2.8: Volcano Plane (discussion)
- Page ID
- 98475
\( \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \)
\( \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} \)
\( \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\) \( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)
( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\) \( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\)
\( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\) \( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\)
\( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\) \( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\)
\( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\)
\( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)
\( \newcommand{\id}{\mathrm{id}}\)
\( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\)
\( \newcommand{\kernel}{\mathrm{null}\,}\)
\( \newcommand{\range}{\mathrm{range}\,}\)
\( \newcommand{\RealPart}{\mathrm{Re}}\)
\( \newcommand{\ImaginaryPart}{\mathrm{Im}}\)
\( \newcommand{\Argument}{\mathrm{Arg}}\)
\( \newcommand{\norm}[1]{\| #1 \|}\)
\( \newcommand{\inner}[2]{\langle #1, #2 \rangle}\)
\( \newcommand{\Span}{\mathrm{span}}\) \( \newcommand{\AA}{\unicode[.8,0]{x212B}}\)
\( \newcommand{\vectorA}[1]{\vec{#1}} % arrow\)
\( \newcommand{\vectorAt}[1]{\vec{\text{#1}}} % arrow\)
\( \newcommand{\vectorB}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \)
\( \newcommand{\vectorC}[1]{\textbf{#1}} \)
\( \newcommand{\vectorD}[1]{\overrightarrow{#1}} \)
\( \newcommand{\vectorDt}[1]{\overrightarrow{\text{#1}}} \)
\( \newcommand{\vectE}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash{\mathbf {#1}}}} \)
\( \newcommand{\vecs}[1]{\overset { \scriptstyle \rightharpoonup} {\mathbf{#1}} } \)
\( \newcommand{\vecd}[1]{\overset{-\!-\!\rightharpoonup}{\vphantom{a}\smash {#1}}} \)
Here's one possible response:
World News Daily report is a satire site that by its own admission does not publish true stories. It's is also the source or a lot of hateful content. I found this out from Wikipedia — the Wikipedia article cited a large range of sources, from Buzzfeed to the Washington Post.
How do we get there? We start by doing our "just add wikipedia" trick. Let's show the ABC one first:
We search the URL or domain and add our bare keyword wikipedia. Selecting the most relevant search result we find it is a known satire site.
A note about Buzzfeed
One thing you'll notice in the Wikipedia article is that Buzzfeed News is cited as source. Students are often confused by this, since they are most used to Buzzfeed being primarily a source of videos such as "I tried to eat five popular candies from Romania and this is what happened."
That Buzzfeed site isn't good news source for very much. It's not "fake", but it's not very serious. Years ago, however, Buzzfeed spun off a reliable, award winning news publication under the name "Buzzfeed News" (domain: www.buzzfeednews.com). And harkening back to our "contextual authority" discussion earlier, it turns out that Buzzfeed News has two of the top experts in the world on the "fake news" phenomenon. So when you see a link to Buzzfeed News on question about the trustworthiness of a site, it's well worth following.
The Problem of Fauxtire
One problem — larger in the past, but still extant — is the problem of "fauxtire". Experts on disinformation use the term fauxtire to describe sites such as World News Daily Report which claimed to be satire sites (like the Onion) but in practice were not linked to because people thought they were funny but because people were fooled into thinking the stories were real.
This presents an interesting problem — if you run a site that is supposedly a humor site, but in practice it is convincing people of awful things, are you responsible for that? What if you intentionally tweak satirical headlines so they are more likely to deceive people (and hence make you more money from ads)?
Questions for Reflection
- What are your feelings on fauxtire? Is it an ethical practice?
- Should companies like Facebook and Twitter downrank articles if they are being spread based on the impression they are "real" when they are not? What are the dangers of that?