
Microsoft's mobile Edge browser begins issuing fake news warnings - jmsflknr
http://www.engadget.com/2019/01/23/microsoft-edge-mobile-fake-news/
======
galadran
NewsGuard gives a red mark for Wikileaks, but a green tick for Fox News. I
think we're done here.

[https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1084876278065446913](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1084876278065446913)

On NewsGuard's advisory board, 5 of the 7 slots are taken by people who have
held high level posts in US Intelligence and other state affairs.

If NewsGuard was just being rolled out to the USA, I'd still consider it
horribly biased, but its a complete joke to make it on by default for the
entire world.

~~~
crocodiletears
Slanted though it may be, Fox's reporting is generally about as on the level
as their contemporaries, and their written articles are a notable step up from
their tv coverage.

They've even received some praise from Sy Hearsh for having what he saw as one
of the most promising investigative teams in the industry (I'll have to find
the interview later today and update the comment with a link).

I do question the wikileaks rating, but wikileaks isn't a news site, and
everything they publish ought to be a matter of 'buyer beware'.

I also question Microsoft's decision to include the plugin at all. I'd rather
not have an arbiter of truth looking over my shoulders, reminding me what i
should or shouldn't read.

~~~
hahamrfunnyguy
That's true to a degree, though I still feel like a good portion of the
stories are missing details. Their bias really comes out with the stores that
they are (and aren't covering).

~~~
stronglikedan
> Their bias really comes out with the stores that they are (and aren't
> covering).

Which, in my experience, "is generally about as on the level as their
contemporaries", just concerning different stories and the way they're spun.

------
ilaksh
Who decides which sites have "real" news and which sites have "fake" news?

A big thing missing from these discussions is the history of propaganda. I
think a lot of people who are worried about "fake news" need to research that
term.

Propaganda is still very prevalent especially as far as war goes. Do people
really think that CNN tells them the real reasons for going to war? They will
say whatever the Pentagon tells them. Why? Because no one is going to risk
their lives and kill other people for some technical, strategic reason or just
as part of a larger military campaign. People risk their lives to fight the
"bad guys" who are "evil". They need to believe its a moral cause.

Don't let some giant company (or a small one) dictate what source your
information comes from. If I used a Microsoft browser I would uninstall that
plugin. Assuming that's an option.

~~~
matt4077
Check the Daily Mail, which apparently runs afoul of this plugin, and compare
it to the NYT, or Economist.

If you can‘t immediately spot the difference, you may be a late victim of
post-modern relativism.

They also have transparent documentation of their ratings. Example:
[https://www.newsguardtech.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/07/rt....](https://www.newsguardtech.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/07/rt.com_.pdf)

~~~
whatshisface
> _If you can‘t immediately spot the difference, you may be a late victim of
> post-modern relativism._

The claim is not that all news is equally true; that would be ridiculous. The
claim is that lists of trusted sources are ripe for abuse by the list-makers.

Consider this evil plan: suppose that I put a grassroots issue blog on the
same list as 100 fake publications. Everyone will believe me, because, look: I
was right one hundred times! That problem can even arise without intentional
evil on the part of the list makers, just look at the history of spam
blacklists. People, even teams of people, are not one hundred percent just one
hundred percent of the time.

(I just called something evil, and you can't get any less postmodernist than
that! ;)

~~~
Bartweiss
> _suppose that I put a grassroots issue blog on the same list as 100 fake
> publications_

Worth noting that _PropOrNot_ already exists, and got a lot of positive
coverage before people started to get suspicious. Its model was almost
precisely what you describe: providing extensive lists of clearly Russia-
affiliated sources like Sputnik News, then including a handful of high-quality
domestic gadflies like _Naked Capitalism_ without any justification.

This isn't just a hypothetical risk of such tools, its already an active
problem on these exact topics.

------
partiallypro
I think the main problem with these sorts of measures is two fold:

a) who gets to decide what constitutes "fake news," would the BuzzFeed story
that the Special Council discredited be considered "fake news?" If not, why?
How would that story be different than any other that's fake?

b) The idea of labeling "fake news" often emboldens believers of fake news to
think of some grand conspiracy to hide the truth.

Another thing is that the "fake news" scare is largely a farce. A recent study
showed that people that share fake news are largely older...well, that's what
the headlines highlighted. However, in the actual study they found sharing of
fake news to be incredibly low and not really even terribly common.

I think the thing I most fear in media, is not obvious fake news sites, it's
actual journalists rushing to judgement or being told by and editor they need
click/engagement numbers up (this happens, I've worked in multiple news
rooms.)

What I call "outrage culture" is largely a corporate creation to drive
clicks/viewership and social engagement, because current media models need
this sort of thing. If you ever go through media training for cable news (I
have) they will tell you to play things up. They also often don't go after
level headed people, they want conflict. Conflict gets viewers and viewers get
ad dollars.

