Fake News Challenge

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

I think if we compare today's new to a decade ago's, the change is not more capitalism (ie, for-profit, corporate, quarterly-report focused...). The change is more choice, more information, more volume and the chaotic, many-to-many distribution systems of the social internet.

The clickbait imperative has got a quasi-capitalist single mindedness to it, but I think we'll be chasing down the wrong culprit by characterising the problem as a capitalist one.

In fact, I think it's best if we try not to jump to conclusions at all. We're hitting some problems with the way our democracies work and I haven't really heard a narrative yet that feels satisfying. Lets not jump to conclusions. We need to be right about it.

It precisely encapsulates the very problem with trying to identify anything but the most rudimentary and obvious and deliberate "fake news", that you will inherently impart your bias and your perspective.

The problem too, and maybe even the worst part, is that those advancing this "fake news" hunt agenda are the very types who have no self-awareness that would suggest they could at all be trusted to even attempt having an objective perspective. The Stanford Prison Experiment comes to mind in how self-righteous and justified feeling people commit abuses in the name of doing "right" and "good".

American free speech is absolute and it is one of the basis of our society's success where others falter and perpetually under-perform us. I know foreigners don't necessarily have an ability to fully appreciate absolute free speech as there is simply no other society that is so principled about free speech (although certain people are trying to curtail freedoms of speech when they don't agree with it), but it is necessary in order to not allow any group, no matter how much they claim they are the "good guys", to control speech. You may not like something someone says, but just because you don't, does not give you the right to censor or stifle or shadow ban their speech as a matter of principle. YC doing so is quite troubling, because it really highlights the fact that the not only feel supremacist in their views, but that they have no regard for people's freedom or liberties. Only approved propaganda may apply. Am I right YC mod goons?

A few comments based on what I've seen here so far:

"Fake News" might not be "the problem", but it is a problem. There is a real set of completely fake stories with no supporting evidence. Taking this away from politics for a minute, the archetype of this is "celebrities XX is moving to town YY"[1]

Comments around "this is just mainstream news attempting to justify its role" absolutely and completely have a point. There is plenty of room for new players to fix this problem (and hopefully be rewarded for it), on both sides of the political spectrum.

Comments around "The NYT does fake news - see their Iraq war advocacy" are somewhat misguided IMHO. The NYT has a number of problems, but no one should make the mistake of confusing opinion, analysis and forecasts for news. In the NYT Iraq War case, their analysis and forecasts were completely wrong and their opinion was misguided because of that. It is completely fair to make the point that their reputation suffered because of this, but we need to separate that from news reporting. This is something that news organizations don't do very well at the moment, IMHO.

As has been pointed out, this won't fix the whole problem. Most of the "Yes, but..." discussions here have been had when trying to come up with a reasonable but helpful task. I think stance detection is a reasonable subset of the problem.

[1] http://www.snopes.com/celebrity-moving-small-towns/

Sometimes it feels like the media is damned if it does, and damned if it doesn't. Report unsubstantiated rumour? You're biased! Hold back information because it isn't verified? You're biased!