Fake news
A new survey from the Pew Research Center has found that Americans view fake news as the greatest threat: https://www.journalism.org/2019/06/05/many-americans-say-made-up-news-is-a-critical-problem-that-needs-to-be-fixed/
Taken up by surveys and media, “Fake news” usually designates made-up, false news and information. But, it could also constitute a promising object of academic research.
Farkas and Schou have applied discursive theory, developed by Laclau and Mouffe: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13183222.2018.1463047
Differently, Zizek assumes that “Fake news” has been the indispensable result of our
post-modern conditions; implicitly, he involves the emergence of new regimes of truth (“post-facts” and “post-truth”): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI8z8EL1M-s
Both approaches try to bring the argument into a non-partisan, scholarly level.
Yet, it is not clear if Laclau and Mouffe's understanding of discourses as attempts to fix a web of meanings and to achieve hegemony within a particular domain can adequately model such complex phenomenon as Fake news. On the other hand, Zizek, outlining it briefly, could not fully articulate its singularity and novelty.
So, what is “Fake news”?
Taken up by surveys and media, “Fake news” usually designates made-up, false news and information. But, it could also constitute a promising object of academic research.
Farkas and Schou have applied discursive theory, developed by Laclau and Mouffe: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13183222.2018.1463047
Differently, Zizek assumes that “Fake news” has been the indispensable result of our
post-modern conditions; implicitly, he involves the emergence of new regimes of truth (“post-facts” and “post-truth”): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI8z8EL1M-s
Both approaches try to bring the argument into a non-partisan, scholarly level.
Yet, it is not clear if Laclau and Mouffe's understanding of discourses as attempts to fix a web of meanings and to achieve hegemony within a particular domain can adequately model such complex phenomenon as Fake news. On the other hand, Zizek, outlining it briefly, could not fully articulate its singularity and novelty.
So, what is “Fake news”?
Comments (92)
Neil Postman, "Amusing Ourselves To Death"
There has always been what is now called fake news - propaganda, lies, misinformation, disinformation, but this is not news.
Very quickly the news was severed from the fake. Fake news now serves as a topic for academics and intellectuals, which can generate its own abuses, that is, "fake news".
Both books are great, but I do not think literature or literary criticism could be relevant to understand fake news.
Doesn't "fake news" just mean "I disagree"?
Fake news has both components of the agreement as well as disagreement, and it does not express merely someone’s private opinion.
Hmmmm, that sounds right. But I may need to see examples. Almost every time I hear "fake news", it just means the speaker disagrees. Surely every time Trump uses the phrase is an example of my point.
I am just pointing to usage...kind of like how "literally" now means "figuratively" more often than its actual dictionary definition.
And I am NOT suggesting it is simply "opinion", but that it is typically just "opinion".
And you are certainly right that there is A LOT of room for academic study.
Because....?
It doesn't take a news junkie to recognise that "MOON WILL CRASH INTO EARTH NEXT WEEK" is fake news. On the other hand, it can be more difficult to tell whether the latest stupid thing the POTUS has said is true, fake, or neither -- just sounds the mouth of the POTUS happened to make at some point.
Teaching the public that they can't tell between truth and fakery is useful for dictatorships.
As it turned out in the fullness of time, those articles were lies. To be absolutely clear, they were not well-intended mistakes. They were deliberate fabrications for the purpose of lying the country into war.
Now, would you or would you not define that as Fake News?
If you say yes, then in terms of reach and influence and bloody consequences, the NYT is the greatest purveyor of Fake News in the world.
On the other hand if you say no, that BY DEFINITION whatever is in the Times isn't fake news because the definition of Fake News is NEVER what the Times prints, it's only what people QUESTIONING the Times print. So it's more of a definitional thing, having nothing to do with whether a consequential news story happens to be true in any objective sense. If the Times prints it it's not Fake News.
So pick one. NYT stories on Saddam's WMDs that drove the country into a disastrous war that we're still stuck in: Fake News or not Fake News?
Is that so? I have been searching in the NYT archives for a reference to that story. I did find one later editorial, a mea culpa of sorts, which said
Attached there's a retrospective of everything ever published on the topic at https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/ref/international/middleeast/20040526CRITIQUE.html but it might be firewalled (I'm a subscriber so it's visible to me. It seems to me it was published in response to charges that the NYT did indeed cheer the invasion on.)
In any case, unlike genuine fake news (!), the NYT at least publishes corrections, listens to criticism, and tries to correct the record.
Also, note that the story headlined 'THREATS AND RESPONSES: THE IRAQIS; U.S. SAYS HUSSEIN INTENSIFIES QUEST FOR A-BOMB PARTS', co-authored by Judith Miller, starts with:
and says further down that:
This reportage, then, refers to US intelligence reports and also quotes Bush government sources 'alarmed' by Hussein's alleged interest in acquiring nuclear weapons.
I think a lot of that article is speculative but as far as I'm concerned, given the circumstances and the available information, it was a reasonable article, not 'pro-war propaganda'.
(Incidentally I also learned that Judith Miller had been jailed in a later affair where she refused to divulge sources relating to a story about the CIA.)
Which leads me to think that
Quoting fishfry
This statement is also a fabrication. And also 'whataboutism'. 'What about those NY Times folks eh?'
As far as fake news generally - I've been depressed to notice that many friends and people I respect, are now convinced that 'climate change is not established by the science', and that 'there's nothing Australia can do to combat climate change' - the kinds of fake news memes that merchants of doubt have been disseminating since Al Gore came out with Inconvenient Truth. And it's worked, it's done the job.
The NYT is considered liberal. Conservative papers and liberal ones in general supported the WMB disinformation campaign and together helped the Bush Admin get us into that war. It certaily wasn't like there was some conservative outcry against that war. More on the Left were skeptical, but in general the mainstream media en masse supported the BS.
Any private opinion, after all, appears to be a typical, common opinion. Further, taken up by mass media or social media, it acquires some attributes of truthful knowledge.
Both Huxley and Orwell grounded their narrations on simple ideas of utopia and dystopia, and both are in perfect fit with regimes of the truth of grand narratives of modernity. Within our postmodern conditions, grand narratives have been wholly compromised and transformed.
Quoting Bitter Crank
What was October 30, 1938 Orson Welles’s radio broadcast about? “The War of the Worlds”
included “news alerts” that led the listener to believe that the show was
presenting actual events. This was not because of the content (which was
ridiculous) but authoritative because of the format of the presentation.
