
Russian Agents Are Not Behind Every Piece of Fake News You See - Jerry2
http://fortune.com/2016/11/25/russian-fake-news/
======
3131s
'Fake news' is as old as humanity itself and there is no reason to prefer this
new term to simply 'false information' or something similar. As another poster
said, this current rash of articles is pushing the idea that there is a binary
distinction between fake and real news, when in reality we already have a rich
vocabulary to discuss the nuanced spectrum between truth and falsehood, e.g.
misinformation, disinformation, black / white / grey propaganda, selective
exposure, fallacy, rumor, hyperbole, euphemism / dysphemism, limited hangout,
dog whistling, spin / framing, FUD, bias, etc.

It is hard not to feel very cynical about the sudden post-election focus that
large media outlets are putting on 'fake news'. I think it is mostly an
attempt to discredit alternative media and reinforce the establishment /
government narrative.

~~~
mc32
To me it seems that traditional media is taking this opportunity to make their
case with Google/Facebook that they are the sole/main providers of "real" news
and that others are less reputable. And this is just a way to re-establish
their pedigree as canonical sources for news to the detriment of alternative
news sources --including of course the inflated purveyors of "fake news" who
are not the real targets. The actual targets being anyone not associated with
an institutional news organization [your local news, independent news,
bloggers, etc].

Imagine the glee in mainstream news if FB GOOG would mainly surface the news
of the NYT, WaPo, FoxNews, etc.

~~~
ryuuchin
Well you can at least argue that traditional news media does hold itself to
certain journalistic standards (I'm talking news articles, not opinion
pieces).

I think an issue we have with getting news from places like FB is that (I
think) it will often show news or stories which you probably align with
politically or reinforce your views (leading to increased polarization).
Compare that to how we used to get our news from papers or the TV were we
couldn't control the programming.

~~~
otaviokz
WE couldn't control the content. But do we even know who was controlling what
should be shown/investigated/high lined or not? Or what makes a "credible"
font?

------
welanes
So The Washington Post article on fake news is lying to its readers. This
perfectly illuminates the problem with trust, truth, and the Internet.

Two good rules of thumb - and this goes for established media outlets - when
reading an article.

A. Follow the links that writers include in their articles.

Example: Well the article above. But this is how bad it is: Currently the WP's
most popular article is titled 'Americans keep looking away from the
election’s most alarming story' which includes the line "Trump reveled in
information gained from...“fake news” stories that evidence suggests (link)
were generated by Russian intelligence operation". Well, if you click that
link there is zero evidence, just an article from 'geektime.com' (who?) asking
'Could Russia be behind US election-based fake news on Facebook?'.

This is incredibly disingenuous.

B. Read the comments.

Example: Just go to the comments on any article on The Economist or The
Guardian and you'll almost always find high quality addenda that either refute
or add context to the article being commented on. Perhaps it's the limited
number of media outlets in Europe, or just the nature of our media, but
there's a high level of healthy dissent below-the-line that I don't see on The
NYT, WP etc.

This assumes, of course, that people care about the truth. Yet critical
thinking may be futile against a firehose of information and this trait of
human psychologically: many people value how they feel over the truth and so
will be biased towards 'news' that fulfills that role.

It's not fearless critical reporting they're after, but rather a bubble of
moral affirmation.

~~~
asddddd
Fake news illustrates what people _actually_ want when they share "news" on
Facebook/Twitter (and to a lesser degree, sites like Reddit): a headline, not
a story. It's really just the ultimate in clickbait.

~~~
welanes
True. I miss the days when people made a quick buck from sharing funny
pictures of cats instead of appealing to tribal instincts.

As vacuous as fake news but a lot less divisive.*

* _Well, unless you 're not a cat person that is._

------
ryuuchin
I'm not sure how relevant this is to this story but for news in general
something which I found extremely helpful in my life has been actually
learning how to digest the news (media) through a course that was taught at
university (news literacy).

The news media is to a certain extent peer reviewed. Although perhaps not the
the extent that scientific papers are but actually non-opinion news media does
hold itself to certain standards. These may including correcting factual
errors, attempting to contact both/all sides for comments, or if they use
anonymous sources if they state a reason why they are anonymous. Furthermore
the actual news media should always have the opinion section marked as opinion
(which you should generally steer clear of).

Another example which is often brought up is "bias". However actual bias is
extremely difficult to prove. Opinion pieces don't count towards bias since
they should be under a (labeled) opinion section.

There are courses that deal with news literacy[1] that are probably taught
around the country but this is just one example that I'm familiar with.

[1]
[http://www.centerfornewsliteracy.org/](http://www.centerfornewsliteracy.org/)
(SUNY @ Stony Brook)

~~~
aikah
> However actual bias is extremely difficult to prove.

