# What do we do to fight fake news? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 21, 2016, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634 "2016-11-21T11:10:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Malden\_Capell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malden_capell/32/5274_2.png) [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/21 "2016-11-21T16:03:27Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Along with the copyright laws that involve actual monetary losses and damage and are damn near unenforceable on the net? Good luck. > > It would turn into a tool of the powerful/in-power, out of financial and legal reach of anyone smaller than a corporation. This assumes we have a chance of a Democratic government returning to power without fighting the fake news _now_ What can _we_ do, as individuals, to challenge and fight it? As I can only see a collective campaign by the informed online to challenge fake news as the only way to turn the tide and get democracy back. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/22 "2016-11-21T16:06:03Z")
> [@Malden\_Capell](#): > > What can _we_ do, as individuals, to challenge and fight it? As I can only see a collective campaign by the informed online to challenge fake news as the only way to turn the tide and get democracy back. I don’t know. Besides the ease of creating faux news and getting it into the stream, besides the current willingness of all parties to shovel bullshit as a tactic, our Grimas Wormtongue, perched on the edge of the Resolute desk, is an experienced media mogul. “Shouting louder” probably won’t work. And that’s before we get into things like false-flag faux news and other complications. ---
**Author:** ![watchwolf49](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e9c0ed/32.png) [@watchwolf49](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/watchwolf49)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/23 "2016-11-21T16:06:37Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > I think a subscription service could fund this, augmented with individual sales, perhaps through semi-independent agents working on street corners or somesuch. We already have this … _Time, Newsweek, St. Olif Weekly Shopper_ … but people will only pay money to hear news they want to hear … if we want fair and unbiased … then there will be news people _don’t_ want to hear … hard to keep the cash flowing in that way … ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/24 "2016-11-21T16:12:32Z")
Resign yourself to playing whack-a-mole with these people. Ridicule is not inappropriate. Compare the people who thing that the Pope endorsed Trump to flat-earthers or moon landing deniers. ---
**Author:** ![Malden\_Capell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malden_capell/32/5274_2.png) [@Malden\_Capell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malden_Capell)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/25 "2016-11-21T16:18:32Z")
> [@E-DUB](#): > > Resign yourself to playing whack-a-mole with these people. Ridicule is not inappropriate. Compare the people who thing that the Pope endorsed Trump to flat-earthers or moon landing deniers. See, this is precisely my thinking. Clearly many here don’t think there’s much that can be done in other avenues, so we have to fight them on their front. It’s exhausting, believe me, but it’s better to ruin their day arguing and debating then let them have the field without a fight. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/26 "2016-11-21T16:20:29Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > We already have this … Whoosh, dude. 🙂 > [@E-DUB](#): > > Resign yourself to playing whack-a-mole with these people. Ridicule is not inappropriate. Compare the people who thing that the Pope endorsed Trump to flat-earthers or moon landing deniers. Absolute integrity, honesty and accuracy have to be the keystones of any such effort. Every error will be turned into proof that it’s lies all the way down. Jokes aside, the collapse of our national journalism will probably be seen as the broken strand that led to the final fall. When the notion of “fact checking” became a thing, it was too late. ---
**Author:** ![Pearl\_Clutching\_Provocateur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pearl\_Clutching\_Provocateur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pearl_Clutching_Provocateur)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/27 "2016-11-21T16:26:52Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Along with the copyright laws that involve actual monetary losses and damage and are damn near unenforceable on the net? Good luck. > > It would turn into a tool of the powerful/in-power, out of financial and legal reach of anyone smaller than a corporation. It wouldn’t be hard to do at all. Go the OccupyDemocrats page and start checking the people that follow them. Friend them, send them form letters to pay up, and make good on the threats on a few. The others will fall in line. Those ladies are going to be rich. Richer than President Trump. ---
**Author:** ![Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blue_blistering_barnacle/32/3386_2.png) [@Blue\_Blistering\_Barnacle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blue_Blistering_Barnacle)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/28 "2016-11-21T16:36:56Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > I think a subscription service could fund this, augmented with individual sales, perhaps through semi-independent agents working on street corners or somesuch. > [@PatrickLondon](#): > > Indeed. You could even find a format that’s sufficiently independent of power supplies at the point of consumption to be portable anywhere, e.g., in a briefcase or in the hand, and when no longer needed, might serve other purposes, such as to wrap things or in emergency to double as a hat, or to supply extra entertainment value as material for, I dunno, something like origami. Maybe children could be employed to distribute this medium. It could provide them with a small economic boost, keep them occupied in worthwhile pursuits, and teach them job skillz while honing their entrepreneurial spirit. