this would reveal to themselves that they don’t know what they're talking about.) A conservative could ask a liberal, Is all news on Fox, fake news? If not, Is there some evidence you’d agree with? (If they can’t say one way or the other, maybe they, too, don’t know what they're talking about.)
Maybe that’s how we can find common ground—put on our Socratic hats, ask questions in a civil tone, and expect empirical (verifiable) evidence with qualification. Maybe then we can begin something resembling a dialogue. Maybe then we can move forward.
Firstly we need to define "fake news". I'm not sure when I first heard the term but it's clear that if Mr. Trump did not invent it, he certainly popularized it. To him it means any news from any source with which he does not agree. Whether or not it is true is irrelevant in his mind.
Secondly, your essay addresses only the issue of retweeting or posting misleading or out right incorrect information on Facebook and Twitter. Left out of the conversation is the mainstream media (think NYTimes - not Fox). The main stream media does a pretty good job of fact checking itself. This is not to say they get it right every time, but when they get it wrong they issue a correction.
So your use of the term "fake news" needs to define which source you consider fake - NYTimes or Twitter/Facebook. By the way, neither Facebook nor Twitter defines itself as a news outlet. They are social media. Here's how to tell: one fact checks, the other does not.
Finally, in your first paragraph you state that we can't code our way out of this problem. You then go on to describe an algorithm that does exactly that. My solution? There is an old adage: "consider the source". It has served me well for over sixty years. No app needed.
I don't have a Twitter or Facebook account. There are just too many kooks who are given equal time on these forums and they are not news. I have nothing against tin foil hats and space alien theorists. But I give them no credence.
My $.02.
In the past, this might have made sense. But these days? Keeping things simple is the key to success. Start by replacing euphemisms like "untruthful", "without proof" or the adorable "pants on fire" with things more easily understood: "that is false" or "he's lying."
"Technology spawned the problem of fake news."
Technology, at the end of the day, is just a tool. Just ask the intelligence community....
2
I'm not sure I understand. I thought that the problem is that every fact is disputed, not just some facts. On the otherhand, perhaps Facebook, etc. is telling us that that simply isn't true. In which case, then perhaps that is an important fact in itself, e.g., global warming; or, the cause of golbal warming is human activity. I agree, let the culture wars continue in public.
Adding indicator lights to a social media program might be useful, but will not address the core issue. When we have a large majority of people of voting age that can't find Afghanistan on a world map, and probably that same group who fail to monitor reliable news sources, we need to address the awareness gap that makes that possible.
All children need to be taught in grade school what it means to be a citizen in a democracy.
Those too old to get this basic citizenship training in school need to be educated by their fiends and family that they have rights and responsibilities as part of a self-governing nation.
We need our neighbors to realize they if they aren't part of the solution, they are part of the problem.
2
I'm lucky enough to have friends who will point out if I've posted something inaccurate. I appreciate and encourage their input as I am merely human. I do the same for them. If we work together, we can solve this problem and we can "out" those who are part of the problem.
10
Caveat to forthcoming comment, I gave up on Facebook years ago to avoid all of this nonsense. Don't miss it at all, but interested in its role in our culture. Why not just provide pop up or other easy to use barometer to rank your "friends" 1-5 on trustworthiness? It's the same thing we subconsciously do when we're having a beer and our friend's friend who we barely know is droning on about some conspiracy theory. Allow the individual user to privately "rank" his/her friends and then Facebook can use those rankings to curate the news that we see. It will exacerbate the information in a vacuum problem, but I think a lot of people would show a preference for friends that are composed and thoughtful, two attributes correlated with factual news. It would also better align to their interests in providing advertisers with data highly attuned to our preferences.
4
@robertsbrandt81 I think it'd depend on your friends. There are people who are always "right" and no amount of persuasive conversation is going to move them. That's a lost cause. If their ideas happen to 'win' and everything goes wrong - and in the bargain - proves your argument was right, there will always be a reason why their idea was 'undermined' by the 'opposition,' and made to fail.
2
"It could be..." "I wonder if..." "I heard that so-and-so..." "I'll bet..." "Probably is..." All parts of statements or stories that people create or comment on. I think it's because we like to see our name up in lights or possibly to be known as some sort of authority, or some such. I check to see how many 'likes' I get on a FB post, don't you? So, let's waft one out there, from time to time to see if it sticks. There's your fake news.
4
A fascinating take on the concept of truth, suggestive of a thinly veiled call for censorship.
The merits of "public shaming" aside, under the author's proposal, who would be the arbiter of the truth or falsity of any statement, and what objective criteria would be applied by the faceless fact finders?
Most importantly; in light of the bias which inherently colors everyone's cultural/political attitude, how would OPINION, the cornerstone of our democratic system, be protected?
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@Sam
The pseudo-intellectual idea that it is difficult to develop objective criteria to evaluate the truth or falsity of statements is just an excuse for laziness. In some cases it may take time and effort to uncover the facts but thousands of years of human experience proves that it can be done, even by kindergartners. With the overwhelming majority of statements of fact, if you can't determine whether the statement is true or not, you're just not trying hard enough.
1
@Jay Orchard
Since my post didn't contain any such assertion your response was interesting in that it didn't advance a paradigm for objectifying and separating truth from fiction, a methodology for protecting opinion, or more importantly a method for policing the decision makers.
Some of the commenters here seem to be confusing facts with truth. Truth is the goal, but you need factual information in order to find it.
Reporters who strive for objectivity present facts and leave us to use them--or not--in our quest for truth. Adding up the facts and declaring something true or false is the job of the editorial board and the OpEd writers.
Propagandists who want to divert us from the truth misuse facts and employ outright lies. Example: My representative in Congress, Tom Reed (R-NY23), calls his opponent Tracy Mitrano (D) an "Extreme Ithaca Liberal." The Ithaca liberals I know see Ms. Mitrano as solidly centrist based on the facts: eg, her middling position on gun control. But facts don't serve Reed well, so he slaps the EIL label on everything she says and hopes no one looks too closely at the record.
Facebook is not setting itself up as a truth machine. It is trying to expose outright falsehoods. In this, FB performs the job of a good journalist. Is there evidence that the president said X, or not? Is there documentation supporting what he said, or not? Are his statistics factual, or did he pull them out of his ... ear?
As we learn the facts, we can decide whether the president is a credible source of information or not. In the same way, we can decide whether our FB friend is a credible source by seeing how often his or her"facts" have been debunked. As traffic in truly false news increases, this is a tool we can't afford to do without.
12
The problem is that the people who post the fake news often don't believe the fact checkers. We live in an age where people are entitled to their own facts even if those facts are incorrect by most standards. And as a great many politicians know, the more often the lie is repeated the more people believe it. I've seen posts from people who want to believe that everything good has come from Trump and that no good came from the Obama years. I've seen the reverse.
The problem is this: try convincing a zealot of anything that doesn't fit his/her world view. They tend to come up with new "facts" as you question the old ones. What we need to teach children in school is that questioning is a good thing to do particularly when the fact doesn't pass the smell test. A great many adults need to be taught that as well.
I think that we are entitled to our opinions. But we are not entitled to our own facts particularly when those facts are established lies.
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@hen3ry Rini isn't suggesting that this method will persuade someone that something is fake. It just marks their name with dots indicating how often they post something that has been identified as fake news (by others).
@hen3ry As a history teacher (and teacher of teachers): well said!
@Tony I find Rini's proposal an interesting start -- but how would FB identify reliable "fake news identifiers" who'd be able to hold each other accountable and establish credibility among those many who currently don't care?
The reliability score would be useful for those actually interested in an objective truth. For those who currently share false or misleading stories most frequently, the "independent fact-checking organizations" will simply become the latest in a long list of purveyors of 'fake news'. For that population the red or yellow dots will indicate 'people who are likely to agree with me' rather than 'people who often share false or misleading stories'.
1
Knowledge is the antidote to belief in fake news, not little traffic lights warning that a spreader of information may not be reliable. Plus, thanks to our President the problem is not only that fake news is presented as real news - it's that too many people are willing to dismiss real news as fake news when it doesn't fit their world view. Facebook is going to have develop a separate set of lights to point out the fake "fake news."
19
Here's a small way to combat fake news: Polling locations are supposed to be politics free on election day(s). As social media is in many ways our virtual town square, I propose Facebook, Twitter and other sites voluntarily go dark for 24 hours before and on election day(s). Sure it'll cost them money, but they could use a little self-regulation right now. This obviously won't solve the problem, but it might give people some time to form their own opinion. They might be forced to seek information and do a bit of research themselves instead of swallowing the spoon-fed fake news whole right before casting a vote.
