while the ecosystem contained easily identifiable and intentional fabrication, it contained much, much more of something else.
.. The overarching claims of the story were disingenuous and horrifying; the facts it included had been removed from all useful context and placed in a new, sinister one; its insinuating mention of “Muslim martyrs,” in proximity to mentions of Mr. Khan’s son, and its misleading and strategic mention of Shariah law, amounted to a repulsive smear. It was a story that appealed to bigoted ideas and that would clearly appeal to those who held them.
This was a story the likes of which was an enormous force in this election, clearly designed to function well within Facebook’s economy of sharing. And it probably would not run afoul of the narrow definition of “fake news.”
.. .. criticism of Mr. Trump was instantly projected back at his opponent, or at the critics themselves. “No puppet. No puppet. You’re the puppet.”
.. This tactic was used on the language of social justice, which was appropriated by opponents and redeployed nihilistically, in an open effort to sap its power while simultaneously taking advantage of what power it retained. Anti-racists were cast as the real racists. Progressives were cast as secretly regressive on their own terms.
.. It didn’t matter that its targets knew that it was a bad-faith maneuver, a clear bid for power rather than an attempt to engage or reason.
.. “Fake news” as shorthand will almost surely be returned upon the media tenfold.
Anyone interested in building tools for showing bias in news?
First of all, I’m interested in what you think a news publication free of bias would look like. Would it be a straight recitation of factual occurrences? That would be useless, right? How would you decide which story gets a big headline? Which detail gets included?
Second, the USA Right in general has completely broken with the idea that there is any such thing as “fact” that matters. Evidence, etc. is irrelevant. Look at the Right’s views on climate change, etc. I’m sure there are people on Hacker News etc. who will be like “now you’re just being a Bias Liberal!” if I don’t say “the Left has its problems too” but the Left’s problems, such as they are, are the traditional problems of political parties: maybe the Left’s policy prescriptions won’t work, maybe their need to maintain a coalition means they aren’t able to address Problem P, etc.
The Right in the USA is unique in having decided that there is no evidentiary standard high enough when Rightist positions conflict with reality. So removing bias from news sources and ensuring everything is quite factual won’t affect the ~40% or so of the USA
.. I am not interested in unbiased news sources. I am interested in showing alternately biased news source so that you can develop your own opinion. Even showing snippets of alternate views superposed on the same article can help people a bit.
How the Internet Is Loosening Our Grip on the Truth
In a 2008 book, I argued that the internet would usher in a “post-fact” age. Eight years later, in the death throes of an election that features a candidate who once led the campaign to lie about President Obama’s birth, there is more reason to despair about truth in the online age.
.. Psychologists and other social scientists have repeatedly shown that when confronted with diverse information choices, people rarely act like rational, civic-minded automatons. Instead, we are roiled by preconceptions and biases, and we usually do what feels easiest — we gorge on information that confirms our ideas, and we shun what does not.
.. There is also the looming specter of Photoshop: Now, because any digital image can be doctored, people can freely dismiss any bit of inconvenient documentary evidence as having been somehow altered.
.. But that hasn’t quite happened. Today dozens of news outlets routinely fact-check the candidates and much else online, but the endeavor has proved largely ineffective against a tide of fakery.
.. That’s because the lies have also become institutionalized. There are now entire sites whose only mission is to publish outrageous, completely fake news online (like real news, fake news has become a business). Partisan Facebook pages have gotten into the act; a recent BuzzFeed analysis of top political pages on Facebook showed that right-wing sites published false or misleading information 38 percent of the time, and lefty sites did so 20 percent of the time.
.. “In many ways the debunking just reinforced the sense of alienation or outrage that people feel about the topic, and ultimately you’ve done more harm than good,” she said.
Donald Trump Dismisses Latest Accuser: ‘Oh, I’m Sure She’s Never Been Grabbed Before’
Donald J. Trump on Monday disparaged the latest woman to accuse him of touching her inappropriately, dismissing her as a “porn star” and saying sarcastically, “Oh, I’m sure she’s never been grabbed before.”
The comment was a response to the accuser, Jessica Drake, who over the weekend accused Mr. Trump of groping and kissing her without her permission in 2006. He also, she said, offered her $10,000 to go to his hotel room.
.. said the polls themselves were biased, all of it, he said, amounting to voter suppression.
“It’s called voter suppression because people will say, ‘Oh, gee, Trump’s down,’” Mr. Trump told the crowd, before reminding it, “Well, folks, we’re winning.”
.. Toward that end, Mr. Trump’s campaign will begin airing its own form of programming on Facebook Live, offering daily reports from campaign officials on what it says is the real state of the race.
.. “There’s no way any of those polls are real,” said Bill Stelling, 44, a real estate agent from Jacksonville, Fla. “If you’ve gone around throughout the country and seen what’s going on, you go through any neighborhood and see how many Trump signs there are and how many Hillary signs there are, and I guarantee you it’s not even going to be close. It’s not even going to be close.”