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)

CNN and Buzzfeed is Fake News

I added CNN as an example of a Fake News Website, but you reverted it with the reason that CNN is not Fake News in your opinion. I think that this is highly inappropriate, because the current President elect of the USA confirmed that it's Fake News and he is a more reliable source than the personal opinion of some random Wikipedia author. This conclusion is also based on the fact that CNN reported about the Golden Shower Gate, which is exactly on the same level as Pizzagate (which has an own section in Fake news websites in the United States). Even if you argue with the fact that CNN wrote in small letters that it's "unconfirmed", you have to accept that this behaviour is still a try to mislead readers for their own political agenda. If some random guy sends an anonymous Mail to a news outlet and claims that he had gay sex with Obama, and this news outlet is reporting it in big letters on their main page… would you consider that Fake News? I guess: Yes, Of course! Because that's exactly how the Fake News websites who are currently in your examples work — they take random claims and report about them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.47.44.99 (talk) 10:47, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Please cite wp:reliable sources that state CNN and Buzzfeed are fake news sources. And, BTW, stating that the Prez said so is not RS. Jim1138 (talk) 11:10, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

• 10:29, 12 January 2017‎ Grayfell m . . (Reverted 1 edit by 213.47.44.99 (talk) to last revision by 65.128.173.192. (TW))
• 10:28, 12 January 2017‎ 213.47.44.99. . (CNN is Fake News. It's confirmed by the president elect of the US. That's a reliable source.)

Hello 213.47, you were reverted by Grayfell who did not comment specifically on why they did so, which was not very proper. Coming to the talkpage was the right thing however, thank you 213.47, we can get it worked out here. I've moved your talkpage-section on CNN to the bottom of the page, because that is wikipedia tradition for where new sections go (that is where people look for them). On the substance of your point, there are two things that matter here. First of all, any particular human (even the POTUS-elect) does not automatically count as a 'reliable source' in the wikipedia sense of the term. You can see the meaning at WP:RS, and there in particular you will note that WP:GOVERNMENTAL sources are considered to often be reliable, albeit usually WP:PRIMARY. However, this is specific to governmental publications, i.e. congressional record or a report officially issued by one of the govermental agencies, or similar things. You mentioned in your edit-summary that Trump once said CNN was 'fake news' but you didn't give a reference-URL to where and in what context -- if he said it on twitter, and nobody else reported on it, that would count as a personal statement but would not count as being a 'published' statement in the wikipedia sense, see WP:BLOGS. (If he just retweeted what somebody else said then it would probably not even count as WP:ABOUTSELF.) On the other hand, if Trump was quoted in a newspaper or on television or in a published book, saying that CNN is a 'fake news' organization, then that would possibly belong in the Fake news website article, and eventually in the List of fake news websites (the current "rule" there is that only websites with at least three sources calling them 'fake news' sites will be listed). Now, doing a quick search, it looks like there are several reliable sources for Trump calling CNN 'fake news', I will put a list together and then post it here on the talkpage. The second thing that matters, is whether the CNN logo belongs in the example-of-fake-news-sites at the top of the page, or whether that would be WP:UNDUE, more on that in a minute. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 11:12, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Here are the sources which easily pass WP:RS. Instead of saying that Trump said such and such, you have to do it more like this:

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".

References

Political.[47][48] International.[49][50][51][52] Mainstream.[53][54] Financial.[55] Factchecker.[56] Does that make sense? It is how wikipedia keeps people from just putting anything into the article, everything must be verifiable, which usually means linking to a magazine/book/newspaper/televisionWebsite/etc. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 11:24, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer. I noticed that you moved it down, thanks for that. 65.128 did undo it with the comment "because CNN is not a fake news site", i added it again and Grayfell reverted it with "Fully reverting vandalism".

The President elect of the USA said it on his official press conference, so i guess that this is considered as a reliable source. It can't get more official than that. So if i add the Youtube Video of the press conference as a Reference, it would be OK to add CNN as an example for Fake News? Thats great, i can do that!

