Hundreds of 'Pink Slime' Local News Outlets Are Distributing Algorithmic Stories and Conservative Talking Points, Investigation Finds (cjr.org) 228
The Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism reports: An increasingly popular tactic challenges conventional wisdom on the spread of electoral disinformation: the creation of partisan outlets masquerading as local news organizations. An investigation by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School has discovered at least 450 websites in a network of local and business news organizations, each distributing thousands of algorithmically generated articles and a smaller number of reported stories. Of the 450 sites we discovered, at least 189 were set up as local news networks across ten states within the last twelve months by an organization called Metric Media. Titles like the East Michigan News, Hickory Sun, and Grand Canyon Times have appeared on the web ahead of the 2020 election. These networks of sites can be used in a variety of ways: as 'stage setting' for events, focusing attention on issues such as voter fraud and energy pricing, providing the appearance of neutrality for partisan issues, or to gather data from users that can then be used for political targeting.
On October 20, the Lansing State Journal first broke the story of the network's existence. About three dozen local news sites, owned by Metric Media, had appeared in Michigan. Further reporting by the Michigan Daily, the Guardian and the New York Times identified yet more sites. Ultimately, previous reporting has identified around 200 of these sites. Our analysis suggests that there are at least twice that number of publications across a number of related networks, of which Metric Media is just one component. Over a two-week period starting November 26, we tapped into the RSS feeds of these 189 Metric Media sites, all of which were we found that were created this year, and found over fifteen thousand unique stories had been published (over fifty thousand when aggregated across the sites), but only about a hundred titles had the bylines of human reporters. The rest cited automated services or press releases.
On October 20, the Lansing State Journal first broke the story of the network's existence. About three dozen local news sites, owned by Metric Media, had appeared in Michigan. Further reporting by the Michigan Daily, the Guardian and the New York Times identified yet more sites. Ultimately, previous reporting has identified around 200 of these sites. Our analysis suggests that there are at least twice that number of publications across a number of related networks, of which Metric Media is just one component. Over a two-week period starting November 26, we tapped into the RSS feeds of these 189 Metric Media sites, all of which were we found that were created this year, and found over fifteen thousand unique stories had been published (over fifty thousand when aggregated across the sites), but only about a hundred titles had the bylines of human reporters. The rest cited automated services or press releases.
So what. (Score:2, Insightful)
Its just like the rest of the media.
Regurgitated AP stories with very little original content.
It's a little more than that (Score:4, Insightful)
And make no mistake, this is to your detriment. The goal here is to reduce taxes, cut social programs, eliminate hard fought workers rights and slash environmental regulations (the "no lead in drinking water" kind, not the "Shave the Whales" kind). There's money behind this. Big money. And it's not on your side.
You should be sitting up and taking notice. Especially in a "first past the post" winner take all political system like ours. A small shift in the electorate can have dramatic impacts on your life. This is how you get things like endless regime change wars, the Drug War, NAFTA sending your jobs overseas, etc, etc. All things against the interests of everyone, all very unpopular, all passed without incident.
Re:It's a little more than that (Score:5, Funny)
...NAFTA sending your jobs overseas...
Mexico and Canada are overseas? Unless the Rio Grande and the Great Lakes are now classified as seas...
Close enough (Score:2)
Re:It's a little more than that (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:It's a little more than that (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree, it's purpose is more likely to be to keep people fighting among themselves, sow the seeds of doubt, and disruption of of faith in democratic institutions no matter what side of the aisle you may happen to sit on. Even your reply is a product of that effort, as its gotten you to point fingers at "the other side", and thus keeping you distracted from the real threats.
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There is nothing more dangerous then a Unified America. The founders knew that that is why there are the checks and balances in the political system. However I doubt they would think of modern communication technology where divisive content can so rapidly be deployed without the ability moderate the information.
We now have angry drunken bar rant vs stoned hippy delusional state. As the key arguments, vs actual detailed debates determining the scope and cause and effect of ideas.
With both sides bickering
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Where is the :eyeroll: emoji?
