Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

Fake news and online harassment are more than social media byproducts — they’re powerful profit drivers by Soraya Chemaly.

From the post:

Fake news is being tied to everything from the influence of Russian troll farms on the presidential election to an armed man’s invasion of a Washington, D.C., restaurant as the ludicrous but terrifying culmination of an incident known as Pizzagate. Fake news isn’t just dangerous because it distorts public understanding but, as in the case of Pizzagate, or Gamergate before that, because it is frequently implicated in targeted online harassment and threats.

Most media commentary about this issue centers on three primary areas: the nature of the “truth,” the responsibilities of social media companies to the public good, and the question of why people believe outrageous and unverified claims. Very little has been said, however, about a critical factor in the spread of fake news and harassment: They are powerful drivers of profit.

…

Fake stories and harassment have a point of origin, but the real problem lies elsewhere — in the network effects of user-generated content, and the engagement it drives. Engagement, not content, – good or bad, true or false — is what generates Internet revenues and profit. So in that sense it makes no difference whether the content is “good” or “bad,” true or false. Our posting, sharing, commenting, liking and tweeting produces behavioral and demographic data that is then packaged and sold, repackaged and resold. In this economy, one that cuts across platforms, hateful or false representations are as easily converted into analytical, behavioral and ad-sales products as truthful or compassionate ones. Indeed, they are probably more lucrative.
…

Soraya dismisses the barring of “fake news” sites as a “public panacea.

As I pointed out in my post sub-titled as Hate as Renewal Resource, any viable solution must be profit-driven.

Make the blocking of hate, whatever particular kind of hate you dislike, into a product. The amount of hate in the world is almost boundless so it’s a never ending market for your product or service.

Lack of imagination on the part of Facebook, Twitter and other social media is the only explanation I have for their continued failure to enable users to filter their content (or purchase filtering from others).

100 tools for investigative journalists – Update December 2016 by @Journalism2ls.

A listicle but what a listicle!

Categories are: Analytics, Brainstorm, Collect Data, Data Stories, Location, Monitor a story, Multimedia Publishing, Paper Trail, People Trail, Privacy, Production, Reporting, Snowfalling, Structure your story, Verification.

Just finding:

Hushed, temporary anonymous phone numbers: http://hushed.com/

made the time I spent perusing this listing worth while!

Under President-elect Trump, as under President Obama, there will be people who guard their own privacy and victims.

Which one do you want to be?

In Who Enabled Russian “Interference” With Election? (Facts, Yes, Facts), I posted queries against the New York Times Article API that counted all their stories on both Wikileaks and Hillary Clinton between September 1, 2016 and November 7, 2016.

You can run the queries for yourself (unlike CIA “evidence” which remains a matter of rumor and conjecture) but the final results show that from September 1, 2016 and November 7, 2016, the New York Times published articles on Wikileaks and Hillary Clinton 252 times.

Eric Lipton, David E. Sanger and Scott Shane posted The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S., which is a lengthy recounting of the events and coverage of the Clinton/Wikileaks story.

The authors characterize the roles of the Times and the press as:

…
Every major publication, including The Times, published multiple stories citing the D.N.C. and Podesta emails posted by WikiLeaks, becoming a de facto instrument of Russian intelligence.
…

I responded to an earlier New York Times criticism of Wikileaks in Drip, Drip, Drip, Leaking At Wikileaks saying:

…

The New York Times, a sometimes collaborator with Wikileaks (The War Logs (NYT)), has sponsored a series of disorderly and nearly incoherent attacks on Wikileaks for these leaks.

The dominant theme in those attacks is that readers should not worry their shallow and insecure minds about social media but rely upon media outlets to clearly state any truth readers need to know.

I am not exaggerating. The exact language that appears in one such attack was:

…people rarely act like rational, civic-minded automatons. Instead, we are roiled by preconceptions and biases, and we usually do what feels easiest — we gorge on information that confirms our ideas, and we shun what does not.

Is that how you think of yourself? It is how the New York Times thinks about you.

