[lifthearth]

I am reminded of the experiment where a cockroach had brain implants that allowed its movement to be controlled electronically. After a while the cockroach would figure out the signal the researchers were using and its brain ignored it effectively locking out the researchers. At some point it was figured out that if random noise (music) was constantly transmitted the cockroach could be controlled much longer before its brain figured out what signal to block. In the end it would always figure out what signal the researchers were using.

Right now fake news is merely manipulative signal wrapped in noise. If cockroaches can figure it out, so can every human on earth.

Alternatively we could start a reality tv show where every week fake news company executives are tried for treason and executed. Hell kick it up to 3x a week I'd watch it.

[wallace_f]

I agree. It's worth remembering that placing trust in the people--as a democracy does--is not perfect. It's just better than alternatives, like a corporatocracy--let Alphabet Inc. decide which ideas are OK--or other authoritarian models.

However, it is a truly difficult problem. It is difficult to say what penalties there should be for fake news. One thing I would propose is that civil liabilities associated with false reporting be extended to cover entire minority groups.

[noobiemcfoob]

To echo some arguments used for and against socialism, communism or libertarianism, has a corpocracy been tried anywhere in the world?

[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

Maybe we should start with Dan Rather. His fake memo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killian_documents_controversy) was the first attempt (that was caught at the in real-time) in using fake news (literally a faked meo) to influence a Presidential election by a major network. A lot of today's distrust of media traces from that incident.

[telchar]

That was a failure of fact-checking, not fake news as it's typically understood. It has happened occasionally in otherwise-respectable publications. The network fired a number of people involved including Dan Rather not because they intentionally crafted a false narrative but because they claimed they had done fact-checking when they hadn't.

"Fake news", as typically understood, is news that is known to be fake by the publisher.

[cletus]

I'm glad you brought this up.

I remember this incident and what is striking about it is:

- How seriously the fake memo was taken by some in the media; and

- Just how bad a fake it was. Like it was literally just printed off from Word and photocopied at Kinkos. Had someone instead used a typewriter from the era and not been seen at Kinkos it could well have been a different story.

If it had been a reasonable fake it may well have changed the result of the election. People on the right like to argue the media has a "liberal bias". These sorts of incidents don't really help.

[jacobolus]

Do you have a link to this experiment?

[vectorEQ]

they had similar experiments with a bull and implant, where radio signal made it stop mid charge. i think people should also realise these days it's even possible to generate waves which interact with the low frequencies associated with brain function, where in times of this experiment that was more difficult to acheive, so theu put an implant to convert signals.

reallise, like you draw analogy with fake news being manipulative signals, all inputs which have interpreters behind it can be manipulated if one knows how the input is interpreted in detail. that's just the nature of interpreting signals, it opens possibility to 'fake' signals.