The problem with your example that you make the judgment "in the fullness of time".
Yet, maybe at the time of publication, those articles relied on plausible information.
Quoting fishfry
To answer your question, we need a well formulated and operative definition of fake news. The following definitions are insufficient:
"false news stories, often of a sensational nature, created to be widely shared or distributed for the purpose of generating revenue, oor promoting or discrediting a public figure, political movement, company, etc."
"false stories that appear to be news, spread on the internet or using other media, usually created to influence political views or as a joke"
"Fake news, also known as junk news or pseudo-news, is a type of yellow journalism or propaganda that consists of deliberate disinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional news media (print and broadcast) or online social media. ... The relevance of fake news has increased in post-truth politics."
Quoting Wayfarer
It could be interesting to compare the “two kinds of news”: “genuine fake news,” and that of mainstream media. From the one side, mainstream media has institutional, legal, and professional restrains, comparing to independent and almost unregulated social media. From another side, we can doubt that mainstream media report things because they’re true, they talk about them because of their importance, and they write articles because “the public need to know.” The MSM primarily report things that serve an agenda, true or false, real or imaginary. The narrative matters much more than the facts. Further, the (in)compatibility and interchangeability of narratives, their short life and high speed of their circulation create a ground for what we call “genuine fake news.”
Quoting Wayfarer
Al Gore made a remarkable presentation; unfortunately, I lost its tracks. Yet, its merits,
style, and form, so different from academic research, could be taken up by opposite narratives.
Quoting fishfry
Are you claiming that Judith Miller was guilty of deliberate fabrications? What evidence do you have of this? She reported what she was told by her sources, many of whom were government, military, and intelligence. There is an important distinction between reporting what turned out to be fabrications, including those by the Bush administration, and fabricating stories.
Quoting fishfry
By your logic every news outlet that covered what George W. Bush claimed, what Dick Cheney claimed, what Colin Powell claimed, what Condoleezza Rice claimed, what Donald Rumsfeld claimed, and what others in the government, military, and intelligence claimed about weapons of mass destruction are complicit as purveyors of Fake News.
Every news source gets it wrong sometimes but to blur the distinction between legitimate, credible sources of information and deliberate fabricators of lies and misinformation is a serious error.
Quoting fishfry
Except the NYT came to realize that it had been misled and should have done more to verify to reliability of the information they had reported.
Quoting fishfry
You have got this backwards. It was the Bush administration that drove the country to war and they did not do so because they were persuaded to by the NYT or by any other news outlet or by public opinion. As far as what influenced public opinion, the readership of the NYT was nowhere near the number of viewers of television nightly news or listeners to radio reports.
So pick one. Either you are not able to see the distinction between fabricating a story and reporting on a fabrication or you are aware of the difference but ignore it in order to create your own fabrication.
I'd be fine with calling fake news a form of propaganda - if indeed it is used for propaganda purposes. But fake news is a specific form of propaganda. One that uses specifically the way news propagate via the internet, and more specifically social networks, in order to distribute false or misleading content. At it's most benign, it's merely clickbait, but it can be used for disinformation campaigns.
The term originated in response to false information via social media with links to websites that propagated false information, much of which benefited Trump in the election. Trump in turn accused "mainstream media" of being fake news. The transformation was aided by the fact that for years Fox News and others had sold the idea that it was the "liberal media". Trump drew the battle lines conservatives/Christians/Evangelicals against liberals and their news sources, which he labelled the enemy of the people. And so, anything that sheds an unfavorable light on Trump is "fake news". He effectively owns the term.
And this is why I don't believe in Post-Modernism. It's criticized from both left and right. It simply is bullshit.
Besides, false propaganda has existed for a long time, no matter what Trump says. Social media has just given it some credibility, because people want to hear what they want to hear.
I Googled "Judith Miller lies. Iinterestingly, when I Googled "Judith Miller," Google autocompleted "lies" as the first suggestion.
I was going to start posting links, but to save wear and tear on my fingers you can click for yourself. There are over 17 million results.
https://www.google.com/search?ei=FsQTXf-MG-iU0gK2moigBw&q=judith+miller+lies&oq=judith+miller+lies&gs_l=psy-ab.3...0.0..22328...0.0..0.0.0.......0......gws-wiz.Glrx2suS-Sw
That anyone would respond to my post by claiming Judith Miller had no agenda when she used the NYT to help lie the country into war is ludicrous. The facts are well-known. You still hanging on to hope the WMDs will be found? There were no WMDs. The NYT helped Bush lie the country into war. If you don't know this, you're the last person in the country to find out.
Quoting ssu
Unfortunately, this is the state of affairs; it does not depend on yours or my personal
beliefs. We can call it variously if you don’t like Post-Modernism. Nietzsche called it
"will to power," and Deleuze – "the power of the false."
Quoting ssu
You are right. Yet, Zizek also points out that there are positive aspects of "fake news":
spontaneity, uncontrollability, and freedom of expression.
Apparently you do not know how google works via algorithms based on what is on your computer.
I googled it and the first entry was Wikipedia followed by a story about her release from prison then her position at the Manhattan Institute and then www.judithmiller.com.
As to the aluminum tubes mentioned in the first link, Wiki cites Chris Mathews:
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_aluminum_tubes)
The article goes on to cite a CIA report:
Quoting fishfry
A weak attempt at diversion. I agree with the following from the article you cited:
This is supported by Mathews claim that the information was deliberately leaked to her. She did not make up the lies, she reported what was fed to her. As a journalism she had a responsibility to be more critical of the information she received, but she was repeating and not making up lies.
Quoting fishfry
Are you claiming that without Miller's stories in the NYT we would not have gone to war?
Once again, there is a difference between manufacturing lies, which the Bush administration and other sources she relied on did, and repeating them, which Miller did. You have not provided any evidence that Miller fabricated or the NYT fabricated lies.
The term "fake news" is overwhelmingly associated with the election of Donald J Trump, who popularised the term by smearing the media on every available opportunity and saying every criticism of him was 'fake news'. He acknowledged doing this right up front, before his election, so as to undermine investigations of him by the news media, leading his supporters into hysterical condemnation of 'the liberal media'. Furthermore 'Donald Trump tweeted or retweeted posts about "fake news" or "fake media" 176 times as of Dec. 20, 2017, according to an online archive of all of Trump's tweets. [sup] 1 [/sup]
The NY Times is front and centre in attacks from Trump. He routinely refers to them as the 'failing New York Times', not least because of their exposés on his shady business practices and fraudulent claims (such as the Pullitzer-winning bombshell last October.) So, in the thread about 'Fake News', you lead with how the NY Times is indeed a purveyor of fake news! Look how they lead us into war with Iraq!