That to me, is a far bigger threat...not only because it divides us, but
because it discredits the media itself in the minds of many, on actual
important stories. So in those cases, people do turn to alternative (or
overtly partisan) media sources...and that's where "fake news" often breeds
and feeds off of.

I think if we really want to battle "fake news" we need to be reevaluating
business models of media companies. News should not be something people "hate
watch" or "hate click" because what they are watching is so divisive or
nonsensical. The media is really its own worst enemy here.

~~~
dfxm12
_would the BuzzFeed story that the Special Council discredited be considered
"fake news?"_

For better or worse, this product judges _sources_ , not _individual stories_.
FWIW, Buzzfeed News lets their readers know, right in the lede, that this
particular story is disputed by Mueller. As others have mentioned in this
thread, a hard definition for "fake news" is hard to pinpoint, but
disreputable sources certainly don't own up to mistakes like this.

------
throw2016
Anything like this is essentially trying to set up a 'ministry of truth' which
is a propaganda operation itself.

The kind of structures and thinking you would need to create this challenge
fundamental ideas of dissent, free speech and democracy at which point you
should stop and question your objectives, but of course if its not in good
faith that won't bother you.

------
est31
This is very interesting. We are seeing a shift of browsers from being neutral
tools to actively influencing the content that users see.

* Firefox about:newtab pocket links

* Brave browser replacing ads

* Edge shipping NewsGuard

With this content curation going on, will there be one day a Fox news browser
and a CNN browser?

~~~
annadane
I wouldn't include Firefox in this _just_ yet, a lot of people still trust
Mozilla (who nevertheless still have to be very careful not to lose that
trust)

~~~
fxfan
Call me when they actually start caring about end users and ship ublock origin
by default and stop their ad 'experiments'. And I am a Firefox user. Since
2006. But because they are the least bad browser (by far). Not because they
are good.

------
sudomakeup
I wonder if this system would have flagged evidence of Iraq WMD's as fake
news? Or is it something primitive that just asserts that anything != CNN et.
al. is fake news?

~~~
ilaksh
It just gives blanket credence to everything CNN publishes. That is because
CNN is a controlled media. The media is actually an important part of warfare.
WMD was the official propaganda for the Iraq war.

~~~
isostatic
Which the media reported was exageration

------
moonshinefe
Maybe we should start thinking for ourselves what is "fake" or not by, you
know, independently thinking. Not relying on some "truth-o-meter" feeded to us
by the browser by a bunch of people who we know little about.

This is not a good move and it's not the job of the web browser, as others
have pointed out.

------
ravenstine
This really isn't the job of a web browser.

------
samcday
ITT: a lot of criticism toward NewsGuard. Though it does seem that it has some
pretty glaring flaws.

I'm curious what ideas people have to combat the problem more effectively?
Solutions like "people should just l2thinkcritically" don't seem practical to
me.

I think crowdsourced approaches will just degenerate into partisan feuds.
Relying on a central authority just paves the way for the nation-
states/illuminati/"globalists"/evil-sentient-penguins to manipulate public
opinion on a grand scale. So, what else is there?

~~~
zanny
The fairness doctrine by the FCC had a lot of issues but simply removing it
with no replacement sowed the seeds for blatant manipulation of people via
media and "news".

There are a scant few independent non-profits I'd consider trusting with
determining "fairness" or fact. The US government certainly isn't qualified
anymore with how corrupted and disconnected from the people it is,
corporations by definition are amoral, and power corrupts. Giving anyone the
determination of what is "fake" makes them a vector for exploitation and
abuse.

The answer should be you need a new, legitimately representative and
democratic government, to oversee regulation on those who claim to be news in
order to more closely guarantee honesty. Thats a bit bigger of a problem to
approach than the mass-deception and manipulation of a society by monied
interests, though.

~~~
samcday

      The answer should be you need a new, legitimately representative and democratic government
    

We went from “how do we improve the media situation?” to “we need revolution”
awfully fast!

Jokes aside, you might be right. If you are though, it probably means we won’t
make any meaningful strides towards a better system for quite a while.

~~~
zanny
Its why anything political, which ends up being just about everything, feels
like a distraction. All these problems fundamentally trace back to a lack of
representation and influence in government by the commoner, and that requires
radical alterations to the government to give them their voice/back.
Everything else is just speculative hearsay about what ifs and could bes.

------
tzs
Business Insider has a nice article that simply shows the summary for a whole
bunch of common sites (NYT, Fox, WP, Guardian, WSJ, National Review, NY Post,
Daily News, Federalist, Economist, Breitbart, Daily Kos, RT, Times of Israel,
BI, Huffington Post, Al Jazeera, Bloomberg, BuzzFeed, MSNBC, AP, Daily Beast,
TMZ, Splinter, Vice News, Forbes, LA Times, Time, and BBC)

[https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-web-browser-
fake-n...](https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-web-browser-fake-news-
how-it-works-2019-1)

Looking over the results for those sites, it seems reasonably fair as far as
left vs. right goes. I see both liberal and conservative sites covered, and in
both groups see sites with perfect ratings and sites with terrible ratings and
site in between.

