
Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial - hvo
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/opinion/mark-zuckerberg-is-in-denial.html?ref=opinion&_r=0
======
dariusm5
Considering that American's trust in mainstream media is an all time low [1],
I'm sure there is a big demand for alternative news. I'm not surprised people
are looking for content that fits their narrative and end up reading fake
articles.

As someone observing from Mexico, I noticed almost all of the mainstream US
media became an echo chamber for pro-Clinton content. I only realized this
after after seeing how Sanders was sabotaged and the media collectively tried
to bury it. Here in Mexico it's a similar situation with a few big media
outlets protecting the corrupt status quo.

[1] [http://www.gallup.com/poll/185927/americans-trust-media-
rema...](http://www.gallup.com/poll/185927/americans-trust-media-remains-
historical-low.aspx)

~~~
pweissbrod
What defines a 'mainstream' media outlet anyways?

There were a handful of news outlets thoroughly reporting issues between DNC
and Bernie Sanders such as Huffington Post and al-jazeera.

I suppose these are not 'mainstream'? Perhaps mainstream media is defined by
having a dedicated TV channel, or at least primetime TV show? Isnt it almost
customary for such outlets to prioritize ratings over comprehensive coverage?

~~~
lujim
Who knows the definition, but I can tell you who is included. ABC, NBC, CBS,
CNN.... Watching the anchors on these channels respond to Trumps performance
on election night was jaw dropping. I was amazed that they weren't even going
to try to pretend that they were impartially covering this election. I've
always known the Fox and msnbc were a joke, but I have zero confidence in a
single US based news outlet after this election.

BTW Huffington Post stands out as an exceptionally huge steaming pile of
partisan garbage as well.

------
ThomPete
I don't believe he is in denial at all.

In fact the article strikes me as more of the same reason why so many voted
for Trump. The people who write these articles just can't accept the idea that
people didn't vote for Trump unless they were tricked into it, or were fed
lies. The idea that because they have a different reality they based their
votes on never occurred to them.

What fake news do is reinoforce what people already believe to be true which
is quite another discussion and anyone who have been debating with some 9/11
truther knows that no amount of data will convince them of anything else and
neither are you going to be convinced it's suddenly true even though we all
have been bombarded with claims from friends.

Also maybe my facebook feed is different, maybe my friends are different but I
had and still have plenty of disagreement in my feed plenty of articles
pointing both ways.

Here is a good example from my feed.

[https://cl.ly/1b1s2W2w0G0c](https://cl.ly/1b1s2W2w0G0c)

Basically a four year old history surfaces which is wrong and look at the
articles underneath.

I have seen plenty of examples of that. But maybe my feed is unique.

~~~
bluejekyll
I didn't get that sense from the article. It was all about influence. False
stories influence people's opinions, and that may have encouraged voters to
turn out or not for their candidate.

There was a lot of false and misleading information distributed online during
this election, and literally spoken by the candidates (one more than another).

The biggest lie is actually at the heart of Trump's campaign, that he can
bring back the jobs. Those jobs he's talking about haven't just been
outsourced to other countries, in many cases they have been automated into
oblivion. Trump promised to bring these back, but how can you bring something
back that doesn't exist?

Mind you the Dems and Clinton had no substantial story to weave for the people
that are hurting from the lack of these jobs. So people chose the fiction over
no substantive story. It's an uncomfortable thing to tell people that
everything they know is irrrelevent in the modern economy.

~~~
a_humean
Except to be fair to the Dems and the Clinton campaign, they did have
proposals and white papers addressing exactly these communities. For example,
a proposal to invest $30 billion into coal mining communities within the
Appalachia regions with promises for infrastructure investment and private
business investment, and retraining former and current miners into new skilled
occupations. Of course all of this pales in comparison to Clinton's emails,
while Trump's incoherent economic message of howling pain to reopen all the
mining operations gets all the air time it needs.

~~~
wavefunction
Hillary also was resistant to the $15 minimum wage which would make a _huge_
difference for a lot of folks in the countryside. Hillary of course wanted to
treat them like second-class citizens with only a $12 minimum.

Who's going to go read white-papers after that sort of offer?

~~~
brightball
The $15 minimum wage would have devastated the countryside.

I'm all over something like a minimum basic income that would effectively do
the same thing as doubling the minimum wage, without putting the cost burden
on businesses that can't afford it.

