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Post by robeiae on Dec 15, 2016 9:47:46 GMT -5
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Post by Vince524 on Dec 15, 2016 13:31:38 GMT -5
My God, we can't even trust Santa anymore.
Damn those Russian hackers.
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Post by celawson on Dec 16, 2016 9:47:23 GMT -5
I haven't read your link yet, but the report I read yesterday didn't disprove the story, it just couldn't prove it. And Santa is protecting the boy's identity. So I'm going to be the opposite of cynical and believe it. Hey, it's sort of like the existence of Santa himself!
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Post by robeiae on Dec 16, 2016 10:00:55 GMT -5
Well, I guess my issue is with the attention seeking, to begin with. Obviously this Santa was telling this story--wherein he's the hero--and was more than happy to get the recognition. It seems to me that he could have told just the first report the actual details "off the record" so the reporter could confirm it without revealing the details. I'm sticking with the cynical.
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Post by Optimus on Dec 16, 2016 12:37:05 GMT -5
I'm glad I'm not the only one who was a bit skeptical of the story. I live down here, so it was all over my FB newsfeed (I think people are still looking for some happy/hopeful stories after the fires). I watched a vid with the Santa telling the story. He was very tearful while telling it, but some of the details seemed a little too-mawkish-too-be-true. I'm not sure what to think, now. On a lighter note, China just seized an unmanned US Navy vessel.  |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 16, 2016 12:49:09 GMT -5
On a lighter note, China just seized an unmanned US Navy vessel. Gaah! Are you starting a thread on it? If not, I will. |
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Post by Optimus on Dec 16, 2016 13:48:38 GMT -5
So, I posted this on FB and (of course) one of my good friends knows that Santa's family. He doesn't actually know the Santa, only met him once, and he only "knows" them because he says he knows Santa's son-in-law. I trust my friend, but I think he's a being a bit too emotionally invested in this, understandably wanting to believe that these are good, decent, honest folks. He showed me this link from a local Knoxville news station claiming that they'd verified the facts: www.wbir.com/news/local/santa-story-of-final-christmas-wish/370486645But, given that several large news organizations (e.g., CNN, AP) have also tried to verify this story and said, "we couldn't verify this story and this is what we did and who we contacted," and one local news station is saying, "we did verify this story but we can't tell you how or what we did but hey the guy's wife says it's true," then pardon me if I'm still a bit skeptical. There's also this take on the story from Gizmodo: And this follow up from CBC news: |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2016 9:50:18 GMT -5
I plunk down my vote on the cynical side.
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Post by Amadan on Dec 17, 2016 11:22:38 GMT -5
Yah - by now, with all the people doubting, if it were real, the principals would have come out and said "Yes, this happened, and here are the names."
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kie
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Post by kie on Dec 17, 2016 21:22:03 GMT -5
Possibly the worst thing about that type of share is that Facebook is designed to deliver and measure what users want to see and share, not necessarily what is true. And the more attention something gets, the higher up in ranking it will be, this the more prominent on news feeds globally. Facebook needs to accept its role as a digital publishing platform and start tailoring its algorithms. The funny part is that 4 students fixed the problem in 36 hours: www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/11/18/fake-news-on-facebook-is-a-real-problem-these-college-students-came-up-with-a-fix/?utm_term=.a81da2f5b8b9The solution is just a simple browser plugin that does scrapes and feed matching, the code is rough and inelegant, but it goes to show that should one of the most powerful social media companies in the world want to, they have the money and talent to resolve the viral\fake news issue. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 17, 2016 21:31:09 GMT -5
Oh my god, those students look ten years old (which clearly means I'm getting old).
Seriously, you'd think if four students could find a fix in 36 hours, Facebook and other sites could implement a still better one quite easily.
I hate the way so many sites measure what they think you want to see. I don't want my news filtered that way.
ETA:
By the way, welcome, Kie! I'm delighted to see you here.
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kie
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Post by kie on Dec 17, 2016 21:41:23 GMT -5
Hi Cass. Happy to be here. Professionally, I have designed and implemented bots that interrogate and disseminate data from rss feeds, I'm more than confident the likes of, twitter, Facebook et al could sort this given the will to do so. It kind of goes against the ideal of the internet being a free and open forum, but combined efforts from such platforms have been brought about to tackle spam and fraud... They don't need to ban or hide the fake news, just apply a trust score and/or suggest alternative sources. Not difficult and certainly not an unethical expectation.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 18, 2016 0:03:48 GMT -5
seems like it would make sense to me. if they don't want to go so far as to label stories "false," they could at least flag them as verified versus not yet verified.
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Post by Optimus on Dec 18, 2016 0:16:43 GMT -5
Possibly the worst thing about that type of share is that Facebook is designed to deliver and measure what users want to see and share, not necessarily what is true. And the more attention something gets, the higher up in ranking it will be, this the more prominent on news feeds globally. Facebook needs to accept its role as a digital publishing platform and start tailoring its algorithms. The funny part is that 4 students fixed the problem in 36 hours: www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/11/18/fake-news-on-facebook-is-a-real-problem-these-college-students-came-up-with-a-fix/?utm_term=.a81da2f5b8b9The solution is just a simple browser plugin that does scrapes and feed matching, the code is rough and inelegant, but it goes to show that should one of the most powerful social media companies in the world want to, they have the money and talent to resolve the viral\fake news issue. The Santa story is quite a bit different from "fake news." The issue with fake news is that the stories are intentionally, demonstrably false and/or misleading. The Santa story, on the other hand, was reported by a legitimate news agency who simply didn't bother to verify the story before rushing to print. But, I agree there is a problem with these types of stories. People tend to share things that either are sickeningly heartwarming or directly support their biases. In both cases, it doesn't seem to matter to people whether or not the stories are true, only that they give the person a warm fuzzy or make them feel superior. And in the "well, it took them long enough" department...Facebook, begrudgingly, did finally unveil a (sort of) attempt to address the fake news issues it's having: www.nytimes.com/2016/12/15/technology/facebook-fake-news.html?_r=0I'll hold my breath for now as to whether or not their as-yet-to-be-released solution will actually be effective. |
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kie
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Post by kie on Dec 18, 2016 5:29:26 GMT -5
I'm not sure they are entirely that different. More symptoms of the same sickness. You see a rising trend in the media for click-bait and share driven items, whether valid or otherwise. As the general public becomes more and more reliant on spoonfed news, the shape of that information, and the validity of it is naturally impacted. Getting a good hit rate and high number of shares, visibility on social platforms is extremely important if you want to compete and stay relevant. Whereas we would expect legitimate outlets to verify what they publish before it hits the net, we see more and more retractions and corrections post reaction instead. The fact that we now need to have our media literacy supplemented by algorithms is scary, it speaks to the collective intellect of world populous and future generations. At the same time, I hope that having such measures implemented at the point of consumption, that also scrutinize the legitimate sources, will mean a return to ethically reported, quality news.
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