[HOWTO] Stopping Fake News - Comments Page 3

As Reagan said: "Trust but verify"

Responding to posts by Kenneth Nelson and William Slaughter:
Actually, Fox News was even more pessimistic about Trump's chances in the final month than the other networks you criticize. Anyway, the most experienced pollsters DID correctly track opinion though the twists and turns of the campaign season, as they did during the primaries. But polls always lag behind the amazingly fickle American people, who can change their minds with each day's news cycle. So when Clinton's biggest problems came in the closing days (with an ominous-sounding FBI letter, hacked emails that showed some campaign staffers to be ruthless, and the well-timed surge of fake "scandals") many undecided voters flipped extremely fast. Polls could not fully measure such a last-minute trend before that Tuesday arrived (yet they did show the race tightening to a dead heat).

For Howard:
OK, but please keep an open mind and make sure your own BS detector does not rely on any biases you may have yourself. In other words, don't assume the reporting of actual events by long-established news organizations, or statistics they present in proper context, is all "propaganda". You may not like what they are finding, but don't blame the messenger. Yes, it is easy for vested interests on either side to lie with statistics but it is equally easy for you or me to look closely at them and see if they use false equivalencies or "loaded" questions. (The hard part, unfortunately, is then getting the truth out to replace the lies.) By the way, doesn't it seem that people who imagine the corporate-controlled "mainstream media" is somehow promoting a leftist agenda are actually just annoyed that their OWN partisan agenda is not blindly promoted on those networks?

thanks again Bob for a great "heads up" article...I know what to look for now.

Responding to Greg:
Journalism is a field where professionals actually read (and from a lot of different sources), learning to separate fact from fiction and be skeptical about simplistic claims. So if the intelligent research behind their reporting has drawn so many of them to personally agree with the political "left", have you considered that maybe it's precisely because of what their experience has shown them? Contrast that with people who only know what they hear around the water cooler, or on Twitter (which is just as unreliable), or from click-bait websites that know what makes newbie political extremists tick.

Most NON-commentator journalists do not mix their actual reporting with their own political inclinations. Outlets like MSNBC are partially exceptions but even that network's hosts TRY to at least examine both sides to some extent before drawing conclusions, far more than the self-proclaimed "Fair & Balanced" Fox News. Yes, as you indicated, only two of the 60 major newspapers could bring themselves to endorse Trump. That should tell you something. To say that they all have it wrong reminds me of how inmates in an asylum typically believe everyone else is crazy except them. (I am only making an analogy, not suggesting that mental illness is at play in the political sphere.)

Responding to Daniel:
Your point about deliberate misinformation not being anything new is true. However, the technique is infinitely more consequential in the Internet age. Lies now propagate instantly- and to everyone on earth - while the debunking of them is less sensational and gets over-shouted by the continually outraged mob. Studies have shown (oops...there we go relying on science instead of the preferences of our gut) that merely discussing a lie (even in the process of presenting proof to the contrary) will simply result in even more people hearing of the "controversy" and choosing to believe the lie. Climate change denial is an example of this, aggravated by misinformation from industry's most powerful vested interests.

On your point about Free Speech and other liberties: Much of the stoked anger about "political correctness" is a disguise for bigots who want to continue their life-long desire to insult or make things difficult for people they never like anyway. Of course, hate speech is perfectly legal but so is society's right to fight back or for private platforms to reject that content. So while I agree that the Internet gatekeepers are being pressured to exercise some inappropriate controls, all the complaining about "safe space" and PC speech is just plain silly. Those restrictions and monitoring are meaningless compared to what the Communication industry is already being ordered to do behind our backs (by secret non-contestable National Security letters).

Meanwhile, sincere efforts to encourage respect for others are described as "violating freedom of expression, association, and religion" by the same groups that want to prohibit protest against symbols like the flag, to have discriminatory rules about entry to the US by members of the world's largest religion, to deny large numbers of long-time citizens the right to remain voters, to promote imagery of one religion over another with tax money collected from other religions (and from atheists), to restrict who a person can sleep with, to legislate what a woman can do with her inner organs...the list goes on. So much for their so-called "small government" ideology. What they really want is quite a big government that continues to give them the upper hand and does as little as possible for anyone who thinks (or is) different from themselves.

I have never yet "shared" a news story, nor anything else. I don't see any point. But then I don't go on Facepalm or Tweeter either. Again, what is the point?

