
The godfather of fake news - happy-go-lucky
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/the_godfather_of_fake_news
======
AsyncAwait
There's been a whole bunch of fake news and it all started way before 2016.
I'd consider the whole premise of the Iraq War to be fake news, for example.
The only reason they don't start there is that the same media now talking
about fake news, helped to propagate them years earlier.

What made their fake news worse, is that it was propagated by supposedly
trustworthy sources, in a serious tone. This guy seems like such a clown that
you'd only "believe" him, if you're already predisposed to think these things
anyway.

~~~
mrtksn
Okay, I need to object here: You can't say that reported lies of the officials
are the same as fiction made by media even if the outcome was the same.

Media not doing good enough job to scrutinize public figures and officials are
fundamentally different from media that creates content that is intentionally
misleading or fake. One is screw up and the other one is fraud.

Are you going to be equally mad to a friend of yours who hears that your SO is
cheating on you and tells you what he heard(and the story turns out to be
incorrect) and a friend who makes up a story about your SO cheating on you?

~~~
AsyncAwait
> You can't say that reported lies of the officials are the same as fiction
> made by media even if the outcome was the same.

The notion that the media had no clue the official claims were thin seems
extremely dubious to me. They knew. Even the fact that they didn't make a big
deal out of not getting UN approval, or dismissing any doubters as unpatriotic
suggests otherwise. It was simply a case of not wanting to upset their owners
who in many cases stood to make a profit off the war, not wanting to seem
unpatriotic, wanting to maintain "access" to high-level officials and going to
the same parties as many of the officials they are supposedly watching over,
(a room full of reporters was laughing even as Bush was making "jokes" about
not being able to find WMDs), so there was simply no incentive to report the
truth.

You can see it to this day, it's not like oopps, the media has learned from
Iraq. They've been as gushy over military adventurism in Libya, Syria etc.

Luckily, the debate around Yemen is changing somewhat, if very slowly.

------
js8
I don't buy it. What is Mr. Blair doing is an equivalent of screaming "FIRE"
in a theater, and then "exposing" those stupid enough to run even if there is
no fire.

It reminds me of two Czech cinematographers who made a "documentary" \- Cesky
sen - where the premise was that they made fake advertising for a new fake
supermarket chain with things like large TVs for 5$ and so on, and then they
"exposed the consumerism" of people "stupid enough to believe it" to come in
droves for the mock opening.

I find this type of moralizing elitist and wrong. Garbage in, garbage out is
true for humans too. If you deliberately feed people misinformation, then you
have no right to complain (or feel morally superior) about bad decisions they
make.

~~~
walrus01
He writes stuff that is so over the top that it's obvious satire. Like The
Onion article about Congress demanding a retracting stadium style roof. If you
fall for an Onion article, you have noone to blame but your own gullibility
and ignorance.

[https://politics.theonion.com/congress-threatens-to-
leave-d-...](https://politics.theonion.com/congress-threatens-to-leave-d-c-
unless-new-capitol-is-1819566457)

From their About Us page:

"DISCLAIMER: America’s Last Line of Defense is a satirical publication that
uses the imagination of liberals to expose the extreme bigotry and hate and
subsequent blind gullibility that festers in right-wing nutjobs. We present
fiction as fact and our sources don’t actually exist. Names that represent
actual people and places are purely coincidental and all images should be
considered altered and do not in any way depict reality.

In other words, if you believe this crap you’re a real dumbass."

~~~
js8
I will repeat myself, but IMHO intent matters. Satire is fine if the goal is
to expose a problem in a playful way or to take a certain argument to an
extreme to expose hypocrisy.

Where it doesn't work is to show how people are stupid, while feeding them
wrong (but plausible from their POV) information. Yes, people are sometimes
stupid, but if you want to showcase that, I think there is plenty of material
to work with, you don't have to make things up.

It's like when police makes up a crime by entraping somebody, who wouldn't do
the crime otherwise. It is not helping society in any positive way.

~~~
walrus01
[https://www.theonion.com/fbi-uncovers-al-qaeda-plot-to-
just-...](https://www.theonion.com/fbi-uncovers-al-qaeda-plot-to-just-sit-
back-and-enjoy-c-1819576375)

~~~
js8
Exactly, this is a good example of what I am saying in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18576417](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18576417)

The Onion was wrong to publish that article. Now the poor people who are not
able to recognize satire will be left with an impression that America's
crumbling infrastructure is a bigger threat to American way of life than Al-
Qaeda. This threatens the funding for important counter-terrorism activities
of the FBI and Department of Homeland Security.

------
lotsofpulp
I’m not sure why we need another term, we already have lies, disinformation,
propaganda, fraud. News is something true, if it’s intentionally not true,
then I don’t see the point of using a new term with the word news in it.

------
robbywashere_
So is spreading intentional misinformation protected under free speech? What
if for instance someone were to write an article about this gentleman
something publicly shaming? That would be libel correct?

------
dexen
A news article mis-representing a satirical[1] publication as "fake news".
Expected better from BBC than going full meta-circular non-ironic, not-true
_news_.

Particularly damning is the "The birth of the term" infobox, where authors
complain > _The term 's meaning becomes fuzzy - it's also used to criticise
opinion, spin and propaganda_ \- while further adding to the fuzziness of term
"fake news" by mis-using it for satirical website.

\--

[1] [https://realorsatire.com/thelastlineofdefense-
org/](https://realorsatire.com/thelastlineofdefense-org/) and other.

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intralizee
I'm not even necessarily convinced the "non-fake" news is even good for
people. The presentation of how content is all together like google news is
possibly harmful to the human psych. As it's questionable how healthy it may
be for people to digest content of every different emotion together, all in
one sitting and it may even result in dehumanization subconsciously. I prefer
to read my news from sources targeting my specific areas of interest and not
see something negative when I'm subconsciously trying to be positive. I've
also noticed how it's easy to nurture a defeatist mentality with negative
news, the comments and just stumbling upon it without any intentions. News
just feels like advertising, marketing and with some agenda at this point in
my life. I think it should be irrational to assume the responsibility is on
normal everyday people to be aware of all this. Fake news just seems like
everyday "news" that is serving an agenda and is no different when it comes to
negativity brought into society.

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DyslexicAtheist
it's sad when you run a satire site and are labeled fake news simply because
people want to believe it (despite several fat warnings on the site that it's
all satire). if you follow Western comedians around these days many will point
out that comedy has become more difficult than ever.

people are even less able to recognize fake-news which were put forward by
their own governments. In the West there are many puppet masters too that pose
as investigative journalists (e.g. @pwnallthethings) but are most certainly in
the pocket of intelligence community.

Some noteworthy fake news to remember:

    
    
      - Saddam's Bombs? We'll Find Them (2003): https://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/20/opinion/saddam-s-bombs-we-ll-find-them.html
    
      - Why We Know Iraq Is Lying (2003): https://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/23/opinion/why-we-know-iraq-is-lying.html

------
keyle
Why is this story flagged?

------
paulpauper
why does The Onion not count as fake news?

~~~
js8
I think it is a moral responsibility of the satirist to make sure that, if
people misunderstand the satire, the result is harmless to them and society at
large. In particular, by not feeding the existing stereotypes.

It's like with any other prank. If it does a real harm, it is not funny
anymore.

