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Fake News

I don’t know the extent of fake news in America; but my country recently passed a law that suppresses any and all opinions that are not in line with the official propaganda (and that’s exactly what “fake news” is, at least here), effectively (and privily) abolishing freedom of speech.

As a result, there’s currently somewhat of a witch-hunt going on: Unions (among others) openly demand that their members report other members with differing opinions - so they can be reported to their employers and fired. For their opinions. It’s literally insane. I would have never thought that we could ever sink so low, but alas, here we are.

I’m on neither side of this (... for obvious reasons. Hardly anyone dares to speak openly anymore.), but I don’t think muzzling your opposition like this and feeding people lies will work in the long term - like a beach ball pushed under water with force, this is going to rebound, HARD.
 
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The reason there is so much, as you say, "fake news" is because they want views and ratings, and their bias is a big determining factor as well. I don't think it's going to end anytime soon, that's why I veer away from news and stuff, not only is a good portion of the news tilted to reflect their bias but it's just so freaking depressing. I don't need more depressing stuff in my life, I generate it enough as is.
 
My school had a whole lesson about doing your own research, fact-checking, not 100% trusting the News Stations, etc.
It was nice, but it gave off the vibe that we shouldn't even watch news on television.
 
I heard a CLASSIC!

You will love this!

I heard (hehe) that you Americans elected DONALD TRUMP for President! LOL

:D
 
I heard a CLASSIC!

You will love this!

I heard (hehe) that you Americans elected DONALD TRUMP for President! LOL

:D

Oh my sweet summer child let me tell you a tale.
It was late 2016.
We, as the people, voted for Donald Trump.
You heard the truth. lol
:D
 
Oh my sweet summer child let me tell you a tale.
It was late 2016.
We, as the people, voted for Donald Trump.
You heard the truth. lol
:D

I didn't vote for Donald Trump, all the people older than me/who can vote did. I feel like the children who is bound to vote next term or the term after that would learn from the mistake of our ancestor and actually think about who they are voting for. Or not, since history repeats. That be saying, I'm sort of glad that the ignorance of our current president can bring awareness to political bias/false information in news outlets across the states. I just wished there was a more...what's the word i'm looking for...subtle way to bring this awareness instead of our president making an ass of himself on the internet.
 
it’s great how people actually believe it too like lol when your actual government is sitting on a throne of lies you’d think people wouldn’t take everything as 100% true without questioning it but idk.

and it’s like the people spreading these lies don’t care about correcting anything after they’ve been called out??? and people keep using the fake news as sources to back up their arguments like wtf it’s Wild
 
Clickbait headlines don't equal fake news. The articles have all the information and it's your responsibility to understand them to get the whole picture. They have an agenda, but the worst thing they do is speculate when no information has been released. It's not fake just because you don't like it. Maybe read up on Hitler's "L?genpresse (lying press)" remarks as well.
 
I think you have a very maligned understanding of what fake news is. What you listed are, as mentioned by tumut, mainstreams news sources, not fake news sites. The thing about those sources you mentioned is that they're not 100% objective-they all present their own version on issues. That is ultimately a large reason why the 2016 was so divisive.
But, if you want examples of fake news sites, they're sites that are made much in the same way blogs are made, with sites such as WordPress, that appear to look like legitimate news sources but actually aren't. Last year, when I was still living in Mississippi, I was taking AP Lang (I was a junior in high school at the time, I'm currently a senior) and my teacher pointed out that a fake news site known as the "Denver Guardian" published a popular yet untrue story about Hillary Clinton just three days before the election in November 2016 in which it claimed that a FBI agent that was investigating her emails (due to the ongoing controversy) had been found dead in a murder-suicide. It was heavily shared on Facebook, which statistics also revealed in late 2016 had become a news source for 44% of Americans. Hearing about this really bothered me as Facebook should not be used as a news source.
What got fake news to become such a big problem during the election was that by the end of 2015, Russian trolls had become very sympathetic of Donald Trump. While not all fake news sites have been traced to Russian trolls, they've made a substantive amount of them. I really began noticing it when my mom, a very conservative woman, would read many articles on WordPress-made sites that said many negative things about Barack Obama, particularly about the death of Antonin Scalia (I believe she read one where it claimed that there was evidence that Obama had planned to get Scalia assassinated) and only said positive things about Trump. However, it was after the election happened that fake news became very noticeable, as one site, known as 70news, falsely stated that Trump won the popular vote. Pretty much all fake news sites would say favorable things about Trump and unfavorable things about Clinton, but I never believed one (yes, I have clicked on them before through Google searches) as many of them were absurd-one claiming that Hillary Clinton once had a relationship with Yoko Ono. First of all, who even cares about that, and second of all, how would they even know each other? It also looked too poorly made to actually be a legitimate news source.
The problem with what Trump has been saying ever since he entered office about a year ago is that he pretty much writes off many actually legitimate news sources as fake news just because they're liberal-leaning and thus obviously don't have favorable coverage of him. Looking at this, it's no wonder he got elected president. It doesn't make me happy that he's president, and I think he's one of the worst we've ever had (certainly the most unproductive and divisive), but when you look at all of this that was happening going into the 2016 election, it's no wonder this happened.
 
Oh my sweet summer child let me tell you a tale.
It was late 2016.
We, as the people, voted for Donald Trump.
You heard the truth. lol
:D

That's ok.

We here in Australia (NOT ME THOUGH!!!!!!), once elected Tony Abbott as PM. :-/
 
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I heard a CLASSIC!

You will love this!

I heard (hehe) that you Americans elected DONALD TRUMP for President! LOL

:D

Oh no, don't involve all Americans in this lol, most of us are face-palming with every mention of his name. He's an embarrassment.
 
Oh no, don't involve all Americans in this lol, most of us are face-palming with every mention of his name. He's an embarrassment.

Half of your country is. It's a shame the popular vote didn't make a difference and has literally no purpose other than "you wanted this one but you got this one because you are lousy decision makers".
 
I don?t know the extent of fake news in America; but my country recently passed a law that suppresses any and all opinions that are not in line with the official propaganda (and that?s exactly what ?fake news? is, at least here), effectively (and privily) abolishing freedom of speech.

As a result, there?s currently somewhat of a witch-hunt going on: Unions (among others) openly demand that their members report other members with differing opinions - so they can be reported to their employers and fired. For their opinions. It?s literally insane. I would have never thought that we could ever sink so low, but alas, here we are.

I?m on neither side of this (... for obvious reasons. Hardly anyone dares to speak openly anymore.), but I don?t think muzzling your opposition like this and feeding people lies will work in the long term - like a beach ball pushed under water with force, this is going to rebound, HARD.
what contry is this, I'm wondering. Sounds like North korea ( but FoS was prob gonna for a long time tho.. )
 
Fake news is just used as an insult against anyone who has a difference in opinion.
 
Next they'll be telling us that man has landed on the MOON! O_O

LOL
 
Nope, never happen. They're too busy fixing the ****s at the edge of the world, so all the water doesn't spill off. *nods*

They can't land a man on the moon.
Man still hasn't found a way to compress those 500mg panadol headache horse-size pills, into the size of a tic tac! o_O
 
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