"Fake News"

[LongTimeLurker]

23 hours ago, Paco said:

This is why. The major outlets don't care about fact-checking or reliable sources either - except when it suits them.

Driven by click-bait and the need to get the news out first on Twitter, the mainstream media is slowly killing itself and pushing people into the arms of "fake news". The media response? Publish articles decrying fake news, that are rushed to get onto Twitter and aren't accurate. 

Couldn't make it up. 

Sounds about right and some of the mainstream media's own output sometimes looks very dubious nowadays. Am I the only person that strongly suspects that the seven year old Harry Potter reader from east Aleppo, who is tweeting merrily away in perfect idiomatic English in the middle of a warzone where basic utilities like electricity supply and state run services like education have been severely disrupted, is eventually going to turn out to have been war time propaganda along the lines of the Kuwaiti incubator babies? Nobody asks awkward questions on that, because the media has by and large taken sides and is not attempting to provide a balanced and dispassionate view of events in an old school BBC World Service sort of way (you need to have listened to shortwave radio a few decades back to know what I am talking about) as that tends to be very bad for ratings now that the CNN approach has taken over.

[Zetterlund]

14 hours ago, Officer Barbrady said:

Aye, because that'll be a new tactic.

 

Yes, there are serious nut-jobs out there, but a simple dotting of i's around any number of protagonists in an 'attack' isn't difficult. 100-year lock on the Dunblane files, for example, or countless 'real life or exercise' drills on convenient dates. Literally dozens have been proven false flags. I've no doubt about the fatalities, but it's all good in the name of security, is it? 

And first-naming the runner-up, fucking hell. Do the sex offenders get mentions too?

Frankly, i feel sorry for the mugs who simply scroll onto Sky, Beeb or Reuters, join in with the contagion wet dream of urban terror, and blub their way into other, innocent people's grief. Scum. 

[welshbairn]

Here's when it gets scary.

Fake story:

Israeli Defense Minister: If Pakistan send ground troops into Syria on any pretext, we will destroy this country with a nuclear attack

Genuine (I think) response from Pakistani Defence Minister:

 

[git-intae-thum]

Fake news is in the eye of the beholder

...BBC etc.......

[mrcat1990]

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.

You do realise Simon Rowntree was a troll/parody account don't you?

[Zetterlund]

15 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Here's when it gets scary.

Fake story:

Israeli Defense Minister: If Pakistan send ground troops into Syria on any pretext, we will destroy this country with a nuclear attack

Genuine (I think) response from Pakistani Defence Minister:

 

I'd never heard of that site before but checked it out when this story broke. It seems to be clickbait headlines and pretty poorly-written articles, with barely a source to be found for anything   One such article is reporting that Putin may have died years ago "according to conspiracy theories".

[welshbairn]

20 minutes ago, Zetterlund said:

I'd never heard of that site before but checked it out when this story broke. It seems to be clickbait headlines and pretty poorly-written articles, with barely a source to be found for anything   One such article is reporting that Putin may have died years ago "according to conspiracy theories".

When you have people in the Whitehouse retweeting Pizzagate and the President a dedicated Birther, I don't think fake news can be shrugged off with whataboutery about MSM bias. Not that I'm accusing you of that.

[LongTimeLurker]

The Podesta email leak and Obama's apparent reticence over the release of certain official documents was real news. Neither pizzagate nor birtherism could have gained the traction they did if there hadn't been something solid to extrapolate wildly from in the first place and short of banning the internet it's difficult to see how urban myths like those can be prevented from spreading in the modern era. Hilary Clinton didn't lose because of "fake news", she lost because she didn't put enough effort into shoring up blue collar support in the rust belt states that was turned off by having a status quo establishment candidate rather than somebody like Bernie Sanders.

[EdgarusQPFC]

For many media websites it doesnt matter if your source is true, accurate or even exists, as long as you can claim to have a source you can publish just about anything these days. Most media dont even fact check cause in the era of internet advertising and clicks it doesnt matter if its true or not, if it will get you loads of clicks it will get published. Things like this have lead to the era of clickbait, where just about every link these days is purpose made to seem ridiculous or curious enough, be it the image or the headline to get people to find out if its true or not. Many of these same sites will also publish top 10 lists cause thats another very easy 10 clicks right there. 

I encourage you all to read "Trust Me, I'm Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator" By Ryan Holiday, it does in depth with how absurd and false the media is these days, oh and those claims that fake news may have influenced the election, yes it has and its not the first election its happened in and it wont be the last either. 