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@Jill
Love that idea. As their civic duty---
maybe even for a week before elections---including political ads on mainstream tv and cable.
@SLBvt Thanks! I think I'll send it along to my Congressman...maybe if he likes it too, he can reach out to FB and Twitter.
@Jill - for all elections around the world?
You comment on testimony. Even when my friends say something outlandish, they know my comeback will be - where did you hear that? - It just doesn't pass the smell test -. Then our discussion will be about checking it out. As an engineer, with friends who are the same, maybe we have, by training, an instinct for knowing the truth. After all you can't design products with rumors just facts.
Or maybe I'm just lucky to have been raised to critical think about what's said. Something apparently many people lack.
7
I disagree with Ms. Rimi that technology and the Internet have spawned fake news. They have exacerbated the problem, but we need to look further back to the elevation of people like Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones to hate radio personalities whose primary goal was to distort reality and create huge audiences who would listen to them spew venomous lies about women, minorities, immigrants, and “libtards” on a daily basis. Add to that the Fox News personalities who have built on the hate radio model to support their side and denigrate the other. What the Internet has changed is the speed with which fake news is disseminated, which is now instant. Until people start believing that truth is important in politics, we will continue to have politicians blatantly lying to gain their own election. And until media decides that it’s important to analyze political claims from a bipartisan view rather than just reporting what politicians say, we will continue to have surface news instead of an in-depth look at policy decisions that affect all of us.
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@BG I suggest you look even farther back, and under the curtain, to the handful of gazillionaires who have instigated and perpetuate the Fox Fantasy Factory. It's all in the bottom line, so follow the money . . .
2
@BG
Rush is hate? I listen to Rush when I can, and I don't hear any hate. I don't get it, he doesn't advocate violence, his off-color rhetoric is no worse than some of the liberal personalities, and trust me, they are saying the left is full of hate these days. This isn't an invitation to square off on things Rush has said vs. things an equivalent lib has said, or a shouting contest of talking points, but more a genuine opinion and conversation. I am a very peaceful guy - last fisticuffs I had was 25 years ago in college, and we ended up being best friends after that. I own one hand gun, but even the occasional targets I shoot at once every 5 years are pretty safe from me.
Maybe I am the one off, but as a person who has appreciated Rush for a long time, as much as I appreciate the other voices on the other side, despite a comment or two, I don't label that which I disagree with as being hate.
Alex Jones - gotta be honest, I don't listen to him. But I would say that you get Alex's when you get significant dissonance between what people are told to believe vs. what they see and feel to their core. That's a different conversation though for another time.
Take care friend. Just because I disagree, I promise, absolutely no hate.
2
The problem with this idea is related to the indisputable fact that fake news is not simply a technology problem. At least as important is the problem of corporations and interest groups who have found it politically expedient to mislead the public. This part of the problem is particularly out of control on the far-right.
If Facebook made their reliability ratings public, Facebook would immediately be accused of liberal bias. If the reliability ratings showed that FOX News was unreliable, would they work hard to improve the accuracy of their reporting, or would they attack Facebook? Zuckerberg would be back in front of a Senate committee in a heartbeat.
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The only holistic cure for fake news is education that starts early in the life of every citizen. Americans are deprived of a fact based understanding of our history and biology so we lack a common belief structure of the forces and events that have brought us to the present.
Education is now tailored to the political prejudices of the region schools are located, so schools in the south don't teach any science competently that contradicts Christian fundamentalism or history the contradicts the glory of the Confederacy ("slavery was not the driving force of the rebellion"). The history of Jim Crow is swept under the rug.
If public primary education isn't fact based, corrections and improvements in deductive reasoning- the real cure for fake news, cannot be obtained. It is like the language window that closes by adolescence.
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@alan haigh
Alan, your comment is the perfect follow-up companion to this Regina Rini Opinion piece on "Fake News". You have not only identified the exact source of this ongoing and growing problem . . . you also painfully explain that there is no "quick-fix" for this as well.
Partisan Beliefs are now right up there with Religious Beliefs. None of these beliefs are based on any facts or the result of empirical study.
The best we can do is Identify outright lies. Stop calling them "Pinocchio's" or half truths and call them what they are LIES - and repeat it over and over and over - until - maybe - hopefully - ONE person will wake up - and then another . . . . and another.
1
@alan haigh Are you making that allegation about ALL the schools in EVERY southern state? That statement needs to be supported with some verifiable data. It sounds to me like the debating fallacy known as a "sweeping generalization."
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@alan haigh The problem is that America's education system has been weakened by the same forces that bring us fake news: the conservative media. They have convinced many that most teachers are lazy, incompetent, and overpaid. This has led to decreased funding of public education and the rise of mostly ineffectual voucher programs and charter schools, resulting in ever-poorer education of students who, as adults, are unable to discern reliable news sources and real facts from the blather, nonsense, and lies that permeate a large percentage of the media. Its easy to say we need better education, but we have to pay for it. In most states, it now takes 5 years of college education to get a teaching license. That costs around $125,000 to get a job that on average in the U.S. has a starting salary of $38,617.
99% of advertising is fake. Cows can talk, cars drive on empty roads, Doctors, banker actors and celebrities offer miracles, free stuff that’s just not free, Much about misleading political and social news, propaganda, skewed statistics is derived from techniques traditional to product and services advertising. Advertising crowds every possible media and physical space.
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Inasmuch a "fake" news is false facts, it is at least as old as the printing press. Yellow Journalism thrived on it to sell copy and persuade readers. Big-name papers have spread falsehood to get the US to go to war with Spain over Florida, and, a century later, with Iraq.
However, the "fake" in fake news is about much, much more than falsehood. indeed, it's not even primarily about falsehood. The word "fake" does not mean "false"; it means done with the intent to deceive by playing on the emotions, usually with the intent to harm. If someone copies a painting because that's their hobby, we say it's a copy. If someone copies a painting to sell it as an original, however, we call it a fake. We talk about fake smiles and fake people. In this broader realm of "fake" news, the definition of fake has to do with values and world view. Fake news can be something that someone feels doesn't deserve attention; it can also be an interpretation of an event or an opinion. I read an opinion piece last year in which the writer opined that someone who had called a celebrity "ugly" was spreading fake news.
The way to combat fake news is not to use FB algos or human monitors, who, in the end, have no particular qualification to tell us what is and isn't "fake" news. It's to be informed citizens (caveat emptor).
1
This is about real "fake news" and is sensible. What amounts to social media gossip can't be the basis of informed political debate.
But "fake news" as Trump has co-opted the term means distorted news media reporting due to political bias. In my view, this is a bigger problem than viral facebook posts not only because biased reporting skews the truth, but also because media bias increases distrust in the mass media generally, harming our ability to actually debate and resolve important political issues.
Because when each side of the debate can reasonably criticize the source of any unfavorable story as "fake news", we've lost something important--a common set of facts, a common framework through which to view and discuss the opposing sides of a political debate, and perhaps even the means to reach a political consensus.
I think the mass media needs to try harder to restore the trust of all Americans, rather than pursuing a business model that exploits reader's inclinations to remain in their particular echo chamber.
2
Reinstating the fairness doctrine would go a long way.
9
The Bible is a highly credible source of news compared to Facebook, Twitter and Reddit. I would start over with it before attempting to repair them.
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@A. Stanton
The mythology and delusion of religion trumps poor misbegotten Facebook, Twitter and Reddit? We may get through this period of democracy’s constitutional trials but there will always be sociopaths that claim allegiance to themselves, dogma and higher power. Thus the cycle will begin again.
"There’s simply too much information for our minds to keep track of. You read a headline — and sometimes that might be all you read — and ...there’s always another story, another outrage. React, scroll, repeat."
Donald Trump has cunningly exploited Twitter to do just that. Often he succeeds in spreading false propaganda to the masses in easy-to-understand succinct sound bites.
Is there any algorithm to filter him out of our social media and our lives?
5
@HMP
Yes. Get off Facebook. Get off Twitter. I quit both in April this year. Not only do I feel more informed (I read, I listen) but I also feel so much more sane. The anxiety is gone. Too bad the fake trump is still around.
A complex answer to a simple problem. Given the availability of actual news sources who have spent from a hundred to two hundred years building their credibility why get your news from Facebook?
4
Perhaps more importantly, lying is now in vogue. Trump lies continually, and virtually none of his supporters care about fact checking. Maybe what is needed is a broader understanding of the philosophy of truthfulness.