Actually it is extremely easy. It is easy to tell if an article has an angle
or as not, by the choices of word and expressions. For instance, let's take
the immigration crisis in Europe. Whether a media chose to call immigrants
"illegal immigrants" or "asylum seekers" denoted bias in one direction or
another. So left-wing media called them "asylum seekers" because they wanted
to paint them in a good way, while right-wing media called them "illegal
immigrants" to paint them in a negative way.

Now calling something "fake news" is biased too. All news are fabricated to an
extent. "fake news" basically means , "news that don't come from an
established source", it's new speak for unsanctioned news, to make it look
like trusted news can only come from the NYT, Wapo and co ... it is extremely
dishonest, since these media are propaganda organs.

> Opinion pieces don't count towards bias since they should be under a
> (labeled) opinion section.

Journalists are activists. Whether they write opinion pieces or not. The
easiest way to tell facts from opinion is to take multiple sources opposed
politically, and compare what they have in common and in which way they
differ. Facts may be inferred that way. Off course it gets harder when the
media choose not to report events because it contradicts the narrative they
are pushing, and we all saw the result in the latest election. They can't
blame "fake news" yet suppress information when it doesn't fit their
narrative.

So obviously i'm not a journalist, but you could say I'm biased against MSM.
More accurately I don't give them the benefit of the doubt just because they
are professionals.

~~~
ryuuchin
> Actually it is extremely easy. It is easy to tell if an article has an angle
> or as not

When I'm talking about bias it's something which would not be provable based
on one article. I'm talking about something which would span multiple years
and many articles. That kind of bias is very difficult to prove.

> Now calling something "fake news" is biased too.

Do not conflate non-mainstream news sources with news which has been
completely fabricated. These are two completely different things. Furthermore
I would argue that the mainstream news media holds itself to certain
journalistic standards that a random internet blog may not.

> NYT, Wapo and co ... it is extremely dishonest, since these media are
> propaganda organs.

Using the term "propaganda organs" makes me think you believe them to be
biased sources? What exactly makes their news articles badly written?

> The easiest way to tell facts from opinion is to take multiple sources
> opposed politically

A good news article will already include multiple sources and try and have
both points of view.

I think something which is increasingly becoming a problem is people getting
their only news from online sources which they agree with or align with
politically. This is different from how we consumed news media in the past
since we couldn't control what was in the paper or on the TV (and is probably
what has led to the increased polarization in politics).

~~~
FullMtlAlcoholc
> Using the term "propaganda organs" makes me think you believe them to be
> biased sources? What exactly makes their news articles badly written?

The build up to the Iraq war is a perfect example of how these august,
mainstream news organizations were rendered to be mouthpieces of the then
ruling administration. Another example is the NYT constant villification of
Edward Snowden.

I agree with you in principle that Google, Facebook, et al do have a serious
problem. The revenue models incentivize getting the maximum number of clicks
and this leads to clickbait articles and outright lies posed as reputable
stories targeted towards those of a certain political persuasion. This model
should be changed.

However, the various proposals being bandied about would effectively elevate
traditional media outlets to the status of true gatekeepers of news and re-
centralize power into their hands.

------
trendia
How do we know that this article isn't Russian propaganda? I just prefer to go
full solipsism.

~~~
ry4n413
How do we know you aren't working for the KGB?

~~~
jedmeyers
We can be pretty sure that he does not, since KGB no longer exists.

~~~
westpfelia
That sounds like something a KGB agent would say.... Comrade....

------
up_so_floating
It seems dangerous to view "fake news" as a binary value. All news is just
approximation of the truth.

~~~
sandworm101
>> All news is just approximation of the truth.

