I’m here nominally to address the problem of what’s being called Fake News. At its core this is as labeled — news that is fake; news that isn’t news; deceptive content intended not to inform or convince but to manipulate and make trouble. It’s a huge problem, we’re told, that will require new algorithms and tons of cloud to fix. But I’m not so sure. You see the key to keeping fake news out is to put real news in.
The recent Fake News tempest has got me thinking about what I do and don’t do right here in this simplest of all corners of the Internet. I’m just one man and a keyboard. For 19 years I’ve been pumping out this stuff generally by myself and for the most part without the support of advertising revenue, either. Did you ever wonder how I make my living? It’s not from that PayPal Donate button, which brings in about $200 per year.
I don’t work for a newspaper or a network, at least not since the end of 2008. I don’t carry much in the way of advertising. I don’t even seek readers. This page is pretty much unchanged since January 2009 and that bugs the heck out of Search Engine Optimizers who are always trying to sell me their services to “improve my business” and “get more customers” by “raising my search results to the first Google page.”
These SEO experts have no idea what business I am even in. They don’t know who are my customers. They sure as heck don’t get it that — as a boutique news outfit — I couldn’t care less about Google search results. I am an anachronism and that makes me the perfect person to write about fake news, because there’s no faking it here. I make my living, you see, specifically by being not fake.
If you are American you are probably familiar with the Sunday morning political talk shows on all the major networks. Some of these have been around for more than 60 years. None of them are in danger of being canceled no matter how bad their ratings. That’s because these shows — and their commercials — are aimed at an audience of just 536 people, which is to say the sitting President, 100 members of the U.S. Senate, and 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives. You and I don’t matter to those advertisers and because we don’t matter those shows can charge a lot for commercials that are barely seen by Americans as a whole but very reliably seen by the 536 Americans who actually matter.
It’s a little like that here, too. I write for readers who make the effort to find me and do so year after year, decade after decade. This little rag has a core readership that is among the most informed and influential on the Internet. Look in the comments and you’ll see the same names week after year after decade and the quality of those comments is absolutely the best. That has nothing to do with me and everything to do with you, my readers.
I never edit or delete comments unless the author of that comment asks me to do so. I don’t worry about haters because I don’t have time to worry and because haters are inevitably recognized and driven out. Our little society here takes care of itself because that’s the best way to maintain quality discourse which results in shared knowledge. Sure I get things wrong from time to time but it isn’t deliberate and through your help this dinghy always rights itself, or has so far.
I speak my mind, support my opinions with facts, put it all in a historic context, and do it with generally good humor and with a willingness to be shown from time to time that I am just plain wrong.
What happens here is the exact opposite of Fake News, which is part of the reason why longtime readers feel safe.
Trust is a hard thing to earn and an easy thing to steal. Several times per day I am approached with offers of guest posts written by other people. Some want to give me a day off in exchange for a link to their site (We’ll drive your car to work, don’t worry about a thing). Some want to pay me outright. Some want me to write the post but make it about them, again for money. They all promise their work is of extremely high quality, these people who have exactly no idea what I even do here. So I turn them all away. There are a million words on this site and every one was written by me and always will be. That’s my quality guarantee.
Fake News is news that comes from nowhere. You don’t know who wrote it. Fake news lacks depth and detail. It’s a journalistic head feint, not news. You can often tell it was written by a non-native English speaker. And while I maintain that it is fairly easy to identify Fake News, I think the real value comes from being able to identify Real News when you see it. Who is this guy or gal you are reading? Does what they say make any sense? Does it somehow fit in a corpus of news that you can identify and trust. Even the National Enquirer has a form of internal validity: it is scrupulously loyal to sensation. You know what you are getting with the National Enquirer. Same with the New York Post or the Daily News or The Sun in the UK or even Stern in Germany. If you read these publications you have a good idea what you can trust and what you can’t. Same for major TV networks right down to Fox News. These are all designed to reach specific audiences with news that is, for the most part, well, news.
“Consider the source,” my grandfather Fallon Ashley used to say. He received a journalism degree from the University of Michigan class of 1917 right before leaving for France as an artillery lieutenant. “If you don’t know the source, you can’t trust it.”
It’s sometimes hard to know the source of stories that are rarely over 350 words and owe their high positions in Google News not to journalistic integrity or even timeliness but to a mixture of SEO experts and paid content.
I hate paid content. That’s where a supposedly reputable news site has links to other stories on other sites they’ve never heard of and the links are generated by machine and hardly reviewed by editors. This happens at the biggest news outfits and it is deplorable. But they do it for the money.
And speaking of money, how do I make mine? I am an angel investor and occasional public speaker. I give advice. I advise startups, established companies, government agencies, individuals, non-profits, newlyweds — you name it. In an industry where everything is always new, having a long memory and a deep list of contacts can be very useful. I’m not a consultant. I don’t charge by the hour. For giving advice I don’t charge at all. But I ask a lot of questions and learn from every encounter. Come prepared to share.
Just occasionally the stars align and reveal an angel investment worth making (but not generally worth writing about until years later in case you are wondering). That’s become my real gig. But I couldn’t do it if I wasn’t first consistently visible here and if I didn’t have your trust.
Grandpa Fallon was right. Always consider the source.