Re: It's a little more than that (Score:2)
But this isn't borderline anymore. It's information warfare.
So idealistic and well-intentioned and yet so naive; the only thing that's new is the "Internet" part. Otherwise, this bullshit oes back over half a century, recent developments [thefreetho...roject.com] notwithstanding.
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Re:It's a little more than that (Score:5, Insightful)
Fox News was founded by a political consultant. The people on Fox News repeat the identical phraseology.
It's basic propaganda. All propagandists have a point of view; not everyone who has a point of view is a propagandist.
Re:It's a little more than that (Score:5, Interesting)
My determination for propagandists is based on their use of Big Lie techniques:
A big lie (German: große Lüge) is a propaganda technique and logical trick (fallacy). The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously". [wikipedia.org]
Fox, and the rest of the current 'right wing media outlets' do this constantly, and it has been picked up by gop members of Congress and the Executive branch. It is well past time for all Americans to reject this behavior
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The most important thing is that propagandists tell you how to feel. It's not necessarily the wrong way to feel, but it's certainly the wrong way to think.
Re:It's a little more than that (Score:5, Informative)
He did find Russia interfered with our elections.
He didn't say there was no collusion (yes it is a double negative)
Mueller did his job, however he tried to be professional about it which makes the news boring.
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you would make Goebbels blush, and Hitler beam with joy
Re:It's a little more than that (Score:5, Informative)
He investigated and said he found no crime committed by any American. No collusion.
Why are words so hard for some people? This is a serious question.
He did find collusion, lots of it. Collusion is legal (though bad if you have either a sense of ethics or of patriotism). What he didn't find was enough conspiracy to charge anyone with a crime.
He also found many crimes committed by americans. Some he charged, some he sent to other law enforcement groups to investigate. Seriously, did you read the report at all?
He found enough obstruction of justice to charge someone with a crime, except that the Justice Department won't charge a sitting president.
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Not really. Under certain definitions. Maybe. Under the legal definitions, no. Under the laymen definition, no.
There is NO legal definition of collusion. The "laymen definition", hmm: Trump campaign officials met with Russians affiliated with the government, for the purpose of asking them for dirt on their campaign opponent. And lied about it. That fits the "laymen definition" of collusion.
Lying to law enforcement during an investigation is a crime. Law enforcement lying is usually not a crime. I'm not a fan of that, but those are the laws. If you don't like them, elect someone who will change them, but don'
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No, he said that he didn't have enough evidence to make a court case of conspiracy/collusion and he noted in the first part of the report that that could be because of the obstruction of justice discussed in the second part of the report. He was unable to interview many witnesses and quite of few of the witnesses he did interview lied to him.
That is not the same as finding that there was no collusion.
And the investigation
Re:It's a little more than that (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank you for demonstrating some lesser parts of the Big Lie
1. Repeat the lie: “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Joseph Goebbels
2. Blame others: "His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it." OSS psych eval of Adolph Hitler
Re:It's a little more than that (Score:4, Informative)
Fuck... its scary how that second part you quote describes almost exactly the behavior of Trump...
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I'd say it describes some, but not all, of the news media. If you think they're all yelling pundits like MSNBC or Fox News, you're not looking in the right places, apparently.
But neither I nor the parent were talking about the media with that quote. If you can't see how Trump's behavior differs from that of past elected leaders in this country, then you're just being willfully blind.
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> If you think they're all yelling pundits like MSNBC or Fox News, you're not looking in the right places, apparently.
There is no one place I go. I tend to go to the source. I don't like 3rd hand accounts of a report I can read. But then again, I sometimes like reading law, judicial opinions, and studies if it interests me.
I think "yelling" is more the norm than not.
>If you can't see how Trump's behavior differs from that of past elected leaders in this country,
Is that a feature or a bug? I would argu
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Also leaving out important pieces. The headline is not "Man rams bus stop and kills two, gets out with axe to kill more, is shot by police" it's "Israeli police kill man".
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Troll, my ass.
The leftists are out in full today, and armed to the teeth with mod points!
