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Don’t believe everything you read

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Re: Don’t believe everything you read

#41

Post by opminion »

I see some sort of duality between this (feeding fake information to news sources to then show them up for not fact checking), and email spam.

It comes at a small cost per news item, just like email spam costs, which added up would make it very annoying to work as a journalist.

In order to avoid getting spammed, they would have to do exactly what we would like them to do, which is to fack check.

Besides, contrary to what happens with spam, it is not cost-effective for a single individual to do this on a regular basis.

However, I wonder if it might be cost efficient for a community to do this, and whether it is done in any other community to keep the quality up.

Re: Don’t believe everything you read

#44

Post by dllthomas »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #31

This is why reputation and reliability matter. While the example in this post is the equivalent of "I got major news outlets like TMZ to think that Paris Hilton was getting married" many types of news aren't so inconsequential. In the first few days after the Connecticut shooting, there were so many inaccuracies it made me reconsider other "facts" I heard which were never obviously wrong (e.g. it became obvious that…

My initial impulse is to say, "any such automatic system will be gamed beyond usefulness". Having said that, if someone does solve the problem that would be great.

Re: Don’t believe everything you read

#45

Post by d0m »

Am I the only one thinking it's a very selfish and unfunny move? What if I call him saying I'm a physician from hospital X and announce him that his father just died. Oh, and then, I'll post a blog explaining how you shouldn't trust people calling you and post that on HN. Obviously there is a chain reaction when a big news comes out. You don't want to have a reputation for the latest in the known news website. And, furthermore, it's very common for journalists to receive anonymous posts.. It's explicitly said in their news that it came from an anonymous source and that it wasn't totally trust-able; yet they admitted that what was said had much chance to be real because of some already known facts.

Re: Don’t believe everything you read

#46

Post by dllthomas »

swang wrote: post #23

It's not as though brick & mortar journalists are any better nowadays either. See: Manti Teo Even though one "journalist" couldn't find any evidence of the girl existing: no birth certificate, no death certificate, no records of her existence, they essentially let Manti Teo off the hook when he essentially told the guy to not further into it. Then look at ESPN. They supposedly sat on the story for under a week becaus…

To be fair, it's a story that's only meaningful to those with an interest in drama surrounding sports... I don't see that being much but entertainment in the first place, however well sourced.

Re: Don’t believe everything you read

#47

Post by gmrple »

dllthomas wrote: post #44
kevinalexbrown wrote: post #31

This is why reputation and reliability matter. While the example in this post is the equivalent of "I got major news outlets like TMZ to think that Paris Hilton was getting married" many types of news aren't so inconsequential. In the first few days after the Connecticut shooting, there were so many inaccuracies it made me reconsider other "facts" I heard which were never obviously wrong (e.g. it became obvious that…

My initial impulse is to say, "any such automatic system will be gamed beyond usefulness". Having said that, if someone does solve the problem that would be great.

Is this a major problem with Google now? I know this is completely subjective, but my friends and I have talked about this a couple times, and we feel that Google used to be significantly more useful 5-7 years ago. Has SEO done that much damage, or has the way we use the search engine changed? Or perhaps something else?

Re: Don’t believe everything you read

#48

Post by gav »

TheCapn wrote: post #36
venomsnake wrote: post #9

Or this is a brilliant cover up from Microsoft on a genuine leak. That is the fun with paranoia - there is always one more level of distrust. Also specs of next gen devices are not that hard to guess. Assuming goals are 1080p x 60FPS: If you aim for sub 500 USD of production cost that retail at 350-400 there are not many balanced hardware solutions that could fit. My wild guess is that we will have 6GB of ram (it is…

I'm not an expert on this but my gut tells me that Microsoft/Sony/whoever, when specing the device will make a bulk contract purchase for their equipment. So although retail market for cpu/gpu/ram may be so much right now they'll be able to get better hardware at a cheaper rate than any consumer wishing to build at the cheapest price avaiable. I would hope at least that next-gen aren't building at 660ti grade GPU.

I'm also assuming that if you are building a device that has a multi-year lifespan you can factor in the ever decreasing cost of components. Maybe the price of the components on day-1 are $500, but day-730 $350.

Re: Don’t believe everything you read

#49

Post by apl »

d0m wrote: post #45

Am I the only one thinking it's a very selfish and unfunny move? What if I call him saying I'm a physician from hospital X and announce him that his father just died. Oh, and then, I'll post a blog explaining how you shouldn't trust people calling you and post that on HN. Obviously there is a chain reaction when a big news comes out. You don't want to have a reputation for the latest in the known news website. And, f…

  > And, furthermore, it's very common for journalists to
  > receive anonymous posts.
Publishing implies validation, at least to a certain extent. Otherwise media become nothing more than a fully transparent channel; there's nothing useful about that in this day and age. This prank (which doesn't resemble the physician example you mention in the least) shows two things: First, fact checking and double or triple sourcing appear to be a thing of the past. Second, on the internet, anonymous tips mean nothing. Even if you disagree that the former point is an issue, you'll have to grant the latter.

Re: Don’t believe everything you read

#50

Post by geargrinder »

swang wrote: post #23

It's not as though brick & mortar journalists are any better nowadays either. See: Manti Teo Even though one "journalist" couldn't find any evidence of the girl existing: no birth certificate, no death certificate, no records of her existence, they essentially let Manti Teo off the hook when he essentially told the guy to not further into it. Then look at ESPN. They supposedly sat on the story for under a week becaus…

It is pretty common for any news organization to embargo scoops to maximize their impact. They might schedule additional, related stories or or a special ad/launch campaign. These things take time and the newspaper will often work with the source/subject to make sure they maintain exclusivity. Startups might learn lessons on how to maximize initial launch impact by studying the behavior of news organizations.
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