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@JDC "Philosophy of Truthfulness," or if you like, Logic.
Using logic rigorously (and avoiding fallacies just as assiduously) would counter many if not most of the false claims floating around the memesphere.
From my interactions on Reddit and Facebook, it seems that metacognition needs to be taught in high school including how to use Logic, and Media Literacy (ML was a required 'core' course at the community college I attended and was likely the reason I correctly identified all the fakes on your quiz). Heck even grade schoolers can understand thinking about how they think, and with how saturated in media we all are, it behooves us to understand how it is impacting us and how we might fall for it's deceptions.
Of course, capitalists aren't going to like it if young people start seeing past their manipulative advertisements and political tools so there will be pushback against publicizing this kind of knowledge....
It is up to us as patriots to help our young people understand the difference between reality and infotainment, for example, to inform them that anytime the US military is depicted onscreen it has been vetted by the military and is only allowed for the military's strategic purposes (recruitment/PR/policy influence). This can be taught at home, in private interactions as well as in classrooms. The alternative is depicted in the insightful documentary, "The Brainwashing of my Dad." (In fact, that doc is a great intro to the subject for teens.)
In practice, testimony doesn't work quite like the cocktail party anymore. If someone makes a ridiculous statement, there are ten smart phones out checking validity. If you're looking for restaurant recommendations or gardening advice, testimony still works that way. For politics though? I'm not so sure.
The dangerous arguments are not the shocking. The dangerous arguments are the persuasive ones. I find it hard to believe anyone finds a "fake news" t-shirt like the one above persuasive. By contrast you look at respected conservative columnists defending Brett Kavanaugh's testimony and you begin to see something a little more threatening to the fate of public discourse.
Establishing transparent credibility is going to clear out a lot of white noise. However, if social media is your primary news source, you already have a problem. The intelligent adult can differentiate the credible from irresponsible. By clearing out the chaff though, you consolidate credibility into the hands of a few persuasive individuals. Not unlike media in general, you'll have orbits of communication from which talking-points are disseminated.
To use a New York Times analogy, we'd find an increasingly consolidated list of commentators topping the editorial and/or readers picks. Depending on your position, that's good if the author is say Gail Collins. However, maybe not so good if the author is Bret Stephens. Reputation has some pitfalls even we humans can't avoid.
2
A 3-level color code is not enough. How about a numeric reliability score for every user that goes from -10 (highly unreliable) to +10 (highly reliable)? That way, it would be easy to infer that someone with a score of '0' was probably just careless, and not to be trusted, whereas someone -5 or less was likely to be a malicious propagator of lies.
3
Wonderful idea. But I hope more news is traced to sources.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think the problem is not just about truth and fake news.
It is about the value of giving people credit for news and ideas.
I once saw the license plate, I QUOTE
When we quote, we should give credit and reward for ideas.
That way we show both pride and humility, all the time.
Politicians, Democrats and Republicans should be more humble.
facebook is anyway meaningless. face and book are more meaningful.
5
Interesting. This might help when it comes to gullibility about whether Hillary is running a sex ring from her subterranean lair beneath a pizza parlor. It could function as a marker that says “Stop for a moment and think before believing and especially before posting this.”
But with many other sorts of claims people may find it’s not always as easy as you’d think to distinguish between fair and unfair characterizations of facts (or of an opinion held by another), or to disentangle facts and proffered explanations for those facts.
I'd love to know how often Facebook users decline to pass on flagged information and which type of stories are most often passed on even when flagged. I won't hold my breath waiting for Facebook to publish its data.
My guess is that most users don't care and get too much pleasure from salacious and fake news to resist sharing it. I bet Facebook knows that and is in no rush to upset its users by tagging them as unreliable or to diminish the pleasure of scandal-mongering by tying it to a poor reliability score.
The pursuit of truth is a noble but not necessarily popular endeavor.
2
Sounds like a good idea to me.
1
The entire premise of this article is an assumption that people don't want to read or spread fake news. I'm not sure I share that assumption. I think people want to read and spread what they like, without much concern for its accuracy.
3
Love the idea. Might even work. And then can we apply it to talking heads on cable TV? I'd love to see the red-flashing "reliable liar" light next to Hannity every time he opens his mouth...
2
Long and circuitous end-run around free speech leaving it in the hands of code-writers. But bottom line, propaganda uses "facts" to make its point--NYT et al. No newspaper or media organization on earth that doesn't have a cultural-political ethos manifested in the work of its writers and editors, goes for the likes of Google and Facebook, too, and there's "the rub".
More important, humans, being human, tend to believe what suits their social-political point of view and interests, even at high-end Sovietized media elite cocktail parties--sort like reading the Economist or New York Review of Books with a dry martini in hand--bias is there, "educated" as it might self-servingly believe it is. Something Facebook et al. have no control over and never will.
2
If the FCC did its job, a job they stopped doing when Reagan deregulated the FCC in the 80s, we wouldn't this issue.
Why am I so sure? Because the FCC used to protect our public airwaves. They don't anymore. We're lied to in the constant barrage of political ads we see every day. News outlets spew opinion as fact without saying "Opinion" or "Editorial" or "Commentary".
We are lied to incessantly on live television, because the networks don't use the same 5-second delays or censors for Trump that they use for live shows like the MTV Awards.
As long as this government is in control, including the do-less-than-nothing Congress, our news will be as legit as a $3 bill.
2
At a time when a Jackson-style populist is running roughshod over some of our democratic institutions, in part due to its ability to connect with masses, I doubt that epistemology, a philosophical discipline that only a few people understand without resorting to Google, will save the day. OK, I can see the dark ironic humor now ... sorry.
It would be interesting to see how this idea could be extended to TV and radio news media.
It should be possible to autogenerate a Facebook page for each Fox "News" or CNN TV program (or even popular radio station programs, e.g. NPR, Rush Limbaugh), for example, and its transcript (correctly attributed to the reporter) appear as a post, and then have that post be evaluated for "fakeness"?
A more interesting, but complex, problem would be to try and extend this idea to news bias? I.e. How favorable is the conservative news coverage vs liberal on this news program. (again, Fox, CNN etc.). This will be very useful for those of us who purportedly seek balanced news coverage.
6
This is an interesting proposal, but it's not at all difficult to imagine a red dot becoming a badge of honor among the large fact-averse cohort that rejects reality based reporting. We all know Donald Trump would have a red dot. I doubt that would diminish his credibility among those who already support him. The trouble isn't the difficulty of distinguishing fact from fiction, the trouble is the ease of finding others whose fictions support the reality we want to live in. Credibility markers will do nothing unless you can eliminate confirmation bias.
19
@Greg M, I think your concern is valid, but perhaps goes too far. Agreed, confirmation bias has a huge impact, but it is not the entirety of the problem. After all, without fake news we would have no biased information to confirm.
The badge of honor effect is real; however, the impedance it carries is also real. People would need to choose between revisionist norms or traction.
There was a time when facts were known to the few who had the income to develop a fairly holistic bead on Life, the Universe and Everything. Few others had access to source-material with which to build worldviews – or, for that matter, the capacity or even the interest to gather and analyze it to support a worldview. Such worthies imparted that lore, and the ideological cud-chewing ruminations based on them in books, magazines, newspapers, political pamphlets and talks before audiences of men whose wives forced them to attend. And if they basically agreed with what they read or heard, then the reasoning of others became theirs.
What could be said in favor of this earlier reality is that the worldviews, while based as today on premises whose validity was highly arguable, usually offered SOME rigor to the ruminations. Today, of course, there is none. EVERYONE is online, everyone is one Google query away from a superficial, ideologically interested analysis that supports prejudices for which people seek support, rather than examining the data and considering prejudices in light of it.
Most strident conservatives really don’t read the New York Times in great numbers. Most strident liberals wouldn’t be caught dead glancing at Breitbart or Fox News. Most people today seek support for views they’ve already been manipulated into holding. The author’s notional solution inspired by Facebook requires that the average I.Q. rise by 20 points (at least), and that Facebook’s …
3
… human truth policemen be ideologically balanced and unmoved by their OWN news-slanting ideological convictions. Facebook’s idea is a good one for robots to execute and other robots to moderate and supervise. But humans?
Fake News certainly is “human”. You’d think that by now we would have twigged to the fact that changing anything fundamentally “human” is not an easy thing, and not particularly facilitated by bright ideas.
