On behalf of Merkel-sponsored Russophobia, including threats of fines, Facebook rolls out fake-news filtering service to Germany.
Germany is to become the first country outside the US to benefit from Facebook’s crackdown on fake news as the social media group tries to control the proliferation of media hoaxes ahead of elections in the country this year.
The world’s largest social network is bringing its test of fake news filtering tools to Germany in the coming weeks after the spread of false stories such as one claiming Germany’s oldest church was set on fire by a mob of 1,000 people.
German users of the social network will now be able to report a story as fake and it will be sent to Correctiv, a third-party fact checker. If the fact checker discovers it is fake, the story will be flagged as “disputed”, with an explanation. Disputed stories will not be prioritised by the news feed algorithm and people will receive a warning if they decide to share it.
Extremely Slippery Slope
This fake-news prevention model is an extremely slippery, even dangerous slope.
It may sound good to have third party “fact checkers”, but what we will really have is third party “censorship” that governments will manipulate.
Governments will quickly challenge any story deemed negative to them, and such stories will be removed. Proof of “fakeness” will be CIA official positions.
- What about opinion pieces?
- What about stories whose factual content cannot be determined?
- What about stories that challenge known liars at intelligence agencies?
Stories like this, that accuse Merkel of Russophobia, will subject to smackdown. So will anti-war stories like those we accurately saw ahead of the Iraq invasion on baseless lies of WMDs.
The risk of fake news is far less than the risk of being force-fed sanitized news, without dissent, approved by the CIA and government leaders.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
Fakebook should not even exist………
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I cannot believe for a minute that fascistbook launched to fame under mark ( )uckerburg. I am convinced the CIA made him a deal during its infancy, to propel the social media site to fame in exchange for _____________.
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This was hinted at when Merkel met Obama.
Germany today, whole EU tomorrow.
Will we slowly morph into a Soviet style scenario. Every so slowly the frogs are bolied.
Starts with Fake News and moves to banning articles critical of the status quo or corruption expose.
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I mentioned Spain’s gag law
http://www.thelocal.es/20150701/the-ten-most-repressive-aspects-of-spains-new-gag-law
Many similar arrests and fines to this
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/11771851/First-victim-of-Spains-gag-law-fined-for-criticising-lazy-police.html
…though if I remember he was let off after the outcry, others weren’t.
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Does the truth really matter? Maybe for some.
Emory study lights up the political brain
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-01/euhs-esl012406.php
“When it comes to forming opinions and making judgments on hot political issues, partisans of both parties don’t let facts get in the way of their decision-making, according to a new Emory University study. The research sheds light on why staunch Democrats and Republicans can hear the same information, but walk away with opposite conclusions.
The investigators used functional neuroimaging (fMRI) to study a sample of committed Democrats and Republicans during the three months prior to the U.S. Presidential election of 2004. The Democrats and Republicans were given a reasoning task in which they had to evaluate threatening information about their own candidate. During the task, the subjects underwent fMRI to see what parts of their brain were active. What the researchers found was striking.
“We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning,” says Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory who led the study. “What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts.” Westen and his colleagues will present their findings at the Annual Conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Jan. 28.
Once partisans had come to completely biased conclusions — essentially finding ways to ignore information that could not be rationally discounted — not only did circuits that mediate negative emotions like sadness and disgust turn off, but subjects got a blast of activation in circuits involved in reward — similar to what addicts receive when they get their fix, Westen explains.
“None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged,” says Westen. “Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones.”
“Notably absent were any increases in activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain most associated with reasoning (as well as conscious efforts to suppress emotion). The finding suggests that the emotion-driven processes that lead to biased judgments likely occur outside of awareness, and are distinct from normal reasoning processes when emotion is not so heavily engaged, says Westen.
The investigators hypothesize that emotionally biased reasoning leads to the “stamping in” or reinforcement of a defensive belief, associating the participant’s “revisionist” account of the data with positive emotion or relief and elimination of distress. “The result is that partisan beliefs are calcified, and the person can learn very little from new data,” Westen says.”
