Talk:Fake news website

Alex Younger quote in lede

this is talking about fake news as propaganda not fake news as clickbait Elinruby (talk) 01:23, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

Yes, he specifically is quoted as talking about ...countries take advantage of the internet to “further their aims deniably” through “means as varied as cyberattacks, propaganda, or subversion... which is plausible deniability, cyberattack, grey propaganda / black propaganda, and subversion. He also talks about disinformation and counterpropaganda, albeit not using those terms specifically. I was interested in the media-relations techniques used, as well; MI6 invited buzzfeed, which is currently the only source we cite, but they also pre-recorded some version of Younger's remarks for the television market ("for technical reasons" which presumably means that for security reasons heavy electromagnetic TV equipment is not permitted on the building-grounds of MI6 but might also indicate that they used video news release techniques within the provided clips).

• "Younger... strongly criticised states which have been using cyber and other forms of hybrid warfare to undermine Western democracies. Although he did not name Russia as one of the culprits, there was little doubt that he was pointing the finger at the Kremlin when he spoke about the 'increasingly dangerous phenomenon of hybrid warfare.' US intelligence agencies have claimed to have evidence that Russia had hacked emails of the Democratic Party, publishing material which damaged Hilary Clinton's campaign and helped Mr Trump's. There are also claims that Moscow may try to interfere in the coming French and German general elections. 'The connectivity at the heart of globalisation can be exploited by states with hostile intent to further their aims of deniability. They do this through means as varied as cyber-attacks, propaganda or subversion of democratic process. The risks at stake are profound and represent a fundamental threat to our sovereignty; they should be a concern to all those who share democratic values'"[1]
• "Hostile states pose 'fundamental threat' to Europe, says MI6 chief: Although Alex Younger does not name specific country, he makes clear that Russia is target of his remarks... cyber-attacks, propaganda and subversion from hostile states pose a 'fundamental threat' to European democracies.... He did mention Russia in relation to Syria, portraying Russian military support... first time an MI6 chief has made a speech at the HQ... He described the internet as having turned the work of the intelligence services on its head and said it represented 'an existential threat' as well as an opportunity. He said hybrid warfare – which Russia has employed in Ukraine, though he again did not mention Russia – was a dangerous phenomenon. 'The connectivity that is at the heart of globalisation can be exploited by states with hostile intent to further their aims deniably,' he said. ...Younger declined to provide details of how Britain was responding to such threats, citing operational reasons, but it is known the UK government does not see a need to respond to Russia in a symmetrical way, such as launching a counter-cyber-attack. Instead it could launch a series of counter-measures such as sanctions. ...Younger ran through various threats posed to the UK other than cyber-security... In a reference to the Chilcot report on Iraq, he came as close as anyone from MI6 to acknowledging that the agency had made a huge mistake through its part in falsely claiming Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction before the 2003 invasion. The Chilcot report singled out the intelligence agencies for falling into line with what Tony Blair’s government wanted rather challenging it over WMD. “A vital lesson I take from the Chilcot report is the danger of groupthink. I will do anything I can to stimulate a contrary view: to create a culture where everyone has the confidence to challenge, whatever their seniority,” Younger said."[2]
• Others that I have not parsed closely: [3][4][5][6]
• WP:ABOUTSELF from MI6, including link to prepared remarks.[7][8]
• Possibly useful but some are borderline as RS methinks: [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]

So although this is a related topic, and probably deserves mention to highlight the differences and similarities, he is definitely not talking specifically about clickbait-is-our-motive fake news websites. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 11:32, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

• Omit from lead. Quotes of this nature are generally not sufficiently important to be included in the lead and are frequently non-neutral. This is an excellent example. The better thing to do is to move these types of quotes into the body, and if enough highly noteworthy views have been expressed, then summarize them broadly in the lead. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:34, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

U of CT philosophy professor Michael P. Lynch

• "Lynch spoke told The New York Times (∃) a troubling amount number of individuals who make determinations relying upon the most recent piece of information they consumed, regardless of"

There is no "regardless of" clause in the original, is there? Elinruby (talk) 04:27, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

the rest of the predicate should read "who rely on their most recent information" (then the "regardless of the truth of it" part of the above, if in fact that is accurate Elinruby (talk) 04:30, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

NYT headline is 'As Fake News Spreads Lies, More Readers Shrug at the Truth' of which here is a snippet:

...The proliferation of fake and hyperpartisan news... while some Americans may take the stories literally [parenthetically mentions pizzagate]...many do not [take the fake-news-stories literally]. The larger problem [than incorrect literalism], experts say, is less extreme but more insidious. Fake news, and the proliferation of raw opinion that passes for news, is creating confusion, punching holes in what is true, causing a kind of fun-house effect that leaves the reader doubting everything, including real news.... 'There are an alarming number of people who tend to be credulous and form beliefs based on the latest thing they've read, but that’s not the wider problem,' said Michael Lynch, a professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut. 'The wider problem is fake news has the effect of getting people not to believe real things. ...[Lynch then described the problematic way of thinking]...'There's no way for me to know what is objectively true, so we'll stick to our guns and our own evidence. We'll ignore the facts because nobody knows what's really true anyway.' [NYT reporter continues] Narrowly defined, 'fake news' means a made-up story with an intention to deceive, often geared toward getting clicks. But the issue has become a political battering ram, with the left accusing the right of trafficking in disinformation, and the right accusing the left of tarring conservatives as a way to try to censor websites. In the process, the definition of fake news has blurred."

