Who watches the watchers? Or in this case, Facebook’s recently announced “fact checkers” who are set with the Orwellian task of choosing what you, citizen, should consider FAKE NEWS. In the not too distant future, all articles not emanating from primary sources will be flagged, branded, sorted, and filtered for your efficient consumption. You will be told how to feel about things by arbiters of truth, and dissenting opinions will be weeded out of the news flow. In the case of Facebook, the five “fact checkers” have minimal oversight or accountability. They’re also notoriously biased towards the left, often wrong, and have been slow to correct themselves when called out for their partisanship. This comes on the heels of the Washington Post’s new Twitter fact-checking extension.
Facebook’s new thought police have also been intimately involved in denouncing “fake news,” a phrase which was first used by the social media giant in a January 2015 crackown on “hoaxes and fake news stories.” That said, of the five fact-checkers, two stand out as particularly obvious shills:
Snopes, which was just dressed down by the Daily Caller in a fascinating Exposé. The article provides evidence of Snopes’ liberal bias, several instances of flat out lies, and they dig deep into the individual opinions of the militantly liberal fact checkers who love insulting conservatives. It’s a pretty damning article – I’ll wait if you want to read it. Snopes helped seed the phrase “FAKE NEWS” into the public lexicon.
Politifact is riddled with propaganda. They are incredibly biased, funded by a Clinton Foundation donor, and not even close to being qualified to sit on an exclusive panel of Facebook “FAKE NEWS” judges. Politifact also wove mentions of “FAKE NEWS” into their reporting prior to the phrase taking off. (see more examples here)
The timeline of FAKE NEWS is also interesting. It went from a relatively unused phrase to MSM buzzword about two weeks before the election. It’s resurrection began in April when the Washington Post attacked Donald Trump for a tweet which cited an article from a “fake news” site that claimed Trump had the most support from the rust belt since FDR. Over the ensuing months Snopes, Politifact, Buzzfeed, The Guardian, and Vannity Fair began to use it with increasing frequency, effectively inserting the phrase into the national conversation. Now everyone is using it.
Let’s go back in time and take a look at “Fake News,” shall we?
April 2nd, “Fake News” sorted by relevance (Google’s default) for results prior to 10/29/0216 – the inflection point on the above chart. What do we have here? Oh my, if it isn’t the CIA’s trusted source for leaking national security rumors, Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post linking Trump supporters to Fake News.
Searching for “Fake News” by date, leading up to the election these are all seeds planted before the phrase exploded:
April 11th, liberal propaganda site Buzzfeed stokes the fire by following up on Facebook’s commitment to eliminate hoaxes.
September 2nd, factcheck.org uses the phrase “Fake News” 
October 5th, The Guardian reports that Buzzfeed was allegedly hacked on October 5th by a Saudi teen named Ahmad Makki, who defaced the Buzzfeed website with a message that read “Don’t share fake news about us.” Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg was hacked by the same “Fake News” hackers.
In fact, a whole bunch of tech CEO’s and celebrities were apparently hacked by “fake news” Ahmad Makki, who conspicuously shares the same name as a famous Pro-Assad blogger who was [nsfw] murdered brought to justice by the Free Syrian Army (the jihadist rebels Hillary planned to support in toppling Assad).
October 7th, two days after The Guardian story, buzzfeed turns around and posts a story about a “Fake Hillary Clinton Speech Transcript” emanating from a “fake news” website.
October 8th, Snopes gets in on the Fake News action:
October 13th, liberal Vanity Fair rehashes the Facebook “Fake News” story, which Facebook later put together a new and improved “task force” to deal with:
October 19th, our old friends at the Washington Post jump into the fray once again:
Closer to the election – Facebook Fact Checker Politifact uses the phrase “FAKE NEWS” in an October 23rd piece: (click to enlarge):
After the election, Google and Facebook (re?)-declare WAR on Fake News!
November 17th, WaPo publishes a story from a “Facebook fake-news writer” who thinks he got Trump elected.
And here we are today, 30 days later; “Fake News” is on everybody’s mind, and it’s being used to justify new rules that will curate, filter, and silence opinions which do not align with the left leaning “fact checkers” in charge. This is really a fight over free speech, as these seeds of the “Fake News” have blossomed into a gigantic ravenous thought eating plant whose sole purpose is to ensure we don’t think ourselves into a proper government.
When getting gas. A truly American thing. Owning automobile and all. In Northern California. There are two obvious groups. The fag couple in a BMW and the ten shitty compacts full of aliens and friendly locals with tattoos on their face and stomach for some reason. That is not a joke. Good luck to the fat fuck bitch with the fairy and a cat. MAGA.
Set up account eight years ago with the t shirt fakebook zucker piece of shit. Scouts honor, never logged in again. Been getting e mails ever since to log back in and check out all the excitement I ben miissin. Fucking hysterical.
I’ve never seen anyone so obsessed with gay dudes in my life, Ironbird. All of your incoherent ramblings somehow tie it in. I’m guessing you might just need to try it out once, get it off your mind. Maybe a grinder profile, screen name ToeTap.
