
Kenyans bombarded with fake news in presidential election [video] - the_one_forever
https://www.channel4.com/news/kenyans-bombarded-with-fake-news-in-presidential-election
======
evv
The cat is out of the bag- this stuff works!

As most of us here know, fake news is an incredibly tricky problem to address.
You tell me the tool that solves it, and I'll tell you how it can be gamed.

Democracy's only hope is to build a culture of transparency and healthy
skepticism.

~~~
lifthearth
I am reminded of the experiment where a cockroach had brain implants that
allowed its movement to be controlled electronically. After a while the
cockroach would figure out the signal the researchers were using and its brain
ignored it effectively locking out the researchers. At some point it was
figured out that if random noise (music) was constantly transmitted the
cockroach could be controlled much longer before its brain figured out what
signal to block. In the end it would always figure out what signal the
researchers were using.

Right now fake news is merely manipulative signal wrapped in noise. If
cockroaches can figure it out, so can every human on earth.

Alternatively we could start a reality tv show where every week fake news
company executives are tried for treason and executed. Hell kick it up to 3x a
week I'd watch it.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Maybe we should start with Dan Rather. His fake memo
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy))
was the first attempt (that was caught at the in real-time) in using fake news
(literally a faked meo) to influence a Presidential election by a major
network. A lot of today's distrust of media traces from that incident.

~~~
telchar
That was a failure of fact-checking, not fake news as it's typically
understood. It has happened occasionally in otherwise-respectable
publications. The network fired a number of people involved including Dan
Rather not because they intentionally crafted a false narrative but because
they claimed they had done fact-checking when they hadn't.

"Fake news", as typically understood, is news that is known to be fake by the
publisher.

------
surferbayarea
Hard to believe that Facebook did not know about this? I imagine there are
small account-management teams within facebook for large clients spending
millions.

