If my memory serves me, tabloids like The Enquirer have been sitting on news stands for as long as I can remember. So how did this fervor over "fake news" coalesce so quickly and uniformly?
Mainstream outlets move in lockstep with each other and these are the final, desperate death throes of an outdated and superfluous institution. Don't expect they'll go down without a fight though.
https://theintercept.com/2016/12/09/a-clinton-fan-manufactur...
Edit: Ironically, that post was doing great until it got flagged.
Edit 2: It has been unflagged
Edit 3: Flagged again.
When I follow a link from Greenwald's piece I see this tweet that was sent by Eichenwald: "Russian gov manipulates email to @johnpodesta. Publishes disinformation. Takes it down. Trump recites false info." https://twitter.com/kurteichenwald/status/785676641880027136
I interpret "manipulates" as claiming that the emails to Podesta were changed by the Russian government before they were passed to Wikileaks. Referring to them as "disinformation" also claims that the contents of the emails have been modified. And I take "recites false info" to be reiterating once again that the emails are not genuine.
From the outside, it certainly seems that Greenwald is justified in saying that Eichenwald claimed that the emails were fake. But apart from reading this quote, I'm not familiar with the details here. Could you be more specific, and specify a exact quote from Greenwald that you feel is deliberately distorted, and a corresponding quote from Eichenwald that shows the undistorted truth?
[0]http://www.newsweek.com/vladimir-putin-sidney-blumenthal-hil...
This isn't in itself proof that Greenwald was lying, since this requires additional knowledge of his internal mental processes, but it leaves open the possibility. I still think the phrasing in Eichenwald's tweet implies alteration, but with knowledge of the specifics of the article I agree that it can be interpreted differently.
But as 'nostrademons' points out, the current version of the article reads differently. I'll switch to a Dec 1 archive.org link in case it changes again: http://web.archive.org/web/20161201141729/http://www.newswee....
This version starts with a photo caption that includes the words "faked document". It's been changed to include the words "altered documents" multiple times. While couched in a hypothetical, it explicitly says "the Russian effort to quote an altered email". I feel certain that that the new version has been written in a manner that encourages the reader to conclude that leaked emails may have been altered and should not be considered authentic.
I don't know if these changes were made by Eichenwald or by someone else at Newsweek, but I think the post-publication changes strengthen rather than weaken Greenwald's overall claim that there as a strong media narrative to discredit the authenticity of the leaked Podesta emails. While the original article seems accurate, I find the changes that were made to it to be substantial, disingenuous, and worrisome. I'd be very interested to know how these changes came about.
It checks out, and at least on that point Eichenwald seems to be closer to the truth than Greenwald is (Greenwald hardly has anything to say in his own article about the details of the Eichenwald situation, only name-drops and sneers). It looks like this is Greenwald raising his hackles because he perceives his work with wikileaks to be under attack from Eichenwaldl.
First publication: Oct 10, 2016: https://web.archive.org/web/20161010235349/http://www.newswe...
Today: http://www.newsweek.com/vladimir-putin-sidney-blumenthal-hil...
Differences start around paragraph 6.
Can you show me what warrants a high degree of certainty for that claim? Because as far as I know there is no evidence for this beyond the tenuous circumstantial nature of Clinton's dirty laundry helping Trump, and a Trump presidency is less likely to start a war with Russia.
> There are two possibilities: One is that both the Russians and Donald Trump were tricked into believing of a manipulated email or the Russians manipulated it and Donald Trump fell for it
Greenwald counters emails were not doctored/manipulated and that saying they are is "Fake News" itself.
Greenwald is actually right: The emails were not manipulated as far as we know, and there is strong circumstantial evidence that there was no manipulation (e.g. thanks to gmail DKIM signatures).
The quote taken from the email that Trump and RT/Sputnik attributed to Blumenthal was indeed misattributed and actually a quote from an Eichenwald piece that Blumenthal merely copied in full into his email. That criticism is very valid, but that misrepresentation by Trump and/or RT/Sputnik does not make the email itself "manipulated".
