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If the media is in charge of letting us know what is going on in the world around us, how can we trust that the information they are giving us is valid and not fabricated?

  • over 5 years ago

    3 Comments

    How to Fix Fake News Information-grey

    Technology spawned the problem of fake news, and it’s tempting to think that technology can solve it, that we only need to find the right algorithm and code the problem away. But this approach ignores valuable lessons from epistemology, the branch of philosophy concerned with how we acquire knowledge.

    To understand how we might fix the problem of fake news, start with cocktail hour gossip. Imagine you’re out for drinks when one of your friends shocks the table with a rumor about a local politician. The story is so scandalous you’re not sure it could be right. But then, here’s your good friend, vouching for it, putting their reputation on the line. Maybe you should believe it.

    This is an instance of what philosophers call testimony. It’s similar to the sort of testimony given in a courtroom, but it’s less formal and much more frequent. Testimony happens any time you believe something because someone...

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  • over 5 years ago

    3 Comments

    Can We Stop Fake News? Information-grey

    As technology giants and news media titans wrestle with fact-checking, algorithm-tweaking, and outright lies, Americans remain susceptible to a more pernicious threat: fake news.

    Fake news is just one tool in President Trump’s disinformation toolbox, one that administration officials wield, not only to discredit the news media, but also the judiciary, individual members of Congress, and the intelligence community. It’s a classic tactic that wannabe autocrats deploy to undermine democracy: consolidating power by sowing distrust in major institutions.

    Political commentators Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Yevgeniy Golovchenko, and Gianni Riotta took up the topic of fake news and authoritarianism at the 2018 Social Media Weekend in New York. Sree Sreenivasan, a former New York City chief digital officer, hosted the June 1–2 conference at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

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  • over 5 years ago

    2 Comments

    Rumor Cascades Information-grey

     

     

    Rumors documented by Snopes

    We retrieved from the Snopes website two classifications of the rumors they have covered and analyzed. The first is the veracity, which includes “true” and “false”, but also a range of intermediate or orthogonal values, i.e. partly true, multiple truth values, unclassifiable, undetermined, and legend. ...

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  • over 5 years ago

    1 Comment

  • over 5 years ago

    106 Comments

    Why fake news on social media travels faster than the truth Information-grey

    False news is more novel than true news, and that may be why we share the false much faster and more widely. Prominent responses to false news include surprise, fear and disgust. True news tends to be met with sadness, joy, anticipation and trust. Humans are more likely than automated processes to be responsible for the spread of fake news.

     

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  • over 5 years ago

    6 Comments

  • over 5 years ago

    1 Comment

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