
The CNN porn scare is how fake news spreads - imartin2k
http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/25/13748226/cnn-accidentally-airs-porn-fake-news-boston
======
shalmanese
This is just wrong news, not fake news. Fake news has become the buzzword du
jour but missing in the current application of the term to everything is the
main problem is not fake news _stories_ , it's fake news _sites_.

Journalists are always going to be wrong some of the time and several factors
have been ramping that error rate way up but this has been discussed at length
for at least a decade now. But, for the most part, legitimate news sites at
least try to vie for truth as one of the competing demands on the business.

What's genuinely new is sites whose entire business model is predicated on
intentional dissemination of knowingly false stories as a major part of the
media landscape. Alex Jones style journalism has always existed at the fringes
of the media landscape but now are becoming the main news source of a
significant proportion of the country and that's worrying.

Trying to label other things as "fake news" muddies the waters and distracts
from the issue.

~~~
Mithaldu
This is not fake news, but it's a great example of how the rush to be the
first, with no verification, spreads misinformation of all kinds.

And this does not only happen to journalist, but normal people too. It is thus
a good reminder to people to check before they retweet or share that article.

------
cjdjcjfnsns
This sudden moral panic is absurd. "Fake news" has existed for well over a
hundred years: they're called tabloids. Pulp tabloids were never a problem
until a certain presidential election embarassed the polling industry and
everyone started looking for a scapegoat.

If there's anything to take away from this, it's that the DNC et. al did not
learn their lesson and we're going to be stuck with four more miserable years
under Trump come 2020. You cannot attempt fix the outcome of a primary
election and still expect everyone to like you.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Tabloids, for all their problems, are not as bad as fake news. They do have
standards, they're just low, and are willing to go on hearsay sometimes. Yet
most of what they publish is verifiable, if spun.

Fake news is outright fabricated.

~~~
astrodust
Like _Weekly World News_? The line between that and tabloid news was razor
thin, if there was one at all.

They usually make up shit about celebrities and see what sticks, then beat
that drum until people tire of it.

~~~
freehunter
The thing with Weekly World News is, literally none of it is real. It's all
imaginary. And people know that. There's not a single sane person in the US
who thinks WWW is a truthful source of news. And I'm not saying "sane" as in
"agrees with my point of view" but the literal legal definition of sane. No
one with a valid drivers license, who lives on their own without supervision,
holds down a steady job, and has responsibilities beyond tying their own shoes
believes WWW is news. It's pure entertainment. No one thinks pro wrestling is
real either, even though they present it as being real. The "pretend to be
real" thing is just part of the entertainment value. It's playing the straight
man in a comedy routine.

But my mom, who has a doctorate degree in a medical profession and is a
director at a medical organization, firmly believes in everything and anything
that's mentioned in a tweet that is aired on CNN. Or posted on Facebook
overlaid on a picture of a Minion.

------
SiVal
From the Verge article: _CNN has also released a statement: “The RCN cable
operator in Boston aired inappropriate content for 30 minutes on CNN last
night. CNN has asked for an explanation.” But that still doesn’t really verify
that anything occurred._

Well, CNN was either calling its own content "inappropriate" or they were
saying that something occurred. Is the Verge so interested in promoting this
"fake news" meme that they won't even believe CNN's own statement that
"inappropriate content" was aired on CNN?

~~~
krastanov
This quote from the article seems to answer your question:

> Even if porn was aired on CNN, it’s clear that a lot of publications ran
> with a story based on tweets from one person before verifying the facts.

They are condemning the race to be first at the expense of verification. "Fake
news" might be an annoying buzz word, but I strongly support the main point of
their article: journalistic integrity requires checking your source.

Edit: However, I guess we both will agree with how shalmanese described the
situation above
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13041290](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13041290))

------
woliveirajr
There were one thread here at HN about it that took some time until the first
posts went on discrediting the news.

That's the point of theverge: one reports it because another site did it and
nobody wants to be the one who didn't have any headline about such _event_.
Which site wants to be the last one to publish something?

Source checking takes a time, being left out of the _event_ costs too much...

(disclaimer: I did comment on the previous thread)

~~~
Mithaldu
More importantly: Being wrong costs nothing, being late costs everything.

I'm not sure what can be done to increase the costs for being wrong, but as a
whole humanity does need to find a way to solve that.

~~~
freehunter
Same thing with security breaches today. Unless the attacker destroys the data
or steals money, there's no downside to a company getting hacked. Target and
Home Depot are still in business, doing the same thing they were doing
beforehand. Hell, even Linode, a company whose customers should know better,
is still happily humming along after they not only had one but two breaches,
and tried to hide the fact that they were compromised rather than disclosing
it.

