Fake News

[Ron Mexico]

With Google and then Facebook coming out and addressing the Fake News problems that both of them are facing I wanted to see what peoples opinions are on their influence. Many people feel they altered this presidential election.

Here is the quote about what Google and Facebook did to address the problem from NY Times:

Google kicked off the action on Monday afternoon when the Silicon Valley search giant said it would ban websites that peddle fake news from using its online advertising service. Hours later, Facebook, the social network, updated the language in its Facebook Audience Network policy, which already says it will not display ads in sites that show misleading or illegal content, to include fake news sites.“We have updated the policy to explicitly clarify that this applies to fake news,” a Facebook spokesman said in a statement. “Our team will continue to closely vet all prospective publishers and monitor existing ones to ensure compliance.”

Here are a couple examples from Snopes of ones that circulated during the campaigning:
https://www.snopes.com/pope-francis-donald-trump-endorsement/
https://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-bought-137-million-worth-of-illegal-arms/
https://www.snopes.com/wikileaks-clintons-purchase-200-million-maldives-estate/

This articles from buzzfeed talks a little about some of the groups in Macedonia doing it and their motivation:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilve...rump-misinfo?utm_term=.eiw39xgkmZ#.bdldmOqVnv

They discuss that they target conservatives and use Trump articles to get more clicks to make money. One of the major people from there running over 100 fake news sites was interviewed and reported on NPR and said they target conservatives because they will believe anything the read.

Buzfeed and John Oliver reported that the two weeks leading up to the election fake news sites that were partially false or all the way false where 38% of their news and than 19% of left leaning. Both of those numbers are way too high.

The reason this is a problem and could have influenced the election is that 40% of adults in this country get their news from Facebook according to Pew Research Center and 62% get it from social media in general. These numbers are sadly high.
https://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2016/

There is a lot more about this but I think that gives the gist of the reports about this.

How much a factor do you think fake news site played in the election and how much do you think Facebook played a role in this election?

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

With Google and then Facebook coming out and addressing the Fake News problems that both of them are facing I wanted to see what peoples opinions are on their influence. Many people feel they altered this presidential election.

Here is the quote about what Google and Facebook did to address the problem from NY Times:


Here are a couple examples from Snopes of ones that circulated during the campaigning:
https://www.snopes.com/pope-francis-donald-trump-endorsement/
https://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-bought-137-million-worth-of-illegal-arms/
https://www.snopes.com/wikileaks-clintons-purchase-200-million-maldives-estate/

This articles from buzzfeed talks a little about some of the groups in Macedonia doing it and their motivation:
https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilve...rump-misinfo?utm_term=.eiw39xgkmZ#.bdldmOqVnv

They discuss that they target conservatives and use Trump articles to get more clicks to make money. One of the major people from there running over 100 fake news sites was interviewed and reported on NPR and said they target conservatives because they will believe anything the read.

Buzfeed and John Oliver reported that the two weeks leading up to the election fake news sites that were partially false or all the way false where 38% of their news and than 19% of left leaning. Both of those numbers are way too high.

The reason this is a problem and could have influenced the election is that 40% of adults in this country get their news from Facebook according to Pew Research Center and 62% get it from social media in general. These numbers are sadly high.
https://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2016/

There is a lot more about this but I think that gives the gist of the reports about this.

How much a factor do you think fake news site played in the election and how much do you think Facebook played a role in this election?

The claim that conservatives are more prone to believing this stuff is stupid. People on both sides are prone to believing information that confirms their biases. There was a widely circulated claim that Trump had once told People Magazine that if he ever ran for president he'd do so as a republican because they will believe anything:

https://www.snopes.com/1998-trump-people-quote/

I saw it posted multiple times, always by people who didn't like republicans. Ironically, passing along info like this is evidence that anti-republicans will believe anything, because it only takes a tiny bit of research to prove it is incorrect.

I agree that fake news is a problem, but unfortunately both political parties rely on a ton of dumb voters who are susceptible to it, and there are plenty of examples of stories that lean the opposite way of those you posted:

https://www.snopes.com/african-billionaire-million-leave/
https://www.snopes.com/melania-trump-files-for-divorce/
https://www.snopes.com/pope-francis-has-lost-all-faith-in-american-christians/

 

[Stoked]

I see people share fake news stories on FB all the time. Especially political ones. My experience has been that unless the person wants to believe it is try (confirmation bias) they usually do their won research.

