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Today Google announced that they are integrating a fact-checking mechanism into Google Search: https://blog.google/products/search/fact-check-now-available-google-search-and-news-around-world/
+ Show Spoiler +After assessing feedback from both users and publishers, we’re making the Fact Check label in Google News available everywhere, and expanding it into Search globally in all languages. For the first time, when you conduct a search on Google that returns an authoritative result containing fact checks for one or more public claims, you will see that information clearly on the search results page. The snippet will display information on the claim, who made the claim, and the fact check of that particular claim.
This information won’t be available for every search result, and there may be search result pages where different publishers checked the same claim and reached different conclusions. These fact checks are not Google’s and are presented so people can make more informed judgements. Even though differing conclusions may be presented, we think it’s still helpful for people to understand the degree of consensus around a particular claim and have clear information on which sources agree. As we make fact checks more visible in Search results, we believe people will have an easier time reviewing and assessing these fact checks, and making their own informed opinions.
For publishers to be included in this feature, they must be using the Schema.org ClaimReview markup on the specific pages where they fact check public statements (documentation here), or they can use the Share the Facts widget developed by the Duke University Reporters Lab and Jigsaw. Only publishers that are algorithmically determined to be an authoritative source of information will qualify for inclusion. Finally, the content must adhere to the general policies that apply to all structured data markup, the Google News Publisher criteria for fact checks, and the standards for accountability and transparency, readability or proper site representation as articulated in our Google News General Guidelines. If a publisher or fact check claim does not meet these standards or honor these policies, we may, at our discretion, ignore that site's markup.
I have brought this topic up many times in the US Politics and the European Politics threads, so I thought this might be a good opportunity to create a new thread about international news media and journalism.
Fake news, propaganda, sensationalism ("tabloid news" and "yellow journalism") and whatnot are obviously not new issues, although I think their effectiveness over the past decade has magnified and the situation is really bad in some places. I think the most appalling thing that has happened in recent times is when the German magazine Bild completely fabricated a story in February 2017 about a Muslim rape mob marching across Frankfurt, sexually assaulting people in the streets. To this day there are still some extremist news sites that think this actually happened and there's a worldwide cover-up conspiracy, despite Bild having withdrawn the story completely.
So one might think that Google's effort to build-in a fact checking mechanism into their search engine is laudable. (I believe Facebook has also said they are working on a similar feature.) But I fear that it might backfire heavily and only embolden tabloid readers into believing that Google/Facebook/whomever are "in" on some globalist conspiracy to hide legitimate news that conflict with their agenda. Certainly I don't think those two corporations are all-benevolent entities, or that they are doing this for purely altruistic motives -- I in fact anticipate some distortions if it's profitable to them. That being said, clearly the current situation where anybody in any country can dump pure crap on the Internet at will and it's immediately propagated is really not satisfactory. There is no obvious and clean answer to the problem.
For my part, I'm going to list some fact-verifying websites that I rely on. Unfortunately these are mostly USA-based so they primarily cover stories in the American media, hopefully other TL posters can provide similar resources that are more focused on other countries. Now, I want to emphasize that of course, all of the following are run by human beings, who do err and have their own biases, but I think they're well-researched and mostly reliable:
- Snopes
- Fact Checker column in The Washington Post
- PolitiFact
- AP Fact Check
- FactCheck.org
- Reality Check by BBC (UK)
- The Journal (Ireland)
The ones Google will be relying on can be found here: https://reporterslab.org/fact-checking/#
Now, I also want to say that this thread is not going to exclusively be about fake news or blatant factual errors made by politicians. I also want to talk about biased news sources that selectively report in order to justify a narrative. This is a trickier problem to solve. More left-leaning people will say that this is Breitbart and the Daily Mail. Right-leaning people will say that this is MSNBC and The Huffington Post. Interestingly, BusinessInsider actually lists several news sources and how trusted they are by people according to their political affiliations: http://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-the-most-and-least-trusted-news-outlets-in-america-2014-10
How do you solve that problem? It's well known that the human mind has a wide selection of cognitive biases which strongly result in people reading news that confirm their already-held beliefs. How do you go about convincing somebody not to believe what they see from what appears to be reputable news sources? I don't think it's controversial to say that usually, people will often choose to be misinformed (even when shown strong evidence against their beliefs) if it flies in face of their deeply held convictions.
I think the issues of 'fake news', sensationalist journalism, and biased propaganda-like news outlets are all interconnected. They all come down to where people place their trust. Lots of people uncritically believe nonsense circulated on Facebook; maybe a fact checker like Snopes will cure them of that. But when seemingly reputable, professional outlets peddle distortions or lies, it's hard to demonstrate how untrustworthy they are. Does anyone on TL have any experience in "de-brainwashing" somebody from only believing news that confirms their own biases? If so, please share.