Here is what is currently in mainspace:

University of Connecticut philosophy professor Michael P. Lynch spoke with The New York Times and said there existed a troubling amount of individuals who make determinations relying upon the most recent piece of information they consumed, regardless of its veracity. He said the greater issue was that fake news could have a negative impact on the likelihood of people to believe news that is true. Lynch summed up the thought process of such individuals, as "...ignore the facts because nobody knows what’s really true anyway.”[18]

A short mainspace rewrite would look something like this:

76 words... According to philosophy professor Michael Lynch, the wider problem with fake news is not that an 'alarming number of people who tend to be credulous' will be temporarily tricked into taking some particular viral fake news story at face value, but rather that a significant number of people may permanently cease to believe that objective truth is achievable, and therefore ignore facts wholesale (preferring to stick with their own existing beliefs or desires regardless of what new evidence may tell them)."

Which is a mouthful, I'd be happy if somebody could split that into two or three sentences, or tighten up the prose a bit -- as simple as possible but no simpler. This problem is central to the reasons why people believe fake news in the first place, too, methinks (see confirmation bias and knew-it-all-along-bias). 47.222.203.135 (talk) 12:36, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

ok well "amount" should be "number" because people are not fungible. (Items not stuff was the way I was trying to explain a similar distinction earlier).I agree that what you wrote is a re-statement of what he said (I think) but I agree, I would be nice to simplify that sentence. Another linguistic quibble, should be "number of people" not "number people". I am sure that's a typo; I'll get it in my rewrite attempt. I don't think we should call people credulous. Also I don't think that Michael Lynch is that immportant in himself, and fake news was does cause some harm. He just sees the longer term problem also of the loss of faith in journalism or even the existence of an objective discoverable truth. Try: "Fake news can create serious misunderstandings but so far diplomatic incidents have been avoided. People tend to rely on the most recent information they have received, said philosophy professor Michael P. Lynch , but he worries that a significant number of people may come to believe that the truth cannot be determined." Elinruby (talk) 23:06, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Corrections inserted, thanks. "People tend to" is wrong methinks. Lynch says that fake-news-now does cause harm (hence his word "alarming" -- but that is different from 'many'/'tend to'/'most'), but Lynch thinks that fake-news-repercussions could be more than just alarming and well into the intellectual-dark-ages type of scenario, is my understanding. Bad enough now, yet could become catastrophically bad later, in other words. As for diplomatic incidents, see further up the talkpage about the Pakistani tweet threatening nuclear response to something that was fake, or the sanctions that Obama is putting in place against Russia (for cyberwarfare tactics rather than fake news per se... but as our mainspace article makes glaringly obvious, that is a distinction lots of perfectly intelligent people find quite easy to conflate away). Not sure about the Turkish border thing, no mention in mainspace of that? Here is my re-rewrite attempt:

93 words... According to philosophy professor Michael Lynch, one long-term risk of the reactions to fake news, and the counter-reactions to those reactions, is that a significant number of people may permanently cease to believe that objective truth is achievable. Instead, such people may eventually treat their own beliefs or desires as truth (regardless of new evidence may tell them), as trust in all news media deteriorates. This is on top of the near-term problems with viral fake news stories, which Lynch notes impact an "alarming number of people" at least temporarily.

Still wordy, but uses reasonably-short sentences now. 93 words about Lynch&NYT might be WP:UNDUE for the size of the article overall, in which case we can cut it down to something more brief, and include links to Illusory truth effect and such at the bottom of the article perhaps:

39 words... According to philosophy professor Michael Lynch, one long-term risk is that "fake news has the effect of getting people not to believe real things [thus they] ignore the facts because [they believe] nobody knows what's really true anyway."

And then in the cite_web template, we can give the broader context and some wikilinks. Alternatively, we can bump Lynch down a notch and instead quote the NYT reporter, like this:

~66 words... "Fake news, and the proliferation of [hyperpartisan] raw opinion that passes for news, is creating confusion... leaves the reader doubting everything, including real news," according to the NYT. This problem is wider than the problem of people who take viral fake news stories literally, because doubting everything threatens belief in objective truth itself, according to Michael Lynch, and could lead to a significant number of people ignoring facts.

