I think fake news is good

[DrZoidberg]

I've completely swung around on this issue. I think fake news is good. I don't think it ruins anything. What it does it highlights the basic problem with explaining stuff. You have to remove information when describing anything, or it'll be an unmanageable mess of facts. All news, or any story, will in some sense or another always be a lie. Because it has filtered out information the speaker doesn't think is important, for whatever reason.

The existence of large amounts of fake news makes us think much more critically about what we are reading. The world is messy and contradictory. It's always been.

It's so easy to think that back in the olden days (pre-Internet news) news was accurate. Nope. It was pretty shit then to. It was just less of it, so we couldn't verify anything.

What has changed is that quality print media is losing revenue so has to turn to churning out small articles with juicy headlines to chase clicks, rather than fewer well researched pieces. But that's not necessarily evil. It's an evolution. For businessmen and investors getting an accurate description of the world is critical. It's a question of survival for them. So they'll always pay for accurate news. So it won't disappear. It'll just be differently packaged. However that packaging ends up looking like.

I think in the long run the existence and spread of fake news will lead to an environment of more good ideas being spread and talked about. Which has always been good in general. The economist Richard Florida has done a lot of research on a culture of tolerance for weird ideas and wealth generation. There's a strong correlation.

I think people who call for regulation of news and wanting some government agency validate it for them is essentially wanting to go back to world of predominantly comforting lies. A world where the mess and chaos of life is hidden. But that's the illusion. That was always the illusion.

Here's my prediction. We'll see the rise of resources like Snopes. They'll be imbedded in our news sources. Just like Google translate asks if you want to translate a web page, we'll get a configurable service to validate a pieces truth value. Some AI will rate it according to an algorithm telling us that something is 89% true and it's up to us to decide if it's good enough.

I think that in the long run the rise of fake news will only be seen as a good thing. A transition to a new and better more well informed world. We'll look back in horror at the deluded 20'th century where even the countries with a free press swallow mostly bullshit all day.

Yay for fake news!

 

[bigfield]

Let me see if I understand this: you predict that the spread of fake news will create demand for major tech companies to provide us with services that tell us which news is true. I can see how that could turn out to be evil.

What I see is that most people are satisfied with the dubious news sources they have ready access to, now. A fact checker that says "this article is 12% accurate and heavily biased" on every Daily Mail article isn't going to dissuade people to stop reading the Daily Mail, it's going to make them turn off the "broken" fact checker.

For a small minority of people, such a fact checker service may help them build up a defence against fake news. Someone sends you a CNN article? No need to study it, the fact checker says it's only at 34% accuracy. Someone sends you a Fox News article and the fact checker says it's 90% accurate and mostly impartial? You ought to read it even if you distrust the source.

A transition to a new and better more well informed world. We'll look back in horror at the deluded 20'th century where even the countries with a free press swallow mostly bullshit all day.

This wouldn't make people better critical thinkers. It's Scepticism-as-a-Service. People would only swallow less bullshit because someone else is doing a better job if filtering the bullshit for them.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Let me see if I understand this: you predict that the spread of fake news will create demand for major tech companies to provide us with services that tell us which news is true. I can see how that could turn out to be evil.

Not quite. I predict that the spread of fake news will lead to a world without monolithic Truths (with a capital T). We will give up on the idea of a singular truth and accept truth as being something relative. Which is always was. It's just that we have been shielded from this reality until now. Having complete faith in something being sort of true has great potential for leading to evil. It's best if we stop having complete faith in anything. And instead adopt an attitude of reevaluating our beliefs often.

What I see is that most people are satisfied with the dubious news sources they have ready access to, now. A fact checker that says "this article is 12% accurate and heavily biased" on every Daily Mail article isn't going to dissuade people to stop reading the Daily Mail, it's going to make them turn off the "broken" fact checker.

For a small minority of people, such a fact checker service may help them build up a defence against fake news. Someone sends you a CNN article? No need to study it, the fact checker says it's only at 34% accuracy. Someone sends you a Fox News article and the fact checker says it's 90% accurate and mostly impartial? You ought to read it even if you distrust the source.

Sure. But don't you see how you are essentially arguing for a return to Christianity? Religion has often been used as a tool to make stupid people more manageable. And so are you now. You've just switched one religion for another.