The CNN logo totally belongs in the example-of-fake-news-site at the top, because it's more popular than abcnews, denverguardian or theresistor (honestly, i never heard about that sites before i saw them here).And do you really think that news sites reporting about what Trump said are better References than a video of the Press Conference itself?213.47.44.99 (talk) 11:36, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes, Grayfell needed to be a bit more careful with their phrasing, they should not have called it vandalism. But please forgive them per WP:NICE -- as you can probably guess, we have people show up every other day inserting "$news_org_I_dislike is the fakest faker of fake news evah" just to screw with wikipedia. So it makes folks a little touchy, and Grayfell over-reacted. In your case, you are correct that Trump really did say it, you are just unsure how wikipedia policies work. And you will find they are paradoxical, but make sense after you get used to them. Youtube is not considered a reliable source, because anybody can upload to it. The video content is *usually* not photoshopped or altered, but there are no fact-checkers at google taking down incorrect & altered videos, so wikipedia does not trust youtube generally speaking. Wikipedia prefers to trust the places I listed above: New York Times, The Hill, Politico, France24, The Telegraph, The Guardian, USA Today, Snopes.com, Business Insider, that sort of thing. FOX also counts for most things. And sometimes sites like Breitbart and DailyKos count, but we are very cautious with them because they are highly biased, whereas CNN is only somewhat biased, see datasets at Talk:Fake_news_website/Archive_2#Useful_charts_but_not_deliberate_hoax_fraud.

....as for the example-sites you have never heard of, those are the clearest exemplars of the narrow core definition of 'fake news website' which means those run by Jestin Coler (see National Report and Denver Guardian) and Paul Horner (see ABCnews.com.co), which pretend to be legit news organizations but actually just make everything up. RealTrueNews was a hoax-site that later revealed itself. 70news is more borderline, it is arguably more a blog than a fake news site by the narrow definition, but is there currently because of WP:RECENTISM, which may get corrected/balanced at some point. CNN is a legit news organization compared to them, obviously, so it is not neutral (see WP:NPOV) to lump CNN in with clickbait-hoax-sites. See also the discussion further up the talkpage about the pope, where WaPo and their affiliates just flat out screwed up and misquoted the pope -- that is errata, and might be perceived as evidence of bias, but not 'fake news' in the narrow sense. There was a case in the 1980s where a WaPo journalist *was* completely making up stories to boost circulation, but at the time that was called journalistic scandal rather than fake news. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 11:59, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

It's not like i expected that all Wikipedia authors would just accept that some major news station like CNN is considered Fake News. I already guessed that it will lead to some discussions, so lets forget about that Revert and talk about how we should deal with the "CNN = Fake News" issue.

I think i get what you mean, thanks for the explanation, so i should add multiple media sources instead of a video of the Press Conference. That is not a big deal, thanks.

I understand that the definition of "Fake News" fits better to these small sites nobody knows. But the article says that Fake News deliberately publish propaganda and seek to mislead, the "Overview of coverage" section even says that it's a form of psychological warfare and damaging to democracy. If this is the goal of Fake News, then the small news sites have just some minor effect, even if 90% of their reports are deliberately false, while CNN reaches out to an enormous amount of people and has an much bigger effect, even if just 10% is false propaganda and political bias. So if we talk about deliberate false reporting with the goal to influence people, CNN takes the lead. If we consider CNN to be Fake News, we have to place it on top.213.47.44.99 (talk) 12:35, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Source for Fake News Article in Wikipedia is Fake News? — Quality Problem?

