So who decides what's fake news? I see this as a desperate attempt by the failing MSM to silence independent news sites.
Fake news is annoying and requires some amount of work in order to sort through the bogus stories. But I don't like censoring things. People should learn to be selective in what sources they trust. There are books that are full of crap and they aren't nor should they be banned. So why put social media to different standards?
This isn't a silencing free speech issue. This is a private company doing something because they want to. Is your position that a private company shouldn't be allowed to do something like this?
Could just let the market decide. Some other clever coder could make a non-suppressed social media site just like Facebook, except without suppression of "fake news." Doubtful many people would migrate over on account of this issue but if it's really such a big deal then it opens up a potential market for someone ambitious enough to create an unsuppressed social media platform. That said, I'm against censorship. If someone gets their news from an unreliable source and treats their source as fact, that's on them.
If private companies don't want what they see as disreputable sites getting eyeballs through their services, then more power to them.
The fact that it is the 'the media' now, and not 'news organizations' says it all. We don't have news organizations anymore, only media outlets. Media outlets are there for one reason...to promote certain media. We let this happen, so it seems to be what we, the public want. I would love it if such stuff weren't out there. But even when established previously high reputation outlets like the New York Times have been caught, repeatedly, publishing false stories, and that we have effectively no control over things like twitter, google, etc. I don't see any way it could be curtailed even if that were the goal. Bringing it back, inevitably, to letting people figure it out on their own.
Agreed. Someone should start a social media site for people who have no concept of free speech or property, and all its users can rage about stories made up by some guy trolling for clicks. It'll be those alarmist conservative chain emails made modern.
No, not at all. We expect it. But we let it happen anyway. Because the solutions are generally worse. It also comes off as elitist. Who, for example, gets to decide who isn't capable of filtering such stuff, and who is? Who decides what to filter? Who decides who these who's are? A great deal of what politicians say is false. Do they get censored in mid speech? By who? What about what anybody says? If we are going to filter media content, do we filter people talking on the street? If not....why not? Too problematic. If people fall for the dumbest ****, then they do. They deserved it, and they got it. It all works out. Clutchfans is a media out, btw. Who would censor/filter here....and how much content would disappear if they did?
How the heck are Breitbart and InfoWars fake news? They covered the election more accurately than the mainstream media.
No it shouldn't, but Facebook, google, twitter etc. are free to do what they want to do. I guess they are mad they got Trump elected.
People in this thread are confusing fake news with biased news. Biased curation is fine, complete rumors and fake BS is not. Breitbart is biased, but so is Huff Post, Mother Jones, Salon, etc. We are talking about blatantly fake news. InfoWars is pretty close to that line. I'd consider it on the side of "Fake News" after pushing that dumb Jade Helm conspiracy. Regardless, its not like the government is curating anything. This is all on Google, Facebook, etc.
It might be a classification thing. Those feeds can be labeled satire. Fake news isn't really news and imo it shouldn't being there. I don't know what to call it without being offensive. Oliver and the like generally winds up in entertainment or tailored lib feeds. It's like those warnings on the cigarette packages, it might not amount to ****, but at least when I read zero hedge,I know what in getting.
Fake news is not news - it's propaganda. I think FB should ban all propaganda as news no matter the source. Nothing wrong with something from the Wall Street Journal or well respected conservative or liberal media source. But time to throw out the sources that just outright lie.
Does google censor because it doesn't show fake news in its news section? I think a media outlet as a right to control what it publishes to its readers as "news".