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/29 "2016-11-21T16:55:39Z")
> [@Pearl\_Clutching\_Provocateur](#): > > Toughen and reform the libel laws. > > For instance, a photo of four women holding a " Make America Great Again" was altered into “Make America White Again” was shared on the Internet. I had a few friends post it on their Facebook page. Everyone who shared that image should held accountable for civil damages. > > I think that if we make accusations of racism or homophobia similar to committing a crime that the lawyers will have plenty of work. It will also tone down the rhetoric. In order to defame someone’s character, one must have character to begin with. One could also argue that being willing to appear in public showing support for a confessed sexual predator does enough damage to one’s reputation as can be done and altering it in photoshop does not increase the damage. One could also argue that in promoting a candidate in public, you become a public figure yourself, subject to the same satire and ridicule. Facebook memes are a problem. Some is just stupid shit (OMG! Mars will be as big as the moon in August!, or OMG! There are 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays, and 5 Sundays this month! It only happens once every 834 years!) Some spreads dangerous lies (Did you know the 60% of the Quran is about killing non-believers?! OMG!!!). Most of the political stuff is either flat out wrong or deeply twisted (Congress STOLE $1.3 trillion from Social Security!). If Obama did 1/10 of what these Facebook memes suggest, he would have been impeached long ago. How to fix? That’s a toughie. There are millions of haters out there and it seems like they all create Facebook memes. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/30 "2016-11-21T19:11:15Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > We could create a nationwide chain of news sources, run by trusted journalism professionals, that manage to separate their advertising and editoral sides - if they have an ad side at all. Scale each one to the size of the town, city or market served. There could even be overlapping sources, each with a different political viewpoint, that could factually investigate, report on and argue the issues of the day and area. > > They would need to stay above politics themselves, except in special identified sections of opinion (as opposed to fact-based, fact-checked news), and develop reputations for incorruptibility by firmly resisting all political, financial or profit-driven pressure. > > Could work. You can’t fix stupid, but holding journalists, at least some of them, to high standards would help. Just throwing out ideas… perhaps being a Journalist (capital J) should be a much more regulated occupation, like being a doctor for example; a Journalist would be licensed and regularly evaluated to ascertain the quality of the work is up to standards. In that way people would know that if X. Smith (Journalist) publishes something then that something was produced by an individual working under rigorous standards of investigation and fact checking. I would hope such professionals would be valuable to a self respecting news organization. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/31 "2016-11-21T19:37:58Z")
I favour whippings in the public square for internet trolls, preferably with lots of video footage of them pissing themselves, to be freely circulated forever. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/32 "2016-11-21T19:51:16Z")
People like comforting news. Because of this they are susceptible to fake news stories that reinforce their bias. The good news is that it does not create their biases in the first place. Obviously fake stories don’t convince people they just comfort the already convinced. They are a symptom of the problem and not the problem itself. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2016, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/33 "2016-11-21T21:38:00Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I favour whippings in the public square for internet trolls, preferably with lots of video footage of them pissing themselves, to be freely circulated forever. I’m pretty sure you’re being sarcastic, but who would decide what constitutes an internet troll? Should we leave it up to AG Sessions? ---
**Author:** ![baccer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b77776/32.png) [@baccer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/baccer)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/34 "2016-11-22T20:29:21Z")
The mainstream media is the fakest news there is, whether it’s straight up lies like their recent election polls and other pro hillary rhetoric, or their lies of omission reminiscent of all the recent Wikileaks revelations they wouldn’t cover. If this election cycle didn’t pound that home to the people, then I guess they they’re just not capable of understanding the avalanche of obvious deceit they’re bombarded with each and every day. It seems they’re just going to keep it up also, almost as if they’re getting a head start to make sure Trump gets a second term. I don’t know, you can’t fix stupid. Oh, well. ---