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Good reasons for loyalty, clan, making the best of with a positive attitude, but I think people keep a critical eye as well though probably biased towards the aims they believe in, and the person who most represents them. What is written above is downstream, but people like to think the mind controls. I studied biology (marine) at uni. but dropped it for practical involvement in the field – did not agree with academic disassembly then reconstruction of the learning…. sure, it yields, but the real world is outside for all to understand at a level that is relatable to human existence and understanding without technical barrier and without the need to disturb the existing ecology or life in any way. Moral and ethical question of how you approach the world, not one that will be understood in debate really, especially with those that believe the empirical is all that counts.
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My teens arent even on FB and it’s likely they never will be. Throw in the censorship and they’ll be losing anyone who doesnt feel like towing the official govt line, er lie, be they on the Left or Right.
FB will be MySpace w/i the next 10 yrs or so.
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Amazingly, all the news sites banned and censored will be conservative.
Unexpected…
Who could have seen that coming?
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Mish, this isn’t a slippery slope. It’s a cliff to drive off.
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I don’t know. The concept is right but the action is wrong. It would be great if there were no fake news and the way to combat it is to have sanctions, i.e. fines or loss of the right to distribute. The fact checkers should be the readers, so if someone flags the item as false news, it can be voted and commented on by the readers to give new readers an idea of how much credence to give it. Likewise news papers must be made to put all their news stories on line with penalties for the writer but also heavy penalties for the publisher for proven fake news, even long after the event as subsequent happenings prove it wrong. This should make reporters reporters again instead of just regurgitating the current line.
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Kind of like Reddit…
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DCMCM,
With respect, I totally disagree. First, the concept itself is not right. Second, “facts” or “truths” (just like science) are not determined by consensus or popular vote. Third, who is going to assess the “heavy penalties,” and why would not that power and authority be a corrupting influence? Finally, the one thing I totally agree with is that “the fact checkers should be the readers.” That gets back to trusting the individual. the individual should have enough education and intelligence to read (or listen to) various viewpoints or positions and make a determination for him (or her) self. There cannot be a nebulous, undefined, unaccountable, “Ministry of the Checker of the Facts” (or Ministry of Truth, if you would prefer) or you’re opening a Pandora’s box that is best left closed.
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Yeah Phil, you are probably right. It is just that I am the eternal optimist who would like everyone to be good and nice. Probably why I have never made a fortune.
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I like to think of myself as a Reagan optimist…Trust but Verify. However, I haven’t made my fortune either. Now just waiting for the kids to grow up and support us (though I’ve heard that that’s not a good investment or retirement strategy).
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Here we go. Sliding a little further down the slippery slope.
.
How ironic is that? Facebook agents deciding what is fake news? lol.
No surprise it’s rolled out in Germany. The land of the malleable & obedient.
Coming soon to a theater near you
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Seriously? have you seen the US lately for malleable and & obedient?
This looks like the beginning of the end for this type of government now. (hopefully facebook as well).
Did they learn nothing from Brexit and Trump?
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Remember Occupy Wall Street?
Ferguson, Mo?
Baltimore?
Milwaukee?
Charlotte?
Not saying all those civil disturbances were justified. Just saying America ain’t Germany. Two separate and distinct viewpoints on authority.
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I’m confused.
Why would they need third party fact checkers when they have government for that.
Who pays these third party fact checkers? May I suggest that they serve who pays them?
NOT US.
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I was just researching that now.
https://correctiv.org/en/correctiv/patrons/
Erich Brost Institute, main funder, is clearly SPD orientated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Brost
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It’s actually clearly CDU-oriented, look who’s leading it:
http://www.broststiftung.ruhr/geschaeftsfuehrung/dr-boris-berger/
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Hmm. Ironic if Brost was commited SPD.
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/nrw-sponsoring-affaere-scampi-boris-ruettgers-mann-fuers-grobe-1.18487#redirectedFromLandingpage
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“In light of Facebook’s decision that being a signatory to this code is a minimum condition for being accepted as a third-party fact-checker on the social network in its U.S.-based pilot project, we are currently rethinking the application and compliance process. ”
http://www.poynter.org/fact-checkers-code-of-principles/
Which Correct!v is adhered to but not in the list on that page for some reason … Washington Post Factchecker is though!
