Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Information overload helps fake news spread

scientificamerican.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 171 posts

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#101

Post by galaxyLogic »

I think we need some system resembling double-entry book-keeping. Government should do something (actually do a lot) to prevent the spread of fake news, it should label them as such. But somebody must also control what the government is doing.

Corporations have solved the problem of needing accurate information with the system of double-entry book-keeping and also with the idea that finances are managed by two parties the "Controller" and the "Treasurer" who are each watching each other.

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#102

Post by cjohnson318 »

nillium wrote: post #32

Shameless plug, but this is something we are working on right now. Social media is a terrible medium for news. Aside from the ability for anyone to post anything, which can easily lead to misinformation, it also sets up the absolute worst incentives. If news organizations are expected to share their reporting for free, and only be able to monetize when someone clicks through to their page -- you end up with clickbait…

> It also means that virtually all local news is silenced

Every time I visit a local news page, it's 10% content advertised by the headline, and 90% popups, clickbait, and "ads" like, "Drivers over 55 without a DUI are in for a surprise this November!" with a picture of the Centrum Silver guy with a handful of cash.

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#103

Post by renewiltord »

timr wrote: post #12
goalieca wrote: post #3

I’ve always found the news from my trusted sources to be reasonable and accurate until it covers something I know about. Then it seems like a complete mess. Humans tend to trust the first thing they hear and we tend to be less skeptical about news media especially if they seem very confident or persuasive.

"I’ve always found the news from my trusted sources to be reasonable and accurate until it covers something I know about. Then it seems like a complete mess." Same. This year, with the coverage of Covid (an area where I have a certain level of expertise), I've been bombarded with the extremely low quality level of essentially all of the major news providers. They are more than willing to amplify the most speculative…

This is actually good. I occasionally tell people which ones are unreliable but I've decided to now keep it to my in-group. After all, HN and other such communities of pseudo-smart-money decided that SuperMicro was spying on every CPU instruction because Bloomberg told them that. Easy money on SMCI, boys.

I'm really hoping that this kind of stuff happens slightly more (not a lot more, that undermines the market). Just a few high-profile things that play to the kind of paranoia common here: Maybe another Facebook/CambridgeAnalytica would be a good one. Something to do with Google spying on Android phones maybe? Amazon Echos reporting to the Chinese government?

Holding out hope for a nice panic journalist to put one out. Delicious. Come on. There's got to be someone who'll do it.

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#104

Post by dahfizz »

kibwen wrote: post #55
Nacdor wrote: post #44

I think one of the root causes of this is the increasingly partisan behavior of the "mainstream" media. People are sick of having their opinions dictated to them, they're sick of media outlets that all push the same narratives 24/7 (Russiagate, anyone?), and they're desperately searching for any outlet that will objectively report "all the news that's fit to print" (as the NY Times likes to say). In the past year we…

I feel like anyone railing against "mainstream" media hasn't been paying attention for the past decade. Facebook, Reddit, etc. each command more daily eyeballs than any cable news network, and yet somehow they're not mainstream? Social networks are the overwhelming bulk of the media apparatus these days.

This is a naive view. "Mainstream media" isn't just cable news, they get are all on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, etc. They often have a large presence on these platforms and the directly influence the conversation around stories.

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#105

Post by gameswithgo »

cjohnson318 wrote: post #102
nillium wrote: post #32

Shameless plug, but this is something we are working on right now. Social media is a terrible medium for news. Aside from the ability for anyone to post anything, which can easily lead to misinformation, it also sets up the absolute worst incentives. If news organizations are expected to share their reporting for free, and only be able to monetize when someone clicks through to their page -- you end up with clickbait…

> It also means that virtually all local news is silenced Every time I visit a local news page, it's 10% content advertised by the headline, and 90% popups, clickbait, and "ads" like, "Drivers over 55 without a DUI are in for a surprise this November!" with a picture of the Centrum Silver guy with a handful of cash.

desperate attempt to survive in the internet age.

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#106

Post by _y5hn »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #80
newacct583 wrote: post #2

I sympathize with people who want to see a technological basis for this, I really do. I just don't buy it. We just saw a press conference an hour ago by the executive office of the most powerful nation in the world allege with a straight face that the recent election was tainted by Canadian election machines running malicious software written by Venezuela, Cuba, "likely" China, and directed by George Soros and (from…

> And obviously evidence was provided for none of this. what kind of evidence would you expect to see if it was true?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This is just hijacking criticism of authority, to start an authoritarian cult of lies, bullying and manipulation.

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#107

Post by omgwtfbyobbq »

dtho wrote: post #97
_jal wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is incorrect. The Mueller report clearly showed a great deal of coordination, and could not reach accusations because of limits placed on the investigation. A Mueller investigation with different parameters would have reached very different conclusions.

Is it fair to assassinate someone's character by suggesting to millions of people that this someone is a criminal when they have not been found guilty in the court of law?

Like inciting crowds to chant "Lock her up!"?

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#108

Post by newacct583 »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #80
newacct583 wrote: post #2

I sympathize with people who want to see a technological basis for this, I really do. I just don't buy it. We just saw a press conference an hour ago by the executive office of the most powerful nation in the world allege with a straight face that the recent election was tainted by Canadian election machines running malicious software written by Venezuela, Cuba, "likely" China, and directed by George Soros and (from…

> And obviously evidence was provided for none of this. what kind of evidence would you expect to see if it was true?

An exploit demo? An incriminating email? Testimony from Chavez's ghost? Hell, I'd take a suspicious correlation between firmware version and vote count, even. I'm not picky.

But that's the problem, isn't it? You want the standard of evidence for reporting an allegation (e.g. "the election was stolen") to place the burden of proof on the listener ("Well, you can't prove the election was NOT stolen, can you?").

And that's pretty much the definition of "fake news". It's a lie. And they tell the lie because they know you'll believe it. And that's the problem. Not "information overload".

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#109

Post by philipkglass »

onecommentman wrote: post #31
timr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I’ve always found the news from my trusted sources to be reasonable and accurate until it covers something I know about. Then it seems like a complete mess." Same. This year, with the coverage of Covid (an area where I have a certain level of expertise), I've been bombarded with the extremely low quality level of essentially all of the major news providers. They are more than willing to amplify the most speculative…

There comes the time in the life of every professional where he is called upon to be interviewed or provide input to the press. And when they read the article or see the video that is produced, that is the day they lose faith in the press. True 50 years ago, true today. This is true even if both sides in good faith are doing the best job they can. The media always has its own agenda, which is never identical to the g…

I have been interviewed twice for articles in Wired and once for Chemical & Engineering News. The resulting articles fairly represented what I said in the interviews and also treated the overarching article subject well.

I generally don't put much stock in anecdotes, but if others are sharing "the press always gets it wrong" anecdotes I might as well share my more positive ones.

Re: Information overload helps fake news spread

#110

Post by Jtsummers »

chordalkeyboard wrote: post #79
yokaze wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about drawing the line at the government? My understanding is though, that this is a bit of a straw-mans argument. There is no credible proposal to only allow the government approved version of truth. I thought the marketplace of ideas was a popular concept in the US.

you are misinformed: "But as a government official traveling around the world championing the virtues of free speech, I came to see how our First Amendment standard is an outlier. Even the most sophisticated Arab diplomats that I dealt with did not understand why the First Amendment allows someone to burn a Koran. Why, they asked me, would you ever want to protect that?" -Richard Stengel, Biden Transition Team Member

How does that at all rebut what the person you're responding to has said? I've read your quote multiple times trying to see how it at all presents a "credible proposal to only allow the government approved version of truth."
Post reply on HN