Fake News and the Information War
Since the 2016 presidential election in the USA, there has been a lot of hype regarding fake news. Claims of false, bad or incomplete information (misinformation or disinformation) have been popularized, and this has drawn the attention of many including social scientists.
Source
The mainstream news has it's own long and sordid history with fake news, but they want people to accept them as the only source for "real news". The general focus and claim is about false information mostly coming from alternative media sources, as if the mainstream is "clean".
The reason fake news matters in any case, is because people tacitly, unquestioningly, and unthinkingly accept what they are being told by their "trusted" source. The fake news (alternative or mainstream) gets accepted, as people are convinced it's true, and then their behavior is motivated by that narrative presented to them.
The political atmosphere has been shifting in many countries, and many don't like these changes. To explain the rise in the popularity of populist "leaders", the mainstream media say it's due to fake news; bad information. This is allegedly why more people voted for Trump in the US election of 2016. In Europe, they claim fake news has led to the rise of populist leaders that are gaining traction among people who are not satisfied with the current management of their lives by centralized authority.
Quality
If we only have low quality information that is input as knowledge, then that is what we use to try to understand the situation and act upon it. Higher quality information will contain more knowledge that gives a better representation of the situation for us to act more accurately or wisely.
In a free market for truth, the idea is that as more contrast is brought to bear on information then people can discern which is more accurately reflecting reality, i.e. closest to the truth/reality. Think of a left-wing news agency vs. a right-wing news agency, where a political candidate did something wrong and the newspaper of their party would downplay the problem, but the opposing news agency would not. This misinformation prevents someone from having a better grasp on the truth of reality. People can eventually judge for themselves what is actually happening despite one repressing the truth of what a political candidate did.
Attention and Information Overload
If we have too much information, like an information overload, then we can't discriminate the information as well. We have a limited attention span to receive all the information that we get exposed to. The fake news, misinformation, hoaxes and scams can and do go viral like accurate information can. People not only get suckered by false information in their political leanings, but also in their purchasing or business decisions.
Oxford dictionary
Now that we are said to be in a "post-truth" world thanks to post-modernism, subjectivism, relativism and solipsism, we can supposedly trust the mainstream news to tell us what is or is not true. Sometimes claims of fake news are accurate, and sometimes the claim of fake news is the fake news, while they smear and discredit truth.
Popular vs. Quality Information
When popularity comes into play, quality often takes a backseat as being of less salience, value or importance. Peer and other social influences can distort the perception and acquisition of information received. Our power to discern quality knowledge is diminished by information overload. Repetition is known as a way to influence people to accept something as well.
A study from last May 2017 says that a weaker discriminative power can have trade-offs with more diverse information being taken in, like the idea of a market for truth where eventually the truth will win out over falsity. But information overload and the frequency of information can lead to low-quality information being popularized or going viral. They eyeball the social media bots as a problem, which is also how fake news has fallen into the spotlight of national security forces which try to link the bots in social media as a foreign attack to compromise US democratic values. Russia has been the target, but there is little evidence to back up the claims.
Authors of the study say these bot accounts "make up a significant portion of online profiles and many of them flood social media with high volumes of low-quality information to manipulate the public discourse". Social media is just that, media that is shared and talked about. We get much of it from our friends, and most of us are driven by biases and other deficits in thinking. The posts on social are often not verified, they are only shared in most cases after a cursory glance at the title and maybe a quick scan through the page. Discernment of reality is not really being done.
Information War
The battle is on for our minds. Ideas are being pushed, and we get sucked into them. Much of the time it's not us who have a hold or grasp on the ideas but the ideas have a hold on us instead. Fake news claims against false and true information will continue.
How far will the hype go? The creation of this problem seems to be backfiring in some cases, as people see the media engage in fake news of their own. Creating the problem of fake news could be used as part of a problem-reaction-solution thesis-antithesis to generate a reaction, and then provide a pre-determined solution.
There are already AI "helping" out, and algorithms being implemented in search engines to prevent people from accessing counter-narrative news sources. Legislation and laws to control information might be on the way. I wonder how well blockchain technology and platforms like Steem will fit into the fight to allow freedom of information to continue online. The information war is on, and more people need to get into it to liberate their minds and think better.
Thank you for your time and attention. Peace.
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Very true! People accept the news because it is from their trusted source, and they don't even try to think logically. Because of the fake news stereotypes are formed.
Yup, blind trust leading us off a cliff :P
I used to believe that news agencies cared about informing the public. I thought that was their agenda, their job. I was naive. Their job is to promote the agenda of oligarchs and advertisers. (Advertisers whose message and products are in line with the oligarchs). Alternative media has many problems and is not safe to trust without research. But at least we have an alternative to challenge the mainstream propaganda, and as long as we know it's not intrinsically true, we might be better informed. It is our individual responsibility to give the appropriate amount of trust to what we are being told. I repeat, personal responsibility!