The perk of a national $15 minimum wage is to remove any incentive US only
businesses that may consider relocating to less expensive parts of the
country. I'm sure it seems perfectly reasonable in a high cost of living area,
but outside of that it's a jaw droppingly bad proposal.

~~~
Pokepokalypse
The problem with a straight-up $15 minwage is that it goes against what is
becoming a huge force in this country: inequality. Minwage is meant to
somewhat try to address inequality. But in fact, the difference between rural
and urban cost of living is huge. So minwage needs to be sensitive to this.

The issue really needs to be completely depoliticized, and the minimum wage
should really be set to some kind of local/regional indicator, and indexed to
inflation.

But if we did that... politicians wouldn't get to flip this card out every 10
years to play it.

------
pi-err
We are all in denial.

As a non-FB user, I hit every day a Facebook captcha to test if I'm a bot,
each time I land near a Facebook site. When it's not a captcha, a panel hides
a third of the Facebook page.

I have a "shadow" empty FB account that I sometimes use: if I'm logged in,
anything I watch online ends up polluting recommendations and suggested sites.
I looked up information on Syria and Trump the other day - I now have creepy
sites displayed on my suggested sites. I also get giant "YOU ARE NOW QUITTING
FACEBOOK" alerts anytime I try to click a link to, yes, go to this address.

We all obsess on Google/Apple for privacy and yet do not hold Facebook to any
standard regarding an open, honest web.

I feel we're all getting slowly conditioned by Facebook (and others) to stay
siloed. To fear that the web we browse will have "consequences" and that we
should avoid being curious altogether.

It's by now clear that the entire purpose of FB is to build a "unified
profile" that advertisers can track on- and offline.

We're all in denial on the consequences of this unified tracking. If we were
in the Renaissance, anonymous publications like Spinoza's would be impossible.
Free speech and opinion _requires_ freedom to change mind, wander around.

This has to stop.

------
mc32
I think it's too early to tell if these fake stories had any effect on
people's political leanings, so diving in without knowing much about it is a
bit of a different kind of fake news. It's hunches and opinions without
critical examination.

Now it's definitely a question to ask but I'm afraid it's being asked as a way
to explain Hillary's loss because it's easier to find a scapegoat than look
introspectively --and Dems at least publicly say we want to avoid
scapegoating, politically speaking.

In the end, I wonder, had Hillary won, would be seeing the same examination?
Would we have people at the Times wondering if Hillary had won because of the
spread of false news, or wonder about a conspiracy to railroad Bernie? Hard to
say, but one wonders.

On the other hand, I can't agree more that they should surface more than
mostly self-reinforcing news or information to their users.

~~~
makomk
It doesn't matter whether the fake stories actually had any effect on people's
political leanings, because the media narrative is that they did. Ultimately,
the mainstream media are in denial. Every single media organisation backed
Clinton, including ones that had never backed a presidential candidate before,
they published articles pointing to this as reason to vote for her whilst
insisting that it was ridiculous to believe they could in any way be biased
towards her. They were absolutely certain she would win, mocking those who
though otherwise. They were wrong. Rather than look inwards, they found a
scapegoat.

That's why they don't care about the 130,000 retweets for a fake claim that
people were chanting "We hate Muslims, we hate blacks, we want our great
country back" at a Trump rally from a known British hoaxer, or the quarter of
a million for a photoshop of Trump's parents in KKK outfits, or any of the
other fakes that don't fit the narrative.

~~~
Pokepokalypse
As a liberal; I completely agree with what you say about the media
organizations, and I'll add to that, some of the more-respected leftwing
media; which used to be reliable, went into a phase of spewing absolute
garbage. I found it disquieting, because it came about gradually, and I
realized it suddenly, after the fact (about 6 weeks ago), that they were
really playing fast-and-loose with standards of credibility on some of the
stories they were posting.

Then, I basically kind of started to "shut down", because I felt that there
was really no source that was trustworthy.

Around the same time, I saw some previously neutral forums, go "hard-Clinton".
To the point where there was obvious brigading (downvoting and banning
dissenters) going on.

On the other hand: There was copious material available, of direct quotes
straight out of Trump's mouth. Live TV footage at rallies. Live TV footage at
debates. Where he said some things that were not just; "oh, he's a bit
careless and doesn't know what that's implying." He said some things that were
very hard to interpret in any way other than how he said them. There's also
the actual wording of actual policy positions on his own web site.

I think this is what is meant by the assertion that "false stories from the
left are not nearly as big a problem".

It's true that there's still some crazy stuff coming from the left. (A lot of
the news organization sites breathlessly speculating about who Trump is
appointing, before he's actually made any appointments - and turning them into
outrageous scandals).

But a lot of the negative things coming out about Trump are absolute facts
that you can't sugarcoat, because he said them while being recorded.

