WickedsDesire
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Joined: 11/4/2015
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Lies, propaganda and fake news
Who was the first black president of America? It’s a fairly simple question with a straightforward answer. Or so you would think. But plug the query into a search engine and the facts get a little fuzzy.
When I checked Google, the first result – given special prominence in a box at the top of the page – informed me that the first black president was a man called John Hanson in 1781. Apparently, the US has had seven black presidents, including Thomas Jefferson and Dwight Eisenhower. Other search engines do little better. The top results on Yahoo and Bing pointed me to articles about Hanson as well.
Welcome to the world of “alternative facts”. It is a bewildering maze of claim and counterclaim, where hoaxes spread with frightening speed on social media and spark angry backlashes from people who take what they read at face value. Controversial, fringe views about US presidents can be thrown centre stage by the power of search engines. It is an environment where the mainstream media is accused of peddling “fake news” by the most powerful man in the world. Voters are seemingly misled by the very politicians they elected and even scientific research - long considered a reliable basis for decisions - is dismissed as having little value.
The example at the start of this article may seem a minor, frothy controversy, but there is something greater at stake here. Leading researchers, tech companies and fact-checkers we contacted say the threat posed by the spread of misinformation should not be underestimated.
Take another example. In the run-up to the US presidential elections last year, a made-up story spread on social media claimed a paedophile ring involving high-profile members of the Democratic Party was operating out of the basement of a pizza restaurant in Washington DC. In early December a man walked into the restaurant - which does not have a basement - and fired an assault rifle. Remarkably, no one was hurt.
We’re seeing that shift already. The UK’s Daily Mail newspaper has been a trusted source of news for many people for decades. But last month editors of Wikipedia voted to stop using the Daily Mail as a source for information on the basis that it was “generally unreliable”.
Yet Wikipedia itself - which can be edited by anyone but uses teams of volunteer editors to weed out inaccuracies - is far from perfect. Inaccurate information is a regular feature on the website and requires careful checking for anyone wanting to use it.
In theory this thread should have slotted in these other ones, indeed many other ones.
Who is King of the fake news
Is Cronyism the American way?
Trump's Army Secretary nominee Mark Green withdraws
And let me look out the Dickerson clips as they are now my favourites
Trump Trolls John Dickerson to His Face: "I Love Your Show, I Call it Deface the Nation"
"Thats Enough, Thank You" Trump Abruptly Ends Interview with John Dickerson
There also seems to be a common denominator in tis, a nexus if you will The President of the United States And he is persistently getting away with in abundance. Why?
< Message edited by WickedsDesire -- 5/7/2017 7:34:48 AM >
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Lies, propaganda and fake news - 
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