@ugly. It’s absurd how much time people spend on that thing. It’s like it’s own little world where people don’t have to live in reality. People just have this obsession with “fame” and attention. It feeds that part of them I guess. Gotta hand it too facebook, though. They’ve created the biggest customer base in the history of the world. The more time they spend, the dumber they get, the better customer they become.
As the great Stephen Colbert once said, reality has a well known liberal bias. Who do you expect Snopes and politifact to employ and to get their fact checking and funding from? Alex Jones? Fox News and Breitbart and other who spread lies about Obama not being born in the U.S.?
We are seeing the evolution of the Internet.
Before Internet nearly all content broadcast or distributed was edited, curated or programmed. Today’s wide-open environment for sharing says more about the audience than the content. I think it says many are not capable of critical evaluation of content. People believe and react to content on their devices, more so than they might from older media or in-person. Millions have wide-eyed, open mouthed gaga factor for content on their devices.
With no barrier to entry or geographical restriction, any Internet content can find its audience. If there is a curator or editor in the room, someone will always be unhappy. There’s probably another content channel for that person. In the past we had newspapers or newscasts “of record”, but to say they were not edited or curated for a particular view is incorrect. Popular Internet and social media destinations will develop their own flavor of edited and curated programming. We’ll see how the audience responds.
I try to stay moderate in my approach to life in general, but it’s hard not to associate the uptick in divide and conquer politics with the far left gaining a voice in the Democratic party after occupy wall street. It seems like the dems have turned to a crappier version of the tactics of the neocons which has resulted, more than any gerrymandering or voting discrimination, in the rise of the Republican party post Obama 2012. That and Obamacare being complete was for 80% of america.
Mx, the difference is in the past there was an ebb and flow to yellow journalism. Now thanks to globalism flattening the Earth, there is no real incentive for large media to report any truth because they could, in theory, silence any dissenters as zeropoint is showing. So Jeff Bezos sees one goal with WaPo, to maximize his earnings by getting people to see his worldview. If trump truly is for the people, he’ll bring anti-trust action against AMZN.
Helicopter Ben, Occupy Wall Street had very little effect on anything. And maybe you personally don’t like ObamaCare, but it was hardly the determining factor in the election.
As you mention, gerrymandering and voter discrimination were factors, but not the major factors in winning this election. The Republican party rose on fake news and on a candidate whose fact checked statements were found to be lies 69% of the time. And possible electronic voting machine fraud.
Of course Right Wingers object to fact checking and falsely claim that it is liberally biased. Their popularity and power are derived from falsehoods from “news sources” that spread stories about baseless accusations about a child trafficking ring in a pizza joint, about Obama not being born in the U.S. etc.
And since the GOP’s popularity and power are derived from falsehoods from “news sources” that spread stories about baseless accusations, the Right Wing Daily Caller can not be expected to objectively analyze any fact checking site. In fact, it can be expected to find ways to bash any fact checking site that accurately fact checks Right Wingers’ baseless accusations and clear falsehoods, on which GOP power is based.
I would say Hillary would have won 350 electoral votes if Obamacare actually did anything it said it would instead of being effectively a tax on the middle class in the form of egregious premium increases increased used to subsidize the uninsured (read, uninsurables and illegal immigrants). Do you live in a bubble where you don’t have to pay for health insurance?
Frog is still living in the Democrat versus Republican realm, in which DJTrump just eviscerated. This is going to take some time to set in. The question is, when to sell FB?
America right now is like idiocracy the sequel. It blows my mind how dumb seemingly intelligent people are, until I realize how they are just amazing salesman.
Moosh, I know DT won. Liars tend to win. And of course their supporters defend fake news at every opportunity. That is the post-truth society we live in.
I do pay for health insurance. But people who complain about ObamaCare are comparing it to unicorns and puppies they would rather have. In the real world. we need to have single payer. But Obama couldn’t get it through Congress, so this is what we have. And in the real world, lots of people are better off since ObamaCare. And the people who are not, would probably not be better off than now, if they were still paying for private insurance and if ObamaCare had never happened.
And lots of the people who voted for Trump were stupid enough to believe his lie that he would replace ObamaCare with something better. And they believed him when he said that he would bring about all kinds of positive changes in government. Time will tell. His cabinet of crony capitalists sure doesn’t give reason for optimmism.
Why Obamacare enrollees voted for Trump
In Whitley County, Kentucky, the uninsured rate declined 60 percent under Obamacare. So why did 82 percent of voters there support Donald Trump?
http://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2016/12/13/13848794/kentucky-obamacare-trump
Moosh, as for FB, you can sell it already. Right Wingers love their fake news and lies and will resent FB trying to screen it away from them. The truth is totally repugnant to them and they will not stand for it.
Now that the left and mainstream media has sprung this fake news strategy its time to embrace it and shut them down. I would pass a bill that media that consistently puts out fake news gets closed as a threat to democracy.
See how fast they backtrack from censoring conservative media. And if not close them down. They are not news outlets anymore but only left wing propaganda hacks.