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All news in the US, particularly, is biased and pretty much 60% propaganda. Hell look at the morning shows on basic cable half of it is literally infomercials and them talking about where they shopped and ate last then having a "interview" with said employees/managers to advertise for the next ten minutes. That's not even taking account the war drums the media is ready to beat for anyone or anything.
It's all consumer bullshit. From the same networks that own pretty much every other thing in the country.
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Absolutely a relevant topic. Even if I dont have high hopes for this thread, it might serve its purpose even if only as to remove the related discussions from the corresponding politics threads.
I agree that fake news is becoming more of a problem over the last decade. However, I believe that if one would take the average over the last century, it would still be below that. It's just that most of the fake news from earlier times is now called "propaganda". In the age of the internet, people have easier access to conflicting points of view, while in the age of one main tv channel per country (or before that, only access to a few newspapers), you might be getting fake news all along without even realizing it.
In this sense, I would like to see someone fact-check a "fake news is worse than ever"-claim.
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On April 07 2017 23:54 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
All news in the US, particularly, is biased and pretty much 60% propaganda. Hell look at the morning shows on basic cable half of it is literally infomercials and them talking about where they shopped and ate last then having a "interview" with said employees/managers to advertise for the next ten minutes. That's not even taking account the war drums the media is ready to beat for anyone or anything.
It's all consumer bullshit. From the same networks that own pretty much every other thing in the country.
I wholeheartedly agree with you on that StealthBlue. Even when selecting on a very specific topic such as the elections, there's hardly anything relevant in the news. Based on the chart in the spoiler below, I'd say about 60 to 80% of news is designed to catch eyeballs and pretty much nothing else. Its a dangerous game, because people are unlikely to tune in specifically or that 20% of relevant news.
+ Show Spoiler +
With news regarding wars: the media seems to love showing the kids in Syria being gassed, crying faces and all, which convinces people there must be a retaliation. But you barely get a look at Yemen where similar sympathy might get people upset at the prospect of bombing a country to hell. You can find news about Yemen, but it's nowhere near as brutally presented as the imagery from Syria, and often focuses on what the rebels are doing ("they launched a missile at an American ship!").
Same thing with Aleppo and Mosul - the evil Russians were bombing Aleppo and killing civilians, so show that constantly and make sure people feel upset with that. The western media even relied on people who were in the middle of the bombing effort, and showed the results of that bombing quite vigorously through the viewpoint of little kids. Now that its time for Mosul, its better if you don't show the atrocities as much because its the US and her allies bombing the place. RT shows some of the reverse of that in this report. The same thing happens everywhere - certain narratives are supported, others are censored and suppressed in various subtle ways.
I find it a little curious that despite the constant accusations that Russia and RT are responsible for spreading fake news, I remained blissfully unaware of most of the things listed in that The Guardian article linked above until I read about it in that very article a few months ago. Maybe its simply my lack of social media presence that stops me from hearing about these things.
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What is the source for that chart flayer?
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Personally I find it more effective to follow specific reporters, rather than broadcast personalities. It is one of the real way twitter can assist getting a better idea of what is going on. Most of the NRP US politics team will tweet about events of the day, but also their impression on the mood in the room and how this are going on the capital. Also you get a better impression of the reporter, which I feel is critical to separate “News” from propaganda and garbage.
I also try to avoid articles that are written solely for the internet. Print media is generally a little slower than fast blow by blow internet, so the author has more time to collect their thoughts and try to draw together the relevant facts. The NYT and WSJ my two sources of print news.
24/7 networks are borderline propaganda at this point. Fox news does some reasonable on site reporting in their news sections. But any talking heads show is just shit.
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On April 08 2017 01:53 Plansix wrote:
Personally I find it more effective to follow specific reporters, rather than broadcast personalities. It is one of the real way twitter can assist getting a better idea of what is going on. Most of the NRP US politics team will tweet about events of the day, but also their impression on the mood in the room and how this are going on the capital. Also you get a better impression of the reporter, which I feel is critical to separate “News” from propaganda and garbage.
I also try to avoid articles that are written solely for the internet. Print media is generally a little slower than fast blow by blow internet, so the author has more time to collect their thoughts and try to draw together the relevant facts. The NYT and WSJ my two sources of print news.
24/7 networks are borderline propaganda at this point. Fox news does some reasonable on site reporting in their news sections. But any talking heads show is just shit.
