Fake News

[EnglishPete]

great video here from Paul Joseph Watson who hits it out of the park as usual in explaining the hypocrisy of some of the liberal politicians and legacy media journalists complaining loudly about 'fake news' (usually just meaning news reporting they don't like) whilst being some of the worst offenders in producing actual fake news.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMX4NmCJGm0

[EnglishPete]

at

It's a good thing Paul Joseph Watson is a fair, unbiased source, not in any way associated with some conspiracy theorist's hack site.

It's not like the MSM is an unbiased source. They carried water for the Hillary Clinton Campaign the entire time and openly admitted it.

No, they gave Trump free advertising and they mutually benefitted from it.

The Morning Joes openly admitted the the Media was all in for Hillary Clinton and they said ths was why the Media acted so angry and sad when Donald Trump won.

The "MSM" cares about one thing and that's making money.  Get your head out of your ass.

What the MSM cares about is serving the interests of their corporate bosses. In large part that involves making money. However promoting the political, social and ideological agenda of their corporate bosses is also important. Since corporate America is largely liberal in politics and ideology the media will reflect that.

[EnglishPete]

most people just don't get what fake news are.

To the mainstream media fake news is political news that they disagree with. You can't stop "fake news" without sh*tting on freedom of speech.

pizza-gate is fake news and all similar news are fake too.

and more important than "fake news" are "fake news sources".

if a major newspaper makes a mistake it corrects itself or you find another take by another real newspaper.

there is no source, no correction and no responsibility for sites like infowars, prison planet, etc.....easy as that.

There is a such thing as freedom of speech and you can't shut them Infowars,Prison Planet,World Net Daily or Breitbart because you disagree with it.

No one wants to shut down your friends' little tabloid sites, sweetheart.

There's certainly a suggestion at it in evergreen's posts.

unfortunately, many of my views are not exactly widespread ㄟ(ツ)ㄏ

You actually think that the US government should shut down Trump supporting news outlets like Infowars, Breitbart and the rest. I wonder if a trump adminstration shut down anti Trump news outlets like the new York Times or the Huffington Post if you wouldn't be complaining the loudest.

[EnglishPete]

yes only millionaires like Peter Thiel should be able to shut down sites that displease them.

Funny how leftist will constantly say "free speech doesn't mean that you're free from social consequences of your speech" whenever a conservative is witch hunted or blacklisted for saying something.

Conservative Peter Theil imposes social consequences on the liberal Gawker site for their speech and suddenly liberals say "this is a threat to free speech!"

[EnglishPete]

You actually think that the US government should shut down Trump supporting news outlets like Infowars, Breitbart and the rest. I wonder if a trump adminstration shut down anti Trump news outlets like the new York Times or the Huffington Post if you wouldn't be complaining the loudest.

why does literally every reäctionary fckwit get their moral compass from dril's wise man
truly a mystery for the ages

Well I don't think that there are many people who think that HuffPo and the NYT are morally equivalent to Breitbart and Infowars. I think are plenty of people who think the former news outlets to be morally better (mostly liberals) and plenty who think the latter news outlets to be morally better (mostly conservatives). Also I'm sure there are even more who just don't know or don't have an opinion.

The point is that you'd like the government to shut down the right wing news outlets that right wingers (e.g. Breitbart, Infowars) like myself think are better but if any government shut down the left wing news outlets (e.g. HuffPo, NYT) that lefties like yourself think are better you'd probably complain wildly.

[EnglishPete]

Also jesus can we turn down the victim complex for five seconds, lol.

Do you mind not calling me 'Jesus'. I appreciate the complement but it is a little bit blasphemous to address me that way, 'pete' will do fine.

[EnglishPete]

You actually think that the US government should shut down Trump supporting news outlets like Infowars, Breitbart and the rest. I wonder if a trump adminstration shut down anti Trump news outlets like the new York Times or the Huffington Post if you wouldn't be complaining the loudest.

why does literally every reäctionary fckwit get their moral compass from dril's wise man
truly a mystery for the ages

Well I don't think that there are many people who think that HuffPo and the NYT are morally equivalent to Breitbart and Infowars. I think are plenty of people who think the former news outlets to be morally better (mostly liberals) and plenty who think the latter news outlets to be morally better (mostly conservatives). Also I'm sure there are even more who just don't know or don't have an opinion.

