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We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

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Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#151

Post by makomk »

jondubois wrote: post #78

I think that all the news which we consume is misleading in one way or another; whether they deceive us through outright misinformation, unevenly balanced arguments, or priming (through repeated exposure to particular concepts). While these small fake news creators deceive us through outright misinformation, big news corporations deceive us through priming. If you repeatedly draw peoples' attentions to the same conce…

Definitely. For example, compare these two Wired articles about the possibility of rigging the US election by hacking voting systems:

https://www.wired.com/2016/10/wireds-totally-legit-guide-rig... was from before the election and claimed that it would be virtually impossible, would require a conspiracy of thousands to get past all the safeguards, and was ridiculous.

https://www.wired.com/2016/11/hacked-not-audit-election-rest... after the election claims that actually, it's well established that they're hackable, and that the audits are so ineffective it's almost as though they're designed not to detect hacking.

Two completely contradictory positions, both backed up with an arsenal of facts and expert opinions and presented as definite truth. All that changed is that the idea the election results could be hacked became anti-Trump rather than pro-Trump.

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#152

Post by analog31 »

greggman wrote: post #56

Fascinating. I'm not sure I buy the left isn't just as gullible as the right. Or at least not without more proof? I suspect you'd need a right leaning person with a similar background writing left bait fake news to have the same impact though. Write fake news about charter schools doing something bad (charter school puts LGBT students in detention) or fake churches doing bad (church in Idaho found funneling funds to…

Fascinating. I'm not sure I buy the left isn't just as gullible as the right. Or at least not without more proof?

Not proof, but an interesting analogy: The relative success of right- and left-wing talk radio. Right wing talk radio is a huge industry, left-wing is practically nonexistent. Maybe it points to an asymmetry in how left- and right-wingers consume information. Granted, it could also be related to other factors such as having spare time for listening to talk radio, or having a job that doesn't require much concentration.

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#153

Post by WhitneyLand »

freshhawk wrote: post #62
WhitneyLand wrote: post #20

Jestin Coler is a cancer and his actions should be made illegal. It seems possible such a law could be narrowly applied such that it would prove constitutional. Judicial review could weigh the value to society of false speech, or lying, against the erosion of integrity in the free press. One example of a false speech review was the stolen valor act. Lot of doors left open here; http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/…

So who should Trump appoint to prosecute people who they judge to have written fake news? SNL would have been charged just this week. Its almost like the people who put free speech protections in place educated themselves on power, history and law and then thought about it for a bit.

There are already free speech exceptions, do you disagree with all of them?

A viable free press was also meant to be a check agains power. I'm afraid of eroding that more than protecting the ability to lie.

Btw, the SNL example was a cheap shot, obviously parody is protected speeech and is totally different legallly.

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#154

Post by paulajohnson »

makomk wrote: post #147
paulajohnson wrote: post #119

I notice that his attempts to seed fake news on the liberal side always got promptly debunked. I think this election is going to be the high water mark for fake news, its just that liberals are ahead of the curve in being skeptical about information on the Net. What this needs is a click-baitey headline to make it go viral on the Right. Something like "You won't believe how this liberal guy made $$$ scamming conserva…

From what I can tell, liberals aren't exactly skeptical - I've seen a huge amount of fakes spread virally on Twitter, even ones that are on Snopes and have Snopes links in the replies. They just don't seem to be willing to link to fake news websites, and without those links there's no way to turn a profit on the fakery.

Why would liberals be less "willing" to link to fake news? Nobody forwarding a link to one of these stories knows its fake (except the small minority being paid).

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#155

Post by mcone »

ryuker16 wrote: post #124
dluan wrote: post #72

What boggles my mind is that Facebook and Twitter are so very complicit by creating platforms for very granular targeting. You liked the Green Bay Packers, a gun owners group, an old 2008 Tea Party video, live 60 miles outside of a city and between 40-65? Not only is that profile there, Facebook ads will tell you almost exactly how large your reach is. This is nothing more than information arbitrage, and that the uni…

Google beat them to it. Ad words is insane.... wanna target by individual town? Yes you can and more

Facebook allows you to target by city too. In fact, several individuals have used Facebook to display ads to just one person. See this account, for instance:

http://ghostinfluence.com/the-ultimate-retaliation-pranking-...

