Re-Vistin' "Fake News"

So many people are writing 'bout "Fake News" these days. The media is talkin' 'bout it, everyone down at the driving range is talking about it, everyone down at the batting cages, even the Pope is talking about it ... blah blah blah. It's nothing new though. The Internet is full of garbage ... it always has been. It should be the Third Eternal Truth,

1. Death
2. Taxes
3. The Internet is Laden with Asinine Garbage

I did a big long article on this topic back in 2011,

This one right here: "on Deception and counter-Deception. also on Devising and/or Deciphering Informations"

Sweet Vermouth, whatta title, wow. I used to be better at this writing shit ... 2011 to 2013 is like my prime. I was drinking a lot of coffee and punching up words right fast and good back then. In that article I ended by linking people to links on how to tell if something is photoshopped and to Snopes and other things. That was 5 years ago ... the proliferation of junk on the internet has grown exponentially since then.

Alrighty, gonna do it two sections on this one. We're gonna look at the process of making "Fake News" and how easy it is and then we will play the blame game and point fingers.

The Process

Making money with crazy and alarming news stories is pretty easy. You are one 15 dollar URL, one 15 dollar web hosting fee, and one account with WordPress away from making your own Fake News site.

Okay, hold up, why call it "Fake News" for? Fake News is how Norm MacDonald used to open Weekend Update ... it's a term that shouldn't be pejorative. Fake News should be associated with humor and satire ... it's not the correct term to apply to alarming click-bating propaganda.

In the old days Newz was funny at least

The correct term to apply to this phenomenon is "Garbage" or one I like to use which is "Newz." There should be two kinds of News ... with a S and with a Z. The one with an S is where professionals do professional reporting of events and Newz with a Z is the Newz where Hillary Clinton gives birth to Big Foot's baby or Ben Carson gives birth to Big Foot's Ghost Baby.

Okay so, you right now sitting there reading this are a hop, skip, and jump ... or URL, web hosting fee, and WordPress account away from being a purveyor of Newz. Now how do you get them to go Viral? You don't ... Facebook, Reddit, Twitter and other social media will do that for you ... if you have an alarming enough title and post it to certain high traffic groups, forums, and spruce it up with a photo and some trending hashtags ... your article will be have great exposure.

Once you have hits and a fanbase ... put Google ads and Amazon ads on your site. Google will pay per 1000 visitors and a lot for people clicking on the ads. Amazon will pay you for people who bought something on their site after being referred to it from your site.

That's all well and good but that's not how you really make any money. You need to gimmick the ads up quite a bit. You need to place the ads in places where people scroll on their phones so they accidentally hit the ad. So you put the ads in the middle of a post so they hit it while scrolling with their finger. Stuff like that.

To gimmick up Amazon you write about products ... like say you have a Nostalgia Blog about the nineties you can make a post about some retro thing that has been re-made and is being sold ... link to it on Amazon and you get referral money for people who bought the chachkie or widget or whatever it was. That what it's meant for but Newz people go a whole other route with this ....

The worst Newz gimmick is to sell products from Amazon or their own distributors and write crazy pieces of Newz to make it seem like you need this product. The Naturo/Organic sect does this ... they will make a Newz story like "Chemicalz found in your Soup!" and do 400 words on how some scary chemical was found in something you use often .... and they will retail on their website some version of this that is "safe" for you. So if soup has chemicalz in the example ... they have "Organic Raw Canadian Alps of Sweden Vegan Chem-Free Soup" cans for sale at the bottom of the article. This one is particularly dangerous because these people tend to risk public health in many cases where they go as far to say that the soup or whatever can cure aids/cancer/etc and readers buy it and really believe that it can.

Newz is not a hard shtick... but it's the dark side. If you want to do it, fine, but it's not right. As stated above, 2011-2013, was my prime and this site was getting a pretty decent amount of hits ... but even then when some articles were being read like crazy ... I didn't put ads on here. Why? I don't know ... I probably should have .... but these writings are a hobby for me that I actually like doing and I don't want to gimmick it up and make it stupid. I like doing this.

The Legend, Bubba.

