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rumor and speculation can look like alternative facts

EVERY TROLL IS RIGHTWINGED, or least seems to be. Every fake news site and every blog passing on al­ter­na­tive facts also seems to be far right of center. Of course, this is based on my ex­pe­ri­ence on the free­wheeling world­wide web of fact and fic­tion, opinion and as­sess­ment, rumor and spec­u­la­tion, and every­thing else a human can do with words, im­ages, and symbols. [Read more] “rumor and speculation can look like alternative facts”

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social media and all the fake news that’s fit to print

SOME PEOPLE DO BE­LIEVE every­thing they read on Face­book: “So­cial media has swal­lowed the news, threat­ening the funding of public-interest re­porting and ush­ering in an era when everyone has their own facts. Twenty-five years after the first web­site went on­line, it is clear that we are living through a pe­riod of dizzying transition.  [Read more] “social media and all the fake news that’s fit to print”

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so what has president obama done for you lately?

I JOINED A CON­VER­SA­TION on Face­book con­cerning the “de­bate” about Pres­i­dent Obama’s sup­pos­edly ex­ces­sive number of va­ca­tion days on which he golfed—yet an­other non-issue from the mainstream/corporate media and pun­ditry that so easily cap­tures the attention-deficit-disordered imag­i­na­tion of Rep*blican voters. Which led to the ob­vious ques­tion, “What has Pres­i­dent Obama done for you lately?” [Read more] “so what has president obama done for you lately?”

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where are all the damn liberal viral emails that are supposed to be out there?

A SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY is a pre­dic­tion that di­rectly or in­di­rectly causes it­self to be­come true by the very terms of the prophecy it­self [and] due to pos­i­tive feed­back be­tween be­lief and be­havior. So­ci­ol­o­gist Robert K. Merton is cred­ited with coining the ex­pres­sion and for­mal­izing its struc­ture and consequences. [Read more] “where are all the damn liberal viral emails that are supposed to be out there?”

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it ain’t what you know that gets you in trouble

SINCE THE RISE OF TRUMP, he has co-opted a term that has been in use for sev­eral years—fake news. The term was orig­i­nally used to de­scribe the stag­gering amount and array of dis­in­for­ma­tion, mis­in­for­ma­tion, pro­pa­ganda, and lies that were cir­cu­lated by rightwing sources and echoed end­lessly by rightwing blogs. [Read more] “it ain’t what you know that gets you in trouble”