Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar

Take it from me, stopping fake news won’t be easy

Posted in:

Illinois

* This probably won’t work…

Did Denzel Washington endorse Trump? Was a DNC staffer murdered so he wouldn’t meet with the FBI to testify against Hillary Clinton? Did Trump win the popular vote? Does cannabis cure cancer? The answer to all of these is no.

But you might have seen an article reporting these stories as fact: All are examples of fake news articles that have been shared on Facebook, or jumped to the top of Google’s news feed. […]

A team of students, including two University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign students, working out of HackPrinceton this weekend created FiB, a chrome extension that uses artificial intelligence to analyze and verify content shared on Facebook.

FiB works to combat fake news in two ways. First, the extension combs through a user’s Facebook news feed, verifying status updates, images and links using image recognition, keyword extraction, source verification and a Twitter search (to verify if a screenshot of a tweet is authentic). Based off the AI’s assessment of facts presented in the story, the extension will put a small tag in the corner indicating how factual a story is (such as “Verified” or “Not Verified”), and if the story turns out to be false, the AI will try to locate a more verified source of information on the topic. Second, if someone is about to post content, the extension will use the same verification process to see if someone is about to post unverified information. If so, a user is notified via chatbot and can choose to keep their post or discard it. The Chrome extension is currently available for download, and the project is open source.

Why won’t it work? Because the people who believe fake news stories are either too lazy or ill-informed to install the app or just don’t want to be told that the news they love is fake. Heck, I suspect that many already know the stories are fake and are doing their meanest best to spread the word to hurt the other side.

* I was a victim of this stuff. A tiny little publication that also posted on Facebook made repeated false claims a while ago that I was a former staffer for Speaker Madigan. I told them they were wrong, but didn’t get a response. Even Steve Brown told them they were wrong (not at my behest, by the way). They just kept writing it.

You will recall that Gov. Rauner himself bought into that claim and passed it along to reporters during a press conference. He apparently wanted to believe it so much that he didn’t bother checking.

Rauner spread that fake info when he was cornered by reporters about a column I’d written…

When informed that the online Capitol Fax reported a 1.4 percent return on the hypothetical implementation of the “Turnaround Agenda,” Rauner said blogger Rich Miller is “way, way wrong” and a former employee of House Speaker Mike Madigan (D-Chicago).

Except I didn’t use my numbers. I used Rauner’s numbers.

* From my column…

I sat down for an interview last week with Gov. Rauner. As with just about every reporter, Rauner blamed House Speaker Michael Madigan for stifling his beloved Turnaround Agenda. The governor said he was “frustrated” with Madigan for saying that his anti-union, pro-business reforms were “unrelated to the budget.”

“For example,” Rauner said, “if we can get business regulatory change so I can recruit manufacturers here and more transportation companies here, and more businesses here, we can generate billions of new revenue without raising tax rates. That’s directly tied to the budget.”

“Billions?” I asked.

“Billions,” he replied, while promising to send me a detailed analysis.

A few days later, his staff e-mailed me a memo that the governor had sent to lawmakers last fall. You can see it yourself at CapitolFax.com/turnaround.

But the memo didn’t really say much of anything about revenues, other than if the governor could get Illinois to “average” levels of unemployment and Gross State Product and if the governor could stop the migration of Illinoisans to other states, his agenda would produce a grand total of $510 million in additional revenues.

That ain’t “billions.” […]

And while $510 million seems like a lot of money, the governor’s projected revenue growth from his Turnaround Agenda would only be a 1.4 percent increase over the last state fiscal year.

Hence, “Gov. 1.4 percent.”

And would it even be that much? Rauner has said he would agree to higher state taxes if legislators agree to his Turnaround Agenda. But as a Republican legislative friend pointed out to me last week, that tax hike will reduce growth, even with all of Rauner’s agenda items.

That link with the Rauner memos is still active, so you can go check it out yourself.

