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Fake News Challenge

fakenewschallenge.org

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Re: Fake News Challenge

#101

Post by enraged_camel »

enknamel wrote: post #90
padseeker wrote: post #53

The problem is not "fake news". The problem is people are treating the news like a product in the capitalist paradigm. If you don't like the way your local bakery makes their bread you go somewhere else. Now if the media reports on something you don't like someone else will tell you what you want to hear. This issue happens on both sides of the political spectrum BUT it does seem to be a lot worse on the conservative…

> The problem is not "fake news". The problem is people are treating the news like a product in the capitalist paradigm. I would say a huge part of the problem is that news is no longer news. It's all commentary. News organizations are not only incentivized to to sensationalize stories to make money but they are also ran by people who have extreme political views and want to essentially mind control the population. T…

>>Depending on where you get your news you were told there was a Muslim ban...

According to Rudy Giuliani, when Trump first announced it, he called it a Muslim ban, so...

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/1/30/headlines/trump_favor...

Re: Fake News Challenge

#102

Post by woah »

MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #95
enknamel wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is not "fake news". The problem is people are treating the news like a product in the capitalist paradigm. I would say a huge part of the problem is that news is no longer news. It's all commentary. News organizations are not only incentivized to to sensationalize stories to make money but they are also ran by people who have extreme political views and want to essentially mind control the population. T…

> They want to make you accept their interpretation of the facts. Please, describe to me how someone can convey pure unadulterated facts in language, without imposing an "interpretation" on them. It's an absurd fantasy. There's no possibility for a disembodied, perfectly objective voice conveying facts. So yes, in a sense, every news org favors a certain interpretation of the facts. But these subtle variations used t…

I'm personally opposed to almost everything Trump is trying to do, but don't act like it's only a problem on the right. Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that the left wing newspapers were reporting wild unsubstantiated rumors of a full-on Moscow piss orgy?

Re: Fake News Challenge

#103

Post by MichaelMoser123 »

padseeker wrote: post #53

The problem is not "fake news". The problem is people are treating the news like a product in the capitalist paradigm. If you don't like the way your local bakery makes their bread you go somewhere else. Now if the media reports on something you don't like someone else will tell you what you want to hear. This issue happens on both sides of the political spectrum BUT it does seem to be a lot worse on the conservative…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r_6hBIX71Y&t=111s I saw an interesting talk the other day (talks at google); Often there is a problem with misrepresentation of facts; (i think the general standard of journalism is quite low); amazing how a subtle editorial slant can twist things... Will Moy is speaking for an organization that does some fact checking and is giving some examples in the talk.

Re: Fake News Challenge

#104

Post by inevitable2 »

vvggff wrote: post #42
zeteo wrote: post #4

>It should be possible to build a prototype post-facto “truth labeling” system [...] Such a system would tentatively label a claim or story as true/false based on the stances taken by various news organizations on the topic, weighted by their credibility. And of course nobody would love this technology more than the Chinese and Russian governments. Is a system aimed at quickly identifying obscure blogs that disagree…

Why China and Russia specifically?

Because they are a lot less covert about their censorship practices and they are quick at adopting new technologies. There are of course a lot of Western countries who claim to be free societies who would love to have those tools and capabilites too.

Re: Fake News Challenge

#105

Post by DrDimension »

chippy wrote: post #10
chippy wrote: post #6

I'd prefer to see computer learning to identify political propaganda and state the biases in the text as that would be truly unpartisan. Does anyone know if this challenge has anything to do with Media Matters / Shareblue?

From "America Matters" pdf: "Media Matters has already secured access to raw data from Facebook, Twitter... Predictive Technology Bringing this data analysis to scale will also allow Media Matters to identify which individuals and outlets are the most destructive forces driving fake news, misinformation and harrasment. Cutting-edge advances in cloud computing and machine learning will enable us to identify patterns a…

Media matters is responsible for some of the fakest news the world has ever seen.

Re: Fake News Challenge

#106

Post by enknamel »

MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #95
enknamel wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is not "fake news". The problem is people are treating the news like a product in the capitalist paradigm. I would say a huge part of the problem is that news is no longer news. It's all commentary. News organizations are not only incentivized to to sensationalize stories to make money but they are also ran by people who have extreme political views and want to essentially mind control the population. T…

> They want to make you accept their interpretation of the facts. Please, describe to me how someone can convey pure unadulterated facts in language, without imposing an "interpretation" on them. It's an absurd fantasy. There's no possibility for a disembodied, perfectly objective voice conveying facts. So yes, in a sense, every news org favors a certain interpretation of the facts. But these subtle variations used t…

I'm not arguing to remove all interpretation from the facts. That's impossible with our language. But what we are experiencing from the news every single day is a far cry from objective journalism. We are almost only getting the interpretation without many facts (or facts that are taken out of context or edited to fit a narrative).