3
@Richard Luettgen
Stop with the airy language about "a holistic bead on Llfe." Is it true that Obama was born in Kenya, as the demagogue Trump would have us believe (or was it Hillary Clinton?) and some 35% of his credulous followers, perhaps including you, accept? To do so means that his birth certificate was forged, despite all evidence to the contrary. Is it true that Russians interfered in the 2016 presidential election, or was it some 400 lb. guy on his bed in New Jersey? Is it true that the Holocaust never happened? Contra Kellyanne Conway, there are no "alternative facts."
1
Thanks for the good ideas. But I doubt we can get the Facebook and Twitter monopolies to apply fair testimonial norms without some sort of regulation, horrible as that seems to many (me, included).
The #1 proof of this point is Twitter and Donald Trump. Twitter actively polices its users for civility and honesty according to its guidelines... except when they're making money off of it, as is the case with President DJT, the world's foremost Twitter troll and near-daily violator of its usage guidelines.
That's because when push comes to profit, profit wins every time. The only way to combat that is with regulation and/or stronger criminal laws around defamation and distribution of false information -- maybe especially where Presidents are concerned.
7
Societies and democracies work because people believe in a common interest and are willing to work together to discuss and achieve it. Our media and our politicians now make their living by preventing that discussion and that work. The internet and social media are a powerful tool for them in this regard, but they did not originate the problem.
5
Meh. Tagging more will never take the place of thinking more. I don't have a solution, since arguing that people should try harder never gets you anywhere. But neither will this idea.
2
I don’t think technology created fake news - anybody who has spent any time in a supermarket checkout line knows fake news has been around for a long time. What technology has done, however, is make the creation and spread of fake news painfully simple.
A few clicks and it’s all over the planet. The real problem here is the amount of it and the difficulty the average person has in identifying it - or in some cases their reluctance to. I like the suggestions the author makes, but I really wish that people would take at least a couple of minutes to try to verify what they see. Most of the moderately and severely outrageous stuff can usually be dismissed with a simple Google search. If you can’t find that it’s being reported on any reliable news sites, you should probably discount it.
9
The problem isn't the news, it's the Republicans that want to believe lies so they feel good about being racist or anti-immigrant. Trump has lied about 4,500 times, yet his followers want to believe what he says and consider him a credible source of information. Republicans forgive him and believe him, because he's "One of us."
Republican men in particular, as the NYT has reported, want to believe Republicans are better for the economy. However, The Economist reported that the economy historically does better in terms of GDP growth, job creation, and stock market returns under Democratic Presidents, regardless of which party controlled the Congress (The Economist - "Timing is Everything" - 2014). Trump himself has admitted as much in an interview, a fact entirely overlooked by Republicans.
For example, it's easy to make the case that the debt addition trajectory for the 2018-2027 period was almost 50% lower under Obama. Job creation was faster in Obama's last 20 months than Trump's first 20 months. During the Obama years, inflation was lower, mortgage rates were lower, and real wage growth was faster, but Republicans don't want to hear it. They ignore that Obama's best quarter was 5.1% during 2014, while bragging about Trump's best quarter of 4.2%.
Republicans "feel" better with their guy in charge, blocking other facts.
The idea of coding people or sites for credibility on Facebook is excellent, but we fix this problem by shaming Republicans and via education.
27
Yes, all true. Factually true. How do we get from there to "truth?"
The mortgage rates under Obama were historically low because the central bank had to slash rates to practically zero to stimulate the economy. That was neither his fault nor to his credit, just the reality of the mess he inherited from the recession of 2008. Which came under GWB's watch of course.
Historically low interest rates aren't the sign of a strong economy. Quite the opposite. The Fed raises rates to slow down an economy that they fear is in danger of overheating. Loose lips sink ships, loose credit sinks an economy.
Ironically that's why Trump is irresponsibly and unprecedentedly hollering about the Fed raising interest rates. He doesn't want any brakes on the economy, he's too dumb to know what happens when the express train derails.
Remember when we were warned that we borrow and spend instead of saving like the smarter and thriftier Japanese? Really hard to save when interest rates are negligible.
Interest rates are not what they seem, and the media does a terrible job reporting on them. A crash is coming because we've had historically low interest rates for far too long, artificially propping up the economy. Many find themselves unable to make the required interest payments, from China to Kushner companies.
The media in general is strongly biased for liberals.
This is especially true of the Times.
Remember when the Times, in 2008, published front page anonymous allegation that McCain had an affair, later retracted?
At the same time, the Times was told about John Edwards secret love child, which the Times refused to investigate and publish?
Not fake news, but crucial bias and a blight on the fourth estate.
3
@R. R.
For you, the media bias toward liberals is a fact not an opinion, and I'm afraid that you are unable to distinguish between the two. Which media? Fox News? I think you are biased in favor of illiberalism.
@Alan J. Shaw
The characterization of mainstream media newsrooms as left-leaning hives indeed has documentary backing.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/01/27/dear-main...
A major goal for establishing the BBC was to develop a reputation for accurate, honest, and reliable news that could be used in critical times of national crisis to mislead a hostile enemy.
The BBC used it to hide intention and even fed horoscopes to Hitler that favored the allies.
It worked.
The fact that it did makes it extremely important that we pay close attention to the values and the integrity of those who lead us as well as to the culture they represent. Honesty and loyalty are two qualities that are crucial to the survival of any nation.
Two illustrations:
A 25 year-old, Arminius, rose to a position of high trust in the Roman Army. He used that trust to convince superiors to take a shortcut through the Teutoburg forest. Three legions, 10% of the Roman army, entered a narrow pass and never made it out.
Their slaughter took three days. Arminius sent the head of the General who trusted him as a gift to the Emperor.
In 9 AD, it shattered Roman confidence.
Teutoburg was Rome's equivalent of Midway.
The value of technology depends on the character of the person who controls it. Character development is essential to national survival.
Different cultures have different formulas:
Confucian: music, etiquette, & education.
Ancient Egyptian: Hotep: food & peace.
Hindu: tolerance & exemplars
Greek: logos - inquiry/enthusiasm
Roman: Conquest & empire
Persian: light vs darkness
Christian: acceptance (grace)
American: mathematization
What's your epistemology?
Little red dots?
1
Good ideas. But what do we do about Fox News?
12
Excellent.
1
What if the FB poster is posting fake news to alert others to the fact that it is fake? Will they lose their "epistemic reliability?"
A couple of weeks ago I read a fake news story in a banner Ad over a NYTimes Editorial on the Trump family Tax Fraud. It was. ostensibly, from a reputable Canadian news source (CBC.ca), that told of Mark Zuckeberg's plan to step down from FB and start an online casino to fund Universal Basic Income for all Canadians. The article invited Canadians to become early investors. Of course, I posted it on FB, as a discussion point for my critical thinking friends. Never gave a though to what this might cost me "algorithmically."
I also flagged it to the NYTimes, to no avail, since fake news stories, urging me to invest in fake Alzheimer's cures, continue to appear in the Ad space I am forced to see, despite the money I pay every month to be an International Digital Subscriber.
Know thyself, New York Times!
1
Capital idea!
3
The fix for "fake news" Is human. It is between your ears and called critical thinking. Don't believe everything you read, especially on Facebook and others. Where did this come from ? Why? Who benefits from this? What is the data?
10
@Bob I think it's an American thing . . . they always want 'something for nothing', and a shortcut to everything. Facebook gives that to them, and saves the price of a decent newspaper subscription. Problem is, there's no fact checker and no proofreader so it's like digging through the neighbor's garbage can for supper; free, but . . .
1
The proposed transparent system would help enormously and should be applied to our political leaders, as well. Such a system, however, is mainly effective at eliminating provably false assertions. It is much less effective at combating the most insidious forms in the tribal echo chamber's myth and rumor making: assertions that require us to prove the negative. A more comprehensive system should include indicators of substantiation and an estimate of length of circulation. For example, Hillary and Bill Clinton conspired to murder their attorney Vince Foster, or Hillary and top democrats are running a pedophile sex ring. The above reports of vile activities would be labeled as years-old unsubstantiated character-assasinating rumors; whereas the assertion that Donald Trump is a serial molester of young women and is a traitor who conspired with a hostile foreign power to undermine our democracy would be labeled as years-old reports supported by multiple evidentiary sources.
1
Hmmm. . .
Perhaps getting news from Facebook is a fundamentally stupid idea. Perhaps students should learn to discriminate between real journalism and nonsense when they are young.
It's not complicated. The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal (except their moronic editorial page!) and countless local newspapers have dedicated, professional journalists who vet sources and report accurate information.
The answer isn't to try and make Facebook a more reliable source of information. It is to persuade people to make more discerning judgments about the sources of their information.
