Western media whines about fake news

[aerius]

Just to be clear, you are saying that these allegations were fabricated by the news agencies?

To be honest, I don't know if they took some posts on Twitter and ran with it or they made it up completely, not that there's much of a difference. It's pretty much the difference between shooting a man for no reason and shooting him because you think he looked at you wrong. Bottom line is I now treat the US mainstream media as a propaganda source, because that's about how trustworthy they are.

[K. A. Pital]

Just to be clear, you are saying that these allegations were fabricated by the news agencies?

This is actually a real possibility. That's the most worrying fact here.

[TheFeniX]

Really, it's just a different side to the coin. The desire to compete with online shitposting and beating out your competitors during the 24-hours news cycle leads to shit like "Captain Sum Ting Wong." I guess this is one of the few times being aware of racist jokes was an edge because who the fuck didn't realize that was fake immediately?

Just like Stewart joked his writers had it so easy during the GW administration, mainstream media has it easy because there's so much bullshit available to repost as newsworthy and spun with whatever narrative they want to push.

I still lean toward Facebook shitposting being more "dangerous" (if I had to use a word), but that's mainly because even after so many years, people treat online "news" like a toddler treats upgrading from crawling to walking: forget everything you know and start falling down stairs again. The same people who view the news media critically and don't believe anything without backup will take the most absurb things as gospel if filtered through social media.

People are just stupid. And even I'm not wholly immune to it. I've been click-baited numerous times and I "bought" (in that I mean I was only PRETTY sure it was bullshit) into one article about "Sheep sold as poodles to Japanese buyers." I mean, it was linked-through on "reputable" sites and was one of those "absurd enough to be true" kind of things. I had to google it to make sure it was fake and I consider that a huge failing on my part.

[mr friendly guy]

This is getting good

Washington Post

The flood of “fake news” this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation.

So they actually accuse Russia of creating the fake news, rather than some guy doing it to earn money. Okaaay. I hope you have evidence. Oh wait, we didn't accuse them of doing it, we just said some independent researchers accused them of doing it. What's next. Insert celebrity here is really a Islamofacist and Nazi combined, and also a child molester... says anonymous internet source. Oh wait, WaPo did just that (not the child molester part, but using anonymous internet source part). One of the groups it got its information from about Russia is PropOrNot, which doesn't even list who researched its stories.

I can't believe I am seeing this, but when Putin tv lays the smackdown on you, you got problems. If you read the original story, you can follow the links to the twitter feed and the pieces regarding Greenwald, Norton etc. Fun fact, the link to Greenwald actually criticised him even though RT praised him.

You see, the WaPo report, citing the research of a thing called “Prop Or Not” (the Twitter account of which, only set up in August, is fond of tweeting out WW2 Ukrainian nationalist slogans) had more holes than Augusta National Golf Club.

Wow. The @washingtonpost anonymous source for blacklisting US journalists recently tweeted 1940s Ukrainian fascist "Heroiam Slava!" salute pic.twitter.com/vGvhAIjgTl

— Mark Ames (@MarkAmesExiled) November 26, 2016
As a result, its premise was quickly torn to pieces by talented journalists like Glenn Greenwald, Ben Norton, Matthew Ingram, Matt Taibbi and Yasha Levine.

Indeed, The Washington Post itself has already added two clarifications to the original text at the request of this network. Those corrections are due to RT being wrongfully accused of generating fake stories and using a #CrookedHillary hashtag promoted by Donald Trump.

Yet, despite this thorough discrediting of WaPo’s fictionalized report and the fact that proper news people and Russia experts have rubbished it, the fabrication has gone viral across the popular media. And the list of organizations who have spread it is mind-boggling.

It’s time for editors at The Independent, Chicago Tribune, Daily Mail, Associated Press, USA Today and The New York Times to take a dishonorable bow. Because they have all, without proper examination, spread WaPo’s ‘fake news’ this week.

In fact, only USA Today even remotely considered the possibly that they’d all been hoodwinked by referencing an RT editorial which punctured the balloon. Meanwhile, Mediaite - a relatively influential press affairs site - went the full Joseph McCarthy by more-or-less smearing Ed Schultz and Larry King, both associated with RT America, as treasonists.