 

[fishonjazz]

Fake news (or legit news for that matter) didn't have any affect on me in this particular election.
I just listened to trump speak a bunch of times and knew how i would vote.

 

[Boris]

Wow the line are going crazy. Facebook is fine with misleading teaser adds until Trump wins an then they draw a line in the sand. I bet you they do not take away there precious revenue streams from "news" adds from not political fake news websites. Google has these adds on every click bate website.

Screw them for trying to influence are elections. They are dirtier then super PACs an the Koch brothers but what do you expect from billionaires?

 

[Ron Mexico]

The claim that conservatives are more prone to believing this stuff is stupid. People on both sides are prone to believing information that confirms their biases. There was a widely circulated claim that Trump had once told People Magazine that if he ever ran for president he'd do so as a republican because they will believe anything:

https://www.snopes.com/1998-trump-people-quote/

I saw it posted multiple times, always by people who didn't like republicans. Ironically, passing along info like this is evidence that anti-republicans will believe anything, because it only takes a tiny bit of research to prove it is incorrect.

I agree that fake news is a problem, but unfortunately both political parties rely on a ton of dumb voters who are susceptible to it, and there are plenty of examples of stories that lean the opposite way of those you posted:

https://www.snopes.com/african-billionaire-million-leave/
https://www.snopes.com/melania-trump-files-for-divorce/
https://www.snopes.com/pope-francis-has-lost-all-faith-in-american-christians/

I agree that is why I posted the statistics. I should have provided examples of both but those were just the top ones in their list. There are tons of examples both ways. It is way too high for both groups. But the statistics multiple sources provided is that the conservative leaning people and groups are 2X the number of articles and shares of liberal leaning groups. My examples were simply that, just examples to show what they are, the statistics are what we should be looking at, its easy to provide examples of almost any claim. Why do you think they are twice as high for conservative groups?

 

[Ron Mexico]

I see people share fake news stories on FB all the time. Especially political ones. My experience has been that unless the person wants to believe it is try (confirmation bias) they usually do their won research.

Are people? Statistics are showing a lot of people not reading news elsewhere. Even on this site when i asked where people get their news Facebook was one of the highest. I think it is alarming the number of people who rely on social media and particularly Facebook for their news and are not reading other news. That number is way too high and growing.

 

[LogGrad98]

I see people share fake news stories on FB all the time. Especially political ones. My experience has been that unless the person wants to believe it is try (confirmation bias) they usually do their won research.

My bet is nowhere near as many people as you might think actually research anything. Most people make their decisions based on sound bites and rhetoric.

 

[Ron Mexico]

My bet is nowhere near as many people as you might think actually research anything. Most people make their decisions based on sound bites and rhetoric.

I agree that people do very little research. Most of the negative opinions I heard about both candidates this election were incorrect.

 

[Ron Mexico]

For the record I do no think conservatives will believe anything. That is not my quote, it is from someone who runs a bunch of the fake news sites. I think that is a stereotype and one reason they tend to target conservatives at a much higher rate even though Facebook has a lower number of Republicans than Democrats. Although the largest group on Facebook is independent so who knows which way they actually lean. The other reason those people who run fake news sites claimed for the imbalance is the make more money because conservatives click on them more often, share them more often which makes them more money.

 

[Stoked]

Are people? Statistics are showing a lot of people not reading news elsewhere. Even on this site when i asked where people get their news Facebook was one of the highest. I think it is alarming the number of people who rely on social media and particularly Facebook for their news and are not reading other news. That number is way too high and growing.

Sometimes it is bogus sites and sometimes it's not. But Social Media is becoming a huge medium in sharing news. real and fake. Personally when I see a shared "news" story on FB that interests me I try to go research that on my own and see what I can find. I'd say it is 65/35 (off the top of my head) fake/real. Google news and Realclear are my go to sites.

 

[Stoked]

My bet is nowhere near as many people as you might think actually research anything. Most people make their decisions based on sound bites and rhetoric.

I don't think that many do. Only if they are interested enough. Usually they just pan the source/laud the title and move on.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

I agree that is why I posted the statistics. I should have provided examples of both but those were just the top ones in their list. There are tons of examples both ways. It is way too high for both groups. But the statistics multiple sources provided is that the conservative leaning people and groups are 2X the number of articles and shares of liberal leaning groups. My examples were simply that, just examples to show what they are, the statistics are what we should be looking at, its easy to provide examples of almost any claim. Why do you think they are twice as high for conservative groups?