That’s it. You can be trusted as being real. Some of what you write about is above my head. But I know it has validity. Thanks!
Best. Piece. Ever. Dean describes it best. “That’s it.” Long time follower, but not a fanboi.
This piece gets to the essence of where we are, and more importantly, where we should be.
The fact that Robert X. Cringely is a pseudonym, I find curious.
Speaking of considering the source, what is preventing an update on your kickstarter project?
As you very well put it, part of the problem with this debate is that we lack a proper definition (…not unlike Big Data, actually – but I digress, as usual) of what fake news actually are (and thanks for yours there! Good, but I think that it could be even better).
I mean, it could be argued that a good part of what you write about IBM is fake news (albeit I would disagree with that, as I think that you are right). For example: If one year ago, you told us that intelligence agencies were reading, say, all Yahoo emails, even without sources, would that be fake? Or a very good, but not necessarily well informed, guess? Do they read Gmail accounts today? Most likely yes. Would it be fake news if you told us so?
And soon enough you will review your predictions for 2016 and release the ones for 2017. Both will have some (but not all) topics that are not based on facts (but in opinions), and yet have been or will be correct. My point being that some fake news turn out not to be fake at all (and the other way around), so unfortunately, I do not think that the problem is as simple to solve as just requiring a source. It sounds more like some powerful people trying to blacklist smaller parts of the internet (…and Ginny wouldn’t mind adding this blog to that list…).
The problem with fake news is not in the people who put it out. The problem is that so many people lack the capacity to think well. Just look at the elder scams, the homeopathic remedies, or the various internet scams. They all seem obvious to the vast majority of folks, but there are significant numbers who are taken in. If you want to attack the problem, don’t focus on the supply side; focus on the demand side.
Oh, the problem is both the people who put it out and those who consume it. It’s not just one or another.
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Differentiating propaganda fake-news (what I’d call intentional deception) from the originator-really-believes-it fake news, or any other form of “fake” news is also germane to the discussion.
You’re right on both points.
“The problem is that so many people lack the capacity to think well” – Beautifully put, if I may say so. Having heard a multitude of vox pops since the dark day of the Brexit referendum, it’s hard not to conclude that hundreds of thousands of people had absolutely no idea what they were voting for. People who lacked the capacity to think well, or even listen for more than thirty seconds. Post-truth politics is here to stay so long as these people can be prayed upon with the promise of binary solutions to hugely complex political problems.
@David Stewart. It is not a new phenomena. The mobs in ancient Rome had some influence on Emperor, mostly malign. The mystery is today, when real news still existed, voters in many western countries bought the lies of a group of elitists and voted for policies that harmed themselves. I noted a few conspiracy theories on this but suspect the idea of economic and political memes may be a better explanation. Aside from that, I have always felt Bob’s articles are an intelligent read, even if I disagreed. Same for most of commenters. His solution for the GFC would have been much cheaper and effective than the mess now trying to no collapse.
Great essay. I have read the recent articles decrying fake news and visited Prop or Not, and it seems to me that a better definition of fake news would be anything that does not support the status quo. That would seem to justify how the “fake but accurate” stories from Dan Rather, the Iraqi WMDs, etc. make the front pages.
“a better definition of fake news would be anything that does not support the status quo”
no, I don’t think that’s right at all. Fake news is, simply, news stories that are fundamentally untrue. Stuff like “Hillary is literally a murderer” or “Obama isn’t American”.
You are absolutely correct about the trust level. And you earned my trust going back to the InfoWorld days. But I’d like to point out that it isn’t about agreeing with you 100% of the time; in fact for me it’s the opposite.
If I find a news source that I agree with ALL THE TIME, I start to NOT trust it. I don’t want to be in an echo chamber – I want the occasional dissenting opinion. Sadly, this is the biggest force powering the ‘fake news’ phenomenon. Most people WANT a news source that reinforces their own opinions.
BINGO!!!… There is a segment of Americans who have their beliefs and want them reinforced. They don’t want to hear dissenting facts or logic.
This new ‘fake news’ is interesting in the current social media world we live. A lot of people simply repeat something because a segment of people have their beliefs reinforced by the news, so it is therefore the truth. The Weather Channel even just slammed Breitbart for using one of their posts to misleads Americans about climate change, since the story is using weather for the day, versus climate (weather over a long period of time).
Other people are posting fake news to have others on social media re-post or share it, so that the ad revenue from the original post is increased, causing the creator to simply make money. Some fake news is being generated to simply mislead people as well, usually for some gain by others (monetary or election results).
Your grandfather was correct, you should always consider the source. As others have pointed out, if you agree with all the news and opinions you are seeing on line, then you are likely getting fake news. You should be looking for some dissenting opinions to help you understand the issues so you can create an informed opinion on the subject matter.
Absolutely true this one, I wonder how you’d devise an algorithm to point this out to folk? I’m astounded by people, who I know are extremely smart, but who blindly forward or post things that simply don’t pass the simplest of bullshit detectors, just because they hope them to be true. It gets a little wearying replying with the appropriate snopes link all the time…
C
I don’t mind paid content as long as it is clearly labelled.
In fact most companies business models mean they give away some stuff for free often to make money on other stuff. For example most businesses will give you a free quote for a piece of work even though it cost money to provide that quote. So the idea that business do stuff for free ain’t new.