This is a difficult facet of the topic to summarize. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 11:42, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

another verb/wording issue in the lede

"Computer security company FireEye concluded Russia used social media as cyberwarfare." Didn't they say it *is* on an ongoing basis? I think that should be "uses" not "used". Also, is "concluded" really the right word here? That 13-page report isn't all that convincing technically. Elinruby (talk) 22:43, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter whether the report is convincing; it's attributed to FireEye, and it's a conclusion they came to. Wrt to tense of the word "use", I think past tense is better, as FireEye based it on past behavior. They didn't exactly argue that it's ongoing. Finally, 'cyberwarfare' is something one does, not something one uses, so I've taken the liberty of changing the wording to reflect this. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 22:59, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

what about if we said "they released this document on this date that said bla bla"? Well actually, let me go see if there is a section labelled "conclusion" that says that. If there is I will withdraw the objection. Elinruby (talk)

That wording implies that FireEye may not agree with the claims in the report, which is a fairly ludicrous proposition to anyone who's familiar with the practices of cybersecurity firms, but not to anyone who isn't. Using source voice is perfectly fine (as opposed to saying their report "showed" or "proved" or "demonstrated" Russian use of social media for cyberwarfare), but putting it in the voice of the document itself? No, that's going too far. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:18, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

At least as written this content is in the context of Russia's actions in the run-up to the U.S. election, so if this is going to be changed to talk about Russia's ongoing activities then that should be made clear. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:30, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree. I believe the past tense is the only tense supported by the source. There are other RSes if someone wants to describe ongoing Russian hacking.

Warning! This is likely to cause a big stink. I am quite confident that the Trolls from Olgino are on WP (lots of British and Eastern European proxy IPs, and highly-hackable American ISP IPs constantly whine about WP's slandering of Russia in articles about it), and there are plenty of legit editors willing to defend mother Russia's honor, as well. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:58, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Lead section re-write needed

The second, third, and portions of the fourth paragraph of the lead section need to be completely re-written, as they don't represent a summary of the article. Lead sections are supposed to be broad summaries of the subject, not collections of attributed, specific quotes, reports, and viewpoints, even if those quotes, reports, and viewpoints. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 17:43, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

DrFleischman, I just did quite a bit of work on the lead, including addressing the concerns you expressed here. Let me know what you think. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:57, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

That's a tremendous improvement, thanks. Are there sources talking about how the fake news phenomenon has received increased scrutiny in recent months? If so, something about that should be included in the lead. And if those sources tie the increased scrutiny to the U.S. presidential election, then something about the election belongs in the lead as well. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 19:29, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't think any of the sources used (I've read most of them, but not all, and it's been a few weeks for most of them) talk about the ramp-up of coverage and attention, though it shouldn't be too hard to find one that does (I know I listened to an NPR piece that mentioned it). I'm at work though, so hunting for new sources isn't something I can take the time to do right now. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 19:51, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Agree that the shorter lead is an improvement (still a bit of cite-overload though... can we summarize, rather than listing two dozen countries by name-with-attached-footnote?). However, although it reflects the current state of the article far better now, that current state *is* still a muddle which conflates distinct things:

• clickbait scammers who run fake news websites for making a living, e.g. ABCnews.com.co and the majority of the Macedonians
• partisan political and ideological operatives who sometimes run sites (but more often concentrate on comment spam or social media operations or other non-website-based techniques because unlike clickbait-scammers they are NOT primarily trying to make fast cash via pay-per-click infrastructure), e.g. Chacos and the guy from Romania who are -- at least partially -- motivated by politics as much as by clickbait-cash
• shadowy cracking groups and even-more-shadowy intelligence agencies involved in black propaganda and cyberwarfare (almost never have sites per se unless they are false fronts), with geopolitical nation-state motivations that they sometimes try to advance via fake-news-techniques

Merkel is complaining about the second group primarily. Macleans is complaining about the first group, and most of the countermeasures that google cares to implement will be against the first group. Hillary Clinton is complaining about the third group, and to some extent the second group. MI6 is all about the third group. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 10:13, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Look at the title of the article: It intentionally covers all of those, because they're all fake news. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 14:39, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not arguing about what wikipedia should summarize, I'm arguing about how we should summarize. Lumping everything together is a category error, we need to deal with separate subtopics in separate subsections of the article. And speaking of category errors, please note that the title is specifically fake-news-website, very much distinct from the DAB page fake news, and that an attempt to broaden the topic-definition failed. Talk:Fake_news_website/Archive_2#Requested_move_7_December_2016. You are correct that the current article *is* written as if the topic were fake-news, but the topic is actually fake-news-website. We ought to cover fake-news-website (clickbait scam) first, and then explain fake-news-story (influencer of opinion on social media) second, and then discuss fake-news-techniques (geopolitics) third, plus discuss countermeasures for each individually (different countermeasures necessary foreach of the different categories). 47.222.203.135 (talk) 15:22, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Are you talking about the lead or the body? Because this thread is specifically about the lead. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:32, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Both -- the lead is as muddled as the body, since the lead now better-reflects the muddled body. But we can fix the lead first, then improve the body, or vice versa. So in that spirit, here is the current lede, stripped of footnotes and long lists of country-names:

Fake news websites (also referred to as hoax news) deliberately publish hoaxes, propaganda, and disinformation, using social media to drive web traffic and amplify their effect. Unlike news satire, fake news websites seek to mislead, rather than entertain, readers for financial or other gain. Such sites have promoted political falsehoods in half a dozen countries. Many sites originate, or are promoted, from other countries.