**Author:** ![BeepKillBeep](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9e8a1a/32.png) [@BeepKillBeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeepKillBeep)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2016, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/35 "2016-11-22T20:31:38Z")
Interestingly this was posted today on WSJ. We really have to start teaching critical thinking skills. > **[Most Students Don’t Know When News Is Fake, Stanford Study Finds](https://www.wsj.com/articles/most-students-dont-know-when-news-is-fake-stanford-study-finds-1479752576?reflink=e2twsc)** > > A study of middle-school to college-age students found most absorb social media news without considering the source. How parents can teach research skills and skepticism. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2016, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/36 "2016-11-26T10:02:45Z")
IMHO, the solution will simply be to treat fake news or the dissemination of fake news as akin to libel or slander. Impose severe criminal/civil penalties on it. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2016, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/37 "2016-11-26T11:09:25Z")
As I mentioned in the other thread, I think it would be a useful feature if google + facebook highlighted dubious or disputed facts. This is something easier to ascertain than whether a fact is true or false. Of course it is only helpful for those of us who actually care about whether stories are true. People who can’t think critically - and don’t want to learn - would just disable such a feature. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2016, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/38 "2016-11-26T11:33:41Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > IMHO, the solution will simply be to treat fake news or the dissemination of fake news as akin to libel or slander. Impose severe criminal/civil penalties on it. [As I mentioned in this thread on a similar subject](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=19804858&postcount=64), that approach could have rather far-reaching consequences. Having said that, I agree that blatantly untrue news - as in, outright lies etc not fairly being reported in good faith - probably should be subject to some sort of penalties, but how you’d actually go about implementing that would probably end up proving to be more trouble than it’s worth. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2016, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/39 "2016-11-26T16:17:09Z")
> [@Malden\_Capell](#): > > A free press is a great thing, but a free press where the truth has no value next to outright lies is no free press at all. This is sounding like the liberal argument for market regulation. That is, an actual free market quickly leads to a self defeating condition where competition is removed. The government must restore competition, recreating a so called free market that isn’t really free anymore but preserving the part that actually matters. Here, a free press leads to a self defeating condition where truth is removed, so maybe the government needs to clamp down on certain speech to increase truth value. Some people think the free press itself has more value than truth. Also there are reasons to think the two aren’t analogues, since a regulated economy can be used to increase wealth which can be useful for the government, whereas a free press seems more likely to harm government interests. It’s not a bad argument, though. A better, more practical solution might be to fight fire with fire. > [@puddleglum](#): > > People like comforting news. Because of this they are susceptible to fake news stories that reinforce their bias. The good news is that it does not create their biases in the first place. Obviously fake stories don’t convince people they just comfort the already convinced. > They are a symptom of the problem and not the problem itself. This is wishful thinking. Propaganda, advertising, and public relations actually work. People don’t believe in CTs or ideologies before being exposed to them. And the news is often not comforting at all. The best ones create anger and fear, which causes people to act. Fox News helps spread conservatism. Positive portrayal of homosexual characters in media helped make people more comfortable with gay rights. The American people didn’t wake up one day knowing that Iraq had a secret nuke program that had to be stopped right away, damn the UN inspectors. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [November 26, 2016, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634/40 "2016-11-26T17:12:16Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > This is wishful thinking. Propaganda, advertising, and public relations actually work. People don’t believe in CTs or ideologies before being exposed to them. And the news is often not comforting at all. The best ones create anger and fear, which causes people to act. Fox News helps spread conservatism. Positive portrayal of homosexual characters in media helped make people more comfortable with gay rights. The American people didn’t wake up one day knowing that Iraq had a secret nuke program that had to be stopped right away, damn the UN inspectors. They work for a small amount of people who want them to work. Hillary spent many [multiples](http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-slated-spend-53-times-donald-trump/story?id=42230361)of what Trump did on advertising and PR in swing states and still lost. Ford spent millions trying to get people to buy the Edsel but it didn’t work. Communist Cuba fills all the media with nothing but propaganda, but people are still risking their lives to leave. The truth is out there if people want to find it, however most people would rather live in their comfortable bubble. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-we-do-to-fight-fake-news/772634.md?page=3)