~~~
mc32
The thing I accept, possibly wrongly, which others have stated, is that many
people voted against Hillary and there was not much that could have gotten in
their way. Given Trump's past political opinions contrasted with his campaign
claims, people who voted against Hillary often times took what Trump said more
metaphorically than literally, whereas they took Hillary literally probably
because she asked people to take her literally (that other guy flip flops, I
don't). They saw Hillary as an ideologue and Trump as more of a pragmatist,
something Obama apparently believes as well.

------
6stringmerc
At the root principle of the article, I agree that a platform which spreads
erroneous information should be held accountable in some fashion - but it's
the following kind of set up that is troublesome:

> _In addition to doing more to weed out lies and false propaganda, Facebook
> could tweak its algorithm so that it does less to reinforce users’ existing
> beliefs, and more to present factual information. This may seem difficult,
> but perhaps the Silicon Valley billionaires who helped create this problem
> should take it on before setting out to colonize Mars._

Right, in principle Facebook _should_ do this for the benefit of society, but
on a practical consideration, would becoming a highly-involved arbiter of
content be good for making money? Facebook isn't under any legal mandate to
act as a referee - consider it unfortunate if you like, but I kind of shrug it
off. Individual user responsibility should be a noteworthy counter-point,
because as trite as it might sound, if Facebook is rife with issues and rot,
then going there is probably not a good idea. If they happen to make more
money by allowing junk in their system, then that's their decision to make.
Eventually will it cost them users?

> _The company’s business model, algorithms and policies entrench echo
> chambers and fuel the spread of misinformation._

If they want to serve up a garbage buffet and make a profit from it, I can't
sit back and scold them too hard, I just have to excuse myself. It's not just
on Facebook - commenting communities of any sort tend to generate clusters of
like-minded folk. "Right" thinking or "wrong" thinking. Personally I don't
walk around downtown digging through the trash for my lunch, and I don't get
my worldview from Facebook. I do keep up with some people, but can count my
weekly minutes on the site with two hands pretty much. Just my approach, YMMV.

~~~
heurist
Facebook can do whatever it wants. Personally, if facebook does not stop the
spread of false information I will stop using their services and will do my
best to convince my friends to stop using their services. If they want to
create harmful social bubbles for profit that's their prerogative, but I won't
be part of it.

~~~
randomgyatwork
If you use facebook, you've been in a harmful social bubble since the
beginning.... you are only realizing it now

~~~
6stringmerc
In my experience, Facebook in 2016 is akin to what AOL was in 1994 - to a
large swath of people, Facebook is essentially "the internet" they use. Kind
of subscribing to cable TV but only watching one station. It's not too far out
of the realm of thought that bubbles exist because people seek them out and
like having a bubble (notions of bubbles being good/bad outside the scope of
this).

For a while early on, I recall enjoying Facebook when it was .edu email
addresses only, because it was a good way to keep tabs on people I went to
upper education with and parted ways with shortly after. It was a nice contact
resource in that regard. Now the platform is a behemoth, the AOL thing.

------
newdayrising
If Hillary won this wouldn't have been an issue for the NYT. Close to the
election I repeatedly saw articles comparing Trump to Hitler and predicting
the end of free society of he were to win. The only fake news I saw was
satirical "news." I did not vote for Trump, but it's crazy how hysterical and
witch-hunty the left is right now.