"As an example of his argument that blogs shape the news, Holiday outlines how the political blog Politico dedicated significant coverage to the campaign of Tim Pawlenty two years before the 2012 elections in order to generate pageviews for advertisers. Although Pawlenty did not yet have an official campaign, this kickstarted the media cycle which painted Pawlenty as a serious presidential candidate." He ended up running for a while but eventually backing out, not that it mattered, Politico got their clicks and their money simply by covering a absolute nobody. Its that simple and shit like it happens all the time. 

[WaffenThinMint]

On 26/12/2016 at 04:32, mrcat1990 said:

You do realise Simon Rowntree was a troll/parody account don't you?

You do realise 99% of the population of this planet do not readily keep an exhaustive list of what are troll/parody accounts?

Forest Echo News did their best to incite violence during this year's European Championships by posting tweets (& then using a series of alias reposted them to ensure the story had a better chance of going viral) making false accusations of attacks by one set of fans on another or claims that Irish fans were waving ISIS flags, etc. The Russian media certainly fell for it, and the consequences where a lie could reach thousands of tanked up fans on their smartphones in a foreign country could have been disastrous.

http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-media-duped-fake-journalists-soccer-hooligans/27800910.html

But because the "lads" current three minute hero Limmy thinks what they're doing is "great banz" that makes it alright I suppose.

Incidentally, the word "parody" was only added quickly to that Twitter once the long arm of the law started taking an interest into their activities - didn't save them from losing that one of their various accounts. Their main one is still printing the same vicious rubbish, the latest one was trying to get the Watford & Palace fans to kick off outside the ground, & needless to say the new Simon Rowntree one is doing the usual for today's Bigotfest in Glasgow (not that they need any encouragement for violence, mind).

https://twitter.com/TheOfficialFEN

https://twitter.com/MrSimonRowntree

[mrcat1990]

You've been wooshed, and wooshed hard my friend.

[WaffenThinMint]

5 minutes ago, mrcat1990 said:

You've been wooshed, and wooshed hard my friend.

You won't do anything "hard" in your entire life, Xbox boy. Jog on. Suppose if trolling this place gives you some comfort from your loser life as a failed professional musician who am I to condemn, but hope 2017 is better for you.

[mrcat1990]

You won't do anything "hard" in your entire life, Xbox boy. Jog on. Suppose if trolling this place gives you some comfort from your loser life as a failed professional musician who am I to condemn, but hope 2017 is better for you.

Generally the most creepy retort I've ever had said to me. Considering we've never conversed before I'm curious to know what makes you use the "failed musician" tag? I've only ever made claims such as that on my Tinder profile or an ancient YouTube account from when I was a teen.

[welshbairn]

3 minutes ago, WaffenThinMint said:

You won't do anything "hard" in your entire life, Xbox boy. Jog on. Suppose if trolling this place gives you some comfort from your loser life as a failed professional musician who am I to condemn, but hope 2017 is better for you.

You should really give up this cyber stalking malarky. It doesn't make you look clever, just very creepy. Did you send the Skidmarks email by the way?

[mrcat1990]

You should really give up this cyber stalking malarky. It doesn't make you look clever, just very creepy. Did you send the Skidmarks email by the way?

Thing is I know exactly what he has done. A simple Google search for my username links to here, my Plenty of Fish account, an old YouTube account, my Xbox gamer tag (don't have an Xbox anymore so we can't play together Waffen) and a variety of other forum accounts I had as a teenager.

It's easy enough for anyone to do but why you would as some form of mild intimidation tactic is absolutely bizarre and pretty creepy. That or he wants a date with me organised via POF.

[Bobby Skidmarks]

Bible John strikes again. 

[invergowrie arab]

20 minutes ago, mrcat1990 said:

 

Thing is I know exactly what he has done. A simple Google search for my username links to here, my Plenty of Fish account, an old YouTube account, my Xbox gamer tag (don't have an Xbox anymore so we can't play together Waffen) and a variety of other forum accounts I had as a teenager.

It's easy enough for anyone to do but why you would as some form of mild intimidation tactic is absolutely bizarre and pretty creepy. That or he wants a date with me organised via POF.

 

ASL?

[Jimmy85]

1 hour ago, WaffenThinMint said:

You won't do anything "hard" in your entire life, Xbox boy. Jog on. Suppose if trolling this place gives you some comfort from your loser life as a failed professional musician who am I to condemn, but hope 2017 is better for you.

 

You're a fucking psychopath. A genuinely and quite seriously ill individual. I truly mean this when I say this, I really hope you get the help you need. 

 

 

[Adam]

 
You're a fucking psychopath. A genuinely and quite seriously ill individual. I truly mean this when I say this, I really hope you get the help you need. 
 
 

I hope they find the bodies before he kills again.

#PrayForMrCat1990

[welshbairn]

Such an innocuous comment from MrCat to set him off too. OFTW in a padded cell and chains imo.