No. There is something called truth. Did it rain yesterday or did it not? What
was the temperature last week? These are things that are scientifically true
or not true and yet over the last election cycle these facts were up for
"debate". I don't mean climate change. They argued about whether it was hot or
cold on a specific day at a specific place.

The weather is easy. Where the grey areas start are with things like budgets.
Did a particular department spend more or less this year that last? Such
statements would seem objectively true or untrue yet we saw grown men and
women fight for years, one side seeing surplus and the other deficit. In the
middle is an accountant who knows the objective truth, the real story from the
fake news. When the accountant comes forward, that story is then slotted into
real or fake. If there are never any objectively true or untrue facts, why do
we even bother talking?

~~~
imh
Let's say I'm reporting on a study that sets out to see if there is wage
discrimination against earthling immigrants in favor of native martians. The
study shows that earthlings earn more than martians on average, but once you
control for occupation and education and all that, earthlings actually make
less for doing the same thing.

It's true to report that earthlings tend to earn more than martians. I could
use that fact from the study to form the basis of a totally factual story that
goes completely against the study itself. My readers will come away thinking
discrimination happens in earthlings' favor instead of against them. Totally
true facts can support a totally false conclusion, depending on presentation.

------
jyriand
All of this fake news discussion makes me think about McLuhan. It's as if we
are forgetting the point of internet.

> _McLuhan 's central thesis, encapsulated in the famous phrase "the medium is
> the message", was that the technologies through which we take in information
> - the media, broadly defined - become "extensions" of our bodies, exerting a
> profound influence over us. When an important new medium arrives, it can
> reshape who we are as individuals and as a society._ [1]

> _Electric media, being cool technologies that promote interaction, would
> bring back our lost tribal consciousness, McLuhan believed. But our tribes
> would no longer be small, isolated groups. Because the new media spanned the
> planet, we would become members of a "global village"._ [1]

[1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/nov/01/comment.i...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/nov/01/comment.internet)

~~~
sprafa
It's curious how people like McLuhan and Lippman and Bernays are hardly ever
discussed, even though they hold the keys to understanding what's going on.

------
PretzelFisch
I have a hard time accepting twitter quotes as a source for use in real
journalism.

------
vaadu
The washington post recently printed a staggering hypocritical article on fake
news: [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-
prop...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-propaganda-
effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-
say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html)

This is a rag that has been a sock puppet for the DNC since forever.

~~~
fixxer
Greenwald's piece on it: [https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post-
disgrace...](https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post-
disgracefully-promotes-a-mccarthyite-blacklist-from-a-new-hidden-and-very-
shady-group/)

~~~
greenyoda
HN discussion of Greenwald's article:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13045381](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13045381)

------
throw2016
Don't believe everything you read on the internet, or the newspapers. Nobody
has the monopoly on truth.

Healthy scepticism is a life skill. More so now when rumours can spread
globally in seconds. The solution is not control but education and
discernment. Our prejudices and current knowledge often determine to a large
degree what we more easily believe.

The traditional media is not only losing reach but also its power to 'shape
and influence events' ie propaganda and in desperation the 'free press' has
been reduced to the sorry state of seeking 'official source of truth status'.
Sort of like a ministry of truth.

------
devsquid
This is an odd sentiment. Most of the reporting around fake new shows it comes
from entrepreneurial people, some I would say are morally suspect, but I have
never seen any reporting show it going back to nation states. Its just clever
people take advantage of people awful biases.

~~~
chokolad
Really? here are a few stories
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/report-russian-
propa...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/report-russian-propaganda-
effort-spread-fake-
news/2016/11/25/72eb461c-b33a-11e6-bc2d-19b3d759cfe7_story.html)

[http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/russian-propaganda-
effor...](http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/russian-propaganda-effort-
behind-flood-fake-news-preceded-election/)

Edit: a few more

[http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/11/25/reports-
russia...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/11/25/reports-russian-
operation-boosted-fake-news-phenomenon/94424206/)

[http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/25/13746250/us-election-
russ...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/25/13746250/us-election-russia-
influence-fake-news-propaganda)

[http://www.seattlepi.com/business/technology/article/Report-...](http://www.seattlepi.com/business/technology/article/Report-
Russian-propaganda-effort-spread-fake-news-10635910.php)

~~~
fixxer
You are actually citing that WaPo propOrnot piece? You trust independent,
anonymous experts to tell you what is legit? There is zero fact checking in
that thing. You might as well be sourcing 4chan.

