More fake news by major media

And they wonder why we don’t trust politicians or the main stream media.  Interesting article by Glenn Greenwald (of Edward Snowden fame), about an article in the Guardian regarding Julian Assange.  Worth the time if you want to understand the background behind the fake news BS.

But one’s views of Assange are completely irrelevant to this article, which is not about Assange. This article, instead, is about a report published this week by the Guardian which recklessly attributed to Assange comments that he did not make. This article is about how those false claims – fabrications, really – were spread all over the internet by journalists, causing hundreds of thousands of people (if not millions) to consume false news. The purpose of this article is to underscore, yet again, that those who most flamboyantly denounce Fake News, and want Facebook and other tech giants to suppress content in the name of combatting it, are often the most aggressive and self-serving perpetrators of it.

To see how blatantly false is the Guardian’s claims, all one needs to do is compare the Guardian’s claims about what Assange said in the interview to the text of what he actually said.

https://theintercept.com/2016/12/29/the-guardians-summary-of-julian-assanges-interview-went-viral-and-was-completely-false/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=flipboard

If they want credibility when posing as Fake News opponents in the future, they ought to acknowledge what they did and retract it – beginning with the Guardian.

Glenn Greewald

Many of us use Snopes.com as proof that something is true or not true.  But who is Snopes. 

One of the websites Facebook is to use to arbitrate on 'fake news' is involved in a bitter legal dispute between its co-founders, with its CEO accused of using company money for prostitutes.

Snopes.com will be part of a panel used by Facebook to decide whether stories which users complain about as potentially 'fake' should be considered 'disputed'.

But the website's own troubles and the intriguing choice of who carries out its 'fact checks' are revealed by DailyMail.com, as one of its main contributors is disclosed to be a former sex-blogger who called herself 'Vice Vixen'.

Snopes.com will benefit from Facebook's decision to allow users to report items in their newsfeed which they believe to be 'fake'.

It is asking a number of organizations to arbitrate on items which are reported or which Facebook staff think may not be genuine, and decide whether they should be marked as 'disputed'.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4042194/Facebook-fact-checker-arbitrate-fake-news-accused-defrauding-website-pay-prostitutes-staff-includes-escort-porn-star-Vice-Vixen-domme.html

More Fake News

It is interesting to keep hearing about the Russians and Putin hacking the DNC emails.  I think that they are really deluded into thinking that we would actually believe it.

Then there’s the story about Fake news.  Just deleted my Facebook account.  They don’t need to warn me about what I read.  Leave me alone.  I am done.

The only fake news is from the Washington Post, NYT, etc.  Who do they think they are?  Who do they think we are? They are the fake news.  The administration and main stream media are discredited.  Their reign is over.  We don’t believe them anymore.

A group of retired senior intelligence officials, including the NSA whistleblower William Binney (former Technical Director, World Geopolitical & Military Analysis, NSA), have posted an open letter on consortiumnews.com that destroys the Obama administration's "Russian hacking" narrative.  Within the letter, Binney argues that, thanks to the NSA's "extensive domestic data-collection network," any data removed remotely from Hillary Clinton or DNC servers would have passed over fiber networks and therefore would have been captured by the NSA who could have then analyzed packet data to determine the origination point and destination address of those packets.  As Binney further notes, the only way the leaks could have avoided NSA detection is if they were never passed over fiber networks but rather downloaded to a thumb drive by someone with internal access to servers

www.zerohedge.com

There’s always the Crazy Russian Hacker…

https://www.youtube.com/user/CrazyRussianHacker

Former ambassador John Bolton claimed Sunday that hacks during the election season could have been “a false flag” operation — possibly committed by the Obama administration itself.

In an interview with Fox News’ Eric Shawn, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations questioned why FBI Director James Comey said during the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private server that there was no direct evidence of foreign intelligence service penetration, but Russian cyber fingerprints were found in the alleged presidential election hacks.