~~~
pault
I tend to agree with you, but in the days after the election several of my
acquaintances witnessed hate crimes accompanied by Trump slogans. This, along
with the surge in reports of hate crimes in the media, tells me that this
isn't just a repeat of 2000.

~~~
Pokepokalypse
This is fact. This is actually occurring. I've seen it, and I've heard first
hand accounts.

What is also significant is that I see it being largely ignored in the media,
as they frame peaceful counter-Trump protests as "riots" and "thugs destroying
property".

This is the opinion I'm seeing coming out by moderates, who are decrying the
protests, and ignoring the fascist violence coming from hate groups.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Really? The only (mainstream) articles I've seen have always put "riot" in
quotes - as if we the media don't really think it's a riot, but the police say
it is, and even implying that the police saying it is might be some kind of a
problem. This about events where there is actual, documented (and even
photographed) property being destroyed. (This was in Portland.)

------
swalsh
I'm scared people are going to keep pushing for social media to implement
stronger filters.

I believe very strongly that the free flow of information (even when it's just
wrong) is critical. Information gives people power, but withholding
information takes power away. If a company like Facebook implements the
filter, we're giving that power to them and hoping they are ambivalent.

The solution to fake news is for people to learn how to live in this new
world. There used to be only a handful of news organizations, but now there
are an infant amount of them. This is GOOD, it's democratizing, but it puts a
burden on us as citizens, and consumers of information to understand the
motivations of the authors.

This is an opportunity we should be happy to have and be scared of
technological or manual solutions that threaten it.

~~~
simion314
Maybe instead of filtering they can label the items that are not real news, or
label the real news as news(I am not from US so the use case I am thinking of
is fake medical/scientific news so in this domain would be easier to start
with)

~~~
Pokepokalypse
Truth in advertising, you say?

------
VLM
The Times is in denial that anyone considers it anything other than a mixture
of Democratic party propaganda and clickbait legacy media. The stats are not
looking good for them and dying industries always lash out reflexively and
ineffectively at random opponents.

~~~
RankingMember
The NYT? Really? I would agree if you were describing Huffington Post or
various other left-wing rags, but the NYT is pretty far from a Democratic
Propaganda paper.

~~~
MK999
12 Trump hit pieces in one day alone. More like establishment propaganda
paper, I don't think they would have given Jeb Bush or Rubio such a hard time.

~~~
Veen
Would you have liked them balanced with 12 pro-Trump pieces or 12 anti-Hillary
pieces? Sometimes things are true. Saying they're true isn't bias. It makes no
sense to have "balance" when what that means is publishing a non-true thing in
order to balance out the true thing you just said.

It's true that Donald Trump is lying, feckless fool. That doesn't need
balancing. We can argue all day about why people voted for him, why they
rejected the incumbent elite, why they wanted a change, and so on. But that
doesn't really change the facts.

~~~
lake99
> It's true that Donald Trump is lying, feckless fool.

Lying? Sure. Feckless fool? Not a fact.

> But that doesn't really change the facts.

You mean, facts like Hillary arming radicals and destroying governments? Or
facts like Clinton getting millions of dollars from major banks? Or facts like
Clinton wiping email servers? There were floodlights on the liar, but a crook
sneaked in behind them. Rampant editorializing drove people away from the
media. People suspected a collusion between media houses and the Clinton
campain. Wikileaks confirmed those suspicions. What do they do? CNN tell its
viewers that it's illegal to read or download stuff from Wikileaks.

~~~
Pokepokalypse
He's a feckless fool. Campaigns on deporting ALL illegal immigrants and
building a wall. Says (on 60 minutes, this is not fake, he said it): he's only
going to deport illegal immigrants who have committed serious crimes. This is
exactly Obama's policy. He just won an election, and he's pushing the status-
quo.

Again, on ACA repeal, he was VERY CLEAR in the debate: "repeal and replace
Obamacare" (just not clear on "replace" with what). On 60 minutes, he's
walking that back and talking about the parts he'll keep.

Trump is feckless. And a fool.

