steven36 Posted December 19, 2015 Share Posted December 19, 2015 In a sign that the internet is indeed the end of all good and rational thoughts, The Washington Post has thrown in the towel on its "What was fake on the Internet this week" column. In what it said would be its final column Friday, columnist Caitlin Dewey revealed that, as with many things online these days, the internet has out-crazied the crazy. "There is nothing – NOTHING – too crazy for the Internet hoax beat," she starts, before noting that when the column started a mere 82 weeks ago (can you even remember what the internet was like in 2014?) the online world was a rosy picture of urban legends and pranks. Absurd nonsense that was fun. "Light-hearted, silly things." Now, with the boom in social media, Facebook likes, and a general sense that society has given up altogether in even caring if something is true so long as it's shareable, there is no place for a column that says "this here is utter nonsense." Dewey points out that the enormous rise in fake news in the past year or so has come complete with a ready acceptance that it is fake. "Where debunking an Internet fake once involved some research, it's now often as simple as clicking around for an 'about' or 'disclaimer' page," she notes. Unpleasant What's worse is that fake news has taken on a much more unpleasant tone, with people creating fake news stories in order to reflect their own hatred and prejudices. Just this week, the seemingly accepted fact that the San Bernardino shooters had posted their devotion to the Islamic State in a public Facebook post moments before shooting 14 of their co-workers was revealed to have been a complete fallacy. And if it hadn't been the FBI saying as much, you can imagine that most people would have continued to believe it. Dewey references the "Casey Anthony found dismembered in truck" fake story. Anthony, if you don't remember, was the young woman who was acquitted of the murder of her two-year-old daughter despite what looked like suspicious behavior and her repeatedly changing her story (she was found guilty on four counts of providing false information and was sentenced to four years in jail). But there have been many, many other fake news stories, and Dewey reckons it's because they have become profitable. "Since early 2014, a series of Internet entrepreneurs have realized that not much drives traffic as effectively as stories that vindicate and/or inflame the biases of their readers. Where many once wrote celebrity death hoaxes or 'satires,' they now run entire, successful websites that do nothing but troll convenient minorities or exploit gross stereotypes." Some of these fake sites are truly unpleasant. Take Now8News which posts ridiculous, usually unpleasant news stories but often crosses the line from humor into conflating stereotypes and aggressively mocking people, complete with real mugshots of people. World News Daily Report is a slick site that purposefully treads a fine line between believable and outrageous. Its content is often xenophobic and racist. Like And then there is the speed with which news is spread though non-professional outlets – people's shared Facebook updates; retweets. Following the gun attack in Paris in November, an enormous number of seemingly true stories spread like wildfire. The Eiffel Tower was dimmed (no it wasn't); Donald Trump tweeted a tasteless comment about gun control (for once, he wasn't being offensive and was referring to the previous Paris attack); Uber's surge pricing never happened, and so on. There was so much of it that NPR ran a story on the fact there was so much false news. "Frankly, this column wasn't designed to address the current environment," says Dewey. "This format doesn't make sense." In short, there is too much fake news and so many people revel in producing it that the concept of debunking seems, in her words, "pointless." As one researcher who has looked into this phenomenon sadly recounted: "People who fall for hoax news stories are frequently only interested in consuming information that conforms with their views – even when it's demonstrably fake." Spread And so the "What was fake on the internet this week" column is no more. The bigger issue, though, may not actually be why the internet has become such a ready purveyor of knowingly false information dressed up as truth, but rather what impact that shift has had on us as a society. You need only tune into the campaign for the very few candidates that are vying for, and will become, the most powerful person on the planet – the President of the United States – to see that being wrong, provably wrong, and almost instantly provably wrong, appears to be less important than getting attention. In that sense, the small column pointing out fake news could be taken as a canary in the coal mine. Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vibranium Posted December 19, 2015 Share Posted December 19, 2015 True, accepting "facts" posted on the internet at face value, is dangerous. Even Wiki can have a lot of stupid info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted December 19, 2015 Administrator Share Posted December 19, 2015 The news media has been publishing fake stories or stories with no background check since ages. Here in India, most of the mainstream news outlets are owned, directly or indirectly by one political party. Not making a political debate here, but it means, anything they publish or show, they have to make sure they do not hurt the feelings of their owners. So much so that they are ready to publish news that are misguided, fake, unchecked, unconfirmed and giving misinformation about matters. Of course, this is when the fake