If its just their customers being impacted, the businesses don't care. What
will it take for companies will get the hint that there's actual losses being
sustained from their actions, even if they themselves are not seeing the
losses?

It's called externalities, and they're everywhere. Exxon Mobile doesn't pay
for the damage their oil causes to the environment. Factories don't pay for
the smog they create. Carly Fiorina never went to jail over lies that incited
a shooting spree. Home Depot still processes credit cards. The Independent is
still reporting the news based off tweets.

The biggest challenge in the world right now, bigger than anything else we've
faced as a species, is how to make sure someone pays for their own
externalities. As we become more connected and more global, our lies and our
byproducts aren't just hurting those around us. They're hurting the entire
world.

------
nikanj
Ironically, this article ends with a banner from Outbrain, whose main product
is fake news and misleading headlines.

------
rampage101
People has discovered you can make ridiculous claims and if your webpage looks
half-way legit most people will believe it. The average reader of news is
incredibly stupid.

~~~
walrus01
And these people can _vote_ and _have children_... Shudder.

~~~
bertiewhykovich
God forbid those proles vote, or -- horror of horrors -- have one of the most
fulfilling human experiences! They should all be disenfranchised and
sterilized.

~~~
walrus01
Detection of sarcasm is not one of your skills, apparently.

~~~
bertiewhykovich
Conveying sarcasm may not be one of yours.

------
BerislavLopac
This fake news phenomena is simply the natural progression. Media has always
been caught between the need for speed and the need for quality, with each
outlet at any moment falling somewhere on the spectrum between those two
goals. Too much of one extreme usually spelled the disaster for the outlet,
either because it became too elitist, or if became too ridiculous. And
starting a new media outlet represented significant effort and cost, and the
distribution channels (print, TV, radio) were relatively expensive.

In the era when the media channels themselves are extremely cheap (i.e. the
Internet), the extremes are not as dangerous as they used to be, and risking
going to extremes became much more valuable. However, with the cost of
channels gone, the cost of quality becomes a much more significant burden, and
optimising for speed became much easier, at the cost of quality. Add on top of
that the willingness of various groups to pay for the costs of such media
(optimised for speed as opposed to quality), it is clear where such abundance
comes from.

Note: By "media quality" I mean an amalgamate of different elements like
topics covered, quality of writing/reporting, production quality, amount of
research etc.

------
rokosbasilisk
So fake news spreads via real news sites now. Should the rolling stone be
blacklisted for fake news like the uva rape hoax ?

Where is the line essentially?

~~~
freehunter
I'm not advocating blacklisting news agencies, but I would strongly suggest
everyone take a critical look at their own sources of news, and then at
everything they report.

I told a joke at work a few years back, "hey did you hear Betty White dyed?"
The obvious joke is she "dyed" as in changed her hair color, but it sounds
like "died". Someone overheard me and it wasn't long before I heard people
mourning one of their favorite celebrities.

News agencies are exactly like that.

------
mrdrozdov
Unclear. Was the story accurate?

~~~
vurpo
All the CNN porn stories' sources trace back to one single tweet by one user
on Twitter. That's the only original source we have on the CNN porn thing ever
happening.

According to these articles, there was porn on CNN over large parts of the
east coast, for 30 minutes. 30 minutes of porn on CNN in significant parts of
the US, on Thanksgiving evening, and only one person noticed it and decided to
post anything about it online? That smells very suspicious.

~~~
mrdrozdov
Thanks. According to Snopes, the story is False [1]. It's pretty ridiculous
that "credible" news sources can write a story like this and then take no
responsibility when it's wrong. I don't think it's enough to just correct a
story after the fact. There should be a fine or search engine punishment, or
something along these lines.

For instance, I read this story earlier on Variety and it was presented as
fact. If you go back to the same url [2] the story and headline have
completely changed.

Previous Headline: Cable Operator Snafu in Boston Leads to Porn Airing on
CNN...

Current Headline: CNN, RCN Deny Reports of Porn Airing on Channel in Boston

[1]: [http://www.snopes.com/cnn-half-hour-porn/](http://www.snopes.com/cnn-
half-hour-porn/) [2]: [http://variety.com/2016/legit/news/cnn-porn-boston-rcn-
cable...](http://variety.com/2016/legit/news/cnn-porn-boston-rcn-cable-
operator-1201926702/)

~~~
dingaling
> According to Snopes, the story is False.

But according to the content page, Snopes does't know. It's _probably_ or
_most likely_ false but CNN and RCN are still investigating, so we don't know
for certain.

But just as some news are keen to run with any rumour as news, Snopes seems
keen to mark rumours as False as quickly as possible for the same reason; put
content online that gets clicks.

~~~
mrdrozdov
What is the content page?

------
flint
Nobody actually watches CNN.