The secret of a successful business is to know what to give away for free or loss making and what to charge for. You have figured out it best to give away your opinions on the internet for free as you make it on the consulting side.
I give away my blog and free open source software because i make my money on the consulting side of my IT business.
I guess the interesting thing is to figure out how the fake news is making money. Is it misrepresenting something so someone makes money somewhere?
Bob is on to something, as he so often is (which is why we all read him for all these years!).
But the column does kind of skate on a hard question (or one of them): what is the functional difference between ‘paid content’ and advertising? Doesn’t that sometimes vary by publication? I’d say that’s at least possible. Seems to me that a key component here is intention. Most crap links of paid content are the lowest clickbait with no particular intention, nor necessarily even the expectation on the part of readers, of being entirely accurate; whereas regular, directly paid large scale advertising…er..um. Hmm.
The problems ppl are freaking out about are misinformation and disinformation – deliberate misleading. It’s the intention that matters. Bob’s intention is to be as interesting and honest as he can be. What is Fox News’ intention?
The problem is that many people *don’t* consider the source at all because it’s assumed that it’s *all* crap, that someone somewhere is getting paid to say or write something. In that sense Bob’s right that the ultimate cure is good stuff to vie with and hopefully crowd out the bad stuff. But how’s that working out right now?
If only micropayments had happened
Been looking to you for clear thinking and clear thought as long as I can remember. Your depth of insight and ideas are much appreciated in the ever growing internet of idiots. Most ‘news’ now isn’t news, just filler and headlines to incite clicks and push viewpoints these days. It looks more and more like no one actually has a job, or knows how to even work, but has time to go online and be a critic/genius.
I haven’t found one other person like you, who has the ability to write about complex and interesting ideas and make them understandable. A jewel of trust in your writings, compared to the ever growing cacophony of noise the internet has become.
One of the burrs under my saddle is seeing my Facebook friends share obviously fake ‘news’ stories. There are too many who don’t utilize their brain. You have integrity, are interesting and often thought-provoking. I believe you and I differ widely politically, but I respect your opinion and analysis. That is why I have been reading your columns for literally decades. One of these days I hope to come back up to Santa Rosa and look you up, to get you to sign your books, and so I can have breakfast with you and shoot the crap for an hour.
As far as your Mr Minecraft troll goes, there really haven’t been enough timely updates on the status of your boys’ project. I have not ordered one, and I am not really a gamer any more, but if and when they do ship I might just be curious enough to get one. I wonder if the market for Minecraft isn’t already behind us, though.
I’m surprised that you don’t get more donations for this site, but maybe I shouldn’t be. Everybody expects stuff on the internet to be free, after all. As I mentioned, I have been reading you for decades, all free, through complimentary industry subscriptions to tech magazines all the way to this website, which I have been reading almost since its inception, naked Christmas card and all. This past year I have been under the impression that you have slacked off, as the updated posts haven’t seem to have been coming as frequently as in the past, but with your various projects which you really don’t talk about enough, your kid’s project, your other web columns elsewhere (which you again don’t talk about enough – you really should provide regularly updated links to your work), loss of family, and now loss of your vision, which I hope will soon be or already has been addressed, I can somehow understand ‘slacking off’, you slacker. Imagine my surprise just now when I went and actually counted your columns published this year on this site, and came up with over one a week on average. That’s pretty respectable, considering. So, I will be hitting that PayPal button and giving you the equivalent of an annual subscription fee to a magazine, just for your column and your insight – $12, which is the same as I gave Wikipedia last year, and will also donate again this year. I think that’s a fair price, and I challenge all of your other regular readers to do the same. Merry Christmas Mark and Mary Alyce and the boys!
Nicely written. I agree with your position. After reading your written words for what seems like 25 years or so (is that possible?), I have come to feel as if I know you. I don’t, of course. However, I do have a respect and sense of trust of you that has come from years of reading your work . Your “blue collar” (my words, not yours) approach to your work, at least in my opinion, has you consistently producing work that clearly sits atop a very solid foundation built of proper research and doing your homework. Integrity. Credibility. I find this refreshing. Sadly, of course, this is refreshing. Thank you for your years of quality journalism. I’ve considered the source. This source is trusted.
(not trying to troll here)
“If you don’t know the source, you can’t trust it.”
Frequently, if you DO know the source, you also know you can’t trust it. I think the recent presidential campaigns illustrated that quite nicely.
This definition is a lot better than Bob’s — but still not on the money.
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Fake news is fiction. Real news is non fiction. Simple.
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So-called news organizations are MAKING THE NEWS rather than reporting it. It may be paid content, or it may be opinion. But it is definitely not fact based. Maybe they do this to be more interesting and compete better. Maybe they have an agenda — as in everyone gang up on one party and hope the other wins. Or support globalization regardless of party.
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Fake news is also a slur… as in don’t buy from our competitors because they are fake and we are the real thing. As in don’t buy a certain beer because they pee in it. Buy ours instead.
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Ironically, the most egregious fake news comes from legacy media orgs like ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, Fox, Wapo and Nytimes.
‘the most egregious fake news comes from legacy media orgs’
Hardly and you know it. Major news outlets may be slanted and selective in their coverage, but they are subject to a level of scrutiny that does not exist in those that churn out the outright lies that are constantly spewed by the perpetrators of Fake News.