To sum up, the governor used a fake news story to deny the validity of a very real story about numbers generated by his own staff for legislators and then sent to me at his own direction.

By the way, Rauner told reporters back then that he’d release updated economic projections. Never happened.

* I tried and failed to get Facebook to do something about that little fake news operation. Maybe now the company would listen, but I kinda doubt it.

Facebook and Google have to crack down hard on this stuff. And I do mean hard. But they can only do so much if the populace isn’t willing or able to act like citizens instead of lazy-minded, hyper-partisan consumers.

posted by Rich Miller
Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 12:46 pm

Comments

calling Orwell…is it 1984 yet?

Comment by yeah Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 12:52 pm
Ah yes…the good old Illinois Mirror…

Comment by Team Sleep Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 12:54 pm
Rich - I think Facebook and Google are taking a good first step. They are refusing to allow their advertising apps to be used on the fake news sites, which cripples their ability to generate revenue.

Illinois Mirror is a slightly different beast. We can be sure someone is funding it, just not sure whom at this point. Otherwise, why would Rauner - who claims not to read any news - be aware of it?

Comment by Juvenal Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 12:59 pm
Facebook doesn’t care. They can’t even do anything (or don’t want to do anything) about already being overrun by ads for overseas merchants selling fake, unlicensed items for every intellectual property under the sun (t-shirts, etc.). when an average user tries to report the ad or posting as fake or violating someone’s trademark, they get a response that only the rights holder can make the report. This has been going on forever, so the fact that they won’t block fake news sites (other than the Onion, etc., which never pretended to be anything else and goes for laughs) is not a surprise.

Comment by Ron Burgundy Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 1:01 pm
“The United States also has a unique law governing accountability as it relates to acts of online defamation — Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. In short, the statute absolves Internet service providers (hosting companies, websites, developers, etc.) of defamation liability over user comments and content. It’s why Facebook, the corporation, is not sued every time an individual Facebook user commits an act of libel on the platform.”

Threaten to amend that statute and watch how fast fb and others clean up their act.

Comment by 47th Ward Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 1:03 pm
How do we overcome the lazy minds? I would argue that is one of our most pressing issues since it thwarts progress on so many important matters.

Comment by thechampaignlife Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 1:03 pm
But Rich… This stuff is so much more interesting than the reality in which we exist. So much harder for find fault with only one side if you deal in facts.

Comment by Springfield Since '77 Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 1:05 pm
–To sum up, the governor used a fake news story to deny the validity of a very real story about numbers generated by his own staff for legislators and then sent to me at his own direction.

By the way, Rauner told reporters back then that he’d release updated economic projections. Never happened.–

That’s the all the justification you’re ever going to get for the Turnaround Agenda.

And, as it relates to the main point of the thread, liars and the gullible will always find each other. Some of the people, all of the time…

Comment by wordslinger Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 1:05 pm
Madigan and the fake news he controls…

Comment by Rogue Roni Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 1:15 pm
I’ve been pushing back on friends and relatives on sharing fake “or bad news” as David Mikkelson calls it. I post warnings and articles about the problem. They like the post and then proceed to post more bad news. Sigh!.

Comment by Norseman Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 1:17 pm
I have…a lot of thoughts on this. But suffice to say after ten years in opp research and seeing how political news has warped into every available niche, I’m not surprised in the slightest.

Comment by Will Caskey Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 1:19 pm
Rich that was one of the most interesting of your blog posts I have read over the years. I suspect it will be cited as evidence as to how fiction is turned into fact by politicians for years to come.

Comment by Rod Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 1:20 pm
What’s even more frustrating is that the $510 million figure is based upon achieving Gross State Product and unemployment numbers, but there’s no proof that the Governor’s TA will result in those numbers. It’s just wishful thinking. No guaranteed cause-effect.

Another version of trickle down economics. And that sure worked

Comment by Sir Reel Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 1:24 pm
Fighting perfidy will be one of the major battles of this age

Comment by Honeybear Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 1:28 pm
This is the worst.

