Post by robeiae on Nov 29, 2016 9:02:40 GMT -5
I'm guessing a lot of people saw the piece at WaPo detailing how Russia was supposedly manipulating the election with fake news: www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russian-propaganda-effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40-4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html
It was heavily promoted and shared. I read it, thought "well, this doesn't seem good," though I was kind of unmoved in the end, as I thought it was non-specific.
Enter Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone, of all people and places: The 'Washington Post' 'Blacklist' Story Is Shameful and Disgusting
From it:
And:
As Taibbi notes, there's no evidence on display by this phantom org, PropOrNot. As Taibbi notes, the "experts" who are members of this org are not identified anywhere. As Taibbi notes, the twitter responses from PropOrNot read a lot more like those of an obnoxious teenager than of a serious think tank of professionals. A lot more.
In short, PropOrNot is a shit source for information and WaPo's editors should have probably picked up that. Really, I think PropOrNot should be on it's own list, because everything about it screams "bogus" to me.
Which, in keeping with the current conspiracy theories, begs the question: is it a "false flag" operation, itself? I mean, it's actually been taken seriously by a real news site--WaPo--which has led to other real news sites picking up WaPo's story and thus legitimizing PropOrNot.
But because what PropOrNot is selling fit what a WaPo writer was looking to buy, it was accepted with minimal investigation. And that's how fake news is actually spread, not because of Russian operatives, but because of simple laziness...
It was heavily promoted and shared. I read it, thought "well, this doesn't seem good," though I was kind of unmoved in the end, as I thought it was non-specific.
Enter Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone, of all people and places: The 'Washington Post' 'Blacklist' Story Is Shameful and Disgusting
From it:
The thrust of Timberg's astonishingly lazy report is that a Russian intelligence operation of some kind was behind the publication of a "hurricane" of false news reports during the election season, in particular stories harmful to Hillary Clinton. The piece referenced those 200 websites as "routine peddlers of Russian propaganda."
The meat of the story relied on a report by unnamed analysts from a single mysterious "organization" called PropOrNot – we don't know if it's one person or, as it claims, over 30 – a "group" that seems to have been in existence for just a few months.
It was PropOrNot's report that identified what it calls "the list" of 200 offending sites. Outlets as diverse as AntiWar.com, LewRockwell.com and the Ron Paul Institute were described as either knowingly directed by Russian intelligence, or "useful idiots" who unwittingly did the bidding of foreign masters.
It was PropOrNot's report that identified what it calls "the list" of 200 offending sites. Outlets as diverse as AntiWar.com, LewRockwell.com and the Ron Paul Institute were described as either knowingly directed by Russian intelligence, or "useful idiots" who unwittingly did the bidding of foreign masters.
As Taibbi notes, there's no evidence on display by this phantom org, PropOrNot. As Taibbi notes, the "experts" who are members of this org are not identified anywhere. As Taibbi notes, the twitter responses from PropOrNot read a lot more like those of an obnoxious teenager than of a serious think tank of professionals. A lot more.
In short, PropOrNot is a shit source for information and WaPo's editors should have probably picked up that. Really, I think PropOrNot should be on it's own list, because everything about it screams "bogus" to me.
Which, in keeping with the current conspiracy theories, begs the question: is it a "false flag" operation, itself? I mean, it's actually been taken seriously by a real news site--WaPo--which has led to other real news sites picking up WaPo's story and thus legitimizing PropOrNot.
But because what PropOrNot is selling fit what a WaPo writer was looking to buy, it was accepted with minimal investigation. And that's how fake news is actually spread, not because of Russian operatives, but because of simple laziness...