I heard a story once that Telly Savalas used to go gambling all night long ... lose all of his money .... and then with his last dollar bill ... he'd go buy a cup of coffee. He'd take his time and drink the coffee real slow, look at it and smell it, and really savor the dollar he spent on it ... because after an all night gambling escapade it was his last dollar to his name that he bought that cup of coffee with ... and when the coffee was finished ... he'd dispose of it the garbage can ... look up at the sky and proclaim .... "NOW I FEEL CLEAN!"

When he had no money to his name is the only moment he felt "clean."

I think that's what this outlet is for me ... it's Clean. There's no money involved in writing these for me and I don't make any money doing this. It's just a Clean unpolluted outlet for me to express my thoughts and opinions and shit. After finishing one of these I can look up and say ... "I FEEL CLEAN!"

If I put ads on this it would change the content ... it would very quickly become a writing formula of ...

1. Look what's globally trending on Twitter and Facebook and pick a topic.
2. Take 5 minutes and write an Asininely Alarming and Ridiculous 250 word piece of absolute Trash.
3. Spend the next 2 hours putting links to it on every social media and high traffic forum on the internet.

That's not a fun hobby. I do this because I like doing it and I wouldn't like doing that. Promotion is boring. When I first started this blog I linked to it on media/forums maybe 5 times in total .... that was already 6 years ago now. I have never promoted this outlet ... at all in 6 years. If you're seriously interested in doing Newz you gotta focus on promotion and not content. You have to get the link to the article on as many high traffic areas as possible ... you need about 5 minutes to produce the content and then spend 10x amount of time on linking to it.

Another gimmick they are using, and this one is pretty bad, is to label the Newz website with something very similar to a News website. So the person will call their outlet URL "MSNBC-7WORLD.com" or "CBS-CHANNEL8.com" and then when you see the link on facebook or twitter the reader thinks they are reading something from MSNBC or CBS if you just click on it read it and go.



Blame Game

You can't really blame the people making money with this. I mean, it works and there's nothing necessarily illegal about it.

The people running them are not rich people. It's poor kids with shitty computers in Macedonia, and street urchins from Russia, and people from South America. One that I found funny was Ron Paul's dopey Re-Love-Ution website was ran by a person from like Chile in South America. People thought it was his actual website but it was just aggregated newz and ads ran by someone out of South America. These people aren't exactly bad people ... their mostly poor people from poor countries who run these sites.

If you wanna point a finger at someone point it at fucking Facebook, man.

The new Facebook algorithm gets "featured content" into the news feed even if the person has an ad-blocker. So now you have no choice but to be exposed to Newz on social media ... and the "featured content" ratio in the facebook news feed is RIDICULOUS! It's like 1/5 ... like 4 actual posts from people/groups/news you have in the feed and then 1 from something someone paid for users to see. That's a pretty silly ratio ... like one out of every five things in Facebook now is a paid-content headline in the form of "8 Things that You have to See about _______."

It's garbage ad-nauseum. In an election cycle what are those blanks in those garbage lists? It's articles of "10 things you didn't know about this party" .... "5 things that will shock you about this person who is running" ..... and what are the most shared ones by users? The more alarming or shocking ones are the most shared by users to their friends. So in an election cycle the most shared articles are ones like "Can You Believe what Clinton just did!?" or "Can You Believe the Latest thing Trump just Said?"  and it matters to no one who is sharing them if they are true or totally 100% outright fabrications.

In my opinion, for what it's worth, Ad Blockers should not be illegal or banned or worked-around on Social Media ... AD BLOCKERS SHOULD BE 100% LEGAL! Ad Blocking apps on browsers are one of the crowning achievements of the last decade .... they should be celebrated and not frowned upon. The guy who invented Ad Blockers on the internet should be given The Key to the City (the Internet City).


Conclusion

There was a time where maybe people could keep up somewhat on what was true and what wasn't on the stupid idiotic internet but the exponential rate of Newz exploding on the internet is to a degree where no one can keep up with all the crap and investigate all the nonsense that's out there. The bottom line seems to be that people will believe what they want and not-believe what they don't want to believe and I guess that makes them happy ... and that's the root of the problem.

It is no longer possible to get a handle on the situation of the erratic nature of information on the internet. The world is like 90% literate now and everyone is getting internet and wanting to contribute their 2 cents to it ... and they have the right to do that. There will always be a multitude of information on the internet and the VAST MAJORITY OF IT will be absolute nonsense. Absolute nonsense.