QFT:
Then you're missing some other techniquies:
- Sampling bias and information suppression - such as heavily reporting things that support one side and not reporting thigs that support the other. (e.g. Report offensive gun use no matter how rare, never report defensive gun use.)
- Loaded words in descriptions. (e.g. they live in a "compound", rather than an "estate" or "church camp" if they're supposed to be the bad guys.)
Just to name two.
Not just Fox News (Score:2)
The divide isn't right, left, up or down. It's Establishment vs anti-Establishment. Go into your online feeds and block CNN, MSNBC & Fox News, es
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Uh, no, the Bush Admin "...lied us into 2 massive wars." In particular, some of Powell's key points in his UN address were known false at the time.
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Anti-establishment? Right. I have a word for you "co-option". Any "anti-establishment" view that gets national media exposure and a funding for a social media campaign is bogus.
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Yes, Fox and MSNBC should be lumped together, Fox is just wildly more successful than MSNBC because conservatives are more willing to be lied to when their beliefs conflict with reality [slate.com]
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Yes, Fox and MSNBC should be lumped together...
More relevantly, it is CNN and Fox which should be lumped together. MSNBC advertises as an ideology site, like Breitbart, while CNN and Fox present themselves as being general news while actually being Democrat and Republican sock puppets.
Look at the commentary sections on Fox articles - nothing but the no-forehead demographic. Now look at the commentary sections on CNN - oh look, there are none, because like its friends in academia, CNN has dropped even the pretense of free speech.
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OK, at least I cited support for my statement, how about you cite or shut the fuck up
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Not perpetuating it in an attempt to continually grow the government and tax burden.
What evidence do you have that someone is actually looking only to "grow the government and tax burden"? You mentioned homeless programs earlier, do you view homeless programs under that lens that they exist not to do anything for homelessness but rather simply to "grow government and tax burden"?
Homelessness is not a simple problem, and it will not have a single cure. Part of it is availability of affordable living space, another is availability of jobs. Yet another part is access to health care -
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>What evidence do you have that someone is actually looking only to "grow the government and tax burden"?
You can have good intentions with bad outcomes.
Now it is unclear to me whether or not you actually believe the words you wrote. Earlier you paraphrased a popular conservative mantra when you said:
Not perpetuating it in an attempt to continually grow the government and tax burden
But now you've back-pedaled and said that maybe people aren't actually trying to do what you specifically accused them of trying to do.
How does mass illegal immigration for Sanctuary CA help the homelessness problem? They compete for burdened government services/money, low skill work, and limited housing.
There are several problems with your claim there.
First, the illegal immigration is not mass by any realistic measurement. Yes, they are there but compared to the number of people already living in California the populatio
Re:So what. (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine being so ambivalently brain-dead that you equate syndication of journalism with wholesale deliberate disinformation. You're doing an awful lot of lifting on behalf of bad actors here.
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Re:So what. (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine being so ambivalently brain-dead that you can't tell the difference between syndication of journalism and wholesale deliberate disinformation.
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Re:So what. (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as I can tell, the concern is that they're "right wing".
Re:So what. (Score:4, Informative)
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Just because you've decided to believe the 15,000 lies Trump has told so far during his administration doesn't make us delusional.
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Wait... Your telling me that two Big Macs don't stack up to a mile high?
Well I am glad that was fact checked.
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It does indeed make you delusional when all you can think about night and day is the orange one. Ever watch the late night talk shows?
The late night talk shows are doing it for the advertisers. They're pulling in ratings by talking about the orange one. Some of them held out while Colbert was all in. Now they've all given up and followed, because they lost so much in the ratings game.
Those ratings aren't from TDS. They're from people seeking the circuses part of bread and circuses. Trump got elected at least in part because he's an entertainer in the mould of professional wrestlers. He's putting on that kind of show, for precisely t
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Re:So what. (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering that "right wing" is synonymous with Russian/North Korean/Chinese ideals, certainly makes it more concerning.
Yes, "right-wing" is clearly synonymous with former or current communist states.