There are legitimate criticisms concerning Wikileaks and its drip, drip, drip leaking but the Times manages to miss all of them.

For example, the daily drops of Podesta emails, selected on some “unknown to the public” criteria, prevented the creation of a coherent narrative by reporters and the public. The next day’s leak might contain some critical link, or not.

Reporters, curators and the public were teased with drips and drabs of information, which served to drive traffic to the Wikileaks site, traffic that serves no public interest.

…

Wikileaks/Assange weren’t seeking a coherent narrative but rather a knee-jerk ringing of the Clinton/Wikileaks bell.

Once all the emails appeared, there was some personal embarrassment to be sure but any New York cop would be saying: “Show’s over, nothing to see here, move along, move along.”

The strategy of drip, drip, drip leaking kept the press in a high state of alert, despite the nearly universal disappointment that followed every actual leak.

Lessons Learned?

If the data for leaking is weak and/or mundane, wait for critical time frames when time for reflection is in short supply and deadlines are tight. Then leak with great show and promise the “next” leak will be the one with real juicy details.

If your data is strong, “smoking gun,” sort of stuff, you may want to pick off opponents one at a time.

What’s your strategy for leaking data?

A local news reporter covering a story of fire fighters who were dismissed for “inappropriate pictures,” described “inappropriate pictures” as bureaucratic speak for, what an unnamed source who had seen the pictures described as “bad.”

Whether you say “inappropriate pictures,” or “bad,” the report has nearly zero semantic content.

To illustrate, here’s a quick summary:

Four unnamed fire fighters were terminated in Cherokee County, GA because of “inappropriate pictures,” which were taken at some unknown fire station in Cherokee County, on some unknown date, involving a person or persons or animals or plants or minerals unknown. The “inappropriate pictures,” have also been described as “bad.”

Do you see any “news” in that morass of undisclosed, unnamed, unknowns?

It sounds more like a soft-porn ad than a news report.

If you want to gain credibility as a reporter, try reporting facts on stories that inform the public on issues relevant to them. Leave the soft-porn to others.

Reporting and punditry that escaped infamy by Michael J. Socolow.

Does this remind you of reporting during 2016:

…
As the day wore on, real reporting receded, giving way to more speculation. Right-wing commentator Fulton Lewis Jr. told an audience five hours after the attack that he shared the doubts of many American authorities that the Japanese were truly responsible. He “reported” that US military officials weren’t convinced Japanese pilots had the skills to carry out such an impressive raid. The War Department, he said, is “concerned to find out who the pilots of these planes are—whether they are Japanese pilots. There is some doubt as to that, some skepticism whether they may be pilots of some other nationality, perhaps Germans, perhaps Italians,” he explained. The rumor that Germans bombed Pearl Harbor lingered on the airwaves, with NBC reporting, on December 8, that eyewitnesses claimed to have seen Nazi swastikas painted on some of the bombers.
…

More recent media failures include 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.

Even more recently, the media has seized upon flights of fancy by “experts” to blame North Korea, Russia, the Islamic State and others for a variety of ills and disasters.

Thoughts on what leads to such media failures time and time again? I can’t think of a single major news event in the last fifty (50) years that wasn’t accompanied by:

…terrible punditry, inaccurate reporting, and ridiculous commentary

to steal Socolow’s closing line.

The failure of the news media reminds me of a discussion with a Hebrew Bible professor over the translation of a verse into English. He conceded that we don’t know the meaning of a particular term but said a translator cannot simply pass over an unknown term, but must translate it. The verse in question is well-known so the committee took refuge in giving the term an incorrect but “traditional” translation.

To what degree does the news media offer “terrible punditry, inaccurate reporting, and ridiculous commentary” because of a requirement that events, people, causes, “make sense?”

That is it is unsatisfying to report a plane crash, stock failure, bombing, without some attempt to outfit the event with an explanation.

I’m not sure if unsatisfying applies to the reporters, the news consuming public, or both.