The point is that you'd like the government to shut down the right wing news outlets that right wingers (e.g. Breitbart, Infowars) like myself think are better but if any government shut down the left wing news outlets (e.g. HuffPo, NYT) that lefties like yourself think are better you'd probably complain wildly.

no opinion is involved. huffpo and nyt are objectively so far above breitbart and infowars in terms of factuality that they're not reasonably comparable.

Well all four are news organisations and news blogs. one of them still has a print version and the other four don't but that distinction is much less significant than it once was. As for HuffPo and NYT being objectively far above Breitbartbart and Infowars that's a matter of opinion. Its certainly not an opinion I share. Personally, like many on the right, I think Breitbart and Infowars are better.

[EnglishPete]

Wait Breitbart I understand, but Info wars? Lol. Do you believe Sandy Hook was a false flag, Bush did 9/11 and that Hillary runs a child smuggling ring out of a pizzeria? Even I don't underestimate the right enough to think they are mainstream positions for conservatives.

I don't think infowars has made any accusations about the pizza place. Infowars has on the other hand been producing some good quality journalism over the election. I wouldn't say either it or Breitbart are the best journalistic outlets (although they are both better than NYT and HuffPo).

The very best site for US journalism is Gotnews.com, Chuck Johnson and his team don't have the highest volume of output but the quality of journalism they do is second to none, certainly far far better than anything you'd find in the New York Times.

[EnglishPete]

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/does-facebook-stop-fake-news-232689

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Genius. Facebook will have left wing 'fact checking' organisations like Politifact 'fact check' news articles for them. Well at least Facebook are being honest about their political bias

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-25/politifact-apparently-even-facts-are-subjective-and-based-party-affiliation

[EnglishPete]

Wait Breitbart I understand, but Info wars? Lol. Do you believe Sandy Hook was a false flag, Bush did 9/11 and that Hillary runs a child smuggling ring out of a pizzeria? Even I don't underestimate the right enough to think they are mainstream positions for conservatives.

I don't think infowars has made any accusations about the pizza place. Infowars has on the other hand been producing some good quality journalism over the election. I wouldn't say either it or Breitbart are the best journalistic outlets (although they are both better than NYT and HuffPo).

The very best site for US journalism is Gotnews.com, Chuck Johnson and his team don't have the highest volume of output but the quality of journalism they do is second to none, certainly far far better than anything you'd find in the New York Times.

"Alt-Right" cesspools like GotNews.com, TruthFeed, True Pundit, Wesearchr, Danger and Play, The Gateway Pundit, The Conservative Treehouse, InfoWars/Prison Planet, and Breitbart have zero redeeming value for factual content or journalism standards.

So what's your explanation for the fact that the quality of journalism at Gotnews.com is so obviously and clearly far superior to that found on liberal propaganda sites like NYT and WaPo?

[EnglishPete]

"Alt-Right" cesspools like GotNews.com, TruthFeed, True Pundit, Wesearchr, Danger and Play, The Gateway Pundit, The Conservative Treehouse, InfoWars/Prison Planet, and Breitbart have zero redeeming value for factual content or journalism standards.

I have to say it does look very much here as though you're basing this judgment on a purely ideological test. That you think that any news outlet that is either ideologically pro the US establishment or is ideologically critical of the US establishment could be fine but that any news outlet that is ideologically critical of the US establishment from the right you are simply pre-judging to be factually and journalistically worthless without needing to know anything further about them.

Now there are two possibilities here. Either you are not operating any such ideological test and are happy to admit that its quite possible for a news outlet that is ideologically critical of the US establishment from the right to have good journalistic standards.

Or you're saying that you would judge any news outlet with such an ideological stance to be factually and journalistic worthless. If the latter is the case then your judgment of 'journalistic standards' clearly has nothing to do with journalistic standards. Such a judgment would therefore be purely ideological and could be dismissed as such.

