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We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

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Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#41

Post by jknoepfler »

veidr wrote: post #39
WhitneyLand wrote: post #20

Jestin Coler is a cancer and his actions should be made illegal. It seems possible such a law could be narrowly applied such that it would prove constitutional. Judicial review could weigh the value to society of false speech, or lying, against the erosion of integrity in the free press. One example of a false speech review was the stolen valor act. Lot of doors left open here; http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/…

As long as we're making up fantasy laws to solve this problem, why don't we just outlaw being lazy, stupid, and gullible?

Playing devil's advocate here, but why don't we? It's not the worst idea anyone has ever hand.

I sort of think epistemological pollution is an externality of being stupid/gullible that we should make people liable for.

Laziness is pretty difficult to operationalize, but if you were literally too lazy to feed your children that would be a form of criminal negligence. So we do, to an extent, already do this.

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#42

Post by mrleiter »

derrickdirge wrote: post #29
meritt wrote: post #22

Huh, weird, I actually looked into this exact same site (when it was being shared all across FB) and found something else telling -- a reused Google Adsense publisher tag ("ca-pub-1413743582782046") which I then found on a number of other sites: FireBrandLeft.com, NationalReport.net and some articles by this author http://www.liberalamerica.org/author/matt/ -- All were either owned by the same guy or he was a "journa…

Or "Jestin Coler" is just the name the author used to protect his real identity.

Well, if that's the case, it's off the table now.

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#43

Post by derrickdirge »

kordless wrote: post #4

> But, he says, dozens, maybe hundreds of entrepreneurs will be ready to take his place. This is one of many examples of the dialog where this individual is speaking for others while ironically indicating he's running a "business". The fabrication and willful spread of disinformation is a powerfully disruptive behavior.

This is a common "troll" mentality.

Truly they just get a thrill from getting a rise out of someone (and/or there's an economic motive, as is the case here), but they're able to post-rationalize it as a helpful service to their victims. They're pointing out areas of weakness; or they're playing 'devil's advocate'; or they're demonstrating the folly in engaging with an unreasonable person.

One of the things I find most frightening about people is that, generally, we all think we're the good guy.

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#44

Post by discardorama »

epicureanideal wrote: post #3

This was the most interesting part for me... -------- He says he got into fake news around 2013 to highlight the extremism of the white nationalist alt-right. "The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could kind of infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction," Coler…

> the fake news was created by the left to discredit the alt-right

I would have a hard time taking a guy who's the "godfather of fake news" at his word. Who's to say he isn't making this all up?

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#45

Post by dvtv75 »

trprog wrote: post #12
epicureanideal wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it also creates an environment where you can't ever actually know what any group thinks. "Are there REALLY neo-nazis giving nazi salutes celebrating Trump's victory on video, or is this a staged event to make Trump look like he has neo-nazi supporters?" "Are there even that many well dressed, non-tattoo'd neo-nazis?" (Maybe there are... I don't know any personally, but I wasn't expecting to see people in button d…

Although the medium is new the idea of publishing stuff that misrepresents other people's position is nothing new. Here is a relatively modern example from the very early 20th century https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of... And although the term has a very tinfoil hat connotation "false flag operations" have also been a thing for millennia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag Even young c…

I seem to recall news video of Muslims firing guns into the air and celebrating the destruction of the World Trade Center actually being video of Muslims celebrating a sporting match victory, about 15 years ago.

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#46

Post by LargeCompanies »

LargeCompanies wrote: post #26

And fake news the majority of it on Facebook is shared by Trump supporters. A demographic who are neophytes....

Im just sharing what Im seeing ... older demographic are not tech/Internet savvy and voting data shows that demographic's majority voted for Trump (no matter what I think of him and or Clinton .. i didnt vote for either).

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#47

Post by ehnto »

noobermin wrote: post #13
epicureanideal wrote: post #3

This was the most interesting part for me... -------- He says he got into fake news around 2013 to highlight the extremism of the white nationalist alt-right. "The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could kind of infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction," Coler…

>the fake news was created by the left to discredit the alt-right I would say that this individual who was a liberal tried to do this. This isn't like a group of leftists conspiring to do (anti-)propaganda. It is pretty stupid, and his continuation of it is extremely confusing. Sorry, but a side rant to the more "entrepreneurial" startup-cats who browse here. Would you consider this fellow and others like him an entr…

The continuation of it could be explained purely by the financial insentives from advertising on the sites. It doesn't sound like he would have any morale qualms with the whole situation.

Sounds pretty entrepreneurial to me.

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#50

Post by Twisell »

epicureanideal wrote: post #7
caf wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose there's the potential for making people cast a more critical eye over outlandish articles that appear to support their own position, if there's a possibility that it might have been created by "the enemy" to discredit them.

But it also creates an environment where you can't ever actually know what any group thinks. "Are there REALLY neo-nazis giving nazi salutes celebrating Trump's victory on video, or is this a staged event to make Trump look like he has neo-nazi supporters?" "Are there even that many well dressed, non-tattoo'd neo-nazis?" (Maybe there are... I don't know any personally, but I wasn't expecting to see people in button d…

Your second idea is actually aleready used by the French far righ supporters. They manage to say horrible things and get away by saying it's just humor and that people who infuriate just don't get it.

And as French people have a very high proudness of their free speech policy, it's then very hard to oppose without being called a vile censorship supporter...

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