Right off the bat, it conflates fake-news-websites with hoax-news-stories. The ambiguous phrases "amplify their effect" does not specify whether it is talking about amplifying the effect of sites (clickbait cash) or of stories (influencing public opinion). Same ambiguity in the sentence about satire-site, which say "for financial or other gains". That 'other gains' was discussed above, further up the talkpage, as being a conflation-point. I would also note that 'seek to mislead' only applies to groups trying to influence public opinion -- clickbait scammers has a laser-focus upon 'seek to garner clicks' which is a fundamentally different motive. The satire-sites *also* seek to garner clicks, as does the mainstream news media, but Teh Onion et al are honest about their nature. Last sentences are the country-lists, and imply that fake-news-websites are fundamentally about 'promoting political falsehoods' which is not the case, and the final sentence again conflates fake-news-sites ('originate') with fake-news-stories ('promoted'). We ought to separate with precision, not conflate into a confusing blob. I can suggest better wording, but until we get consensus that conflation is happening and more crucially is to be avoided that seems pointless. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 12:33, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm fine with trying to avoid conflation of different motives, e.g. clickbait versus propaganda, provided the sources support it of course, but having separate content in the lead section for fake news sites versus fake news stories seems like overkill to me, and I don't know if the distinction is supported by the sources either. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:44, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

The Maclean's source I mentioned further down the talkpage clearly understands the distinction, and illustrates it well (nothing about propaganda nor about yellow journalism -- only concentrates on the narrow core clickbait-scam definition).[19] His exemplars are Coler and Horner, aka clickbait-hoax-sites, motivated by profit. He also explains how, if that is the motive, fake-news-stories are written. Similarly, look at the ArsTechnica articles on the Russian cracker stuff,[20] where they never once mention 'fake' anything (not their motive!), versus their older stuff about covert interrogation by undercover agents,[21] which ArsTechnica does call 'fake news' even though it is definitely a distinct meaning from the hoax-sites, and their considerably older stuff where ArsTechnica calls video news releases a type of 'fake news' even though it is a special subtype of propaganda.[22] When arstechnica *actually* talks about fake news, in the modern-neologism sense, they sometimes screw up, albeit arguably less badly than WaPo.[23] But they DO understand the difference between 'sites' and 'stories' very well methinks. Plenty of the "reliable" sources conflate things, of course: "largely false or purposefully false"[24] emphasis added; "definition...is broad" per Snopes.com direct quotation[25]; "blurs the definition... precision in defining what’s bunk—and, more importantly, what isn’t—is the first order of business, even if it comes at the expense of a good narrative. Otherwise, labeling something as 'fake' will quickly lose its punch."[26] 47.222.203.135 (talk) 12:34, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Literally adding the word "website" to the end of my last response would address your second concern without changing the meaning of that response in any appreciable way. As to the first: Why not create a "Types of fake news websites" section in draft space or even here and (using RSes, not your own intuition or research), describe the different types? You're saying there's a problem with this page, but you're not doing anything about it. You can add it on Sunday or an autoconfirmed editor can add it sooner, if it meets our standards. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 17:00, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

• In addition to adding content to the lead about the recent increase in attention, should we also include some content summarizing how fake news is spread, what its impact has been, and what steps have been taken or proposed to stop it? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:31, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Yup. (No commentary, I just agree with this idea.) MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 18:56, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

See talkpage section below: how fake-news-stories are stopped/blocked/fought, is fundamentally different from how fake-news-websites are stopped/blocked/fought. Similarly, the impact of fake-news-websites is one thing, the impact of fake-news-stories is another. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 12:33, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

birds-eye overview

• http://www.macleans.ca/society/lessons-from-a-week-of-fake-news/

Refers to the ramp-up in coverage by governments and media as beginning in November 2016, notes the historical parallels of urban legends and chain letters, suggests motivation behind coverage-ramp but explains why that motivation is a fail (confirmation bias is the real problem), mentions fake-news-story by 70news but immediately shifts to discussion of fake-news-website-and-organizations-behind-them as the core topic (and differentiates that from satire-sites && partisan-bias-sites). Explains how fake-news-sites must fabricate their stories in a specific fashion to take advantage of human psychology, and pick their names/URLs carefully for that same reason. Contrasts the false news and errata with the distinct concept of fake news (but not that distinct! e.g. Rolling Stone writers and readers suffered from confirmation bias just like Denver Guardian readers did). Importantly, something I've not seen clearly explained in other sources yet (thus needs attribution probably), Macleans notes that fake news sites are highly dependent on the real news environment, as they piggyback-parasite on top of the 24-hour scandal-cycle news media, without which their fake-news-clickbait would not be as successful. Familiar prose-style and familiar-story-framing and a vaguely-familiar-seeming-name plus plausible-yet-purer-than-usual conclusions that appeal to confirmation bias, are how the scam works at a nuts-n-bolts level. Zero mentions of propaganda nor cyberwarfare, since those are *different* motivations (though sometimes using similar techniques) than a clickbait scammer has. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 09:50, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

pope sources need work

Decent headline, but partially-wrong attribution (Associated Press not NYT which was just temp-hosting) and currently a deadlink (here is a backup copy[27]).