So, what you’re saying is that in spite of all the wearing of God and Jesus on their sleeves, while all the rest of us are in church, our elected officers are watching TV.
That explains a lot of things.
This made me laugh. Gold star for you. (five pointed one…)
You are correct about trust with your audience but what do we do when the “audience” is Facebook users and when they see something in their “News” feed they trust it. It seems like a very large project to try and teach people what to trust. Much less if such a thing is even possible. Research has show that once someone starts to trust a source convincing them to change their mind is VERY difficult.
I fear that this problem is going to get much worse before it gets better anytime soon.
Are you quite sure about that choice of word, to teach people what to trust? Is that something that can or should be taught, or is that something that’s based on one’s values and situation? For example, should Hearst journalism properties be trusted, given “You supply the pictures, I’ll supply the war”? Should the Washington Post be trusted if their writers feel free to fabricate child heroin addicts or McCarthyist blacklists? Should the New York Times be trusted after lying us into Iraq (twice) and Syria? Should the WP be trusted while trying to work up a p-ssing match with Russia based on empty allegations? Should any of the particular fake journalists mentioned in the Podesta and DNC emails as willing to place a story for the party ever be believed again?
At this rate, mainstream journalism pointing out motes in others’ eyes strikes me as more self-serving desperation over control of the agenda than anything. I hear of people cancelling their subscriptions to the NYT and WP for trying to push this Red Scare 2.0 nonsense and the like. Assertions of credibility and disinterest have to stand for themselves as credible and disinterested. In this case, they reek of ulterior motives.
I am not a troll, but I don’t think many of these commenters understand real news, let alone fake.
What we’re seeing is the breakdown of our journalistic institutions and ethics, for what I believe to be a profit motive and possibly nefarious.
I hear many folks decrying the NYT, WP, WSJ, etc on this thread. You know who you are. It’s important to ‘grok’ that these institutions, or at least what’s left of them, are required to have 2 credible sources before they are allowed to publish a story. Trouble is, this is simply not true for many, many other sources. These yellowed old relics of the newspaper industry still make the attempt, at least, of journalistic ethic. Do they make mistakes sometimes? Of course. But they are also manipulated by folks in power, and have been, for example during the Iraq war.
In comparison, what we see in our Facebook feeds is often clickbait. Some of it is verifiably true, much of it is false. All of it is intended to emotionally hook you into believing something that matches your ‘like’ profile, in a self-reinforcing cycle. As many commenters have pointed out, often people don’t take the time and effort to ask ‘what if this is not true?’, and try to validate it using snopes.com or many other secondary verifications. And now we have fake news decrying these sites too, in at attempt I assume to fool everybody: https://www.facebook.com/notes/billy-martin/proof-snopescom-is-fake-can-not-be-used-for-the-truth/573901245964384/
A good summary – https://www.snopes.com/2016/11/17/we-have-a-bad-news-problem-not-a-fake-news-problem/
So when you see an article saying that the CIA believes Russia to have explicitly hacked our election in support of Trump, you can of course choose not to believe it. But you need to at least believe that they have two credible sources that have indicated this to be the case, or they would not report it. Note that I don’t say it is absolutely true, but this fact is more verifiable than some random website or non-journalistic entity like Fox news denying it. Those other institutions often have a specific agenda in mind. You have to use your head.
Reject or disagree if you wish. But unless we rebuild our journalistic institutions somehow, we will continue to be further disconnected from the truth, and eventually unhinged, in the same way the newspaper Pravda had many people in the USSR believing that Moscow had a population greater than New York back in 1970. They created their own facts for over 70 years, and probably still do.
I am not hopeful, based on many comments I see here. I believe Robert to be an honest reporter of facts. But I see so many claims that are simply untrue here. If we cannot agree on a basic set of facts, however painful they may be, how can we have an honest argument? Or even a polite conversation??
Jay, New York Times ran a front page story that journalists should be biased and try to defeat Trump.
The front page New York Times piece on defeating Trump was NOT a story… it was an opinion piece. One has to pay attention to the difference.
Also, the major media companies produce a massive amount of content. Some are stories and some are opinion. And yes, get over it, sometimes they do get it wrong. The point being that they will publish corrections when they do.
Expecting perfection will leave one sorely disappointed.
I suspect the main point is that the NYT would not run a front page opinion story about why a Democratic candidate should be defeated by a Republican.
@Jay S – well said.
@MikeN – cite your sources. And you’re right, the picture is fake. Someone clearly photoshopped Abe’s head on top of William McKinley’s body.
A quick Google search came up with this NYT source: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/public-editor/want-to-know-what-americas-thinking-try-asking.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0
@Ronc I read nothing in the article you linked to (https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/10/public-editor/want-to-know-what-americas-thinking-try-asking.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0) to support MikeN’s claim that “New York Times ran a front page story that journalists should be biased and try to defeat Trump.”
What did I miss?
Not sure how to search for this article. This expresses much the same sentiment, but I’m not sure if this is the one.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/08/business/balance-fairness-and-a-proudly-provocative-presidential-candidate.html
The responses to your request for @MikeN to site his sources are pathetic. Detractors of the so-called mainstream media demonstrate their low intelligence levels when asked to provide examples of fake news from these sources (including the NYT, WaPo, CNN and the major networks)
@Mick Lowe: I agree I’d like to see more sources cited for many posts. As far as the mainstream media goes, I can’t say they ever report fake news, but it’s often biased to speak only those truths that don’t offend their target audience, advertisers, publishers, and fellow writers, while scrutiny from others can be safely ignored.