[EnglishPete]

You actually think that the US government should shut down Trump supporting news outlets like Infowars, Breitbart and the rest. I wonder if a trump adminstration shut down anti Trump news outlets like the new York Times or the Huffington Post if you wouldn't be complaining the loudest.

why does literally every reäctionary fckwit get their moral compass from dril's wise man
truly a mystery for the ages

Well I don't think that there are many people who think that HuffPo and the NYT are morally equivalent to Breitbart and Infowars. I think are plenty of people who think the former news outlets to be morally better (mostly liberals) and plenty who think the latter news outlets to be morally better (mostly conservatives). Also I'm sure there are even more who just don't know or don't have an opinion.

The point is that you'd like the government to shut down the right wing news outlets that right wingers (e.g. Breitbart, Infowars) like myself think are better but if any government shut down the left wing news outlets (e.g. HuffPo, NYT) that lefties like yourself think are better you'd probably complain wildly.

no opinion is involved. huffpo and nyt are objectively so far above breitbart and infowars in terms of factuality that they're not reasonably comparable.

The NYT and Huffington Post were not objective because they were up front with their support for Hillary Clinton.

Context, man. Breitbart is comparable to Salon.

not even

Looks to me as though you're employing a similar ideological test to JGibson, judging that news outlet whose ideological leaning is critical of the establishment from the right as being automatically without merit whilst excepting that those news outlets that ideologically lean to supporting the establishment or ideologically lean to criticising the establishment from the left can often have merit.

As I said before there are two possibilities here. Either you are not operating any such ideological test and are happy to admit that its quite possible for a news outlet that ideologically leans to criticism of the US establishment from the right to have good journalistic standards.

Or you're saying that you would judge any news outlet with such an ideological leaning to be worthless. If the latter is the case then your judgment of 'journalistic standards' clearly has nothing to do with journalistic standards, is instead purely ideological and can be dismissed as such.

[EnglishPete]

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/does-facebook-stop-fake-news-232689

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Genius. Facebook will have left wing 'fact checking' organisations like Politifact 'fact check' news articles for them. Well at least Facebook are being honest about their political bias

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-09-25/politifact-apparently-even-facts-are-subjective-and-based-party-affiliation

Some more interesting info on Politifact the 'reliable' fact checker that Facebook is planning to use

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http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/12/15/9-reasons-politifact-unqualified-label-fake-news/

[EnglishPete]

EnglishPete, There's no way Breitbart, the favorite platform of the alt-Nazi movement, can be considered objective about those who point out the fallacies of the alt-Nazi movement.

Breitbart is a long way from being Nazi. Its ideological line is in fact pretty similar to that of some mainstream republican media figures like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or Laura Ingraham. Now I suspect you'd probably call all of them 'Nazis' or 'alt-nazis' as well because their ideologies criticise the US establishment from the right and you seem like one of the many lefties who labels any  criticism of the establishment from the right as 'Nazi'.

However let's leave issues of semantics to one side for the moment. Is it possible for a publication that is populist nationalist and criticises the establishment from the right to be object about populist nationalism (what you would call alt Nazism)? Well clearly not. However can any publication with an ideological slant be objective about that ideological slant? Can the pro establishment liberal Washington Post be objective in its coverage of pro establishment liberalism? Well clearly not as this election and its coverage have shown.

[EnglishPete]

EnglishPete, There's no way Breitbart, the favorite platform of the alt-Nazi movement, can be considered objective about those who point out the fallacies of the alt-Nazi movement.

hey y'know if you actually did your damn job you wouldn't have to argue with this guy

My job is not to turn this place into an echo chamber.

your job is to enforce the terms of use, which this dude and his ilk routinely blatantly violate

Which terms of use do you think I have violated and would you mind giving examples. I don't appreciate being accused of "routinely blatantly violating" the terms of use without evidence being provided for such an accusation.

 As for "my ilk" whoever that's supposed to be I'm responsible for my own posts. If you have a problems with what has been written by any herd of ilk you take it up with them.

