Show HN: Stop the Bullshit • Hacker News Board

Re: Show HN: Stop the Bullshit

#111

Post by mieses » Sun, Nov 20, 2016, 11:33 PM UTC

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #28

allemagne wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The example of "endingthefed.com" (appears to be an ultra-conservative platform, but nothing overly nonsensical) from the README implies otherwise.

EndingTheFed is exactly the sort of fake news site designed around ad dollars that we're talking about. I'm not sure if you even looked at the site beyond the top few stories, but here's a few examples just a little bit down the page: > 60 Minutes Goes To Sweden To Show How Peaceful Refugees Are, Entire Crew Gets Assaulted By Refugees (video is actually of an altercation with a conservative news group, while their in…

A world view that relies upon censoring and denying an attack on a news crew that actually occurred...

Re: Show HN: Stop the Bullshit

#112

Post by InclinedPlane » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 12:10 AM UTC

programmarchy wrote: post #65

InclinedPlane wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need to stop using the word "fake news" as though people were seeing stories about "bat boy" in the grocery store checkout aisle and believing them. This is propaganda. It's inflammatory, it's knowingly false, and it has a political agenda. It's propaganda.

I'd challenge you to name one news site that doesn't have a political agenda. Everything is "propaganda", including your comment, and mine.

This is a fundamentally intellectually dishonest argument. There is a difference between making an argument with an agenda, even reporting news with an agenda, and propaganda. You can't just wash everything in shades of gray and shrug while saying "who knows what is truth? or what is false? oh well, guess we'll never know". Truth exists, and it is possible to determine what is true and what is not. Propaganda is passing off knowingly false reports in order to advance a political goal. It's a real thing, which is why there's a word that people created to describe it. Pretending that it's not propaganda has as much claim to legitimacy as any other news is not only wrong it's incredibly dangerous.

Re: Show HN: Stop the Bullshit

#113

Post by sctb » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 1:28 AM UTC

eloel wrote: post #108

TheOsiris wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are we really pretending that those people would've changed their vote had they not seen the "fake" news? I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of these shares were by people who wanted the news to be true anyway. I have friends who shared some stuff like that. they were never gonna change their vote/view. everyone else would just roll their eyes. I'm with Zuckerberg on this one. fake news did not affect the elec…

You seem to enjoy pretending that Hillary lost because of fake news and "clearly everyone else is just plain stupid" and not because she's the most corrupt politician possibly in our country's history, so why not pretend about more stuff?

Please don't post only snarky comments. We ask that HN users comment civilly and substantively or not at all.

Re: Show HN: Stop the Bullshit

#114

Post by ahartman00 » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 3:46 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #49

mihok wrote: post #42

Interesting project, Is censorship the best coarse of action? Bare with me for a second, would it not be better to somehow overlay a meter or light indicating that this story is likely false. Even better, some sort of indicator that showed the # of sources (if any) and devised some sort of rating of quality/truthfulness. I'm against all the fake news in Facebook et all but if we dont teach people to be good at detect…

The whole point of fakenews spam is that the effort it takes to evaluate individual stories exceeds the capacity of the reader. It's a little like asking for a "truth meter" for cialis resellers. The analysis that shows you whether a site is fakenews or not is structural (and simple: go through the backcatalog, see if the Dalai Lama or the Pope is endorsing both Putin and Trump). Once you've accomplished that, there…

I hear what you're saying about the spam/fake news. However it is not black and white. Sometimes even the 'good guys' make mistakes.

The fake news/spam thing might be straightforward. But what people are objecting to is the black list. Who decides what is one that blacklist?? That is the problem. What happens if the developer goes rogue/gets hacked/sells to a shady interest?? What happens if the developer is in favor of a certain parties biased news? Or even more insidious, what if they dont recognize their bias??

And in anticipation of the crowd sourced/decentralized argument I have heard elsewhere: lets talk about bitcoin. It is decentralized, under no one's control, right? A while back there was talk of increasing the block size to make transfers go faster. (the technical details are irrelevant, sorry if I made a mistake). One developer resigned because the other couple wouldn't make the change. Who controls bitcoin? ~4 people. This is why people are worried about blacklists.

As a side note, the book Fahrenheit 451 is super relevant right now. This is what we are scared of. FWIW, it was the only book I read in school that I remember/had an influence on me. Please read everyone! Thanks

Re: Show HN: Stop the Bullshit

#115

Post by ahartman00 » Mon, Nov 21, 2016, 3:51 AM UTC

aswanson wrote: post #19

allemagne wrote: post #14

There have been a lot of these projects lately. It's clever, but I am not close to being convinced that fake news is a problem that we can engineer our way out of.

If it at least amplifies awareness in the general public about the problem, it's done it's job.

Counterpoint: if it provides a false sense of security, then it might have made things worse.

Also, confidence in the press is at an all time low, so there is already awareness. [1]

1. http://www.gallup.com/poll/192665/americans-confidence-newsp...

Re: Show HN: Stop the Bullshit

#116

Post by invisible » Tue, Nov 22, 2016, 2:02 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #55

invisible wrote: post #3

Nice! I love this idea. What happens when most sites that deliver news have at least some bullshit?

The idea isn't to target sites that occasionally run false stories; it's to target fakenews webspam sites.

I never used the word "occasionally." Some news outlets run outright false stories that _are as bad as_ "fakenews" sites daily/weekly. Impling that those stories aren't as bad as the "fakenews" schemes and that we can't automate hiding those is just false.

I was merely pointing out that there could be more to address this problem and that I love this idea so far (I read the readme).

Re: Show HN: Stop the Bullshit

#117

Post by knowaveragejoe » Thu, Nov 24, 2016, 6:24 AM UTC

mieses wrote: post #111

knowaveragejoe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EndingTheFed is exactly the sort of fake news site designed around ad dollars that we're talking about. I'm not sure if you even looked at the site beyond the top few stories, but here's a few examples just a little bit down the page: > 60 Minutes Goes To Sweden To Show How Peaceful Refugees Are, Entire Crew Gets Assaulted By Refugees (video is actually of an altercation with a conservative news group, while their in…

A world view that relies upon censoring and denying an attack on a news crew that actually occurred...

What world view do you think this website represents?

Furthermore, wherein do I censor and/or deny that an attack occurred? The title says "News crew goes to Sweden to show how peaceful refugees are" - yet the actual segment is the exact opposite of that. You can see the video yourself, as well as the context I point out - or lack thereof, as it were.