Fake or false news is not new. Mr. Ashley’s journalistic training 100 years ago reflects this. However, the technology that permits it to be widely distributed, shared, and amplified is new. Maybe technology is value-neutral. Its exploitation certainly is not. It would be useful to hear considered views on how the malign results of this exploitation might be mitigated.
many talking heads to ignore everywhere – but this site I stay with.
Of all the worst of the fakes are those like Red Ice Radio -some sort of make it up as they go nowhere
You’re an anachronism ? I didn’t know you were afraid of spiders ! Just teasing, keep up the good work. I’ve been reading you for 20 years !
“Oh, the problem is both the people who put it out and those who consume it. It’s not just one or another.”
That point is surly true, but if the lies are thick enough you can confuse even thoughtful people for a time.
I had occasion to work on the restoration of a decommissioned WWII Voice Of America broadcast facility some years ago and read what I could about the organization during that war.
VOA then reported unvarnished news early in the war, which was mostly about Allied defeats. This concept was unique to the US VOA, the BBC did no such thing. The director of the VOA then, John Houseman, said they did that so that when the war turned, as they were hoping it would, people (even our enemies) would believe us at that time. The gambol worked beyond anyone’s estimations and by the time the war ended the Germans were religiously tuning into the news broadcast from farmlands north of Cincinnati directly to Europe, even though to have been discovered listening would have meant death.
At that time there was a series of definitions of ‘propaganda’ from ‘white” to “black’. VOA was as white as humanly possible at that time, that is as truthful as possible. Understand all news is propaganda, that is it spreads an opinion or world view.
Radio Berlin at the time was ‘gray’ propaganda, a mixture of truth and falsehoods hard to sort out. But people do eventually sort it out and stop believing.
“Black’ propaganda was used as a weapon of war, early on when the Nazis faked a Polish invasion, and later by the US OSS in broadcasting wholly false information to get the Germans to move a division from one town to another for military purposes. Interestingly, there exists an agreement ordered by Roosevelt whereby the OSS is prohibited from ever identifying itself as the VOA over the air or in print.
Black propaganda was only useful in short spurts because its falsehood would always be eventually discovered.
I think what we experienced in the last 6 months was an unexpected rise in black propaganda, wholly false stories designed for immediate effect knowing eventually the truth would come out, and hopefully that cycle would place the truth after the elections. This sort of thing has been building in elections because there is no downside to lying in an American election.
I classify this website as white propaganda. That doesn’t mean it is always totally true, but I believe it is as true as the writer can make it.
Propaganda, by the way, is a religious term meaning to spread the gospel. It has the same root as propagation. It gained its negative baggage from the outrageous actions of American propagandists (the CPI) during WWI.
Cringely’s value comes from the fact that he can speak with _authority_ on many subjects which other people have not even heard about. And he has no industry affiliations so there is no way he skews things.
The only thing Bob should do before too long is to write a second volume of Accidental Empires, covering the period 1997 to 2015. That would complete his legacy and make for very entertaining reading. I will commit to buying five copies right now.
You could get lots more readers if you pumped up tech conspiracies. It wouldn’t take much, you already have it, ai, foreign tech workers, robots, fake news. Just change the titles and get on drudge. You would also need to blame liberals!
Thanks for being real all these years, Bob.
The only fake news I’m aware of consists of:
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1. The false and misleading economic reports put out by the US government to trick people into believing that our leaders are doing a great job.
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2. The misleading stock market tips put out by many Wall Street firms and some financial newsletters to drive customers their way.
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3. The false news about Trump put out by main stream (liberal) news agencies to try to get Hillary elected.
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4. The coverups from sources on high when these financial, governmental, or globalist elites decide to assassinate someone who knows too much or is in a position to oppose their criminal activities.
Don’t forget the fake economic data downplaying inflation the government uses to limit benefit hikes.
True, true. My Social Security benefits declined because they said there was no inflation, so no increase in benefits, but the cost of Medicare increased!
Only 4! It would be a lot easier to list the non-fake news sources:
1. My dad.
Congrats, Bob, you just invented the Whuffie.
Unfortunately I don’t think Bob’s perspective scales to the rest of the world.
This site, and Bob’s truthful words, are a niche. Bob has expertise in a certain area, and those of us who visit can tell when he, or the commenters, are accurate. But I wouldn’t come to cringely.com for, say, beekeeping information. I have zero apiary expertise and if I happened to alight on a site that is a colony collapse disorder denier I have no ability to discern what is true. It takes a fairly large investment of my time to know the difference.
For the breadth of information that people use to inform their political decisions (guns, reproductive rights, environment, small business regulation, …) acquiring such expertise is even more difficult and time-consuming. Even “consider the source” is hard to do when clicking through to a domain off by even one letter reveals an eerily similar pretense. We get stuck in our niches in part because if we don’t go to a site ourselves rather than clicking through we can’t trust a link, and that too is a lot of time. Much easier to give in to the onslaught.
