"Fake News"

[Zetterlund]

There has been a push since the US election to name and shame alleged 'fake news' sources, with some mainstream media outlets and commentators publishing lists of the culprits. The charge is that such misinformation may have influenced the result of the election, and thus is a danger to democracy and liberal values. The Washington Post has run with a report from a group calling itself PropOrNot to help us identify which sites can't be trusted, which apparently amounts to every popular alternative news site on the internet.

We've also just had the EU adopt a resolution on countering misinformation and propaganda, which lumps the likes of RT in with ISIS. Regardless of what anyone might think about RT, this is a ludicrous affront to the intelligence of thinking citizens and another example of the over-politicisation of the EU.

Personally I think it's impossible to form an unblinkered opinion without taking in a broad range of news. I usually start off looking at Google News which helpfully shows a few different sources for each of its headlines, often including local sources for foreign matters. I also follow a few alternative sites and blogs, both left and right-leaning. Which news sources do P&Bers trust as 100% trustworthy & unbiased? Is there such a thing? 

[WaffenThinMint]

The worry isn't so much with the satirical web sites like The Onion and so on. It's with the evil little p***ks who run sites like Forest Echo News with "Simon Rowntree" tweeting they're witnessing Trump supporters beating up Clinton ones or Irish fans waving ISIS flags at the Euros hoping that it will result in people being assaulted or worse.

I'm skeptical over websites promising to root out such scum from the genuine article or good natured fun - Fake News Watch for example lists Private Eye as a Fake/Hoax news site, when the vast majority of its content is factual, and the split between this and the satire section is so obvious even a World Weekly News reader would realise it. Private Eye's real problem appears to be that it's a bit too left wing for your average Yank where Socialism = anything to the left of Thatcher/Blair.

[Meth Damon]

1 hour ago, WaffenThinMint said:

 It's with the evil little p***ks who run sites like Forest Echo News with "Simon Rowntree" tweeting they're witnessing Trump supporters beating up Clinton ones or Irish fans waving ISIS flags at the Euros hoping that it will result in people being assaulted or worse.

To what tune did he tweet this?

[Zetterlund]

Can't say I've heard of Forest Echo News, but these sort of anyone-with-a-youtube-account type 'news' channels shouldn't really need to be called our by the mainstream networks for us to take them for what they are.

In my opinion a lot of the so-called fake news and 'propaganda' that has the mainstream so rattled is mainly inconvenient truths that only alternative sources will touch. Is Wikileaks fake news? RT obviously has an agenda, but does it report false information as fact? A few others on the list in the OP I have read occasionally and they're more opinion pieces and blogs rather than news sites.

[RandomGuy.]

7 hours ago, WaffenThinMint said:

The worry isn't so much with the satirical web sites like The Onion and so on. It's with the evil little p***ks who run sites like Forest Echo News with "Simon Rowntree" tweeting they're witnessing Trump supporters beating up Clinton ones or Irish fans waving ISIS flags at the Euros hoping that it will result in people being assaulted or worse

They also tweeted that Russian football fans had pushed a an English woman under a train at the Euros, when it was actually a French woman committing suicide

[Cream Cheese]

Have they named and shamed the pro-britnat, anti-scotnat BBC yet?

[LongTimeLurker]

22 hours ago, Zetterlund said:

...Personally I think it's impossible to form an unblinkered opinion without taking in a broad range of news. I usually start off looking at Google News which helpfully shows a few different sources for each of its headlines, often including local sources for foreign matters. I also follow a few alternative sites and blogs, both left and right-leaning. Which news sources do P&Bers trust as 100% trustworthy & unbiased? Is there such a thing? 

Agree no source is 100% trustworthy and it's best to read views from across the ideological spectrum and from different countries to gain an informed opinion. The political elite in western countries don't want that though and feel threatened by the way that non-traditional news sources have developed large followings thanks to the internet, as it makes the manufacture of consent more difficult to put it in Noam Chomsky terms.

[jester]

Fake news? Did someone mention the BBC?

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Breitbart any one?

[LongTimeLurker]

Did they tell us that Saddam had WMDs? Can't remember ever reading anything from Breitbart, but if Milo Yiannopolus is involved it can't be all bad as a lot of his stuff about the absurd extremes that political correctness has been taken to is something that definitely deserves a platform, but would probably not have made it onto mainstream television coverage if we still lived in an era when the BBC and ITN got to set the agenda. 

 

[Bully Wee Villa]

99% of stories referring to political correctness are fake.

[Crossbill]

The absolute fucking nerve of the MSM accusing others of 'Fake News'.

Physician, heal thyself.

[Granny Danger]

I think there are big flaws in the MSM including the publicly funded BBC but anyone who makes comparisons between these and the likes of Brietbart is just an attention seeking zoomer.