And Hillary may have armed radicals, but you look at photos of McCain shaking
their hands. This policy will not change under a Trump administration, I
guarantee it. Because he will do whatever this Republican congress wants. This
is also true for Trade deals.

~~~
lake99
> building a wall

Just like Hillary, then [1][2]. She changed her tune this campaign season. Why
exactly? I don't know. But the only explanation I can come up with is "my
opponent's policies are bad"[3]. Most politicians do that when dealing with
the opposite party, but Hillary seems to be unique in doing that against her
own partymen, be it Obama (earlier) or Sanders now.

> ACA repeal

Just like Hillary, then[4]. However, Clinton had a different endgame in mind.

> Trump is feckless.

This, I cannot deny. Would you say the same of Hillary?

> And a fool.

That remains an opinion. Would you say the same of Hillary?

> you look at photos of McCain shaking their hands

... and I wonder how many of those people were hand-picked for the task by
puppets the Americans put in place.

Anyway, this is precisely why I'm laughing so much about Trump's victory.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S1uc47j1Q4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S1uc47j1Q4)

[2] [http://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/hillary-
clinton...](http://www.investors.com/politics/commentary/hillary-clinton-was-
for-building-a-wall-with-mexico-before-she-was-against-it/)

[3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dY77j6uBHI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dY77j6uBHI)

[4] [http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-email-shows-
clinton...](http://www.businessinsider.com/wikileaks-email-shows-clinton-
discussing-unraveling-of-the-aca-2016-10)

------
aikah
His job is not get this or that candidate elected. It's more like the New York
Times is in denial blaming everybody but the poor candidate they endorsed for
her failure to get elected.

The New York Times was also in denial during the campaign dismissing Trump's
candidacy as a joke, then giving Hillary 99% chances to win.

Had they taken Trump seriously from the get-go and try to do a proper rebuttal
with fact checking and not just "Pepe the frog is a fascist symbol", maybe the
outcome would have been different.

------
gthtjtkt
This is more than a little bit ironic coming from the New York Times, which
just issued an apology for its blatantly biased, divisive, and disappointing
coverage of the entire election cycle:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/elections/to-our-
reader...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/elections/to-our-readers-from-
the-publisher-and-executive-editor.html)

------
factorialboy
Fake news on Facebook? I'd rather be equally if not more worried about fake
news on mainstream media outlets.

~~~
the_duke
Apparently, lot's of people have FB as their only source of news.

Now, if "news media" like Breitbart or tabloids are really much better, I wont
comment on.

But it's still troublesome.

------
vinhboy
I've mentioned this before in another thread. It does not matter if it was
less than 1% of facebook content. The problem is, it's also every where else.
Have you guys seen the front page of Yahoo lately? And also, some how this
crap crept into my Google Now news feed. Probably because I visited a dumb
link on Reddit. I had to manually block them. But that probably means people
who regularly read this crap, gets a ton of them.

------
dominotw
Lol NYTimes. Pot kettle black.

Looks like Zuckerberg doesn't have veto power at nytimes ;).

[https://wikileaks.org/podesta-
emails/emailid/4213](https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4213)

Lack of any self-awareness can only be attributed to arrogance. This is
exactly the type of arrogance that got their candidate defeated and made Trump
an underdog.

Fuck you nytimes.

------
malchow
Facebook has 1.79B MAUs, and users do not inject enough self-generated
original content into the system to make Facebook consistently interesting for
those 1.79M MAUs. Therefore their links to outside sites – good and bad, and
it isn't particularly simple to decide – will continue to be core to
Facebook's business.

I always find it funny when I see HNers complaining about The Wall Street
Journal's paywall. Pay it, man! And read the news.

Too much emphasis on Facebook's alleged influence. It's a
link/aggregation/search application, and the complexion of its output is
strongly going to reflect what users input.

------
mark_l_watson
I don't trust the main stream media at all. As part of my long term research
on NLP + text mining, I got in the habit of using English language news
article from around the world as a text corpus. As part of this process I
noticed the disconnect to US coverage compared to foreign news sources.
Realizing that everyone has their own agenda, this experience still makes me
sceptical of our news.

That said, I am also very sceptical of what I read on the web. I follow
several people's blogs and what they post on social media because over the
years what they say usually turns out to be correct.

~~~
eggie
Would you characterize the disconnect you found a bit more?

~~~
mark_l_watson
Mostly dealing with our military operations (e.g., civilian casualties), that
we are savior of the free world, how life in other countries is so much worse
than in the USA (large dose of American exceptionalism).