The answer as I've seen promoted by other people over the years is to teach Critical Thinking as a course in grade schools and high schools. We no longer live in an era of Small Information this is the era of Big Info ... almost limitless accounts from unlimited sources. The thing to do is not to try and censor or limit access to information but to instill at a young age the Art and Science of Analyzing Informations and how to think critically about incoming data. It's not about acquiring information anymore as you can read just about anything ever ... it's how to qualify information.

Children can be taught to read a language as early as 3 years old in many cases ... but children are never formally taught how to decipher what's important from what's not. Fallacies in logic should be taught to children as early as Grade 6, scientific method should be given at Grade 6. The kids all know HOW to read by that age but they don't know how to critically assess incoming information at that age and the earlier it's taught the better.

Sources from where data comes from must be taught in school. Kids understanding of "sources" at that age is something along the lines of "my parents said so .... so it must be true" ...  and this is carried over in the real world as "oh that person said it so it must be true" ... they should be taught that some sources of information are more trustworthy than others and that all sources can be questioned and held to standards.

In this era of Endless Information available on the Internet it's not enough to just teach the younger generation how to decipher a written language ... you must also teach how to critically and scientifically make an assessment of the written data.

on Deception and counter-Deception. also on Devising and/or Deciphering Informations

The internet age has brought to us an abundance of information. There are mounds and mounds of nutty little documents, snipets, and tid-bits at the fingertips of every human in arms reach of a computer. If you have not realized it yet, we are living in an information golden age, never in history has so much data been available for analysis.

It sounds great, and it really is...but nothing is perfect. Is all information credible? Of course not. Is it all true? No way. Out of all the data on the net, how much of it is accurate and factual...and how much of it is fiction, lies, propaganda, nonsense, or deception?

It's great that everyone is acquiring more data and decoding more information but should you believe what you are reading? Nope, you surely cannot believe it...and figuring out what is correct and what is incorrect is almost futile sometimes.

If you search for anything on google, you will find conflicting reports on your questions. For example, is coffee a healthy beverage? Out of the two hundred millions search results, you will be able to find any answer to that question, it is not a matter of accessing information anymore it is now a question of deciphering which out of those two hundred million results are valuable pieces of info and which are not. Factoring in that coffee will have a different effect on different people, the answer to the question is not even concrete to begin with.

If you didn't see it happen with your own eyes, hear it with you own ears, you can never be sure if it is true (and even then your senses/bias/perception can deceive you).

Be aware that History is recorded by the people who choose to record it. In the old days, people would keep histories orally through talking about it, then in writing, and now in writing/pictures/video/multi-media/etc. It's scary, but 100% of recorded history may be false. You cannot take an old text and investigate it, you just have to trust that what was recorded in it was factual and truthful. Judging now from how much erroneous data is on the internet, I don't think it's safe to trust any history book.

Wikipedia

Anyone with a Wikipedia account is able to record history now. In the future, every child will learn about the past from Wikipedia I believe, and the fact that any kid can learn about anything is great...but what percentage of that information is true?

Obviously things like science and math, texts that must adhere to specific rules and must have proof will be fine. We can experiment with data of scientists from 200 years ago and make sure that what they stated was accurate, that's great...but history is different, once the data has any room for arbitrary interpretations it can not be tested for its accuracy 200 years from now. Anything recorded today will likely be believed as fact in the future...even if it's not true.

Willy wanted wheels.

Wikipedia was frowned upon by teachers when it first came about, and with very good reason. It was erratic and insane when it first came out. There were a few moderators who were mostly 16 year old kids and none of the data on wikipedia could be trusted. The early days were rife with hooligans and vandals too, like people who made tongue-in-cheek entries or put everything on wiki-wheels (this was hilarious, though, you gotta admit).

The first experience I had editing wikipedia, was in 2004 when the Montreal Expos were moved to Washington. One of the wiki moderators deleted the Montreal Expos page, merged it with the Washington Senators page, and the 36 years of the team's history was reduced to "This team used to play in Montreal." I put it back up (I'm sure others did too) but it would keep getting deleted again. Foraying into the mad world of wikipedia moderators was a horrifying experience, they discuss every change on wikipedia at length like this secret club of data deities.