They're not borderline. They crossed that border a few degrees of bias ago. All of the American 24/7 networks are incredibly pro-American on international matters, and then even more biased towards the party they support, if any. They desperately want people from that party to show up on their shows to get more eyeballs, and that won't happen unless those people feel they receive "fair" coverage. Same goes for the average American, who is less inclined to watch unless it confirms that "America is the greatest country on Earth". Trumps excruciatingly painful bias towards Fox News (which sometimes confirms that he is "a great president") is barely even an outlier.
And it's not like the problem of bias and propaganda is limited to the news networks specifically. There's whole groups of people who receive their daily conformation bias from TV like Seth Meyers (I literally saw a top comment on a YouTube clip that gleefully said "I get all of my political news from Seth!", upvoted like a thousand times), Trevor Noah, etc, and the way they spin their "news" is just awful at times due to the jokes. It is my belief that this is the sort of thing where the more-or-less braindead illiberals come from.
I used to be one of these people, basically only getting my American news from The Daily Show and Colbert Report. I've recently replaced my TV watching with similar infotainment shows on RT (such as Redacted Tonight, Keiser Report and Watching The Hawks - shows that more or less confirm my own biases), but over the years added a lot of reading such as The Guardian, Reuters, the NYT and Bloomberg to get a more realistic view.
On April 08 2017 01:49 LightSpectra wrote:
What is the source for that chart flayer?
I edited my post to include the source of that chart. It came from an article posted by the Shorenstein Center. Reports from these sort of research centers are also a decent source of unbiased information, I think, although I don't really take the time to verify their methods and such. I doubt I'd have the knowledge/capability to do so, anyway.
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I totally agree that most broadcast news networks are terrible. I am always reluctant to paint entire industries with that broad brush however. Because within those networks, there are people don't going work. Even Fox News has some stand out reporters and anchors. To move away from the confirmation bias based discussions that dominate news media, holding those professionals as examples of how it should be is really important.
After the election Sam Sanders of NPR said that he and his peers "...had to come to grips that we were only reaching 50% of the country at best. And as reporters that is unacceptable and a problem that they must solve."
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So will now every multinational start up their own little fact-check firm, and try to get contracts from google/facebook/twitter/yahoo/cnn/etc? And these organizations will then get to decide that is a fact and what is not?
Sounds like a really great idea.
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There's nothing forcing people to not see things on Google/Facebook marked as "debunked".
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News papers and broadcast news have been doing that for decades. Like since the start of the journalism profession. The job is called Fact Checkers. It is about time Facebook and Google accepted that they have some editorial role, rather than just relying on software.
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Fact checking and censorship doesn't fix the problem. Not only you'll have to deal with biased journalists who happen to be from the privileged camp but also with biased fact checkers and censors. Companies like Facebook or Google should be legally forbidden from interfering with news distribution.
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Why? News stands all over the country were allowed to pick what they carried? Google can do whatever it wants with its news section and you are free to not use their service if you don’t like their editorial decisions.
People need to get used to the idea that being informed is not one stop shopping.
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On April 08 2017 04:26 Plansix wrote:
News papers and broadcast news have been doing that for decades. Like since the start of the journalism profession. The job is called Fact Checkers. It is about time Facebook and Google accepted that they have some editorial role, rather than just relying on software.
Sorry, but Facebook in Poland constantly harasses right-wing sites for bogus reasons while not giving a shit about leftist fake news (I am not saying that there is no right-wing fake news in Poland, but unlike the leftist propaganda they are not given immunity). Facebook has no credibility...
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On April 08 2017 05:12 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2017 04:26 Plansix wrote:
News papers and broadcast news have been doing that for decades. Like since the start of the journalism profession. The job is called Fact Checkers. It is about time Facebook and Google accepted that they have some editorial role, rather than just relying on software. Sorry, but Facebook in Poland constantly harasses right-wing sites for bogus reasons while not giving a shit about leftist fake news (I am not saying that there is no right-wing fake news in Poland, but unlike the leftist propaganda they are not given immunity). Facebook has no credibility...
I have zero information to refute that claim, but Facebook does suck. They need to step up their game and get a real human staff to review their news sections and who is getting paid by them. Just letting everything on the service is not a solution.
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On April 08 2017 05:26 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2017 05:12 maybenexttime wrote:On April 08 2017 04:26 Plansix wrote:
News papers and broadcast news have been doing that for decades. Like since the start of the journalism profession. The job is called Fact Checkers. It is about time Facebook and Google accepted that they have some editorial role, rather than just relying on software. Sorry, but Facebook in Poland constantly harasses right-wing sites for bogus reasons while not giving a shit about leftist fake news (I am not saying that there is no right-wing fake news in Poland, but unlike the leftist propaganda they are not given immunity). Facebook has no credibility... I have zero information to refute that claim, but Facebook does suck. They need to step up their game and get a real human staff to review their news sections and who is getting paid by them. Just letting everything on the service is not a solution.
