
According to Snopes, Fake News Is Not the Problem - mirandak4
https://backchannel.com/according-to-snopes-fake-news-is-not-the-problem-4ca4852b1ff0#.6sx16urid
======
saynsedit
It seems kind of predictable that "real news" sites would run stories on how
"fake news" is an epidemic.

Maybe this is too much speculation but it seems like deflecting. Fake news
sites weren't responsible for "real news'" complete failure to predict a Trump
victory. I've seen little reporting on the attitudes of real Trump supporters.
It's mostly reporting of noisy flawed polls and simplistic opinion pieces on
why Trump is bad/hitler/stupid and dismissals of his supporters as racists.

IMO I don't think fake news is _the_ problem either (though it is a problem,
just not a proportionately large one). It has shades of demonizing independent
news sources. Personally I can't stand any cable news source, I prefer to
watch "Democracy Now!" I prefer The Intercept, Truthdig, and Jacobin to the
NYT or WaPo. They don't peddle fake news whatsoever.

Edit: fake news was not responsible for this:
[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxZVgktWQAAXu8g?format=jpg&name=...](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CxZVgktWQAAXu8g?format=jpg&name=large)

~~~
matt4077
In regards to the predictions, it's important to understand that their role in
it was the same as it is with the weather forecast: they're just reporting
what people come up with.

Those people, the pollsters and aggregators, were indeed wrong with regards to
the winner. It's however important to note that the polls were less than 3%
off. It just happened to make quite a difference in the winner-take-all
system.

538 was arguably more right than others: their model sensed the uncertainty
and gave Trump a 30% chance of winning.

Compared to the NYT/WaPo/WSJ, the self-styled outsiders like The Intercept are
incredibly biased, or just bad. It's sometimes hard to see how information
flows, but barely any actual news starts at The Incept/Breitbart/HuffPost/etc.

~~~
crdoconnor
>It's however important to note that the polls were less than 3% off

Wisconsin last poll 41% for trump, Wisconsin result 49% (~8% off)

Michigan last poll 42% for trump, Michigan result 48% (~6% off)

North Carolina last poll 45% for trump, North carolina result 51% (~6% off)

Florida last poll 45% for trump, Florida result 49% (~4% off)

Source: [http://www.electoral-
vote.com/evp2016/Pres/Maps/Nov09.html](http://www.electoral-
vote.com/evp2016/Pres/Maps/Nov09.html)

[http://www.electoral-
vote.com/evp2016/Pres/Maps/Nov08.html](http://www.electoral-
vote.com/evp2016/Pres/Maps/Nov08.html)

You can't excuse the pollsters. That's an epic fuck up.

~~~
matt4077
You're doing a bit of cherry-picking but I guess it's only fair, since reality
conspired to do it similarly. Not sure how far off the polls were in
aggregate.

But my point was mostly that the media doesn't have much to do with the
polling. And secondly, I think it's important to distinguish between
ideological bias and just simply mistakes. There are many pollsters from all
over the political spectrum and I'm convinced that they made a best effort to
be accurate, and that it has just become difficult to do accurate polling. Or
that the polling may have even given a very accurate picture of reality, but
that volatility has just increased dramatically.

~~~
saynsedit
My original point said nothing on the media's involvement with polling,
outside of simply reporting it. As for the pollsters, whether it was
ideological bias or simply mistake is also irrelevant to my original point.

My claim is that the "real news" committed the journalistic equivalent of
manslaughter. Whether or not they intended to mislead the public doesn't
negate the fact that the public was misled. Blaming "fake news" doesn't
justify their own role in misleading the public. There is no court of
journalism, but the consequences regardless will be that people will trust the
traditional news sources less.

------
jonathanstrange
It's neither fake news nor failing media, it's the Internet itself. The
Internet has created echo chambers for just about any kind of crackpots and
conspiracy theorist you could find. It used to take tremendous efforts to meet
fellow ufologists, and the literature was not abundant in libraries either.

Fast forward two decades and you will have a hard time finding some weird
worldview that does not yet have a forum and community with ardent followers.

Human culture is to a large extent based on knowledge by testimony, and
unfortunately our processing of that is fairly simplistic. The more people in
your peer group believe X, the more likely you will believe X, too (as a
tendency). That can become a problem when you can choose your peer group as
you wish online rather than being forced to get along with the members of your
tribe whether you like them or not.

~~~
rahrahrah
And it's not just the internet itself. It's "optimization" i.e. showing people
only the things that generate "engagement". That's what creates echo chambers.

~~~
cbsmith
Classic news services make the important interesting, rather than the
interesting important. It's way easier to monetize doing the latter.