The USA is a great place, but there are also many other countries that are
also great places.

~~~
eggie
Someone was talking about how, when you use existing systems to translate an
poem written in arabic by a ten year old it comes out unintelligible, but the
same process is flawless for descriptions of terrorist attacks.

------
mistermann
> The Macedonian teenagers found this, too. They had experimented with left-
> leaning or pro-Bernie Sanders content, __but gave up when they found it
> wasn’t as reliable a source of income as pro-Trump content __. But even if
> Mr. Zuckerberg were right and fake news were equally popular on both sides,
> it would still be a profound problem.

Perhaps because the market was already saturated with pro-Hillary pieces from
mainstream media? If they produce only one-sided hit pieces on Trump, are you
surprised those on the right will share anything positive they can find?

The left has made it's own bed.

------
VeejayRampay
I can't believe how people are trying desperately to find a culprit, a reason,
an explanation and turning to Facebook for their choice of scapegoat. I mean
if half your country is voting for a person whose face could easily illustrate
the entries for both demagogue and ignorant in a dictionary, you have bigger
problems than Facebook.

~~~
mistermann
If you'd like more of the same, keep it up.

~~~
dewyatt
This is inflammatory bait and not HN-quality discourse.

~~~
mistermann
Sorry, you're right.

------
codemusings
The only problem is: you can't fix stupid. It doesn't really matter. If it's
not Facebook, it's Gawker, Buzzfeed or a thousend other clickbait outlets.

If somebody actually believes the pope would endorse an American election
candidate there really is nothing you can do.

~~~
Pokepokalypse
You can fix stupid. If you couldn't, we'd still be in the Dark Ages.

------
dictum
Who isn't?

* * *

This election and its aftermath have been an amazing opportunity for Americans
of all leanings to be in denial.

~~~
RUG3Y
I was anticipating the end of this election, now I find that the situation is
just as bad or worse. I'm not talking about which candidate won, but the
vitriol coming from both right and left. The intensity is killing me.

------
losteverything
<Mr. Zuckerberg is doing real damage to American democracy — and to the world.

We are so so so much better now that newspapers matter less and that the
network news is not the main game in town. How does more sources make
democracy worse even if it's "buyer beware?" it's arrogant to think truth is
always hidden.

<<People vote the way they do for a variety of reasons, but their information
diet is a crucial part of the picture.

We had a choice of candidates that was leftovers or diner food for
Thanksgiving. That was the problem

Do you really think the NYT will say good things in an op-ed about it's nimble
young competitor?

~~~
Melk
No matter what your opinion is of mainstream media, replacing it with
disinformation, half-truths, and fabrications is not an improvement.

~~~
losteverything
I struggle with this.

A rising tide raises all passengers (sic)

So more people get more news than mainstreamville. That is better than the way
it was. Imo

------
intrasight
This "fake news" thing goes all the way back to the founding of our country
(USA that is). It has always been a problem. And the solution now is the same
as then - be critical and know thy source.

------
bbctol
"Fake stories" are not the biggest problem, and focusing on them could fix
surface issues without addressing the underlying echo chamber effect. This
piece is better than most, but I wish all people arguing for Facebook and
Google to stop enabling opinions to be manipulated weren't so distracted by
simple lies. It's the series of cherry-picked facts that create a narrative
that we have to watch out for.

~~~
Pokepokalypse
Fake stories are a huge problem. A trump supporter just shared a story
yesterday about a mob of muslims marching through an American neighborhood
demanding that Christmas decorations be taken down.

Doesn't even pass the smell test: yet this person believes them implicitly.
This election was decided so narrowly, you have to wonder what the impact was.

------
a_lihu
And this is coming from NYT, a bullshit venue, whose boss said in a recent
letter: "... we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of
Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without
fear or favor ...". NYT should close the business, nobody trusts them anymore.

~~~
gragas
Yeah NYT is in denial, not Zuck.

>We cannot deliver the independent, original journalism for which we are known
without the loyalty of our readers.

Funny, considering the newspaper just had a 96% drop in profits last quarter.

~~~
grzm
_" considering the newspaper just had a 96% drop in profits last quarter."_

Without knowing what the drop in profits is due to, I think it's. For example,
is it because people are getting more of their news online and letting their
paper subscriptions lapse? In my area home delivery is between $5–$10 per
week, and that's at the 50% off introductory rate, compared to $3.75/week
online only. Of course, that doesn't take into account printing and delivery
costs.

Another reason could be that people no longer see value above and beyond
what's available elsewhere that they can get for free online. That's different
from no longer trusting the paper.

Looking up the reporting on the NYT profit decline, they note

\- decline in print ad sales, increase in digital ad sales (which is expected
given the print -> digital migration)

\- significant investment in digital publishing

\- net profit losses mainly due to restructuring charges related to reducing
workforce

[http://www.reuters.com/article/us-newyorktimes-results-
idUSK...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-newyorktimes-results-
idUSKBN12X1HU)

Of course, that's not to say trust in the paper isn't going to affect profits.
I think it's fair to look at the entire picture.

------
johnward
He's not in denial he knows these people want fake news. He's afraid of an
exodus if they block it.

------
draw_down
Our entire media class is in denial.