And now for the coup de grace

Right now, the narrative is “fake news” and Russia’s alleged part in it. However, when I personally think of made up stories which caused genuine and lasting damage, it’s the infamous Iraq ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction' pretext that springs to mind. And which media concern did more than basically any other to promote this falsehood? Why it was The Washington Post, with an incredible 140 front page stories, and 27 editorials pushing for America’s illegal invasion, which left close to one million people dead and continues to leave a trail of destruction across the Middle East.

Now, that sort of “fake news” is far from harmless, isn’t it? In fact, it's clear how The Washington Post has been showing us how to make phoney reportage go "viral" for years.

[aerius]

So they actually accuse Russia of creating the fake news, rather than some guy doing it to earn money. Okaaay. I hope you have evidence. Oh wait, we didn't accuse them of doing it, we just said some independent researchers accused them of doing it. What's next. Insert celebrity here is really a Islamofacist and Nazi combined, and also a child molester... says anonymous internet source. Oh wait, WaPo did just that (not the child molester part, but using anonymous internet source part). One of the groups it got its information from about Russia is PropOrNot, which doesn't even list who researched its stories.

Well, that's normal. Investigators have strong evidence that the mainstream media is run by Reptilians, it should come as no surprise that they're putting out all kinds of whacko conspiracy theories, afterall, it takes one to know one, right? Clearly, we need to get those Lizard People out of all the places they've gotten themselves into before it's too late and they take over the world.

[K. A. Pital]

When good old Vlad can poke holes in your story, you are truly in deep bullshit territory.

But you are right mr friendly guy, the media have already had enough with manufactured news like Iraqi WMDs, which then eventually paved the way for the invasion.

And they have also attempted to do the very same thing in the aftermath - relativize everything. So what if there were no weapons? There could have been, and that is the same thing. Or almost the same. It is all very confused, all very complicated. Don't simplify.

And now, they are accusing people of falling for fake Facebook clickbaits. Well, but is that not the road they have paved?

[Simon_Jester]

Mentioning the Iraqi WMD or lack thereof as "the road they have paved" does, in fairness, help put things into context.

Because that really is about as blatant an example of journalistic rot as the "fabricate anti-Clinton stories for money" crowd. When you publish dozens of stories without ever critically examining the evidence, something has gone very, very wrong. And it really is a straightforward linear progression along that path to land you among the random Facebook reposts about fictitious FBI agents committing fictitious suicides under circumstances that make it look like fictitious murder.

[Flagg]

I'm more concerned about things like showing pictures of 2 totally innocent men as the Boston marathon bombing suspects because they were the most Arab looking people in the crowd.

[jwl]

mr friendly guy, there's no point going on about "retractions" because the whole point of "fake news" sites is they don't publish a retraction even when they know it to be false.

[mr friendly guy]

mr friendly guy, there's no point going on about "retractions" because the whole point of "fake news" sites is they don't publish a retraction even when they know it to be false.

You misunderstand why I brought up retractions.

The first point is so we don't get someone here disputing the falseness of the claim. If the site who originally published the claim has retracted, its very hard for someone here to argue along the lines of what they said is true.

Second point is, a retraction is rarely seen by many as the original story. By then the damage has been done, and the retraction barely does anything to rectify the situation.

[Flagg]

mr friendly guy, there's no point going on about "retractions" because the whole point of "fake news" sites is they don't publish a retraction even when they know it to be false.

You misunderstand why I brought up retractions.

The first point is so we don't get someone here disputing the falseness of the claim. If the site who originally published the claim has retracted, its very hard for someone here to argue along the lines of what they said is true.

Second point is, a retraction is rarely seen by many as the original story. By then the damage has been done, and the retraction barely does anything to rectify the situation.

It doesn't help that the retractions (called "corrections" by most print/online outlets, I almost never see them on TV which is much worse since it reaches more people by far) are usually hidden on some random page in tiny print.

[Raj Ahten]

So someone following fake news, which apparently isn't any worse than anything that's come before, has shot up a pizzeria because he was led to believe there was a pedophilia sex dungeon in the basement. This shit is new, it is different and it is harmful. When a real news outlet publishes something they are at least responsible for the consequences of their writing and the Police can go to them if they are making terroristic threats. When trolls make things up there is zero accountability.