“It is not at all clear to me, just viewing this from the outside, that this hacking into the [Democratic National Committee] and the Republican National Committee] computers was not a false flag,” Bolton said. “So the question has to be asked, why did the Russians run their smart intelligence service against Hillary’s server, but their dumb intelligence service against the election?” Bolton did not mention that Comey’s statement might have meant there was no foreign intrusion into Clinton’s server.

Shawn then asked Bolton — who has been mentioned as a possible appointee in Donald Trump’s State Department — whether he was accusing someone in “the administration or in the intelligence community” of the alleged false flag.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/john-bolton-russia-hack-a-false-flag-232490

So much for ‘fake news’

Those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.

Glenn Greenwald

I had to add a new catagory for fake news.  This is about more than the election.  More than the left trying to shut down the “alt-right”. No mention of the “alt-left” either.

Now that the internet is in the hands of the UN, Europe is pressuring companies to shut down sites and posts, China is censoring websites and content, it appears that the move is to shut down anything not ‘officially’ sanctioned.

Zero Hedge

In the 2016 infowars, if we aren’t vigilant, the result of fake news is likely to be yet another layer of filtering. And this time around, the filters won’t be to segment audiences for advertising purposes or to target voting electorates; it won’t be to display the news articles, “likes” and intra-thread @replies that algorithms think we want to see first.

The filters in the future won’t be programmed to ban pornographic content, or prevent user harassment and abuse. The next era of the infowars is likely to result in the most pervasive filter yet: it’s likely to normalise the weeding out of viewpoints that are in conflict with established interests.

This isn’t a just problem limited to the centre, the left, or the right. Rather, this is a new reality. So, as everyone barricades themselves further into algorithmic information silos, encrypted messaging services, and invite-only social network sites, it’s at least worth a thought. In the coming decade, Al-powered smart filters developed by technology companies will weigh the legitimacy of information before audiences ever get a chance to determine it for themselves.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/09/fake-news-technology-filters?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

The phrase “Fake News” has exploded in usage since the election, but the term is similar to other malleable political labels such as “terrorism” and “hate speech”; because the phrase lacks any clear definition, it is essentially useless except as an instrument of propaganda and censorship. The most important fact to realize about this new term: those who most loudly denounce Fake News are typically those most aggressively disseminating it.

Clinton camp chief strategist @benensonj: "I've seen things" in Wikileaks emails "that aren't authentic" #ThisWeek https://t.co/LPQJBfACqz

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) October 23, 2016

Official Warning: #PodestaEmails are already proving to be riddled with obvious forgeries & #blackpropaganda not even professionally done. https://t.co/UuJZrurHAA

— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) October 7, 2016

from theintercept.com

STEPHANOPOULOS: But these are legit, aren't they?

BRAZILE: When you see what -- I don't know. I -- I refuse to open these documents. I refuse to allow a foreign government, a foreign -- or fg communities -- to interfere and meddle and manipulate information. So I don't know if it's true or not true.

But I could tell you what she's been saying in public about trade, what she's been saying in public about Wall Street, what she has been saying in public about immigration reform.
I have no idea if these documents -- they have been, as you know, selectively leaking and manipulating documents.

Postmark, the United States government finally acknowledged that these -- that the Democratic Party, Democratic institutions have been hacked and I don't trust any -- anything that (INAUDIBLE).

STEPHANOPOULOS: So I mean you don't -- you don't believe these are actually the excerpts of the speeches?

BRAZILE: Let me just say something, George. As you -- as you well know, the reason why Secretary Clinton's speeches became a topic in the primary is because she released her taxes, where, I mean Donald Trump has not released his taxes.

So I -- I believe that that information may -- I don't know, George. I refuse to open them. And I've -- I've asked the staff at the DNC and all of our democratic allies, don't open up that crap, because it's postmarked from Russia.

Real Clear Politics

Thirteen minutes of lies