[1] https://www.emc.com/emc-plus/rsa-labs/historical/twirl-and-r...
Others are signed by hillaryclinton.com, which was likely compromised as well.
The email in question is not one of those, and uses the 2048 bit key (emailid/2038).
Also, your assertion that hillaryclinton.com was compromised ... where did you get that? Those emails were released by the govt because of FOIA requests. The DNC was hacked and therefore "compromised" by persons unknown (but some people did a lousy job of attributing it to Russia). The DNC is not hillaryclinton.com, tho.
Following that, my assertion that hillaryclinton.com was compromised was completely evidence-free. That's a personal assumption due to the significant lack of security expertise by the maintainer of the server. There are plenty of emails sent between clintonemail.com and the DNC gmail accounts that CC Podesta and were included in the Wikileaks dumps.
The DNC was hacked by two Russian actors according to CrowdStrike. I trust CrowdStrike in this assessment.
https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democ...
The instances of so-called "fake news" that I have seen are quite easy for me to "verify" as fake with relative confidence: it's generally an explicitly partisan source with a shady-looking website making an outlandish claim that is not corroborated by any traditional news outlet. The situation you've just described sounds much more difficult for me to verify.
Seriously though, the article is comically bad. It oozes bile and anger and it's so comically and blatantly one-sided it's almost funny in a so-bad-that-it's-good way.
And this one avoids words like 'shameful' and 'disgusting'
https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/laura-ingraham-lifezette...
>The supporters of Andrew Jackson began spreading a rumor that Adams, while serving as American ambassador to Russia, had procured an American girl for the sexual services of the Russian czar. The attack was no doubt baseless, but the Jacksonians delighted in it, even calling Adams a “pimp” and claiming that procuring women explained his great success as a diplomat.
Pizzagate had nothing other than fever dreams.
In contrast, all of the wars you talked about were based on real things. The Iraq war was started on falsehoods but the media was reporting what government officials were saying and attributed those claims to them. They should have been more skeptical, yes, but that's a completely different level of discussion compared to a bunch of trolls and gullible people free-associating completely unfettered by reality.
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/12/02/504155809/episo...
It turned out to be rather profitable for him.
A self-confessed fake news creator made a dubious yet flattering claim about liberals not believing fake news because they were too smart, which fell apart upon a brief check, and liberals everywhere believed it. Brilliant.
[1] http://www.denverpost.com/2016/11/05/there-is-no-such-thing-...
[2] http://www.citypaper.com/blogs/the-news-hole/bcpnews-someone...
FBI suicide, 569k: https://graph.facebook.com/?id=http://denverguardian.com/201...
Atlanta shooting, 222k: https://graph.facebook.com/?id=http://baltimoregazette.com/a...
Everybody leaves in a mad rush, and soon the oilman is alone with a surprised St Peter who says that he may do as he pleases in this now-empty oilman district of heaven.
The oilman turns to St Peter and says: "You know, there might actually be some truth to that rumor..."
Naivity and foolishness are not partisan traits.
It erupted across every news channel precisely as Pizzagate did. If you searched on Google News for "Pizzagate", what you would get was "FAKE NEWS!" "FAKE NEWS!" "FAKE NEWS!"
The MSM hasn't been this desperate since it was shrieking to high heaven there was no chance in any universe in which Donald Trump could possibly win the US election. Whether this is because the MSM is desperate to cover up this issue - like the Pizzagate investigators allege - or there is some other coordinated motive at play (like not losing control of the narrative), its obvious the campaign is coordinated and aimed at some specific desired outcome, one way or the other.
Pizzagate itself is just a mountain of circumstantial evidence. Circumstantial evidence is not necessarily evidence of a crime, and often leads people looking at it to jump to incorrect conclusions. But trying to sweep it under the rug with frantic cries of "FAKE NEWS!!1!" does nothing but make conspiracy theories grow.