Washington Post Coverage

A North Carolina man was arrested Sunday after he walked into a popular pizza restaurant in Northwest Washington carrying an assault rifle and fired one or more shots, D.C. police said. The man told police he had come to the restaurant to “self-investigate” a false election-related conspiracy theory involving Hillary Clinton that spread online during her presidential campaign.

The incident caused panic, with several businesses going into lockdown as police swarmed the neighborhood after receiving the call shortly before 3 p.m.

Police said 28-year-old Edgar Maddison Welch, of Salisbury, N.C., walked in the front door of Comet Ping Pong and pointed a firearm in the direction of a restaurant employee. The employee was able to flee and notify police. Police said Welch proceeded to discharge the rifle inside the restaurant; they think that all other occupants had fled when Welch began shooting.

Welch has been charged with assault with a dangerous weapon. Police said there were no reported injuries.

Interim D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said police arrived on the scene minutes after the first call, set up a perimeter and safely arrested Welch about 45 minutes after he entered the restaurant.

A D.C. police report made public Monday says Welch had been armed with an AR-15 assault-style rifle. The report also says police seized a Colt .38 caliber handgun and a shotgun. One of those weapons was found inside the restaurant; the other in the suspect’s car. Police did not specify the locations.

The police report also describes Welch’s arrest. Police said he surrendered shortly after officers surrounded the pizza shop and emerged with his hands raised above his head.

The report says in addition to the weapons, police seized a folding knife, a T-shirt, a hooded sweatshirt and denim blue jeans.

Vivek Jain, of Potomac, Md., was eating lunch inside Banana Leaf, a nearby Indian restaurant, when Comet patrons came rushing inside. He said Banana Leaf was locked down for about 90 minutes.

“A bunch of people ran in from Comet and said a man walked in with a gun,” Jain said.
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About 45 minutes later, he said, he saw a man walking backward out into the street with his hands in the air.

“He laid down on Connecticut Avenue and he was immediately picked up by the police and taken away,” he said.

The popular family restaurant, near Connecticut and Nebraska avenues NW in the Chevy Chase neighborhood, was swept up in the onslaught of fake news and conspiracy theories that were prevalent during the presidential campaign. The restaurant, its owner, staff and nearby businesses have been attacked on social media and received death threats.
On the scene of a D.C. pizzeria after man entered with assault rifle to investigate conspiracy theory
View Photos
A man from North Carolina fired shots in D.C. restaurant Comet Ping Pong on Sunday. He told authorities he came to investigate a conspiracy theory involving Hillary Clinton.

Although police initially said it did not appear the incident was related to the threats, businesses and residents immediately surmised it might be connected to “pizzagate.”

James Alefantis, the owner of Comet Ping Pong, said in a statement: “What happened today demonstrates that promoting false and reckless conspiracy theories comes with consequences. I hope that those involved in fanning these flames will take a moment to contemplate what happened here today, and stop promoting these falsehoods right away.”

The restaurant’s owner and employees were threatened on social media in the days before the election after fake news stories circulated claiming that then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her campaign chief were running a child sex ring from the restaurant’s backrooms. Even Michael Flynn, a retired general whom President-elect Donald Trump has tapped to advise him on national security, shared stories about another anti-Clinton conspiracy theory involving pedophilia. None of them were true. But the fake stories and threats persisted, some even aimed at children of Comet Ping Pong employees and patrons. The restaurant’s owner was forced to contact the FBI, local police, Facebook and other social-media platforms in an effort to remove the articles.

Last month, citing its policy against posting the personal information of others, Reddit banned the “pizzagate” topic.

But it didn’t stop the harassment, and nearby businesses have received threats as well, according to police. On Sunday, Washington Post reporters involved in this article were the target of online threats shortly after it posted.

Matt Carr, the owner of the Little Red Fox market and coffee shop, said his business started getting threats last weekend. They got 30 to 40 calls before they stopped answering calls from blocked numbers, he said. “One person said he wanted to line us up in front of a firing squad,” said Carr, who spent more than an hour in lockdown with his employees Sunday.
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The threats were all tied to the Comet Ping Pong accusations online, he said. “There’s some old painted-over symbol on the marquee that they claim is an international symbol of pedophilia and that there are underground tunnels. . . . There’s some video on YouTube that has almost 100,000 views and talks about me, the owner of the Little Red Fox, by name.

