Who Will Fact Check the Fact Checkers?

The fake issue of fake news get more ironic by the day. Facebook recently announced that they were going to censor fake news by employing a cadre of left wing fact checkers.

In order for fake news censoring to achieve the near impossible task of gaining and retaining credibility, the fact checkers must be viewed as impartial and have an impeccable record of objective factually correct reporting. Even with such credentials, a small group of selected fact checkers by an entity like Facebook that already has shown its political bias, face an uphill battle.

That hill just got steeper. Last week, one of the fact checkers selected by Facebook, the two person left wing biased, Snopes was caught in an embarrassing factual snafu involving charges of embezzlement and prostitution, not the types of activity that build confidence in a fact checker. Read more.

See also Who Will Fact Check Facebook’s Fact Checkers

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Obama To Russians: Cut it Out

Obama Joins The Battle Against Russian Hacking and Fake News

Last week, President Obama gave a press conference on the issue of Russian interference in the U.S. election. The President noted that Russia hacked among other things, John Podesta’s emails and released mundane information like Mr. Podesta’s risotto recipes. The intention of this hacking and interference was to tip the election to Donald Trump.

Stop Sharing our Risotto Recipes!

Apparently, the onslaught of the release of mundane information from John Podesta’s emails by the Russians, did tip the election. The Power of Risotto! The President told the press corp before jetting off to his final golf vacation of his Presidency, that when he became aware of Russian hacking, he told Russian President Vladimir Putin to “cut it out”.

Stern words indeed!

While governments, including the United States, often attempt overt and covert ways of influencing other governments’ elections, it seems this year such interference has taken on heightened importance at the White House, given the outcome. “Fake news” has also become a national emergency for Democrats and the corporate media.

We wonder what conclusions a CIA under President Trump will make about the influence of Russian interference in U.S. elections and how a President Trump will treat the corporate media who have blamed “fake news” for his election.

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Slate: Stop Calling Everything Fake News

It took years for constant overuse and inappropriate use of terms “racist” and “sexist” to lose their sting. Incessant use of the term “fake news” has already lost its sting after about a month. But that isn’t stopping main stream media outlets, spurred on by Hillary Clinton and other left wing organizations to “do something about it.

number-of-articles-in-the-new-york-times-referencing-fake-news
Through November, fake news references in the New York Times were up 531% in 2016 over last year.

There is factually incorrect news properly termed “fake news”, there is satire and there is news that expresses views and presents information in a manner contrary to, and often more widely read, than the main stream media’s news, which itself often contains factually incorrect information and is highly opinionated. The main stream media’s complaint appears to be mostly with the more widely read media outlets that report a contrary narrative to their own.

Will Oremus writing for Slate notes “The way to combat actual fakery in journalism is to keep the definition narrow enough that reasonable people across the political spectrum can agree on what does and does not meet the criteria.” It does not seem, however, that the main stream media is really interested in eliminating fake news, but rather silencing their right wing media competitors.

If indeed the main stream media was serious about fighting fake news, Mr. Oremus takes a sensible approach to combating fake news that starts with an admonition of “Stop Calling Everything Fake News.”

READ MORE

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AP Joins Left Wing Battle To Fight Fake news

AP has become the latest news organization to join the cadre of left-leaning news outlets in the fight against “fake news”. Yesterday we reported that Facebook would be joining forces with left-wing groups to fact check and censor fake news. AP announced that it would work with Facebook to “help identify and debunk trending “news” stories being shared online that are false.”

The fake news furor seems to only be shared by main stream media outlets that are losing market share and influence. These same news organizations seem also to be inordinately upset about “PizzaGate”.

AP posted a photo at the bottom of their announcement that they were joining the fight against fake news. The photo showed flowers and notes left at Comet Ping Pong Restaurant, the center of the PizzaGate conspiracy theory, one of which that read “Fake News is Not Ok”.

AP captioned the photo: “A fake news story prompted a man to fire a rifle inside the popular pizza place…”

READ AP’S FIGHT AGAINST FAKE NEWS ANNOUNCEMENT

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FaceBook to Fact Check Fake News

Facebook to Use Left-Wing Organization and Left Leaning Main Stream Media Fact Checkers

In an Orwellian move that many media experts suspect is nothing more than an attempt to silence opposing views and competitive media outlets, Facebook announced that it will enlist the aid of several main stream media outlets to help it fact check articles.

Facebook announced that it will use a fact checking code drafted by The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN), an organization hosted by the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. The Poynter Institute, according to Breitbart is funded by Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, and the National Endowment for Democracy, entities all openly favorable to left-wing causes and the Democratic party.

Other Facebook fact checkers include Snopes, ABC News and The Washington Post- all left leaning organizations.

How it will work

Facebook announced that it will address hoaxes and fake news by:

  • Easier reporting
  • Fake news can be reported to Facebook by clicking on the upper right hand corner of each post.

  • Flagging Stories as Disputed
  • Fake stories will be flagged. Facebook users can still share these stories but they will be flagged with a warning that the story has been disputed.

  • Informed Sharing
  • Facebook will introduce signals into helping to identify fake news. If people read articles and don’t share it, that may be a sign that the article misled the reader. There are many reasons why people may not share a story (not interesting?) that have nothing to do with the veracity of the content.

  • Disrupting Financial Incentives for Spammer
  • Facebook will identify publishers where they detect ‘policy enforcement actions might be necessary.’

The Facebook action against fake news is not a voluntary opt in filter but a site-wide mandated Facebook”feature”. If users wish to have every piece of information vetted by a third party, then the Facebook fake news filter will satisfy them. If not, other platforms that don’t engage in overt and biased censorship of information will most likely come on line and thrive.