------
ihsw
The article rightly points at readers having embraced their cognitive
dissonance in the face of unrelenting media bias but unfairly singles out the
alt-right movement -- one can't say that they are wrong in their dogmatic
mistrust of the media. We saw non-stop coverage of the election where they
talked up Clinton at every fifteen-minute segment, parroting statistics like
her 98% guaranteed victory.

Through Wikileaks, we can plainly see that they were very much in bed with the
Clinton campaign and frankly anyone with an ounce of sensibility should see
that as plain as day.

That said, I would posit that the MSM orgs need to do a lot of soul-searching
to restore their credibility lest they continue to drift into irrelevance. The
Fourth Estate has fallen into disrepair due to their close adherence to
progressive extremist ideology and their objectivity is rightly attacked.

It's not that people are looking for somebody to pick on, but instead the
media are agitators rather than reporters of fact. There is a clear desire to
_steer_ society rather than simply disseminate information, much like how
cable companies have zero interest in operating as communications conduits and
instead strive to provide _content experiences_.

IMO there must be structural reform for the Fourth Estate to be restored to
its previous stature -- to wit, mainstream media must be made great again.

~~~
yuncun
>Through Wikileaks, we can plainly see that they were very much in bed with
the Clinton campaign and frankly anyone with an ounce of sensibility should
see that as plain as day.

Thought they were pro-Trump?

~~~
gingerrr
The general argument I've heard that synthesizes both: They gave Trump too
much credibility by treating him as an equal while attacking Clinton (were
"pro-Trump"), but endorsed Clinton and crowed triumphantly at every step that
she had it in the bag (were "pro-Clinton").

We should probably stop making absolute claims about anything regarding this
election, as there are so many moving parts it is impossible to conclusively
place responsibility at any one group's feet.

Then again, that may have been the point you were making :)

------
randomgyatwork
It's funny that mainstream news sources were saying Clinton was basically
guaranteed to win, they were sure, they had no doubts, then they were proven
wrong by what happened.

Everyone for 1 day said "Hey maybe the news doesn't know what they are talking
about?"

The next day everyone forgot, and now we get the same news sources that were
so wrong, telling us again the problem is "this".

How come they were so wrong and we all knew it, then forgot, then will accept
another one of their likely incorrect explanations for why all this happened?

~~~
paulddraper
It was great watching NBC, CNN, et al election night.

Every hour or so there'd be a conversation like

A: "What did our polls get so wrong?"

B: "Well regardless, it looks like Trump's path to victory...blah blah"

Not even an ounce of introspection. Still haven't heard any answers.

~~~
timr
_" Not even an ounce of introspection. Still haven't heard any answers."_

Really now. No introspection? No answers? It might help to read the _post-
election coverage_ , which was, you know...all introspection. Nonstop. For the
last week. To help you out, here's a sample:

[http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-missed-
trump-w...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-polls-missed-trump-we-
asked-pollsters-why/) [http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-a-
difference-2-perc...](http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-a-
difference-2-percentage-points-makes/)
[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/upshot/presidential-
foreca...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/upshot/presidential-forecast-
postmortem.html)
[http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/...](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2016/11/09/for-
the-record-trump-wins/93525286/)
[http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/11/donald-
tru...](http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/11/donald-trump-win-
pollsters-wrong-161109225338646.html) [http://www.nature.com/news/pollsters-
struggle-to-explain-fai...](http://www.nature.com/news/pollsters-struggle-to-
explain-failures-of-us-presidential-forecasts-1.20968)

If you're willing to go so far as to download a podcast, you could try any of:
NPR Politics, On the Media, FiveThirtyEight Politics and Left Right and
Center, all of whom have done at least one _in-depth_ story on the polling
miss in the last week.

~~~
paulddraper
I was talking about the mainstream TV news outlets that handled most(?) of the
election night coverage.

These often have their own polls their responsible for.

It's great saner minds have looked into it; I meant to point out the dearth of
follow-up by big-name news stations.

------
TorKlingberg
For the past couple of years we have had these arguments about how hard it is
for quality journalism to get paid today. Some argued that people will
eventually pay for online newspapers. Others replied that there will always be
free news somewhere, and they will find new sites as paywalls go up.

Now we know what happened. There is plenty of free news out there, but with
zero fact-checking and often deliberate lies. Meanwhile the established new
sources have lost income, and are cutting corners.

You would think that people would eventually congregate to trusted brands,
like buying Coca-Cola because you know it wont poison you. But, news brands
can be held responsible for their faults, while social media people can pump
out a constant stream of lies and never answer to anyone.

------
OliverJones
Aww, crap.

We (DARPA, BNN, et al) built this resilient network which interprets firewalls
as outages and routes around them. We build this cheap-to-publish network
where anybody can get a broad audience.

And now we have to deal with cybercriminals and cyberbullshitters. Good
networks have interesting consequences.

What if some misbegotten mishmash of Prestel, X.25, MAP/TOP and DECNet had
prevailed in the marketplace instead of HTTP/TCP/IP? What if people had to
learn to whistle ASN-1 into a modem to get online? Would it have slowed things
down?

