the idea that fake news was central to the outcome of the campaign has little basis in fact... it’s mostly likely to be shared by people who have already bought into a partisan or ideological worldview... Clinton’s campaign ... problem was ... coverage that dwelled overwhelmingly on a bullshit email server scandal, devoted far fewer resources to…

if publishers disagree with their labels they’ll have to take it up with the third-parties... won’t receive any payment from Facebook, but may get a traffic and branding boost from the debunk post links... Facebook is still working on better classifiers to automatically detect fake news, and preventing fake news from appearing as “Related Article…

Mantzarlis expects the partnership will result in a huge increase of applications to sign on to the IFCN’s code.... leads to a surge in genuine fact-checking projects, so much the better... Facebook decides which fact-checkers to include; the IFCN code is just the ‘minimum condition...

Here’s a look at the challenges facing each of Zuckerberg’s specific ideas... The technology to identify blatantly false news exists — the real question is what Facebook will choose to do with the content it categorizes as “misinformation.”... Relying on third-party fact checkers could lessen scrutiny on Facebook’s verification process and give …

Facebook ... cannot — act as The Great Editor... It passes that task on to outside entities.... If Facebook is going to pay for video, it might want to consider paying for truth, which is also good for business... I would also like to see Facebook share data about how lies spread and what motivates people to reconsider before sharing lies so resea…

Users will be able to mark stories as fake...algorithm will look at whether a large number of people are reporting a particular article, whether or not the article is going viral, and whether the article has a high rate of shares... create an algorithm-vetted set of links that then goes on to a team of researchers within Facebook... links are sent…

Broadsides against fake news amount to a rearguard action from an industry fending off competitors who don’t play by the same rules... an independent, powerful, widely respected news media establishment is an historical anomaly... Fake news is but one symptom of that shift back to historical norms... Just as Watergate gave the media a bright stor…

Asked who should tackle the problem, respondents gave about equal weight to government, tech companies such as Facebook and Google, and the public... The term “fake news” is fuzzy... disinformation, propaganda, conspiracy-mongering or ... “very biased takes on public affairs”Eli Pariser... online clearinghouse for potential solutions... All of the…

A work in progress from an upcoming eponymous post. Another experiment with the enewsletter format: some initial thoughts on this seemingly intractable problem, with some of the source materials I’m studying.

An MP blaming his own failings ... on evil Russians ... without a slither of evidence. Post-truth much? ... Remainers cannot accept that a majority of people are simply rationally opposed, to ... the EU.... he’s so stunned that there are people out there who think differently to him that the only way he can make sense of it is by imagining thes…

Let’s start with a broad definition of “fake news” as information... that then proves unverifiable or materially incorrect... used to be called propaganda. And there is an extensive social science literature on propaganda... How does mainstream journalism that is also clearly politically biased – on all sides – claim the moral high ground? ... “f…

Not only is Facebook not providing little red warnings along with links to potentially specious news—it’s now blocking links to the plugin that did... . “It would seem I’ve caused them some embarrassment by showing them to be full of bull when it comes to their supposed inability to address fake news and they are punishing me for it.”... Update #…

Facebook’s application for Patent 0350675: “systems and methods to identify objectionable content.” ... filed in June 2015, describes a sophisticated system for identifying inappropriate text and images and removing them from the network... improve the detection of pornography, hate speech, and bullying... much easier to identify than false news s…

The brain ... is an “inference generating organ.” ... predictive coding, according to which perceptions are driven by your own brain and corrected by input from the world... When “the sensory information ... does not match your prediction... you either change your prediction—or you change the sensory information that you receive.” We form our bel…

fake news wouldn’t be a problem if people didn’t fall for it and share it. Unless we understand the psychology of online news consumption, we won’t be able to find a cure... online news readers don’t ... care about the importance of journalistic sourcing ... “professional gatekeeping.”... I mocked up a news site and showed four groups of partici…

For a term that is suddenly everywhere, “fake news” is fairly slippery... government propaganda designed to look like independent journalism... any old made-up bullshit ... a hoax meant to make a larger point... only ... when it shows up on a platform like Facebook as legitimate news? What about conspiracy theorists ... satire intended to entertai…

What we need today is metaliteracy – an ability to make sense of the vast amounts of information in the connected world of social media... educators and policymakers must “demonstrate the link between digital literacy and citizenship.” ... Metaliterate individuals ... learn to carefully differentiate among multiple sites... question the validity o…

psychological science suggests that exposure to false news would have an impact on people’s opinions and beliefs... repeated exposure to false information can change people’s beliefs ... phenomenon is called the “illusory truth effect.”... simply repeating false information makes it seem more true... prior knowledge does not protect people from …

Tech companies may face new legislation after struggling to comply with voluntary code of conduct... Under a code of conduct announced in May, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and Microsoft agreed to review and respond to “the majority” of hate speech complaints within 24 hours

There’s large-scale, statistically significant research into the impact of search results on political views... Google is doing a horrible, horrible job of delivering answers here. It can and should do better... people are finally saying, ‘Gee, Facebook and Google really have a lot of power’ like it’s this big revelation. And it’s like, ‘D’oh.’”…

Propaganda warfare is increasingly shaping narratives, policies and lives around the world.

Do we really want to set up Facebook or Google as censors ... to decide what is real and fake, true and false?

The Five Star Movement controls ... sprawling network of websites and social media accounts that are spreading fake news, conspiracy theories, and pro-Kremlin stories to millions... profitable sites that describe themselves as “independent news” outlets but are actually controlled by the party leadership... crossposted scores of fake stories... o…

once a user has downloaded the extension, when they come across articles online a red flag will appear if the site or news is deemed fake, yellow if the source is unreliable or green if it’s ok... resemble a search engine that can query relevant databases to spot and provide context around false news

Hoaxy will allow researchers, journalists, and the general public to study the factors that affect the success and mitigation of massive digital misinformation.

my research team’s analysis of data from Columbia University’s Emergent rumor tracker suggests that this misinformation is just as likely to go viral as reliable information... limiting news fakers’ ability to sell ads... a step in the right direction. But it will not curb abuses driven by political motives... Using BotOrNot, our colleagues found…

these efforts seek to produce a divided electorate and a president with no clear mandate to govern. The ultimate objective is to diminish and tarnish American democracy... We’ve monitored more than 7,000 social media accounts over the last 30 months and at times engaged directly with them. Trump isn’t the end of Russia’s social media and hacking …

the evidence of this orchestrated Russian intelligence effort to hack the outcome of the American election... seems flimsy at best... saying is that Russia took advantage of the social web’s desire to just share things without reading them. It may be true, but so does every other media outlet.

Zuckerberg’s emerging dilemma. He doesn’t want Facebook ... to be an arbiter of what’s legit and what’s not. But if Facebook is now going to prohibit fake news sites from using its ad network to sell ads, it will need a list of its own... Google has long had its own list of legitimate news sources... hasn’t apparently wanted to cut into its own…

Perfectly open communities always go sour. You need filters. Every functional community has them. And that’s where machine learning comes in... If you can detect trolls, you can protect the people they’re trolling by muting or putting a warning over the trolls’ posts... Twitter... already have a way of screening out porn. Why don’t they do the sam…