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NY Times Urges Social Media Companies’ Aid in Fighting Fake News

Yesterday, we reported that the main stream media wants social media platforms to identify and, if possible, ban what they deem to be “fake news”. The New York Times CEO went one step further in the battle on fake news. In a speech earlier this week to the Detroit Economic Club, New York Times Chief Executive Officer Mark Thompson plead directly to search and social media platforms to do more to help the NY Times and other main stream outlets that report “real news”.

Calls PizzaGate “poisonous nonsense”

Before making a plea for assistance from social media companies, Mr. Thompson pointed out the dangers of fake news using PizzaGate as an example. Mr. Thompson noted that the “poisonous nonsense” of PizzaGate was an example of fake news amid a torrent of such fake stories that have been flooding the Internet.

“Widely Accepted” that Russians Hacked Podesta’s Emails

Mr. Thompson also repeated the claim that not only is fake news a danger, but that foreign actors have a vested interest in disseminating fake news. “It is now widely accepted [emphasis added] that it was Russian hackers who broke into John Podesta’s emails and gave them to Wikileaks, beginning the chain of events that led to Pizzagate, ” said Mr. Thompson.

It is also not “widely accepted” that Russian hackers broke into John Podesta’s emails. Theories as to who or how Mr. Podesta’s email was hacked range from a disgrunteld DNC staffer, to a lost phone and an weak password on his Google account. What may be considered as “widely accepted” is that Russian actors attempted to hack a variety of Republican and Democratic Party systems, but no one has been able to say with certainty that John Podesta’s email was broke into by Russian hackers. What the New York Times’ role might be in preventing foreign hacking was unclear from Mr. Thompson’s comments.

The Plea

Mr. Thompson concluded his speech with a plea that “the big search and social companies must do more to sustain the economics of real journalism.” He also noted that the New York Times would benefit from more paid subscribers arguing that real journalism cost money and “consumer will have to pay for it.”

What happens if not enough consumers want to pay for the New York Times? Does “real news” therefore die? Or, does another news entity capable of turning a profit take their place?

Read Mark Thompson’s Speech and Recommendations

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The MSM War on Fake News

Fake news is real. Fake news is simply news that has no basis in fact. News that is not factual is not news at all. Indeed, it’s fiction. There is no need to ban fake news as there is no need to ban fiction. A fake news story masquerading as real news is easily refuted by facts. Besides, the First Amendment clearly protects fake news and fiction, with very limited exceptions.

The main stream media, however, has deemed to be “fake” any news that contradicts their narrative, raises questions about existing facts or presents a different opinion. Much to the frustration of the main stream media, such examples of MSM deemed fake news are not so easily refuted by facts and therefore need to be dismissed unilaterally.

Not only does the MSM argue that fake news needs to be dismissed, but that social media sites like Twitter and Facebook should either warn their users as to the existence of fake news or eliminate it entirely from their platforms. In addition, MSM outlets like the Washington Post have presented lists of sites, prepared by third party “experts” that supposedly peddle fake news on behalf of Russia. These sites one might infer should also be banned by social media sites.

A recent editorial by Preya Samsundar published by the Hill, argues that the “Hunt for fake news is the new McCarthyism”. Ms. Samsundar argues that the current MSM hysteria over fake news is “an excuse to hunt down conservative competitors to mainstream outlets.”

Indeed, the MSM fake news furor appears to be more about regaining readership and influence than any genuine desire to bring facts back to news reporting.

READ Ms. Samsundar’s Opinion Piece

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The Intercept on Fake News

The intercept roundly denounced and referred to as disgusting, the recent Washington Post story that argued that fake news emanating from Russia tipped the election to Donald Trump. The Washington Post recently added an editor’s note to that story in an effort to distance themselves from the conclusions that its cited experts had made.

The Intercept astutely notes in their most recent article on fake news: “Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.

Read More

number-of-articles-in-the-new-york-times-referencing-fake-news
Fake news references in the New York Times are up 531% in 2016 over last year.

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Trump vs. the CIA and the Main Stream Media

The New York Times, The Atlantic, Washington Post and other main stream media out lets are reporting the “fact” that Russia “hacked the election” based on a CIA conclusion.

The Atlantic notes that the CIA evidence “remains mostly secret”. The Washington Post wrote “the CIA concluded in a secret assessment” that there was Russian involvement in the U.S. election “according to [unnamed] officials brief on the matter”. A New York Times headline blurted “CIA Judgement Built on Swell of Evidence”.

President-Elect Donald Trump’s told Fox News over the weekend he did not believe the CIA conclusion that Russia hacked the election as trumpeted by the main stream media articles and called it “ridiculous”.

The New York Times has warned that Trump’s “mocking of the US intelligence finding” is an “extraordinary breach”. The Washington Post wrote that Trump’s comments set him on course for a showdown with [unnamed] intelligence officials that “some of them describe as the most complex threat environment in decades.”

Undeterred, Trump took to twitter today claiming that if he had lost the election and blamed it on the Russia, it would have been dismissed as a “conspiracy theory”

The main stream media has so damaged its credibility during the last election cycle that if indeed Russia has committed serious acts of espionage, many have trouble believing it when it is reported by main stream media outlets.

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Trump Calls FAKE NEWS on CNN

The “fake news” chorus from the main stream media continues unabated. The fake news charges, however, are being turned on the main stream media by none other than President-Elect Donald Trump. Mr. Trump responded to reports by CNN that he would continue to be involved in “the Apprentice”, even when he assumes the Presidency.

Mr. Trump fire off this tweet, calling the charge ‘ridiculous’ and ‘untrue’ and labeling CNN’s account ‘FAKE NEWS’

One can only wonder how long the main stream media will continue its attack on fake news that seems to be convincing few, and in many instances, subjecting the MSM news outlets to ridicule and scorn.

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