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#157

Post by jnbiche »

ryuker16 wrote: post #128
jnbiche wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am afraid that your average engineer will make a pretty incompetent legislator. So let's leave legislation to legislators... :-) I disagree. Aside from a few highly political engineers and/or software devs, almost all engineers I know insist on actually looking at the facts and evaluating them to the best of their ability, regardless of their political inclinations. This is a very rare characteristic in our socie…

that's a techocracy.... unfortunately, many modern horrible regimes are techocracies since engineering/science majors are the norm outside the west. Communist governments were super big on STEM and still implemented the same horseshit policies and woo woo beliefs. >Most engineers also aren't inflicted with the lust for power and status like so many (most?) attorneys I know. In the west, engineering doesn't attract th…

> In the west, engineering doesn't attract those types. In other countries where its the quickest way to make buck? Hell yeah!

This is an excellent counterpoint. You're totally right that in many countries (former communist countries, particularly, as you say), STEM educated elites often were the top officials.

However, it doesn't detract from my point that in this country, we would benefit from more scientists and engineers in government.

> I think we need a bigger guild like organization with a lobby. Not some industry sponsored group either.

This may help us with professional issues, but it likely won't help our system of government.

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#158

Post by slantyyz »

ryuker16 wrote: post #124
dluan wrote: post #72

What boggles my mind is that Facebook and Twitter are so very complicit by creating platforms for very granular targeting. You liked the Green Bay Packers, a gun owners group, an old 2008 Tea Party video, live 60 miles outside of a city and between 40-65? Not only is that profile there, Facebook ads will tell you almost exactly how large your reach is. This is nothing more than information arbitrage, and that the uni…

Google beat them to it. Ad words is insane.... wanna target by individual town? Yes you can and more

Ad words aside, Google News is incredibly bad at aggregating fake news/farmed content into their real news feeds.

For a lot of the news categories Google thinks or knows I like, I get tons of headlines from questionable news sources, and the last time I looked, their preferences wouldn't let me blacklist repeat offenders from showing up in my main headlines feed.

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#159

Post by spacewhale »

reitoei wrote: post #76
titzer wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not all bad. We're here, aren't we?

Going totally OT here for a sec, but you guys are awesome. Seriously. This is one of the only places I feel I can come where people are, for the most part, respectful and polite to each other. Nobody is pushing a personal agenda with religion, politics or ethics. Nobody is trying to convince you the world is flat or that aliens built the pyramids. Nobody cares if you're male/female/trans/whatever. Just a bunch of fol…

>for the most part, respectful and polite to each other...

If someone smart want to sell bullshit here, they will do so in the most respectful and polite manner and the most dangerous part, they will do so by wrapping it up in things that are most appealing to people here.

So, say, you want people to give you their money, they will come here and say, give me your money or just talk about me, because the world down here is ending and I will take you to the stars.

People everywhere at all times, didn't think twice when someone offered them salvation....You may be smart. But 'people' everywhere, in sufficient quantities, is dumb.

This place is no different.

Re: We Tracked Down a Fake-News Creator in the Suburbs

#160

Post by CalChris »

HN has a hide button. Click it and something's gone, no questions asked. That should be the standard.

FB has some hide buttons. Click it and up pops a menu. Click Hide Ad. Up pops a dialog asking Why don't you want to see this? Choose It's not relevant to me. This is followed by a Thanks dialog. And after it's hidden, it's not hidden. There's a grey box saying and asking You won't see ads like it. Undo?

FB also doesn't have some hide buttons. For suggested pages, I was getting a completely offensive German page. There was not way to hide it. And it showed up regularly. To be clear, I don't speak German and I really wasn't interested in what the page was purveying.

Their iPhone app is even worse.

If there's anyone from Facebook reading this, y'all are idiots.

Google News is pretty much the same. Frankly, everyone is pretty much the same.

I should be able to click hide or left swipe and it's gone. And no, I don't want to answer a quick five minute customer support questionnaire. Y'all don't like Ad Blockers? Well, I don't like not being in control of what's in my face.

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