I'd accuse you of trolling, but this is just so unbelievably foolhardy that only someone who truly believes this nonsense would be capable of uttering it. Either that or you're so far off the deep end of the spectrum that everything appears right wing to you in much the same way that if you were standing on the south pole, everywhere is north.
Re:So what. (Score:4, Insightful)
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But please explain how those countries you listed are “right wing” which ought to require such an amazing degree of mental contortions even the Russian judge would have to give it a 10.
Re:Americans expressing opinions? (Score:5, Insightful)
When a car salesman lies deliberately to pass of a piece of garbage as reliable transportation, would you defend that as an American expressing their opinions?
Many positions require that the person in them behave with some respect for the Truth and for the people that they are speaking to. If they reject both by lying, then everybody should be concerned
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Re:Americans expressing opinions? (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny thing, there are laws that prevent people selling things to you from lying to customers, it is called fraud [chron.com]
Voters should demand similar protections, fraud should not be considered 'Free Speech'
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That's the job of the press -- to ferret out false or misleading info.
You don't want the government becoming, in the words of one court case, "the arbiter of truth", especially in regards to political statements. Who wants those in power deciding the truth of statements against them?
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That's the job of the press -- to ferret out false or misleading info.
Which they, excluding the Fox tabloid, have done since the day the con artist assumed power. Every day they point out his lies, his falsehoods, his fabrications, and then he turns around and calls them out for being fake and his uneducated followers swallow his drivel. What ends up happening are the trolls who keep repeating the lie, "The MSM has done this to themselves which is why no one trusts them", despite the fact the real news med
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There is a proposal in the UK to make politicians lying a criminal offense.
The problem is that it's very hard to prove they did it deliberately. Many of the lies are statistic abuse or "I was told that by some unnamed source so I'm the victim too."
Proving beyond a reasonable doubt that a politician lied deliberately is not easy and if it became law they would carefully phrase everything to give themselves deniability.
Thanks (Score:2)
When a car salesman lies deliberately to pass of a piece of garbage as reliable transportation, would you defend that as an American expressing their opinions?
Many positions require that the person in them behave with some respect for the Truth and for the people that they are speaking to. If they reject both by lying, then everybody should be concerned
Your response is astonishingly good. It's leading me to rethink the issue.
Thanks.
(And no, not being sarcastic. I'm genuinely impressed.)
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Kudos to you for being willing to do this and say so. Doesn't happen often on Slashdot.
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Jesus I hope you're still in your 20s, there still might be time for you.
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A new deadly virus strain is killing thousands of people.
So what it is like any other virus. Breaking into your cells to reproduce.
How things are implemented and intent are far more of a big deal on the action.
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If the report the facts from AP you complain. If they editorialise you complain. They can't win.
That's completely missing the point of this algo though. The idea is to create a bubble, a network of sites all spouting the same message. Not only does it help their Google rank, it creates the impression of a large consensus and widely held beliefs.
It's the next step from the blogs masquerading as news sites we saw in 2016.
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Said "Trump says media is ‘Enemy’ after shooting, bomb plot" when he actually said "The Fake News Media" is "the true Enemy of the People".
Commonly translates (erroneously into quotes) "Allahu Akbar" as "God is Great" to avoid revealing a perp's religion.
Misstates gun statistics with frequency.
That AP?
Re:So what. (Score:5, Informative)
Associated Press? The same AP that:
Said "Trump says media is ‘Enemy’ after shooting, bomb plot" when he actually said "The Fake News Media" is "the true Enemy of the People".
To Trump, anything to the left of Fox News, Breitbart, or Infowars, or that doesn't fawn over him 24/7, is the "fake news media". So yes, what they said was accurate.
And what is wrong with translating a phrase in a foreign language to the one you are writing in?
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How is paraphrasing like that opinion, esp. when he lumps just about all the mainstream media, including highly respected outlets like the NYT into Fake News? Really.
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"Fake News Media" is how Trump has consistently described the media in general for years now. It's his pet name for them. Just like "crooked Hillary" is the same person as Hillary Clinton.
