Post-truth - Word of the Year, 2016.
Defined by the dictionary as an adjective “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.
‘Post-truth’ named word of the year by Oxford Dictionaries | Books | The Guardian
13% of the worlds population enjoys a Free press. Of that, there is bias, fake news, yellow journalism, and propaganda. Freedom of the Press 2017 | Freedom House
“Global press freedom declined to its lowest point in 13 years in 2016 amid unprecedented threats to journalists and media outlets in major democracies and new moves by authoritarian states to control the media, including beyond their borders.”
Important to remember: A different point of view is worth 80 IQ points.
We are much more homogeneous than we think, and tend to engage most with information that flatters our ideological preconceptions.
Theories suggest that human language evolved from, essentially, gossiping. There are strong arguments for and against this theory. However, looking at the two most prominent theories can provide new theories on the danger of fake news; the other theory is that language evolved from warnings and signals to ensure the survival of our species. Picture a monkey using a warning noise to scare off another monkey in order to steal their food (real-life example of ‘crying wolf’) - and this happens, even with humans. Coalescing the theories of language development, the detrimental effects of fake news can be derived from the same detrimental effects as ‘crying wolf’. Mistrust for starters, and failure to act accordingly in the real event for dessert.
http://web.mit.edu/marshall/www/papers/CyberBalkans.pdf
Information, when shared, inputs and outputs onto itself and in this way can be further developed. This is how progress through innovation and creativity happens. All innovation and creativity is a derivative work, built on the work of others. There is no such thing as a brand new idea.
“If I have seen further it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants” — Newton.
“The crux of creativity is variation on a theme" - Hofstadter. http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2006/12/economic-quirkiness-of-information.html
“Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it” - Jonathan Swift.
In the era of (arguably) all-time high media manipulation, there is high demand for reliable news sources, credible journalists, and wealthy discussion. It is time for truth to outpace deception.
Given the fact that glancing at news can influence the mind in unforeseen ways, it is disturbing to find that most students can’t distinguish between real and fake news. Most Students Don’t Know When News Is Fake, Stanford Study Finds - WSJ
Misinformation, wherever it comes from, can become a lie packaged and delivered as the truth. FROM THE EDITORS; The Times and Iraq - The New York Times Ill-equiped journalists and gullible people can be taken advantage of. Politics can be controlled by press; this is evident; this is happening now.
While referencing is limited, the following blog post by one of my heroes, Aaron Swartz, elucidates problems that exist in news media, and how corporations pay and be paid to promote what is clearly discriminatory propaganda based on lies and spread using lies. This blog post is part of a series which I strongly recommend reading. Endorsing Racism: The Story of The Bell Curve (Aaron Swartz’s Raw Thought)
Multiple principal problem - Wikipedia The previous sections can be summarised by the multiple principal problem. This states that agents (news media in this case) can act in their own self interest, often at the cost of the interest of the principals (we, the public of which they are responsible for). This is especially true for John Lott’s book; More guns, less crime. As well as Jason Richwine’s report for The Heritage Foundation (which was published) asserting that blacks and hispanics inherently had lower IQ. The Fiscal Cost of Unlawful Immigrants and Amnesty to the U.S. Taxpayer | The Heritage Foundation Furthermore, as shall be discussed later, this extends to pertinent present day matters that effects the inhabitants of the earth - we, the principals, are at risk of extinction from agents that are funding disinformation about climate change.
Journalistic Balance as Global Warming Bias
Balance aims for neutrality. It requires that reporters present the views of legitimate spokespersons of the conflicting sides in any significant dispute, and provide both sides with roughly equal attention.
— Robert Entman, media scholar.
From the late 80’s to early 00’s, a study found that press-coverage on global warming became more informationally biased as ‘prestige press’ adhered to this idea of balance. Balance as bias: global warming and the US prestige press - ScienceDirect As has recently become blatantly apparent, news can be influenced by money; reporters who adhere to faulty theory of press-balance would be self-encouraged to use such sources in order to meet the inadequate criteria of ‘balanced news’, or more accurately, erroneous redefinition of unbiased news.
The professional canon of journalistic fairness requires reporters who write about a controversy to present competing points of view. When the issue is of a political or social nature, fairness—presenting the most compelling arguments of both sides with equal weight—is a fundamental check on biased reporting. But this canon causes problems when it is applied to issues of science. It seems to demand that journalists present competing points of view on a scientific question as though they had equal scientific weight, when actually they do not.
— Ross Gelbspan.
[Arguably, this could and perhaps should go into the Intentions section.]