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https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=http://www.brost.org/
Erich Brost Institute is incorporated with
http://www.ifa.de/en.html
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The social media networks will be compelled to respond to complaints within 24 hours, said Volker Kauder, the CDU parliamentary floor leader. The Social Democrat justice minister, Heiko Maas, would draw up the corresponding bill, he said. Companies that fail to tackle fake news could face stiff fines.
In December, Thomas Oppermann, the SPD parliamentary floor leader, called for penalties of up to half a million euros for social networks that failed to delete hate speech or fake news hosted on their platforms.
https://global.handelsblatt.com/politics/facebook-pledges-to-fight-fake-news-in-germany-682830
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Singapore has similar 24 hours takedown notice. And it has a one-party supermajority government for over half a century. The world is clearly heading that direction…
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I feel safer already.
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First of all, anyone getting their “news” from Facebook is by definition an idiot.
Merkel is desperate to divert attention away from her many failed policies, and is apparently targeting the “intellectually challenged” for the votes she needs.
For Germans who are seeing massive spikes in crime on their own streets (aka the overwhelming majority) — the opinions of a hoodie wearing lib-tard in California USA isn’t going to count for anything. German news will report on what locals see “on the ground” or they will go bankrupt, same as it ever was.
China already filters all of its news. The Soviets did it for years (and Russia arguably still does). The BBC has been caught editing the truth too many times in recent memory.
And while we are calling the kettle black from here in the USA… I cannot think of a newspaper or TV network that hasn’t been caught censoring, lying, or just plain making sh!t up.
All credible news sources need to be double checked and viewed skeptically — that has always been the case and hasn’t changed.
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The only information source that I can think of which has never had anything they have published found to be false is wikileaks. Pretty amazing, really. I’m surprised they have not been set up yet. The CIA et al is probably working on that right now.
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https://sputniknews.com/europe/201602011034034727-german-media-censorship/
A lot of similar local stories around
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Fred Rogers,
I’m responding to your post, but this is a more general question. Why aren’t they promoting fact checkers for the “fake news” put out by the government?
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We have fact checkers for government. They are called “voters”.
Four more days until that liar Obama vacates — good riddance, the voters have spoken
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Voters have been consistently fooled for about 200 years in America.
I don’t see any great improvement.
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Millions of voters do not have a perfect track record in accuracy… California’s legislature and Congressional reps have been 3rd world mistakes. Chicago has decades of corruption. other states have better, but still imperfect voting records
…but in terms of avoiding corruption and censorship by one point of view, millions of fact checkers are better than one.
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PS — if you read Mish’s blog regularly, you will notice both he and commenters often question “official” economic data points.
Mish has a running segment critiquing the GDP guesses from the Atlanta and NY Fed. He also has periodic posts about unemployment, sales, inventory, etc. The official numbers are wrong more often than not.
And Obozo’s made up rubbish about the savings little people are supposed to get from his “signature legislation” are so absurd that they simply cannot be defended by any rational human being. Many of Obozo’s supporters have belatedly admitted Obamacare is neither affordable nor does it provide care.
Hilary almost never tells the truth. Her idea to shift freeloaders from the failing obamacare system to medicare ignores that medicare will be bankrupt in 2018 (according to government estimates). If you check with doctors in the real world, most are refusing to accept new medicare patients, and quite a few have dropped existing medicare patients. medicare already defaults on bills, and when they do pay it is (on average) 18 months late (as in a year and a half late). Medicare itself claims it pays “only” 14 months late on average, but doctors have to pay their staff and income taxes promptly
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The thing is Fred, our governments and media are lying to us for our own good, not out of maliciousness, even though they seem to profit handsomely for it. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence. And after all, the PROOF of their goodness is all around us to see. I hear they will have even more on display at the inauguration of the illegitimate Trump.
What amazes me is the progressives complete obliviousness to their blatant hypocrisy. Of course they are not blind to it as it is part of their overall policy of abrogation, where any lie, any hypocrisy is justified if it advances the agenda.