Also it's a headline, and the quote marks are around the word they actually quoted, not that bit.
Basic reading comprehension.
Meanwhile (Score:3, Insightful)
Meanwhile hundreds of main stream media news sites are running liberal news stories. Many of which are the exact same stories from AP or Reuters. The result of which has been a significant loss of trust in the media by pretty much anyone who isn't a partisan liberal.
https://www.cjr.org/the_media_... [cjr.org]
https://www.niemanlab.org/2018... [niemanlab.org]
https://www.washingtontimes.co... [washingtontimes.com]
https://thehill.com/homenews/m... [thehill.com]
Re:Meanwhile (Score:5, Informative)
That's what AP and Reuters are for: selling content. You think a local newspaper has the resources to have a Washington bureau, to cover international affairs or science?
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Aimed at the old, and non-skeptical. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah - in 2016 and since, I've seen more conservative relatives watching robo-voiced "news stories" on Youtube, and reports like this.
They eat it up as confirmation for what they want anyway.
None of this is new though. Ever since the printing press caught on, there's been 'scandalous' yellow journalism. Look at any comprehensive newspaper archive at various 1800's newspaper - aside from language shift, the tactics are old, old, old. Throw mud, throw scandal, throw the poorest quality argument you can, just to see them twitch - dirty politics has always been part of the conservative process, however it was defined in the era.
It's literally part what it means to conserve the old and prevent the new.
And even before the printing press, the same process was happening in Feudal eras, and before.
Folks use misinformation to shape power. That's kind of why it's important not to let politics become too corrupt - or that misinformation becomes your world. Lots of South American nations have spent the last century bouncing between extremes and violence on exactly that.
Fortunately, I don't see as prevalent outside the oldest generations. Unfortunately, they do seem to be keeping the greater share power for the immediate future.
We're getting slightly less stupid, in spite of all the stupid over time. We just don't remember that stupid with all the nostalgia.
Ryan Fenton
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None so blind...
But now the fake news can saturate the channel (Score:2)
Found your comment on the "YouTube" reference, though it's good to see it was modded up on its merits. I'd extend your analysis in a slightly different direction, however.
Now we have access to so much data that it's much easier to saturate any person's input channels with what that person wants to believe. That goes all the way down to cat videos. I haven't checked on that specific category, but I'm pretty sure that YouTube could keep you busy for some years even if no fresh ones were uploaded.
I think the l
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That's why I mentioned the 1800's newspapers.
Saturating the available information space with garbage arguments is nothing new.
Neither is asking clergy to repeat your political talking points as gospel.
None of these are new approaches.
It's not a propaganda thing so much as it's a general interference thing.
People watching Fox news know it's largely broken arguments - the same that they know that their neighbor talking about aliens is just blowing hot air for fun and mystery.
The 'inside joke' of Fox is that t
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I'm not saying that the techniques are new. Nor that it's a new thing that people believe what they want to believe. I think we're basically in agreement on those points (and others). However...
My emphatic point is that the quantity of input is much larger than it used to be. The newspaper in 1800 had only a few pages, and even if you bought one that printed exactly what you wanted to believe, you'd finish it quickly and afterwards you might encounter some disturbing realities that challenged your beliefs.
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Yeah - I think a big part of the POINT of this approach is to literally stand in front of its victims, and express glory in how they can lie with impunity right in front of them.
The whole point of these movements always seems to be to state in the open that they can inflict any cruelty or lies they want, with no consequences - then stretch the limits of even that.
Puerto Rico and child detainment seem to be explicit cases of these.
Keep the other side so busy reacting and responding to that, that they can't p
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LOL
"...dirty politics has always been part of the conservative process..."
Yes, how many dead people voted for JFK, again?
There are well-meaning liberals, there are corrupt, terrible liberals. There are well-meaning conservatives, there are corrupt, terrible conservatives. There are well-meaning young people, there are corrupt, terrible young people. There are well-meaning old people , there are corrupt, terrible old people.