So it seems to me that your leading with a criticism of the New York Times is an attempt to divert the thread away from the topic of the relationship of 'conservative' politics and media, by trying to prove that what is generally called 'the liberal media' beat Fox and the other "conservative" media outlets to it. Would that be right, or am I misreading you?
Quoting Number2018
I am perfectly aware that both the Washington Post, and the New York Times, and the many other outlets I routinely read and listen to on my devices (Australian Broadcasting Corp, Slate, The Daily Beast, CNN, Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian) are left-leaning in some respects, and that they have editorial stances, although the US media in particular makes an effort to include voices from across the political spectrum.
But I can make up my own mind, and I don't believe they're following 'an agenda', so much as reflecting the 'consumerization of news' that was written about extensively by Neil Postman, in books such as his Amusing Ourselves to Death, and Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology. There are certainly themes that are always subject to editorial control in those outlets, in fact in one instance causing me to cancel a subscription. But I can spot editorial bias when I see it. However a lot of the 'disinformation' that is circulated is due to our collective short attention span ('click!'), the constant desire for novelty, and the impossibility to go into any kind of depth via hyper- and visual media (which is what Neil Postman was on about.)
However, the role of Fox News in manipulating both the electorate, and Donald J. Trump, is one of the (many) current scandals of the administration and prime examples of "pushing an agenda". Fox News routinely peddles misinformation, parrots Trump's untruths, and feeds inflammatory content to the Watcher in Chief, with whom it enjoys a symbiotic relationship. There have been numerous articles in the so-called 'liberal media' about this fact. So they're really trying, and succeeding, to shape the agenda; as do many of the Chinese state media, and sections of the Russian media, and many other players, large and small, in this hyper-connected age.
That does not answer my question. In fact, it kind of suggests literary criticism would be pretty helpful, if you know anything at all about literary criticism.
A year earlier the Hindenburg air ship had burned up as it attempted a landing in New Jersey. Nothing to do with the War of the Worlds, but the reporter covering the disaster had become very emotional during his report. If I remember correctly, he was either fired or demoted for the emotionality of his report. Radio wanted to project suave sophistication.
Again if I remember correctly, Orson Welles began the program with a disclaimer -- this was drama, not news. Not surprisingly, people didn't hear or remember the disclaimer. It sounded like news to them (it was supposed to sound that way).
I do not blame the public, or impute stupidity to them. Horror shows get under my skin in 2019, and I'm a sophisticated person. I know what I am watching is Hollywood trickery. It still works.
People also sometimes think real news is fake. There are people who didn't believe that the moon landing took place, or that one of the 9/11 towers (not WTC 1 or 2) wasn't destroyed by explosives the government had, for some reason, but in place, or that Ben Laden hadn't been elected. And, to tell the truth, it is possible -- given enough lead time -- for video experts to produce genuinely awful 100% fake video news. Buildings on fire, explosions, bodies flying through the air, huge cracks opening up in the streets -- the whole schemer. If passed off as news, most of us would believe it initially, at least. Until glaring contradictions started showing up -- like NPR, which broadcasts from the LA area, not mentioning a meteor wiping out part of Los Angeles.
That is why I don't like reading Dawkins or Hitchens. They're beating a horse long dead while alive ones gallop past us.
I think talking too much about fake news is only going to make things worse. Most fake news believers are so not because of ignorance but because they like it.
The clue is, as is often the case, in the name. Fake, news. News that is fake and untrue.
I would not believe it if Donald Trump said the economy will collapse into depression in 2021 unless he is re-elected. But if Warren or Sanders said the same thing -- and it was equally false -- I would probably take the claim seriously. So when Republicans make statements about the rightness of American policy, I tend to dismiss it. It is more of a problem when Democrats say the same thing. And, as luck would have it, both Democrats and Republicans regularly praise the American Way. Their praise is almost certainly fake news, but in the one case I am primed to dismiss it and in the other case, accept it. Because of the source.
I'm not sure who 'we' are? I didn't respect the news before Trump and I think they've gotten further down a hole they are digging. The crime is not only in their blatant fake new stories they run, but in the questions they are not asking.
Why, in the debate tonight' did the media not ask, 'why student tuition is so high now?' or 'why we have not heard of from ISIS in 2 years', or 'why two people need to work in today's economy with the same standard of living from 40 years ago' .
I'll tell you why, because it was these same democrats that caused the college tuition to go up, caused the housing crash, failed as ISIS, N Korea appeasement, failed in Syria and yes, Russia. They are also part of the cause of the two income families. The crime is the Democrats won't admit their mistakes which cause them to repeat their mistakes. And the media is complacent to their crimes.
You blaming the Democrats exclusively shows your ignorance and narrow mindedness.
Since that time, the politicians have evolved into talking heads with no human connection.
Trump has busted that bubble we’ve been in. Yes, he’s unorthodox, but that’s what people like about him! Plus, he can connect with people. Not one democrat tonight connects with people. If there was one it might be Booker, but he might have even killed that with his bragging , ‘ i live in the hood’ , all night. Bunch of phonies if you ask me.
So, lying is okay if it's your "style of speech"?
I do not think that the phenomenon of “Fake news” could be explained by someone’s
intentional fabrication and/or manipulation.
Michael Sawer writes:
"Regimes of post-truth seem to depend upon establishing an archive
(that is accessible to and understandable by the public) of self-referential
data points that are not verifiable through other methods of establishing
objective facts... Social media becomes an apparatus that implodes the concept of “truth”
and allows the creation of regimes of discourse (political conversation as
just one instantiation of this phenomenon) that are potentially purposefully
at a distance from what is traditionally framed as “facts” in that they
were dependent upon being part of a produced and hierarchical media
ecosystem...
The era of post-truth is related to the evolution of
the media to “social” media…Donald Trump rode
the wave of this transitional space into the presidency.
“Trump Phenomenon” has been uniquely positioned
to take advantage of the seismic shift in the manner in which
individuals receive news and understand the presentation of this material
to represent something like facts."