Talk about playing to people's biases...

EDIT: I'm retarded.

~~~
chokolad
You misunderstood me. Parent mentioned that he had not seen this narrative
about Russian propaganda anywhere. I saw a whole bunch just yesterday so I
posted them there. I personally find them ridiculous and agree with fortune
piece which I believe was a reaction to WaPo piece.

~~~
fixxer
Ah, apologies!

------
whybroke
I do not google a term to get a false result that I happen to agree with.
Especially not one that is doing so just to sell ads. I am not interested in
soothing nonsense on _any_ topic not just political ones.

For some reason it is being argued that google's (and facebook's) algorithms,
which obviously must rank their results, should not take accuracy into account
at all.

The value of google is exactly proportional to the accuracy of its results,
not its random interspersing of fabrications. If I want insane conspiracy
theories I can always take 3 seconds to type bullshit.com in the url line.

And ironically, somehow observations like this one are ruthlessly down voted
by defenders of free speech.

~~~
inimino
Google indexes content, and displays it by relevance to your query and overall
relevance (e.g. PageRank). The idea that Google and FB should be in the
business of discriminating truth from falsehood is one of the most naive ideas
to come out of this election cycle.

~~~
whybroke
On the contrary.

The discovery that social media, as currently implemented, is in the process
of annihilating rational discourse is the single most important discovery of
this election cycle. Possibly of the last decade.

Even now, because of this problem, there is no longer agreement on many basic
facts. The notion that a people so polarized on basic truths will ever be able
to function together democratically is what is utterly naive. Under such
circumstances, ultimately one side will have to force its view of reality on
the other.

Indeed it may not be a coincidence that the sudden success of extremists
parties in the west, driving voters to vote so conspicuously against their own
self interest, corresponds almost exactly to the emergence of social media in
general and facebook in particular.

What is naive is the belief that truth will somehow win out when the bulk of
mankind sees the world predominantly through a facebook feed that explicitly
selects for spectacular self confirming nonsense algorithmicly suppressing
anything unpleasant to know.

~~~
inimino
You overestimate the health of rational discourse before this election.
Disagreements on basic facts are not new.

Social media has created a kind of nervous system which amplifies and spreads
fears and foolishness. Yes, this is a problem that we should address. (Perhaps
allowing interpersonal communications to be dominated by a handful of
companies was not the best idea.)

What is naive is to solve this problem by putting the determination of truth
and falsehood in the hands of a centralized authority.

~~~
whybroke
>Perhaps allowing interpersonal communications to be dominated by a handful of
companies was not the best idea.

Absolutely. Especially since tabloid like self confirming facile nonsense has
broader user retention and thus profitability than difficult or subtle factual
information.

>What is naive is to solve this problem by putting the determination of truth
and falsehood in the hands of a centralized authority.

Indeed that would be catastrophic. But the ordering of the facebook timeline
is intentionally emphasizing self confirming propagandistic nonsense: We
already live in a highly propagandized facebook steam. Just remove that
(highly profitable) bias from the algorithm.

>Disagreements on basic facts are not new.

Now however it is far worse, indeed essentially nonexistent. As a result the
width of the division has grown enormously in the last 10 years. In the, US
for example, the vast majority of counties are now either landslide red or
landslide blue. The most polarized since the civil war. And there has never
been this level of overt hostility to science at the top of the political
ladder.