[EnglishPete]

I call them alt-Nazi because I have too much respect for actual ideological rightists to call the white nationalist movement alt-right. I could call them alt-KKK or alt-John Birch Society if you wish.

I wouldn't consider such labels accurate to describe the ideological position of Breitbart. No matter my point was not one about what label is given to Breitbart's ideological position. The point is if holding such a position impacted its objectivity. If a news publication has an ideology that is populist nationalist (or alt Nazi or alt KKK or whatever you want to call it) then it cannot be expected to objective and neutral in its coverage of that ideology.

That is a fair point. However my point is that the same point could be made about any news outlet with an ideological point of view. For example the Washington Post is establishment liberal in its ideology. By itself that's not a criticism of the WaPo, any news outlet cannot avoid having some perspective or other. That just means that it cannot be seen as unbiased and objective in its coverage of that ideology and its politics.

So Breitbart is not ideologically neutral but neither is any other news outlet.

[EnglishPete]

The problem with that is a lot of Democrats as well as the Media label what ever story they don't like as "fake news". I think Pizzagate along with the Hillary e-mails are legitimate stories and not fake news.

I'm surprised that everyone just let this comment go unchallenged...

But how do you even truly challenge that? Sure, you can throw facts and logic at it, but when you're arguing with people who literally believe Podesta is running a child sex trafficking network out of a pizza shop and another who uses Breitbart as a source to challenge a fact-checking website, I mean... That's like trying to push an intact bulldozer down a sidewalk sewer drain. It doesn't work. It isn't compatible, and you're just wasting energy trying.

Do you think that fact checking websites should themselves be immune from fact checking. After other news outlets have their ideological biases whether its the populist nationalism of breitbart or the pro establishment liberalism of the Washington post.

 This inevitable lack of objectivity can, at times, lead to inaccuracies through an interpretation of the evidence based on what can best promote the ideological agenda rather than what is the most reasonable result of a disinterested examination of the evidence. This inaccuracy can either occur as a result of examining the evidence and interpreting it in the light of wishful thinking, or it can be the result of wilful deception. The Washington Post has been guilty of both in this election. This tendency of bias leading to inaccuracies is exactly why fact checking is a valuable exercise.

However what is curious to me is exactly why you think that fact checking websites, alone of all news outlets, are immune to this kind of bias and can be 100% trusted? In other words that fact checking websites don't need to be fact checked. After all if a fact checking website has never been fact checked how are people to judge how accurate it is and what biases it might have?

[EnglishPete]

Do you think that fact checking websites should themselves be immune from fact checking. After other news outlets have their ideological biases whether its the populist nationalism of breitbart or the pro establishment liberalism of the Washington post.

Of course not, but using Breitbart to debate fact-checking sites is ridiculous. They are a right-wing tabloid site that is well-known for its extreme bias and one-sided nature. They have an agenda, and they don't tell you the whole story in their efforts to achieve said agenda. They are not even close to an objective source. When people appear to look to such sites for facts and and objective news, it makes me question their credibility, whether you are using Breitbart of a silly article from Salon.

During the election d New York times were extremely biased and one sided in their election coverage and comment. They have an agenda and they didn't tell the whole story in their efforts to acheive said agenda. They're not even close to being objective sources.

Their political agenda is liberalism and in particular pro-US establishment liberalism. They will employ a few liberal Republicans to give the appearance of balance (e.g. George Will) but these are only employed because they don't wander too far from the liberal reservation in their thinking. The mindset was hilariously revealed in a recent WaPo Article entitled

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/mainstream-media-puts-out-the-call-for-pro-trump-columnists/2016/12/09/2153fdd2-bca7-11e6-94ac-3d324840106c_story.html

This illustrates my point as most of the 'conservative' writers he mentions are liberal republicans (one obvious exception be the carnival barker of no fixed ideology, Glenn Beck) and all were hostile to Trump. Now he could have found plenty of writers to write pro Trump articles. Such articles were being written at the washington times, WSJ, American Spectator, Breitbart etc. Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter I'm sure would also have been able to write colomns for WaPo if asked. But of course non eof those are liberal Republicans. So they didn't want to publish those. WaPo's clear and hyper partisan bias in favour of liberalism has been made very clear in this election. They are far from an objective source.

