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How Fake News Goes Viral: A Case Study

nytimes.com

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Re: How Fake News Goes Viral: A Case Study

#71

Post by mythrwy »

mythrwy wrote: post #60
woodruffw wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I remember correctly, the NYT published a written apology for their role in popularizing the invasion of Iraq. Newspapers make mistakes, recognize them, and apologize publicly. That's journalistic ethics. They were also forwards about their editorial support for HRC, having declared her their candidate well before she became the presumptive DNC nominee. You might not like the fact that pro-HRC opinion pieces made…

There's not an ethical dilemma in pushing a candidate but an issue of trust. Lots of people don't trust Hillary. So when a publication goes out it's way to pump her up and writes biased hit pieces on the opposition are people who mistrust Hillary going to trust the publication? The point is, you can't argue why people should trust you rather than the opposition. You have to provide reasons for them to do so. It would…

The irony of attempting to "argue" with my point is incredibly hilarious. I would suggest suspending ideological preference for a moment and re-reading my post.

It's about trust and human nature. Not nitpicking details to try to "prove" you are right. You will never win what you are trying to win like this. Ever.

But since you asked here is a sample:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/us/politics/donald-trump-w...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/politics/donald-trump-w...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/us/alt-right-salutes-donal... (the implication being of course that Trump is tied to racism).

Now lets oppose the outrage above with the treatment of Hillary's behavior.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/27/us/politics/wh...

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/03/us/politics/hillary-clinto...

Look guys... it's not an ideological thing here. But you can't behave like this and have people who support a different ideology take you seriously. That's a simple fact.

When this happens people will get their information from elsewhere.

Last I have to say about this. Think about it or not. But I don't intend to argue.

Re: How Fake News Goes Viral: A Case Study

#72

Post by narrator »

birken wrote: post #41
narrator wrote: post #16

It's funny how the next big idea for the news media to get on board with starts at the New York Times and then filters it's way down the food chain through the less influential newspapers, CNN, and other mainstream news outlets, etc. It's sad that nobody is coming up with their own material much any more among the big networks. The agenda is set and it's all just a bunch or mstaphorical retweets. It's like there's so…

The NYT seemingly has written a well supported and fact checked story explaining how a verifiably false tweet from a person with few followers spread far and wide. What exactly is being pushed on the American people?

It's not that they aren't factual, it's that they direct the nation's attention. There are millions of newsworthy stories, but only some are published and the NYT seems to be the source of that focus that then leads the whole mainstream media around by the nose.

Re: How Fake News Goes Viral: A Case Study

#73

Post by woodruffw »

mythrwy wrote: post #71
mythrwy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not an ethical dilemma in pushing a candidate but an issue of trust. Lots of people don't trust Hillary. So when a publication goes out it's way to pump her up and writes biased hit pieces on the opposition are people who mistrust Hillary going to trust the publication? The point is, you can't argue why people should trust you rather than the opposition. You have to provide reasons for them to do so. It would…

The irony of attempting to "argue" with my point is incredibly hilarious. I would suggest suspending ideological preference for a moment and re-reading my post. It's about trust and human nature. Not nitpicking details to try to "prove" you are right. You will never win what you are trying to win like this. Ever. But since you asked here is a sample: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/13/us/politics/donald-trump-w... htt…

Debate isn't ironic, and it's not productive to laugh at people who want to reason with you.

I'm not sure what you mean by "trust and human nature". These seem to be self-evident (read: mostly rhetorical), and not directly in conflict with what I've said.

I'm also not sure what details I've nitpicked. I pointed out a case that I thought you might consider a hit piece, and explained why dulling it down to just that has a chilling effect on journalism as a whole and operates against the public interest.

The articles you linked portray Trump in a negative light. Is the conclusion supposed to be that HRC must be portrayed in an equally negative light? It's odd to have to say this, seeing how I'm not a particular fan of hers, but the media cannot treat circumstances as equals when they are definitively not equal. There is no modern analog to what either candidate has in their closets, but to equivocate between them via this fact alone is, bluntly, bewildering.

I appreciate your thoughts on the matter, and I hope you revisit this conversation (or perhaps the thoughts behind it) at a later point without immediately defaulting to a defense against "ideology".

Re: How Fake News Goes Viral: A Case Study

#74

Post by colllectorof »

woodruffw wrote: post #68
mythrwy wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not an ethical dilemma in pushing a candidate but an issue of trust. Lots of people don't trust Hillary. So when a publication goes out it's way to pump her up and writes biased hit pieces on the opposition are people who mistrust Hillary going to trust the publication? The point is, you can't argue why people should trust you rather than the opposition. You have to provide reasons for them to do so. It would…

I'm sorry, but what hit pieces? The NYT's coverage of Trump hasn't been favorable, but it would be difficult to characterize their exclusives on him as hits. Even their most negative coverage (the $916 million story comes to mind) was, at its core, factual. You could argue that it's indicative of bias for the NYT to break such a story at all, but it's in the public interest to know the financial solvency of their lea…

False dichotomy. Just because an article has some facts buried in it does not mean it's not a hit piece. A hit piece is simply something crafted to create a strong negative impression of a person.

