‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation • Hacker News Board

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#151

Post by Kye » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 9:44 PM UTC

ch4s3 wrote: post #140

fibers wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>mistake This was a targeted attack at one of the most interesting candidates this primary so far and it only serves to suppress a viable alternative to establishment candidates that are featured regularly on the network.

>This was a targeted attack That's a pretty incredible claim, and requires some pretty serious proof if you expect anyone here to believe that. As a counterpoint, they give plenty of air time to a candidate who is literally running as an independent, who the party machine specifically, systematically disadvantaged last time. Why would they cut Yang if he got ratings?

It also sounds a lot like what people said about Bernie Sanders. Nobody took him seriously, and a lot of the press was along the lines of "lol bernie bros" because left-of-center infighting sells ads. I would be curious to see if the people who say this about Yang said the same about Sanders.

I think the truth is more that news goes for what sells, and a candidate who hasn't yet proven they can sell ads is not worth covering by their metrics. See: the $2b+ plus free press Trump got.[1] He was a known quantity no one expected to win, so covering that spectacle was easy and safe ad money.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/16/upshot/measuring-donald-t...

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#152

Post by TomMckenny » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 9:48 PM UTC

uses wrote: post #137

ITT: "but the real fake news is the lying MSM!", etc.

The revelation that misinformation campaigns catering to preconceptions are not actually reality based is an existential threat to extremism. Any post showing that will draw them like flies.

The other popular response seems to be "the article and game are bogus". Not sure how the two are reconciled of course.

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#153

Post by baq » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

Ill_ban_myself wrote: post #40

played the game. It felt like I was taking a "push poll" where I'm being asked if I understand a conclusion being drawn for me. I found it to be less than compelling to say the least.

it's a tutorial on how to run a fake news profile that kinda turns into a game in the last 3 minutes where you actually have to skip a few memes to increase your score

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#154

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

projectileboy wrote: post #119

deogeo wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Second best. The best is selective reporting. Even if every story is reported 100% accurately and objectively, by choosing which stories are promoted, and which buried, you can set any agenda you want. Edit: See https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/05/Causes-of-death-i... for an example.

This to me is the most important thing, and has been for decades. When people complain about liberal bias in the news, they’re looking at the small picture - how a particular story was written. They don’t see that what stories are told in the first place get decided by people with a lot of power and money. Instead of focusing on “How should we handle immigration in the US?”, the first question is, “Why are we talking…

[deleted]

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#155

Post by StanislavPetrov » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

Skepticism should be the default position on every issue. We should be teaching the Socratic Method to our children rather than a "core curriculum" that is designed to program them to become workers in an economic system that is rapidly crumbling and will no longer exist in a short period of time. Teaching people how to think is far more important than any specific piece of information. The problem those in government and the upper echelon of society has in this regard is that they want it both ways. They want a population that uncritically accepts government propaganda, but rejects "fake news" (propaganda and disinformation from other, non-governmental sources). Since the creation of the public school system, people have been conditioned to uncritically accept information (which wasn't a problem for the government when there were only 3 television channels that all broadcast permutations of the same government-approved message). With the explosion of the internet and social media, the government has lost control of the narrative, with a population conditioned to uncritically accept information being blasted by a variety of actors from a multitude of sources. The election of carnival barker Donald Trump (and the rejection of Hillary Clinton, universally backed by the entire establishment) was the ultimate warning bell. Those at the top are desperate to regain control of the narrative (rather than teaching people how to think, which would also preclude government propaganda from being effective). This is why we see such an avalanche of censorship, information control and an attack on free speech (on Wikileaks and beyond) coming from government officials and their allies in big tech.

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#156

Post by ch4s3 » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 9:53 PM UTC

Kye wrote: post #151

ch4s3 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This was a targeted attack That's a pretty incredible claim, and requires some pretty serious proof if you expect anyone here to believe that. As a counterpoint, they give plenty of air time to a candidate who is literally running as an independent, who the party machine specifically, systematically disadvantaged last time. Why would they cut Yang if he got ratings?

It also sounds a lot like what people said about Bernie Sanders. Nobody took him seriously, and a lot of the press was along the lines of "lol bernie bros" because left-of-center infighting sells ads. I would be curious to see if the people who say this about Yang said the same about Sanders. I think the truth is more that news goes for what sells, and a candidate who hasn't yet proven they can sell ads is not worth…

My take is basically the same. The cable news media covers what their audience watches.

It's also worth noting that while MSNBC is the 2nd or 3rd most watched network (depending on the month) there are only about 1.6 million people regularly watching and that number is down 14% year over year. So even if they snub your candidate, it may not matter much at all.

