As IF Times

Source: Europe wants to crack down on fake news. But one person’s fake news is another’s democratic dissent. – The Washington Post

Of all ironies, a story about addressing fake news by the Washington Post.  In Trump’s post election era, the staggering imbalance of biased news has made itself starkly evident by the daily breathless headlines of The Donald’s latest transgressions.  But it’s not just the Post; it’s been a tag team cage event with the majority of the big media outlets on one side brandishing the folding chairs.  By now, the public has been made aware of the slant of reported events which can range from subtle innuendos to outright knee slappers which sometimes have to be later withdrawn with an apology on page 125 in 2 point font.

Donald Trump’s election only served to pull back the façade of the news purveyors and expose just how biased the industry can be.  People in the political racket are going to lie.  This self evident fact is like fat people and buffet tables; they naturally occur together.  During the previous administration however, the outright lies and duplicity were passed over as if they were minor incidents of nose picking.

One of the most egregious claims, still imposed upon people to this day, has to do with the gigantic industry of global warming. While there are cracks beginning to show in the entire charade, the constant indoctrination over the last decade has created a worldview that many people accept as being true, or as Al Gore likes to put it;  it’s like gravity, it just is.

The linked article opines that some sort of government oversight should be implemented to sort out fake news.

Right.

In the U.S., there already is a mechanism to sort out fake news; it is by the collapsing ratings and fortunes of the fake news purveyors.  Eventually, people are going to believe their own lyin’ eyes.  These outlets may never get shamed out of existence, since there’s always a partisan crowd to pander to, but they will lose their mantle of being legitimate news organizations.

Again, ironically, it’s the Washington Post which has a Pinocchio rating score for news events.  Imagine if this system could  be adopted by all news outlets, like Yelp ratings, we could more readily sort out the news from the propaganda.  If the outlet gets enough Pinocchio’s,  it then gets relegated to the birdcage liner department.

Source: Mark Zuckerberg Testimony: A Critical Test for Facebook – The New York Times

Watching the current testimony of Mark Zuckerberg in front of a Congressional panel on Facebook’s activities is a bit like watching a bunch of seniors asking a PhD student about string theory.   It’s obvious that the Facebook CEO is giving condescending and patronizing answers to people who are asking political questions rather than probing for real fact discovery.  The greatest laugh he has on them is that during his testimony, the stock rose enough to enrich him by $3 billion dollars!  Boy they sure showed him.

That there is any outrage over the leaks of individuals’ private data exists only because there is a tenuous link to the possibility of a chance of maybe helping to bring about Donald Trump’s election.  As we all know, employment of such data mining techniques by parties partisan to the previous President were hailed as genius.  The root of the outrage is not so much about the abuse of mined data, it’s more about who got to benefit from it.

As usual, the threat of government regulation of companies such as Facebook have been raised as a means of curtailing ‘abuses’.  Sure, that’s what’s needed here, more laws.  Somehow, the encompassing sense of entitlement that has taken root in Western culture extends even to Facebook,  an entirely free platform for which nobody is forcefully compelled to participate.  However, in participating, people voluntarily offer their most personal information and proclivities for the world to see and presumably expecting the same from others.  Facebook is a brilliant invention which captures that large segment of the population whom are exhibitionists, voyeurs or both.   To their credit, Facebook made a business out of it and a very big one at that.  But now, there are all kinds of expectations on what this free service should provide or be responsible for.  It’s like going to a free public toilet and demanding that it be supplied with toilet paper.

Zuckerberg for his part, has been disingenuous with the description of his company.  His comments regarding Facebook content makes liberal use of the word ‘community’ to describe Facebook users.  In fact, they have armies of people who are charged with filtering out those that don’t fit their views of what’s acceptable in their community.  So it’s an inclusive community, as long as you fit their definition of community.

As long as Facebook is not deemed to be a public utility, they can do whatever they want and to treat customers as they see fit.  The hysteria surrounding their business practices will subside.  Satisfied users will stay; unhappy ones will leave.  The recent publicity that Facebook has garnered has served an important function however.  It exposes the reality behind their business model and perhaps into the models of many other internet and social media companies. People get something for free, meanwhile, the business owners become billionaires.  Why is there surprise?