And besides. It's not like we have a choice. This is where we're heading no matter what we think about it. Fake news isn't going away, no matter how much Facebook tells us they have filtered it out. The problem with partial filters is that it increases the impact of the bullshit that slips through the cracks. I follow several crackpot Facebook groups that churn out bullshit. I read them for the entertainment value. But it's till straight up bullshit, and Facebook lets them stay.

A transition to a new and better more well informed world. We'll look back in horror at the deluded 20'th century where even the countries with a free press swallow mostly bullshit all day.

This wouldn't make people better critical thinkers. It's Scepticism-as-a-Service. People would only swallow less bullshit because someone else is doing a better job if filtering the bullshit for them.

Yes. Both. I think.

 

[bigfield]

Not quite. I predict that the spread of fake news will lead to a world without monolithic Truths (with a capital T). We will give up on the idea of a singular truth and accept truth as being something relative. Which is always was. It's just that we have been shielded from this reality until now. Having complete faith in something being sort of true has great potential for leading to evil. It's best if we stop having complete faith in anything. And instead adopt an attitude of reevaluating our beliefs often.

Personally, I feel like the internet did that for me.

Before the internet, the news depth and diversity was just awful, so challenging ideas were less accessible. Some of the most damaging misinformation comes from long-established newspapers and TV networks.

Sure. But don't you see how you are essentially arguing for a return to Christianity? Religion has often been used as a tool to make stupid people more manageable. And so are you now. You've just switched one religion for another.

No, I don't understand how you think I argued that. It seemed like you were the one who was arguing for this new "religion" where big tech tells everyone what's true.

And besides. It's not like we have a choice. This is where we're heading no matter what we think about it. Fake news isn't going away, no matter how much Facebook tells us they have filtered it out. The problem with partial filters is that it increases the impact of the bullshit that slips through the cracks. I follow several crackpot Facebook groups that churn out bullshit. I read them for the entertainment value. But it's till straight up bullshit, and Facebook lets them stay.

That's a good point about partial filters.

 

[DrZoidberg]

No, I don't understand how you think I argued that. It seemed like you were the one who was arguing for this new "religion" where big tech tells everyone what's true.

Back when the church decided what was true nobody needed to argue about it. Just as the main public intellectuals 100 - 30 years ago decided what the bias of all the major newspapers should be.

Now there's no official line to hold. Its completely fractured.

 

[skepticalbip]

No, I don't understand how you think I argued that. It seemed like you were the one who was arguing for this new "religion" where big tech tells everyone what's true.

Back when the church decided what was true nobody needed to argue about it. Just as the main public intellectuals 100 - 30 years ago decided what the bias of all the major newspapers should be.

Now there's no official line to hold. Its completely fractured.

100 - 30 years ago (at least in the U.S.) newspapers were not all giving the same slant on the news. There were competing newspapers. I found it useful to read both a left leaning and a right leaning newspaper to try to figure out what really happened in any situation.

The problem with the identification of "fake news" is that people have become so partisan in their thinking that they see anything that favors the opposing partisan side as not true or 'fake news' so give it no consideration. It is kinda a propogandists dream. The left has come to assume that anything from the right is a lie and the right has come to assume that anything from the left is a lie... and alternately, anything they hear from their side is true.

 

[rousseau]

To me it sounds a bit over-simplified to call fake news a good thing. Probably it has, and will continue to have, both negative and positive impacts.

I think what we're really talking about isn't fake news, but a higher quantity of unregulated information that can move further and faster, and be targeted at specific populations. This ability is creating very real, covert warfare around the globe. So I think that's generally a bad thing, and needs to be stopped.

On the other hand, new information and ideas are seeping into totalitarian states which spurs human rights in these regions.

But on the whole information is now being weaponized, and that's definitely a problem. It's easy to think that because we have all of these fancy devices and technical abilities that we can overcome this, but maybe we can't and weaponized information is a very serious, and very new problem.

 

[steve_bank]

I think you are part of the global Zionist conspiracy to control the world. In fact I am sure of it.

Can you proves otherwise? The world is watching.

 

[bilby]

I think fake news is good

That's just what they want you to think.

 

[fromderinside]

Is false, fake, news (reports) even news?

Think of it this way:

There are signals, singular, like a specific audio frequency and there is noise, multiple random frequencies, noise. Both exist all the time in an acoustic field.

A sensor is placed in the field, its purpose to process signals. If one provides a sequence of pulses of information (single frequencies) at a very low level of it is place through a system that also generates a certain level of noise. The observer is asked to report only signals.

