Fake news is fake news, says Google-backed research Fears the web is just one massive echo chamber, to be used for the sole purpose of confirming one's own bias, are overstated, according to research supported by Google. Despite what some politicians argue, fake news and biased search algorithms aren't swaying public opinion, the Michigan State University research found. News …
> the potential to support or undermine democratic processes
I wonder which side is good and which side is bad, eh?
Meanwhile, NYT Cheers the Rise of Censorship Algorithms
Yet, while such intentionally fabricated articles as well as baseless conspiracy theories are a bane of the Internet – and do deserve hearty condemnation – the Times gives no thought to the potential downside of having a select group of mainstream journalistic entities feeding their judgment about what is true and what is not into some algorithms that would then scrub the Internet of contrary items.
Since the Times is a member of the Google-funded First Draft Coalition – along with other mainstream outlets such as The Washington Post and the pro-NATO propaganda site Bellingcat – this idea of eliminating information that counters what the group asserts is true may seem quite appealing to the Times and the other insiders. After all, it might seem cool to have some high-tech tool that silences your critics automatically?
...
There also should be the fear – even among these self-appointed guardians of “truth” – that their algorithms might someday be put to use by a totalitarian regime to stomp out the last embers of real democracy. However, if you’re looking for such thoughtfulness, you won’t find it in the Times article by Mark Scott. Instead, the Times glorifies the creators of this Brave New World.
“In the battle against fake news, Andreas Vlachos — a Greek computer scientist living in a northern English town — is on the front lines,” the article reads. “Armed with a decade of machine learning expertise, he is part of a British start-up that will soon release an automated fact-checking tool ahead of the country’s election in early June. He also is advising a global competition that pits computer wizards from the United States to China against each other to use artificial intelligence to combat fake news. …
“As Europe readies for several elections this year after President Trump’s victory in the United States, Mr. Vlachos, 36, is one of a growing number of technology experts worldwide who are harnessing their skills to tackle misinformation online. … Computer scientists, tech giants and start-ups are using sophisticated algorithms and reams of online data to quickly — and automatically — spot fake news faster than traditional fact-checking groups can.”
It suspiciously sounds like an addy for some whitewashing powder.
... is cherry-picking to support one's biased views on any given subject. See the ongoing childish slap-fest re: the last US election in any given thread here on ElReg. People are polarized, and apparently incapable of thinking/seeing outside their own preconceived opinions, even when faced with evidence to the contrary. This is religious behavio(u)r, and it's absolutely hysterical, if in a very, very sad way.
You must be too young to remember the Open University programmes Auntie used to put out.
Sadly they are no longer broadcast, but it showed telly could do education.
Some recent BBC stuff presented by Jim Al-Khalili would also count as education I would say.
I know it's fun to bash the beeb, but sometimes they do get it right,
You must be too young to remember the Open University programmes Auntie used to put out.
Judging by his orthography and choice of terminology, Jake is a Yank. Public education by a public broadcaster is most likely considered by him to be dangerously socialist. That licence fee is just turning us into the USSR, day by day.
People need to be less gullible and more skeptic about most topics.
Personally I believe that people do tend to allow themselves to be (mis?)led. For example: if it were up to me then all the political polls would be banned from the main stream media during the week an election takes place, just to ensure that people choose based on their own impressions and opinions and not based on news other than those they sought out themselves.
Which, once again, leads up to the question I keep asking: what exactly is fake news? To continue with my set example here: most Brexit polls predicted a 'Nay' majority. So looking back can we conclude those to be sources of fake news? Surely a fine is in order now?
And the good ole US of A. Several polls there predicted Clinton as an easy winner. Fake news for sure, and as such...
Or is that all "different"? That wasn't fake news, it was "wrong" news perhaps?
So looking back can we conclude those to be sources of fake news?
Obviously not, if they used a reasonable methodology. They'd only be fake news if they were rigged in some fashion and then promoted as news. If there's anything fake about them it is describing them using the emotive and disparaging term 'fake news'. Welcome to Trumpville.
No, they're not, as Rich11 commented. Polls are predictions. Like weather forecasts. They don't claim to be descriptions of fact.
Saying that "Obama wiretapped Trump Tower and GCHQ helped him do it" makes claims about real events which allegedly happened in the real world. It's about facts. Publishing things like that is fake news.