“This was our worst fear,” he said, “that someone would read all this and come to the block with a gun. And today it happened.”

Politics and Prose, the bookstore that has been a Washington institution and neighborhood fixture for more than 30 years, was in the middle of a book event when attendees and staff saw police converging on the block, said Bradley Graham, a store co-owner.

They, too, had received threats recently, Graham said, and were planning to meet with police Monday “because we had feared that what, up to now, had been simply despicable menacing verbal attacks online or on the phone might escalate.”

Graham said he was told that the gunman walked into the kitchen at Comet Ping Pong on Sunday, “presumably looking for the alleged tunnels” where children were hidden and tortured. Graham believes that account of the gunman’s actions came from an employee at the restaurant.

He said the businesses are hoping to get more police protection, “and we would also hope that law enforcement authorities will be prompted to take additional measures to shut down the sites where this hateful material is being spread, and also measures to try to trace the menacing phone calls.

“ . . . We’re all rather shaken,” he said.

“Political figures have the means to deal with conspiratorial allegations and threats, but your neighborhood mom and pop shop does not,” Carr said later in an email. “I make coffee and breakfast burritos for a living. This is out of our league.”

D.C. Council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) was getting gas down the street from Comet Ping Pong and saw what she described as intense police activity around the restaurant. Cheh said she spoke with Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who had been briefed by police. At the time she spoke to reporters, Cheh didn’t know the gunman’s actions were connected to the false rumors surrounding Comet Ping Pong, but she was concerned.
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“It’s very, very worrisome,” Cheh said. “I’m just very worried that [the rumors] may have unleashed people who are unstable to pursue violent action, as has happened before.”

She praised the speed of the police response, which she said may have prevented an attack. “It all looked so efficient and professional. I was very pleased it was locked down so quickly.”

Gareth Wade, 47, and Doug Clarke, 50, were sitting down for pizza and beer at Comet when they spotted a commotion. All of a sudden, said Wade, “the server said someone just walked in with a shotgun.

“A man had just walked into the building, passed us into the back of the building, he seemed to have a shotgun or a rifle-type of [gun] and said we ought to vacate the building,” Wade recalled the server saying.

They rushed out of the restaurant and had planned to head to Politics and Prose, where Clarke’s wife and 5-year-old took shelter, but they got separated. Clarke and Wade were met by a heavy police presence when they attempted to join up.

“Police said you can’t go to the bookstore,” Wade said. They ended up behind the police barricade at Connecticut Avenue and Fessenden Street. Clarke’s wife and son were forced to remain inside the bookstore. Meanwhile, Clarke was trying to reunite his son with a present he had received for his fifth birthday, a stuffed lion that they were forced to leave inside the restaurant.

“He’s kind of shaken up about the whole thing,” Clarke said. “We’ve been talking a lot about it and trying to help him understand. That he was a man with a weapon, weapons are bad — he was not a nice person.”

[mr friendly guy]

So someone following fake news, which apparently isn't any worse than anything that's come before, has shot up a pizzeria because he was led to believe there was a pedophilia sex dungeon in the basement. This shit is new, it is different and it is harmful. When a real news outlet publishes something they are at least responsible for the consequences of their writing and the Police can go to them if they are making terroristic threats. When trolls make things up there is zero accountability.

Washington Post Coverage

Ok, I will bite. Washington Post. WMDs in Iraq. Western media, WMDs in Iraq. What consequences have they had to deal with as part of accountability for publishing such fake news to the thousands of Iraqis dead, and the US soldiers dead in a war over false pretences.

[Raj Ahten]

So someone following fake news, which apparently isn't any worse than anything that's come before, has shot up a pizzeria because he was led to believe there was a pedophilia sex dungeon in the basement. This shit is new, it is different and it is harmful. When a real news outlet publishes something they are at least responsible for the consequences of their writing and the Police can go to them if they are making terroristic threats. When trolls make things up there is zero accountability.

Washington Post Coverage

Ok, I will bite. Washington Post. WMDs in Iraq. Western media, WMDs in Iraq. What consequences have they had to deal with as part of accountability for publishing such fake news to the thousands of Iraqis dead, and the US soldiers dead in a war over false pretences.

