I always read anything I read in the news with a large pinch of salt but the recent loney tunes US election has unleashed an epidemic of planted and fake news stories and internet rumours that couldn't even be imagined in the pre-internet age.
The sad thing is that the legitimate spoof websites are going to suffer from Google's and Facebook's planned restrictions on advertising
revenue - the implication of their actions is that people are too dumb to realise when something is a mickey-taking wind-up.
The leader on this spoof website explains it very well.
It's a form of censorship, by starving these websites of cash. Can you imagine the outcry if similar action was taken against printed magazines
and journals, e.g. Private Eye?
After Brexit and Trump is there any real room for satire?
quote:
I’m delighted so many people fall for some of our stories and, as regular readers know, how the so-called mainstream media also get taken in and reproduce them.
The problem isnt the fake stories its the F**king morons that believe them and blindly share them.
The right to vote (and access the internet) should be earnt by passing a common sense test.
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Originally posted by loggyboy
The problem isnt the fake stories its the F**king morons that believe them and blindly share them.
The right to vote (and access the internet) should be earnt by passing a common sense test.
quote:
Originally posted by loggyboy
The problem isnt the fake stories its the F**king morons that believe them and blindly share them.
The right to vote (and access the internet) should be earnt by passing a common sense test.
I find it so depressing how many people fall for the most ridiculous stories. It's like people don't engage their brains.
I saw one story shared on Facebook that basically said that Muslims had bought an old church, dug up the graveyard and chucked the bodies into the
local tip! How thick do you have to be to not realise that obviously far right propaganda?! 30 seconds on Google revealed it was pure fiction.
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Originally posted by JoelP
30 seconds on Google revealed it was pure fiction.
Well indeed! A link to my common sense won't win an argument as well as snopes will (though of course, snopes is now a looney left conspiracy, if
we're to believe the knuckle draggers...)
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Originally posted by loggyboy
quote:
Originally posted by JoelP
30 seconds on Google revealed it was pure fiction.
0.3 secs use of common sense does the same!
The remarks on social media about Michelle Obama recently were pretty disgusting, considering the Trump clan aren't exactly refined.
Does this include the Clarkson latest attempt to dredge up some screentime in preparation for the new series??? Cynical- me???
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Originally posted by BenB
Does this include the Clarkson latest attempt to dredge up some screentime in preparation for the new series??? Cynical- me???
ahh but how do I know this is not a fake news story
Define real news. All news reporting is at best subjective, and nowadays much if not most is biased according to the agenda of the organisation doing the reporting. We have no way to assess which (if any ) is most accurate. Therefore it is hardly surprising that people are drawn more and more to those stories which reflect their own viewpoint. Spoof news stories and genuine news stories don't differ in that one is untrue and the other is true. They differ only that one is less true.
A big part of the problem is simple zero of checking on the facts before an indivdual post it on the internet. Somebody puts two and two together and
gets five instantly posts it on social media then it gets taken up by those who's purpses it suits Them gets amplified and goes viral and becomes
accepted as truth the example being the mythical busing of protesters to anti-Trump demos.
Then you get stories that are deiberately created fakes for political purposes, the classic is the burning of Reichstag in 1933. There is some
evidence of this sort of thing by Trump's minnions but I have no doubt either side in a dirty war would do it if required but Trump's side
has much less dirt to throw so has to invent it for a tame unquestioning alt-right fan base to lap-up.
Was going to say its nothing new and people have always fallen for fake news, the only difference is it spreads more widely.
A lot of fairly big news outlets have a load of people in offices just looking online and forwarding anything they find that's interesting up the
chain with no one thinking to verify it.
I used to work with a guy who was always trying to get fake news into news paper through writing letters (back in a time when no one really used the
internet) and got quite a few things threw that would have been so easy to prove false.