[EnglishPete]

EnglishPete shouldn't be banned. The Alt-Right is an important part of our political discussion in the United States and Europe, which this forum centers around. It's asinine and illogical, to say the least, but banning these people distances us from what millions of people are thinking and seeing in their news feeds.

To ban EnglishPete is to make us into the Atlasia version of the Davos forum, where nobody hears what the mob is saying and assume that the mob is happy with what they have.

The Right certainly has a populist, even diseased strain, but they vote as well as the Left does and given that we all operate within democracies we all need to deal with that.

I'm still not sure what exactly it is that I've written that is deemed ban worthy, unless it isn't anything in particular just a kind of vague 'being too right wing'

[EnglishPete]

Also jesus can we turn down the victim complex for five seconds, lol.

  blasphemous

You actually care about that? Stop it jesus.

Is that a quote from the Gospels? I don't remember that verse.

[EnglishPete]

EnglishPete shouldn't be banned. The Alt-Right is an important part of our political discussion in the United States and Europe, which this forum centers around. It's asinine and illogical, to say the least, but banning these people distances us from what millions of people are thinking and seeing in their news feeds.

To ban EnglishPete is to make us into the Atlasia version of the Davos forum, where nobody hears what the mob is saying and assume that the mob is happy with what they have.

The Right certainly has a populist, even diseased strain, but they vote as well as the Left does and given that we all operate within democracies we all need to deal with that.

I'm still not sure what exactly it is that I've written that is deemed ban worthy, unless it isn't anything in particular just a kind of vague 'being too right wing'

In general, you're not really a contributor beyond representing the alt-right viewpoint and showcasing the fact that a lot of Europeans and American (white) people rely on Breitbart News and Infowars and alternative news sources and distrust the mainstream media. The fact you're also friendly to Russia is also symptomatic of the alt-right.

So, I don't think you've done anything ban worthy, really. But you're generally just the alt-right viewpoint, not necessarily a viewpoint that shares the same premises to conduct a debate. It's just important to include and listen to these voices, but it's next to impossible to engage them. We don't agree on the same premises.

I think what you are saying here is a good illustration here of what the philosopher Quine called the 'web of belief'. Any individual's beliefs do not simply exist in isolation from one another but  form an interlinking network or 'web of belief'. Some of these beliefs are more central and some less central. The reason why different people will respond to the same new data differently is that there isn't a simple one to one correspondence between the individual point of data and the individual belief. Instead new data must be integrated into the web as a whole. It is obviously easier to do this by adjusting the more peripheral than it is to adjust a more central belief (whose adjustment would require more extensive adjustments of surrounding interlinked beliefs). This can particularly be the case when there is an emotional attachments to a particular set of beliefs that have become central to a persons 'belief web'. Because different people will hold different beliefs and hold them less centrally or more centrally than others then they will necessarily interpret the same data in quite different ways.

I would be interested to hear what basic premises (in other words what central parts of your 'web of belief') you hold that you think I reject and that you think are the necessary basis for you to conduct a debate with someone.

[EnglishPete]

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The main thing is we don't agree on the basis of validity of the news articles we read. I place some faith in the NYT, CNN, CBS, ABC, news media, reporting, the Atlantic, Fox News, and the like. I have very little faith in Breitbart News or InfoWars, or Alex Jones' show. I think you place far more credence in these outlets and thus, we can't really come to terms about debating the issues of the day.

Our problem lies in that I read the National Review and you read Breitbart. We can't debate if our sources say wildly different things.

I don't think its a question of having too much faith in Breitbart, Infowars, Gotnews.com, NYT, CNN, CBS, ABC, the Atlantic or Fox News etc. Its a question of looking at the evidence and the arguments presented by the news source. That's true whether its NYT or NBC or Breitbart. Have a healthy skepticism of all these sources.