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Yep.
Either the stats are overstated in favor of the government or the information is concealed and omitted from public review.
I’ve spoken to several doctors who have dropped Medicaid patients too. They told me they barely break even on the reimbursement rates and the Medicaid patients who get free treatment are the first to sue them for malpractice.
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Ain’t nuthin’ new under the sun, son.
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1972: “Long Live the Great, Glorious, and Correct Communist Party!”
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The arrogance of success and exceptionalism blinded us the Communist’s own warnings, that they would through liberalism infect our media and education to ultimately impose their “religion” on all of us.
We were incouraged to laugh in their faces…That America was impervious to the communist tyranny and constantly deriding McCarthyism as a complete overreaction to a non-threat.
And here we all are.
And what of the ONE country that eventually rejected communism (Russia) ?
Why of course, they are now the ENEMY of the left as well as the generally liberal government who sees war as it’s best path to even greater power.
Coincidence…I think NOT.
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Yes, there is a common thread at work, though I sincerely cannot place it between human nature, or orchestrated technique. I know there is technique involved obviously, it is the movement that hides behind that that is so hard discern in terms of associating responsibility… just human nature I think not either, there are clearly agendas purposefully imposed, how transnational and of how much common of origin is really one of the big questions of our time.
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Want to keep connected to the truth, get a good VPN and learn how to use it. No doubt, there will be new tricks that develop later. I have a list of things that I would use as “verifiers” to see how well Trump does in the Bill of Rights department, by amendment.
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Facebook seems to have developed a solution and will now scurry about in search of sufficient problems to involve themselves with so as to ingratiate themselves with various governments. Germany is just the test case.
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Shhhh, be verrrry, verrrry quiet…
as I tell you..
“the plan” :
Everyone will be SO obsessed with ALL of the Fake News stories…
having been convinced the media can NOT be trusted…
that the occasional factual story, will be overlooked…
or dismissed.
Let’s try one on for size:
“Trump’s Cabinet Pick Invested In Company, Then Introduced A Bill To Help It”
“Rep. Tom Price last year purchased shares in a medical device manufacturer DAYS before introducing legislation that would have directly benefited the company, raising NEW ethics concerns for President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Health and Human Services secretary.”
“…The Wall Street Journal reported last month that he traded roughly $300,000 in shares over the PAST FOUR YEARS in health companies while pursuing legislation that could impact them.”
We best look away:
“IF confirmed, Price will be a key player in Trump’s efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Trump last week said a plan to repeal and replace Obamacare will be submitted ‘as soon as’ Price IS confirmed.”
Selected quotes from http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/16/politics/tom-price-bill-aiding-company/index.html
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Fake news. At one time, journalists had to exercise due diligence. I guess that’s just too hard nowadays.
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The fact checking service would be more appropriately named “Goebbels”.
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This could backfire. Labelling a story as “disputed” may draw more attention to it, resulting in more people sharing it, even using means outside of Fakebook to do so.
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Nobody cares whether news is true or not… they only care whether it matches the narrative they subscribe to. Facts are simply meaningless.
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Oh the memories of the Borg. I hope this makes it through the filters Mish!
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Assimilate or perish.
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I enjoyed your quote from 2013.
“In a world seemingly gone mad what can a rational person do? Facts don’t seem to hold any more value in analysis than fiction as the world continues to spin on its axis with the energy of public opinion and emotion than any laws of physics.”
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This guy doesn’t let the EU cover anything up:
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4 more days.
I hope this gift works 😉
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Its all part of a ploy to get rid of The Onion. The MSM hates competition!
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Progressives, being dead wrong about everything always, has always depended on the ability to control what their captive indoctrinati is allowed to see and hear.
Also, outside of math and formal logic, you can’t prove anything to any standard remotely stringent enough to warrant interfering with others’ freedoms. All you can do, is have an opinion.
Which is why America went down the drain with the idiocy that was getting government involved in what people could freely opine about fires in crowded theaters. From there on out, it has been nothing but downhill. At an accelerating pace.
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So, Germany is going to “benefit” from this, eh?
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