Of Fakes and Facts

On Friday, Google rolled out a fact-checking feature.  It sent me on a journey to find out about fake news.  The fact-checking feature pops up over hotly debated topics that appear in search results.  The example I used was the headline of the Woman Arrested for Training Squirrels to Attack Her Ex-Boyfriend.  The feature shows the headline, then the site that did the checking - snopes, and indicates if it is true or false.  This one was false.  It is an hilarious story, though. So I read a few articles, and find that this is a complicated and difficult one.  The best was the insightful article in the Harvard Business Review The U.S. Media's Problems are Much Bigger than Fake News and Filter Bubbles" Here is the conclusion of the article: "Which leads to my conclusion: Even if we could somehow push “reset,” we would have to expect the same sort of coverage that we got. The problems are too deep and structural for anything else. What’s the way forward? There are no easy answers to the question. This analysis mainly points to solutions that won’t work. Voluntary efforts at restraint by well-meaning journalists won’t work, because of advertising-based business models and competition. Eliminating fake news won’t change the fact that voters ignore ideas contrary to their beliefs. And it won’t solve the media’s structural challenges or change its incentives. Media companies, their regulators, and their customers — all of us — have to look for ways to confront these challenges. The stakes could not be higher." Our pictures today show the waterfront at Burlington with the view towards Toronto and then towards Niagara, showing the Burlington Bridge. I was there yesterday for a photography seminar.