Are Facebook and google too powerful?

[Quantum]

And yet it's easy enough to insert fake news without even a hack and did it swing the election to trump? Maybe even a little?

Facebook fake news row: Mark Zuckerberg is a politician now
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-...

And all it takes is 4 university students and 36 hours to creat a prototype to identify fake news.

Students 'solve' Facebook's fake news problem in 36 hours
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article...

[Nik]

It's more than that. Both Face and Google announced they'd cope with fake news..
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/15/tec...

There is freedom of speech on one side of the scales and monstrous influence of both internet giants on masses on the other..

[J.J.]

I don't know if you can blame facebook and google unless they specifically pass off those stories as real. Bottom line is you just have some stupid people out there. After all, there are those that take stories from the Onion as real. Duffelblog is a similar parody news site specifically targeted to the military, and it never fails that someone comments on the articles thinking the stories are real - funnier still when a commentor is outraged over the fake issue reported on.

[Graeme]

Does anyone seriously think that "fake news" was decisive in the recent US elections?

[Graeme]

The first casualty of war politics is the truth.

[Marie Silk]

I love the Onion. I about died laughing when they put out the expose on the marine animals at Sea World putting on a burlesque show.

[Jen Pattison]

Marie wrote: "I love the Onion. I about died laughing when they put out the expose on the marine animals at Sea World putting on a burlesque show."

Me too! :)

I have to say that the mainstream sources are being rather pompous about fake news - it's not as if they've never run a story without checking it properly. I've heard that the number of journalists has been cut dramatically in recent years - they rely mainly on press releases and social media from the comfort of their desks.

[Tara Woods Turner]

I think people seek out and give credit to the news they already want to believe. It's up to us to seek out reputable an balanced news sources.

[Graeme]

Tara wrote: "I think people seek out and give credit to the news they already want to believe. It's up to us to seek out reputable an balanced news sources."

Aka Confirmation Bias

Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirm...

Hi Tara, "Reputable and balanced" is potentially another trap - how would you define it?