Google’s top news link for ‘final election results’ goes to a fake news site with false numbers

[millefleur 5,038]

Click Bait can be any bright shiny object that comes up on a web page that drives you to use it including Kittens, Grapefruit reducing belly fat or some unbelievable fact about a presidential candidate getting indicted. There are economic drivers for some of these and various form deception in others.

When we talk about the post truth era we talk about folks intentionally choosing unverifiable facts and weighing them greater than or equal to truth that can be proven or measured. The internet searches and facebook feeds is just one modality for this.

This bias against the truth is even present in our standard media processes. A good example is climate change: If a news channel presents information on climate change in the news it is incumbent upon them to give equal time to the "opposing view" The thing is Climate Change is settled science, there is no debate in the scientific community and yet the public views this a still to be determined.

Trump et al leveraged the appetite for this and true to his promise "took all of the oxygen from the room". Is this revolution permanent or will we adapt? I feel we will adapt over time , but if these technology firms value their brand, they will get ahead of this before it is too late.

Well, I think the Climate Change thing actually boils down to ethics. I think even if people fessed up to agreeing that climate change is real and humans have a negative impact on the planet, the naysayers would say: "So what?" and babble on about how it's good for the economy and creates jobs and whatnot about the fossil fuel industry and etc. The debate about if it's real or not just seems like smoke and mirrors to me in order to avoid the "Hey we're just greedy! We want to exploit and plunder the planet!" truth that lies under their denial motivations. But you're right, it is a kind of "post-truth" (since this is a word now.) They use their argument against it to make their actions seem less terrible. This kind of deception does seem to be on the rise, so the word is apt.

There is of course non-political click bait as you mentioned, but that kind has been around for a while now. It just seems like in recent years it's started infiltrating political news a lot more. Most likely because the owners of the news sites began to understand that it works: it gets more traffic to their site. I think the current economic model of how websites operate more or less encourages click bait unfortunately. Maybe we will hit "peak click bait" and it will die down, we'll have to see. I agree that the tech companies need to start addressing....it is, in some sense, their moral duty because it does shape the kind of world we live in...they need to own up to that. Easier said than done, of course.

[Rob L 3,811]

Well, I think the Climate Change thing actually boils down to ethics. I think even if people fessed up to agreeing that climate change is real and humans have a negative impact on the planet, the naysayers would say: "So what?" and babble on about how it's good for the economy and creates jobs and whatnot about the fossil fuel industry and etc. The debate about if it's real or not just seems like smoke and mirrors to me in order to avoid the "Hey we're just greedy! We want to exploit and plunder the planet!" truth that lies under their denial motivations. But you're right, it is a kind of "post-truth" (since this is a word now.) They use their argument against it to make their actions seem less terrible. This kind of deception does seem to be on the rise, so the word is apt.

There is of course non-political click bait as you mentioned, but that kind has been around for a while now. It just seems like in recent years it's started infiltrating political news a lot more. Most likely because the owners of the news sites began to understand that it works: it gets more traffic to their site. I think the current economic model of how websites operate more or less encourages click bait unfortunately. Maybe we will hit "peak click bait" and it will die down, we'll have to see. I agree that the tech companies need to start addressing....it is, in some sense, their moral duty because it does shape the kind of world we live in...they need to own up to that. Easier said than done, of course.

And with that I bring you the top 100 adorable cats!

https://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/best-cat-pictures?utm_term=.tue2Dr5E9#.fujj5pJXq

Edited November 22, 2016 by Rob L

[millefleur 5,038]

And with that I bring you the top 100 adorable cats!

https://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/best-cat-pictures?utm_term=.tue2Dr5E9#.fujj5pJXq

Lol! *click* *click* *click* :luv: :luv:

[Voice of Reason 10,298]

Hint: The climate was a-changin' several times over several million years afore the interwebs came along. Even before man. We'll have to wait another thousand or two years to see if man's impact on the climate has been "significant" or not.