Hey @roundhere! Good to see you posting man. The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance. Can't remember who that was thatbsaid that but I think Thomas Jefferson. Couldn't be more true. Personal responsibility all the way. Be part of the counter economy, put your own real news out there, grow your own food and whatever else you have to do to be the change you want to see. As cliché as it sounds it's the truth. Good to see you though man.
Personal responsibility can be a heavy load to bear, but is it heavier than the load a slave master would impose?
Good to hear from you as well! I've been too busy with my day job.
Likewise man. Lots of work. Never ends hah. Not a bad thing though. And yes I completely agree. Well said
Yes, good message, personal responsibility we have to verify things ourselves.
The funny thing is, news has always been fake! The mainstream news contradicts itself over and over in the uk, and lies all the time. In the states they are all reading from the same script. Trump has actually brought this to the surface, kind of. Most people should know about the media lying, but to my surprise they don’t.
The fake news thing started getting widespread when pizzagate/Hillary’s emails was all coming out a few years back, and they kept saying to everyone ‘don’t listen to the fake news haha’ and the sheep would listen and say, oh that’s all fake, the government told me. Yea, because they never lie ;)
LOL, yeah, the government told me so that's the truth real news scoop about other news being fake ;) Pizzagate is where it all started to keep hyped up int he mainstream indeed ;)
It appears we are thinking along similar lines today. The decisions people make are only as good as the information used and the reasoning applied to that information before making those decisions. When information is limited, erroneous, or an outright lie, the decisions cannot be sound. When the reasoning applied is lacking, the same shortcoming is inevitable.
Good point, thanks for the feedback and the link.
Great article man that’s why I only follow small independent YouTubers some more biased than others but quick google searches usually help, and I think these YouTubers are more aware win live in a time where fact checking is a click away, only problem is site like google are very biased as well, is it possible that they themselves will only show us what they want?? Don’t know but with groups like the southern poverty law center getting free range on what they consider “hate speech” and monitoring content it could turn into god knows what!
Yup, many alternative news sources have better handle on things. It's refreshing. We can get contrasting info to compare and figure out what really makes sense. Google can indeed change its algorithms to filter sites or content they don't want to return...
Most news has always been fake. The media is just freaking out about it because new sources are moving in on their territory.
People need to become educated otherwise weighing any claim is difficult or impossible. The problem is people think that CNN or Fox or whatever are trusted sources but they are just banking their audience being too ignorant to call BS on them (sadly, they usually aren't wrong either).
Yes it has a long history if being fake and warping reality, dumbing us down into accepting false unreality as reality, making us unable to discern well as we live in a partial fantasy :/
Love your touch on public dissonance and comfirmations bias (i.e. Popular bs. Quality info). The term Conspiracy Theorist was invented by the CIA, when they wrote letter to all their "assets" in the news industry to use the term when referring to something that went against the mainstream narrative. I'd be curious as to who "invented" the term fake news and what their connection are.
As for the AI "helping" search engines like Google and Facebook sift through "fake news", I listen to a lot of podcasters who say "oh well they're a private corporation and if they want to block me it's their right." Well if they were infact private and not being subsidized by the US government who is obligated to abide by the Constitution I'd agree. However, this is not the case. They do infact recieve a lot of tax dollars (our "legally" stolen currency) in the form of subsidy and research funding.
Therefore they are techniquely not Private in the true sense of the word and until they stop suckling on the teet of the state, they will continue not to be. And therefore have no right to censor. This is not even mentioning the fact that it is a violation of the Non-Aggression Principle. Especially in countries like Germany and the U.K. Great post @krnl. Thanks much for shairing. Definitely going to be keeping a closer eye on your posts.
There are conspiracies to theorize over. We are on to them and they are getting concerned and their power is at threat while we and things like Steemit exist!!
We Are The Resistance!!!
Yeah, so much of industry is publicly funded by legally stolen tax money as you put it. They owe much to the people they take money from without paying it back. You're welcome, glad you gained value form it ;)
We are really bombarded by information these days. We have only 24 hours in a day and we can't spend all of them on reading and watching news. My advise would be when you start to follow some source try to find out who stands behind and what would benefit the people who stand behind the source. At the same time try to find completely opposite source. You will compare these sources and if you know how they benefit from any news then you will start to notice what and why they are emphasizing in particular news.
Good points. It's already time consuming and doing that is time consuming as well. At least a contrast can promote filtering of contradictions to find out where discrepancies are and reality lies.