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1. Interesting...
Fake News a Democratic Crisis in the UK.
What I find fascinating about this article is all you have to do is switch out a few words and it could just as easily be about the Trump Administration, Trump Supporters and what is happening in the United States at the moment.
The events that colluded to result in Brexit and Trump, and the scandalous aftermath, not to mention the level of damage wrought in both countries is eerily similar.
And in both cases -- it most likely was the result of fear, various voters believing horrible stories on the internet about how they'd lose their jobs and homes if they didn't support the Conservatives and voted against immigration, and for heavy restrictions on immigration.
So now, the people who are losing homes, jobs, and being separated from their families are the immigrants, who had been demonized by the fake news providers.
At the forefront of the debate are Facebook and Twitter.
I find this interesting because in 2017 or 2016, not long after the election and Brexit, I got into a heated debate with a Conservative Brit and Brexit supporter, who relied heavily on "non-mainstream" conservative sites. Found sites such as The Guardian, the Times, the NY Times, BBC unreliable, while the Daily News was reliable. (Keep in mind the Daily News has posted quite a few articles that failed the snopes and fact-check tests and have been proven to be "fake". I know I checked one about a man in California filled with tape-worms. All of these fake articles were picked up by various media outlets like Daily News from unreliable sources that they failed to fact check.)
2. Fakey
A professor of social media studies at the University of Arizona, suggested I try this nifty game entitled Fakey. It's basically a game to see how good you are at spotting fake news.
Points are awarded based on the number of news items you determine are reliable or fake. You get points for fact-checking "clickbait" and "junknews" sources, while points are detracted if you fact check reliable mainstream news sources and/or share unreliable junk or clickbait news. So you can't just fact check everything. Nor can you hide everything or skip everything.
I scored rather high, because I'm a born skeptic and fact-check just about everything. Where I got points detracted was that I tend to fact-check everything and don't believe a lot of mainstream sources. Also, I tend to fact-check anything that is absurd. (And let's face it, we live in absurd times, the lunatics are running the asylum.)
Also, I admittedly have my biases...such as good news, I want it to be true. And the bad news to be false.
It's fascinating in what it teaches us about ourselves, our biases, and how we interact with information on the internet.
Fake News a Democratic Crisis in the UK.
What I find fascinating about this article is all you have to do is switch out a few words and it could just as easily be about the Trump Administration, Trump Supporters and what is happening in the United States at the moment.
The events that colluded to result in Brexit and Trump, and the scandalous aftermath, not to mention the level of damage wrought in both countries is eerily similar.
And in both cases -- it most likely was the result of fear, various voters believing horrible stories on the internet about how they'd lose their jobs and homes if they didn't support the Conservatives and voted against immigration, and for heavy restrictions on immigration.
So now, the people who are losing homes, jobs, and being separated from their families are the immigrants, who had been demonized by the fake news providers.
The UK faces a "democratic crisis" with voters being targeted with "pernicious views" and data being manipulated, a parliamentary committee is set to warn.
The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee has been investigating disinformation and fake news following the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
In its first report, MPs will suggest social media companies should face tougher regulation or a new tax.
It also proposes measures to combat election interference.
The MPs' report comes after months of investigating the impact of technology giants and how people are affected by the rise in fake news on social media.
It also probed whether Russia had a role in influencing voters in the EU referendum.
The committee's report was due to be officially published on Sunday.
But a copy was leaked on Friday by Dominic Cummings, the director of the official Brexit campaign group Vote Leave, who published it on his own blog.
Mr Cummings was asked and officially summoned to take part in the inquiry - to respond to allegations made against the Vote Leave campaign - but he refused. Mr Cummings called the report "fake news".
According to the leaked report, MPs say "our democracy is at risk and now is thetime to act".
The committee highlights the "relentless targeting of hyper-partisan views, which play to the fears and prejudices of people, in order to influence their voting plans".
The report is expected to be very critical of Facebook, which has been under increased scrutiny following the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
"Facebook has hampered our efforts to get information about their company throughout this inquiry. It is as if it thinks that the problem will go away if it does not share information about the problem, and reacts only when it is pressed," it will say.
"It provided witnesses who have been unwilling or unable to give full answers to the committee's questions."
It will repeat its call for Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg to give evidence.
At the forefront of the debate are Facebook and Twitter.
I find this interesting because in 2017 or 2016, not long after the election and Brexit, I got into a heated debate with a Conservative Brit and Brexit supporter, who relied heavily on "non-mainstream" conservative sites. Found sites such as The Guardian, the Times, the NY Times, BBC unreliable, while the Daily News was reliable. (Keep in mind the Daily News has posted quite a few articles that failed the snopes and fact-check tests and have been proven to be "fake". I know I checked one about a man in California filled with tape-worms. All of these fake articles were picked up by various media outlets like Daily News from unreliable sources that they failed to fact check.)
2. Fakey
A professor of social media studies at the University of Arizona, suggested I try this nifty game entitled Fakey. It's basically a game to see how good you are at spotting fake news.
Points are awarded based on the number of news items you determine are reliable or fake. You get points for fact-checking "clickbait" and "junknews" sources, while points are detracted if you fact check reliable mainstream news sources and/or share unreliable junk or clickbait news. So you can't just fact check everything. Nor can you hide everything or skip everything.
I scored rather high, because I'm a born skeptic and fact-check just about everything. Where I got points detracted was that I tend to fact-check everything and don't believe a lot of mainstream sources. Also, I tend to fact-check anything that is absurd. (And let's face it, we live in absurd times, the lunatics are running the asylum.)
Also, I admittedly have my biases...such as good news, I want it to be true. And the bad news to be false.
It's fascinating in what it teaches us about ourselves, our biases, and how we interact with information on the internet.