Fake news has won. The U.S. is now the 5th most ignorant country in the world.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-most-ignorant-countries-index-ipsos-mori-poll-survey-a7481196.html
Andy, Now that the left and mainstream media has sprung this fake news strategy its time to embrace it and shut them down. I would pass a bill that media that consistently puts out fake news gets closed as a threat to democracy.”
LOL, Fox News would be shut down. Almost all the media that would be shut down would be Right Wing, since, on average, they lie 100X as much as Left Wing news does. Sure there are some fake news Left Wing sites, but very few. And that is why Right Wingers are not in favor of such a law. The fake news lovers, the people who win elections by lying, are now in charge of all 3 branches of government. Almost all fake news during the election campaign was pro-Trump and anti-Hillary. Almost never vice versa.
How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News
BuzzFeed News identified more than 100 pro-Trump websites being run from a single town in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became-a-global-hub-for-pro-trump-misinfo?utm_term=.khDaGV5jk#.pezARm2Qy
Lies in the Guise of News in the Trump Era
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/opinion/sunday/lies-in-the-guise-of-news-in-the-trump-era.html?_r=0
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here frog. FB is in the wheelhouse of making money as far as I’m concerned… Who is clicking all of those ads? Why that be your parents and their parents as well. Got nothing to do with politics, just taking advantage of folks. It’s all good.
Your’re too complicated as a group. If you were able to construct something coherent together, then you will have something.
Clarificating question for frog. Is this an attempt to root out so called dumb add viewers/clickers according to your view and is beneficial to FB how?
Stephen Colbert is great ? Laughing my ass off on that one.
Stephen Colbert is great. He played a character so absurd, yet we ended up with people in government more of a joke than he ever tried to be.
The Colbert report was pretty funny. The shitshow now on CBS he fronts is complete junk.
Haven’t even seen it…. there isn’t any need to to be honest. All the comedy, parody shows/movies are now real life.
Moosh, Colbert shows the problem with success in show business. People should stay hungry and do something meaningful. Now Colbert just interviews brainless celebrities and does comedy that his bosses think has more mainstream appeal. He’s prostituting himself, IMHO. But no different than most people do. Most everyone wants to be a big success, even if it ends up being bs meaningless work or prostitution of some kind.
“Is this an attempt to root out so called dumb add viewers/clickers according to your view and is beneficial to FB how?”
This is an attempt by FB owners/employees to absolve themselves of the guilt of circulating fake news. It’s not a bad idea. Getting rid of fake news altogether would be even better for the country. But either way, people love fake news and they love appealing entertaining lies.
So what’s good for the country is not good for FB. In the end FB will try to choose what’s good for them, not for the country. But it will be too late. They will already have lost customers. Maybe some Right Winger will even start Fake Book– Your Go To Site for Fake News– as FB’s competition.
That’s one of the biggest problems with capitalism as a system. Money turns out to be the one and only value, for many people. When businesses are making money, usually no one cares if they are destroying democracy or polluting the environment or harming people. Sometimes a few high profile cases make it seem as if people care, but in general they do not.
When people have a choice between what’s right and good for the country vs. what will make them money, they almost always choose what makes them money. That’s one reason why FB and others ended up circulating so much fake news. Because people don’t like real news. They like entertainment and biased news. That is what gets viewers. And viewers bring paying advertisers.
Capitalism run amuck can be like the inverse of Schindler’s list. Instead of paying bribes to stop members of persecuted groups from being persecuted, immoral business people keep finding ways to get themselves paid for screwing people over.
I like capitalism when it does not run amuck though. That’s why I think Scandinavian countries like Denmark have it right– mixing the good parts of capitalism with a good social safety net.
Good stuff frog. You buying FB here?
Zuck speaks Mandarin don’t forget
Hi, Moosh. No, I’m not buying FB here. I don’t see how they get out of this fake news mess and do well. People love fake news. FB could suffer as a business from trying to do the right thing. People often get mad at a company that tries to deprive them of what they love, even if what they love is sick.
Formergeek, well perhaps he can get some business from China. That would be strange– trying to block fake news here and peddling it in China. The Chinese government wants fake news. In China, you can’t get to the news on the Internet that the Chinese government doesn’t want you to see. It’s as if it never even happened.
Frog I don’t have a clue what you are trying to say
We should have a game show where all these “news” outlets and websites have to take a lie detector test. It wouldn’t even ask if they were posting fake info. It would just ask if they actually believed half the bullshit they post, or if they are selling some garbage. I’m sure they wouldn’t lose any viewers/readers though. It would all be a conspiracy as well. 98% of the internet would vanish overnight.
Formergeek, you said that Zuck speaks Mandarin. I thought you meant that he will pick up business in China because of that. Did I misunderstand you?
“98% of the internet would vanish overnight.”
At least. The Internet was supposed to be the Information Superhighway. But most of it turned into the advertising and fake news superhighway.
But, the most hilarious part of this blog post…. there is a facebook share button at the bottom. L O L
Frog – more like pick up his instructions.
Snopes isn’t liberal. Just so happens most of the bullshit is from the right recently. Don’t blame the messenger.