Edit: Implementation wise, this thing is really well done. I installed the
Firefox version, and when I visit a site that it has info on, the green/red
summary shows up, and clicking that gives details, as would be expected, and
that was all I expected.

What I didn't expect is that when I'm in Google news, it puts the indicator
beside the source name on each story. It also does this on Google search
results. It's also working with Bing search results.

------
josefresco
Found this reply to the wikileaks twitter post*

"So let's educate people that the green tick means fake news and red means
trustworthy"

This is what we're dealing with folks - people who push conspiracy theories to
the detriment of society. It makes sense coming from the wikileaks crowd but
it's infecting the entire culture.

See also those that oppose/reject the Polio vaccine.

*[https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1084876278065446913](https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1084876278065446913)

------
sandymcmurray
It feels like the time is right for a snopes.com for daily news, but it would
need trustworthy gatekeepers and a big budget.

I think wikitribune.com is doing something interesting: providing permanence
to news stories. Most media cover "breaking news" as quickly as possible, with
whatever facts are available, but have no time or space for follow-up or
analysis. (Hey, remember that big story from last year (whatever it was)? What
happened to those people?)

~~~
CM30
The issue is likely speed; it takes much longer to debunk a fake or incorrect
story than to publish the story to begin with. And in a world where social
media is seen as a primary news source (unfortunately), a story is basically
seen as 'settled' approximately X hours after being published, if that.

You would need an absolute ton of resources, and even that probably wouldn't
be enough to fact check the entire online media in anything close to real
time.

------
JdeBP
A related item is
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18977365](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18977365)
, on NewsGuard's "nutrition label" for the _Daily Mail_.

------
diminish
Twitter is full of endless fraud phishing ads. I report and report but they
pop up back again.

If we can detect fake news, why can't Twitter detect fraudulent ads?

~~~
ilaksh
They can't detect fake news. Its just a way to put a rubber stamp on
government-controlled (when it comes to certain stories) media sites and
suppress sites that are not.

------
sam0x17
This could actually have a big impact as the ones who believe fake news are
likely the ones using Edge.

------
ryanmarsh
What's to stop powerful or wealthy people from pressuring, or subverting this?

------
fawelo123
How surprising NewsGuard runs fingerprinting scripts on their homepage.

Very trustable.

------
pmarreck
You can't just "enforce correct news" because people will just accuse it of
being part of the left-wing media conspiracy (which is, largely but not
completely, a fallacy).

EDIT: Not sure why downvotes (currently at -4). Here is what typically happens
when I try to point to "facts" (linked assertions) that invalidate someone's
point:

1) Person says bullshit

2) I show person link from credible source that seems to invalidate the
bullshit

At this point one of 5 things invariably happens: A) The source I linked to is
not read, wasting my time B) The goalposts are now moved to some OTHER
bullshit assertion C) The source is accused of being "bought and paid for"
(this literally happened to me when I was blocked by someone on Facebook for
using factcheck and politifact links). D) "Wikipedia is editable by anyone!"
E) "That's just MSM conspiracy talk!"
[https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFalla...](https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/74/Conspiracy_Theory)

We have a situation where the far-left and the far-right (but mostly the far-
right) are basically being gaslighted by their sources of media.

Maybe the solution is not to enforce The One And True Source Of Facts, but to
_teach people how to fucking lose an argument gracefully._ Or at least, to
"compete" on rational/empirical grounds. And gracefully win or lose on those
grounds, and not just on "what I believe".

And, for the record (and to my point), regarding the "news is slightly left-
wing-biased" claim, third-party media bias reviewers have all rated the major
news sources, at least in the U.S. (ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN) as left-leaning, save
for Faux News of course.

[https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/nbc-news/](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/nbc-
news/) [https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/abc-
news/](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/abc-news/)
[https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cbs-news/](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cbs-
news/)
[https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cnn/](https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/cnn/)

~~~
wil421
I was happy when the Fake News stuff started to take off. Then I saw
politicians use it anytime they wanted to discredit something, especially
legitimate criticism.

~~~
sudomakeup
Thats how I feel about russia-gate. "Criticizing the corporate democrats and
exposing their records? You must be a russian shill!"

------
yzb
I am terrified of Microsoft going this route, since they make my OS of choice.
I could expect Google doing this kind of stuff, like deciding what sites I can
visit or what people I can contact using Gmail (examples that have yet to
happen, but wouldn't surprise me), but Microsoft? They've always been
uninterested in politics, or so it seemed. What if they decide to push this
kind of political stuff in their OS?

~~~
pixl97
The biggest problem with any large corporation being a arbitrator of truth, is
the only truth they truly believe in is they should always make more profit at
the end of the day. With whatever technical and political means they have,
they will make that happen. With the massive amount of data collected at an
individual level they have a large amount of potential power when it comes to
influencing others towards their will.