Observers can successfully perform this task if the signals are a bit more apparent in the noise existing in the acoustic field and in the receiving detector.

However if one introduces a bit of noise during the non signal intervals the observer often report the signal is continuous. In effect fake news is reported all the time if there is bits of random stuff mixed in with the actual signals. The only way to reduce this effect is to better control random information in the information chain.

Now you have a the basis for a protocol for controlling fake news noise in an information stream.

Treat fake news as noise and control it using standard noise reduction processes.

How about some solutions along the lines of this analogy.

One can: restrict noise in channel, increase the signal to noise ratio of actual information in the channel, buildup better detectors by improving the quality of their detectors.

Now its up to you to apply these thoughts.

Actually if one wants to go along with Dr. Zoidberg one would improve the qualities, increase signal to noise ratios, in the detector.

 

[blastula]

 

[DrZoidberg]

No, I don't understand how you think I argued that. It seemed like you were the one who was arguing for this new "religion" where big tech tells everyone what's true.

Back when the church decided what was true nobody needed to argue about it. Just as the main public intellectuals 100 - 30 years ago decided what the bias of all the major newspapers should be.

Now there's no official line to hold. Its completely fractured.

100 - 30 years ago (at least in the U.S.) newspapers were not all giving the same slant on the news. There were competing newspapers. I found it useful to read both a left leaning and a right leaning newspaper to try to figure out what really happened in any situation.

You just described a perfect example of what a false dichotomy is. Human psychology makes us think in opposites. So whatever one political side is, the other is the opposite. And our focus is drawn to that opposition. We just do this automatically. But it just means that all other dimensions are hidden. It creates a radically skewed picture of reality. But we like it, because it's simple to understand and makes the world manageable.

Back in the olden days when printing and news production was very expensive there were very few newspapers. It was easy for journalists to give the impression that they were on top of things. When conservatives complained about a conspiracy of the liberal media. It was actually true. Not because the liberal media were nefariously conspiring. But because they were close friends, went to each others parties and slept with each other. It created an insular and very one sided picture of the liberal cause. Especially troubling because good writers are predominantly recruited from the middle-class, and not working class. So they often ignored the most important issues of the group they're supposed to be championing. Which is why conservative support is common among the working class.

Another good example was news coverage during colonial times. From all sides of the news coverage the Brits were served a complete fantasy about the natives. Everybody was projecting their pet ideas onto the ruled people, using them as tools to fight local political battles. Which led to absurd and unworkable policies in the colonies.

This is just an example of how the media back in the day weren't at all good at covering all the bases. Reading both the liberal and conservative version of the story wouldn't at all give you a complete picture. It will give you a better picture. But far from the complete picture.

The problem with the identification of "fake news" is that people have become so partisan in their thinking that they see anything that favors the opposing partisan side as not true or 'fake news' so give it no consideration. It is kinda a propogandists dream. The left has come to assume that anything from the right is a lie and the right has come to assume that anything from the left is a lie... and alternately, anything they hear from their side is true.

Sure. You'll have no argument from me. I still think it's an improvement over what we had before. Which was being served comforting lies. At least this is glaring and obvious lies. I prefer the Wizard of Oz being visible, rather than hidden behind the curtain.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Is false, fake, news (reports) even news?

Nope. It's dressed up to look like news, without being news. It's a paradoxical name.

Think of it this way:

There are signals, singular, like a specific audio frequency and there is noise, multiple random frequencies, noise. Both exist all the time in an acoustic field.

A sensor is placed in the field, its purpose to process signals. If one provides a sequence of pulses of information (single frequencies) at a very low level of it is place through a system that also generates a certain level of noise. The observer is asked to report only signals.

Observers can successfully perform this task if the signals are a bit more apparent in the noise existing in the acoustic field and in the receiving detector.

However if one introduces a bit of noise during the non signal intervals the observer often report the signal is continuous. In effect fake news is reported all the time if there is bits of random stuff mixed in with the actual signals. The only way to reduce this effect is to better control random information in the information chain.

Now you have a the basis for a protocol for controlling fake news noise in an information stream.

Treat fake news as noise and control it using standard noise reduction processes.

How about some solutions along the lines of this analogy.

One can: restrict noise in channel, increase the signal to noise ratio of actual information in the channel, buildup better detectors by improving the quality of their detectors.

Now its up to you to apply these thoughts.

Actually if one wants to go along with Dr. Zoidberg one would improve the qualities, increase signal to noise ratios, in the detector.