(example: http://theangryblackwoman.wordpress.com/2007/02/04/whispers-the-people-over-on-wikipedia-is-crazy-yo/)

That example is just to show an average everyday discussion of the wiki Data Deities. The woman wanted to register her account name as "angryblackwoman" and they discussed at length if she was allowed to use this user name or not. Those "weak allow" and "strong dissallow" and whatnot is them voting on whether or not she can use that name.

Anyways, every change to wikipedia goes through a myriad of discussion. It's not like you think, that anyone can edit it, that is not true. You can edit it, but it will instantaneously be checked over by moderators and they will decide if that data is allowed on wikipedia. It is interesting that hundreds of thousands of entries have been deleted, some of which surely were factual. In fact there is a site (deletionpedia) which archives the articles wikipedia deletes which I think is actually a great service.

Jiang is not imporant enough for Wiki

Deletionpedia has an entry, for example, on Bin Jiang which was deleted by wiki memeber "DGG" because he didn't think Jiang was important enough to be recorded into the annals of history. The wiki article had a photo of Bin, a song listing next to the photo, and a short bio of the man. The "speedy deletion" was contested it shows, but upheld by the Data Deities.

Isn't the whole process arbitrary? Should some teenager somewhere in the world be allowed to judge whether or not Bin Jiang is important enough to be recorded into history or not?

History was always selective, in the old days it was edited by kings, queens, and rulers to make them look like heroes. Now, it is edited by some greasy kids somewhere.

Sneaking erroneous data into wikipedia is still pretty easy, for example, an entry for the video game Photoboy, has a somewhat untrue, badly written, odd backstory applied to "David Goldman" the lead character in of the game. It has stayed up there for about 5 years now.

"David Goldman is an amateur photographer, who always loved to take pictures. One day, he went to Los Angeles Photography School to study more about taking pictures. Everyday, David commutes on the crowded trains, but trained and learned better in the academy so he can achieve his dreams on becoming the best photographer he ever wished for. He was happy at that time, but suddenly misfortune hit him. David's parents suddenly died in a plane crash, leaving him orphaned and all alone. He loved his parents deeply and cried at their burial, thinking that they will come back. David lost his confidence and is about to leave the academy to live a lonely and sad life. However for Dean, the principal of the academy saw him and made an unexpected proposal to him. The principal said if he completed 8 tests by taking 8 special photograph shots in 8 different locations, then he's allowed to graduate in the academy. Unsure about this offer, David still accepted the test and did everything he could to pass." 

-Wikipedia

There was also a statement about "David Goldman's" signature mannerisms and walk and how they were based on World War II aviation photographer Bob A. Boughy, but sadly, that tid-bit did not survive the wrath of the moderators.

If that Bob A. Boughy (say it a few times) statement, was phrased "Some argue that David Goldman's signature mannerisms and walk were based on WWII aviation photographer Bob A. Boughy" then it more than likely would have survived as well.

Apparently, according to wiki user "Einsidler" over 38,000 wiki pages contain the term "some argue" which is not very professional when you think about it. Who are these "some" that are arguing these all these claims? Who are these people?

Who knows...but for every "some" that is arguing there is a "some" that is reading those arguments, despite how crazy or laden with errors those claims may be.


Credulity

It's okay that there's silly or erroneous data on the web, what's not okay is that there are a lot of credulous web surfers out there. What's credulous? It's another way of saying "gullible" (and "gullible" of course...is not in the dictionary).

Credulity is hard to overcome, and most people don't want to. It's being credulous that lets us believe things that make us happy, it lets us believe in Gods, in Santa Clauses, and it helps us sift through information until we get to something that strengthens our current beliefs and state of mind. If you really wanted to convince yourself that Santa exists...I'm sure you could find articles on the web which would back you up.

Credulity and the information golden age cannot co-exist. The internet is churning out multitudes of data every second and all of it is questionable. The veracity of this data that "some" are arguing in most cases can be taken with a grain of salt...and surely not unconditional belief.

The credulity of today's society is outrageous. People believe anything, and I know it helps them through their troubles, and people who tell other people to stop believing always look mean...but I think it's time that society started leaning into skeptic territory.