Where does your 2X stat come from? If that is a real stat my guess is it is specific to the most recent presidential election, and it is probably because of the passion of Trump's core voters. Hillary failed to energize her base. Had Bernie been the nominee I'll bet many of his passionate supporters would have eaten up fake news that confirmed their biases.

 

[Ron Mexico]

Where does your 2X stat come from? If that is a real stat my guess is it is specific to the most recent presidential election, and it is probably because of the passion of Trump's core voters. Hillary failed to energize her base. Had Bernie been the nominee I'll bet many of his passionate supporters would have eaten up fake news that confirmed their biases.

Buzfeed and John Oliver reported that the two weeks leading up to the election fake news sites that were partially false or all the way false where 38% of their news and 19% of left leaning on Facebook.

That is a decent theory that Trump supporters were more passionate. I would argue that Clinton got more people to vote for her though in this election.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

That is a decent theory that Trump supporters were more passionate. I would argue that Clinton got more people to vote for her though in this election.

I could argue that Trump was smarter in targeting the voters who mattered. He was also far more efficient in the money he spent. But you ignored my question about where your 2X stat came from. Did you just dream it up?

 

[Ron Mexico]

I could argue that Trump was smarter in targeting the voters who mattered. He was also far more efficient in the money he spent. But you ignored my question about where your 2X stat came from. Did you just dream it up?

Buzzfeed and john oliver reported that, I just quoted above. They did not say 2X I just did the math.

Neither candidate wasted their efforts in places that had no chance unless they had time or were close by. Both focused most of their resources on swing states. Voter turnout was very very low in California because their vote didnt matter. If their numbers were up to usual election this would have been even more of a discrepancy in the popular vote.

 

[Stoked]

I could argue that Trump was smarter in targeting the voters who mattered. He was also far more efficient in the money he spent. But you ignored my question about where your 2X stat came from. Did you just dream it up?

I guarantee you that Clinton targeted the voters that matter. She was just very ineffective in it. The President Elect tapped into the same feeling that Obama did. Just on the other side of the isle.

 

[Stoked]

Buzzfeed and john oliver reported that, I just quoted above. They did not say 2X I just did the math.

Neither candidate wasted their efforts in places that had no chance unless they had time or were close by. Both focused most of their resources on swing states. Voter turnout was very very low in California because their vote didnt matter. If their numbers were up to usual election this would have been even more of a discrepancy in the popular vote.

I actually think that going Popular vote for the presidency will dramatically alter the vote. Suddenly every vote really matters. Those R votes in NY and CT matter as do the D votes in TX and UT.

If you keep the E.C. make two changes. 1. Bind all EC votes to how their state pop voted. 2. Make it proportional. So if Utah is 70/30 that is how you split Utahs 8 votes. Rounding of course. Then votes in those states matter more than they do now.

Stealing 15 EC votes from CA is huge. As is stealing 10 across the Midwest for the Ds.

 

[Ron Mexico]

I actually think that going Popular vote for the presidency will dramatically alter the vote. Suddenly every vote really matters. Those R votes in NY and CT matter as do the D votes in TX and UT.

If you keep the E.C. make two changes. 1. Bind all EC votes to how their state pop voted. 2. Make it proportional. So if Utah is 70/30 that is how you split Utahs 8 votes. Rounding of course. Then votes in those states matter more than they do now.

Stealing 15 EC votes from CA is huge. As is stealing 10 across the Midwest for the Ds.

We will also have people campaigning and spending resources on voters in more places than just the swing states. I think would rather a system that encourages voting and simply having a popular vote does that the best. But I do agree at the very least change it to what you said.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

Buzzfeed and john oliver reported that, I just quoted above. They did not say 2X I just did the math.

Neither candidate wasted their efforts in places that had no chance unless they had time or were close by. Both focused most of their resources on swing states. Voter turnout was very very low in California because their vote didnt matter. If their numbers were up to usual election this would have been even more of a discrepancy in the popular vote.

Shaking my head at the irony of someone pointing out the problems of fake news and using buzzfeed (a clickbait site) and John Oliver (a comedian) as their sources. It's essentially spreading fake news about fake news.