Response to evildoctor:
I have a lot of my own objections to Obama but please be specific about exactly how our current president "has diminished the US financially, militarily, constitutionally and culturally".

Since the time he took office in 2009:

Financially: Has the unemployment rate gone up from 4.6% to over 9%... or the opposite?
Has the business world suffered a DOW index going from 19,000 to 7,000...or the opposite?
Have cash reserves hoarded by US corporations dropped from all time highs... or the reverse?

Militarily: Has our president greatly increased the loss of American lives and wasteful expenditures by continuing to fight Bush's series of wars and Al Queda/ISIS battles (mistakes which Trump NOW agrees were disasters)....or the reverse?
Has he closed down Guantanamo as he wanted to do since 2008...or has he allowed it to keep running the last eight years?
Has he done nothing to fight terrorism...or has he used drones to kill people so often that he is criticized for it?
Did he stop caring about getting Osama Bin Laden (like Bush)...or did he get the guy, and without losing the lives of any of the brave men & women in our military?

Constitutionally: Has the president really pursued legislation or constitutional changes to take away your 2nd amendment guns ...or has he does nothing but back off, even under pressure by the families of shooting victims?
Has you own marriage been negated or diminished by the ability of same-sex couples to be married?...or have those couples simply been able to now enjoy some of the same benefits of being married that you have (presumably) always enjoyed?

Culturally: Did the number of people being deported drop precipitously...or have they far outnumbered those deported by any previous president?
Did Obamacare promptly bankrupt the US as promised by its opponents six years ago...or has it simply managed to cover vast numbers of people who previously had no insurance at all (despite compromises which were forced on the ACA to get it enacted, effectively making the current deductible increases inevitable?)

Has the Republican-dominated Congress passed legislation responsible for all the above...or has that Congress for years produced NO legislation that you personally can identify?

Unfortunately, you are going to absolutely deny the truth of all the above, with no explanation, and that is the REAL problem. (Mike Kracher's post is exactly right.) By continuing to listen to Sean Hannity and Rush you are doing yourself a great disservice.

Brian Williams was the object of his own fake news that went unannounced for years. He claimed to come under fire in Iraq, remember ? So why do we allow them to continue pretending they are relevant ?
The airwaves they consume needs a public facelift.
Licenses need to be pulled, penalties imposed.
Why aren't we boycotting their advertisers until they cease to exist?

To Kenneth Nelson, etc.: Have you any understanding of the role the Electoral College plays? Look at the votes: the anti-Trump voters won the country; the Electoral College didn't reflect the country's voting. The Electoral College is an antiquated system that should have been discarded years ago. The polls were by and large correct: anti-Trump. The voters at large did not want Trump. (I didn't want Hillary Clinton but even more so did not want Trump.)

BS detector is itself BS. It warns that the drudge report, a news aggregator , is unreliable.But it gives no warnings at all at sites like the dailykos, which is a far-left propaganda site.

My, you have a lot of impressionable readers, Bob. Nobody believe anything except themselves.

Snopes, the fact checker site, has added a 'Fake News' section. It is new and does not yet have a deep collection, but it is growing every day. See for yourself at:

http://www.snopes.com/category/facts/fact-fake-news/

This won't stop emails with fake info from being circulated like Tom Hank's father (a cook) being the lead singer of the Canadian 1950's musical group, the Diamonds or that Target is a French-owned company that won't support our troops. The list goes on.

Kevin: As you have perversely interjected an extensive political rant into an Internet tech forum, I felt it necessary to correct the historical record.

The unemployment figures, which are not credible, do not account for full-time workers who have been demoted to part time employment because of Obamacare. Not to mention that so many of the unemployed have given up looking for work that the percentage of the population participating in the labor force is lower than it has been in thirty years. They are not counted in the official numbers.

But you are correct in saying that corporations and the wealthy have prospered in the last 8 years. In fact, only the top decile has seen an increase in their income, while the bottom 90% have regressed. This is a breathtaking accomplishment for Obama’s trickle-down policies. Only without the trickle-down part.

Our military posture has declined while our enemies are stronger. The Middle East is roiling, almost certainly necessitating an eventual American response. Iran has been given the green light to develop a nuclear bomb, while Russian and Chinese aggression have not been effectively countered.

Islamic terrorism is on the rise, both nationally and internationally, with Obama refusing to even identify it properly. As for American military losses, Obama promised to end Bush’s foreign wars. But Americans are still dying in Afghanistan and Iraq, and ,now, Syria.