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#157

Post by mikedilger » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 9:57 PM UTC

newhaus1994 wrote: post #106

dev_dull wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fake news is less about outright lying and more about controlling and enforcing a certain narrative. That’s a problem especially when 6 companies own almost all of the media. I think the solution is more independent journalism. I’m already seeing a lot of it on Twitter with independent researchers. These people have obvious biases but it’s clear, which makes these sources oddly more useful even if they’re openly part…

It's... pretty incredible that this comment subtly shifts the blame for fake news from networks of coordinated, decentralized, anti-mainstream actors to the mainstream. It's almost like this comment itself is about "enforcing a certain narrative." Independent "journalists" are the ones causing a lot of the crisis of truth currently underway. Indie YouTube channels garner credibility by pushing an "alternative" viewpo…

I disagree that the prior comment "subtly shifts the blame" because the blame as to where the fake news lies has never been widely agreed upon. Refer to "Manufacturing Consent" by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky. Damn near all sources of news are biased and have political agendas including the mainstream.

If you see independent journalists as pushing an "alternative" view, then you have a reasonable argument: take your facts from the most credible source. But that's not what is happening. Independent journalists are reporting on stories that the mainstream news isn't touching. And they are often doing it with long-form video evidence which is not easy to fake, especially as it is published right after said events happen. Certainly independent journalists are biased and opinionated, many believing in crazy conspiracy theories, but I've never found their opinions or theories to be contageous, and the video evidence is still very valuable.

A good example of news wthout bias (which is so hard to find nowadays) is Steve Lookner's Agenda Free TV on YouTube. There is simply nothing political about it, and it stands in contrast to everything else. And as others have already pointed out, watching news from both sides of the political spectrum (as difficult as that is) is probably the best way to get at the truth.

Finally, while I think James O'Keefe has very questionable investigative methods, there was no scam story - he was using fake information to draw out a journalist so as to extract information from the journalist. There was no evidence he was intending to publish that fake information as a story and he flatly denies that accusation, and WaPo did a follow up correcting the record (good on them).

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#158

Post by petermcneeley » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 9:57 PM UTC

charlchi wrote: post #75

gambler wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading the paper. Too bad the game itself is down. Something that caught my attention: >For the question about discrediting we used a different non-existent news site (“International Post Online”), employing an ad hominem (Walton, 1998) argument against the mainstream media: The Mainstream Media has been caught in so many lies that it can’t be trusted as a reliable news source. #FakeNews. This is not news. This is a…

[flagged]

Man if you haven't played dues ex 1 you should.

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#159

Post by TomMckenny » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 10:06 PM UTC

germanlee wrote: post #93

SantalBlush wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is 100% false. It is an "appeal to the middle" fallacy based on two assumptions: 1. that all news sources are equally biased; 2. that aggregating those biases produces an unbiased result. Neither of these assumptions are credible.

1. I didn't say all news sources are "equally biased". Saying all news sources are biased is not the same as saying equally biased. Some are obvious more biased and more propagandistic than others. But without a doubt, every news source has biases. If you think I'm wrong, feel free to look into the history of every news company. Who created them, funded them and who is running them. But I suspect you already know thi…

Infowars: Clinton runs a child abuse ring from a pizza shop.

Pulitzer Prize winning news source: Clinton does not run a child abuse ring.

How does ignoring Infowars because it is intentionally lying make me less informed?

>Every comment about being skeptical about media ( especially mainstream media ) gets met with your type of comment. Makes me wonder.

Our conspiracy has been exposed! Back to Moscow comrades!

Re: ‘Pre-bunk’ game reduces susceptibility to disinformation

#160

Post by nabla9 » Wed, Jun 26, 2019, 10:10 PM UTC

deogeo wrote: post #49

gfodor wrote: post #35

The "best" fake news these days is the stuff that doesn't register even to people are read-in on the usual anti-patterns. Subtle framing, selective quotation, anonymous sources, "repeat the lie" techniques, and so on, are the ones that I see happening today that are hard to immunize yourself from. Ironically, the people who fall for these are more likely to self-identify as being aware and clued in on how to avoid fa…

Second best. The best is selective reporting. Even if every story is reported 100% accurately and objectively, by choosing which stories are promoted, and which buried, you can set any agenda you want. Edit: See https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2019/05/Causes-of-death-i... for an example.

This discussion is falling to a trap where "Fake News" is diluted to synonym for all influencing in and propaganda.

Fake News is propaganda that consists of deliberate disinformation or hoaxes. Nothing mentioned mention here falls into a category of Fake News. Fake News creates cognitive dissonance and distrust. More subtler methods work differently.

"But mainstream media also does Fake News" arguments are whataboutism.