So, how are you going to convince your friends to change their minds? What is the
non-partisan, common ground for dialog?
Quoting Wayfarer
There is a deep abyss between CNN viewers and Fox ones. Both sides are sure that they possess the truth and blame the opponents' media for imposing agenda, fabrication, propaganda, and manipulation. And this state of affairs also contributes to the explosion of Fake news.
My point was not to explain the phenomenon but to identify the key element that distinguishes fake news from information that may simply be wrong or false. But that point is rapidly becoming moot as the term is being used in different ways that blur that distinction. As used by Trump it is an attempt to discredit any information, no matter its accuracy and veracity, that he does not want you to believe. It has escalated from a war of words to a war on words.
Declarations of "post-truth" may echo favored narratives and given the shifting terminological landscape one might say fake news.
College tuition at public colleges and universities is largely a state issue, not a federal issue, since states decide how much their public colleges will cost. You are correct, though, that public college tuition has gone up a lot, and under both Democrat and Republican administrations across the country. The reason is that legislatures (controlled at various times by either party) have reduced the state share of college costs, thus driving up tuition. Where states used to underwrite colleges at 50%-70%, their support is now around 25%.
Tuition, corporate grants, corporate research contracts, and higher fees for student services have to cover the costs of running the colleges, whether it is Podunk State or one of the Big Ten colleges like U-Michigan.
Why allow state tuition to rise? In a word, change. For instance, There are reduced goals for how many 'middling BA degrees" are needed. Top notch graduates are in demand, and the reward for top notch graduates won't be discouraged by higher tuition. Middling BA degrees in technical fields are more expensive than English majors, and the rewards are higher--again, justifying higher tuition. Labor costs have risen at colleges. So on and so forth.
I am not advocating these policy changes, just observing them. I'm not in favour of the way students are forced to pay for their college education--privately financed loans. I'd prefer a publicly funded loan program with very low interest.
So, what is fake news, bad news, incorrect information, misinterpreted information, and irrelevant information has to all be sifted out.
"Exaggerating" and "getting facts mixed up" are euphemisms for lying. There are plenty of very obvious lies to choose from. A simple google search will suffice.
Quoting halo
I have literally never heard of anyone complaining that Trump is not enough like a polititian. Unstatesmanlike, frequently, but that's a different thing.
There has also been a large increase (bloat) in bureaucracy. Administrators are prone to increase the number of administrators and thus at the same time lighten their work load while giving the appearance of taking on more responsibilities since there are more and more people reporting to them.
In the past professor's pay has been a target on which to pin blame but the truth is that they earn less then other professions holding comparable degrees. In addition, more and more full-time tenured faculty are being replaced with adjuncts when members retire or demand increases.
Quoting NKBJ
Well, say that you are right, and I don't know. But what is your vision? How would you apply
literary criticism for analyzing Fake news?
When ‘everyone deserves an education’ program or ‘everyone deserves housing’ programs, primarily pushed by the left, are implemented , the government essentially backs high risk loans from banks, which the banks would not have loaned the money themselves. The result is an increase in the supply of money going after colleges or housing. Not to mention higher default rates. The result is higher prices.
You won’t hear this from the media because they are part of the same elite class as the banks, corporations and politicians.
That’s what I mean by fake news.
Literary criticism covers the analysis of rhetoric. That's most of what fake news is. Ergo, literary analysis would be helpful to the analysis of fake news.
I'd go so far as to say any close analysis of the wording of fake news is literary criticism, whether intentional or not.
I remember it the other way 'round. The left started the term fake news with that bogus PropOrNot article in the Washington Post, which had to be retracted after even fair-minded liberals saw how unsourced and fake it was. Trump appropriated the term for his own use. But we can retcon the phrase to famous historical incidents like the attack on the Lusitania (loaded with illegal munitions hence fair game for the Germans), the Reichstag fire, the Gulf of Tonkin attack that never happened, the WMDs, etc. Fake news is as old as the Trojan horse. Just ask Goebbels. Or for that matter Edward Bernays, the great theorist of propaganda as a tool for governments to lead the people. "His best-known campaigns include a 1929 effort to promote female smoking by branding cigarettes as feminist "Torches of Freedom" and his work for the United Fruit Company connected with the CIA-orchestrated overthrow of the democratically elected Guatemalan government in 1954 ..."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays
Deeply misreading me. My point is that fake news is used these days to label what I would call alternative news, any questioning of the mainstream narrative. I used the WMD example to make the point that although the NYT often gets the story right, when they get it wrong the consequences are awful. I can watch a hundred flat earth videos on Youtube and they do no damage. They're harmless. When the esteemed NYT publishes the fabrications of Judith Miller and we're still in Iraq 17 years later, that supports my point that by the metric of REACH and INFLUENCE, the NYT is the greatest purveyor of fake news in the world.
But virtually everything I post here is misread. When I attack the left, I am coming from the left. The people who keep me sane are Glenn Greenwald and Jimmy Dore; liberals who detest what's become of the liberals lately.
After all, why would I be upset about Hillary Clinton (and Joe Biden, who's been in the news lately ...) for their votes on the Iraq war if I were myself a neocon maniac lusting for war? It was Hillary's vote that gave cover to the rest of the Democrats to vote for the war; and that was for me one of the final straws in my break with what's become of liberalism these days. The reign of Obama did the rest, when he institutionalized the wars and the torture. That's why I really blew up a couple of weeks ago when someone said that "Trump puts kids in cages." Obama's record on Mexican immigration was atrocious. He deported record numbers of Mexicans, far far more than Trump has (in equal amounts of time). He put kids in cages. He turned kids over to traffickers, which has better optics than separating alleged families long enough to determine if they really are a family.
So when I'm angry about these things I look like a Trump supporter. I'm not. I'm a liberal in total despair at what's become of liberals. Did you see that debate last night? "Trump put kids in cages," "Trump KIDNAPPED kids." Good God. Trump is a LIGHTWEIGHT compared to what Obama did. I'm not in favor of Trump's awful immigration policy. I'm simply in despair at the childishness and willful ignorance of what passes for leftist critique of immigration policy.
I googled those names you mentioned. 'Russia-gate' comes up a lot. That says something. No, actually - says a lot.
Thanks, I added a couple of more paragraphs. I'm a liberal in despair at what's become of liberalism. Those two debates this week have got me in an awful mood. I'm for Tulsi, who's for peace. You see she was the only one to get a hostile question. Why is that? The left has abandoned peace and craves war with Russia. Don't get me started.