With that in mind, let's go to the NYT front page:

    Donald Trump’s Swamp Gets Murkier
    A disturbing number of lobbyists and special interest players
    are joining the transition team. 


    The interaction does not appear to violate federal laws or 
    ethics rules, three lawyers said, but it did create the appearance 
    that Mr. Trump and his partners are using his status as a way to 
    profit.

    Cabinet Selection Turns Into Spectacle That’s Made for TV
Do we now live in some kind of alternate reality where stuff like this is considered normal, unbiased journalism?

Re: How Fake News Goes Viral: A Case Study

#75

Post by JoeAltmaier »

colllectorof wrote: post #74
woodruffw wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but what hit pieces? The NYT's coverage of Trump hasn't been favorable, but it would be difficult to characterize their exclusives on him as hits. Even their most negative coverage (the $916 million story comes to mind) was, at its core, factual. You could argue that it's indicative of bias for the NYT to break such a story at all, but it's in the public interest to know the financial solvency of their lea…

False dichotomy. Just because an article has some facts buried in it does not mean it's not a hit piece. A hit piece is simply something crafted to create a strong negative impression of a person. With that in mind, let's go to the NYT front page: Donald Trump’s Swamp Gets Murkier A disturbing number of lobbyists and special interest players are joining the transition team. The interaction does not appear to violate…

Well, "he started it" by not releasing tax returns, not relinquishing his control of his businesses nor disclosing his international business deals. Its fair game, then, to interpret subsequent actions as part of a pattern.

Re: How Fake News Goes Viral: A Case Study

#76

Post by trobertson »

xnull2guest wrote: post #48
andrepd wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hindsight is 20/20, and that applies to everyone. Sorry to say, but not all journalist are incompetents like you suggest. Yeah of course after Trump "won" the election you can say "yeah of course he did it was so obvious, how come none of those stupid journalists could see it" yadda yadda. Same thing for this fake news phenomenon. Did you realize it was happening before Trump won the election and gave us all a rude w…

I both realized: 1) Trump had a significant chance of winning because of a disgruntled American public voting against establishment candidates (the same reason Obama himself was elected in 2008). 2) There was "fake news" before the election. Indeed, I know a number of additional things. 3) Right now there is a crisis in faith and credibility in the US domestic news. The reason for this is that the official narrative…

> the official narrative across the media industry - much of it literally state propaganda - has been consistently proving hallow and unreliable.

> The "fake news" surge is a grasp by establish monopolistic forms of misinformation distribution to maintain their domination and credibility as sole sources.

This is exactly it. The following google trends graph makes this obvious: https://www.google.com/trends/explore?geo=US&q=fake%20news

Re: How Fake News Goes Viral: A Case Study

#77

Post by akytt »

Snow Crash combined with Selfish Gene and infection theory provides a neat mental model of what's happening. Basically you get a constant bacground of competing memes all the time. But since the competition is fierce, none of them becomes too powerful. The elections made a lot of people more susceptible to infections and ideas become to spread. The social media provides the number of contacts necessary as well as increasing the transmission likelyhood as it forms echo chambers. It all makes sense.

Re: How Fake News Goes Viral: A Case Study

#78

Post by colllectorof »

andrepd wrote: post #38
colllectorof wrote: post #30

How many posts about fake news and evils of Facebook will NYT write, and how many will end up on HN? Yes, there are lying tweets out there and social media is designed in a way that makes spreading this stuff easy. As long as you have an audience that really wants to hear something, they will share your messages. But, really, this is neither new, nor surprising. And it's not exclusive to Trump supporters. It's not ev…

It's almost as if there happened some event of global proportions less than 2 weeks ago that was perhaps in great measure directly caused by this phenomenon?

Do you really believe that seeing a picture of two buses on Facebook changed the candidate someone voted for?

Re: How Fake News Goes Viral: A Case Study

#79

Post by woodruffw »

colllectorof wrote: post #74
woodruffw wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but what hit pieces? The NYT's coverage of Trump hasn't been favorable, but it would be difficult to characterize their exclusives on him as hits. Even their most negative coverage (the $916 million story comes to mind) was, at its core, factual. You could argue that it's indicative of bias for the NYT to break such a story at all, but it's in the public interest to know the financial solvency of their lea…

False dichotomy. Just because an article has some facts buried in it does not mean it's not a hit piece. A hit piece is simply something crafted to create a strong negative impression of a person. With that in mind, let's go to the NYT front page: Donald Trump’s Swamp Gets Murkier A disturbing number of lobbyists and special interest players are joining the transition team. The interaction does not appear to violate…

I just visited the NYT front page.

"Donald Trump’s Swamp Gets Murkier" is an opinion piece.

"Cabinet Selection Turns Into Spectacle That’s Made for TV" is a silly title and a cheap shot, but cabinet pageantry is nothing new. The article itself has a message in the form of facts focused on (e.g., the fact that all of Trump's picks seem to be old white men), but doesn't seem to express an opinion in the way that the editorial board's piece does.

Does it have a bias? Yes. Is it abnormal, or even unusually biased? No.

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