For my part, I’m incurious about the motives of people who harm other people, assuming that even the “alleged perpetrator” has some insight into their motives. Motive is a complex and difficult subject under the best of circumstances and a sound bite of less than 30 seconds is a long way from being sufficient.

But it leaves the viewer with the false impression they have learned something about an event, people, etc.

One way to avoid “…terrible punditry, inaccurate reporting, and ridiculous commentary…,” unless you are required to respond to a particular event, is to simply ignore reporting for several days or weeks after an event. The more major the event, the longer you should delay.

For example, when 9/11 occurred, I was in San Jose, California at a Unicode conference. In fact, I was working on email waiting for the conference to start.

After the news had spread, the conference organizers asked the attendees what we wanted to do. Given the choice of watching loops of planes crashing into the World Trade Center and uninformed commentary or continuing with the conference, we chose the latter.

Delayed consumption of news of major events won’t improve the quality of the immediate reporting but it may give time for more reasonable voices to emerge. Still waiting on that to happen for 9/11.

Avoiding “fake” news, NPR station WMOT is recycling “old news.”

Seriously.

Looking for a recent article on combining multiple sources of DNA I found:

Combining The DNA Of Three People Raises Ethical Questions by Rob Stein, Nov. 10, 2014.

In a darkened lab in the north of England, a research associate is intensely focused on the microscope in front of her. She carefully maneuvers a long glass tube that she uses to manipulate early human embryos.

“It’s like microsurgery,” says Laura Irving of Newcastle University.

Irving is part of a team of scientists trying to replace defective DNA with healthy DNA. They hope this procedure could one day help women who are carrying genetic disorders have healthy children.
…

Compare that post to:

Combining The DNA Of Three People Raises Ethical Questions by Rob Stein, 22 hours ago.

In a darkened lab in the north of England, a research associate is intensely focused on the microscope in front of her. She carefully maneuvers a long glass tube that she uses to manipulate early human embryos.

“It’s like microsurgery,” says Laura Irving of Newcastle University.

Irving is part of a team of scientists trying to replace defective DNA with healthy DNA. They hope this procedure could one day help women who are carrying genetic disorders have healthy children.
…

I took a screen shot that includes WMOT and the article title, plus saved the page, just in case through the magic of silent correction, this example of “news” reporting goes away.

At least to me, two year old news isn’t the same as news 22 hours ago.

You?

PS: The loss of credibility by the media has been entirely self-inflicted. See media coverage of the 2016 presidential race for example. Why would anyone trust a news source that was so badly wrong?

Hard work, good journalism, timely reporting, all of those are the elements needed for the media to regain credibility. Credible journalists don’t attempt to suppress “fake news.” Attempts to suppress “fake news” signal a lack of commitment to credible journalism. Credible journalism doesn’t notice “fake news.”

Fake News Is Not the Only Problem by Gilad Lotan.

From the post:

There have been so many conversations on the impact of fake news on the recent US elections. An already polarized public is pushed further apart by stories that affirm beliefs or attack the other side. Yes. Fake news is a serious problem that should be addressed. But by focusing solely on that issue, we are missing the larger, more harmful phenomenon of misleading, biased propaganda.

It’s not only fringe publications. Think for a moment about the recent “Hamilton”-Pence showdown. What actually happened there? How disrespectful was the cast towards Mike Pence? Was he truly being “Booed Like Crazy” as the Huffington Post suggests? The short video embedded in that piece makes it seem like it. But this video on ABC suggests otherwise. “There were some cheers and some boos,” says Pence himself.

In an era of post-truth politics, driven by the 24-hour news cycle, diminishing trust in institutions, rich visual media, and the ubiquity and velocity of social networked spaces, how do we identify information that is tinted — information that is incomplete, that may help affirm our existing beliefs or support someone’s agenda, or that may be manipulative — effectively driving a form of propaganda?

…

Biased information — misleading in nature, typically used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view — is a much more prevalent problem than fake news. It’s a problem that doesn’t exist only within Facebook but across social networks and other information-rich services (Google, YouTube, etc.).
…

A compelling piece of work but I disagree that biased information “….is a much more prevalent problem than fake news.”