• #173, [28], "Pope Warns About Fake News-From Experience", The New York Times, Associated Press, 7 December 2016
• Pope Francis, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, spoke out against fake news various problems with the media in an interview with the Belgian Catholic weekly Tertio on 7 December 2016.[173]
• The Pope had prior experience being the subject of a fabricated fake news story website fiction — during the 2016 U.S. election cycle, he was falsely said to support have endorsed Donald Trump for president.[173][97][98]

Pretty inaccurate headline:

• #174, [29], Pullella, Philip (7 December 2016), Pope warns media over 'sin' of spreading fake news, smearing politicians, Reuters

Very inaccurate headlines:

• #175, [30], Zauzmer, Julie (7 December 2016), "Pope Francis compares media that spread fake news to people who are excited by feces", The Washington Post
• #176, [31], "Pope Francis compares fake news consumption to eating faeces", The Guardian, 7 December 2016
• #177, [32], Griffin, Andrew (7 December 2016), "Pope Francis: Fake news is like getting sexually aroused by faeces", The Independent
• Pope Francis said the singular worst thing the news media could do was spreading 'disinformation' (saying only part of the truth) and that amplifying fake news using the media for defamation instead of educating society was a sin.
• He compared salacious reporting of scandals, whether true or not, to coprophilia and the consumption of it scandals to coprophagy.[174][175][176][177]
• The pope said that he did not intend to offend with his strong words, but emphasized that "a lot of damage can be done" when the truth is disregarded and slander scandals, or only portions of the truth, are spread.[175][177]

Not currently being used on wikipedia...

• ...despite having the somewhat-more-accurate body-content, and okay headline: Ars Technica, [33]
• ...despite having fairly-accurate body-content, and meh headline: CNN, [34]
• ...despite having mostly-accurate body-content, and pretty-okay headline: NPR, [35]
• ...despite having solidly-accurate body-content, notwithstanding the clickbait headline: US News, [36]
• ...one of the few in-depth stories that was *corrected* on the 9th to more-accurately reflect what the pope actually said: USA Today / The Advertiser, [37]
• ...mentions the correct non-truncated quote, and deeplinks to the full Vatican translation into English: FOX News, [38]
• ...reasonably accurate translation (despite 'disinformation'/'misinformation' snafu) from the original spanish-language interview into english, published by a governmental entity, also not currently being used on wikipedia: The Vatican, [39]
• ...Also gets the pope's intended meaning mostly correct, though may not satisfy WP:RS for wikipedia's purposes: Catholic.org, [40] (it is used as a cite in a few hundred articles already however)
• ...by contrast the Christian Post gets the quotes right but the summarization of the pope's actual meaning wrong.[41]

Later reporting (i.e. more than a week after the burst of interview-coverage on the 7th and 8th) also sometimes get the meaning mostly-correct:

• "...as Pope Francis. His Holiness compared media’s obsession with scandal and ugly things to the sickness of coprophilia. If you’re just finishing breakfast, look it up later; but it’s nasty." Per CBS News.[42]
• ...but not always, The Atlantic article on Dec 26th used the misleadingly-truncated quote.[43]
• ...and opinion pieces are also often wrong, in this case a regular column in the Fiscal Times.[44]

See also, Talk:Fake_news_website/Archive_2#pope_quote. Note that the phrase 'fake news' is never actually mentioned by the pope, and his use of the term 'coprophilia' to criticize the news media in general was also reported on back in 2013, by Catholic Herald,[45] and also by Business Insider.[46] (They got the meaning metaphorically intended by the pope mostly correct -- 'coprophagia' is slang for 'the tendency to focus on the negative rather than the positive aspects' in the pope's own words, and 'coprophilia' is metaphorically just 'talking shit' in the journalist's summary of the intended meaning. In addition to being a subject of fake news, as wikivoice currently notes, the pope also considers himself to be a person who was unfairly trashed in the news media, by shit-rakers obsessed with spreading scandal (even when true), back in 2013. It would be WP:SYNTH to say that in wikivoice, but can somebody please fix up the current mess we are making of what the pope actually said, and did NOT actually say, during his 2016 interview? I am annoyed that we are using errata as cites, almost as much as that we are not quite getting the nuances of the interview-quote accurate & correct. Just because the media sometimes screwsup, does not mean wikipedia ought to blindly mimic them. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 15:02, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

part of the problem here is definition

Fake news is content. Fake news websites are containers. The distinction matters because of the way the laws are written Elinruby (talk) 22:21, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, but not just the way laws are written, also the way software countermeasures are written: one can block fake-news-websites with a domain-name-blacklist (which prevents their earning any clickbait cash), but blocking fake-news-stories is vastly more difficult (see also discussion of motive above -- although the classic fake-news-website is run by people wanting to make a quick buck that is not the only motive). Mainspace needs to be very clear and precise when discussing these things, and separate them into subsections, with pullquotes that are specific to each subtopic put into that specific subsection, e.g. MI6 is talking about cyberwarfare/cyberterrorists and not about clickbait scammers. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 12:14, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

