Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy • Hacker News Board

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#11

Post by pgodzin » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 6:27 PM UTC

alva wrote: post #3

Regarding the Fake News section and trust in media. I would love to see a tool or company that holds the mainstream news sources accountable. Over the last two days the major news sources have been pushing a blatantly false "truth" ("Muslim Ban"). Intention of this post is not to get into a political discussion of this! Every time I, as a heavy news consumer, see the BBC, NYT etc push a story which I know to be false…

"Fake News" is completely making things up facts like "Trump punched the Pope today" for the sake of clicks. Calling recent actions as a "Muslim ban" is an interpretation of real events, including quotes by Rudy Giuliani and Flynn's son calling it a "Muslim ban" themselves. I would not consider it fake news, just an order executed with enough plausible deniability that they can prey on people's newfound obsession with fake news and call legitimate interpretations as such.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#12

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 6:28 PM UTC

alva wrote: post #3

Regarding the Fake News section and trust in media. I would love to see a tool or company that holds the mainstream news sources accountable. Over the last two days the major news sources have been pushing a blatantly false "truth" ("Muslim Ban"). Intention of this post is not to get into a political discussion of this! Every time I, as a heavy news consumer, see the BBC, NYT etc push a story which I know to be false…

[deleted]

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#13

Post by goodJobWalrus » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 6:28 PM UTC

alva wrote: post #6

Kevin_S wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to get too into this, but are you saying that calling the immigration order "Muslim Ban" is a false truth? I am really curious on why you think this?

Yeah me either as it is off topic. But in response, it is not a ban on people of one religion entering the country. It is a ban on people from 7 terror prone countries entering. For the passing news consumer, it would be very easy to be led to believe that Muslims are banned from entering the US.

Does the fact that Trump himself is calling it the "Muslim ban"change anything for you?

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#14

Post by secfirstmd » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 6:29 PM UTC

Hmm, we applied with our non-profit tool, Umbrella App, for managing the physical and digital security of journalists and activists (https://www.secfirst.org) a few years ago when we were only getting started but didn't get in. It seems like it's needed now more than ever, so we might look at making another application to help bring us to the next stage of our development.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#15

Post by davidw » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 6:29 PM UTC

alva wrote: post #3

Regarding the Fake News section and trust in media. I would love to see a tool or company that holds the mainstream news sources accountable. Over the last two days the major news sources have been pushing a blatantly false "truth" ("Muslim Ban"). Intention of this post is not to get into a political discussion of this! Every time I, as a heavy news consumer, see the BBC, NYT etc push a story which I know to be false…

It may not be 100%, precisely a Muslim ban, but that was its stated intent and this is about as close to that as they can get, it would seem.

There are no valid security reasons for it.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#16

Post by random28345 » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 6:29 PM UTC

alva wrote: post #3

Regarding the Fake News section and trust in media. I would love to see a tool or company that holds the mainstream news sources accountable. Over the last two days the major news sources have been pushing a blatantly false "truth" ("Muslim Ban"). Intention of this post is not to get into a political discussion of this! Every time I, as a heavy news consumer, see the BBC, NYT etc push a story which I know to be false…

> Over the last two days the major news sources have been pushing a blatantly false "truth" ("Muslim Ban"). Intention of this post is not to get into a political discussion of this!

Well, if you're going to try to build a mechanism to hold the mainstream media accountable, you'll really need to create a standard on when a summarization is inaccurate.

If the media was reporting on, "a ban on travelers from majority Muslim countries by a president who has promised his supporters a ban on Muslims" would that still be misleading? And if opponents of the ban called it a "Muslim ban", would media outlets be allowed to report on that fact?

For the record, I've seen NYT and BBC call this a "travel ban", "Trump's ban" and in quotes designed to indicate attribution "'Muslim ban'". All of these seem reasonable and factual.

Your thoughts?

== EDIT ==

A headline that reads simply "muslim ban" shouldn't be considered fake news (in my opinion), so long as it provides a full explanation of the ban and who is affected.

It is an editorializing title, but there's a massive difference between editorializing and fabrication. I believe calling something "fake news" should be reserved for publications that create falsehoods out of whole cloth. (e.g. "warehouse full of votes cast by illegal immigrants found")

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#17

Post by pgodzin » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 6:30 PM UTC

alva wrote: post #6

Kevin_S wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to get too into this, but are you saying that calling the immigration order "Muslim Ban" is a false truth? I am really curious on why you think this?

Yeah me either as it is off topic. But in response, it is not a ban on people of one religion entering the country. It is a ban on people from 7 terror prone countries entering. For the passing news consumer, it would be very easy to be led to believe that Muslims are banned from entering the US.

A ban on 7 Muslim-majority countries with exceptions for minority religions.

In addition: "I’ll tell you the whole history of it: When he first announced it, he said ‘Muslim ban,'" Giuliani said on Fox News.

"He called me up, he said, ‘Put a commission together, show me the right way to do it legally.’"

source: http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/316726-giuliani-t...

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#18

Post by cazum » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 6:30 PM UTC

alva wrote: post #3

Regarding the Fake News section and trust in media. I would love to see a tool or company that holds the mainstream news sources accountable. Over the last two days the major news sources have been pushing a blatantly false "truth" ("Muslim Ban"). Intention of this post is not to get into a political discussion of this! Every time I, as a heavy news consumer, see the BBC, NYT etc push a story which I know to be false…

Without derailing too much here, can you point me to a non-op-ed story published by a mainstream news source that calls it a "Muslim ban"?

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#19

Post by grey-area » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 6:30 PM UTC

I think we need something a little more revolutionary for news than holding current news sources to account, or fact-checking tools. Most of the problems we see in our news outlets are around the competition for attention as the article says, but also around old business models for newspapers/tv which still haven't changed to adapt to a world in which anyone can report from anywhere live using a simple phone and anyone in the world could contribute to a story, if only they'd let them.

Better something that encourages primary sources on the ground to contribute (video, text audio), and puts them in context chronologically, geographically and perhaps socially, but is not based on an advertising business model.

Difficult to know what it could look like to but we need something fundamentally new which uses the internet not just as another medium.

Re: Request for Startups: News, Jobs, and Democracy

#20

Post by joshpadnick » Tue, Jan 31, 2017, 6:32 PM UTC

I'm happily engaged in a DevOps startup and won't pursue this idea, but I proposed a new kind of news format shortly after the election at https://joshpadnick.com/2016/11/25/a-proposal-for-a-new-type.... Personally, I'd love to be a consumer of something like this, or to know if there are startups working on this.