I believe it’s Gresham’s Law that bad money drives out good. I hope that doesn’t apply to news, that truth can hold its own against falsehood, but I don’t have a solution. I wondered about a Verisign for news, but who would share fact-checking responsibilities? Would the Wall Street Journal agree with the New York Times about the “facts” in a story about the EPA? Would people even care, or denounce it as a left/right wing propaganda effort?
However, I think fake news does threaten Facebook and to a lesser extent Google. Zuckerberg doesn’t think he runs a news platform, but if the only thing people can trust on his site is pictures of pets then he’s going to lose his eyeballs – at least, those with any money to spend who are of interest to advertisers. I would have thought the people I grew up with would have retained their critical thinking skills, but I got the same flood of dreck everyone else did. So I’m not as sanguine as Bob on this topic.
In the world of algorithms, they really just need to weight established news sources. Right now I don’t care for CNN, but I can certainly vouch that they are an established news source. And CNN should really have a bit more weight than shpadoinkle.com based in Nigeria.
When we’re talking fake news, I assume you are referring mostly to political type messages. I think the main problem is most people make their positions, then look for data to support the position, instead of the other way around. pardon the profanity, but I think people search for shit that smells like their own. Fake news has done an excellent job at communicating much better than their legitimate counterparts, and even managed to demonize the legitimate sources as well, (“Liberal Lame stream Media” for instance). You got to give them credit for their resourcefulness, as they have been very successful.
“Radio Berlin at the time was ‘gray’ propaganda, a mixture of truth and falsehoods hard to sort out. But people do eventually sort it out and stop believing.”
It’s the gray, not the black, propaganda that’s the problem of course, and I don’t think it’s necessarily so easy to sort out. Reactionaries use truth to lie, whereas artists and even humanists use lies (stories) to tell truths. Reaction embeds strains of truth in its big lie because it’s so much more effective than with plain lies – which people indeed do sort out eventually. What matters is what’s intended.
Such an excellent comment, Jim Fearing. I do think it’s a little confusing to bring in the etymology of ‘propaganda’ and apply its original meaning to its current use, though. Still illuminating overall.
Frederic Filloux of the Monday Note blog lays out an interesting framework trying to address the issue of fake news, or to use a more positive term, journalistic quality. See https://mondaynote.com/assessing-editorial-quality-ex-post-e3eaa152f439#.gitsyiwf0
This site represents the best of the internet.
The promise of the internet was the democratization of information. The low barrier to entry meant anyone could play. But over time, “brands” emerge. Brands are built through trust. Brands are built slowly, but can be destroyed quickly. Robert has built his brand over a long period of time.
Keep doing what you’re doing. I’d rather read Cringely than the NY Times Tech page.
B.
Re: “those shows can charge a lot for commercials that are barely seen by Americans as a whole but very reliably seen by the 536 Americans who actually matter”. I don’t follow. When it comes to TV ads, which are expensive to make and place on any TV show, they need to target them at the largest and most susceptible audience possible. I don’t see how a few politicians qualify.
It’s not the media, it’s who’s paying for the ad placement. If I am,say, Lockheed Martin, then it is worth whatever the local D.C. radio station charges me to get my ad extolling the virtues of the F-35 aired in drive time when congressmen and their staffers are listening to the traffic reports.
Indeed. In Canberra, Australia the airport has huge wall adverts extolling the merits of various suppliers of military equipment. Not many of the pasengers are going to be buying from Raytheon, etc they are aimed at a few.
I don’t see why the congressmen and their staffers aren’t just as immune to ads as the rest of us, who have grown up being bombarded with ads. For example, when I do a Google search, I always ignore the top hits that Google clearly labels “ad”.
you need to research the power of advertising, and how it influences you even if you try to ignore it. just the act of viewing it sets off chains of thoughts in your mind, which can resurface at a later time in unexpected ways.
I understand your point, but I still ignore ads, as I’d ignore fake news, presented by a source with an agenda. In the 60’s we were bombarded by TV ads for Crest toothpaste, and today for Apple products. I’ve never purchased either, not because of the ads, I’m just aware that expensive ads double the cost or halve the quality of products, to achieve a given bottom line price. Caveat emptor.
The focus on fake news is to take a minor issue and use it as a means for the Left to silence voices it dislikes.
This is in line with the use of hate crimes laws and targeting ‘hate speech’, such as Mark Steyn in Canada brought before a Human Rights Commission or Geert Wilders, leading Dutch politician, found guilty for speaking about too many Moroccans in the Netherlands.
So do you actually believe inventions such as “pizzagate” or do you just want them to be spread because they further your political ends?
Not good that people almost died, but it was a minor issue that is being used to silence arguments the Left disagrees with. First I heard of it was when Scott Adams wrote he thought it was fake. Forgot about it by the time of the attack. This was a non-story, being blown up as an example of ‘fake news’ that people must worry about.
Why would you doubt PizzaGate, it very well could be real news and fact. Plenty of precedent for such things – Franklin Cover-up, Catholic Church Sex Scandal, Jimmy Savile / UK house of Lords Scandal, Denny Hestert (Life long ties to Podesta brothers since age 18), the list is almost endless. Not to mention the facts around both Huma and Hillary’s husbands is it really so hard to believe or is it because it involves the team you may support?