Agreed, the countermeasures are also different. It just seemed like disinformation examples are being added back in Elinruby (talk) 21:11, 7 January 2017 (UTC)

We're not talking about removing disinformation from our article, are we? Just moving it the appropriate section? --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 18:42, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Cannot speak for Elinruby here, but my current purpose is to *create* appropriate subsections. The current article is so badly organized that it will be nigh-impossible to be precise -- the current article structure *assumes* that fake-news-website is an identical concept with fake-news (and also conflates those from time to time with propaganda/disinformation/yellowjournalism/mediabias/etc/etc/etcetera), then divvies up everything geographically.

Right now we have the following sections: Overview, Definition, Pre-Internet history, Prominent sources (4 countries), Impacts by country (19 countries), Response (by politifact/goog/fbook/webdevs/pope), Academic analysis. Only one of those sections, the 'pre-internet history' section, is titled so as NOT to inherently conflate fake-news-websites with the distinct concept of fake-news-stories. The rest are a muddle: academic analysis of fake-news-stories is intermixed freely with academic analysis of fake-news-websites, ditto for "Response(s)". And as elinruby and myself note above, this is completely wrongheaded from both a legalese and technological standpoint: response to fake-sites is one legal and technology world, response to fake-stories is a much different legal and technology universe.

Every single subsection of impact-by-country and prominent-sources-by-country, mix and match people talking about counter-cyberwarfare strategy (Younger) with people talking about trolls/bots/hatespeech (Merkel) with people talking about politically-motivated-fake-news-stories (Clinton) with people talking about financially-motivated-fake-news-websites (Horner). In some cases we have screwups by the sources, such as in the pope-quote subsection... but most of the screwups are just wikipedians being too hasty and jamming stuff all together haphazardly. We need to de-haphazardize, and structure the article into a new non-geographical bunch of subsections. Instead of the current structure, my suggestion is that we have something like this:

now	new
definition (ambiguous)	definition (fake sites) definition (fake stories)
history (fakeStories)	history (fake stories) psychology (fake stories)
sources (ambiguous)	examples (fake sites) examples (fake stories)
impact (ambiguous)	impact (fake sites) impact (fake stories) overlap with conspiracy sites (fake sites) overlap with conspiracy theories (fake stories) overlap with false fronts (fake sites) overlap with covert propaganda (fake stories)
response (ambiguous)	countermeasures (fake sites) countermeasures (fake stories)
(no such subsection) (and not really mentioned!)	related concept: social engineering & long con related concept: media bias & sensationalism related concept: errata & opinion-pieces
academia (ambiguous)	(ditch subsection) (integrate material where specifically applicable)
media commentary (ambiguous)	(ditch already-deleted subsection) (integrate material where specifically applicable)

Specifically, we would not have anything about Yemen (or whatever country you like) in the subsection about false-front-fake-sites, UNLESS there was something of that nature that actually happened in Yemen, aka there was a false-front-fake-site *run* by unethical Yemeni citizens or there was a false-front-fake-site which *targetted* gullible Yemeni citizens specifically. And yes, in theory every website can be viewed by anybody with internet access, but the majority of the sources talk about fake-sites as being run by particular entities/groups and also as being aimed primarily at particular groups/populaces, thus so ought wikipedia.

This new structure does have the disadvantage that material related to fake-news-stories-or-fake-new-sites-or-a-related-concept will be more spread out in the body-prose, but I don't see that as a serious problem -- we *already* have spinoff articles like Fake news in the United States which can use different organizational structure than Fake news website. But for *this* article we need to explain the relevant concepts (plural), with precision and exactness, not just have a long list of pullquotes by people whom are actually talking about subtly distinct things (relative to each other). 47.222.203.135 (talk) 16:19, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

I like this approach generally, although I think repeatedly distinguishing between fake news stories and fake news websites is a bit much. That particular distinction doesn't doesn't seem all that important to me. --Dr. Fleischman (talk) 20:17, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, we need not have explicit subsection-headers that necessarily distinguish, as long as we are careful to be precise in our body-prose. The distinction between sites-and-stories is crucial in two main 'response' areas: legislation (censoring sites is a form of regulating the freedom of the press whereas censoring stories is a form of regulating the freedom of speech), and also technological implementation (google/facebook/etc can block *sites* aka domain-names 'fairly' easily but blocking stories aka content is qualitatively different and vastly more difficult). And as we've been discussing above, motive is a third 'sources' sub-area where the site-vs-story distinction is key: clickbait scammers must have a fake-news-website, since that is HOW they rake in the clickbait cash, whereas public-opinion-manipulators need not have a site per se, and can concentrate on spreading fake-news-stories (via sites/shares/forumcomment/etc/etc). So the distinction definitely matters, in some key sections of the article.