No one gives a fuck about Iraq. Ask Obama if you are butt hurt about no accountability for that. At least the Iraq war needed the entire US intelligence apparatus and Bush administration selling it hard core. This new shit is literally people seeing anything that comes across their facebook feed as true. No falsified evidence is even required because ideology makes all the decisions. That is what is truly dangerous. Even the pretense of critical thought is out the window in favor of pure tribalism.

Edit: And to address your point more directly the cost the Post and others have paid is their credibility. That might be one reason we've seen the rise of this Facebook torrent of bullshit. No one trusts the old gatekeepers because they've been shown to be full of it themselves one to many times.

[mr friendly guy]

No one gives a fuck about Iraq.

What a high moral character you have there. How could I ever hope to compete against someone who doesn't give a shit about thousands of people dead, as long as its in another country right?

Ask Obama if you are butt hurt about no accountability for that.

What's that got to do with accountability of the media for writing false stories? Is Obama supposed to regulate the media now is he?

At least the Iraq war needed the entire US intelligence apparatus and Bush administration selling it hard core. This new shit is literally people seeing anything that comes across their facebook feed as true. No falsified evidence is even required because ideology makes all the decisions. That is what is truly dangerous. Even the pretense of critical thought is out the window in favor of pure tribalism.

Except your previous spiel wasn't about media getting help selling the story, or whether the story seemed more improbable, it was about the adverse consequences of the fake story. Should we take a trip down memory lane?

So someone following fake news, which apparently isn't any worse than anything that's come before, has shot up a pizzeria because he was led to believe there was a pedophilia sex dungeon in the basement. This shit is new, it is different and it is harmful.

Shot up a pizzeria with no reported injuries according to your source. Iraq war thousands died. So yes, previous fake news,er I mean reports from mainstream news had worse consequences. But I guess they aren't in your country, so who cares about them right?

Edit: And to address your point more directly the cost the Post and others have paid is their credibility. That might be one reason we've seen the rise of this Facebook torrent of bullshit. No one trusts the old gatekeepers because they've been shown to be full of it themselves one to many times.

I don't dispute that at least in some quarters, some media outlets have paid for it in credibility to varying extent. However by the same logic, fake news sites also have the same cost as well, with apps being introduce to filter them out. However I am going to hazard a guess when you earlier talked about no accountability with fake news sites, you were thinking of legal ramifications rather than loss of credibility. Either way, your position kind of falls flat.

[aerius]

Hell, let's use a US based example. In the George Zimmerman case, the mainstream media doctored 911 transcripts, photos, and video evidence to run their narrative. This resulted in riots where shit got smashed. Because intentional lying & race baiting to push a narrative is a-ok, especially when it pushes racial tensions over the breaking point and results in riots. It needs to be said again, the mainstream media can go fuck itself.

[Flagg]

No one gives a fuck about Iraq.

What a high moral character you have there. How could I ever hope to compete against someone who doesn't give a shit about thousands of people dead, as long as its in another country right?

Ask Obama if you are butt hurt about no accountability for that.

What's that got to do with accountability of the media for writing false stories? Is Obama supposed to regulate the media now is he?

At least the Iraq war needed the entire US intelligence apparatus and Bush administration selling it hard core. This new shit is literally people seeing anything that comes across their facebook feed as true. No falsified evidence is even required because ideology makes all the decisions. That is what is truly dangerous. Even the pretense of critical thought is out the window in favor of pure tribalism.

Except your previous spiel wasn't about media getting help selling the story, or whether the story seemed more improbable, it was about the adverse consequences of the fake story. Should we take a trip down memory lane?

So someone following fake news, which apparently isn't any worse than anything that's come before, has shot up a pizzeria because he was led to believe there was a pedophilia sex dungeon in the basement. This shit is new, it is different and it is harmful.

Shot up a pizzeria with no reported injuries according to your source. Iraq war thousands died. So yes, previous fake news,er I mean reports from mainstream news had worse consequences. But I guess they aren't in your country, so who cares about them right?

Edit: And to address your point more directly the cost the Post and others have paid is their credibility. That might be one reason we've seen the rise of this Facebook torrent of bullshit. No one trusts the old gatekeepers because they've been shown to be full of it themselves one to many times.