[LongTimeLurker]

It was very noticeable on here that some people thought that the moment John Oliver ripped the pish out of Donald Trump it was automatically going to be game over for him, because Joe Sixpack sitting on his sofa down in his basement out in the 'burbs in the USA was finally going to see things the world like a Guardian reader. Suspect there's going to be a very good Adam Curtis documentary on BBC2 in a year or two to explain to those amongst the elite bewildered by it all why that didn't happen, while the proles are watching something more low brow on other channels.

 

[pandarilla]

It was very noticeable on here that some people thought that the moment John Oliver ripped the pish out of Donald Trump it was automatically going to be game over for him, because Joe Sixpack sitting on his sofa down in his basement out in the 'burbs in the USA was finally going to see things the world like a Guardian reader. Suspect there's going to be a very good Adam Curtis documentary on BBC2 in a year or two to explain to those amongst the elite bewildered by it all why that didn't happen, while the proles are watching something more low brow on other channels.

 

As long as you're not suggesting that john Oliver wasn't entirely right - I agree with you.

Stupid is as stupid does.

[beermonkey]

The MSM accusing others of "fake news" and "propaganda".

I'll be taking a look at all these sites on 'the list', If they've got the establishment rattled then they're obviously doing something right.

[LongTimeLurker]

Around the world the appeal of traditional parties of the left that turned Blairite in the face of the Reagan/Thatcher era is collapsing amongst their traditional base support to the point that there are even examples such as Poland or Japan of their near complete extinction. Socialist or social democratic politicians turned away from their ideology and now are viewed as part of an elite out of touch elite and are no longer seen by most voters as viable agents of change (hence the appeal to activists of old time religion types like Sanders and Corbyn). What is replacing them in many countries is populist nationalist parties that want to reemphasize national sovereignty in one way or another and move away from globalism that has benefited the so called 1% but not so much the rest of the population. If it hadn't have been Trump, somebody else from outside the mainstream like Ted Cruz would have tried to surf that same wave to power in an American context and may even have done a better job of it in terms of the overall percentage of the vote attracted. There's something much deeper going on (it's a turning point similar to ca. 1980 when Thatcher/Reagan ended traditional post-WWII class politics) that can't be explained away by the IQ level or lack thereof of gullible Trump voters falling for nefarious Vladimir Putin tactics as Adam Curtis tried to do in that clip. Suspect he will eventually come up with something as good as Century of Self.

[hehawhehaw]

18 hours ago, Cream Cheese said:

Have they named and shamed the pro-britnat, anti-scotnat BBC yet?

Yes. It's the Dalai Lama.

[pandarilla]

Around the world the appeal of traditional parties of the left that turned Blairite in the face of the Reagan/Thatcher era is collapsing amongst their traditional base support to the point that there are even examples such as Poland or Japan of their near complete extinction. Socialist or social democratic politicians turned away from their ideology and now are viewed as part of an elite out of touch elite and are no longer seen by most voters as viable agents of change (hence the appeal to activists of old time religion types like Sanders and Corbyn). What is replacing them in many countries is populist nationalist parties that want to reemphasize national sovereignty in one way or another and move away from globalism that has benefited the so called 1% but not so much the rest of the population. If it hadn't have been Trump, somebody else from outside the mainstream like Ted Cruz would have tried to surf that same wave to power in an American context and may even have done a better job of it in terms of the overall percentage of the vote attracted. There's something much deeper going on (it's a turning point similar to ca. 1980 when Thatcher/Reagan ended traditional post-WWII class politics) that can't be explained away by the IQ level or lack thereof of gullible Trump voters falling for nefarious Vladimir Putin tactics as Adam Curtis tried to do in that clip. Suspect he will eventually come up with something as good as Century of Self.

Pretty much spot on.

I agree it's more complex but to defend my point I'd still say that stupidity has been a big factor in this rise of right wing populism.

Far more swayed by emotion rather than reasonable, rational arguments.

Fear and propaganda, combined with genuine grievances, can be a helluva force.

[banana]

This 'Fake News' thing is yet more 'Progressive' classic propaganda in an attempt to keep broad brush delegitimizing, silencing and demonizing any off-reservation, off-narrative facts and opinions.

Obama has recently talked about ending the "Wild West" web, criticism of Chinese-style communication control, censorship and mass surveillance has mysteriously quietened in recent years as the similar methods are rolled out in the west, Facebook bows to Merkel to police 'hate speech' and is now bowing to China so Facebook can be allowed back in, Twitter purges many off-reservation accounts, Google works with a presidential candidate to politically profile every citizen, universities continually bow to 'Progressives' and deplatform speakers, set up safe spaces, employ speech codes and in-class trigger warnings, identity politics continues to be wielded as a weapon of silencing and shaming rather than a means to understanding the world, the 'Progressive' media retreats to echo chamber propaganda and hyper-curation/removal of comments sections, etc etc etc.

Fucking astounding (and dangerous) that people keep falling for each new piece of blatant propaganda. Shows how potent the previous propaganda has been, I guess.