...plus more broadly, I also think the distinction matters from an WP:Accuracy standpoint -- we quote a lot of people who are actually talking about fake-news-stories, as if they were talking about fake-news-sites. (Plus in rare cases people that are not even talking about 'fake news' as if they were.) This is not just a pedantic whine, it directly leads to the rest of the article getting into the same muddled state. Historically speaking, there are some precursors to fake-news-sites, e.g. scraper sites and phishing sites, while there are completely different precursors to fake-news-stories, e.g. yellow journalism and chain letters. I'll wait a couple days for more commentary before I go making bold changes to the section-organization, but it is badly needed. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 10:46, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia bias — No mention of CNN being Fake News allowed

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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After a long discussion on the Talk page about the topic of CNN being Fake News according to Donald Trump and that the statement should at least be mentioned here. User:CFCF decided to just ignore everything, delete my change and put the discussion in the Archive. Thanks for not joining the discussion and showing that you are unable to talk and immediately threaten with a block.213.47.44.99 (talk) 13:16, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

The discussion was going nowhere, was not based on any sources or policies. Donald Trump's quotes hardly constitute reliable sources, and spamming the talk-page is not a discussion. I archived it because it violates the guidelines at WP:TALKPAGE. If you consider it to be WP:DUE to mention how Donald Trump has said these sources are fake news — that is a legitimate discussion, but not the one I archived. However it is not something to just be inserted to the article without taking care to balance it. Seeing as it is controversial, adding it now without any repudiation released does not chime with WP:NOTNEWS, nor does it discredit us from using CNN as a source as you implied.

Get the premises of the discussion right, do not add highly controversial passages without taking care to balance them out — and under no circumstance readd legitimate news-media's logos over and over again and we might just get somewhere. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 13:24, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

When a future President of the United States says that a major news station is Fake News, than this has to be mentioned in the article about Fake News! You even cite some journalist of a newspaper The Local who nobody knows and is nearly non existent — but the President Elect Of the USA is not noteworthy for you?

And you say that its "vandalism" when i talk here at the Talkpage about how i should write that, but you are not able to just join the conversation? The discussion was called "CNN and BuzzFeed is Fake News"! It was about what Donald Trump said and how i should add it. Read what i wrote, it is neutral and balanced. I just wrote what happened and linked to 3 sources.

You have some clear Political Bias and you are a shame for Wikipedia.213.47.44.99 (talk) 13:32, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Fundamentally this is an issue about WP:Reliable sources. I suggest you read that guideline to understand why quotes are not reliable sources for statements of fact. That Donald Trump says one thing does not make it so, and this is not a biased position. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 13:40, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Which is good advice. But there are sources, oodles of them, for the fact that Trump said it. And this is the article where those sources belong, correct? The question is exactly where to put the sentence, and exactly what the sentence will say. I proposed a variant, and listed some sources, which you archived (a wee bit hastily). I'll go retrieve that stuff, and we can have some nice calm discussion about exact phrasing, please. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 13:54, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

sources

My proposed wording:

• On January 11, 2016, during a back-and-forth altercation with a CNN journalist at a press conference, president-elect Donald Trump told the CNN journalist "you are fake news".[47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56]

Will add 213.47's proposed wording in a moment. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 13:59, 12 January 2017 (UTC) Proposed wording by 213.47, which CFCF reverted without explaining why:

• On January 11, 2016, during the first press conference of president-elect Donald Trump after the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Trump told CNN’s senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta, that CNN is "fake news", after Acosta tried multiple times to force Trump to accept a question from him and interrupted the question of another journalist.[57][58][59]

Other phrasing-suggestions also welcome, obviously. And likely these are not the only sources, they are just what turned up in a quick one-minute google. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 14:04, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Some context should appear if this is to be due. For example the release by Buzzfeed, the repudiation from CNN etc. Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 14:24, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Well, we can go with he-said-she-said, but I would rather just explain the broader context; Trump was recently in some CNN stories, which are linked (in the metaphorical rather than the technological) sense to far-less-careful Buzzfeed stories.[60] Whether that belongs in journalistic scandal, or here, is a question, but it was also definitely called 'fake' at one point, on the record in a televised broadcast. Most of the gory details probably belong in the spinoff fake news in the United States, but probably we can summarize it here as well, since it got press-coverage in France and Australia and the UK already. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 14:33, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Sure, feel free to skip the mention of the repudiation, but context is necessary. If there is insufficient context in the news we should wait till more appears. Seeing as it hasn't been 24 hours and this is not an article on a news event I would suggest we wait and see.Carl Fredrik 💌 📧 14:41, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

The GoldenShowerGate is a bigger Fake News scandal than PizzaGate, so it should be mentioned in Fake News in the United States and the repudiation of CNN should go there, because it's related to that and it would be out of context here. Here it would be more appropriate to just quote Trump.