Constitutionally, Obama has operated as if the document never existed. With his pen and his phone, he has effectively repealed laws passed by Congress (welfare reform), implemented laws rejected by Congress (the Dream Act), and changed the provisions of laws (Obamacare).

The institution of marriage has been diminished by recognizing same-sex couples. The foreign countries and American states that have done so have seen a counterintuitive acceleration in the decline of the marriage rate.

But your accusation that Obama has callously deported unprecedented numbers of illegals struggling to feed their hungry families is false. Indeed, why would he since he views them as potential (or actual) Democrat voters. The regime counts those stopped from illegally entering the country as deportees, and the Obama economy is so bad that self-deportation has significantly increased.

Obamacare and other policies have contributed toward eventual bankruptcy, with Obama almost doubling the national debt. This would have been worse except that the Republican congress refused to cooperate with Obama and the Democrats, instead insisting on shutting down the government so that the sequester went into effect.

Speaking of Obamacare, the percentage of Americans who have health insurance is about the same as a decade ago, but healthcare costs have skyrocketed. Although there are many contenders, Obama’s lies about this policy may be the most egregious of his entire presidency.

You are so misinformed one can only conclude that you spend too much time visiting fake news sites. May I recommend you listen to Rush and Sean as an antidote?

Lou:
I, too, have long lamented how politics creeps in on Bob's Tech forum. You ignored the three pages of posts preceding mine, most of which were partisan complaints with little (or faulty) information to support them. THOSE were the posts that perversely injected politics unnecessarily and you could have objected to them. In any event, I finally felt that they required a reasoned response. Note that I stated up front that I have major problems with Obama's conduct which are actually more grave and consequential than those he is unfairly picked on by the Fox News machine. These have to do with lack of transparency, gross incompetence in communicating realities to the American public, neglect for human rights worldwide, and secret government intrusion into our lives (why are the so-called libertarian conservatives so quiet about THAT?)

I appreciate that your calm reply to mine was similarly in the spirit of clarity and reasoning. Since neither of us wants to go back & forth much further on this forum (and I don't want to do that anywhere else either) I will just clarify why we may simply "have to disagree" and move on. Though you made better effort than the others to rationally support your position, I say you rely on certain unfounded or misleading claims.

Obamacare and the Employment issue are both complicated in themselves, let alone examined together. The reason some are not looking for work is testament to the economic disaster that hit in 2008. That was a direct result of an economy controlled by Wall Street and the Republicans under Bush, not Obama.

http://www.businessinsider.com/labor-force-participation-rate-november-2016-2016-12

The definition of full-time employment for purposes of Obamacare has only dropped from 35 hours to 30 hours. And here is what another not-exactly-leftist site (Forbes) says about the larger issue:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2015/03/05/five-years-ago-they-called-obamacare-a-job-killer-heres-what-they-say-now/2/#16a1f19b5d9a

You and I agree that corporations and the top earners are doing just fine while all the rest of us suffer. (I don't believe 90% have actually "regressed" in real dollars but your point is taken.) Obama has not done enough to reverse that but do you think his opponents have been helping him on that issue or have they been fighting every effort from the start, whether it concerns taxes for corporations and the wealthy, or moderately increasing the minimum wage?

On the issues of military and terrorism, a correct chronology would show that fingers should be pointed elsewhere but there is too much to go into (unless you really want to). We agree that the wars should never have been started and American lives should no longer be lost (though it seems you're saying we must intervene yet again?) Even in 1991, I said to let Sadaam's Arab neighbors deal with his invasion of Kuwait themselves. Obama wages war now mostly by remote control, but the tide is turning in ISIS territory. Can't we drop the petty issue about him being too cautious to stress an entire religion itself when referring to terrorists?

What is the actual constitutional provision that you could say a Federal court somewhere has ruled was violated by Obama? Your complaint is really about Executive Orders. FWIW, only two of the previous eight presidents issued fewer Executive Orders than Obama. (Of the eight, Reagan issued the most.)

I'll touch on the remaining issues we were discussing shortly, in a second post.