I don’t disagree with Lotan’s “facts.” I would go further and say all information is “biased,” from one viewpoint or another.

Collecting, selecting and editing information are done to attract readers by biased individuals for delivery to biased audiences. Biased audiences who are driving the production of content which they find agreeable.

Non-news example: How long would a classical music record label survive insisting its purchasers enjoy rap music?

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

At least if they were attempting to use a classical music mailing list for their records?

To blame “news/opinion” writers for bias is akin to shooting the messenger.

A messenger who is delivering the content readers requested.

Take Lotan’s example of providing more “context” for a story drawn from the Middle East:

…
A more recent example from the Middle East is that of Ahmed Manasra, a 13-year old Palestinian-Israeli boy who stabbed a 13-year old Israeli Jew in Jerusalem last Fall. A video [warning: graphic content] that was posted to a public Facebook page shows Mansara wounded, bleeding, and being cursed at by an Israeli. It was viewed over 2.5M times with the following caption:

Israeli Zionists curse a dying Palestinian child as Israeli Police watch…. His name was Ahmad Manasra and his last moments were documented in this video.

But neither the caption nor the video itself presents the full context. Just before Manasra was shot, he stabbed a few passersby, as well as a 13-year old Israeli Jew. Later, he was taken to a hospital.
…

Lotan fails to mention Ahmad Manasra’s actions were in the context of a decades old, systematic campaign by the Israeli government (not the Israeli people) to drive Palestinians from illegally occupied territory. A campaign in which thousands of Palestinians have died, homes and olive groves have been destroyed, etc.

Bias? Context? Your call.

Whichever way you classify my suggested “additional” context for the story of Ahmad Manasra, will be considered needed correction by some and bias by others.

In his conclusion, Lotan touches every so briefly on the issue upper most in my mind when discussion “fake” or “biased” content:

…
There are other models of automated filtering and downgrading for limiting the spread of misleading information (the Facebook News Feed already does plenty of filtering and nudging). But again, who decides what’s in or out, who governs? And who gets to test the potential bias of such an algorithmic system?
…

In a nutshell: who governs?

Despite unquestioned existence of “false,” “fake,” “biased,” “misleading,” information, “who governs?,” has only one acceptable answer:

No one.

Enabling readers to discover, if they wish, alternative, or in the view of some, more complete or contextual accounts, great! We have the beginnings of technology to do so.

A story could be labeled “false,” “fake,” by NPR and if you subscribe to NPR labeling, that appears in your browser. Perhaps I subscribe to Lady GaGa labeling and it has no opinion on that story and unfortunate subscribers to National Review labeling see a large green $$$ or whatever it is they use to show approval.

I fear censors far more than any form or degree of “false,” “fake,” “biased,” “misleading,” information.

You should too.

There may be others but this is the first “fake news” story that I have seen that is critical of “fake news.” At least by NPR.

Students Have ‘Dismaying’ Inability To Tell Fake News From Real, Study Finds by Camila Domoske

Domoske does a credible summary of the contents of the executive summary, for which only one paragraph is necessary to opt out of presenting this story on NPR:

…
When we began our work we had little sense of the depth of the problem. We even found ourselves rejecting ideas for tasks because we thought they would be too easy. Our first round of piloting shocked us into reality. Many assume that because young people are fluent in social media they are equally savvy about what they find there. Our work shows the opposite. We hope to produce a series of high-quality web videos to showcase the depth of the problem revealed by students’ performance on our tasks and demonstrate the link between digital literacy and citizenship. By drawing attention to this connection, a series of videos could help to mobilize educators, policymakers, and others to address this threat to democracy.
…

Comparing the NPR coverage and the executive summary, the article reflects the steps taken by the study, but never questions its conclusion that an inability to assess online information is indeed a “threat to democracy.”

To support that conclusion, which earned this story a spot on NPR, the researchers would need historical data on how well or poorly, students assessed sources of information at other time periods in American history, along with an assessment of “democracy” at the time, along with the demonstration of a causal relationship between the two.