A very old text urging people not to be credulous that's out there is a great read called Discoverie of Witchcraft by Reginald Scot (available: here). Scot was writing this in an age when the government was going around accusing people of witch craft and if they didn't pay the fine, they would torture these people into admitting they were witches, and then upon confession...they would burn them alive. The government was using this method to get rid of their critics and enemies, and they were basically using the people's credulity against them to make money and stay in power. This is a beloved book amongst skeptics up to this day and in the opening sentence, even Scot, feels bad about telling people not to believe,

Now, because it is relevant, and witchcraft so apparently accomplished through the art of sleight of hand, I thought it would be worthwhile to explain it. I am sorry to be the one to do this, and regret any effect this may have on those who earn their living performing such tricks for purposes of entertainment only, whose work is not only tolerable but greatly commendable. They do not abuse the name of God in this occupation, nor claim their power comes through him, but always acknowledge what they are doing to be tricks, and in fact through them unlawful and unpious deceivers may be exposed.

-Discoverie of Witchcraft, p.1

"He is sorry," he says, because he knows people make a living off of selling magic pendants, other voodoo shit, and knows some people are using deception for entertainment purposes but he also saw the very real danger of what credulous minds will do when they believe too foolishly. He helped reduce credulity of the age by explaining how common magick tricks were done, like thrusting bodkins into your skull and stuff like that...

TO THRUST A BODKIN INTO YOUR HEAD WITHOUT HURT.

Doin' it wrong: Bodkin WITH hurt.

    Have a knife made so that the handle is hollow and allows the blade to slip into it when held upside down. Hold it to your forehead and appear to thrust it in. With a little sponge concealed in your hand you can wring out blood or wine. If wine is running out of your forehead you can excuse it by explaining you have had a lot of wine to drink. Then, after an appropriate show of pain and grief, appear to pull the knife out of your head suddenly, so quickly that the blade falls back into place without being noticed. Immediately place the trick knife in your lap or pocket and switch it for an unprepared one. 

-Discoverie of Witchcraft, chapter XXXIV.

You think people are better today? The Wikipedia pages for psychics and talkers to the dead have a small section on "controversy" but mainly states that they are professional psychic mediums and leaves it at that. There is no such thing as a professional psychic medium...get real.

The Wikipedia page for him should literally read as follows, "Edward cons grieving people out of hard earned money by pretending to talk to their dead relatives." That is the sanest and most accurate way of recording him in history.

Prop up your Propaganda

Propaganda used to be easy as pie. An authority in power tells you what to believe, and you believe it. Why were kings allowed to be in power and rich while everyone else suffered? Either they told them it's because they had blue blood, or were ordained by a God to rule and be rich, or some shit like that. Today it's different, you have to win a popularity contest in most countries and be an expert liar to stay in power.

It's harder to make people believe in authority for no good reason this day and age, but that doesn't mean authority hasn't figured out how. They play on your fears, your hatred, your xenophobia, your nationalism, your language, your religion, and certainly your credulity to get you on their side. Media has become a war of images, a war to prove a point, an image is now literally worth a thousand words. News outlets should not overtly be trusted for no good reason. If your government owns your news network for instance, you should practice extra skepticism on the reports issued from that outlet. The Chinese government for instance tries to ban most of the internet from its people, except for government controlled web servers.

Watch out for non-critical articles written about your government.

Handy Tools

Here's a couple of links which may be interesting or come in handy while surfing the intertubes:

Some argue (me) that this is the greatest macro of all time. G.O.A.T. son!

1. First off, here's Neil Degrasse Tyson in 9 photos. Choose which ones are real and which ones are shopped and you win some internets. This site is actually the first time I ever heard of science superstar NDT. If you choose right or wrong, Hany Farid will still explain why or why not the picture is shopped. It's not always about the pixels or how many shops you've seen in your journeys.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/0301/03-fakeorreal.html

2. List of Fallacies (this site is one of many, it's just the first one from google I picked. You can search for others too). It has examples of fallacies such as Loaded Language and others. In literature and entertainment writing all language should be loaded chock-to-the-brim with emotion, but in a news article NO language should be loaded up with emotions.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#Loaded%20Language

3. Photos have been edited for a long time, here's some (then again maybe some of them are hoaxes, who knows).

http://www.fourandsix.com/photo-tampering-history/

4. I love this site Snopes ever since it first came out. They investigate hoaxes and now they try and investigate just about everything on the net. It's been around a while and is not only great but fun to read as well.

http://www.snopes.com/




Keep it real.