The problem is precisely the human factor. The moderators of Polish Facebook are associated with people from Razem, a champagne socialist political party. Some of its leaders are (allegedly) former communists. The moderators themselves are of the SJW type, they see racism, fascism etc. everywhere.
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If you want more examples of bias and narratives in the media, it's quite easy to look things up on YouTube to get a bit of perspective on certain conflicts.
I saw these guys (Abdulkafi al-Hamdo and Bilal Abdul Kareem) from the YouTube channel "Middle East Eye" appear on MSNBC and CNN respectively. Both TV channels used these people as 'on-the-ground sources' for the atrocities committed by the Russians and Assads forces in their bombardment of Aleppo. Although one of the videos I linked wasn't played on western mainstream media. Can you guess which of the two videos they thought the western public wouldn't appreciate? They only showed the videos that supported the plight of the rebels in order to invoke their narrative of sympathy.
Similarly, you can find these kinds of on-the-ground video sources for the conflict in Ukraine/Donbass. Towards the end of this video, they interview people who are in the region, looking at the situation from their local perspective. Yet, the western media chooses to only talk about the "Russian invasion". Hundreds of Russian tanks invading Ukraine! I'm sure that it also true that Russia is supporting the insurgency, but that is hardly the whole story, now is it? And sure, just as Bilal Abdul Kareem was biased towards the plight of that suicide bomber fighting against Assad, this guy is biased towards the people of Donbass (he says so himself).
It really looks to me like deliberate choices are being made in western media to fit certain narratives, which is a little terrifying to be honest. Why not use on-the-ground sources in both of these conflicts, for both sides if possible? Why only use them in one instance?
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On April 08 2017 05:37 maybenexttime wrote:Show nested quote +On April 08 2017 05:26 Plansix wrote:On April 08 2017 05:12 maybenexttime wrote:On April 08 2017 04:26 Plansix wrote:
News papers and broadcast news have been doing that for decades. Like since the start of the journalism profession. The job is called Fact Checkers. It is about time Facebook and Google accepted that they have some editorial role, rather than just relying on software. Sorry, but Facebook in Poland constantly harasses right-wing sites for bogus reasons while not giving a shit about leftist fake news (I am not saying that there is no right-wing fake news in Poland, but unlike the leftist propaganda they are not given immunity). Facebook has no credibility... I have zero information to refute that claim, but Facebook does suck. They need to step up their game and get a real human staff to review their news sections and who is getting paid by them. Just letting everything on the service is not a solution. The problem is precisely the human factor. The moderators of Polish Facebook are associated with people from Razem, a champagne socialist political party. Some of its leaders are (allegedly) former communists. The moderators themselves are of the SJW type, they see racism, fascism etc. everywhere.
Being one of those SJW types myself, I’m not really sure I see the problem. You don’t have to use Facebook if you don’t like their moderation. As long as they are providing evidence for their moderation and consistent, I don’t see a problem.
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On April 08 2017 05:42 a_flayer wrote:If you want more examples of bias and narratives in the media, it's quite easy to look things up on YouTube to get a bit of perspective on certain conflicts. I saw these guys ( Abdulkafi al-Hamdo and Bilal Abdul Kareem) from the YouTube channel "Middle East Eye" appear on MSNBC and CNN respectively. They often used these people as 'on-the-ground sources' for the atrocities committed by the Russians and Assads forces in their bombardment of Aleppo. Although one of the videos I linked wasn't played on western mainstream media. Can you guess which of the two videos they thought the western public wouldn't appreciate? Similarly, you can find these kinds of on-the-ground video sources for the conflict in Ukraine/Donbass. Towards the end of this video, they interview people who are in the region, looking at the situation from their local perspective. Yet, the western media chooses to only talk about the "Russian invasion". Hundreds of Russian tanks invading Ukraine! I'm sure that it also true that Russia is supporting the insurgency, but that is hardly the whole story, now is it? And sure, just as Bilal Abdul Kareem was biased towards the plight of that suicide bomber fighting against Assad, this guy is biased towards the people of Donbass (he says so himself). It really looks to me like deliberate choices are being made in western media to fit certain narratives, which is a little terrifying to be honest.
I understand that part of the discussion, but unlimited, unmoderated or edited videos is not sustainable for Youtube. They have to comply with the laws and rules of every nation they exist in and are a for profit company. Youtube has reached the limits of how open their system can be and the system is being coming more closed by the day. Which was always going to happen.
I think the first problem is that people rely on youtube for its reach and low barrier to entry, but that comes at the price that they are in complete control. Someone making videos of the nature that you described is better served hosting the videos themselves.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://i2.wp.com/shorensteincenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Figure-6-general-election.png)