I don't dispute that at least in some quarters, some media outlets have paid for it in credibility to varying extent. However by the same logic, fake news sites also have the same cost as well, with apps being introduce to filter them out. However I am going to hazard a guess when you earlier talked about no accountability with fake news sites, you were thinking of legal ramifications rather than loss of credibility. Either way, your position kind of falls flat.

To back up what you're saying, Iraq was so bad and so obviously not true that the media in general decided "we (as in everyone in America, despite many of us, myself included, calling bullshit from the start) were all wrong" when no WMD or evidence of collaboration with al qaedi were found and they never mentioned it again.

Just because nothing was done doesn't mean "nobody cares". Those of us who knew Bush was lying called for his impeachment when Congress was taken from the children were pissed, and vocalized it, when Pelosi flat out said they weren't going to do anything. Same with Obama.

So just because politicians did not acts and news outlets went along with it doesn't mean "nobody cares".

[Crazedwraith]

This thread is basically a massive tu quoque fallacy. Even if mainstream media is hypocritical to point it out that in no way invalidates the point that fake news is bad thing that is resulting in bad things.

[aerius]

No one is saying that fake news is good, some of us just find it hilarious that a "reputable" mainstream news source is crying about fake news sites when it is itself filled with fake news. Pot, kettle, black and all that, it's just sad that The Onion is a better source of news than CNN.

[mr friendly guy]

Aerius beat me to the punch. No one is saying fake news is ok. Its not ok when mainstream media does it, and its not ok when these new fake news sites also do it. However to imply that these are worse is highly questionable. For mainstream news sites to cry fake news, its just hilarious.

I think the problem might be improved if high schools actually teach people how to look at news critically. Like I said, my high school English teacher loved John Pilger, but even he made sure we were aware of the tricks Pilger and others used to convince people. We even had to write essays on this.

[Flagg]

10 years ago the stuff "The Onion" posts now would have been immediately seen as fucking ridiculous and no one would think it was real. In fact I think that's likely true of shit CNN posts. Stuff "The Onion" posted 10 years ago would now be taken as a matter of course. I don't think fake news is as big an issue as the government and society being fucking bonkers.

[Simon_Jester]

No one is saying that fake news is good, some of us just find it hilarious that a "reputable" mainstream news source is crying about fake news sites when it is itself filled with fake news. Pot, kettle, black and all that, it's just sad that The Onion is a better source of news than CNN.

What's remarkable isn't the tu quoque fallacy itself. It's that as soon as people even started talking about the actual, blatant, deliberately make up all their stories for money websites as a problem, we got "well, someone else complained about Russia Today and Russia Today is no worse than the BBC and..." as a response.

It's like there's this huge ball of "FUCK THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA" stored up, so that as soon as anyone starts talking about something even vaguely related to the media, all the "FUCK THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA" people have to start yelling "FUCK THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA" and drown out whatever the other subject was.

Which is kind of unhealthy, when you think about it. Because it makes it very hard to actually think about what's going on in the world, identify new threats, and respond to them. If you're so busy hating on the same old targets, you're likely to miss something and get snuck up on by new targets.

[K. A. Pital]

Which threats, though?

Idiots have always been around. They have not become more of a threat. They were always a threat.

Idiots who react to fakeposting on Facebook are lone crazies, and do not warrant the attention given to them.

On the other hand, cunning non-idiots who operate the mainstream media to whip the population into a war frenzy certainly do warrant greater attention than "someone posts fake news for money, dude mistakes fake for real and goes insane".

[mr friendly guy]

Just to reiterate, its not that we think fake news is suddenly not bad when mainstream media complains about it because mainstream media themselves do fake news, ie a tu quoque fallacy. I am saying

1. Mainstream media is worse because they are considered "reputable" and are more likely to convince people of their bullshit.
Look at the article on fake news posted earlier. The person writing said fake news pretty much mention liberals weren't fooled, unlike conservatives. Well I am going to put it out there that Liberals are fooled by mainstream media when they write awesome articles like "China bans ramadan." I am willing to bet some conservatives also believed that, but they most probably thought it was a great idea.