Speaking of fake news remember when Dan Rather said Kennedys head went to the front opposed to back and the left guessing that wasn’t fake news or any of the Warren Commission reporting? Stop being so foolish, six major corporations control 98% of all media in America. Stop and ask yourself who the true sources of fake news are.
In the 80s there were people who went to jail over charges like this, even though they were clearly made up. We are talking about toddlers who testified about animal sacrifices, and being raped with knives, and even magic unicorns. It was prosecutors who were keeping kids in interrogation until they were told what they wanted to hear. One of them was Janet Reno with Grant Snowden. Another was Scott Harshbarger, who later ran for governor, with the Amiraults in Massachusetts. Wall Street Journal editorial page was the only real media voice speaking against these outrages, and probably instrumental in getting the Amiraults freed.
Now in this case, there is no testimony, just people talking about pizza being a code word.
Just because something is believable, doesn’t mean it should be believed. That’s the point of multiple, independent, credible sources, without an agenda.
Robert, Robert, Robert…
Seriously, after a year of lies and built up hype of “We’ll have these ready for Christmas 2015” and now it’s doubtful we’ll even see the Mineservers before 2017!?!?! https://youtu.be/65c6pEuNyFk?t=5m
You have become the spin doctor for the hype man of fake news.
Fake News is a REAL phenomenon. Don’t believe it? Look at CNN!
It’s ‘illegal’ to look at Wikileaks without letting CNN tell you what’s in there: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DcATG9Qy_A
CNN anchor guy ADMITS the ‘protester’ they’re interviewing is a cameraman FOR CNN!!! https://youtu.be/QSfS2u-SmoI?t=1m1s
CNN focus group is TOLD what to say on camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqCIub3SmCI
Like you, Crusader, I trusted Bob also until the kickstarter fiasco
http://kickscammed.com/project/mineserver-where-art-thou/#.WEzLmndh3ag
Yes – thats right, $30,000 and 1 year after being told (by Mr Cringely himself) it was ready to ship, we still don’t have a product.
Now that’s some serious spin…or as we used to call it in the old days…lies.
You’re spending money on a business run by grade schoolers, and shocked they can’t meet a deadline.
His kids might be the front for the project but he launched the project on this website saying that all of the engineering was already done and only custom cases were needed before everything could be shipped. There have also been several postings on this website about his kid’s “successful Kickstarter campaign.” If this was a project by my kid’s I would be stepping up.
And kids are just great at getting that last thing done.
Isn’t fake news the same as propaganda.
Propaganda isn’t necessarily fake. It’s original usage was benign, not the negative connotation it has now.
Greek referendum, Brexit, Trump – testament of growing immunity to perception shaping by a created reality of the mass media.
That picture is fake. At that time, there were no coats with four buttons.
One of the problems with real news is the lack of analysis by the journalists. In Scotland we have the SNP running the “Scottish Government”. They’ve had mobs of their cult supporters intimidating journalists, even singling out individual journalists, and now journalists are too frightened to actually properly question the SNP. Questions that everybody has a right to ask of any government.
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Fake news would be an improvement of what it is now! Journalists simply repeat whatever press release the SNP produce, without question.
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What’s different about Robert X. Cringely is that he does his own analysis and presents a leftfield view of technology stories. And more importantly the business behind it too. It’s a potent mix that few get right as it makes you think afterwards rather than simply consuming.
Great discussion. And original post. I was hoping to see Bob get into the weeds a little bit on exactly what fake news is. Some of the comments narrow in on it. Paid content. Adverts. I’m not sure how fake news evolved but am curious. Maybe the trend towards opinion-driven news lowered the journalistic bar to where online news agencies don’t have to make it bold-font clear that the stories below are just that. Machine-generated, bullshit stories.
Thanks for continuing to write your column. You’ve been a great source of “real” news.
Quite a few years ago I was getting into political debates online, mostly because a friend of mine was very political and had lots of friends and acquaintances. A lot of what got it really going was, and not to necessarily pick on, conservatives. Some subject would start it and one of them would post something, from a news source. I would just go that is BS. At some point I thought, wait Mick your being to critical and not open minded, that you seem to pride yourself in. You need to give it a chance you might learn something? So for a couple of months every time one of these links would come up I would dutifully go to the site and check it out. I could frankly just read it and know it had to be fake. But I also figured that it had to of come from somewhere this right wing site giving the true story that the lame stream media would not tell had to start. So I started another crusade, finding the start of something. Usually it was pretty easy to find that one person had decided to make up something for their own reasons. Funny thing about this was those right wing news sites never, ever gave me something new to think about. Never found an ah ha moment.
“In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”
One reason I don’t like buying from Amazon is their deceptiveness. After searching for an item and checking the price and noting that it has free shipping, I click the check-out button. That’s where the deceptiveness happens. The payment type: credit card is automatically checked to the Amazon card I don’t even have and instead of free shipping, the box under that selection is automatically ticked so now I’m paying for shipping when it was advertised as free. Now I need to check the correct selections to continue.
How many people just hit the purchase button and get pitched the Prime option and pay for shipping that was listed as free?
I’m sure many do and that’s part of Amazon’s business model which is inherently deceptive in this regard.
It’s like the producers and consumers of fake news. There’s a percentage of the population that will not only believe the fake news but will repost it on Facebook and continue to spread the disinformation or linkbait.
