Fake News, Trump, Deny Ignorance and ATS

There is a rapidly emerging trend of fake news in the USA.. Some have even called 2016 the "Post Truth" election.

ATS of all places needs to cling tightly to it's motto of Deny Ignorance if it is going to maintain it's integrity.

The following is just one illustration.

Here is an interview with Paul Horner, "the 38-year-old impresario of a Facebook fake-news empire, has made his living off viral news hoaxes for several years. "

He was responsible for hoax news stories like..

Donald Trump Protester Speaks Out: “I Was Paid $3,500 To Protest...(Craigslist ad)

Which was retweeted as proof Protestors are paid by Donald Trump's son, Corey Lewondowski and Kelly Anne Conway
And also made it's way to ATS in threads and posts
See just one here

Q: You mentioned Trump, and you’ve probably heard the argument, or the concern, that fake news somehow helped him get elected. What do you make of that?

A: My sites were picked up by Trump supporters all the time. I think Trump is in the White House because of me. His followers don’t fact-check anything — they’ll post everything, believe anything. His campaign manager posted my story about a protester getting paid $3,500 as fact. Like, I made that up. I posted a fake ad on Craigslist.

Q: Why? I mean — why would you even write that?

A: Just ’cause his supporters were under the belief that people were getting paid to protest at their rallies, and that’s just insane. I’ve gone to Trump protests — trust me, no one needs to get paid to protest Trump. I just wanted to make fun of that insane belief, but it took off. They actually believed it.

I thought they’d fact-check it, and it’d make them look worse. I mean that’s how this always works: Someone posts something I write, then they find out it’s false, then they look like idiots. But Trump supporters — they just keep running with it! They never fact-check anything! Now he’s in the White House. Looking back, instead of hurting the campaign, I think I helped it. And that feels [bad].

Link to Full Interview

Ironic that he created stories that he thought would be discovered to be fake and embarrass Trump supporters, but they ended up helping Trump...cuz no one fact checked.

He used to be unusual...but now it is becoming big business as people discover click-through and share revenues in an American Political market that no longer cares about facts...

A lot of your fake Donald Trump news is coming from millennials in Veles, Macedonia
theweek.com...

The young men behind sites like WorldPolititcus.com, USConservativeToday.com, DonaldTrumpNews.co, and USADailyPolitics.com earn up to $5,000 a month, or more if their articles go viral in the U.S. on Facebook.

...It is an emerging business. And it is effecting our politics.

Are we really living in a "post-truth" era?

What to do? Double down on "Deny Ignorance" now more than ever? Because more and more lies and fake news are being cited as fact around here.

All I can do is star and flag, this has been getting worse for a while.

So people voted for trump because of lying news outlets?

a reply to: Indigo5

ATS of all places needs to cling tightly to it's motto of Deny Ignorance if it is going to maintain it's integrity.

ATS is USER generated,the website as a whole is not responsible for denying ignorance...the users are.
The site doesn't make these ridiculous threads...the members do.
Blame the members...not the site.
Blaming the site for a bunch of dumb election stuff that members posted is a weak argument.

I am posting as a member and not as a part of the staff.

originally posted by: apydomis
So people voted for trump because of lying news outlets?

"people" is a big word when talking about 61 Million people.

But put it this way...if just 1 out of every 100 Trump voters didn't vote or voted for Hillary...she would have swept the electoral college.

So yes...given the diversity of intelligence in our population, and the way in which these fake stories indisputably motivated people (the very reason Corey L. Kelly Anne C. and Trumps sons tweeted them to followers) and razor thin margin...it is not a reach at all to argue fake news played a significant role in his election.

originally posted by: DrumsRfun
a reply to: Indigo5

ATS of all places needs to cling tightly to it's motto of Deny Ignorance if it is going to maintain it's integrity.

ATS is USER generated,the website as a whole is not responsible for denying ignorance...the users are.
The site doesn't make these ridiculous threads...the members do.
Blame the members...not the site.
Blaming the site for a bunch of dumb election stuff that members posted is a weak argument.

I am posting as a member and not as a part of the staff.

If there were no users, there'd be no site.

originally posted by: DrumsRfun
a reply to: Indigo5

ATS of all places needs to cling tightly to it's motto of Deny Ignorance if it is going to maintain it's integrity.

ATS is USER generated,the website as a whole is not responsible for denying ignorance...the users are.
The site doesn't make these ridiculous threads...the members do.

Curious as to what the purpose of the HOAX bin is then? Also the Motto Deny ignorance?

Are you contending is not the Moderators obligation to preserve the sites integrity or motto?

And I am not absolving members from blame, nor absolving Moderators from their responsibilities to preserve ATS's integrity.

FB, Google and other sites are searching for ways to avoid promoting fake news as real...That would seem a foundational ask...Opinions and facts both equally welcome....but constructed fake news posing as real (aka full on propaganda) should be moderated.

We must still use our intuition and instincts and yes it has been going for some time now.

When they say "info war" that doesn't necessarily mean that the war is being fought with the truth.

a reply to: Indigo5

No. That is not our job.

There is a thread in the RATS forum in which admin describes what our jobs as staff on here is, and no where will you find a listing that says we as staff are responsible for finding out if something is fake or not.

ATS is user content driven. This means that the content here at ATS is brought to us by it's members. Members are responsible for their posts. That's in the Terms and Conditions that each and everyone one of us agreed to when we registered here at ATS.

If members are able to show that something is a completely hoax or lie, staff can take action about that. What action we take will depend upon a multitude of things, and what ever the result of our discussion back here behind the curtain is.

However, it is NOT our job to hunt down news stories posted on here and determine if they are fake or not. Our jobs are to respond to member complaints and to facilitate discussion.