What I find interesting is why its so important to many educated liberal professionals, so emotionally important to them and so central to their 'web of belief' to place a high level of trust in professional liberal news sources like The New York times, the Washington Post, NBC, Politifact etc. I think it is to do with how such people gain their social status.

I'm sure many educated middle class professionals have looked at Trump over the last 18 months and thought to themselves "If I had publically said half the outrageous things he said I would have been sacked, my career would be over and I would have lost all my social standing amongst my peer group" This is no doubt true. his is because although this social group tend to have an above average income and social status in western societies this status is somewhat precarious. It is based on education, qualifications, experience, employment and professional reputation. These forms of 'qualifications' are therefore very emotionally important to this class of people (why so many were focused in the election on Hillary being more 'qualified' than Trump).

The social status is also dependent on following, within certain parameters, a broadly liberal, politically correct line. It can range from a more conservative liberalism to a more radical liberalism but it has to be within that range. Step outside that range and a persons reputation can be ruined and their career wrecked. The bureaucratic structures that rule both in within the government sector and within publically traded corporations will not tolerate stepping outside this ideological range.

Someone like Donald Trump (or like the insurance tycoon Brexit campaigner and donor Arron Banks who has a similar reputation in the UK for saying unPC provocative things) is able to defy this because they do not answer to any bureaucracy. The Trump Organisation (like Arron Bank's GoSkippy Insurance) is privately owned. Trump doesn't work for the government (until next month, of course), he's not answerable to any shareholders, there is no board of directors that can remove him. He has been to an Ivy League college but it wouldn'y really matter if he hadn't (Arron banks, like Nigel Farage, never went to University).

So trump is not restricted in the same way that middle class professionals are. Which brings to the high esteem in which many professional educated liberals hold professional liberal new publications. Such people know that they are required to tow a liberal, politically correct line o maintain their reputations. it is the job of 'high reputation' news outlets like the NYT, Politifact, WaPo etc to give people the 'party line' and the 'acceptable range of opinions' on what to think. This requires, for the self respect of the professional worker required to adhere to this 'acceptable range of opinions' the belief that he is freely gaining information from objectively good sources rather than just keeping his head down. questioning the veracity of these sources challenges that self image.

[EnglishPete]

Good article here from the Daily Caller pointing out the left wing ideological bent of Snopes,another of the 'fact checking' websites that Facebook is planning to use

http://dailycaller.com/2016/12/16/snopes-facebooks-new-fact-checker-employs-leftists-almost-exclusively/

[EnglishPete]

daily caller is real news like NYP, combining a tabloid outline with solid conservative commenting.

they are lightyears beyond breitbart and the likes of IW.

Daily Caller is run by right wing hack Tucker Carlson

And? You think that only sites run by left wing hacks should be quoted?

[EnglishPete]

Good article here from the Daily Caller pointing out the left wing ideological bent of Snopes,another of the 'fact checking' websites that Facebook is planning to use

http://dailycaller.com/2016/12/16/snopes-facebooks-new-fact-checker-employs-leftists-almost-exclusively/

The problem is most right wing news sources are outright liars

Simply not the case. There are however plenty of examples of lying in the left wing legacy media. Remember the Michelle Fields/Cory Lewandowski assault hoax. That was originally reported in both Breitbart by Fields and WaPo by Ben Terris. Once it became clear that Fields' story didn't add up Breitbart stopped supporting her story. WaPo on the other hand persisted in supporting it and even helped to cover up the problems in the story.

Then there's the NYT's publication of Jessica Leeds' highly dubious account of being allegedly sexually assaulted by Trump in an Airplane. Even after it was demonstrated that much of her story was highly implausible and that it was completely unsubstantiated they continued to push the story.

There's the famous case of Rolling Stone and the mattress girl hoax. I could go on at length about the liberal media's uncritical and sensational publication of unsubstiated hate crime allegations that has led to the present epidemic of fake hate crimes

http://www.fakehatecrimes.org

But you get the idea. Plenty of lying in the liberal legacy media