Buzzfeed’s Fake News Problem
If you went looking for a piece of hay in a pile of needles, would you blame the hay if you pricked your finger?
That’s what the mainstream media is doing right now by blaming Facebook (and to a lesser extent, Google), regarding “fake news” and the need to crack down on this spam. Besides CNN head Jeff Zucker apologizing for running unedited Trump speeches, which is pretty ironic for a news outlet that needs to have a 24/7 newsfeed, a lot of print and online outfits are walking in lockstep about the Facebook/Macedonian “problem” of fake news.
Let’s just take a look at one example.
On Wednesday Nov 16, Buzzfeed News ran an article called “Viral Fake Election News Outperformed Real News On Facebook In Final Months Of The US Election”, written by their founding editor Craig Silverman.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/viral-fake-election-news-outperformed-real-news-on-facebook
The article details how “hyperpartisan sites” managed to outperform more traditional “mainstream news”, including itself. They then determined that the top fake story was “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President, Releases Statement”. This was clearly fake news, from a bogus website.
According to the Buzzfeed analysis, in the three months leading up to the election, the “Pope” article published by “Ending The Fed” managed to get 960,000 Facebook engagements, which is a total number derived from shares, reactions, and comments for a piece of shared on Facebook.
Buzzfeed’s “data set”
Fake/False – Top 20
August 1 to election day – 8,711,000
May to July – 3,183,000
February to April – 2,970,000Big News Sites – Top 20
August 1 to election day – 7,367,000
May to July – 9,492,000
February to April – 12,395,000The top 20 real news sites:
New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Daily News, New York Post, The Guardian, USA Today, NBC News, ABC News, CBS News, CNN, FOX News, NPR, Huffington Post, BuzzFeed, Vox, Business Insider, Politico
Buzzfeed’s “full” data set is here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ysnzawW6pDGBEqbXqeYuzWa7Rx2mQUip6CXUUUk4jIk/
While the fake sites do eke past the real in the final 3 months, from February to election day, the mainstream press still won the year up until election day by 2 to 1. I guess Buzzfeed doesn’t expect their viewership to bother adding numbers.
Fake Total: 14,864,000
Big Total: 29,254,000
Sure, it does seem that “fake news” is catching up though. Those damned Macedonians.
This data is just the proverbial piece of hay in the needle stack though.
By their own admission, Buzzfeed ignored “native video” and other Facebook centric content, instead focusing on links to external websites. By ignoring said services that use Facebook as a video distribution service akin to YouTube, it gives far too much weight to those pesky Macedonians, and grossly under-represents the influence of native video services.
By orders of magnitude.
Take a look at just one such “native video” outfit.
It’s called NowThis Media, which does a broad spectrum of video posted directly to Facebook, as opposed to distributing on YouTube and linking. They have a bit of a Twitter following but Facebook is their bread and butter. They cover everything from politics to cooking videos.
To keep things neat, they have a separate sub brand called “NowThis Election”.
I personally became aware of NowThis at some point in the summer, when one of their videos started to go viral.
Titled “Donald Trump delivers horrible foreign policy speech following…”, with the comment on it saying “This was Donald J. Trump’s most xenophobic and anti-Muslim speech yet” it was too good to pass up.
https://www.facebook.com/NowThisElection/videos/1200842399947248/
The problem is that the video is fake news. If you watch it, it’s heavily edited, and paints said speed in a much more negative light, regardless of your personal political affiliation.
Here are the edits:
NowThis: Here is what she said: ‘Muslims are peaceful and tolerant people and have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism.’ That is Hillary Clinton. I don’t want them in our country.
Actual: And by the way, the LBGT community is just, what happened to them is just so sad, and to be thinking where their policies are currently with this administration is a disgrace to that community, I’ll tell you that right now. Clinton wants to allow radical Islamic terrorists into this country. They enslave women and they murder gays. I don’t want them in our country. Immigration is a privilege and we should not let into our country those who don’t support our communities.
—
NowThis: The only reason the killer was in America in the first place was because we allowed his family to come here. [Caption: Donald Trump just beat his own xenophobia high score]
Actual: The killer, whose name I will not use or ever say, was born in Afghan of Afghan parents, who immigrated to the United States. His father published support for the afghan Taliban, a regime which murders those who don’t share its radical views, and they’ve murdered plenty. The father even said he was running for president of Afghanistan. The bottom line is that the only reason the killer was in America in the first place was because we allowed him to be here.
—
NowThis: We cannot continue to allow thousands upon thousands of people to pour into our country, many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer.
Actual: We have a dysfunctional immigration system which does not permit us to know who we let into our country and it does not allow us to protect our citizens properly… When I’m elected, I will suspend immigration from areas of the world where there is a proven history of terrorism against the United States, Europe, or our allies until we fully understand how to end these threats. And, by the way, we have no choice. After a full and partial and long- really long — overdue security assessment we will develop a responsible immigration policy that serves the interests and values of America. We cannot continue to allow thousands upon thousands of people to pour into our country, many of whom have the same thought process as this savage killer. Many of the principles of radical Islam are incompatible with Western values and institutions. Remember this: radical Islam is anti-woman, anti-gay, and anti-American.
Edits are copied from the following link, which offered up an analysis:
http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/21/watch-how-nowthis-doctors-video-of-trump-to-distort-his-message/
Note, The Daily Caller itself is a “partisan” website.
By June 21st, less than a week after it was published to Facebook, that video had racked up over 1.9 million views, and a number of reactions, shares and comments.
