[skunkworks]

> How is peer-to-peer misinformation any worse than centralized misinformation?

“So by Facebook suggesting all these accounts, they were essentially creating this vortex in which conspiratorial ideas can just breed and multiply,” Ms. DiResta said.

> I've seen a lot of hand wringing from the Legacy media over every other source's misinformation but I've yet to see a story from the NY Times calling bullshit on their own bullshit.

Of all the media outlets you could target for blatantly misleading the public and breeding FUD, do you really want to call out the New York Times? "Everyone is doing it" is just not true, and it's a viewpoint that lacks nuance. There's a huge difference between the NYT and Fox News, a huge difference between Fox News and Infowars, and a huge difference between Infowars and RT. If you don't believe that, then, well, not much else to be said here.

[indubitable]

I think one major point here is that reputation is tied to the ability to mislead. Unlike most media today the The New York Times still has an air of integrity. And their writing quality is, if not the best, then certainly near it. These things combined result in ability for the things they say to have a much bigger impact, and they've been becoming somewhat looser with their standards of publication and often in a biased way.

As the eulogy on the events of today has yet to be written, let's look at an older issue. This [1][2][3] is the NYT's reporting on the rape claims against the Duke lacrosse team. Read those articles, and then consider that it was eventually found that the entire event was completely and literally fake. Not as in a 'it happened, but not like that' but literally - it did not happen, at all.

The 'what eventually happened' is nearly as sordid as the reporting on the event itself. The prosecutor who brought charges likely did so for political reasons. He was in the midst of a tightly contested election and needed the black vote, which coming out strongly against the players helped him to gain. They are white, the person that made the claims is black. He won the election by 883 votes with large black support. He was disbarred shortly after his victory as a direct result of his actions in this case. The individual who made the false claims is now in prison after being charged with attempted murder of one boyfriend in 2010. She was let out of prison a few months later after getting off on lesser charges. In 2011 she went all the way and killed another, different, boyfriend and is now in prison serving a sentence for murder. The police supervisor who led the investigation killed himself in 2014.

[1] - http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/29/sports/rape-allegation-aga...

[2] - http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/30/sports/duke-players-practi...

[3] - http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/17/sports/sportsspecial1/2-du...