
Moral panic over fake news hides the real enemy – the digital giants - clydethefrog
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/08/blaming-fake-news-not-the-answer-democracy-crisis
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brighteyes
I don't agree with 100% of the article, but overall it is convincing. I've
been worrying about this stuff for a while, the article puts it into words
fairly well.

A lot of people don't trust "experts" anymore. The article touches on that, in
relation to climate change denial, etc. But I think there is also something
more specific there regarding science. Universities and colleges have become
very liberal, with hardly any conservatives left. The public is aware of this,
and constantly sees on the news the actions of progressives on campus
(demonstrations, censorship, etc.), while conservatives are in the closet
there. The downside to this liberal success is that the public image of
"scientist" is now tied to "liberal". When half the population does not trust
liberals, they won't trust scientists.

If scientists were as politically balanced as the general public, the general
public might trust them more. We might also have more conservative scientists
say "climate change isn't a partisan issue, I'm a conservative like you." With
the liberal dominance of academia, we've lost those things.

~~~
eropple
What is there to suggest that the arrow of causality is going in the way that
you imply?

Personally, I am fairly convinced that academia and science being "liberal"
is, I think, much more a characteristic of the underlying philosophies
involved than some externally-imposed groupthink. "Conservatism", at least the
modern variant, and "exploring and expanding knowledge for a greater good,
while entertaining ideas that you don't necessarily agree with" are literally
antithetical. I thought of myself as a conservative before I went to college
and realized that, hey, American conservatism is not only railing against
stuff like _observational science_ , but "morally" against the existence of
these fellow human beings who have done nothing wrong and deserve to exist.

So, yeah, maybe "the public" would trust academia and the whole "science"
thing more if it was More Conservative, but who's to say that it'd actually
_work_ as well? It's not like this stuff exists to tell people what they want
to hear--and the epistemic closure of the American conservative is such an
ideological purity test that if you're not telling them what they want to
hear, _you 're not conservative_. It's not on "science and academia" to break
itself for such a warped thing, is it?

~~~
godzillabrennus
I read The_Donald on reddit and they believe they are the only ones willing to
entertain ideas.

First, and most notably, they believe that being liberal means full
embracement of leftist group think like the USSR had during its communist
days. That is the most fundamental problem with reaching them since you can't
unmoor the thought of leftism from liberalism with them.

They believe the scientific community has become strangled by this
leftist/liberal ideology.

I'm not sure what happens next but I think it's bad for humanity. If half the
population needs a reminder on why science is good I guess they'll get it.
Usually that's mass death.

~~~
return0
> If half the population needs a reminder on why science is good I guess
> they'll get it.

I don't know if you looked at science lately, but the majority of the science
published is actually not-that-great, if not bad. The public SHOULD distrust
scientists - as well as most else.

~~~
enraged_camel
OK, I'll bite: who _should_ the public trust when it comes to science then, if
not scientists?

~~~
return0
The question is whether they should trust scientists about policy decisions,
not whenther they should trust scientists about science. Political/ideological
decisions don't have to rely on science, this "political scientism" is a very
recent thing. The entire 60s revolutions for example were primarily anti-
technology, anti-corporatism and anti-established science. Part of progress is
breaking up with established ideas, and that includes bad science (e.g. the
neoliberal economic approaches). This applies of course mostly to social
sciences, it's pretty pointless to fight the laws of physics

------
Gys
Conclusion:

'We need to make online advertising – and its destructive click-and-share
drive – less central to how we live, work and communicate. At the same time,
we need to delegate more decision-making power to citizens – rather than the
easily corruptible experts and venal corporations.'

So the very same people (the masses, everybody) that 'created' the ad driven
tech-giants by refusing to pay for anything, should have more decision power
?!

The fake news is a hot topic because it indicates people are easily influenced
by non-factual messages. More decisions by the public will only result in less
rational decisions. Making the world even more unpredictable.

~~~
hackuser
What do you suggest?

------
pcmaffey
In an attention economy, our attention is our greatest resource. The business
model of digital capitalism extracts our attention by whatever means it can.
And we give it to them, because we don't understand its true value.

------
acd
The consumption has shifted from plain old media TV, Radio and News papers
towards online social media with news feeds and blogs. Somehow along the way
critical qualitative journalism was lost. There is probably a democratic issue
there. Its noisy out there.

Just because it looks like a news site does not mean it is serious with deep
journalism behind it.

How do we make sure we consume news from good sources?

~~~
d0mine
It is worse than that. The disinformation is not accidental and it is not new
(it always dominated the traditional media it was just less prominent in the
social media). Ask yourself "who benefits" from a particular spin or a
narrative you see in the news online.

Who benefits from the climate change denial? Who benefits from the war with
Iraq (or with other "Evil Enemy du Jour")? Who benefits from religious
conflicts, immigration crisis? Who benefits from the existence of "too big to
fail" financial institution? ...

------
potatosoup
The sudden obsession with "fake news" started last November after the
election. Why then?

The big media also seems very discontent that Trump uses social media to
communicate his news with people directly, bypassing the middlemen.

~~~
mcintyre1994
Yup, I'm still trying to figure out if this whole thing is overblown or people
actually consider things they see on Facebook to be reliable. I've never seen
a news article on Facebook that wasn't by a news source I already knew about,
and considered that to be reliable. Facebook just doesn't optimise for that,
obviously. It just seems so obvious that the content on Facebook around news
is and always has been trash that I'm amazed if enough people actually took it
seriously enough for it to matter in the election.

~~~
yellow_viper
I'm also concerned about who gets to decide what fake news is and filter it
out. The 'real news' networks barely covered any of the DNC leaks

~~~
hackuser
> The 'real news' networks barely covered any of the DNC leaks

That is not true at all. Fox covered it heavily, as far as I know; the New
York Times and Washington Post both seemed to publish a new articles on the
topic daily; CNN seemed to cover it heavily. Who didn't cover that story?

~~~
rokosbasilisk
Cnn covered the dnc leaks in a extraordinary biased way. Telling people it was
illegal for them to view it themselves.

Also the huffington post, cnn, msnbc, wapo, and nytimes did not cover it
objectively. I hear tons of complaints from Bernie Supporters still to this
day on campus.

~~~
hackuser
> Cnn covered the dnc leaks in a extraordinary biased way. Telling people it
> was illegal for them to view it themselves.

I find this hard to believe. Can you back up any of these claims?

~~~
grzm
Chris Cuomo on CNN:

 _“Also interesting is, remember, it’s illegal to possess these stolen
documents. It’s different for the media. So everything you learn about this,
you’re learning from us.”_

This has been interpreted by some as you can't view or read them, as you
likely need to download them, at least in your browser, to be able to view
them.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-
conspiracy/wp/201...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-
conspiracy/wp/2016/10/17/remember-its-illegal-to-possess-wikileaks-clinton-
emails-but-its-different-for-the-media-says-cnns-chris-cuomo/)

~~~
hackuser
EDIT: To consolidate the discussion, see

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13353131](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13353131)

------
eruditely
As far as I can tell, there is no such thing as "fake news" and either is some
overt scheme to breed dissent, or some foolish attempt at doing away the
relevance of their enemies, either way it lacks ingenuity and is probably one
of the worst ploys ever created to convince the public of what i'm not sure.

Ask, Who does this benefit? What do they seek to acquire? Who does this hurt
credibility wise?