18
@Barking Doggerel But it's not just Facebook - Drudge started this long ago. Blaring your insecurities out of your messy bedroom became the way the invisible rose out of ignominy, and actually made money in the process... Dumbocracy in action!
1
@barbara jackson True dat
....OR don't get your news from Facebook!
9
Is it irony or tragedy that the picture now to my left is of those who believe the perpetrators of fake news? Oh, and it's never - NEVER!!! - going away.
Where will this go when technology makes it easier to create fake audio-visual clips?
@Mau Van Duren How about seamless Photoshop that lets you try various heads on scenes of 'bodies doing questionable deeds?' Maybe Trump had a point; there is no truth . . .
1
Facebook should do what the writer suggested. I love when you point out that a Facebook post is incorrect for whatever reason, and the poster gets mad at you for doing this! They're stubborn and sometimes stick to their guns no matter what. Sometimes they get mad and defriend!
1
Good try..but technology is no substitute for critical reading and critical thinking.
These must be taught starting at about age four.
By age twelve, for instance, kids might be exposed to a variety of
Beliefs, to accept or reject any of them...
All this occurs prior to adult contamination...
Chas
6
I was disappointed to find that there was no suggestion about how to counter the most insidious source of fake news - the party propaganda machine known as FoxProp.
10
Thanks for the great column. Here at the American University Game Lab we've been trying to help people recognize fake news by encouraging them to check the source of online articles with our Factitious news game. Since we launched in July 2017, more than 1,000,000 games have been played - nearly 40% of them during school hours (factitious.augamestudio.com).
Bob Hone, Asst. Professor, AU Game Lab
@Bob Hone Of course, you realize that by now, everybody thinks this is a factless fact, don't you? Or is that the point?
1
@barbara jackson Stop the Presses! I checked out the web page (which I thought was fake because it wasn't a hot link in your post) and you really do exist. Sorry . . .
Sounds like an excellent idea. Of course a much better idea would be to ignore social media entirely since it is arguably the most monumental waste of time ever invented.
4
One person’s opinion…
Users of social media sites must label content they post as “Fact”, “Opinion”, or “Fiction”.
Content labeled “Fact” is audited for accuracy. Users that post fake information as “Fact” three times over a three year period are banned from the site for life.
Should, after expulsion, they attempt to become a user under a false identity, there information and user history are turned over to the FBI and/or Homeland Security.
Change the labels or timelines as you will. However, this is real accountability for serious crimes (as we have found in our last election) against community.
Ebay already tracks and displays the mutual ranking of sellers by buyers and vice versa; sort of like real life!
1
There is a fairly successful rating system in place on Ebay with regard to buyers rating sellers. Worth trying on Facebook?
Dear Professor Rini,
Our minds ruthlessly sift out useless data every moment of every day. It is how we survive. Sad to say, too many folks are unable to do the same thing with the digital deluge they deliberately drown themselves in.
Moreover, you’re assuming most people WANT to arrive at something resembling truth. Where and when in the history of humanity do we see any but a scant minority interested in such a thing?
Combine a legion of underdeveloped minds with the opportunity for exponential expression and you’re left with our present reality: an ocean of imbecility.
As for a solution? Get as far from the devices and the dolts as often and as long as you possibly can.
Cordially,
S.A. Traina
37
If Facebook is tagging unreliable and fake information, maybe they could post a list users could click onto that would highlight some of the most frequent or blatant misnformation and disinformation that is being pushed--somewhat like rumor control and debunking ridiculous urban legends. Or perhaps they could collect this information and give it to credible news outlets to dispense
I keep my Facebook communication limited to family and friends whom I know well or to organizations I am interested in, but I would be curious to see what kind of propaganda and ridiculous political rumors are being widely spread.
Also I heard that Sweden and some other countries have introduced curriculum in their schools to teach children and teens how to detect & deal with fake news.
One of our problems is we do not have a national curriculum of essential learning for our students or a Ministry of Education like other advanced countries. No, we have states (like TX with creationism as part of its science courses) and more than 14,000 school districts (U.S. Census) that each determines much of its own curriculum.
Years ago I was on a project to assess civics courses in our schools, & found that civics had become a hotbed of contention in some school districts because, like sex education, some parents did not want their children exposed to certain ideas, such Enlightenment principles (that ran contrary to religious teachings) or protest and activism. Some schools dropped civics courses
8
How about just installing trusted real journalists with honor and veracity? Walter Cronkite, where are you when we need you?
The real problem is that the American people really don't want to learn the truth. It would require them to grow up.
5
Ms. Rini, I'm afraid, is a little like the much more common instances of MD's saying/thinking, "I can fix that."
THINKING about social media as something other than the terrible disease that it is when it comes to politics is a waste of time.
When the author says that "it's like going out for drinks with 500 friends," she's got a colorful image but one which does not hold up to scrutiny.
"Re-tweeting" is fundamentally different from saying "Somebody told me ..." at a party.
Sadly, it really IS as simple as the accepted wisdom that we have a terrible and terrifying "echo chamber" in FB, Twitter, etc.
Humans manufacture fake news with the care and expertise that used to go into classical music or Italian sculpture. AND THEN you can count on literally millions of people to "amp it." For many people on social media, that's likely to include 1-20 "friends."
And that's where soc-med has gone off the rails - FRIENDS used to mean something SO VERY DIFFERENT from what it does in cyberspace that it's every bit as game changing as if we went back to sex solely as a species survival strategy.
When "friends" are really "like-minded individuals," the cocktail party metaphor winds up in tatters. YOU MIGHT actually talk to/argue with someone who thinks differently from you at a party. Almost never in a venue like Facebook!
Your friends are being USED. So are YOU, almost for sure, and it's a stealth killer - Facebook owned up to the 2016 epidemic long after the damage was done.
1
I like the idea. One issue with the “fake news” claim is that those who are so vocally abusing NYT, CNN, FOX, etc. don’t watch or read those outlets. A thoroughly vetted and researched piece in the NYT will get skewered (often by the president) but will not be read and judged by opposing political viewers.
Here’s where Facebook and Twitter can be valuable, because they are populated with all sides of the ideological spectrum.
Seeing and hearing your political adversaries with the additional lens of a reliability rating can help to soften the discourse a bit.
Frankly, networks themselves can use some independent reliability ratings.
At the risk of being labeled a dinosaur, I make the claim that social media are a total waste of time and money. News, opinions and even photographs were already transmittable on the internet. Social media only multiply the potential for fake news, fake advertising and fake everything. That is correct. "Fake everything." There comes a time when it is impossible to distinguish between fact and fiction, between fraud and public service. If ever that proposition were to be demonstrated, we already have it in Donald Trump and his cabinet. No wonder Nikki Haley has resigned and James Mattis is said to be on his way out. Is there any person of intelligence and integrity left in Trump's cabinet? Or is it all just fake news? The closest thing to reality seems to be the all out Republican campaign to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
Do I understand this correctly? The author asserts, "The Fix for Fake News Isn't Code," and then proceeds to proposed a color-coded dot system based on an algorithm.
1
This article addresses part of the issue. But the larger problem is that we have one political party, specifically the Republican party, that lies about small and large issues - morning, noon, and night. Their propaganda operation, Trump 'News' and hate radio, spew lies 24x7. And now that they've tasted the sweet nectar of a stolen election, they've amped up the lying to new heights. Power corrupts, Absolute power corrupts absolutely. They are willing to destroy our democracy before they will yield this power. There is no cure.
1
"Currently, Facebook asks independent fact-checking organizations from across the political spectrum to identify false and misleading information."
We're supposed to believe that Facebook, which has bent over backwards to please the authoritarian rulers of China and help them control their population, is going to engage fact-checking organizations from the left - the segment of the political spectrum that is most critical of facebook for their coziness to authoritarian governments and violations of privacy.
Who determines which fact checkers to use?
What happens when fact checkers disagree - this isn't a black or white world?
1
Fifty years ago, I thought new scientific discoveries, which were inevitable, would move the world further from religious doctrine toward realism and reason. How wrong I was. The more scientific we become, it appears the more religious we become. The newly discovered communication devices are used to further distance us from the truth. In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer, and this will be accomplished using a "survival" algorithm - which will provide irrefutable proof of how we have tricked the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about just what is supposed to survive. As we come to understand this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
3
What's to stop the conspiracy theorists from arguing that the green dot is the badge of the sheeple (or even ringers), and the red dot means you must be telling the truth because the lamestream has labeled you as a liar? They've so distorted epistemological norms that this seems to be both trivial and obvious.
