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Fake News Challenge

fakenewschallenge.org

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Re: Fake News Challenge

#171

Post by imron »

dragonwriter wrote: post #108
woah wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If I was Putin and I was trying to interfere in US politics, then after seeing that dossier I would have done this anyway just to mess with people, setting up a bunch of shell companies and essentially selling a 19% share of the company to itself.

Gonna need more hard evidence before being concerned about this.

Re: Fake News Challenge

#172

Post by rrdharan »

general_ai wrote: post #141
JacobJans wrote: post #113

You'll notice so many posts here that deny the existence of fake news, or attempt to redefine it as "bias." Frankly, I find it disturbing that so many well educated people aren't able to objectively think about an actually objective problem. The fake news that started the concept of "fake news" is not a subjective problem. The problem is literal invention of facts not even related to reality, combined with the mass d…

Millions of people have branded Trump as a "homophobe", where in reality he's the most pro-gay president of all time at the start of his term. Not just republican, any US president, period. Obama was against gay marriage before he was (reluctantly) for it. Trump sees no problem with it. Same with xenophobia: a xenophobe doesn't marry an immigrant. Same with misogyny: a misogynist does not appoint a woman to run his c…

> Same with racism: he wasn't in any way called "racist" by anybody until he ran for president

Pretty sure people were calling him a racist when he was running around promoting the Birther hoax - I know I was - or even before that when he called for the death penalty for the falsely accused Central Park 5 in 1989.

Re: Fake News Challenge

#173

Post by imron »

enraged_camel wrote: post #131
enknamel wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is no spin as far as I can tell. I read New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Slate and Salon. They are simply reporting the facts, along with how the EO is affecting travelers.

> I read New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Slate and Salon

So you admit you are only reading from sources with a similar bias/narrative on this issue?

Re: Fake News Challenge

#174

Post by jccalhoun »

general_ai wrote: post #141
JacobJans wrote: post #113

You'll notice so many posts here that deny the existence of fake news, or attempt to redefine it as "bias." Frankly, I find it disturbing that so many well educated people aren't able to objectively think about an actually objective problem. The fake news that started the concept of "fake news" is not a subjective problem. The problem is literal invention of facts not even related to reality, combined with the mass d…

Millions of people have branded Trump as a "homophobe", where in reality he's the most pro-gay president of all time at the start of his term. Not just republican, any US president, period. Obama was against gay marriage before he was (reluctantly) for it. Trump sees no problem with it. Same with xenophobia: a xenophobe doesn't marry an immigrant. Same with misogyny: a misogynist does not appoint a woman to run his c…

Just because you didn't hear people call him racist for years doesn't mean it didn't happen.

I am willing to be that people called him racist when the Justice Department filed a housing discrimination lawsuit against his company in 1973. Or when his company settled that suit but in 1978 the government filed another complaint claiming his company didn't meet the terms of the settlement. https://www.salon.com/2011/04/28/donald_trump_discrimination...

This comment also shows another problem that is harder to solve than "fake news," which is the interpretation of facts. What you call just talking, I call bragging about sexual assault and even if it didn't happen is something that I would call someone a misogynist for bragging about in the first place. Other people don't.

Re: Fake News Challenge

#175

Post by dragonwriter »

general_ai wrote: post #141
JacobJans wrote: post #113

You'll notice so many posts here that deny the existence of fake news, or attempt to redefine it as "bias." Frankly, I find it disturbing that so many well educated people aren't able to objectively think about an actually objective problem. The fake news that started the concept of "fake news" is not a subjective problem. The problem is literal invention of facts not even related to reality, combined with the mass d…

Millions of people have branded Trump as a "homophobe", where in reality he's the most pro-gay president of all time at the start of his term. Not just republican, any US president, period. Obama was against gay marriage before he was (reluctantly) for it. Trump sees no problem with it. Same with xenophobia: a xenophobe doesn't marry an immigrant. Same with misogyny: a misogynist does not appoint a woman to run his c…

> Same with racism: he wasn't in any way called "racist" by anybody until he ran for president,

Trump was first sued by the government for racial discrimination something like 40 years ago; he's been being called a racist for a long time before he ran for President.

