[scholia]

Fake news sites often have no "facts" at all. That's why people don't bother fact checking them. At worst, they'll crop up when somebody uses fake news for political purposes, example being Trump's racist birther lies, or his lies about crime rates.

Today's problem is that Trump is using the #fakenews label to attack reputable sources that call him out on his lies. This is an attempt to establish a false equivalence, and it's the core issue. It's extremely damaging to American democracy.

As many reputable news organizations (including the BBC) have pointed out, Trump is taking the same approach as Hitler, Mao and other dictators, and going directly against the line that previous US presidents have taken (at least, in public).

[grzm]

I understand where you're coming from. Take a step back. When you argue about this, who is your audience? What do you want to accomplish? Are you trying to mobilize people who already agree with you? Reach people on the fence? Convince those who disagree? How does your message sound to your intended audience?

Who you're trying to reach is up to you. I believe that using the term "fake news" is very unhelpful. At this point it's effectively without definition except as a perjorative dismissal, so you'll nearly always be discussing something with a different meaning for each party unless care is taken to define it upfront. If you're anti-Trump, you're continuing a meme used effectively by Trump himself. This meme is being used to further polarize, every side pointing to the others as being at fault.

Edit to add: Please don't misinterpret this to mean I don't think critical reading of news and calling out misrepresentation of facts or outright lies is important. This is very important. Doing so under the banner of fake news distracts so much from this effort that it works against it.

[scholia]

> I believe that using the term "fake news" is very unhelpful.

True, but it's the term Donald Trump uses to try to discredit sources that are not fake news. This is a matter of fact.

> At this point it's effectively without definition except as a perjorative dismissal

No. Fake news is completely made up news that is designed to look like real news in order to deceive readers, usually for profit. Examples: Trump was born in Pakistan, Pizzagate, George Soros paid protesters etc.

This is also a matter of fact.

[grzm]

Look at how people are using the term, including Trump. Look at the discussions here on HN. Memes like "fake news" have the meaning as they are used, regardless of a strict definition you'd like to keep it to. If you think you can convince everyone to use your definition and only your definition, best of luck to you, though I think that battle is already lost. If you're content knowing that you're using the correct definition and others are wrong, I fear you're not going to be effective in getting your message across.

I fear I'm in a similar situation with respect to this argument; at least in terms of my presentation, so I'll leave it at that. My sincere best wishes.

[scholia]

Well, I pointed out the factual uses. I'm not responsible for other people misusing the term (as Trump does) or failing to understand it. I'll leave you with Politifact:

QUOTE:

Fake news is made-up stuff, masterfully manipulated to look like credible journalistic reports that are easily spread online to large audiences willing to believe the fictions and spread the word. In 2016, the prevalence of political fact abuse – promulgated by the words of two polarizing presidential candidates and their passionate supporters – gave rise to a spreading of fake news with unprecedented impunity. Fake news: Hillary Clinton is running a child sex ring out of a pizza shop. Fake news: Democrats want to impose Islamic law in Florida. Fake news: Thousands of people at a Donald Trump rally in Manhattan chanted, "We hate Muslims, we hate blacks, we want our great country back." None of those stories – and there are so many more like them – is remotely true.

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2016/dec/13/...