The Future of Real News
Apparently Germany is considering fining Facebook over $500K per day that a fake news item is not taken down. This is a huge legal liability and will send a chill across the entire internet. Fortunately, the market has faced this kind of situation before with other kinds of information including: investment advice, health advice, and legal advice.
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Now that we have those disclaimers out of the way, let me tell you a fascinating story about some Pizza.
Every blogger should immediately start "flagging themselves" as "not real news" along with other disclaimers. Let all news be presented as if it were published on The Onion. If the good guys start posting these disclaimers on every post and even presenting their content as "opinions from the twilight zone" then websites like Facebook have no grounds to block the content and the regulators have no grounds to fine it as being "fake news". The only thing that the laws can target are people attempting to pass of their "news" as "real".
The real "fake news" will the be identified as the MSM which will refuse to place a Fake News Disclaimer on their content and by this virtue identify themselves as Licensed State Propaganda. If the MSM also adopts these banners, then the banners will become meaningless and we will end up right back where we are today with the caveat that the masses will be reminded daily to not trust any news source.
The petty tyrants around the world will have to pass laws that would crack down on all content whether or not it was purely fictional entertainment.
I was expecting a "facinating" pizza story, kind of dissapointed you didn't deliver it. (Pun intended)
That's one way to write a disclaimer. i think I'd use:
This article was written by 1000 monkeys on 1000 typewriters over 100 years. Most of the monkeys are now dead. I don't control the monkeys, the typewriters, or time. It was written expressly for other monkeys to read, understand and enjoy. If you find anything disturbing or annoying in this article then Ooooo, ahhhhh, ooookkk!
No orangutans were harmed in the making of this post.
The Onion writes mainly satiric news and it's very easy to recognize that they are not true.
Once each blogger adds the above-mentioned disclaimer, he/she is no more "digital influencer". They are simply writing about fiction stories. Better to write a book.
Gambling exploits the poor. Fake news exploits the ignorant. The way I see it, people are getting dumber and lazier each day. People want to believe WHAT they want to believe it and they are lazy to even try to verify some of the claims, facts or "evidence" in a fake news outlet.
Writing defamatory claims about a person or people involved in some sort of situation may result in higher fines, if not from the government, it will come from the person whose reputation is damaged.
Writing silly comments will result in silly replies.
it's okay. nobody downvotes silly comments. oh wait...
lol, you must mean silly posts
You Said
The article reads
Translation.... Germany is probably implementing a law which is only appliable to high volume German-based social networks.
..but Heatst.com didn't write it that way which is unfortunate.
Food for thought. However, if you become the target of the legal system for what you're saying online, whether you label it as fiction, humor or just for fun, they have zillions of laws they could charge you with so relying on a disclaimer as a magic bullet is not wise.
Something else to consider - the idea that we should label truthful content as anything but that indicates you buy into their ridiculous "fake news" scheme and relinquish your "inalienable" right to free speech. That said caution is advised.
Every person needs to judge for themselves the risks involved and act accordingly. Just remember acting morally in a corrupt world is the only way to have an impact against immorality. Don't self censor and think how much easier it is to speak truth to power than to use a weapon of destruction to defend yourself. Muster whatever courage you need to carry on, but don't be foolish and count the costs. The older you are the more likely those costs are higher.
When we begin to hide and withhold our voice they've already won.
edit 10:44PM
@krnel just posted an article that is very apropos to this one. He articulated in more detail what I felt as I wrote my original reply, that is a genuine care for truth. He used an meme in his article I would also like to share here:
For those of you who also care for truth and have more than a twitter attention span I would encourage you to read his most excellent article as further food for thought.
I'd like to add my support for your position here. It's valid to say, "I saw this, it happened", or even "sources which I think are credible have told me this", and let other people judge, as opposed to saying "don't trust me but here's some words, whatever". I don't think we need play games in a race to the skeptical bottom to encourage critical thinking.
We just need a new system of trust that's all. People are not stupid to have been manipulated by fake news and propaganda, they were just misled to trust what the government, MSM, and random people on Twitter say. Rather than eroding your own reputation, I think it would be better to question the reputation of others. Considering we have the raw material to build the tools to check out the veracity of claims, etc., and the access to countless information streams, i.e. in / on / with and by the Internet, let's do that.