If anything, it allows the lazy to seem engaged by their own standards and allows fake newspapers, think tanks, radio shows the opportunity to claim legitimacy until…

… there is no until… they still exist.

It’s like digging a hole and 2 people putting dirt back in the hole simultaneously

Comment by Oswego Willy Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 1:32 pm
I created a satirical Congressman on Twitter in 2010 and was surprised to find him quoted by The Huffington Post and Washington Post among others. It’s not just your aunt on Facebook who doesn’t check sources. I wasn’t trying to trick people only satirically comment on the news so my posts weren’t exactly believable like some of the fake sources either.

Comment by Carhartt Representative Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 1:37 pm
FiB. Seriously? Just what do these people have against F*** Illinois B****. They must be from Wisconsin

Comment by Angry Republican Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 1:38 pm
It will never stop until we include rigorous critical thinking instruction to school curricula. I spend a lot of time dealing with this sort of junk, and thinking about how to solve it. And while the free and easy access to information granted by the internet has helped, it hasn’t helped nearly enough, in part because it also allows easy dissemination of BS.

I’ve seen ongoing, Herculean public education and outreach efforts barely move the needle. Without universal education in how to evaluate claims and evidence, in how not to be fooled and how easy we are to fool, I don’t think we’ll ever seriously reduce the impact of fake news, truthy memes and other junk we want to believe.

And I don’t think we’ll ever get that education. Because the powerful people that push this kind of stuff, who are very much on both sides of the political spectrum as well as outside it, know that it represents a threat to their success at selling their message. And that’s often not even a dig at them for hypocrisy; many of them fully believe that critical thinking and standards of evidence are fundamentally flawed and contrary to The Truth. Just ask an academically-minded homeopath whether double-blinding is capable of measuring their treatment’s efficacy.

Comment by Threepwood Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 1:46 pm
Sometimes I listen to a radio station who took on the tag line “Where facts matter” a few months ago. My biggest horror after this election is that the phrase has been conclusively proven to be false for a large part of the voting population. Facts simply do not matter.

Comment by Groundhog Day Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 1:59 pm
Truthiness Breitbarted The Berner who recently told me that Bernie got more popular votes than Hillary in the primary said it was written in a publication. not on a blog comment or somebody’s personal blog, a publication. it feels true because the person wants it to be true. and that is the real problem. fact deniers.

Comment by Amalia Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 2:00 pm
I keep telling those around me that they can’t believe anything they read on the Internet. (Except CapFax, which is my ONLY source for Illinois political news.) Facebook is rife with misinformation. Most sites, you can’t tell the difference between ads and news. Outright deceit is rampant. Ironic, in this new age when information has been decentralized and everyone is a newspaper publisher, that the only news sources I do believe are the legacy media. At least there is some effort still made there to vet stuff and remain objective.

Comment by up2now Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 2:04 pm
=Facebook and Google have to crack down hard on this stuff. And I do mean hard.=

Rich, fake news sucks, I agree. But this would be borderline, or actual - censoring. Slippery slope.

Comment by allknowingmasterofracoondom Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 2:04 pm
Rich,

First of all, I have been reading your blog since the whole Blago fiasco but have never commented. Just wanted to say thanks for a very good source of information!

This whole post to a degree some’s the political climate in the country. No one takes any time to read the facts thoroughly, including politicians. Its scary

Comment by Does Any Read Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 2:06 pm
Ahhh, January. A simpler time when citing a false article counted as “getting duped on Facebook” in ILGOP circles.

Comment by LizPhairTax Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 2:07 pm
https://www.projectcbd.org/cancer

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 2:08 pm
Deliberately making fake news is worse than bad/lazy journalism or biased reporting … barely.

The later has required people to do their own research and look for non-traditional sources; which may (may) explain why and how fake news came into being.