LOL. I'm happy to hear from people who take the time to understand what I'm saying. Someone responded to my point about Judith Miller by claiming that I "don't know how Google works" because I noted that a search of "Judith Miller lies" returns over 17 million hits. My God. Anyone who thinks Judith Miller was sincerely mistaken rather than a deliberate war propagandist is either a fool or a neocon maniac, two species of human in great supply these days. I need all the understanding I can get around here.
You're right, it's possible that I may have googled that phrase at some time in the past. Still, the larger point remains. Anyone who thinks Judith Miller made an honest mistake, as opposed to being a deliberate lying propagandist for the war, is either a fool or a neocon maniac. That's my sincere belief. You disagree ok. Your examples didn't convince me. Chris Matthews? Another suckup to power. You may recall he liked Bush's "swagger." Salon? Give me a break. When did the liberals become such a bloodthirsty bunch of warmongers?
A million people marched in the streets against that war, but Hillary and the New York Times joined up with Bush. And now, 17 years later, we're still there. You really want to defend the NYT's role in this awful thing?
What the NYT published was fake news. That's why I brought it up. The single most consequential piece of fake news we've seen in 20 years, one whose consequences aren't done yet. But I didn't even mention the fact that the NYT chose to NOT report Bush's illegal domestic spying until AFTER the 2004 election. That revelation would have made Kerry president.
So you can have your moon hoax videos and your $200k worth of Russian troll farm Facebook ads. But they're nothing. By reach and influence and deadly consequences, the New York Times is the biggest purveyor of fake news on the planet.
I'm not mentioning that to make a right-wing attack on the NYT. I'm pointing this out because when we label the alt-left or the alt-right as fake news and whatever the NYT publishes as the Shining Truth, we deeply misunderstand what fake news is. Fake news is when the government and the "paper of record" lie the country into war. That's what fake news is.
But ok, Judith Miller is just misunderstood. If you say so. I'll take you at your word that you sincerely believe Judith Miller was not a deliberate neocon propagandist. The depth of my passionate disagreement with that viewpoint precludes me from engaging in rational discussion of the point. Chris Matthews. Perfect example of everything wrong with the left these days. I remember a long time ago when he used to be relatively sane. But he preferred Bush's swagger to peace. You'll forgive me if I don't cheer.
Yes, thanks for mentioning it. That's exactly what fake news is. When the establishment lies the country into war. Cheney, Powell, Condi, Rummy, Doug Feith, and Paul Wolfowitz should be in prison along with Bush. That's Obama's greatest failing. Instead of holding the Bush regime accountable for the war and for turning the US into a torture regime, he institutionalized those things. So that we're STILL at war, several of them, and the torture camps are still open. You just don't hear about them because we've all become numb to it.
That is exactly what fake news is. Fake news is not when some little alt-right or alt-left website prints something that questions the establishment narrative. That definition of fake news is itself fake news.
Fake news is when the establishment lies the country into war. Fake news is the Reichstag fire, the Gulf of Tonkin, the WMDs. Fake news is Assad "gassing his own people," which he never did. Fake news is last week's Iranian shootdown of a US surveillance drone that was most likely in Iranian airspace. The Japanese government doesn't believe the US's story. Neither do I.
So yeah thanks for bringing this up and helping me to bring focus to my thoughts.
Fake news is when the establishment sells big lies to the public. It's NOT when little alt-websites question the establishment. Fake news is the Big Lie that the government sells to the people. That's the point, which in retrospect I should have just said right up front several posts ago. Fake news is how the powers that be keep everyone frightened and compliant. That's what fake news is.
A million people marched against the Iraq war. I didn't believe the bullshit about the WMDs. And if Saddam had WMDs it's because we sold them to him when he was our ally during the 1980's Iraq-Iran war. I knew that at the time and so did millions of others.
I'm disappointed there are so many apologists for the Iraq war in this thread. I was not fooled at the time nor were millions of other Americans. Americans were angry about 9/11 which Saddam had NOTHING to do with. Bush's neocons used that anger and fear as an excuse to invade countries that they had already been planning to invade. That was perfectly well known at the time.
Do you know the PNAC document? The Project for a New American Century? The perpetrators of the attack on Iraq knew exactly what they wanted to do -- to depose the governments of Iraq, Iran, Syria, and several other Middle Eastern countries.
I am sorry, I am not buying the level of naivety I'm seeing here. The Iraq war was a lie and it was perfectly clear at the time. If any Middle Eastern country was up to its eyeballs in 9/11 it was our "good friend" Saudi Arabia. You know that, right?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_for_the_New_American_Century
Am I telling people things they've never heard before? You know what? If you don't know that Cneney and Wolfie and Feith and the rest of the neocons were already planning multiple invasions of multiple Middle East countries BEFORE 9/11, and used Americans' fear and anger to whip up war fervor, then YOU are the victim of fake news. That's EXACTLY what fake news is.
You think the invasion of Iraq was an honest policy decision? Even at the time? That's fake news.
Ah. Good point. They are liberal on social issues. On matters of war, they take the establishment line. That's the whole point. The NYT helped Bush lie the country into war. Sure they're social liberals. Their support for the Iraq war and their suppressing the story about Bush's illegal domestic surveillance until after the 2004 election gives the lie to the claim that they are any kind of peacemongers.
And today? They are leading the charge toward a war with Russia. The NYT is not for peace. Nor are most liberals anymore. It's been a long time since Vietnam.
What's left of the anti-war movement, anyway? Me and Tulsi, that's about it.
Little late for that. Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I was against the Iraq war at the time and clearly that's colored my take on current events ever since. Once Hillary gave cover to the Dems to support the war, my connection with modern liberalism started to slip. Obama's continuation of the wars and his institutionalization of the torture finished me off.
Which, by the way, is how we got Trump. He called out Jeb! on W's war. Hillary was the opponent. Sure the deplorables are HALF of Trump's supporters, as Hillary correctly noted. Who are the other half? Those who remember that Hillary Clinton could have stopped the war with a word, and chose not to. That, and the lying New York Times. Look at the trillions wasted since then. Look at our foreign policy.
Fake news is lying the country into war. Everything else is just someone's little website. When the NYT lies they cause real damage.