There are some extremely strangely-worded emails that came out of John Podesta's Wikileaks. All kinds of bizarre pictures on Comet Ping Pong's Instagram. They use code words identified by the FBI as pedophile code words - but it could be coincidence. One of the neighboring pizza restaurants to Comet Ping Pong had an FBI-identified pedophile symbol in its logo (since removed) - but it could be coincidence.
What a real journalist would do is say, "Huh. There's a lot of odd circumstantial evidence here. Let's get to the bottom of this and either rule it out or see what questions are still on the table."
What the MSM is doing instead is taking down articles on high level pedophile rings, like this one that no longer exists on NY Times:
Then trying to tar and feather anyone who asks questions as a "Fake News" personality.
I don't know if there's any merit to the claims around Comet Ping Pong and the Podestas. It could just be some people are REALLY into pizza and when they talk about having small children in pools as entertainment those kids are there to sing Christmas carols or something. But the MSM's frantic efforts to drown it out by screaming about "fake news" is the Streisand Effect in action. They're giving anyone who wants to believe in a conspiracy even more reason to think there is some deep cover up that extends to the highest levels, and giving this thing legs it wouldn't have if John Podesta broke his tweet silence and just said, "This is all ridiculous and none of it is true," or the MSM did an investigative piece that conclusively explained away the things the Internet sleuths pursuing Pizzagate are hoisting up as evidence of a conspiracy.
So a mainstream media source - the AP is as mainstream and widely syndicated as it gets - running a story on an unrelated and probably actually real paedophile conspiracy in Norway after the Pizzagate 'revelations' becomes "MSM is taking down articles on high level pedophile rings" because the NYT removes news agency articles after a fixed period (even ones about fake news - e.g http://archive.is/760xP http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/11/15/technology/ap-us-...)
And the many reports into the story aren't proper investigative journalism because - shock horror - the journalists don't agree with 4chan that "cheese pizza" is a term identified by the FBI as a pedophile codeword that nobody in their right mind would ever use in a pizza store.
Heck, it's basically the non gaming equivalent of the 'gamers are dead' stories that become suspiciously widespread after GamerGate took off.
So far, non-mainstream outlets have proven a whole lot worse. Call me a small-c conservative, but I'm going to keep supporting civil society over the conspiracy theorists.
That's a rather normal phenomenon, sometimes when someone coins a new term, everybody else jumps on the bandwagon.Sometimes the term makes it into the fixed inventory of the language, sometimes the fad goes away. That's as true for "fake news" as it is for "abso-fucking-lutely" or "glashole".
> Mainstream outlets move in lockstep with each other and these are the final, desperate death throes of an outdated and superfluous institution.
What an utter nonsense! You must have been brainwashed by social media and shitty blogs that sell opinions as news.
There is a fairly good reason why mainstream outlets "move in lockstep with each other": They let one and the same reality dictate their news rather than making it up like the online trolls from St. Petersburg. I'd be rather worried if they didn't "move in lockstep" and each of them was reporting something else as news...
The president elect is a birther and anti-vaxxer. Bannon had a leadership role in Trumps campaign. His cabinet is a clown-car of conspiracy peddlers. Google and Facebook are taking action to squelch fake news. Fake news is a subject of interest to many influential individuals and organizations. If it weren't covered by mainstream news it would be irresponsible.
Do you honestly not see the difference between creating fake stories about celebrities and then creating fake stories about people in the government, stories that end up having far reaching real world effects?
>of an outdated and superfluous institution.
Oh brother. If anything this last year has proven exactly why the publication and editing model should flourish for quite some time. Because as of this year, I guess whatever makes you feel better is clearly more valued over what is actually true (see all the reports from Breitbart and company, especially in regards to the Clinton emails, or even global warming), especially with people who believe that "fake news" is just some kind of conspiracy theory accessory for the "MSM" to keep their grip on the industry.