But as you can see from the NPR article, Domoske fails to ask the most rudimentary questions about this study, such as:

“Is there a relationship between democracy and the ability to evaluate sources of information?”

Or, “What historical evidence demonstrates a relationship between democracy and the ability to evaluate sources of information?”

Utter silence on the part of Domoske.

The real headline for a follow-up on this story should be:

NPR Reporter Unable To Distinguish Credible Research From Headline Driven Reports.

I’m going to be listening for that report.

Are you?

The Fact Checker’s guide for detecting fake news by Glenn Kessler.

Glenn’s post isn’t an outright attack on Facebook, the standard fare at the New York Times since Donald Trump’s election. How long the Times is going to sulk over its rejection by most Americans isn’t clear.

Glenn descends into the sulking with the Times when he writes:

…
Look at the ads

A profusion of pop-up ads or other advertising indicates you should handle the story with care. Another sign is a bunch of sexy ads or links, designed to be clicked — “Celebs who did Porn Movies” or “Naughty Walmart Shoppers Who have no Shame at All” — which you generally do not find on legitimate news sites.
…

The examples are nearly Facebook ad headlines and Glenn knows that.

Rather than saying “Facebook,” Glenn wants you to conclude that “on your own.” (An old manipulation/propaganda technique.)

Glenn’s “read the article closely” was #4, coming in after #1, “determine whether the article is from a legitimate website,” #2, “Check the ‘contact us’ page,” or #3, “examine the byline of the reporter and see whether it makes sense.”

How To Recognize A Fake News Story has “read past the headline” first.

Even “legitimate websites” make mistakes, omit facts, and sometimes are mis-led by governments and others.

Read content critically, even content about spotting “fake news.”

How To Recognize A Fake News Story by Nick Robin-Searly.

A handy “fake news” graphic:

Even if Facebook, Twitter, etc., eventually take up my idea of shareable content filters, you should evaluate all stories (including mine) with the steps in this graphic.

Short form: Don’t be a passive consumer of content. Engage with content. Question its perspective, what was left unsaid, sources that were or were not relied upon, etc.

Your ignorance is your own and no one can fix that other than you.

The five-step fact-check from AfricaCheck

From the post:

Print our useful flow-chart and stick it up in a place where you can quickly refer to it when a deadline is pressing.

Click here to download the PDF for printing.

A great fact checking guide for reporters but useful insight for readers as well.

What’s missing from a story you are reading right now?

AfricaCheck offers to fact check claims about Africa tweeted with: #AfricaCheckIt.

There’s a useful service to the news community!

A quick example, eNCA (South African news site) claimed Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe announced his retirement.

Africa Check responded with Mugabe’s original words plus translation.

I don’t read Mugabe as announcing his retirement but see for yourself.

Tracking Business Records Across Asia by GIJN staff.

From the post:

The paper trail has changed — money now moves digitally and business registries are databases — and this lets journalists do more than ever before in tracking people and companies across borders.

Backgrounding an individual or a company? Following an organized crime ring? The key to uncovering corruption is to “follow the money” — to discover who owns what, who gets which contract, and how business are linked to each other.
…

Resources on tracking corporate records in China, the Philippines and India!

While you are sharpening your tracking skills, don’t forget to support GIJN.

Eight steps reporters should take before Trump assumes office by Dana Priest.

Reporters should paste these eight steps to their bathrooms mirror for review every day, not just for the Trump presidency:

Rebuild sources: Call every source you’ve ever had who is either still in government or still connected to those who are. Touch base, renew old connections, and remind folks that you’re all ears.

Join forces: Triangulate tips and sources across the newsroom, like we did after 9/11, when reporting became more difficult.

Make outside partnerships: Reporting organizations outside your own newspaper, especially those abroad and with international reach, can help uncover the moves being considered and implemented in foreign countries.

Discover the first family: Now part of the White House team, Donald Trump’s children and son-in-law are an important target for deep-dive reporting into their own financial holdings and their professional and personal records.