~~~
lifeisstillgood
You win Paul's great new word of the day award:

    
    
      CyberBullShitters.
    

I hope the capitalisation is right.

------
FussyZeus
I'm sure it isn't the only problem, but I'm sure it doesn't help at all
either.

The real problem is people being so willing to discard their bullshit detector
when information fits their preconceived ideas, and so willing to break it out
for things that don't. Source of the idea matters but it's not by any means
going to stop people from sharing the stuff.

If you can figure out how to fix that, then we can fix Democracy.

~~~
mc32
I'm not sure of that (that democracy can be fixed through perfect
information).

I'm not even sure we'd want a world with perfect information. Is the pursuit
of art for art's sake valuable. What if the answer is no? Do we repress art?

Having a variety of ideas rests on there not being perfect information and
people making personal choices based on imperfect information.

~~~
rfrey
"(the democracy can be fixed through perfect information)"

I think what's being advocated is not perfect information, but rather that we
find a way to weld the bullshit-detection-switch to "on" in the vast majority
of people, so they don't selectively switch it off when viewing information
that fits their current mental model of the world.

~~~
usefulcat
Exactly. Information is not the problem, or at least not the most fundamental
one. The problem is that humans have a natural bias towards believing anything
that agrees with one's existing worldview, and a natural bias against
believing anything contrary to that worldview. In short, the underlying
problem really is a function of how our brains work.

Social media may not be the cause, but IMO it's definitely not helping either.
In the past, the kinds of political disagreements you see on social media
would almost always have happened in person instead (or over the phone at
least). I suspect most people find it a lot easier to be a jerk online than in
person.

------
wnevets
The number people repeating the wikileaks bullshit that clinton is a devil
worshipper is kinda insane. It would be silly to say its not a problem at all.

~~~
chillwaves
Which leaked email said that? I didn't see it. I saw the one that cut off
Tulsi Gabbard's fundraising for endorsing Bernie Sanders. [1]

I saw the emails between the Clinton campaign and DNC coordinating strategy to
"elevate" Donald Trump in a "pied piper" strategy. [2]

It is hard to dismiss that the DNC was a campaign arm of the Clinton campaign.
Whether you think that is a big deal or not, the emails do not deserve the
dismissive tone you have taken.

[1] [https://wikileaks.org/podesta-
emails/emailid/3609](https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3609) [2]
[https://wikileaks.org/podesta-
emails/emailid/1120](https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/1120)

~~~
FireBeyond
Not sure what you meant to link in #2, but it does not mention the word
"elevate", "Trump", "pied piper", or even "strategy".

~~~
undersuit
1) Open up that second link again.

2) Click on the Attachments tab instead of the View Email tab.

3) Inspect PDF contents.

4) Eat words.

~~~
FireBeyond
I will absolutely eat words. My apologies. I didn't even notice those tabs at
top.

I consider myself duly and absolutely corrected. :)

------
ebbv
I doubt it is either, but how is Snopes remotely in a position to make this
call? Snopes is a site for researching urban myths not for making complicated
sociopolitical analysis.

~~~
Torgo
They've dove into routinely-circulated Internet politics new items for a while
now. Personally I don't care for it. I can't tell if they know they are doing
this or not, but they'll take a circulated story, and then out of every
permutation of it across the Internet, they will pick the version that is just
outside the realm of fact, and then "debunk" that one as "mixed" or "false."

------
theobon
The problem, IMHO, is trust. We can't trust what we read online. We know there
is lots of true, useful information online and there is lots of crap. So, how
do you figure out which is which? Intuition, gut response, does it make sense.
All are tied to our biases.

Basically we have turned "Do I trust this?" into "Do I agree with what this is
saying?" I feel this is the core issue behind filter bubbles.

Fake news sites are mocking the problem. They aren't the cause but they aren't
helping either.

------
sparkzilla
I wrote a blog post about this yesterday [1]. The mainstream media has
manufactured the "fake news" meme to deflect from the vast amount of fake and
manipulated news it pushed through the election. I post the example of Trump
supposedly mocking a reporter's disability as a good example of the way the
New York Times and other media, supported by their "fact-checkers", completely
manufactured the news to suit their preferred narrative.

[1] [http://newslines.org/blog/lets-talk-about-fake-
news/](http://newslines.org/blog/lets-talk-about-fake-news/)

------
tomp
Of course it's not _the_ problem - it's just like any other bias and
propaganda (of which there's plenty in pretty much all media) - but it's a
convenient scapegoat.