Btw. it's interesting to see, that CFCF somehow thinks that this whole thing should be mentioned now and isn't vandalism anymore.213.47.44.99 (talk) 15:12, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

• This is WP:UNDUE in an article on fake news sites, because only one (unreliable) source characterised CNN as fake news. It may be relevant in an article on Shit Donald Trump Says, or similar (that article would be yuge). Guy (Help!) 14:43, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Agree with Guy. Trump has said a lot of crazy things, we don't need to cram every single one of them into some article.Volunteer Marek (talk) 14:54, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Obama said lots of things too, so should we combine that all in one single article now? Or don't you think that they belong to the articles they are related to, like it is now?213.47.44.99 (talk) 15:14, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Obama said things, but he did not say crazy irrational unhinged things that have absolutely no connection to reality. Calling CNN a fake news organisation is fantastical nonsense. Saying this and then immediately calling on Breitbart? Satire is dead. Guy (Help!) 15:24, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Oh, i could quote many many crazy irrational and unhinged things Obama said, thats not a problem at all.

And i just realized that the Guy who makes this crazy questionable suggestion is the one who closed the discussion about the political bias of CFCF with some even more questionable comment. Now thats nice… Wikipedia is really surprising me every day :D213.47.44.99 (talk) 15:30, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Oh, i could quote many many crazy irrational and unhinged things Obama said, thats not a problem at all. Well? I await your list of 'unhinged' Obama quotes with breathless anticipation... MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:33, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

If i talk about that, some specific Users like biased CFCF would block me, because this is not relevant in this discussion here :D. Just remember, that i got warned because i added the Trump quote. That's vandalism, you know.

So, back to topic: You are suggesting that all quotes of persons should be in their own specific articles and should not get mentioned in related articles? Or is this some suggestion that just somehow applies to Trump?213.47.44.99 (talk) 15:41, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

No, Carl Fredrick isn't an admin and can't block you. Nor could an admin block you for posting accurate quotes without having a whole buttload of admin and editors come crashing down on them (including me). No, you said you could quote "many many crazy irrational and unhinged things Obama said" and now I expect you to either do just that or admit you're full of it. We don't deal in lies on WP, we deal in verifiable truth. If you can't do that, you have no place here. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:49, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

I can, and i invite you discuss that with me in private, because i don't believe that "nah, nobody would block you, for sure", especially not from someone who answers on a comment with just "ROLFMAO" and thinks that this is an valid argument. The Talk page is not for private discussions and i respect that and i know that i would be the one who gets punished for it and not you. And you have to know that most of Obamas crazy irrational comments are in geopolitics, so you should know something about that you should be better arguing than you are here.

So, back to topic: You are suggesting that all quotes of persons should be in their own specific articles and should not get mentioned in related articles? Or is this some suggestion that just somehow applies to Trump? (but this would be not political bias, of course)213.47.44.99 (talk) 16:00, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

• (edit conflict)Donald Trump is not a reliable source for what is and isn't fake news. In fact, Trump is about the worst possible source for any such claims. The fact that he called CNN fake news might be noteworthy in an article about Trump, or perhaps in a subsection about the backlash against recent efforts to combat fake news, but as things stand right now, we're not going to take his word for anything but his own opinions. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:27, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

No idea if Trump says crazy things, but the involvement of Buzzfeed in publishing the story and linking the source is relevant, especially as Buzzfeed has been cited as a reliable source for much of the content of this article. I suggest a description of the sequence of events be added to the end of the US intelligence analysis section: [[61]] Seems we're in a hall of mirrors. Shtove (talk) 15:34, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Actually PolitiFact.com is a really bad "source" who constructs straw men in order to discredit political oponents. http://humanevents.com/2012/08/30/politifact-bias-does-the-gop-tell-nine-times-more-lies-than-left-really/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.47.44.99 (talk) 15:36, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

ROFLMAO No, sorry. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 15:42, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Respect. That's some very insightful argument you have there.

"ROFLMAO" — Thats Wikipedia Standard. Really nice :) 213.47.44.99 (talk) 15:47, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Make a ridiculous argument, you get a ridiculous response. MjolnirPants Tell me all about it. 16:04, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

You didn't even read the source i linked, but you know that it's ridiculous? Nice and totally reliable. What would you say, if i tell you that in the article about PolitiFact.com is a section about exactly this with the source i posted here?

And of course is something like "He said stupid things, so i am allowed to say stupid things too!!!" Wikipedia Standard, am i right? You are pathetic.213.47.44.99 (talk) 16:12, 12 January 2017 (UTC)