Renew the hunt: Find those tax filings!

Out disinformation: Find a way to take on the many false news sites that now hold a destructive sway over some Americans.

Create a war chest: Donate and persuade your news organization to donate large sums to legal defense organizations preparing to jump in with legal challenges the moment Trump moves against access, or worse. The two groups that come to mind are the Reporters’ Committee for Freedom of the Press and the American Civil Liberties Union. Encourage your senior editors to get ready for the inevitable, quickly.

Be grateful: Celebrate your freedom to do hard-hitting, illuminating work by doing much more of it.

Don’t wait for reporters to carry all the load.

Many of these steps, “Renew the hunt” comes to mind, can be performed by non-reporters and then leaked.

A lack of transparency of government signals a lack of effort on the part of the press and public.

FOIA is great but it’s also being spoon fed what the government chooses to release.

I’m thinking of transparency that is less self-serving than FOIA releases.

According to Snopes, Fake News Is Not the Problem by Brooke Binkowski.

From the post:

Take it from the internet’s chief myth busters: The problem is the failing media.

…

This is the state of truth on the internet in 2016, now that it is as easy for a Macedonian teenager to create a website as it is for The New York Times, and now that the information most likely to find a large audience is that which is most alarming, not most correct. In the wake of the election, the spread of this kind of phony news on Facebook and other social media platforms has come under fire for stoking fears and influencing the election’s outcome. Both Facebook and Google have taken moves to bar fake news sites from their advertising platforms, aiming to cut off the sites’ sources of revenue.

But as managing editor of the fact-checking site Snopes, Brooke Binkowski believes Facebook’s perpetuation of phony news is not to blame for our epidemic of misinformation. “It’s not social media that’s the problem,” she says emphatically. “People are looking for somebody to pick on. The alt-rights have been empowered and that’s not going to go away anytime soon. But they also have always been around.”

The misinformation crisis, according to Binkowski, stems from something more pernicious. In the past, the sources of accurate information were recognizable enough that phony news was relatively easy for a discerning reader to identify and discredit. The problem, Binkowski believes, is that the public has lost faith in the media broadly — therefore no media outlet is considered credible any longer. The reasons are familiar: as the business of news has grown tougher, many outlets have been stripped of the resources they need for journalists to do their jobs correctly. “When you’re on your fifth story of the day and there’s no editor because the editor’s been fired and there’s no fact checker so you have to Google it yourself and you don’t have access to any academic journals or anything like that, you will screw stories up,” she says.
…

Sadly Binkowski’s debunking of the false/fake news meme doesn’t turn up on Snopes.com.

That might make it more convincing to mainstream media who have seized upon false/fake news to excuse their lack of credibility with readers.

Please share the Binkowski post with your friends, especially journalists.

False, Misleading, Clickbait-y, and Satirical “News” Sources by Melissa Zimdars.

From the document:

Below is a list of fake, false, regularly misleading, and/or otherwise questionable “news” organizations, as well as organizations that regularly use clickbait-y headlines and descriptions, that are commonly shared on facebook and other social media sites. Some of these websites rely on “outrage” by using distorted headlines and decontextualized or dubious information in order to generate likes, shares, and profits.

Other sources on this list are purposefully fake with the intent of satire/comedy, which can offer important critical commentary on politics and society, but they are regularly shared as actual/literal news. I’m including them here, for now, because 1.) they have the potential to perpetuate misinformation based on different audience (mis)interpretations and 2.) to make sure anyone who reads a story by The Onion, for example, understands its purpose. If you think this is unnecessary, please see Literally Unbelievable.
…

This list is in the process of being updated and to her credit, Melissa explicitly says that no source should be given an automatic imprimatur.

Too many commentators to complain about “false news,” and/or “bubbles:”

• Want to separate true/false news for you
• Want to sell you their bubble to replace your own

You will be less informed and less capable of evaluating news for yourself in either case.

As Melissa notes, read widely and with a critical eye.