In the References is BuzzFeed News at least 13 times and the name Buzzfeed is 23 times in this article (every time as source). So the source for claims in an Wikipedia Article about Fake News is a Fake News website with an political agenda which is known for their clickbaiting headlines and misleading informations? Don't you think that we have some quality problems here? And what about the fact that "Fake News" is now a popular term used to discredit every news station someone doesn't like?213.47.44.99 (talk) 11:14, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

On the question of whether buzzfeed is considered to be a 'reliable source' on wikipedia, the answer is sometimes yes and sometimes no (I've seen both outcomes). You are correct that buzzfeed uses clickbait-y headlines, and that is definitely ironic.  :-)

But they also, at least in some of their pieces, do solid reporting. So they are a grey area, which sometimes count as reliable and other times do not, see WP:IRS and also WP:RSN. If you see something particular that needs removing, which is only sourced to buzzfeed, please point it out (i.e. which sentence is wrong/misleading/whatever).

There is also the separate question of whether buzzfeed is *biased* and therefore should not be used (see e.g. chart at journalism#Production and article at media bias in the United States). On wikipedia, using sources which are themselves biased, is usually okay, as long as the factual content is what is being used, and as long as the facts are given (by wikipedia in 'wikivoice' aka the prose in the article) in a neutral fashion. Wikipedia is NOT supposed to take sides. And as you can see, this is not an easy job in a controversial topic-area like fake news, especially when the very definition of the term is evolving so quickly. I've been working offline on gathering definition-of-fake-news sources, to fix up the article in that respect (over the last week plenty of sources have flat out said the term is an almost-meaningless slur nowadays), but have not updated the article-prose yet. If you'd like to stick around and help, you are welcome, but please remember that wikipedia takes time, especially on tricky topic-areas. 47.222.203.135 (talk) 11:32, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

So this means that even Fake News websites like CNN, BuzzFeed News and Breitbart can be reliable sources. That's kind of ironic, because we are talking about an article about "Fake News websites". This whole terms tries to imply that everything such a news station reports is Fake. It's also not a coincidence that the term "Fake News" suddenly appeared out of nowhere after the US election. If you analyse that term with Google Trends, you will see that it wasn't present at all before that. There is a clear connection with it, because the term originated from news stations who where all officially supporting Hillary Clinton (just need to list the Endorsement Statements of BuzzFeed, CNN, BBC, NYTimes,...). In my opinion, we need to dump that whole article and write a new one from scratch and focus on the term itself, it's origin and it's use.

If we really want to find a consistent definition, we have to accept that BuzzFeedNews and CNN is also Fake News, based on the official statement of the President Elect of the US and the Golden Shower Gate — but then we have an Article where we define that BuzzFeed is Fake News and write about other Fake News Sites with BuzzFeed as source and 13 BuzzFeed References. Awesome!213.47.44.99 (talk) 12:00, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

Wikipedia is nothing, if not sometimes internally contradictory! Sorry about that  ;-)

But just because somebody once called something on a particular website 'fake news' for whatever reason, does not mean that wikipedia cannot EVER use that 'fake news website' as a quote reliable source unquote. If you will read WP:RS you will see that wikipedia's bar for reliability is very low, just about any local newspaper journalist 'counts' as a reliable source. But if you read WP:NPOV you can see that wikipedia also strives to stay out of disputes: when reliable source X says one thing, and reliable source Y says the opposite, wikipedia is supposed to just use neutral phrasing to describe the situation. Wikipedians are NOT supposed to pick and choose the winners: so even though plenty of people (not just Trump) have called CNN, or more commonly MSNBC, some variation on the phrase 'fake news' that does not disqualify those entities as reliable sources. Even buzzfeed, which originally was more of a comedy show like Jon Stewart (not a reliable source in wikipedia jargon-sense), is like that. Cf the National Enquirer.

...as for a major rewrite being needed, you are correct that the article on Fake news website needs a lot of work. There are partial rewrite-attempts here and also here, plus see further up the talkpage where discussion is ongoing. Wikipedia just is slow about implementing improvements, especially on controversial topics like this one, but it gets there (slowly). 47.222.203.135 (talk) 12:10, 12 January 2017 (UTC)