news sellers come, these people spread some fake information which catches the eye of everyone, including mainstream media and everyone goes berserk over it, without checking the integrity of the source or checking anything atall. So what happens when someone questions these idiots. The freedom of press and freedom of expression gets played and everyone gets mad over it, without understanding the reason behind it. This needs to stop somehow somewhere. How, I do not know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humble3d Posted December 19, 2015 Share Posted December 19, 2015 Many of these so called fake stories are real life experiences mainstream media refuses to tell... Mainstream media is part of what is dumbing people down... Mainstream media believe ignorance is bliss... Anyone who knows anyone who works with the public can vet the notion that many of these so called fake stories did, in fact, happen... What do you believe ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GRiM Posted December 19, 2015 Share Posted December 19, 2015 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted December 19, 2015 Author Share Posted December 19, 2015 One thing was back in the old days before the internet . The press used video cameras and its kind of hard to hide the truth from them. now days its like you to take stuff at face value true are not. with no real proof, unless it was recorded with a video camera. Microsoft is one the worse ones to spread fake news to promote there products , In fact alot may be just based on what one person said at some forum or site. A good example of how fake news gets started . Microsoft pays people to say how great there products are and the press eat it up and they brainwash people into believing it . I'm sorry but take windows 10 for example if something can harvest all you're data , spy on you and is not really stable yet how can it be great ? That means any vendor could make there paid products free and put spyware and backdoors in them and its OK just because its free . Then they pay the press to say how great the spyware is . That's taking advantage of freedom of press and people that don't have money to buy things . Microsoft has been paying for positive Xbox One reviews on YouTube OK if Microsoft has been paying people off to spread fake news. That's deceit. .. http://ps4daily.com/2015/09/microsoft-paid-reviews/ So mainstream media reporting fake news.is far worse than any tabloid rag site posting it .Because most us know not to believe tabloid rags to began with. They were around way before the internet existed . People have always wanted to believe in something that's simply not true. What makes it so bad is the fact its crossed over into mainstream media . And a lot people believe everything they read if its true are not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humble3d Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 On 12/19/2015 at 4:50 PM, steven36 said: One thing was back in the old days before the internet . The press used video cameras and its kind of hard to hide the truth from them. now days its like you to take stuff at face value true are not. with no real proof, unless it was recorded with a video camera. Microsoft is one the worse ones to spread fake news to promote there products , In fact alot may be just based on what one person said at some forum or site. A good example of how fake news gets started . Microsoft pays people to say how great there products are and the press eat it up and they brainwash people into believing it . I'm sorry but take windows 10 for example if something can harvest all you're data , spy on you and is not really stable yet how can it be great ? That means any vendor could make there paid products free and put spyware and backdoors in them and its OK just because its free . Then they pay the press to say how great the spyware is . That's taking advantage of freedom of press and people that don't have money to buy things . Microsoft has been paying for positive Xbox One reviews on YouTube OK if Microsoft has been paying people off to spread fake news. That's deceit. .. http://ps4daily.com/2015/09/microsoft-paid-reviews/ So mainstream media reporting fake news.is far worse than any tabloid rag site posting it .Because most us know not to believe tabloid rags to began with. They were around way before the internet existed . People have always wanted to believe in something that's simply not true. What makes it so bad is the fact its crossed over into mainstream media . And a lot people believe everything they read if its true are not. It's what the "bust men" or "Fuzz" or "special ops cops" call COUNTER INTELLIGENCE... Don't confuse the masses with the facts they say... Keep them (us) dumb is their mantra... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted December 23, 2015 Author Share Posted December 23, 2015 1 hour ago, humble3d said: It's what the "bust men" or "Fuzz" or "special ops cops" call COUNTER INTELLIGENCE... Don't confuse the masses with the facts they say... Keep them (us) dumb is their mantra... For years i didn't even read the news hardly or even cared and really my life was better without it , The world didn't stop spinning without it . When you get into the main stream news vs the conspiracy theories . I don't see much difference in it today . by the time main stream makes it politically correct its a whole different story . Then you have so many political points of views they be arguing over witch one is correct . The world is like one big drama stage with the internet . Its always been that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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