“If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're mis-informed.” ― Mark Twain

"Listen to everyone, read everything, believe nothing unless you can prove it in your own research" - William Cooper

The following is from Congressman Ron Paul's website "The Real Fake News List"

http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/revealed-the-real-fake-news-list

Where to begin? Yes there are plenty folks making money or simply getting a kick out of putting out garbage and the internet makes it easy. But I must take exception to an uncharacteristic (to my mind) remark by dear Bob "If mainstream media is not reporting a story, it’s more likely that there is no story, than that the MSM does not want to report it." No Bob there are indeed many many things MSM prefers to ignore or simply lie about. Anybody who doubts this is welcome to come to Israel and see how totally different the place is from the MSM take. Or read the story about the arrest of Oleg Atbashian in democratic America on charges which may put him away for longer than might have happened in his native USSR, for what? For trying to tell the truth on campus. Today's word according to Oxford University is "post-truth". I would prefer to stick with the older version. I could go on but most of you are probably not reading this anyway.

Kevin:I ignored the other similar posts and responded to yours as its politicizing was lengthy and specific enough so that it lent itself to easy refutation.

You criticize Obama for “gross incompetence in communicating realities to the American public”. Do you mean that he is not as skillful a liar as Bill Clinton? As for libertarian conservatives, they are not quiet, but far too critical of some “secret government intrusion” under Obama, such as the NSA collection of communications metadata.

So the bad economy is still Bush’s fault. Are you sure it’s not Reagan’s fault, or Herbert Hoover’s? Your Business Insider reference contains a graph showing that the only steep, prolonged decline in the labor force participation rate since 1970 has occurred under Obama. A look at the civilian labor force participation rate of 25-54 year-olds discounts the effect of retiring baby boomers:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNU01300060

A graph in the above posting shows the only decline since 1950 was under Obama. Why were the negative effects of Bush’s policies only seriously felt during the Obama “recovery”?

That the unemployment figures are misleading and not really indicative of the health of the economy can be ascertained by taking a closer look at employment: The graph on this page shows that only last year did the number of full-time employees equal the peak that was reached during the Bush years:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/192356/number-of-full-time-employees-in-the-usa-since-1990/

Also, the average hours worked per worker per year has continued to decline under Obama:

https://www.reference.com/science/many-work-hours-per-year-a62d2d2af1819c09#

Thus, it is not surprising that median income has declined under Obama, a statistic reported, I believe, even in the fake news sites that you consult.

Your Forbes reference (Forbes, BTW, is even more fair and balanced than the Fox News Machine as it has many leftist contributors) purports to look at Obamacare’s effect on health care costs. Yet it only considers employer paid insurance and Medicare, ignoring the Obamacare exchanges and Medicaid, where many of the new enrollees had the misfortune of being placed. The article does refer in passing to the increase in part time workers because of Obamacare, my point that you have missed. And the BLS recently reported that health care jobs have increased 1.5 times faster than general employment, which will lead to greater increases in healthcare costs.

The problem is not that Obama has not done enough to reverse inequality. The only clear cut pronounced increase in inequality has occurred under him (although I’m sure it’s Bush’s fault). Before Obama, the rich got richer, but so did all other income groups. It wasn’t even clear that inequality was increasing, as the data were mixed and ambivalent. The Obama record is crystal clear. As Obama admitted a couple years ago, 95% of the income gains have gone to the top 1%. What he didn’t say was that the other 5% of net gains went to the rest of the top 10% in income. More than any other president, even more than Clinton, Obama is the president of the wealthy.

And no, we don’t agree that wars should never be started. I maintain that no president should ignore the advice of all of his military advisors and throw away a military victory already achieved just to spite his predecessor. And the nature of the enemy and his motivation is not a “petty issue”, but an understanding of him is essential in defeating him.

There is a minor “Constitutional provision” called Article I which gives the legislative authority to Congress alone. Therein lies many of Obama’s Constitutional transgressions. If you did not restrict yourself to liberally biased news sources, you might see through the fake statistic about executive orders. Obama’s overreach has usually come via executive memoranda, the difference being that a memorandum does not require a legal justification, while an executive order does. If you didn’t rely on fake news sources, you might also know that Obama has suffered more 9-0 Supreme Court decisions reversing his unconstitutional executive actions than any other president

Rush and Sean will be back on the air tomorrow.

It would help if we all kept to a strict definition of "fake NEWS" as being a distinct news "story" which is imaginary and deliberately made-up, such as reports (like Pizzagate, or phony chain-letter claims) that are presented in such a way as to fool as many people as possible. Opinion pieces, analysis, and ordinary reportage should NOT be tarred with the same epithet, even though they are inherently affected by people's biases. Like science and everything else in life, nothing is as simple, or black & white, as we think.