2. Mainstream media is worse because they have a bigger audience and post more articles than fake news, thus can convince more people.
Witness the obvious Iraq war examples vs a lone crazy shooting up a pizzeria.

3. Fake news might be worse because they lie more

Sometimes mainstream media blatantly lie, not twist words, they outright lie. Examples have been given in the thread. However so far from the sample size of fake news, it appears fake news might have a higher ratio of "outright making shit up" to "just twisting words to craft a narrative," in their deceptive articles. So score a goal for fake news in the douchebag department. However that goal is easily outweighed by advantage 1 & 2, which mainstream media has over fake news sites.

Which brings me to the next point. The criticism of fake news site should also be leveled against mainstream media, and most probably in greater quantities because they have greater power and thus warrant greater scrutiny. Is there an app to label WaPo, BBC fake news as well? Yeah didn't think so.

[Raj Ahten]

Ask Obama if you are butt hurt about no accountability for that.

What's that got to do with accountability of the media for writing false stories? Is Obama supposed to regulate the media now is he?

Your argument here seems to be there is no difference between being conned and and being the con man yourself. So the media wasn't subjected to a campaign of disinformation by the Bush administration then? So when journalists get bamboozled they are supposed to go to jail or what? The problem you are complaining about, the invasion of Iraq, is political in nature and needs a political response. Hence Obama. Reputable media outlets will publish retractions for bullshit stories (which the New York Times did with their most damaging Yellowcake story). Fake news sites never even attempt to correct the record as they never even pretend to be responsible.

At least the Iraq war needed the entire US intelligence apparatus and Bush administration selling it hard core. This new shit is literally people seeing anything that comes across their facebook feed as true. No falsified evidence is even required because ideology makes all the decisions. That is what is truly dangerous. Even the pretense of critical thought is out the window in favor of pure tribalism.

Except your previous spiel wasn't about media getting help selling the story, or whether the story seemed more improbable, it was about the adverse consequences of the fake story. Should we take a trip down memory lane?[/quote]

So you upset no one went to jail for Iraq? It sucks I know but you might as well bemoan the fact no one was held accountable for the Gulf of Tonkin Incident at this point. The political powers that be have decided zero accountability is better for the nation for whatever reason and getting a pound of flesh from the media will hardly change that.

So someone following fake news, which apparently isn't any worse than anything that's come before, has shot up a pizzeria because he was led to believe there was a pedophilia sex dungeon in the basement. This shit is new, it is different and it is harmful.

Shot up a pizzeria with no reported injuries according to your source. Iraq war thousands died. So yes, previous fake news,er I mean reports from mainstream news had worse consequences. But I guess they aren't in your country, so who cares about them right?

A source feeding you bullshit is not the same as making things up yourself. We could go over how anonymous national security sources should be considered suspect, but there is a difference there. Look I'm not claiming the way the media approaches stories, especially national security ones is great. Clearly it sucks.

As to accountability for the Iraq war it goes along with one death is a tragedy a million a statistic. When one restaurant is shot up the legal system can bring people to justice assuming they aren't trolls making things up in the Republic of Georgia. When a nation is invaded under false pretenses it's not exactly like you give the case to the local PD.

Edit: And to address your point more directly the cost the Post and others have paid is their credibility. That might be one reason we've seen the rise of this Facebook torrent of bullshit. No one trusts the old gatekeepers because they've been shown to be full of it themselves one to many times.

I don't dispute that at least in some quarters, some media outlets have paid for it in credibility to varying extent. However by the same logic, fake news sites also have the same cost as well, with apps being introduce to filter them out. However I am going to hazard a guess when you earlier talked about no accountability with fake news sites, you were thinking of legal ramifications rather than loss of credibility. Either way, your position kind of falls flat.

Again what accountability do you purpose? Jail for incorrect stories? What about opinions that proved to be a bad idea? Should everyone who voted for Bush and the Iraq war by proxy be stoned in the town square or what? My point on accountability is really quite narrow. It's simply that when you are a real news organization with an address and such if you publish purely made up nonsense you can get sued, be told to stop publishing by a court etc. Fake news is so amorphous even the limited recourse available to citizens really isn't there. That's not even getting into what I consider the bigger threat from it which is how it just reinforces toxic tribalism and decision making based solely on emotion for a huge portion of the electorate.