Have you ever tried to use Snopes or Politifact to debunk one of these people? They just mock you and claim George Soros is pulling your strings somehow. I can't imagine that Facebook's reputation system is going to be accepted by them as trustworthy instead.
Then there's Facebook's fairly disturbing unreliability in these kinds of situations. If someone posts information that's suppressed or disputed by their government, is FB going to side with the activist or with the regime that they rely on to provide a regulatory environment they can thrive in?
Yes, our crisis is in our human morals, as using knowingly what is false to advance our hidden agendas. We must be re-educated in ethics and our conscience revived adjusting to our Internet times where some try to get away with 'murder' by seeking 'invisibility' in their pragmatic but immoral 'doings'. We must wake up our conscience, dormant by choice now, as it 'knows' right from wrong, no matter what we do and how much we try to hide; we will always be with ourselves, and eventually look in the mirror. Unless you want to act 'a la Trump', devoid of any pesky feelings of regret or repentance when lying and stealing from others. Still, Facebook is in part responsible for the profusion of 'fake news' and misinformation, as long as the priority is to make a buck. For now, we are dealing with a populace that seems willfully ignorant about the facts, and the truth, as long as the 'news' are part of the circus to entertain us...and get out of a deadly routine in our lives, even 'requiring' an escape into drugs and alcohol when the unrelieved chronic stress becomes unbearable. As you say, we have the technology to improve on what is on offer, but we humans are ultimately responsible of what's going on. Do we have the 'ganas' (the will) to reverse course?
This premise is ludicrous: Facebook is only a blatant example of how technology is deliberately used to spread misinformation. I have long believed that Fox News is core to the rise of what I call 'willful self deception' and they don't actually lie (that much anyway, as far as I know). No, Fox uses filtering of stories, and the power of media generally, to provide a narrative driven by an agenda. Take illegal immigration: in this nation, are there illegals who commit egregious crimes? Yes. Are there many illegals who are here specifically because they can get jobs, and achieve greater economic success by working below US labor costs? Yes. But if you tell a story that shows, and reinforces in the bottom line scrolling, the couple of actual illegals' crimes and never the complex economic realities of immigration, then a consumer can easily be swayed to follow the danger thread and ignore the economic reality thread and no one actually lied...except the people who promote Fox News as 'Fair and balanced'.
And even if there were a systematic way to 'flag' these sources as unreliable, then what about the Deep State theory: who gets to put the flags, or the background AI evaluation on publicly available information? It could be 'bad guys', at least as someone chooses to see it.
Rini is, to put it bluntly, wrong. Technology has nothing to do with fake news. Fake news is produced by humans attempting to control or influence others using tech as just another tool. In the past it was the Bible, printing press, television, etc. Fake news is a product of liers. Tech only does what liers tell it to do.
1
This thinking is flawed. Disinformation is an industry, and it is used by propagandists in every platform of social exchange. They saturate the market with a few ideas, until they are in the public domain of common sense. This includes academia, celebrity, sport. I bought a science book for general consumption about cosmological physics. It wasn't top tier, but it was on the principle of Emergence. In chapter 3, it started talking about Liberal Socialists from 1930, and kept on going against liberal ideas and ideals. This was a physics science book! There are placement of "scholars" that think the right way, according to the Koch brothers, in elite colleges. Paul Krugmans shows how 'reality has a liberal bias', but the media is dominated with placement of disinformation. To combat common sense and logic, it is done by volume volume volume. . Regina Rini does not appear to know the breadth of disinflation/propaganda.
1
There is nothing new under the sun. Did you ever look at the ‘news’ between the covers of the National Enquirer, or the number of rapt and loyal readers in supermarket checkout lines? The current crop of fakirs have used such models and the concept of kayfabe from professional wrestling to perfect fake news in the digital age, and yes, it’s prevalent on both sides of any political stripe. That the internet has become an information cesspool, as well as a great source of real information should surprise no one, since the same applied to print journalism for some time, probably since its inception. The only way to separate the bad from the good, the fake from the likely truth, is to do some personal research. In a word, to be educated and skeptical, even when you agree with the basic bent of the writer.
Good idea. In my opinion, a medium is only as truthful as its curators. All media should be curated. Reliable newspapers are. So should social media. Social media are at their worst when anarchists and deviants get ahold of them. Good curators understand the concepts of free speech and balanced content better than anarchists and deviants who, most often, use their cry of censorship to hide a dangerous agenda. As I think about it, free speech is censorship and censorship is free speech, since without a censor the lunatics get ahold of the asylum and subvert the truth. While there is no perfect way to present the truth, curation tops anarchy any day--so long as the curators are good reliable people... (I wonder what color dot the president would have next to his posts?)
If you make censorship opaque enough it won't seem like censorship at all. You've simply renamed the censor a fact checker and hidden him a little. I invite everyone to carefully read a fact checker from an organization with a different point of view from yours. You will learn that organizations official rules for obfuscation without technically lying. This is the only useful information you'll get from a typical fact checker.
Hmm, interesting, perhaps that would work. When I see posts even from close friends, I check the source. Many times I don't comment or "like". I just ignore it.
Good proposition. Yet it needs one more color to take into account people like Trump. And black wouldn't be a good choice.
If you can find your way online to Facebook or Twitter, you can find your way to the web site of a reliable news outlet. There are many people who want to believe nonsense like child trafficking rings in pizza parlors and such.
I quit Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Problem solved.
2
What a brilliant idea!! I hope TPTB at Facebook are reading this!!!
"... Technology spawned the problem of fake news …"
WRONG.
Consider Gutenberg's printing press. Consider the first best-selling author - Martin Luther.
Fake news has been with us since time immemorial. It existed before there was any technology.
Paper and ink has been replaced by ASCII characters on LCD displays.
Humans (trump, murdock) who exploit technology (inanimate objects) are the problem, have always been the problem.
I'm not on any social network site because they are all "Swiss cheese", full of holes, unsecure, easily exploitable. Consider Russia in the 2016 election.
The was an old protocol AAA - Authenticate, Authorization, Accountability - that can be used as a kind of mnemonic for an approach one should used whenever reading anything on any website, or in any newspaper. Are the authors who they say they are, can they be identified and held to account, can they possibly know they are talking about, etc.
The NYT website passes AAA, FOX website does not.
ps. the guy holding up the fake news t-shirt needs to do this in front of a mirror.
3
Trump and Kanye deserve each other. One is a blathering, self-serving egotist, who believes the world rotates around him; the other married into the equally dysfunctional Kardashian family.
Posting reliability scores and beefing up testimonial norms wont make a dent in the country’s polarization. In that sense the liberal media’s relentless stories about “fake news” are just fake news. It is as much a denial of reality to attribute Trump’s 2016 electoral victory to unreliable crime statistics as it is to blame Russian interference for the results. It pains me to see Democrats squander the opportunity to learn hard lessons from the last election while they posture and preen over their “testimonial” virtue. Truth is paramount. Human conflicts can’t be reduced to disagreements of fact. The times require less virtue-signaling and more hard-headed pragmatism. Trump was wrong to share a statistic that he probably knew was inaccurate. He should have emulated Democrats, who have platoons of New York Times investigative reporters to dig up facts that support their world view.
5
Unfortunately people are gullible and refuse to think beyond a simple statement such as, "I went for a walk today"
No one questions where you went, why you went, or what you actually did. They just know you went for walk and that is all they need to know.
People are refusing to think outside their insulated social media lives. Go into a public place, observe who is looking at their phones and who is paying attention to what is around them. It's almost sad. If I walk up to someone and tell them them the sky is grey today, they will check their phone instead of actually looking up at the sky.
But what do I know, my social media face book you name it is limited, to well, nothing. My newspaper reading is limited to as many different papers that I can get my hands on in one day.
I appreciate this article very much.
ButI can't help but think that there is a much simpler, and smarter, solution - one that is already suggested in the article.
Delete your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Use the time saved to go out and have cocktails with friends.
8
“Testimonial norms”? The problem is not fact checking, it is the lack of fact based articles that debunk generally accepted wisdom. Like the research that shows how easy it is to create and believe false memories, that show the need to overhaul our antiquated and unfair legal system. Or the articles on how renewable energy is now cheaper and how national security is bolstered by renewables, showing how Trump policies are not consistent with national security. The lack of awareness makes some of us on the left keenly aware of fake news - misleading information with “correct” facts.
Or . . .
Don't get all your information, especially news, from social media. Or even from other electronic sources.
A mix of sources, from various viewpoints, is still a better bet.
7
1. Fake news has been around a long time and has always been difficult to control, now more than ever given the democratization (and corresponding weaponization) of social media: ("The Age-Old Problem of Fake News," Smithsonian Magazine, 7 May 2018).
