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Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

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Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#291

Post by tablespoon »

leereeves wrote: post #281
tablespoon wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a mistaken idea that the media should never ever publish a wrong fact, and if it does it's proof that it's broken. The media (or most of it) has to make tradeoffs between (for lack of a better term) future-historical accuracy, timeliness, and some other things. That means sometimes (maybe even often) it will publish something that turns out to be wrong, because if it didn't it would never publish anything that w…

They uncritically accepted these claims, without sufficient investigation, because they wanted them to be true. Worse, the attitude seems to be "so what if they're partisan", as you said. Neither they nor their audience have learned anything from their many mistakes. And that's being generous by allowing that they were mistakes. One would expect mistakes to happen in both directions, but as Glenn Greenwald said of th…

> They uncritically accepted these claims, without sufficient investigation, because they wanted them to be true.

That doesn't match my recollection. For instance, I recall the reporting I read about the Steele dossier reported that it existed and made claims X, Y, Z, but it did not endorse those claims. And that's not just me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steele_dossier:

> The media, the intelligence community, and most experts have treated the dossier with caution due to its unverified allegations...

On the Lafayette square thing, I don't recall how tentative the exact language the stories used was (and I certainly didn't read every one), but the the timeline of the events makes it very clear that crowd clearance and the photo op were closely coordinated (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_photo_op_at_St._J.... Which does back to my last point: it looked like a duck, it quacked like a duck, they reported it was a duck, but after a year of investigation and a battery of DNA tests, it turned out it was a mutant goose.

I wouldn't draw too strong conclusions from Greenwald's list. And frankly if those things are embarrassing he should be embarrassed too, because the "Havana Syndrome" story (#6) isn't over, yet he jumped the shark to claim it's been debunked. He honestly seems to be cherrypicking to support his narrative, which is one of those things you have to correct for.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#292

Post by everdrive »

leereeves wrote: post #265
tablespoon wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A better alternative is not trusting any of them. Realize that they're all distorting the truth, and yet also sharing a part of the truth, and dig deeper. I think that's kinda right, but I have some quibbles. Basically, I feel the attitude that they're not trustworthy and distorting the truth leads to a kind of paranoia, feelings of helplessness, or succumbing to the trap letting an uncritical indulgence of one's o…

I think this is giving them entirely too much credit. The NY Times own editor admitted their staff was partisan: > “What I’m saying is that our readers and some of our staff cheer us when we take on Donald Trump, but they jeer at us when we take on Joe Biden,” New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet told his staff in a town hall on Monday.[1] No doubt some members of the media are still trying their best, but loo…

I think that in isolation this is a completely fair criticism of the NY Times. My point would be that not every topic covered by them suffers in the same way. Check out some of their topic feeds:

- https://www.nytimes.com/section/world/middleeast

- https://www.nytimes.com/section/business/economy

- https://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/nuclear-energy

- etc.

I'm not suggesting that these stories are all perfect. But, my claim would be that they don't suffer from the same problems (or at least to the same degree) as the very loud Trump vs. Biden bias that may exist there. It ought to be possible to say something like the following: "The NY Times probably has a measurable slant when it comes to reporting on the major US political parties, however that particular bias does not directly bleed into all other areas of their reporting."

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#293

Post by haswell »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #285
haswell wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you’re saying absolutely makes sense. The difficult part is that it requires intentional habit changes and quite honestly, a grieving process at the same time. As someone who grew up while the Internet was just getting off the ground (mid 30s), I remember the absolute joy of exploring the net, and for the most part, it could feed me as much interesting content as I could stand. I felt this reverence for it, like…

It's called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy

How do you believe CBT applies here?

As a person-in-therapy for upwards of 4 years now, I'm not seeing the connection.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#294

Post by leereeves »

tablespoon wrote: post #291
leereeves wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They uncritically accepted these claims, without sufficient investigation, because they wanted them to be true. Worse, the attitude seems to be "so what if they're partisan", as you said. Neither they nor their audience have learned anything from their many mistakes. And that's being generous by allowing that they were mistakes. One would expect mistakes to happen in both directions, but as Glenn Greenwald said of th…

> They uncritically accepted these claims, without sufficient investigation, because they wanted them to be true. That doesn't match my recollection. For instance, I recall the reporting I read about the Steele dossier reported that it existed and made claims X, Y, Z, but it did not endorse those claims. And that's not just me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steele_dossier : > The media, the intelligence community, an…

I think you should double check your recollection. For example, the editorial board wrote:

> The Trump Campaign Accepted Russian Help to Win in 2016. Case Closed.

That's an op-ed, but it's making a factual claim, so it's doubly dishonest: it's misinformation and it's pretending factual allegations are just "opinion".

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/opinion/trump-russia-2016...

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#295

Post by leereeves »

everdrive wrote: post #292
leereeves wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is giving them entirely too much credit. The NY Times own editor admitted their staff was partisan: > “What I’m saying is that our readers and some of our staff cheer us when we take on Donald Trump, but they jeer at us when we take on Joe Biden,” New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet told his staff in a town hall on Monday.[1] No doubt some members of the media are still trying their best, but loo…

I think that in isolation this is a completely fair criticism of the NY Times. My point would be that not every topic covered by them suffers in the same way. Check out some of their topic feeds: - https://www.nytimes.com/section/world/middleeast - https://www.nytimes.com/section/business/economy - https://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/nuclear-energy - etc. I'm not suggesting that these stories are all perfect. But,…

That seems like the Gell-Mann amnesia effect ("you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page...and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate...You turn the page, and forget what you know.")