~~~
heurist
The far-right wing of the media just took over the executive branch of our
government. We are all in denial.

~~~
draw_down
And yet, I can't wait to hear ostensibly intelligent people continue to whine
about "political correctness" and how it's ruining everything.

------
rdtsc
Am I reading between the lines correctly, is she saying Trump won because his
supporters read about lizard people on Facebook?

Speaking of denial, wonder where on a realness gradient she puts NYTimes or
CNN?

~~~
gragas
NYT is so out of touch. After extreme bias during the election cycle and a 96%
drop in profits last quarter, they released a statement to their subscribers.
Here's my favorite part:

>We cannot deliver the independent, original journalism for which we are known
without the loyalty of our readers.

------
gragas
Ha! More like, NYTimes is in denial. Especially considering one of their
biggest subscription losses in history just happened last quarter.

------
EdiX

        reporters have found that the spread of false news is far more common on the right than it is on the left
    

Citation needed.

~~~
Tempest1981
"A recent BuzzFeed News analysis of giant hyperpartisan Facebook pages found
that 38% of posts on conservative pages and 19% of posts on liberal pages
featured false or misleading content."

[https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/partisan-fb-pages-
an...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/partisan-fb-pages-analysis)

From [https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/can-facebook-
trendin...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/can-facebook-trending-
fight-off-fake-news)

~~~
EdiX
Well, I didn't know buzzfeed bloggers counted as reporters, I stand corrected.

------
jondubois
This is not so bad. I think that lies in the media are good if they help to
balance public opinion.

The world that I'm really scared of is one where everyone agrees about
everything and people who disagree are locked up; that's where I saw things
going before the election (when I thought that Hillary was going to win).

Chaos and disagreement is one of the most important things in our society. We
always need at least two sides to every story (even if one side is a complete
fabrication) - Balance of public opinions is the most important thing for
freedom.

~~~
Tempest1981
I wouldn't go so far as to say that lies are _good_. I'm in favor of a robust
debate, but let's base it on facts, and even feelings/understanding. The last
thing we need to do is mis-educate more people... that'll never lead to
agreement.

------
TYPE_FASTER
Media != journalism

[http://www.pbs.org/newshour/](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/)

------
chinese_donald
What about all of the fake Trump news? My friends on Facebook still think
Trump is a rapist (he never raped anyone), Racist (I'm still not sure where
this one came from), and homophobic (he is not reversing gay marriage).

When his first speech came out about immigration, he said he wants to deport
illegal immigrants (which is actually already law). The media turned it into
just 'immigrants' and we now have entire groups of legal immigrants that are
afraid Trump will deport them. Did nobody watch the speech or does the
mainstream media have problems comprehending English?

There is anti-Trump violence growing in the US and people have been assaulted
and harassed for even saying they supported him. The protests aren't
'peaceful', they are riots.

This is all ignored on the news, however. The only thing they can spew out is
the story about the girl that got her Hijab pulled, which turned out to be
fake. MSNBC still reports it as fact.

Will Facebook ban links to MSNBC for this fake story?

This is exactly why half the country voted Trump into office. Even now, you
still can't figure out that it was your own fault and want to blame the rest
of American for losing the election.

The other irony is complaining about bias and marginalizing and then painting
an entire group of people (Trump supports) as 'racists' and 'islamaphobes'.

It really shows me that all of the people that claim we need more 'love' and
'peace' are just using it for political gain and power. When they don't get
what they want, the fangs come out.

You want understanding and compassion when it comes to gay marriage and the
transgender community, but give none of it in return.

~~~
mjmsmith
> The only thing they can spew out is the story about the girl > that got her
> Hijab pulled, which turned out to be fake.

You honestly believe that there was one single incident, and it was fake? This
is an honest question: where do you get your news from?

