Let's Fight Back Against Fake News (Politifact)
Mother Jones: A Professor Keeps a Running List of Fake News Sites
(Links)
Dan Kennedy, writing for National Public Radio on November 21:
"We must draw a distinction between fake news and false news. Let's define fake news as content produced by sites whose sole purpose is to game Facebook’s (and Google’s) algorithms for profit, and is thus a worthy target of eradication efforts. False news, by contrast, is political speech, and the way we deal with falsehoods in this country is to fight it out publicly and in the legal system, trusting that the truth will ultimately win out.
Cracking down on fake news is something that should be supported by virtually everyone. But cracking down on false news is only going to lead to the relitigation of ancient disputes over media bias, with the sources of such falsehoods claiming—falsely, of course—that they are no less trustworthy than the mainstream media. The danger in labeling all false news as “fake,” writes John Herrman in the New York Times, is that it “misunderstands a new media world in which every story, and source, is at risk of being discredited, not by argument but by sheer force.... ‘Fake news’ as shorthand will almost surely be returned upon the media tenfold.” "
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