Fake news? Look to the right

[RupertBear]

You look at the flask they are peddling. Again, targeting the right. It holds maybe six or eight ounces, just enough for a republican senator to get a 14-year-old girl drunk enough to pass out.

[pepecat]

.

[JagXKR]

Snowflakes are people that think they are special and unique and that their opinion matters and that no one can ever say they are wrong or bad. Nothing racist about it, at all. Snowflakes span all races creeds colours etc...
from wiki (my bold)

"Generation Snowflake, or Snowflake Generation, is a neologistic term used to characterize the young adults of the 2010s as being more prone to taking offence and less resilient than previous generations, or as being too emotionally vulnerable to cope with views that challenge their own."

Calling someone a snowflake does not mean you are racist. Absolutely moronic conclusion.

[Verum]

The problem is that the sensible right has been siding with the ridiculous right for a while now. They basically relied on their support for a long time and at the same time, were more than happy to drive a wedge between themselves and the sensible left. The ridiculous left has largely left the building in North America with the widespread hatred for Communism and even the painting of socialism as a bad word. Sadly, the same never happened on the right. The remaining largely sensible left mops up so much support that without the support of the ridiculous right, the sensible right wouldn't stand a chance. In fact, years of pandering and lack of criticism within right-wing circles to the ridiculous right has resulted in a huge wave of support for them, which mostly pulled from the support the sensible right would have had. So instead of Harper, Boehner, McConnell, Flake and George HW Bush being the kind of right wing politician we get in charge, we get Trump, Farage, Boris Johnson, Arlene Foster, etc. They make a mockery of what it is to be conservative. They hold a carnival mirror to the worst vices of the right and magnify them, making the right look like a bunch of yahoos, scumbags, unprincipled opportunists, etc. The silence of the sensible right is deafening. They are too afraid of the monster they fostered, all in the name of beating the other side.

Sadly, the sensible on both sides have more in common with each other than with their ridiculous counterparts. Democrats are less closely aligned with Antifa than they are with traditional Conservatism and old-school Republicans are less closely aligned with the right and even Trump than they are with the Democrats. If only politicians hadn't spent decades trying to convince their supporters that the other side are evil and to be avoided at all cost. They screwed it up for all of us.

[Ka-El]

From the "Fake News" thread ...

Because They Hate What Your Parents And Grandparents Represented And To Further Confuse Today’s Children, Traditional Depictions Of Mothers To Be Banned In Advertising Starting In 2018

[averagejoe]

Thanks for re-posting!

[Ka-El]

You bet! No news like fake news

[Treblehook]

When the mainstream media got into the business of supporting or discrediting political parties and politicians, they jumped on a very slippery slope. They ought to have steered clear of this activity entirely and maintained their integrity and ethical standards that made them credible. When their biases and prejudices are as obvious as has been the case for the last couple of years, it's hard for any thinking person to put much stock in their statements and opinions. Most would say that a truly valuable press is one that maintains it's objectivity. They now decry the criticisms offered as to their reliability and implore everyone to value their contribution to the protection of democracy. It is somewhat laughable that they now condemn anyone who accuses them of distributing fake news; and assert that it is their critics who are undermining the media. The truth is that all democracies need a media that can be depended upon to [objectively] expose corruption, lies and wrongdoing by politicians and government.

[Poindexter]

[Omnitheo]

We’ll uh...talk about it tomorrow (after we figure out how to spin it) but first! Watch more crash and burn.

[Ka-El]

... and the right is worried about "fake news" from CNN

Yes, it turns out "fake news" is a very real issue, only it is the right-wing bloggers and news networks like Faux News that are the most culpable (oh, don't forget joe's thread") after Russia's efforts to swamp Facebook with fake news stories meant to influence the American election (and it worked).