Basically, anyone insisting "group X" has a monopoly on virtue/evil is trying to se
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The other approach (the one enshrined in the U.S. Constitution by the founding fathers, which we seem to have tossed by the wayside) is to simply not allow politics to become too powerful. Limiting the scope of government to the bare essentials minimizes the harm that can be done by the political process becoming corrupt.
Misinformation tends to far
Noise (Score:3)
I admit to not having the answer, but with the rise of so much artificially-generated 'noise', how does clarity/truth/facts make its way into the public's consciousness?
Societies with a lot of societal uniformity tend to have mores, laws, behavioral norms that put up barriers to 'wide open' expression of every opinion, regardless to its affect of greater society.
But in the US, there is a history of freedom of expression and I think 'pink slime' is just the flip side of that coin. (We were not so open just a couple generations ago - think of McCarthyism)
The questions are; should we just tolerate it, even when it has a negative impact on society and if not, what exactly can be done about it without stumbling over the freedom of expression that we hold to be so important? Are we going to have to compromise that freedom a little to make sure the public receives truth?
If freedom of expression were just that - the expression of ideas/opinions - it wouldn't be such a hot topic. But the *result* of that expression sways elections, causes laws to be passed that benefit only a few, has the strong potential to disenfranchise large portions of our society.
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>how does clarity/truth/facts make its way into the public's consciousness?
Individuals/sources are perceived to be truthful. People gravitate toward those they perceive as more truthful. It's not that they are correct 100% of the time. It's that they understand the bias and either don't care or agree with it.
> with a lot of societal uniformity tend to have mores, laws, behavioral norms that put up barriers to 'wide open' expression of every opinion, regardless to its affect of greater society.
Diversit
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I don't have the answer. I really don't.
I'm looking for answers just like a lot of people.
Re:Noise (Score:5, Informative)
fyi, you are replying to a concern troll who spreads lies whilst looking for opportunities to flop and pretend people are treating them unfairly
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"fyi, you are replying to a concern troll who spreads lies whilst looking for opportunities to flop and pretend people are treating them unfairly"
So, in a sense, this thread has become an analogy within an analogy
Sigh - I want USENET from 1992 back! Whaaaa.... At least you knew the BS from the (sort of) reality
Wait, I'm probably just fooling myself....
Damn
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Agreed, USENET was a lot more honest, and people seemed to have a better sense of humor back then, even noting when they were about to ignite a flame war ("Please wait while I zip up my flame proof suit", being a common phrase)
FWIW, I think it has to do with the attempts to monetize influential websites and the appearance of astro-turfing (like penandpaper)
It would help if Slashdot was in the hands of the originators, and not a third or fourth hand owner who sells low uids and provides support to astroturfi
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Meh. Looking for answers says nothing about the questions being asked.
Lets mot forget local channels forced to show (Score:3)
things like the Sinclair "Terrorism Alert Desk"
Ethical Journalism (Score:5, Interesting)
Like many denizens of the interwebs, I often see headlines that I find to be incredulous. If I'm feeling like a diligent reader that day, I will look for the author's name, look for the published date, and possibly run a whois on the domain name. This usually provides a good litmus test as to whether I can consider the headline to be of any sort of repute or not. Those who are publishing mindless propaganda will often go the extra mile to obfuscate who they are and how they drew their conclusions.
Unfortunately, the damage is already done once the article has been circulated. These articles are intended to reinforce confirmation bias. They are thought up by think tanks with legions of lawyers that make sure they do not cross slander or libel laws. It's near impossible to hold the publishers to account as their domain names are often registered by a proxy to protect their anonymity. Welcome to the age of the Anonymous Coward.
"Pink Slime"? (Score:2)
What is this, Ghostbusters 2?
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Why didn't you address your titular (Subjective?) question?
Actually, the story doesn't do a very good job, either, in terms of defining it. Just refers to an earlier story, which doesn't justify including "pink slime" in the title there or here.
My tentative definition would focus on the rebroadcast websites with the synthetic voices. Not sure if that's to disguise their accents or because they are afraid of being identified and prosecuted.