That complicity is complicated. It is not that everyone was rubbing their hands together like villains in a silent film while they played their parts in getting those articles to the public. They were given information by the government that they had a hard time disbelieving enough of it
in their positions.
There was fear affecting what the could openly question.
There was fear affecting what they could notice.
The rage that could be aimed at the newslets and the individuals working there would be enormous if they appeared not patriotic in the time following 9/11. That causes people to do all sorts of things, many of which they don't even want to notice themselves. No one likes to notice that one is acting out of fear when one is also supposedly being professional. And this involves setting aside critical thinking one would apply in other situations.
The small group that knows what their propaganda really is is conscious. They use or create a situation and a framing of the situation that puts incredible pressure on other people to be unconciously complicit. Then I think they had as a back up that, well, Sadaam is bad anyway so even if it is partially or fully bullshit, we are not doing a horrible thing. And so when Bush shifted to 'we are there to liberate and help the Iraqi people' the media made that shift without much blinking.
Conspiracies often do not need conscious for fully conscious complicity. They just need to put people in uncomfortable situations - there was also economic pressure indirectly - and paradigmatic pressure - 'they wouldn't really lie this horribly' - in the other parties. They bear responsibility. They are complicit, but for not being thorough, for not listening to inner voices that would have smelled something hinky, for not allowing themselves to deal with their fear and notice how it was controlling them.
But not in a backslapping, heh, heh, backroom complicity way.
This a category slip here. Fake news is the articles and reports. The NYT is a newspaper. If it later, after the primary goals of the fake news have taken effect, makes corrections, they still published fake news earlier. A very short gap between error and correction - one which precludes the consquences of the fake news - that's might let us skip the label fake news. That's a mistake. But years....
Even regarding Vietnam I am pretty sure they were pro war for years. And then you are already in, and getting out is harder. So, it's a kind of facile opposition and one that shows little real ability to stop people using them as propaganda to get what they want.
And these days liberals and the Left hate Putin more than the right, especially the alt.right. Partly due to Trump.
It's amazing. I am no fan of Putin, but it seems to me he entered Crimea, legally or not, near his own country, where lots of people who identified as Russians lived. I can easily black box the issue of whether this was right or wrong, since by comparison the US has entered many many countries, some with nearly no americans in them. Has military bases all over the place, such as in Africa and special forces fighting sometimes openly sometimes black ops all over the world and is helping Sadia Arabias horrendous war in Yemen with technology and intelligence and war machines.
It was not my example of Chris Matthews, it was my example of Scooter Libby leaking classified information. Matthew reported the story. Libby was convicted.
Quoting fishfry
That was from the article you cited in defense of your argument!
Quoting fishfry
I am not defending their role. They got some things wrong, many of them Miller was responsible for. You have not provided any evidence that it was deliberate, only your "sincere belief". As to the role of the Times, you greatly exaggerate it. It circulation was nowhere near that of the nightly television news. Neither the White House decision nor the intelligence, which the White House ignored, was based on Miller's report. You have got it backwards. It is not as if they all waited around sat around waiting to Miller to provide them with information. The White House fed NYT misinformation through Miller and then pointed to what she reported to support their claims. That is not my sincere belief, it is grounded in the solid evidence that convicted Libby.
Quoting fishfry
If fake news is deliberate falsification then the only evidence you have provided in defense of that is your
"sincere belief".
But in another response to Wayfarer you said:
Quoting fishfry
So, if the NYT represents the mainstream narrative and you are questioning that narrative then what you say is fake news.
Quoting fishfry
I don't know who you imagine "we" to be but no one here has claimed that the whatever the NYT publishes as the Shining Truth.
Quoting fishfry
I did not say so. She reported things that were false. The first question is whether she knew what she was saying was false. The second is whether there is a distinction between fake news and false information. I am not defending Miller, I am saying that the distinction between deliberate falsification and false information is an important one. This distinction was clear when the term 'fake news' came into circulation a few years ago, but has been blurred.
Quoting fishfry
That much is evident, but still it has been fun pointing out just how irrational your argument is.
What you missed is the word 'complicit'. Reporting what they said is not to be complicit in the lie.
They, meaning every news outlet that reported on what what the White House claimed, were not complicit in the manufacturing of lies, but yes, when, for example, the television networks carried Colin Powell's U.N. speech live, they played an unwitting role in spreading those lies.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, the term 'fake news' originally referred to the deliberate manufacturing of false information, but quickly came to mean any information that is claimed to be false.
And when they did not effectively or at question the lies. When,for various conscious and unconscious motivations and fears, failed to do their job adequately. And in some cases perhaps more consciously went along. I am not ruling out the latter. There are many reasons to go along with power and also they may share values with those actively lying. But I was emphasizing how complicity can manifest in many different ways.
I think there is a range of complicities as I argued a few posts up. There were assumptions made, for example, about Colin Powell's photos, that good journalists should know better than to assume. It is a hard thing to think a government would make up a bunch of stuff to get people to go to war and that their motivations could be crass and economic. Of course many of the same people who were in the administration played down Hussein's gassing of the Kurds, gave him weapons when he was pretty much the same dictator they were demonizing now, so there were good grounds to question the information they were giving. On the other hand there were tremendous pressures not to do that. Not doing your job dependant on what in the end are personal concerns (which one may not be fully or even partially conscious of is complicity.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/aug/13/pressandpublishing.usa
The funny thing is that even in their mea culpas they refer to the 'minority' of skeptics. But that is also confused. There were very few people presenting information that WMDs were there. Then the newspapers without rigor and with paradigmantic bias and self-protective bias presented that 'information' as facts. Well, sure after that there was a minoriy of skeptics. But if rigorous treatment of administration motives, disinformation, past history with that country,had be carried out, there might not have been a minority skepticism but a majority one.
Monday morning quarterbacking. With time and distance and additional information things look a lot different than they did then.
Quoting fishfry
In Pakistan, the vast majority of people are completely convinced that the entire story of Bin Laden’s killing was fabricated by the Obama administration. In Russia, almost the whole population believes that 9/11 was wholly prepared and organized by the CIA to create the pretext for invasion into Afghanistan. Numerous Russian political analysts and various experts support this narrative. Yet, most likely, these false narratives have become dominant without governments’ involvement. Apparently, these examples do not comply with your understanding of Fake news.