I suggest that you go find the thread in the RATS forum and give it a good read if you have not already.

Lewandowski is less concerning than this:



The new National Security Advisor is either unable to identify fake news when he sees it or worse, he knows what it is and spreads disinformation anyway.

Point this out? 3x as many people support the reactionary denialism. We've got a new administration filled with people, including the President-elect ("that's what I heard"), who are and have been encouraging people to believe disinformation.

a reply to: eriktheawful

Will do and noted...albeit I would hope for a more pro-active standard for Moderators when they spot a fake news story than to watch it rise with flags and be promoted until an alert is sent.

Consider this a call to members then.

a reply to: Indigo5

Indigo5,

It is every members duty to monitor and fact check their own responses to threads, their own threads opening posts, and to report discrepancies to the moderators, should any content which is fallacious or factually questionable come to light. The moderators physically cannot scan every thread themselves, then do hours of careful research to find the source of, and reality attendant to, all the myriad threads which appear here on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.

Simply put, the staff and moderators would have to number almost half the people on the site, in order to have a hope of keeping up, and because the truth is harder to find, lies easier to assemble, it would still be a losing battle.

For that reason alone, it is our responsibility to ensure the efficacy of and truthfulness resultant from our process, and the contributions of other members. We, the membership of this site, are the only group active on it with the manpower resources to even HOPE to fact check the content posted here. There is simply too much data for the staff and moderators to do it alone.

And of course, the ability to look oneself in the eye, when looking at the mirror, ought also to be a factor. Those who post deceit ought to find it harder than those who do not.

a reply to: Indigo5

47 of us. 300,000 plus of you.

Who do you think is going to spot fake news more quickly?

We do respond to complaints that members send us over news they think is a hoax or a lie. Sometimes it is easy for us to figure out, sometimes it's not quite so clear. Sometimes many of us are online and we can discuss and take care of it quickly. Other times we are living our lives (as modding ATS is something we do for free in our spare time only) and it may take a while to get to.

Too many of you seem to think that we staff read every single thing that is posted here on ATS, and this is our day jobs.

More times that not, ATS members sill suss out if something is fake, a hoax or an out right lie way more quickly than we can. Even so, we have to be careful about what we put in the HOAX bin or LOL forum. Many times we've had members complain something is a hoax, just because they didn't like what they saw posted, so we have to also be aware of that.

If something turns out to be not true, we'll get to it. If it stays on the boards for a while before we can do something about it, it's not going to be the end of the world. It's just pixels on a screen. If members bother to read through a thread, they'll see that it was determined to be true or not.

ATS does a pretty good job of tossing rubbish into the hoax or LOL area when things are found out to be fake. They do their part.
I think skepticism should be the default reaction towards things posted here. its a conspiracy theory site, and what you do with a theory (hypothesis) is research it and see if it has legs, not just take anything at face value because it conforms to your prejudices and assumptions. Might as well be just youtube comments if that's the case.

Wait, wait, have we actually gotten to the point where the "Trump"-side is getting called out for fake news? Pot calling the kettle black much?

I think the biggest irony of the sentiment that fake news "won Trump the election" is that if people really understood what and who they were voting for (full transparancy on both sides), Hillary wouldn't even be running, she'dd litterealy be thrown in jail.

I understand the dissatisfaction with Trump as your soon-to-be President, he's far from ideal. But if by now, you still don't understand the implications of this election, I truly suggest all Hillary supporters move to California as it secedes from the US. You can then live on your live with a cencored internet and biased media, ever increasing social and economical equality (as Hillary and her cronies siphon more and more money from the middle and low class) and a severely hindered prospect of social, technological, medical and scientific advances due to surpession from the ones you want to have in power.

Live a good life. For the rest of the world, the 99%, we prefer to move forward in humanities evolution away from corruption, pyramid based social and economical structures.

Atleast we can still meet eachother over the internet. That is for as long as HIllary and her cabal allow the plebs to have access to that internet, because it seems that's not what she'dd prefer if she had her way...

Presumably fake news refers to CNN, ABC, MSNBC etc. etc.

a reply to: eriktheawful

Perhaps my OP Erroneously read as my placing responsibility solely on Mods?

When I stated "ATS of all places needs to cling tightly to it's motto of Deny Ignorance if it is going to maintain it's integrity. "

I meant "ATS" as a community...but yes I meant both members and Mods..."ATS" as a place..

I am not disagreeing that it is principally members responsibility to Deny Ignorance, but do hope they can do so with unwavering support of the Moderators.

originally posted by: Ohanka
Presumably fake news refers to CNN, ABC, MSNBC etc. etc.

The precise false equivalence that feeds the popularity of Fake News.

This thread is just more proof of butthurt liberals upset about conservatives being allowed to have a different point of view. We heard over and over how Hillary was a shoe-in for the election by all liberal media outlets. Some saying Hillary's chance of winning was 90+%.

So I have to ask, if/when the liberal media is finally able to lobby legislation to stifle all conservatives constitutional rights. Will you guys finally be happy that we're no longer allowed to have a voice in America?

We heard over and over how Hillary was a shoe-in for the election by all liberal media outlets.

Fox News?
Hillary 70% chance of winning
Nate Silver?
Hillary 70% Chance of winning

insider.foxnews.com...

fivethirtyeight.com...

That was a failing of polling...The death of local papers that take the pulse of rural America + death of land-lines as reliable for polling.

Even Trump's campaign's internal Polls showed similar numbers.

It is false to infer that was "Liberal Media"..

It is false to infer that was "fake" vs. polling failure..

And it is false to equate a statistical failure to predict outcome with constructed FAKE News.