However, I think that's just the misdirection or even a MacGuffin. I'
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"Pink slime" was the name given to scrapings of tendon meat and other crud that was certified as 100% beef, when used as an ingredient in burgers and whatnot.
There was a big push against this. We never did find out what lawyers stood in line to profiteer off lawsuits over it.
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Thanks, but I should have clarified that I knew that part of it. What I meant was that I didn't see a clear justification for comparing the fake news websites to "pink slime". As I recall that old story, McDonald's dropped the "supplement" as soon as it became known to the public.
But now that you mentioned it, you've made me wonder what is being done with the pink slime these days. Hmm... Wikipedia has a pretty good article about it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Huh? (Score:2)
Do we not want unfraudulent voting?
The antidote remains (Score:5, Insightful)
Of COURSE they use those kinds of names... (Score:2)
Algorithmically created fake news? (Score:2)
Self-defense? (Score:2)
I can see that the right-leaning citizens needed to create their own forms of news media in self -defense; The majority of the news is dominated by left-wing propagandists. However, the content is not necessarily news, and thinking citizens need to create their own self-defense methods.
First, when people ask me what I think of the news, I point out that I only really pay attention to articles that have Political AND Economic AND Social implications. Those conditions mean that the shelf life of the events be
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Then it will be replaced by journalism about top 10 lists that BLOW YOUR MIND!
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Then it will be replaced by journalism about top 10 lists that BLOW YOUR MIND!
And those stupid videos that are nothing but text scrolling over a musical bed. Why go to the trouble of making a video when we could just view the text as an article?
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Under U.S. capitalism journalists must write
Under non-capitalism, journalists must write stories those in power mandate, or the don't get to write, or be free, or live.
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Look at who posted this...it's wrong because it's conservative. If it had been the other side doing this then msmash would've been praising the brilliance of it all and making fun of the conservatives for not thinking of it first.
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Re:LOL Americans are screwed (Score:5, Interesting)
I dunno. As much as I think Trump deserves to be removed from office, I've been studying Federalist #65, where Alexander Hamilton laid out the Framers' rationale about impeachment. He makes it pretty clear that removing a President is fundamentally a political act, which is the reason why the trial was handed to the Senate, rather than to the Supreme Court. In part, this is because the Framers were basing impeachment on the British model (as it stood at the 18th century), wherein House of Commons would impeach, and the House of Lords would convict. Particularly before the Glorious Revolution, the only way Parliament could hold the Crown to account was by impeaching the King's ministers and officials (the King himself, was constitutionally untouchable, that is until Charles I was put on trial and executed).
It's a pity that the Framers didn't fully foresee where Westminster was going. Impeachment in Britain was pretty much rendered moot (if not outright extinct) by the beginning of the 19th century, when Governments came by and large to be formed out of sitting MPs and Lords, and where Parliament had a far more potent and simpler weapon to take down errant Ministries; the power to revoke confidence. While the King's Ministers having to have the confidence of Parliament had been around for quite a while, when it was combined with Governments being formed out of the largest bloc of Parliamentarians, who could, in Westminster parlance, command the confidence of the House, Parliament had a far superior weapon against the Executive than the power of impeachment, which was by and large a product of the 14th century.
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Between the two a vote of no confidence seems much easier to do and more common. Politicians posture all the time with virtue signal. The best kind of posturing is to call another politician bad for actions/words as to distinguish themselves as 'one of the good ones'. I am not sure if that is better or not but in either case it can be done for purely political reasons.
One difference is if a politician (particularly Congressman) does something that is not quite impeachable, but still bad enough to invoke a
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My point is that the Framers knew that impeachment and removal of a President would be a political process, so rather than create an inter-branch nightmare by involving the judiciary, they chose to keep the British model by having the politicians sort it out. That being the case, it was inevitable that impeachment and the trial would almost always fall along partisan lines; Hamilton makes note of that himself in Federal #65:
"A well-constituted court for the trial of impeachments is an object not more to be