Traditional Rationality emphasizes falsification—the ability to relinquish an initial opinion when confronted by clear evidence against it. But once an idea gets into your head, it will probably require way too much evidence to get it out again. Worse, we don’t always have the luxury of overwhelming evidence.
I suspect that a more powerful (and more difficult) method is to hold off on thinking of an answer. To suspend, draw out, that tiny moment when we can’t yet guess what our answer will be; thus giving our intelligence a longer time in which to act.
Hold Off On Proposing Solutions - LessWrong 2.0
Our attention is becoming a digital currency, and our time is seemingly becoming increasingly more valuable - most likely because you perceive it to be, and not because of any natural, inherent value. Nevertheless, I advocate more time be spent considering important matters discussed in the news, and avoid reading flash-headlines designed to instil ideas and opinions in your mind (first impressions matter) without much evidence or deliberation. First impressions are lasting impressions: A primacy effect in memory for repetitions | SpringerLink
It can prove difficult to change a persons mind once they have formed an opinion. Headlines of news sites are culprits to misinformation programming, and subsequently forming peoples opinions for them. ~Feature-Note~: Score article headlines as well to discourage this type of behaviour.
On a theoretical level, we argue that these effects arise not only because headlines constrain further information processing, biasing readers towards a specific interpretation, but also because readers struggle to update their memory in order to correct initial misconceptions. Practical implications for news consumers and media literacy are discussed.
(PDF) The Effects of Subtle Misinformation in News Headlines Effect of prior domain knowledge and headings on processing of informative text - ScienceDirect
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1529100612451018 Stating that IQ - inferring intelligence - is ingrained in genes, using no evidence or discussion, this report almost seems like the instigator to ridiculous questionnaires that migrants must pass in order to enter the US. Failing the IQ Test | The American Conservative
The overarching goal of this project is to facilitate intelligent, meaningful, and factual discussion about the world and world events. An important note must preface this paper, and I make note of it here for emphasis. Facilitating discussion to arrive at a factual account of news is not to be misconstrued as, to put it bluntly, ramming any subjective interpretation of the truth down the throats of citizens. To more politely elaborate on this point, this site should prevent any control of one group, nor should it act independently. The site should be a community, running solely on the community, with no other inside interjections or influence. While this might seem harmless to some, one must question the accountability behind this algorithm, especially in light of recent events where suicide and self-harm images were shown through advertisements to a suicidal teen. When Algorithms Think You Want to Die | WIRED Believing authoritarian structures can be beneficial to people is quite a powerful and controversial statement already.
With the advent of tactics (naive fixes) by corporations to divulge the truth behind common misbeliefs and fake news and provide evidence as to why, the potential for tragedy becomes clear. YouTube will soon tell you that the world isn’t flat, vaccines work, and other obvious truths Recognising a group of people with a different opinion and trying to inform them of facts that disagree with their beliefs is a good thing, it is just the process by which this is done. For these reasons, this site should consider its users as a supervisory board, and encourage discussion of matters pertaining to itself, as it would those in the media.
One of the biggest goals of this site is to combat political and social polarisation - the divide between peoples by their political and social beliefs. The inception of the internet created an opportunity for a utopia whereby citizens could learn freely, speak freely, and discuss freely. It welcomed new perspectives and ideas as a digital currency, flinging users into notoriety - this of course, coming with its own cost.
The best articles are written by people actually affected by the news. They are the ones best able to answer questions and explain to us why their news is important. They should not have to beg some western man to find their story newsworthy and tell it through a western man filter. News, analysis, action | Heather Marsh
A note to users; the enemy is not the opposition. The enemy is the nature of the opposition, which you (perhaps) find intolerable, imprudent, and dangerous. This nature - principals and values behind which they base their arguments and beliefs - should be the target to which you direct your arguments, and not the people themselves. Furthermore, and in the same sense, your nature should also welcome scrutiny in order to encourage development of new ideas, and to stifle negative ones.
This can be thought of as open source journalism.
Anyone can post an article to the site, anonymously or not.
That article is subject to public praise and/or scrutiny.
An article can be subject to counter-arguments that attempt to provide a different point of view. This facilitates intelligent discussion and other perspectives.
An article will have a variety of scores, assessing different areas of the article that this site deems important for the user to understand clearly.
Profiles document a user’s interaction with the site. Profiles show a user’s score - intended to represent their capability to use the site effectively, and how well a user interacts with the site and other users.
This site aims to suggest articles outside of your preference - the purpose of this being to combat ‘echo chambers’ - to further provide other perspectives.
Truth. Privacy. Respect.