2. It is difficult to believe that a series of green, blue and red dots can substitute for better personal analysis and editorial control, hence more thoughtful posts. Who sets the algorithms? We insist we consider all the concerns and then respond on partisan grounds: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/1/15515820/donald-trump-d... ("Two eminent political scientists: The problem with democracy is voters," 24 June 2017).
3. Cocktail gossip with friends increasingly excludes the "other" party, particularly when it comes to politics. And then there is geographical segregation on partisan grounds.
4. Will green, blue or red dots help create tolerance for other views? I suppose anything is possible, but my initial response is skeptical.
5. We have to learn how to sit with those espousing other views, to leave reams of historical baggage outside the negotiating room. That is difficult under any circumstances.
6. Considering philosophical issues, how do we get around the problem of dirty hands: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dirty-hands/ . How do you get people--of all stripes--who believe the ends justify the means to stop?
1
I wonder if they could correlate the old Department of Homeland Security warning colors to politicians mutterings as reliability markers, to give voters an idea of how much possible damage they might do. The example below is for illustration purposes, plenty of other possibilities exist.
Trump (red) Severe - severe risk
Clinton (orange) High - high risk
Sanders (yellow) Elevated - significant risk
Bloomberg (blue) Guarded - general risk
Biden (green) Low - low risk
I think the author might be re-inventing the wheel.
Gossip and rumors have been with us forever.
Many of us have the requisite analytical skills to assess the unvetted information we receive.
We judge the source and supporting information for this informal information.
The same applies to media stories.
A mindful reader or listener of such reports, looks for the level and quality of sourcing.
It's safe to say that the negative Trump news is essentially a faithful reflection of what he said or did.
Opinion writers should employ some degree of intellectual rigor to what they write.
Groundless opinions or unsubstantiated rumor should be assigned little or no value.
In sum, this is not a complicated matter.
1
I'm not convinced the system needs fixing. Social media ecosystems are not designed to transmit verifiable truths. The communities they create, by definition, are virtual and necessarily limited to a simulacrum of reality in the first place. It is the failure to make this distinction, I suppose, that that can lead people astray online, whether by being duped financially, catfished, or led along by political propaganda. Information, disinformation: It's all the same online. To say that the testimonial credibility of social media posters is weird is correct but it is more than that: It's often simply unknowable. What is the tone and intent behind some manufactured story? Is it satire, parody, a fable, a counterfactual, malicious gossip or invention? Much of the time who knows? Skepticism seems the best posture. Caveat emptor. Or simply disengage. Otherwise, as we've seen, it will be a messy perpetual game of whack-a-mole trying to regulate the astonishing torrent of social media speech.
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'You can't believe everything you read', a prominent economist once told this American citizen, followed shortly with 'I don't think you read the news' which leads to a paradox.
We were at 30 Rock in those days where NBC is located, and after my supervisor left for the day, his assistant and I went to see "The Quiz Show" at a small theater on the corner of the Plaza.
Whether one reads the news or not, perhaps nothing in life is accidental when it comes to a selecting of choices, and a second viewing of the above earlier, based on hearings that took place on allegations that this popular T.V. show 'Twenty-One' was rigged; the Nation fooled, confronting honesty, justice and truth, is more topical than ever.
Nobody goes to jail, and in the end it is relatively smooth sailing for some of the liars, but how is T.V. holding strong in this technological era is another matter. It took one human, a lawyer and graduate from Harvard to risk losing all credibility, but he never surrendered or shouted in the face of adversity, the cards stacked against him, because he was incorruptible.
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I agree with Ms Rini that a sound philosophical base is crucial to determine what is truth and what is fiction. In America, to add to that, we have destroyed K-12 education, eliminating broad swaths of citizens that can think rationally or critically. We made that Faustian bargain decades ago through greed and population growth and we are reaping that now.
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Thanks! You’ve opened a very important discussion cantering on credibility and our own responsibility about the information that we share. I’ve marked your article so that when I’m in a teaching situation I can challenge young people to get into the discussion. Fake news is a very serious issue.
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Over 90% of all media coverage of this President has been strongly negative going all the way back to Hillary's managing to lose her election.This is the very definition of fake news.
A president solves the unemployment problem affecting workrs' familiy incomes for decades in a country where workers' incomes decide every election - and the media harps about how he speaks instead of celebrating the success of our poorest workers.
Ther is no questioning the reality of Fake News as part of the complete death of independent journalism in America and the developed West. The unquestioned progressive control of schools of journalism ensures that political corruption will beset the reporting of news in this country for another generation.
And now Google, Facebook, and Twitter executives brag about how they have quashed free expression at every turn in their political war.
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Wages are lower this quarter than they were a year ago.
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@L'osservatore
And the reason why news about trump is negative; the reason is called truth. Accurate reporting, reporting the facts, will have to result in negative news about trump. To put it plainly, when he does another stupid thing, when he says another nasty lie, he is just not going to look very good. Just cause you don't like, don't make it false.
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@L'osservatore 90% of the coverage of Trump being negative is about the right percentage, as about 90% of what he does is negative. The media is correct in calling that out. It is also correct in pointing out the bubbles and short term moves that made (some) workers (mostly those in the upper echelons) receive small increases in pay. Unemployment has changed very little from Obama's last months overall, and is not directly related to Trump, no matter how hard you try to make it so (while also discounting any connection to Obama). Regarding progressive control of journalism, can you actually show any correlation beyond a relation to actual facts? The one place where journalism goes completely off the rails is in the right wing, where actual facts don't matter much (think FoxNews and Breitbart).
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Interesting. But will Facebook users pay attention to the colored dots? If, as political scientists have argued, people look to fake news to confirm their pre-existing biases, it is possible (and perhaps likely) that a red dot will have no impact on users who are all too happy to consume and pass along false information so long as it conforms to a vision of reality they accept as true. Moreover, the story Rini tells about truth-telling at cocktail parties relies on our perception of how passing along false information will affect our reputations. But what if our friends believe that up is down and black is white? What if they subscribe to a vision of reality at odds with the truth? In that event, embracing fake news might actually enhance our reputation within our circle, making us more rather than less likely to disregard the red dot. Technology is neither the problem nor the solution. So long as people prefer their vision of reality to discomforting truths, there will be politicians and ideologues ready and able to exploit their credulity.
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I have never once seen a Facebook pop up suggesting something is fake news and I am on it every day. I probably do not post fake news so good for me. But I still see lots of articles and stories and memes, especially, from others (mostly from conservatives but a few from liberals as well). Why is that? A) They don't care; B) They are not seeing the pop up; C) Facebook decided it wasn't fake news. Looking at C is an important part because most of the falseness these days is not actually "fake news". I believe most of the obvious fake sites have disappeared or have become legitimized. What has happened is legit sources now promote lies, exaggerations, assumptions about their political "enemies" and opponents and frequently report the president's lies, mistakes, half-truths, and propaganda as facts. Even the repetition of a lie with a comment that it is inaccurate creates a problem and sends the message out anyway, especially if it requires more in-depth reading to understand that it wasn't truthful.
Therein lies the bigger issue. What are we all going to do about that?
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@child of babe
We break these monopolies up just as we did with Standard Oil. Competition will allow the free-speech proponents to emerge and the conservative half of the country will abandon the gulags of censorship for the fresh air of free expression.
We'll end up with 4 to 10 regional Facebooks, Googles, Twitters, and Amazons, all trying to out-draw the consumers.
Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
Oh, the movie never ends
It goes on and on and on and on
The end of Journey's “Don’t Stop Believin'”
Excellent timely article and the kids are experts out there on social media so I am hoping they too will use this app as it separates testimony from bearing false witness.
You are right, anyone on FB cannot do this on their own without the help of an app. FB has been taking hits lately, justifiably, so it is cloaking itself in invisibility while performing this app. They must be tracking its results as you so wisely perceive, or what would be the point?
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There is a fundamental contradiction in suggesting that we use technology to offset the negatives of technology. By definition, whatever new technology we introduce will bring with it its own set of problems. We need a supra-technological solution.
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Rini starts this article saying the problem is human; one not solved by technology. Yet, by the end of article proposes more technology and a social rating system that is eerily similar to a system than China is looking to implement where they are looking to score your social interaction and becomes in essence your credit score. The fundamental problem is that identity is not fully known on the internet and therefore the norms of human social interaction are not fully supported.