Re: Fake News Challenge

#107

Post by enknamel »

enraged_camel wrote: post #101
enknamel wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is not "fake news". The problem is people are treating the news like a product in the capitalist paradigm. I would say a huge part of the problem is that news is no longer news. It's all commentary. News organizations are not only incentivized to to sensationalize stories to make money but they are also ran by people who have extreme political views and want to essentially mind control the population. T…

>>Depending on where you get your news you were told there was a Muslim ban... According to Rudy Giuliani, when Trump first announced it, he called it a Muslim ban, so... https://www.democracynow.org/2017/1/30/headlines/trump_favor...

I'm not arguing for or against the executive order. It's just a very recent and big example of news organizations shaping how the population thinks. Every news organization is spinning this to fit their narrative.

Re: Fake News Challenge

#108

Post by dragonwriter »

woah wrote: post #102
MaxfordAndSons wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They want to make you accept their interpretation of the facts. Please, describe to me how someone can convey pure unadulterated facts in language, without imposing an "interpretation" on them. It's an absurd fantasy. There's no possibility for a disembodied, perfectly objective voice conveying facts. So yes, in a sense, every news org favors a certain interpretation of the facts. But these subtle variations used t…

I'm personally opposed to almost everything Trump is trying to do, but don't act like it's only a problem on the right. Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that the left wing newspapers were reporting wild unsubstantiated rumors of a full-on Moscow piss orgy?

> Wasn't it just a couple of weeks ago that the left wing newspapers were reporting wild unsubstantiated rumors of a full-on Moscow piss orgy?

You mean the ones contained in a dossier which accurately predicted several Trump related events that were not publicly known to be in planning at the time it was written, but were verifiable to have occurred as predicted before it was published?

Seems to me that it was plenty newsworthy.

BTW, it also reported that part of the carrot side of the carrot-and-stick blackmail and bribery by Russia was that Trump was promised a bribe of a share of Rosneft coincidentally the same size that was just sold off, on credit, to buyers concealed by various cutouts.

Re: Fake News Challenge

#109

Post by deckard1 »

Fauntleroy wrote: post #28
gukov wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone that doesn't share your beliefs is a fascist.

That's definitely something that needs to be said. I've seen way too many instances where people immediately label someone a fascist for giving even an inkling of support for something Trump did. I wish people could calm down just long enough to have something resembling useful discourse.

> have something resembling useful discourse.

How do you debate a person that denies objective reality, and embraces their very own alternative reality?

I don't think you can. For the same reason you can't negotiate with terrorists. They aren't playing by the same rule book. You hold out a hand to shake, they stab you in the face with a knife.

Re: Fake News Challenge

#110

Post by wybiral »

digler999 wrote: post #68
padseeker wrote: post #53

The problem is not "fake news". The problem is people are treating the news like a product in the capitalist paradigm. If you don't like the way your local bakery makes their bread you go somewhere else. Now if the media reports on something you don't like someone else will tell you what you want to hear. This issue happens on both sides of the political spectrum BUT it does seem to be a lot worse on the conservative…

> A significant portion of the electorate has been drinking from the well and cannot be reached. How is that any different than people in the Bible Belt who believe the earth was made in 7 days ? Or elderly people who become vulnerable and fall prey to exploitation (because they believe phone scams, or sob stories from strangers, etc) ? (Edit: or young people who think they're going to grow up and be an astronaut or…

> How is that any different than people in the Bible Belt who believe the earth was made in 7 days ?

I see no difference there but I'm not sure that I get the point.

> I really didn't appreciate how they pushed the "Russia HACKED the election" narrative.

I never got the impression that those news orgs were saying that actual voting counts were being hacked. But the emails were hacked and leaked.

They jumped the gun on blaming Russia, but that wasn't fake news (provided you believe prominent members of US intelligence).

Even Trump seemed to think it was plausible... At least plausible enough to publicly ask Russia to hack Hilary's emails [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gNa2B5zHfbQ

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