Of course, a lot more people paid attention to him and talked about him at all, and a lot more people paid attention to what was said about him, once he became a Presidential candidate.

Re: Fake News Challenge

#176

Post by delecti »

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?

I saw that story as being similar to the "Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer" meme going around. It was less that people thought it was true and more that it was funny.

Re: Fake News Challenge

#177

Post by icebraining »

untog wrote: post #137
enraged_camel wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference is that when NYTimes gets something wrong, it is not out of sheer malice and desire to mislead people. It's because their sources were wrong and the journalists didn't do a good enough job verifying the information. Fake news on the other hand are literally made up lies. The overwhelming majority of fake news articles have no basis in reality, period. They tend to be written by people who want nothing…

You're getting downvoted for this and I don't think you should be. The recent flood of fake news is very different to honest reporting that fails, and even very different to opinion-led reporting that presents a side. It is deliberately factually incorrect news, created and promoted simply to get clicks and profit from advertising. There is absolutely no journalistic merit to it.

I didn't downvote, but one can agree that the two approaches are very different, without accepting the presumption of the intentions behind the NYT approach. Are they more honest, or do they just happen to serve a different audience?

After all, telling outright lies is just amateurish; the NYT has been shaping society's perspective on facts for over a century.

Re: Fake News Challenge

#178

Post by imron »

enraged_camel wrote: post #96
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the parent but I began reading the New York Times every morning at the age of 12, wondering to myself "why is there so much speculation going on around Iraq and WMDs? We haven't found anything so why does everybody want to invade?" I still like the Times to an extent, but they like many other papers get it wrong from time to time. Doesn't mean I should leave and never look back, but instead I have taken…

The difference is that when NYTimes gets something wrong, it is not out of sheer malice and desire to mislead people. It's because their sources were wrong and the journalists didn't do a good enough job verifying the information. Fake news on the other hand are literally made up lies. The overwhelming majority of fake news articles have no basis in reality, period. They tend to be written by people who want nothing…

> The difference is that when NYTimes gets something wrong, it is not out of sheer malice and desire to mislead people

That's right, because when Wikileaks revealed high levels of collusion between media outlets and the DNC/Clinton campaign, placing and pulling articles/stories to present a specific narrative, it wasn't out of desire to mislead, rather it was only a desire to 'correct the record'. /s

Re: Fake News Challenge

#179

Post by nshepperd »

JacobJans wrote: post #113

You'll notice so many posts here that deny the existence of fake news, or attempt to redefine it as "bias." Frankly, I find it disturbing that so many well educated people aren't able to objectively think about an actually objective problem. The fake news that started the concept of "fake news" is not a subjective problem. The problem is literal invention of facts not even related to reality, combined with the mass d…

A non-trump example. Millions of people shared a post saying that the police were using facebook check-ins to "track" protesters at Standing Rock, and encouraging people to check in at that location in order to "help". Of course, this makes no sense at all when you think about it and was indeed totally made up.

Re: Fake News Challenge

#180

Post by Houshalter »

1_2__3 wrote: post #159
general_ai wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Millions of people have branded Trump as a "homophobe", where in reality he's the most pro-gay president of all time at the start of his term. Not just republican, any US president, period. Obama was against gay marriage before he was (reluctantly) for it. Trump sees no problem with it. Same with xenophobia: a xenophobe doesn't marry an immigrant. Same with misogyny: a misogynist does not appoint a woman to run his c…

You don't really understand how racism, misogyny, etc. works. It's prejudice against a class, and it's extraordinarily common for otherwise small-minded people to befriend or get close to (and defend!) individual members of that class. That does not actually make them less racist, misogynistic, homophobic, etc. It just makes them a hypocrite. "I can't be racist I have a black friend" is basically what you're saying,…

But that's the problem with those labels, isn't it? There is no possible way for anyone to prove they aren't a racist/sexist/whatever. And yet it's very easy to accuse people of them. And the accusations are never about what they actually do or say. They are accusations that they have secret beliefs they don't talk about, as if anyone could possibly know that.
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