Before we had a couple of institutions cleaning up the noise. Skewing the information spread. What I'm hoping for is a multitude of tools cleaning up the noise, giving us a much more accurate and better understanding of the world. A better mirror of what is actually going on. It's still going to be rather messy, chaotic and noisy, because that's how the world actually looks like.

 

[fromderinside]

One needs to improve education if one wants to improve fake noise discrimination reduction. Serious treatment of sources, interpreting communication, methods of reasoning, need be introduced, tested, and certified for students.

 

[DrZoidberg]

One needs to improve education if one wants to improve fake noise discrimination reduction. Serious treatment of sources, interpreting communication, methods of reasoning, need be introduced, tested, and certified for students.

Humanity has never before in our entire history been as educated as it is now. I find it unlikely we'll ever be more educated than this. If we can't deal with it now, it'll never happen. If we can't make it work with this extreme degree of a well educated populace then perhaps we should go back to Christianity and letting the priests be in control.

 

[Swammerdami]

Bewilderingly wrong.

100 - 30 years ago (at least in the U.S.) newspapers were not all giving the same slant on the news. There were competing newspapers. I found it useful to read both a left leaning and a right leaning newspaper to try to figure out what really happened in any situation.

You just described a perfect example of what a false dichotomy is. Human psychology makes us think in opposites. So whatever one political side is, the other is the opposite. And our focus is drawn to that opposition. We just do this automatically. But it just means that all other dimensions are hidden. It creates a radically skewed picture of reality. But we like it, because it's simple to understand and makes the world manageable.

Back in the olden days when printing and news production was very expensive there were very few newspapers....

... Another good example was news coverage during colonial times.

I'm often baffled by Dr. Z's opinions, but this thread is the bafflingest of all! My parents weren't into newspaper reading much, so we only subscribed to two papers. We could afford that because they were so cheap — I guess 60 years ago wasn't "the olden days."

For that matter, lots of people read at least 2 daily newspapers 120 years ago. Which "olden days" do you refer to, Dr. Z? The eras before Gutenberg invented the printing press? Just joking; I see that you only needed to go back to "colonial times."

My own ancestor was a newspaper publisher who self-described with "Give the people controversy. Have the courage to take sides on a question. Many people may then hate you but they always read what you have to say."

Do Fox Potatoes listen to what Rachel Maddow has to say?

Back in the olden days when printing and news production was very expensive there were very few newspapers.... Reading both the liberal and conservative version of the story wouldn't at all give you a complete picture. It will give you a better picture. But far from the complete picture.

The problem with the identification of "fake news" is that people have become so partisan in their thinking that they see anything that favors the opposing partisan side as not true or 'fake news' so give it no consideration. It is kinda a propogandists dream. The left has come to assume that anything from the right is a lie and the right has come to assume that anything from the left is a lie... and alternately, anything they hear from their side is true.

Sure. You'll have no argument from me. I still think it's an improvement over what we had before. Which was being served comforting lies. At least this is glaring and obvious lies. I prefer the Wizard of Oz being visible, rather than hidden behind the curtain.

It might behoove Dr. Z to give examples of "fake news", just to see if we're talking about the same thing.

In the U.S., fake news includes the notion that Hillary Clinton runs a child sex ring out of the basement of a popular Washington pizzeria. Several Americans didn't "get the joke," since one showed up firing an assault rifle in the pizzeria! BTW, I see where Tucker Carlson's lawyer is now using the same defense Alex Jones used! — Carlson can't be guilty of lying or slander because his shows are obviously just comedy!

Et cetera et cetera. Anyway, Dr. Z's conclusion is 100% wrong. In the past there was general agreement on the FACTS; people tended to also listen to 2 or more OPINIONS and then make up their own minds. Today, a huge number of LIES are spouted by FoxNews — so much so that the Fox Potatoes smart enough to know they're being lied to draw the wrong conclusion: that "the mainstream media" is lying just as bad as Fox. With facts defunct for many Americans, all that's left are opinions. All too often, opinions are themselves "fake" — they come from carnival barkers and pimps taking advantage of echo chambers.

The idea that today's news "is an improvement over what we had before" is completely off-base, bewilderingly wrong.

 

[skepticalbip]

The problem with the identification of "fake news" is that people have become so partisan in their thinking that they see anything that favors the opposing partisan side as not true or 'fake news' so give it no consideration. It is kinda a propogandists dream. The left has come to assume that anything from the right is a lie and the right has come to assume that anything from the left is a lie... and alternately, anything they hear from their side is true.