EDIT TO ADD (previously posted elsewhere):

Facebook (FB) admitted this month that it recommended content produced by Russian operatives to some users, the latest acknowledgment that it underestimated how extensively foreign actors manipulated its platform around the time of the 2016 presidential election.

https://nz.finance.yahoo.com/news/more- ... 42071.html

These Two Russian 'Fake News' Outfits Get Billions Of Hits On Facebook

Facebook CEO and Forbes billionaire Mark Zuckerberg released a sober video Thursday regarding "fake news," promising to hand over 3,000 Russian ads to congress. The goal: to see if those ads convinced hapless Americans to pull the lever for Trump instead of Hillary. Facebook has already handed over copies of the ads and information about their creators to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, still knee-deep in his Russia investigation. Zuck said he plans to "fight election interference."

Facebook did not respond to immediate comment about what those ads were.

For sure, the Russians are all over Facebook.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/ ... 3a9ae3268c

Russian propaganda effort helped spread ‘fake news’ during election, experts say

The flood of “fake news” this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation.

Russia’s increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery — including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human “trolls,” and networks of websites and social-media accounts — echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers. The effort also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions and promote fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... 6c0ce533bc

Reports: Russian operation boosted 'fake news' phenomenon

The "fake news" phenomenon that circulated thousands of phony stories during the election was aided by a sophisticated Russian propaganda effort, according to the Washington Post.

Independent researchers who tracked the bold operation say the goal was to punish Democrat Hillary Clinton, help Republican Donald Trump and undermine faith in American democracy, the newspaper reports.

Two teams of independent researchers found that the Russians exploited American-made technology platforms to attack U.S. democracy at a particularly vulnerable moment in the rancorous campaigns. Among the most-circulated stories were items on Clinton's health and fears about vote rigging.

“They want to essentially erode faith in the U.S. government or U.S. government interests,” said Clint Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who co-authored a report on Russian propaganda, the Post reports. “This was their standard mode during the Cold War. The problem is that this was hard to do before social media.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/201 ... /94424206/

Yes, fake news is a real issue – one that is only really addressed by considering everything as suspect until evaluated critically (comparing to other sources, for example). There is a lot of information from investigation into this subject for those who are interested in knowing more. I would be less concerned with considering news being reported by CNN or the Washington Post, than people being swayed by some of the nonsense that gets spewed from the likes of Breibart, Milo or the Rebel.

[Glacier]

I’d have to agree with you. Remember when Starbucks came out with some winter cups that were just plain red instead of red with snowflakes? Right wingers flipped out, wanted to boycott starbucks. Made YouTube videos about going into Starbucks with their guns to fight for their side in the “war against Christmas”

99.99% of right-wingers couldn't care less about that. I cannot think of a single right-winger I know (and I know lets of crazy hardcore ones) who was upset about the cups. It's like saying left-wingers love to to shoot Republicans because a single guy tried it. The cup story was basically two nutjobs who make Youtube videos complaining, one of which was Steven "pisseth against the wall" Anderson.

[Poindexter]

Fox News should change it's slogan to: "Russian troll approved" .

RUSSIAN TROLLS USE FOX NEWS'S SEAN HANNITY TO UNDERMINE MUELLER'S TRUMP PROBE, REPORT SAYS

Hannity's website has ranked among the top domains shared by a network of Kremlin-associated Twitter accounts in recent weeks, Mother Jones reported, using data from the Hamilton 68 dashboard compiled by the nonpartisan Alliance for Securing Democracy.

https://www.google.ca/amp/www.newsweek. ... 28%3famp=1

[Ka-El]

The Trump apologists love to lap up the "fake news" when it is telling them what they want to hear - Russian or not

[Poindexter]

The Trump apologists love to lap up the "fake news" when it is telling them what they want to hear - Russian or not

Right wing coverage is partly what apologists want to hear, but mostly what the President and Kremlin want them to think. They've mastered the art of manipulation through repeating falsehoods or innuendos to inject a narrative into those who have reversed the evolutionary process and are now operating with lizard brains.

Hate to steal a line from Trump that he stole from Stalin, but it's hard to find a better way to say that fake news outlets, such as Fox News, have over the last decade become the "enemy of the people", or maybe more accurately, "the enemy of democracy".