It trumped the “Pope Francis” story by double, and up until today, November 18th, sits at 4.7 million views. This is roughly how that one video compares to the “top five” fake stories, according to a self-described “real” new site.
Here’s some more numbers by “NowThis Election”, starting with the release of the “horrible” video in June. If I went further back, it would just take too long.
Since the publication of that one video, they’ve released approximately 350 videos.
Videos released between June 13 and September 8th: 504 million views. Not “total engagements”, just adding up the views.
The total views up until and not counting their “Donald Trump Wins” election video: 1,171,622,000. That’s 1.17 billion.
Post election videos have also garnered 100s of millions of views, but I stopped counting, because the point is made.
One single video that is clearly “hyperpartisan” by the standards of Buzzfeed News beats out the top five “fake news” articles, presumably from those rapscallions in Macedonia, yet they made the editorial decision to not bother counting “native video” outfits.
Why not mention a media entity that clearly wields influence on a scale that dwarfs all the fake news sites, Macedonian or not, while propagating a hyperpartisan slant? Isn’t this what the discussion is about?
Here’s the kicker.
NowThis Media was founded by Kenneth Lerer and Eric Hippeau. They have some media cred, as Leher was a co-founder of Huffington Post, while Hippeau used to be HuffPo’s CEO. Lerer also taught at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, amongst others.
Both men sit on the board of Buzzfeed, with Lerer as chairman.
Facebook has a problem with fake news, indeed.
Would you be inquisitive about exchanging links?
This site is known as a walk-by means of for all of the information you wanted about this and didn抰 know who to ask. Glimpse here, and also you抣l undoubtedly discover it.
This is the right weblog for anyone who wants to search out out about this topic. You understand a lot its virtually hard to argue with you (not that I really would need匟aHa). You definitely put a new spin on a subject thats been written about for years. Nice stuff, simply nice!
I抦 impressed, I have to say. Actually not often do I encounter a weblog that抯 both educative and entertaining, and let me let you know, you will have hit the nail on the head. Your concept is outstanding; the problem is something that not sufficient people are talking intelligently about. I am very joyful that I stumbled across this in my seek for one thing regarding this.
I was very happy to find this internet-site.I needed to thanks on your time for this glorious learn!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it and I’ve you bookmarked to take a look at new stuff you blog post.
You made some respectable factors there. I seemed on the internet for the difficulty and located most individuals will go together with together with your website.
Whats up! I just wish to give an enormous thumbs up for the nice data you might have right here on this post. I will be coming back to your blog for more soon.
This is the correct weblog for anyone who wants to seek out out about this topic. You notice so much its virtually exhausting to argue with you (not that I actually would need匟aHa). You undoubtedly put a brand new spin on a subject thats been written about for years. Nice stuff, simply nice!
antabuse disulfiram
This website is known as a stroll-by means of for the entire data you wished about this and didn抰 know who to ask. Glimpse right here, and you抣l positively discover it.
phenergan australia otc
It’s best to participate in a contest for probably the greatest blogs on the web. I will advocate this site!
12.5 mg viagra daily
http://www.yeezy.uk.com/ Yeezy
http://www.retrojordan.us.com/ Jordan Retro
After study a few of the blog posts on your web site now, and I really like your method of blogging. I bookmarked it to my bookmark web site listing and will likely be checking back soon. Pls check out my website as nicely and let me know what you think.
price of advair diskus
http://www.basketball-jerseys.us.com/ Basketball Jerseys
http://www.jerseys-nba.us/ Cheap NBA Jerseys
sildenafil brand name india
I’m usually to blogging and i actually respect your content. The article has really peaks my interest. I am going to bookmark your web site and maintain checking for brand new information.
anafranil sale
http://www.yeezymafia.us.com/ Yeezy
how to get viagra without prescription
http://www.yeezysofficialsite.us/ Yeezys Official Site
http://nfl-jerseys.us.org/ NFL Jerseys
http://yeezyboost350.us.com/ Yeezy Boost 350
http://yeezymafia.us.com/ Yeezy Mafia
http://jordanretro4.us.com/ Jordan Retro 4
This actually answered my downside, thanks!
plaquenil 150 mg
vardenafil cheap
generic amoxil online
There are actually a number of particulars like that to take into consideration. That may be a great level to convey up. I offer the thoughts above as normal inspiration but clearly there are questions just like the one you carry up where a very powerful factor shall be working in honest good faith. I don?t know if best practices have emerged around issues like that, but I am certain that your job is clearly recognized as a good game. Each girls and boys feel the impact of just a moment抯 pleasure, for the remainder of their lives.
cost of viagra 50mg
sildenafil gel
http://jordan11retro.us/ Jordan 11 Retro
There’s noticeably a bundle to learn about this. I assume you made certain nice points in options also.
http://nfl-jerseys.us.org/ NFL Jerseys
buspar 10mg tablets
You need to participate in a contest for among the best blogs on the web. I will recommend this site!
keflex 50 mg
http://yeezy-shoe.us.com/ Yeezy Shoes
Once I originally commented I clicked the -Notify me when new feedback are added- checkbox and now every time a remark is added I get four emails with the identical comment. Is there any way you can remove me from that service? Thanks!
valtrex 1g
http://nbaoutletstore.us/ NBA Store
http://yeezy-shoe.us.com/ Yeezy
http://jerseys-nba.us/ Cheap NBA Jerseys
dapoxetine 60 mg price in india
http://kobebryantjerseysforsale.us/ Kobe Bryant Jerseys For Sale