But why blame the ignorant, they’re just the consumers of deceit – if it’s on the internet, it’s got to be true – right? The producers of the fake stories get clicks and in some cases influence opinion and that’s their business model.
I make it my business to support honest businesses because I trust their process and don’t want to feel like they’re trying to cheat me.
I like reading Cringely – I come back for an honest dose of fresh opinion and it’s a bargain. Thank you Robert 🙂
Watching out for check boxes, is part of being computer literate. I don’t automatically disregard sellers, I’m just careful to check out all the options, on and off the current site, I’m visiting. You can buy an old HP printer cartridge for $100 from Staples or $40 from an Amazon seller. Your money, your choice, your time.
That’s not the point. The point is, why should I have to recheck boxes that are purposely ticked in an attempt to either upsell me or to charge me for what is advertised as free?
Amazon isn’t building trust in this case, it’s doing the complete opposite. Why do I need to watch my back when dealing with them? Because they’re not to be trusted…
Bob, I’ve read your column for years (decades?) because of your well-reasoned opinions and analyses. But I’m afraid I usually do not consider your work to be news – news is about reporting verified facts to the world, leaving the consumer to formulate opinions (aided by, hopefully, editorial sites like yours).
The danger of “fake news” is that it is presenting unverified or completely fabricated items as facts. The consumers of those false facts then develop or reinforce misguided opinions, which inform poor decisions.
I could probably go on and on with my opinions about how to solve the fake news problem, but that would be just…opinion. So I’ll be quiet, and leave you to keep up the good work.
That’s an excellent definition of fake news. I’d say the more insidious problem is biased news, but there is little we can do about that except to keep in mind the agenda of the media writers, owners, advertisers, and that of their target audience.
Yes indeed your website is graced with some of the movers and shakers of this world.
-Jesus Christ-
1) “Integrity is like virginity–once you lose it, you can never get it back.
2) Arty officers are the best. Because you need to be decisive, but you need to be smart. You need to be a steely-eyed killer, but you do it with *math*, so if you carry a 7 wrong, you can kill the people you’re supposed to be supporting. Add to that the logistics of getting the guns where they need to be and getting shells and powder to where the guns are and arty guys are my favorites. Also, it’s nice to hear that “splash” over the radio.
This is somewhat related to what I’ve been concerned about for many years – lack of consistent curation on the internet since about 1993 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September).
We have become too sophisticated and too automated for our own good. Given how money drives everything through advertising, once trusted arbiters of news have become click bait encrusted paper tigers, abandoning their role as a check on government shenanigans in the process. Edward R. Murrow addressed the same issue in his day, “If radio news is to be regarded as a commodity, only acceptable when saleable, and only when packaged to fit the advertising appropriation of a sponsor, then I don’t care what you call it — I say it isn’t news.”
This is why I think it is important for anyone who can do what Robert X. Cringely does, to please do so. Failing that, the rest of us who value real news should support those who can, either through our readership, through our contributions, or both.
Well we know with absolute certainty that all the MSM that sold invisible WMD’s to the gullible public on behalf of the future profits of the military industrial always for war machine/MIC, are the biggest source of so called ‘fake news’. Of course our government which is essentially a subcontractor outfit of the MIC provided endless sources of the existence and even locations of the invisible WMD’s, you couldn’t flip between MSM corrupt outlets like, cnn,cbs,nbc,etc without seeing some stooge in a uniform claiming to be an expert on all their details. The government is corrupt from top to bottom and their campaign to reign in ‘fake news’ is merely an attempt to avoid exposing the ridiculous propaganda levels the msm media has stooped as has the fbi in covering up the massive criminal enterprise which is the federal government. Anyone who browsed through the K’linton Podesta emails knows that pizzagate needs a complete unveiling and all those including the former-president-rapist and his enabling victim attacking wife and presidential hopeful and pizzagate friends carted off to jail for a well deserved vacation.
For those so naive as to not rub two brain cells together, remember the so called ‘Egyptian army’ being neutral during the recent revolution? Did you believe the MSM on that tremendous and OBVIOUS lie? We gave them billions over the preceding decades, and as soon as someone the ussa didn’t want was elected, it was the end of neutrality and installation of who we wanted. All the while the blatantly lying MSM maintained their so called ‘neutrality’ while the public swallowed that nonsense whole like suckling pigs. Jefferson maintained that a people can’t be ignorant and free, clearly he is right and we are not citizens but subjects of a criminal enterprise and their criminal propaganda mouthpieces in the MSM, that’s why they hate independent investigation and opinion and are seeking to snuff it out.
As I recall, the Iraq war was about taking out a cruel tyrant, who wouldn’t allow the inspections needed to verify the absence of WMDs. He was using the threat of the non-existent WMDs to keep his neighbors from attacking him, all the while claiming to us that they didn’t exist.
Will there ever be an update on mineserver?
Cringe-ly, have you just taken our money?
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/583591444/mineservertm-a-99-home-minecraft-server
The last update, on November 10th, says “we’ll finally start shipping the week after Thanksgiving.”
[…] own. How to Spot and Debunk Fake News – Includes visual examples and fact-checking tools. What’s Real about Fake News – From blogging curmudgeon “I, Cringely,” with good stuff on trust and […]