How best to combat fake news?

[Yukaphile]

+Riedquat Criticism is one thing. Calling a whole generation of rape victims "perpetrators of crimes against humanity" is another - while conveniently refusing to apply said label to their attackers. Among which included children, many of them. How are they "criminals?" Unless you subscribe to collective guilt, which hey, I don't.

[Worffan101]

That being said--does anybody have any thoughts on how to fight the proliferation of conspiracy theories, Islamophobia, victim-blaming, and other bigoted nonsense?

It isn't necessarily bigoted nonsense, and claiming so is the sort of pigeonholed thinking that causes a lot of the issues in the first place. Sometimes there is a conspiracy, sometimes the victim was a victim of their own actions (had a bit of that not long ago where people were defending a couple of others who were killed on railway tracks that they'd were on to vandalise).

To get around this it needs to go back to schools. At the time I thought the history I was doing was largely tedious stuff (mostly Cold War). A lot of it consisted of being given a pile of newspaper reports, newsreel footage, radio transcripts etc. from different sources and being told to work out what was going on from them, and why you used some more than others for different parts of the picture, having to consider the reliability. That's what we need, not "you should think this..." even where the message is seemingly positive.

Who's going to bother to do that when they can go out and get fake news that's simple and stupid and easy to understand piped into their brain? If I'm on the right I can much more easily go to Fox News and get told that the illegals are invading and only Twitler can save us, hail Trump, hail Fatherland, piped directly into my brain with a simple, racist message and some fake pseudo-intellectual bullshit that sounds smart to back it up. Or if I'm on the left, HuffPo is more than willing to pipe me all the outrage over Trump fucking Playboy models behind his wife's back, as if that shithead being a sleaze were at all surprising, with exactly the same pseudointellectual fake-smart nonsense to reassure me that I'm picking the right "news" source.

Seriously, the only good news sources anymore are Jacobin and NPR, and Jacobin has the msot toxic, self-sabotaging editorial department I've ever seen.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

That being said--does anybody have any thoughts on how to fight the proliferation of conspiracy theories, Islamophobia, victim-blaming, and other bigoted nonsense?

It isn't necessarily bigoted nonsense, and claiming so is the sort of pigeonholed thinking that causes a lot of the issues in the first place. Sometimes there is a conspiracy, sometimes the victim was a victim of their own actions (had a bit of that not long ago where people were defending a couple of others who were killed on railway tracks that they'd were on to vandalise).

To get around this it needs to go back to schools. At the time I thought the history I was doing was largely tedious stuff (mostly Cold War). A lot of it consisted of being given a pile of newspaper reports, newsreel footage, radio transcripts etc. from different sources and being told to work out what was going on from them, and why you used some more than others for different parts of the picture, having to consider the reliability. That's what we need, not "you should think this..." even where the message is seemingly positive.

Who's going to bother to do that when they can go out and get fake news that's simple and stupid and easy to understand piped into their brain? If I'm on the right I can much more easily go to Fox News and get told that the illegals are invading and only Twitler can save us, hail Trump, hail Fatherland, piped directly into my brain with a simple, racist message and some fake pseudo-intellectual bullshit that sounds smart to back it up. Or if I'm on the left, HuffPo is more than willing to pipe me all the outrage over Trump fucking Playboy models behind his wife's back, as if that shithead being a sleaze were at all surprising, with exactly the same pseudointellectual fake-smart nonsense to reassure me that I'm picking the right "news" source.

Seriously, the only good news sources anymore are Jacobin and NPR, and Jacobin has the msot toxic, self-sabotaging editorial department I've ever seen.

Yup. These are a small handful of the institutional beacons that circulate sociopolitical digest in the country. You're speaking on a ground level of individual exposure to news media, which is an issue, but worrying about articles and news feeds is kind of limited in perspective.

[Admiral X]

Might be interesting if someone tried to bring back the fairness doctrine.

[Yukaphile]

I agree. Btw, the only other Libertarian I know supports Reagan, who was the one to repeal that.

[Admiral X]

A lot of conservative-leaning libertarians worship Reagan because of the stuff he said in support of limiting government, and I suppose the idea that he brought about the end of the Cold War, but they don't seem to realize what his actual actions are. He talked a good talk, but like most Republicans he never walked the walk.

As for the fairness doctrine or really anything regarding the main topic, the main problem is enforcement. If it's a government entity, that gives it a conflict of interest since theoretically the press is a check against the government. I say theoretically, because honestly anymore the media seems far more interested in shilling for a political ideology and might only come off as a "check" against the government depending on which political party is in power at the time. If it's some third-party watchdog group, could it actually be said to have any authority, and what's to keep it from being corrupted itself?

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

As for the fairness doctrine or really anything regarding the main topic, the main problem is enforcement. If it's a government entity, that gives it a conflict of interest since theoretically the press is a check against the government. I say theoretically, because honestly anymore the media seems far more interested in shilling for a political ideology and might only come off as a "check" against the government depending on which political party is in power at the time. If it's some third-party watchdog group, could it actually be said to have any authority, and what's to keep it from being corrupted itself?

On the other hand, government takes over an industry when there's a conflict of interest within the private sector. Security being one. Utilities being another.

[Riedquat]

+Riedquat Criticism is one thing. Calling a whole generation of rape victims "perpetrators of crimes against humanity" is another - while conveniently refusing to apply said label to their attackers. Among which included children, many of them. How are they "criminals?" Unless you subscribe to collective guilt, which hey, I don't.

Unless I've missed something I was replying to the concept of "victim blaming" in general. I hadn't noticed that it was constrained to only talking about rape victims. You're twisting that to bang you drum.

[Riedquat]

Who's going to bother to do that when they can go out and get fake news that's simple and stupid and easy to understand piped into their brain?

Anyone who's brought up to think a bit more critically, which is why it really needs to be part of schooling.

To be honest I see equally blinkered, prejudiced thinking on both sides of most of these debates. One of them tends to espouse views that usually look more unpleasant than the others but the degree of pigeonholed pre-determined thinking is often the same. Sometimes the people saying what you don't like to hear may have a point, even if it's got rather twisted and exaggerated and mis-used but get rejected because it doesn't fit into a simple "everything must either be good or bad" box.

[Yukaphile]

Well, it's hard when people tend to treat the victim as a monster and just shrug off the attacker with flimsy justifications like "he/they was/were traumatized."

I have seen this attitude more than once. That's why it infuriates me so much.