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Facebook and Twitter aren't going to keep us from seeing fake news. If a person WANTS to be informed by real news, it's not that hard to do - just read a major newspaper. They already know their reputation (and their money) is on the line. The real problem is, and will continue to be, that many people seek out info they want to hear rather than what is true. Eventually, the social media providers are going to see themselves swept aside if everything you see and hear there is false.
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@Tim m I think it's already happening!
From my own experience I have seen instances when people give false testimony under, yes oath. Eye witness is also not reliable. This is because we either don’t see or comprehend the situation. Many instances testimony is given based on one’s ow perception formed by prior experience and prejudices. I have also seen situations where a group wants to get somebody. If there is a whiff of an adverse testimony from someone against that person, the group will use that and give some legitimacy. These days photos and video recordings are unreliable as they can easily be doctored. In the end, we believe what we want to believe.
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I work on computer software. There are algorithms used to test the validity of sources. Look up 'Byzantine Generals' approach to validating inputs. This technology is used in commercial airplanes when the pilots are communicating with information about the plane's status: rudders, ailerons, elevators, etc.
Rejecting technological solution is like saying "I got lost in a car once, so I'm going to walk from now on". If the technology leads you down the wrong path then you fix the technology.
This tech has been around for a while. What we need is popular understanding of the solution and its adoption on a wide scale, like in Facebook, Instagram, and other social networks.
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@Nick No, rejecting technological solution is like saying "I got lost in a car once, so I'm going to start using a GPS system in my car", and it's working great until it leads you over an unfinished bridge into a river, so then you come up with yet another technological solution, and then...
This boils down to Facebook determining "truth." Whether it is a rating of an account or of a single tweet, it still hinges on Facebook determining what is truly true.
We once had people who did this. We called them journalists. They are too afraid to call a lie a lie, and so we hope Facebook will quietly replace them.
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If I believe the earth was made in 7 days am
I green, yellow, or red?
If Facebook wants to display a truthiness dot, I think it would be better for it to only show the user’s own dot and not everyone else’s. I suspect that red dots will begin to cluster together. With enough time they may even create their own political party.
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@M
There is one already. It's red.
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When we get to addressing this fake news dilemma, it may be because we have realized that our democracy is a relevant concern. At this point we may then demand our schools provide the learning we all need to deal with fake news instead of creating really good test takers and grade getters focused on graduation. This fake news adjustment is simply part of becoming the best citizens they can be.
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Mike if only that were something we all cared to fix civics in school. Responsibility as a citizen. It should be required. Thanks that’s such a reasonable approach.
Not much new. Back some 55 years ago, I recall an exercise in grade school where the children sat in a circle and the teacher whispered something in the first child's ear who told the next, who told the next etc. By the time it got back to the beginning, it was unintelligible. It was a lesson in rumors, communications and accuracy. Today's reposting technique does solve some of the accuracy problems, but it still suffers. Just look at any fake news that starts at either a liberal or conservative site. It spreads within the hour to all the other conservative or liberal sites without any of the sites checking the veracity of the original post. The real issue is the awareness and education of the reader. If you start from the premise that you need to double check anything with different sources, that helps. If you can comprehend what is being reported, that helps. One has only to look at comments on science related articles to see the problem. First, the reporter often makes mistakes. Second, the editor creates some attention getting headline. Third, the readers can't or won't check the original publication and a vast majority cannot read it.
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@tom
Was the article written by a FB executive? He is proposing trust should go even further. Which fact endorsers would FB use when 'facts' are the origin of the problem. AI will self preserve and select endorsements for AI no less than political facts will be selected by FB. This idea takes fake news deeper and is more insiduous than Big Brother because BB at least was an entity to be recognized. I don't think we need worry though because people are intuitive and smart; as long as democracy prevails...trust the people.
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I am active on Facebook, but limit my friends to people I actually know or folks with whom I have a connection, even if we have not met face-to-face. That means that I ignore/dismiss far more "friend" requests than I accept. The upshot of that, though, is that I know who I am dealing with and know how much I can depend upon what they share.
I decided years ago that having FB be a meaningful community for me meant not having so many "friends" that I could miss posts I wanted to see (from friends, old friends, family, colleagues) - and not having to scroll thru pictures of people I didn't even know looking for posts I truly cared about.
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@Anne-Marie Hislop You and me both.
The rise of fake news on the internet and the cure for it?
First of all, in every human society prior to the internet you had a flawed humanity and something of a fluctuating and general consensus with respect to reality, which is to say it was rare for both great insight into truth and great fiction to occur, which is to say it was rare for both an imaginative writer such as Cervantes and a great scientist such as Darwin to come into existence.
Society has always lived with surface truths and consensus fictions, easily ascertained facts such as whether it's raining and general and agreed upon imaginative constructions such as the religious views. Therefore the real question with respect to the internet is whether it's conducive to powerful and individual and rare imaginative constructions of reality such as Cervantes produced and also conducive of powerful scientific concepts such as the Darwinian, or can we expect increased and totalitarian control of reality, a shortchanging of both Cervantes and Darwin for obvious and easily ascertained truths such as whether it's raining and consensus fictions such as religion but along more modern lines...
And my prognosis for the internet is exactly increased control of great imagination in both fictional and scientific sense, because the average person has always taken as somehow fake and unreal both great fiction and great scientific truth. Worse, power historically has too often hated both great fiction and scientific discovery.
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@Daniel12
Great comment—thank you. I would only add that the internet and social media are designed explicitly to centralize and bureaucratize communication so that they can be ‘’monetized’’ on a vast scale. It was always inevitable that restructuring society and communication for economic exploitation would make it easily manipulated ideologically. Of course technology could be designed otherwise, for other ends.
There are truths and then there are truths. The Florida Panhandle was hit by a horrific storm, that is absolutely true. But why? Climate change? Therein lies the problem with social media, the gray zone. Even newspapers with editors and fact checkers may flub the news. Labor statistics seem rosy, but are they really that great? I'm not sure that everyone will read or believe a ratings system for "truth" with the same enthusiasm that one gives to ratings for a dishwasher, which is often merely opinion.
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Climate change! The science says storms will be more frequent and more severe. However scientists honestly acknowledge this is general and statistical, and that it is difficult to argue over one specific storm. Or 91 international scientists produce a IPCC report, but a few rogue scientists selectively argue against it, and gets equal time.
People who believe the rogue scientists will angrily attack FB or whoever puts red (or yellow) dot against their posts. How do you address this?
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@et.al.nyc
A good article on the storm may report:
“climate scientists are reluctant to link any single weather event to global climate change”—TRUE
“at the same time, one of the immediate consequences of global warming are stronger and more numerous storms due to the retention of moisture in the atmosphere”—TRUE
Any type of incendiary article which strays from acceptable norms of journalism could easily be flagged by an editor or fact checker.
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Thank you, Ms. Rini, for an excellent essay.
In today's always-connected world, people scan Amazon ratings before buying anything, use Yelp ratings to select a restaurant, won't buy a book if B&N readers give it one star... yet, we don't always know who or what is actually behind those ratings.
"The key difference between my system and the one that Facebook has implemented is transparency..." Yes! As you note, since FB is already tracking this, why not use it to create more transparency to the shares and memes and posts that end up being the only source of news for so many people.
I've also thought, for a while, that the term "friend" has been devalued... friendship should involve more than a mouse click.
Thank you again. We deserve this transparency.
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@Cindy Amazon et al have tried to weed out fake or trolling reviews by identifying them as "Verified" (if the person actually purchased the item) or rating as "Useful". It would be great if the same crowd-sourced rating can be applied to the news we read on social media.
The Times frequently makes qualified representations that it suggests are true. It asks you to believe them without vouching for their accuracy. They effectively tell you that this is true while keeping their fingers crossed. If you are attentive to this technique, you won’t be misled. There’s all kinds of fake and you need to keep your wits about you. Your instincts are your best guide.
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@michjas
I particularly read articles about events in which I have participated. When I find deviations from my experience, I formally comment to the publisher.
Secondarily, I often purposively travel intercontinentally to sites where events have been reported so that I can understand the context as well as assess the veridicality of reporting.
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@michjas three parts: readers often mistake an opinion piece for reporting. second, good articles provided literature cited and references so you can check the article and three, a good article separates the known from the unknown. Compared to most sites, NYT and their reporters do a decent job. There are a lot more sites that do much worse.
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@michjas
Unless you are talking about opinion pieces, I would venture to say most of us read the times because we know the articles have been researched, vetted, and verified.
In other words, the Times has a green dot. Would that everyone consumed news that had earned a green dot. We Americans would have a shared reality again. Without a shared reality, our system of government will fall.
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