Regarding German legislators, if it gets passed (it's still a huge if) it would be huge blow to free speech there and set a dangerous precedent in Europe. But don't forget that the EU has a lot of say over national laws and challenges can be brought (look at the recent ECJ ruling on data retention). It's never over.
Well said @personz, I think your distinction is important. If people feel led to add a disclaimer I hope they will consider your comment here and write it accordingly.
Both of you have stated this in a fine way and I have to agree with you @full-steem-ahead I will look at the article you've linked and I have to say that I fully agree with your point , just today I saw on my facebook feed people posting "don't sell my info magic bullet , all rights are personal" which would be normal and expected , since the people are making the site , not the other way around. But there is the market and there are politics so "respect" and "privacy" are being sacrificed for a more advantageous position.
@personz I ave to say that's how I think we got to this , the timeline in my head goes like this Hillary vs Trump , all trash trump , he gets the nomination , leaks happen , MSM doesn't report much , no digging , later i think there were some more leaks showing the reason for the "friendly" relations .
So after 3 "debates" which I still believe were a bunch of schoolground level political debates , no substance , just terrible election cycle , so back to the fake news , since Hillary put massive funds into her campaign and still lost there has to be another reason and it's the fake news strawman. So just as the Alternative media was growing on the back of predicting a Trump win , the other side want to stomp a possible claim to power , be it political or social. Since if the data doesn't follow your logic , you don't fix your math , you just make it hard for the part that is "wrong" to you to show and the problem disappears.
So the reputation is being questioned and that is the problem , most people don't trust the media and they shouldn't when its grown into a industry(or i like to think that way). Truth is most people don't know what to do , many of us know what the problems are and some have thought of solutions , out of which some might help , but people find it hard to trust or form a community and since we aren't making things happen locally , we get the bullshit thrown from a Ivory tower , by people that have long since forgotten the real world and are running some political schemes. Most of us are disconnected from the world too , we are plugged into " TM " (the matrix , trade marks , ..) that's why there are problems , some people are busy with things that don't exist , like fake news , why would that be a conversation , if everyone dismissed and deemed Hilary stupid for even bringing up a retarded subject , anyway it's just smoke they are pumping to distract from the fire. Migrants in Germany , Rapes , Negativity , EU discord , Russian pushes , Economical unstability(fixed by Central Banks that pump in Debt for cash) , so yeah fake news is very concerning. I'm concerned with how much attention i given to it by "leaders".
Well put. Perhaps some tools do need to get some traction online for checking things out. Fact checking used to be a kind of sport in the media, maybe it would be good to encourage that.
Yes but , that should be normal , its just what you would expect , that's why shows are good , if they provide information or if they provide entertainment , but for a news show you need multiple sources , someone to look through everything , maybe some statistics. News should be unbiased. Anyway i bet most people are checking their facts , if they have the time. But the majority trust what is given to them and they go with the mainstream , since they don't search for what interests them , anything put on the table is "news" to them .
Interesting idea with the disclaimer. The way I see it, we will soon not care about what happened on facebook or any other social media, that are not on a blockchain.
We just need to get the masses on steemit / steem, then there are only "real news" :)
Interesting advice for sure... but may favorite part of this post is that you mentioned The Onion! I'm old and live in the midwest so I remember the Onion from its pre Internet days. We used to go to local records stores to pick it up every time it was released. It is by far one of the most brilliant things I have ever read. Thank you for reminding me of that! Happy New year!
You know what's fascinating about Pizzagate? The Boston Globe can run a piece about the same subject and the psychologists tells them that the figure should be 10 times higher at least, sociopathy and whatnot, no one is surprised.
Now replace priests by politicians, churches by Pizza and the story becomes totally implausible.
Though I think, the story gonna end up in the very same manner. Loss of trust and everything.
Great info by the way, I totally agree entertainment is the best way to avoid bans, they can;t crack down on everything.
You make good points when you talk about the legal implications of the disclaimer and using it.
I honestly just wrote a 100% related post on this yesterday about this exact thing --- the fact that the Amazon CEO bought the Washington Post --- and then was awarded a $600M CIA contract not long after which was twice what he paid for the "news" outlet. They are the propaganda outlet now in the city where the bulk of US Gov't sources are so they control the medium and message.
https://steemit.com/news/@barrydutton/video-in-2013-amazon-ceo-jeff-bezos-buys-washington-post-for-usd250-million-4-months-later-he-s-awarded-a-usd600-million