Someone saying "I was against the Iraq war from the start" when there is videotape from that period showing the claimant saying something completely different is a lie. Publishing the lie as fact is, then, publishing fake news.
There is a reason that reporters at reputable newspapers get fired for falsifying their sources, their quotes, and what they report as fact. There is a reason they back away from reporting things which cannot be independently verified.
Compare and contrast with Breitbart, Infowars, et al. Draw your own conclusions.
"Polls are predictions. Like weather forecasts. They don't claim to be descriptions of fact."
I beg to differ, polls are attestations of what some people currently believe or prefer. And as purported snapshots of the public mood, they carry a lot of weight with easily swayed people (many or most of them).
The rub involves HOW those attestations are gathered. Being influential, many would like to game the polls so as to influence the future. This leads to statistical trickery, a method as old as politics.
The weather is not quite so susceptible to such tactics as are elections.
I would say it is an echo chamber.
Let's say I'm on Facebook and I see an article and it makes me not like purple people, ridiculous I know because of the one eyed one horned...
I post on Facebook about how bad they are and others then use google to see if they are bad using terms such as "Why are Purple People bad?" or "Purple People are bad" or you get the idea.
This now as far as I see how google works pushed these pages against purple people to the top so even a normal search on Purple People shows the bad pages and the more people link to the bad pages from Facebook they get even higher.
So is that how it works?
Disclaimer: I'm not on Facebook and I have no ill feeling towards purple people, flying or otherwise but have no wish to get eaten by one though I'm unsure if it was purple or just eating purple people.
"Let's say I'm on Facebook and I see an article and it makes me not like purple people, ridiculous I know because of the one eyed one horned..."
I think you'll find it's a purple people eater, i.e. a purple creature with one horn and one eye that eats people (the creature, not its eye).
Mine's the one with the Sheb Wooley CD in the pocket (and yes, I did look this up because I've always wanted to use the pedant icon :-) )
"So is that how it works?"
It can, but the real problem here is that Google is a search engine, so naturally, they only see the people that search.
They won't see the ones that read something, and immediately start posting on Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, or whatever*.
*Well, they do see postings on Google+ for reference, but who uses that? ☺
" internet users interested in politics tend to be exposed to multiple media sources"
and those who are not interested in politics will believe the lies they are exposed to from the single source they use, and make their vote based on this information when voting day comes around. Since that makes up a depressingly large number of voters, Fake News IS a problem...
The one comment echoing my own thoughts, and its already been downvoted. Sheesh,
Google narrowly defines the problem as "It's not the Internet, Stupid. It's the Stupids, Internet!" Um, yes, but where does that leave us?
(Someone asked me a while ago for another bit of less than disagreeable response to the present situation: "It will be educational for many". Seems it will happen, as even the president gets a missed education in how the courts can interfere in his latest great idea. It is called the Constitution. Those couple amendments some treasure highly were appended to much more that all should treasure.)
As Barbara Jordan said, after noting that the Constitution did not include her people as 'we, the people' for too many years:
"My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. And I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction, of the Constitution."
This post has been deleted by its author
Is this article an attempt to defend one specific online source?
I am still a fan of Noam Chomsky and believe that inaccurate views are continually generated by multiple sources. I routinely hear people repeating this information as if it were an established fact.
As for the term "Fake News", my view is that it is just a nice buzzword.
internet users interested in politics tend to be exposed to multiple media sources
Alt-Right douche says "Dems using pizza store for underage sex trafficking"
Looney listeners post on Facebook "did you hear what I heard on the radio?"
Conservative news reports uptick is posts suggesting "dems using pizza store for underage sex trafficking"
Neutral news covers conservative news
Liberal news covers neutral and conservative news.
Alt-Right douche points to news as validation of his assertions.
The cycle is complete, and there a lot of sources available in the end.
I even left things out like "updates Wikipedia" and "creates delightful meme to share on Reddit".
First, kudos to Michigan State University. You can download the whole study as a PDF, there's no paywall or anything. Way to go.
But "the whole study" is over 200 pages, so I haven't read it yet. I shall, though.
At this point my main concern is that it seems to be surveying "how people use search". That's an entirely different question to "how people consume news", and it's not surprising that it's giving a different answer.
Basic tactics by Google, there - if you correctly define the parameters of your study, it should be possible to get the answer you want.
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