Lazy people will always take the path of least resistance, unfortunately. Thus I share the skepticism that this phenomenon can be eradicated.

Comment by Deft Wing Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 2:10 pm
As soon as I saw “fake news” I thought of IPI

Comment by Fixer Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 2:11 pm
Persuading someone to believe something that they want to believe is false is just about the hardest thing in the world to do

Comment by The Way I See It Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 2:13 pm
===this would be borderline, or actual - censoring===

Facebook is not the government. It’s a business. They can do whatever they want on their own platform. Just like here. I can delete you and there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it other than complain, and I can delete that, too. lol

Comment by Rich Miller Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 2:21 pm
Americans are smarter than any organization producing fake news.

Trust voters. Stop calling us names, speak down to us, or lecture us. When a politician denigrates our electoral process when they lose, they also denigrate their own legitimacy when they win.

Stop it. Now.

Comment by VanillaMan Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 2:25 pm
One of the worst developments of our age has to be the pejorative term “mainstream media” It allows anyone to reject a fact because it comes from those no-good reporters who disagree with my particular view.

Comment by illini97 Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 2:26 pm
===the pejorative term “mainstream media”===

Things happen for a reason.

Comment by Rich Miller Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 2:32 pm
Can we agree to stop calling stuff “fake news” and start calling it what it really is… propaganda.

Comment by North Shore Joe Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 2:37 pm
===Americans are smarter than any organization producing fake news.===

That’s a pretty broad statement.

Comment by Rich Miller Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 2:39 pm
Standards set by a 1974 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Gertz v. Robert Welch Inc., apply to everyone, not just journalists.

There needs to be proof of fault and actual damages…

Comment by Liberty Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 2:56 pm
It feels like Gov. Rauner has brought the non-sense DC stuff to Illinois. It’s not very fun.

Comment by Try-4-Truth Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 2:58 pm
Only in Illinois would 500 million in savings which over a four year term would infact be 2 billion not worth pursuing

Comment by Lucky Pierre Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 3:19 pm
=== Americans are smarter than any organization producing fake news. ===

Seriously, after this election season.

Comment by Norseman Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 3:19 pm
Maybe if more than 30 percent of the country (according to Gallup) trusted the real media the appetite for fake media would diminish

Comment by Anonymous Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 3:21 pm
That was me phone issues again

Comment by Lucky Pierre Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 3:22 pm
@Lucky — and only if Rauner would show his revenue bill along with his TA bills…

Comment by Illinois O'Malley Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 3:37 pm
O Malley you are holding the Speaker to the same standard on revenue correct?

Comment by Lucky Pierre Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 3:44 pm
–Only in Illinois would 500 million in savings which over a four year term would infact be 2 billion not worth pursuing–

LOL, the governor disowned his projections as soon they were published and accused Miller of being a Madigan shill for publishing them.

Because the projections are ridiculously small for the severe price being paid for them. The ROI is a huge loser.

It would take 20 years of that kind of “revenue growth” applied directly to the backlog of bills to get it down to where it was when Rauner took office.

I can see why you don’t reference real numbers too often. Stick to the chatbot program.

Comment by wordslinger Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 3:46 pm
Liberty, your point is what in the context of this post?

Comment by Norseman Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 3:48 pm
I’ve had people get mad at me because I sent them links to Snopes debunking the fake news and urban legends they were emailing to all and sundry.

It’s sad, but true, that people don’t WANT to know the truth, if it differs from what they want to believe.

Comment by JoanP Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 3:52 pm
This goes beyond politics. A few years ago someone told me they were going to wake their kids up at 2 a.m. to see the “double moon” they read about on Facebook.

Comment by Twirling Towards Freedom Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 3:53 pm
I am reminded about fake news when I go to capitol fax and watch the same headline over and over again in the feed informer. Most of the time it’s Illinois Policy Institute or one of the fake Proft blogs desperate to get their spin out.

Comment by anonymous Friday, Nov 18, 16 @ 4:20 pm