It looked like bullshit then. The Neocons had openly suggested via the project for a new century that they find a way to get in that country. The terrorists were Saudis. They had a photo of......? Where.....? I notice you didn't respond to the fact that the very people selling the war, the people around Bush, had been with Bush 1 and Reagan and sold weapons to Hussein, and had nto admitted that that was perhaps not a great idea - heck, they even made money off Iran who Sadaam was fighting. The administration had ties to oil and rebuilding companies hwo later got contracts. There was so much evidence then that the people selling the war had other potential motives, which is why there were serious skeptics. If the media had done some real ciritical reporting, well, maybe. But they did not. They had dozens of enormous reasons not to trust what was being sold, even though the neo-cons had actually announced a few years earlier that they wanted to find an excuse, yes, they actually openly were looking for one, to gon into that country. And that's why people were skeptical then, while the bs was in the news. People like me. You are monday quarterbacking the critics of media then who were already in motion. And not going a good job of it.
I did not respond because I had made the same point in other posts. The question is whether news sources deliberately and knowingly manufactured false information.
Quoting Coben
And me. But being skeptical is not the same as having all the evidence in hand to get the story straight. Reporters rely on intelligence agencies. In some cases the information the agencies have is inaccurate and incomplete, and in others, it is deliberately false. If news sources waited until all the evidence is in and properly evaluated, it would be years before stories are reported. A credible news source revises and updates the information they receive as it unfolds.
No doubt there are things being reported now and in the recent past that are wrong. Can you identify them? Years from now you might criticize the reports but cannot do so now. Things always look different in the rear view mirror.
Quoting Coben
Not at all. I supported those who exposed the lies. It was not, however, as if all the facts were evident from the beginning. I am sure that the critics also reported some things that were false. Trying to sort things out in the moment and looking back are two different things. It is the job of the news to report what it finds out, it is our job to decide what seems most credible to us. There are some stories that you or I may be skeptical of, but that is not a good reason for the story not to be reported, for we may be wrong. There are some sources that we may trust more than others, but none should be expected to always get everything right. I do, however, expect the one's I trust to continue working to uncover the truth, and that takes time and can involve errors.
Rhetoric! That would relate the phenomenon of Fake news to the art of affecting the audience. Further, it could imply the oversimplification, explaining its emergence by outstanding qualities of a few leaders (Trump, Farage, Johnson…). Of course, one could examine their rhetorical devices; yet, one would find a lot of better contemporary or past speakers or politicians. Moreover, Trump's rhetoric and his oratorical style are not prominent at all, they are quite modest and monotonic.
Quoting NKBJ
Narratives that are going viral in social media usually have simple and poor structure, so that literary
criticism would not be an appropriate research tool here.
Getting back to literature: There was a quote from Neil Postman, "Amusing Ourselves To Death."
I started thinking that interpretation of some Kafka’s texts ("The giant Mole," and "The Burrow"), could become relevant for understanding Fake news.
Since that is it's aim....well, duh.
Quoting Number2018
And yet effective. Hence the usage of rhetoric to examine them.
Quoting Number2018
And yet effective. Hence the usage of literary criticism to examine them.
From ancient mythology to Hemingway to subway graffiti, literary criticism has not let the simplicity of a text deter it from fulfilling its job.
Quoting NKBJ
Trump's tweeting hyperactivity by many people has been considered as one of the examples of Fake News. Apparently, they are functional and effective! Nevertheless, I doubt that their textual or literary analyses (though it could be helpful) can fully explain their effectiveness. (The same is right about the subway graffitis)
They are short, simple, and rough literary devices. Therefore, we need to evolve various contextual factors, maintaining and ensuring their success. The analyses of the overall situation on social media could be useful. While in literature, as well as in our lives, there is not a black and white message, but a far more nuanced one, the public Internet sphere is primarily occupied by trivial and oversimplified "meme" that "resonates" with a person's prejudices, so gets sent around the globe in an instant. The people who are posting complete rubbish on social media, day in and day out, as a sort of obsession in life, are not able to make timely efforts to get focused and sit down for hours to analyze and reflect on the problems we face.
Quoting NKBJ
I do not argue that literary criticism is not a relevant tool for analyzing Fake News. However, I would appreciate it if you could provide an example of its application. :smile:
Quoting Number2018
Well, that's a literary analysis right there.
Quoting Number2018
Um, but you literally said:
Quoting Number2018
In any case, we can take Trump's latest tweet:
"Robert Mueller is being asked to testify yet again. He said he could only stick to the Report, & that is what he would and must do. After so much testimony & total transparency, this Witch Hunt must now end. No more Do Overs. No Collusion, No Obstruction. The Great Hoax is dead!"
Passive voice in the first sentence hides the details of who's asking Mueller to testify.
He points out that Mueller "must" stick to the report. The way he says it, implies that it Mueller does so, then Trump will look good. But anyone familiar with the report knows that it implies that Trump has been linked to a large number of crimes. But Trump bets on his followers not looking, and so he presents it in this positive light for himself.
He uses the metaphor of a witch hunt to imply that the accusers are baseless and fanatical.
He uses the word "collusion" again, which is not a crime anyone was actually looking to charge him with, so duh there's none of that.
He lies about the obstruction. Just a blatant lie: he has, publicly, repeatedly obstructed justice. But he just repeats these lines over and over again, because at some point, when it's heard again and again, people start believing it.
Personification of the "Great Hoax" as some (presumably) evil creature which is now dead.
He uses (ungrammatical) capitalization to emphasize words.
He uses incomplete sentences for emphasis and simplicity.
He's ungrammatical on purpose, because it makes him look less intellectually elitist and his followers like a leader who's not too much smarter than they are. They want to think that they could be him, that he's one of them.
And finally, he uses ampersands, in part because they help with the character count for tweets, but also because they look official and business-y.
I mean, that's just a cursory glance at one tweet. It's clear to me that any analysis of how Trump and Fake News works necessarily include a huge element of literary analysis.
You're reaching too far with this one. Careful or you'll look beyond pretentious.
Nope, I'm not.
And, for the record, I really don't care much if some anonymous person (you) on the internet thinks I'm pretentious for the pretty benign act of interpreting an ampersand. I think that conveys more a sense of your own personal insecurities than it reflects on me.
But good day to you as well.
You're free to dismiss my personal impression (if I wasn't clear, that is that your analysis is excesive), that goes without saying, I'm not sure why you assumed hostility, though. You can just say I reached too far myself, no need to imply I have any kind of personal issues because I made a quippy criticism directed towards you.