On the larger scale, it is a mistake to think that the experiment of
enlightenment democracy that is only present in a minority of countries and in
those, only for a fraction of history, is somehow permanent and can somehow
endure when the public no longer has access to accurate information. Indeed,
nascent democracies are already being snuffed out one by one.

~~~
inimino
> But the ordering of the facebook timeline is intentionally emphasizing self
> confirming propagandistic nonsense: We already live in a highly
> propagandized facebook steam. Just remove that (highly profitable) bias from
> the algorithm.

We agree on the problem, just not the solution.

Let's consider two sub-problems. First, the advertising-based business model
benefits from compulsive behavior and engaging, viral content. The most
engaging content is not always the most true, and the second problem: some of
it is entirely fabricated.

Put these two parts together and you get the current situation. Now we see
many crocodile tears shed over the fact that the second problem spread so much
untrue content that it may have swung the election. Whether that's realistic
or not, it creates an excellent opportunity to establish an authority that
determines which stories are true, or how true a story is. Who wouldn't want
that job? What a way to make a difference. So we have this:

> Under such circumstances, ultimately one side will have to force its view of
> reality on the other.

And what better way to do that than by establishing a ministry of truth.
(Whether established by the government or private enterprise is practically
immaterial.) But might it be worth stepping back for a moment first?

If the only way democracy can work is by the elite directly controlling the
perception of truth, then what is it that democracy still offers?

> Just remove that (highly profitable) bias from the algorithm.

Sell that to the shareholders! "Engagement is down but our metrics show the
electorate is slightly better informed due to our efforts this quarter." So
here you get at the first problem, which is that Facebook's monetization is
directly at odds with many of the things that people should be doing to make a
democracy work, such as getting off Facebook, reading a history book, engaging
with their neighbors, and so on. Of course nobody is talking about solving
this, because none of the solutions to this problem allow anyone to amass
money or power.

~~~
grzm
_We agree on the problem, just not the solution._

Thank you! This has been weighing on my mind ever since the fakenews meme has
infected HN, I just haven't been able to express it constructively. It seems
that admitting any common ground feels like surrender in the current political
climate. It would be great if we could start from this statement and look for
some workable, agreeable solution.

~~~
inimino
Absolutely. Smart people disagreeing and working together anyway is our best
hope for getting out of this mess.

------
coldtea
The global media (and the US ones disproportionately) is behind almost every
piece of fake news people all over the world see -- only it's called just
"news".

------
tomohawk
Pot, meet Kettle.

------
dschiptsov
Why people are so stupid? No one would say that "Russians" wrote this or that
shitpost. What they did - they developed and successfully used "innovative"
techniques of producing and spreading catchy memes along with trolling and
shitposting into any meaningful discussion on popular public forums. These
methods nowadays are used on a "factory scale". The famous "Troll factories"
were a great success.

Basically, it is a next level of jamming techniques used against western radio
stations in old times - active trolling instead of passive jamming, using paid
people instead of dumb noise generators.

What Russians developed is very efficient (optimized, if you wish) set of
methods to manipulate the minds of idiots, to implant naive, unverified (and
unquestioned by wast majority of idiots) assumptions and false premises, in
forms of emotionally charged but primitive memes (textual or graphical) -
"Shillary will start WW3". Fucking degenerates.

In the same way all the Russian media propaganda is organized nowadays - meme-
like framed "news", tailored to the vocabulary and mentality of uneducated,
primitive majority, along with marketing-like targeting. You do not have to
have a PhD to do that.

What happened is that almost everyone else nowadays are re-using these simple
ready-made methods. All this is nothing but virus-like meme contagion, plus
applied manipulative psychology of advertising on internet scale. That's all.
No KGB agents or anything like that.

How a third-world, corruption-ridden country with stagnant economy could be so
powerful? It obviously wasn't. The cause is these "information viruses"
(memes) spreading through human stupidity. Russians didn't invent them, of
course, only used on a large scale.

------
kodfodrasz
I guess Putin's hackers tricked BBC to publish that the late owner of Coronita
beer factory left enormous amounts of money to the village where he was born.

This fake news meme is so boring by now. The mainstream media try to blame
others for their falure to manipulate the people in a direction desired by the
elites, but actually nowadays mainstream media is no better than the fake news
sources.

------
cinquemb
Don't worry everyone, Fake News is the biggest problem the world has faced
ever and we will not hear the end of this very, very serious issue.

If we keep repeating this message enough, include it on everything from
t-shirts, billboards to radio and tv ads (maybe even handing out steep
discounts at stores everywhere if you have people regurgitate some of the
websites to not visit from the very reputable list that the extremely unbiased
and trustworthy Jeff Bezos' Washington Post has helped distribute recently),
everyone will eventually come around, the world will be saved and everything
everyone dead or alive has ever wished for will come true.

~~~
dmichulke
Or shorter: "Don't feed the (WaPo) trolls" :)

