Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 47 posts

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#21

Post by zigzigzag »

Terretta wrote: post #9
chinese_donald wrote: post #2

Why only mention pro-Trump fake news? I know plenty of people spreading fake Propaganda about Trump based on hearsay and false information. ...including links and comments on HN. Maybe HN needs to filter out the fake stuff too?

> "Why only mention pro-Trump fake news?" Sounds like you didn't read the whole article, as it mentions anti-Trump fake news and then answers your question: After the election, Mr. Zuckerberg claimed that the fake news was a problem on “both sides” of the race. There are, of course, viral fake anti-Trump memes, but reporters have found that the spread of false news is far more common on the right than it is on the le…

Reporters found? The same reporters that had it in the bag for Clinton all along?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#22

Post by zigzigzag »

This looks like a continuation of a long running theme in the media: how awful and terrible and threatening to democracy it is when Google and Facebook suddenly made it easy to be exposed to lots of alternative points of view on the same story.

The media have been going after Google News for years with various arguments. Now they're latching on to "Only human editors can ensure your news is not fake". I suspect it'll fail like all the rest unless they can convince governments to regulate, and even then maybe not as Germany and Spain's attempt to control Google News didn't work out.

At any rate, Facebook isn't in denial. They're talking about the problem and fixing it, which is probably quite easy to do algorithmically (once you've knocked off the existing sites, simply send sites that appear to be news but which are brand new through manual review).

American media still is in denial though. Other than a few articles blaming all their mistakes on polling companies, I haven't seen much self reflection amongst journalists on why their trust numbers are so low, why so many Americans have simply concluded they're hopelessly biased and tuned them out, or why it's tech companies that now control their traffic instead of themselves.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#23

Post by blusterXY »

refulgentis wrote: post #18
chinese_donald wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The only thing you can say for certain is that people acting intelligently and honestly would never vote such a man into the Presidency. That he's President-elect is a devastating testament to a deep pathology in American politics and culture." I feel the same way about Hillary: She defended a rapist husband, used the government as her personal piggy bank, used the mainstream media as her attack dog, and conspired a…

A vast majority of these claims are extraordinary and have no sourcing. Source on using government as her personal piggy bank?

The Clinton Foundation is known to have directly misappropriated government donations. Donors to the organization also seem to have received preferential treatment from the State Department:

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/wikileaks-chel...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/114379...

Other major conflicts of interest involved Russia and Haiti. If you need direct evidence of Hillary's involvement, focus on the 33k emails she deleted AFTER receiving a Congressional subpoena, emails that were originally sent from a private server expressly to avoid public disclosure FOIA requirements.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#25

Post by amelius »

zigzigzag wrote: post #22

This looks like a continuation of a long running theme in the media: how awful and terrible and threatening to democracy it is when Google and Facebook suddenly made it easy to be exposed to lots of alternative points of view on the same story. The media have been going after Google News for years with various arguments. Now they're latching on to "Only human editors can ensure your news is not fake". I suspect it'll…

> how awful and terrible and threatening to democracy it is when Google and Facebook suddenly made it easy to be exposed to lots of alternative points of view on the same story

You are being sarcastic here but (imho) gossip, fake news, and echo chambers are really threatening democracy.

> I haven't seen much self reflection amongst journalists

The problem is that journalists are getting caught in a vicious circle. Either they present true news and have little viewers, or present gossip or echo what people want to hear and have lots of viewers.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#26

Post by eggy »

Hold on. The NYT just admitted bias recently regarding their reporting on the election, and an opinion piece talks about 'Liberal Intolerance' in the NYT, but now FB is almost as culpable due to false stories? I still think there is a higher signal-to-noise ratio when there are many people able to debunk a piece on FB or other social media, than when a hardcopy, accepted as trusted source such as the NYT once was, posts a story.

The fly-over states were discounted by most media, and people are still reeling from the election results they can't believe. People raise the popular vote in political conversations, not realizing that almost all of Hillary's popular vote differential came from NY and CA, again urban coastal vs. the fly-over states. People are in denial about what other Americans aside from them felt about all of this.

I predicted a Trump victory in July and September publicly on Twitter, and I am no fan of Trump, or Hillary for that matter. People laughed at me. I was born and raised in a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, so it came from purely talking to other Americans in my travels in the US and overseas, and I am no journalist tasked to go out and get the Five Ws [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Ws

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#27

Post by spiderfarmer »

arthurtsang wrote: post #14

If Facebook only serves what I preferred, what I already liked, how could the fake news change anyone's opinion?

In that case it enforces your opinion. So it's still of influence.

There are however a lot of votes that decide last minute. There are also voters that have decided, but can't be bothered to vote. In that case it might change and opinion.

You can't say that it's impossible for fake news to influence anyone. How many people believe that Obama is a muslim because they read it (repeatedly) on Facebook? I'm guessing millions.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#28

Post by spiderfarmer »

eggy wrote: post #26

Hold on. The NYT just admitted bias recently regarding their reporting on the election, and an opinion piece talks about 'Liberal Intolerance' in the NYT, but now FB is almost as culpable due to false stories? I still think there is a higher signal-to-noise ratio when there are many people able to debunk a piece on FB or other social media, than when a hardcopy, accepted as trusted source such as the NYT once was, po…

The fact that a lot of media didn't think Trump would win is unrelated to the fact that fake news is damaging to democracy.

Just like fake science is damaging to scientists. Fake scientific articles are read, quoted and shared through the scientific community and it can take a long time to weed out.

How many people still believe Obama is a muslim because they read it (repeatedly) on Facebook? I'm guessing millions.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#29

Post by mikebay »

Facebook, Twitter and Google all pushing same agenda. Alternatives needed, services that are truly unopionated as they should be. Otherwise we all can watch CNN and believe all what they say.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#30

Post by zigzigzag »

amelius wrote: post #25
zigzigzag wrote: post #22

This looks like a continuation of a long running theme in the media: how awful and terrible and threatening to democracy it is when Google and Facebook suddenly made it easy to be exposed to lots of alternative points of view on the same story. The media have been going after Google News for years with various arguments. Now they're latching on to "Only human editors can ensure your news is not fake". I suspect it'll…

> how awful and terrible and threatening to democracy it is when Google and Facebook suddenly made it easy to be exposed to lots of alternative points of view on the same story You are being sarcastic here but (imho) gossip, fake news, and echo chambers are really threatening democracy. > I haven't seen much self reflection amongst journalists The problem is that journalists are getting caught in a vicious circle. Ei…

Echo chambers? Would you lump existing media outlets into that bucket? I think if there's one thing that 2016 revealed very clearly it's the extent to which journalists tend to line up behind whatever the political elite groupthink is, regardless of how well it matches what the overall population thinks. The Guardian has become something of a joke paper - on the rare occasions these days that they open the comments the top rated comments are mostly giving them flak over the wildly extreme positions their journalists take.
Post reply on HN