If your intent had merely been to point out a flaw in my reasoning, you would have left it at that. Instead you made a snippy remark to go along with your (unreasoned) claim that I got something wrong.
Don't dish it out if you can't take it.
I'm not sure what word you're looking for, but subtle is not it. Vague perhaps? Flippant? Boorish?
As for the rest of your commentary, literary criticism frequently deals with the epistemological question of authorial intent and how do we know it. Sure, I don't live in Trump's mind (thank goodness), and I have serious doubts about his intellect. However, (much) literary analysis allows for the judgment that something is intended, when you can make a convincing case for it:
1. Trump is an avid Twitter-er, and so knows how that system works and how to send out a message to his base.
2. Trump is always trying to come across like a successful business tycoon (though history belies that).
3. Trump has publicly explained choices that seem just as mundane with the same intent: consider his insistence on using a Sharpie for presidential signatures.
Ergo, it is not at all far-fetched to think that he uses ampersands on purpose. Even if he started doing so accidentally, he persists with it for a reason.
Quoting NKBJ
Hasn’t Mueller been appointed to investigate the alleged collusion of Trump’s campaign with Russia? And, hasn’t it been the alleged crime?
Quoting NKBJ
Quoting NKBJ
Thank you for the comprehensive analyses! (I think that Trump himself would be
surprised to learn how sophisticated his communicative devices are :smile: ). I would like to tackle a few key points of your account. The most important one is about the regime of truth, effectuated in this tweet, in Fake news, and, probably, in contemporary politics. When you say that Trump lies, (and, we can substitute a lot of other politicians
for him), your basic premise is that objective truth exists, and there is a solid frame of reference and verification methods. You wrote: “But anyone familiar with the report knows that it implies that Trump has been linked to a large number of crimes.” What do you mean by the expression “familiar with the report”? Do you actually expect Trump audience to read a redacted version of 448 pages report? Of course, they are familiar with the report, but through a partisan interpretation and hermeneutics, taking place in a space absolutely different from an academic field. The vast majority of people who are talking, writing, and judging about the report did not read it. Yet, we are not in the world of the endless exegesis, where the sacred text (The Bible, or Marx’s “Capital”) has been continuously reinterpreted. Trump’s audience got familiar with the report even before it was published! Social media, as well as Mainstream media,
have transformed Mueller’s investigation into an object of a new kind, where “the real and the imaginary, the actual and the virtual, chase after each other, exchange their roles and become indiscernible.” Deleuze differentiates between two regimes of truth: there are an “organic” regime and a “crystalline” regime. In an “organic” regime, descriptions and narrations presuppose a pre-existing external reality.
In contrast, a crystalline description or narration stands for its object, replaces it, both creates and erases it. Deleuze’s ideas are indispensable for understanding and explaining Fake news! While an organic regime requires the clear difference between truth and false, a crystalline regime has been grounded on endless metamorphosis, the power of the false. Does Deleuzian crystalline image (or Trump, or a talk show host) lie? Jeffrey Nealon: “The time image’s direct power of the false does not work through the mediation of the true (by interpreting, deconstructing, or the questioning the objectivist truth – (they are still major tasks of literary criticism)), but gives another account of the real altogether…There is a shift from a focus on understanding something to a concern with manipulating it, from meaning to usage”.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/07/12/what-is-collusion-215366
Quoting Number2018
Yes. And anything else is nonsensical.
Quoting Number2018
My point exactly. And Trump knows that.
Quoting Number2018
True.
In any case, I've proven the relevancy of literary criticism for understanding Fake News. There are other things that can be helpful in understanding it, sure. But it's a large part of the dissection of this phenomena.
Fake news is the latest bogeyman of censors, who, like China before them, use it to justify censorship and state regulation of the internet.
Even though fake news has existed for quite some time in one form or another—yellow journalism, tabloids, false or fabricated click-bait—it is only now, in the age of social media, that people of various stripes deem it a threat to our way of life. According to the European Commission, 83% of European citizens see fake news as a danger to democracy.
I suppose that’s why, in 2016, Obama mentioned to the White House Frontiers Conference that “we’re going to have to build within this Wild Wild West some kind of curating function that people can agree to”. According to Adam Entou of the LA Times, “two months before Trump's inauguration, Obama made a personal appeal to Zuckerberg to take the threat of fake news and political disinformation seriously. Unless Facebook and the government did more to address the threat, Obama warned, it would only get worse in the next presidential race.”
It is further disconcerting that other western nations have threatened government intervention into Facebook—a service reportedly used by one-third of the planet—using “fake news” as the common rallying cry. Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau threatened strict government regulation. French President Macron promisedthe same, suggesting to ban it during election time. A new law in Germany, pushed by Merkel, took effect on January 1st, threatening social media companies with vast penalties if they did not censor illegal opinions. Twitter has already moved to block the posts of members of opposition parties in that country, lest they pay the price. All of this based on the shifty, untenable claim that fake news is a threat to our liberal democracies.
We know it is humbug, if not a concerted lie. Those who misrepresent both fake news and democracy the most turn out to be the ones who want to regulate it. The idea alone reeks of oily doublespeak, and private companies and individuals alike should have none of it.
A greater threat to democracy is government censorship and the state regulation of public and private opinion, freedom of speech, the freedom of information, the freedom of the press, and the freedom to associate with whomever we please. Besides, a government that does not protect the civil rights of its citizens, but actively suppresses them, is no longer liberal anyways, and belongs in the political landfill with monarchism, theocracy, and...Marxism?
Yes, Marxism. All of it sounds suspiciously like China’s campaign against “rumors”, a term which can encompass everything from speculation, unverified commentary, and false information posted online. Rumors are treated like weapons, drugs or disease, sure to destabilize the country.
In 2009, the Chinese censors were introducing blacklists in order to exclude journalists who engage in “unhealthy professional conduct” from news reporting and editing. These regulations were required to “resolutely half fake news”
In 2011, Hu Zhanfan, who the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party appointed head of the state-run CCTV, “officially” said this of fake news before getting his shiny new position:
Sound familiar? The same excuse, the same double speak, the same canard of fake news, can be used to defend totalitarian, Marxist-Leninist states as well as it can liberal democracies. I suspect the Chinese propaganda machine is at least more honest in its intentions. But given that the Chinese are further along in their war against fake news and “rumors”, and propose the same solutions, we can see where our own battles are ultimately headed.