That's always seemed rather strange to me. When I see that a newspaper isn't trustworthy on one subject, I think it's reasonable to doubt them on all subjects.

I'm not saying they're always wrong; sometimes they're even right about Trump. But no one should trust something simply because they've written it.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#296

Post by everdrive »

leereeves wrote: post #295
everdrive wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that in isolation this is a completely fair criticism of the NY Times. My point would be that not every topic covered by them suffers in the same way. Check out some of their topic feeds: - https://www.nytimes.com/section/world/middleeast - https://www.nytimes.com/section/business/economy - https://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/nuclear-energy - etc. I'm not suggesting that these stories are all perfect. But,…

That seems like the Gell-Mann amnesia effect ("you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page...and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate...You turn the page, and forget what you know.") That's always seemed rather strange to me. When I see that a newspaper isn't trustworthy on one subject, I think it's reasonable to doubt t…

I don't think gell-mann amnesia applies here. At least, it doesn't apply to me in particular. I'm moderately well informed about the topics I've posted, and not particularly well informed about U.S. politics. If anything, you've got it backwards (at least in my specific case) -- I'm reading the topics I don't know very well with increased skepticism, and am more trusting when I see that topics I'm better versed in are presented well.

I don't think being wrong on one subject damns a whole paper.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#297

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

haswell wrote: post #293
LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's called https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_behavioral_therapy

How do you believe CBT applies here? As a person-in-therapy for upwards of 4 years now, I'm not seeing the connection.

I referred to

'What you’re saying absolutely makes sense. The difficult part is that it requires intentional habit changes and quite honestly, a grieving process at the same time.'

While I have no personal experience with CBT, I'd guess some form of that is needed, if you don't manage to change that behaviour on your own.

As in learning to let go of what is stopping your 'flow'. Or simply overcoming bad habits.

edit: While I don't know your personal situtation, and don't want to be rude, or 'diss' you in any way, 4 years seems harsh. I would long have quit that, because it would seem ineffective to me. Like talking to a wall, parking meter, or something like that. Maybe change therapist?

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#298

Post by whocares2345 »

nobody9999 wrote: post #215
codyswann wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. We point the finger at the media all the time, but the media is just a reflection of society. Why is Kim Kardashian on the front page of CNN? Why is "Iconic New York City park, featured in sitcom ‘Friends,’ trashed by urban decay" on the front page of Fox News? Because they drive clicks. As soon as gossip and unedited "news" blogs started appearing with rumor and unsubstantiated claims, it was a race to the b…

>Why? Because the majority of people prefer mindless trash to the idiosyncrasies of a local county commission meeting. >I don't have a good answer because media companies have to make money to stay in business. Making them backed by the state is an even worse idea. An excellent point. Local media outlets (in the US at least, not sure about elsewhere) are few and far between these days. We need local news that focuses…

Is there a specific reason I should care about the local commission meeting? I honestly care even less about local news than nation wide, which I don’t care about at all.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#299

Post by whocares2345 »

tablespoon wrote: post #277
leereeves wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what that they're partisan? So it's led them to uncritically publish lies time after time. They claimed "Capitol Police Officer Dies From Injuries in Pro-Trump Rampage", but the medical examiner found no evidence of injuries, and a thorough review of the tapes found no event that would have caused his death. They pushed the Steele dossier, whose claims, even they now admit, "have never materialized or have been…

It's a mistaken idea that the media should never ever publish a wrong fact, and if it does it's proof that it's broken. The media (or most of it) has to make tradeoffs between (for lack of a better term) future-historical accuracy, timeliness, and some other things. That means sometimes (maybe even often) it will publish something that turns out to be wrong, because if it didn't it would never publish anything that w…

> It's a mistaken idea that the media should never ever publish a wrong fact, and if it does it's proof that it's broken. The media (or most of it) has to make tradeoffs between (for lack of a better term) future-historical accuracy, timeliness, and some other things. That means sometimes (maybe even often) it will publish something that turns out to be wrong, because if it didn't it would never publish anything that was timely.

Wow, this quite possibly is the stupidest thing I ever read on NH. No, there is no trade off between accuracy and timelessness! If you can’t guarantee accuracy then you can report that “a questionable pice of information that can’t be easily verified says X’. So that people who are into gossip can get their fix, while people who are only interested in undisputed facts do not. And yes - undisputed facts are where 99% of all people agree that this is a fact, rather than 49% or 53%. I also understand that it would eliminate 90% of news and stories, which admittedly is the point.

Re: Disinformation for hire, a shadow industry, is quietly booming

#300

Post by leereeves »

everdrive wrote: post #296
leereeves wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems like the Gell-Mann amnesia effect ("you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page...and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate...You turn the page, and forget what you know.") That's always seemed rather strange to me. When I see that a newspaper isn't trustworthy on one subject, I think it's reasonable to doubt t…

I don't think gell-mann amnesia applies here. At least, it doesn't apply to me in particular. I'm moderately well informed about the topics I've posted, and not particularly well informed about U.S. politics. If anything, you've got it backwards (at least in my specific case) -- I'm reading the topics I don't know very well with increased skepticism, and am more trusting when I see that topics I'm better versed in ar…

> I don't think being wrong on one subject damns a whole paper.

I would agree in general. A paper that was consistently wrong about sports might still be trustworthy about science.

But almost every story touches on US politics, so misleading the public about US politics casts doubt on all of the stories. They're probably still trustworthy on sports and celebrity gossip, but politics influences science, medicine, business, economics, international news, etc, so their bias in politics is likely to infect all those other topics.

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