Sure. You'll have no argument from me. I still think it's an improvement over what we had before. Which was being served comforting lies. At least this is glaring and obvious lies. I prefer the Wizard of Oz being visible, rather than hidden behind the curtain.

News today is not news, it is political propaganda from both sides. What each political faction labels as 'fake news' is the propaganda of the other faction (but they accept as 'god's truth the propaganda from their faction). News in the mid 20th century actually contained some actual news but with the editorial slant of the paper's owners. People in the U.S. were actually informed of what was happening in the world outside the U.S.

What Trump and/or his supporters think of Biden is not news and what Biden and/or his supporters think of Trump is not news however it makes headlines and consumes hours of talking heads "debates". World news has all but vanished in coverage.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The problem with the identification of "fake news" is that people have become so partisan in their thinking that they see anything that favors the opposing partisan side as not true or 'fake news' so give it no consideration. It is kinda a propogandists dream. The left has come to assume that anything from the right is a lie and the right has come to assume that anything from the left is a lie... and alternately, anything they hear from their side is true.

Sure. You'll have no argument from me. I still think it's an improvement over what we had before. Which was being served comforting lies. At least this is glaring and obvious lies. I prefer the Wizard of Oz being visible, rather than hidden behind the curtain.

News today is not news, it is political propaganda from both sides. What each political faction labels as 'fake news' is the propaganda of the other faction (but they accept as 'god's truth the propaganda from their faction). News in the mid 20th century actually contained some actual news but with the editorial slant of the paper's owners. People in the U.S. were actually informed of what was happening in the world outside the U.S.

What Trump and/or his supporters think of Biden is not news and what Biden and/or his supporters think of Trump is not news however it makes headlines and consumes hours of talking heads "debates". World news has all but vanished in coverage.

I think you are a bit harsh. I think there's a difference between completely made up stories and stories that are heavily biased. Calling the later "fake news" is just part of the propaganda machine. It isn't actually fake news. I don't think anybody remotely sensible truly thinks that.

QAnon type beliefs are still a marginal activity

 

[skepticalbip]

News today is not news, it is political propaganda from both sides. What each political faction labels as 'fake news' is the propaganda of the other faction (but they accept as 'god's truth the propaganda from their faction). News in the mid 20th century actually contained some actual news but with the editorial slant of the paper's owners. People in the U.S. were actually informed of what was happening in the world outside the U.S.

What Trump and/or his supporters think of Biden is not news and what Biden and/or his supporters think of Trump is not news however it makes headlines and consumes hours of talking heads "debates". World news has all but vanished in coverage.

I think you are a bit harsh. I think there's a difference between completely made up stories and stories that are heavily biased. Calling the later "fake news" is just part of the propaganda machine. It isn't actually fake news. I don't think anybody remotely sensible truly thinks that.

QAnon type beliefs are still a marginal activity

Are you saying that the political faction you personally prefer only slants its "news" while the political faction you oppose only makes up its "news" from whole cloth?

Have you considered that maybe you have been swayed by the propagandists of one side more than the propagandists of the other?

 

[DrZoidberg]

News today is not news, it is political propaganda from both sides. What each political faction labels as 'fake news' is the propaganda of the other faction (but they accept as 'god's truth the propaganda from their faction). News in the mid 20th century actually contained some actual news but with the editorial slant of the paper's owners. People in the U.S. were actually informed of what was happening in the world outside the U.S.

What Trump and/or his supporters think of Biden is not news and what Biden and/or his supporters think of Trump is not news however it makes headlines and consumes hours of talking heads "debates". World news has all but vanished in coverage.

I think you are a bit harsh. I think there's a difference between completely made up stories and stories that are heavily biased. Calling the later "fake news" is just part of the propaganda machine. It isn't actually fake news. I don't think anybody remotely sensible truly thinks that.

QAnon type beliefs are still a marginal activity

Are you saying that the political faction you personally prefer only slants its "news" while the political faction you oppose only makes up its "news" from whole cloth?

Have you considered that maybe you have been swayed by the propagandists of one side more than the propagandists of the other?

I think everybody is about as guilty of this. I go out of my way to read news from other sources than Liberal sources. Just to challenge my own biases.

But Pizzagate was created by trolls on 4Chan. They made no secret about it. It was an exercise in proving how gullible people are. That clearly qualifies as fake news