[rdtsc]

For some reason I really like the phenomenon of "Fake News". It was an idea launched fairly quickly right after the election. It spread fast. All over the news. The media, and even Facebook and Google throwing their weight behind it.

Nobody quite knew what it was. Was it just Lizard People news or did it include all news from Fox or just some. Was it just Macedonian teenagers making money or was CNN also Fake News.

Then something happened. The mass media channels which invented and promoted Fake News ended up being labeled by it. Search for "Fake News" in image search on Google and CNN is right there. That was not the intended result I am sure. So the last I heard the idea is to now retire it due to inconvenience:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/its-time-to-r...

There is something sad and ironic about it. There is a pr lesson there as well perhaps...

[kneel]

The country went through mass hysteria after the election, first it was fake news, then russian hackers, then the usual blaming of demographs.

The news media was completely upended by Trump. He seemingly has a reality distortion field of his own. His first couple of days in office have been spent at war with the media, this is precedent being set. No doubt that Steve Bannon is pulling strings already.

I think we're going to see a brand new propaganda machine set up by his administration. It'll be interesting how they deal with the rapid fire groupthink that seems to patrol the internet nowadays. I definitely don't think this is comparable to anything that's happened before.

[akvadrako]

Hey now, give Trump a chance to play with his existing toys before expecting yet another machine. There is this great one Obama signed into law around Christmas[1]:

> [The Global Engagement Center is] an interagency center housed at the State Department to coordinate and synchronize counter-propaganda efforts throughout the U.S. government. [The effort should] counter foreign propaganda and disinformation directed against United States national security interests and proactively advance fact-based narratives that support United States allies and interests.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countering_Foreign_Propaganda_...

[jakeogh]

All of that is true, except (I bet) your prediction at the end. The reason he is such a threat to the established power is because he directly threatens their propaganda system. It's not a given that Trump will replace it with his own. We (in the US) legalized domestic funding of disinformation years ago. Enlisted PSYOP people have been in the major news agencies for a long time.

[cmurf]

Confabulation.

[komerdoor]

You noticed the same as I did. Google trends etc. will also show you this exact pattern and when exactly this "Fake News"-calling started. After a while it backfired when the ones they called "Fake News" pointed out how they are also reporting many things incorrectly. Source: https://www.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%2012-m&q=fa...

After a while they even started to use it in Europe and how our elections may also be affected by "Fake News" and how Russia is planting this. They even started EU government programs to counteract "Fake News" even on schools. Source (how to recognize fake news school program in the Netherlands): https://www.weekvandemediawijsheid.nl/mediamasters-universit... and https://www.omroepflevoland.nl/nieuws/141814/almere-bieb-ver...

This must all have been set up long time before they started to use it.

The only thing this did for me is making me take everything (all sides) less seriously. I cannot believe to live in a world like this where people keep this going while we talk about people their lives, health and our future. It should not be like a joke, it was all too obvious. Still many people think it is really something without there being any real proof of what it actually is.

One of the claimed proof of what they call "Fake News" (used many times to proof the existence of it) is someone (then unknown by all sides) that created an article about protesters being bused in by Soros or something while proven to not be true. The whole situation was too weird when people started to research the author. Source: http://www.snopes.com/anti-trump-protesters-bused-into-austi...

In reality Soros and his organizations (many part of the EU as well) sponsored and influenced many protests and still do. Read the leaked open society emails to learn about that. Source: http://soros.dcleaks.com and http://nytlive.nytimes.com/womenintheworld/2017/01/20/billio...

To be honest, while living in the EU, I am afraid to tell people how I see things (and I still try to be objective) because it is all getting more violent by the day. This is mostly still confined to the internet but I can already see this changing all around me especially with the EU elections nearing.

[JohnTHaller]

Quite a few of us have been discussing fake/biased news for well over a year. When your feed shows you fake news people share from Brietbart and BlueNationReview, you tend to notice it.