"Fake news" is just yellow journalism by another name, and "fake news" is "uniformly" being talked about because it became readily apparent over the course of this last year that people believe and act on the information presented from yellow journalism. And _apparently_ for some people any action taken to correct yellow journalism is decried as censorship. Truth is not oppression.
No, but automatic removal of fake news is censorship, since all of us in here should know that determining truth by algorithms is really an unsolvable problem in _very many important cases_.
It could/would probably be reduced to a source credibility score, but credibility is subjective.
That there is part of the problem. That is a very western phrase that reflects an ingrained system at the root of the problem. Binary is for silicon. There are multiple sides, or there is one. There is almost never exactly two. But we are trained to expect equal time for "both sides". It makes people think they are well-informed, when in reality if you are hearing exactly two stories you are almost certainly being hoodwinked.
This isn't Hotelling. Hotelling occurs where the proponents choose their sides, their stances in a debate. When a news organization wants to inform people that a meteor is heading to earth, picking a pro and con pundit isn't hotelling. That's just manufacturing a controversy where none exists. Note that weather forecasts rarely give "both sides" ... until one wants estimates beyond next month. Then they have to bring in the pro/con people in that manufactured controversy.
A careful citizen should dismiss two-sided debates, or at least realize that "both sides" is a marketing trick. Read the research. Read, and understand, the statistics.
It basically means there are two sides (at least) to everything, that can't just be disregarded. Exceptions prove the rule, of course.
On another point, Hotelling's law is a really poor example when it comes to debates or questions of politics, in my opinion.
Then you get people who lack critical thinking reading crap published by anonymously owned (read: Russian or Russian sympathizers) "news" websites, and they believe it because, "you need to decide for yourself what you believe" and "everyone lies anyway".
Maybe it's less noticeable in different countries, because Russia is not investing as much into distorting the public opinion there, but in Central and Eastern Europe you can see it quite easily.
>The city where the protesters went into war and was bombarded for years and nobody displayed it on the news. Now it is displayed every single day because the people the US is supporting is losing there. Now it is so important civilians in this city, when for years they simply did not exist.
Reusing old/different footage and claiming it's something else. What else is new?
>The city where the protesters went into war and was bombarded for years and nobody displayed it on the news. Now it is displayed every single day because the people the US is supporting is losing there. Now it is so important civilians in this city, when for years they simply did not exist.
You don't mention any specifics, so it's impossible to disagree.. "Now", what is now? Since when? Bombarded for years? Starting when?
What is this manifestation you speak of, where did it happen?
(I'm non-English speaker, cannot judge, just my opinion).
http://www.imediaethics.org/nbc-today-baltimore-protest-mich...
You can learn Arabic or Russian and go to Ukraine or Syria or Iraq and inform yourself talking to the people there, both sides of the story, or you can let the TV media tell you what is happening.
I have done it(I don't know much Arabic and a little Russian but I have traveled there) and it is quite an astonishment that what TV shows you has nothing to do with reality. I remember talking with a Syrian showing me a CNN video from US News of a Syrian manifestation(from natives that were being flood by foreigners with bad intentions), they reduced the audio volume and told everybody the manifestation was from the other side(the side that US was supporting).
The fact is that people that understood Arabic could listen what the protesters were saying and they(CNN) DID NOT CARE.
They did not care because it is a numbers thing, most Americans don't know Arabic, and millions of them will watch the channel and make themselves an idea from the eyes and ears that people in power have chosen for them.
The city where the protesters went into war and was bombarded for years and nobody displayed it on the news. Now it is displayed every single day because the people the US is supporting is losing there. Now it is so important civilians in this city, when for years they simply did not exist.
If you control the perception, you control the emotions that people will feel, and you could make them do exactly what you want. They will even believe they are "free", because they are to behave as they wish, but they are not because emotions are quite automatic.