Thoughts on Fake News from December 2016

So I was going through my old E-mails looking for something unrelated when I stumbled upon something I had written on December 12th 2016. It was about the ‘fake news’ phenomenon which was a hot topic in the media in the aftermath of Trump’s victory. I had just finished an Essay and had some time to kill in the U of T Library so i jotted down my thoughts on the topic. Here they are:

“Fake News and the Alternative Media

The term ‘fake news’ has been making the rounds recently. This refers to all the pseudo facts and pretend information that have been floating around during the American election, particularly online and on social media. I don’t really like the term myself. I think it lumps together certain phenomena that are quite different and should be examined separately.

So, on the one hand there is genuine fake news. stuff that’s just fake sensationalist headlines designed to get clicks. An example of this was a headline “Pope Francis endorsees Donald Trump”, now I hope I don’t need to tell you that Pope Francis didn’t endorse Donald Trump. This kind of stuff is just a scam designed to get clicks. So that’s one thing that’s meant by fake news.

The term is also used to refer to something quite different, which are the vast array of bizarre internet conspiracy theories. People like Alex Jones and Infowars and people who think like that. The textbook example of this would be Pizzagate. Now if your lucky enough to not know what Pizzagate is, let me fill you in. Its basically a bunch of dumb fucks who think that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were running a secret child sex trafficking ring in the basement of a Pizzeria in DC. They think this is proven by the leaked Podesta Emails where Pizza is used for code for…well you get the idea. Anyway, if you need me to explain to you why this is utter Bullshit please consider seeking the help of a mental health professional.

But in analysing this stuff, I think you’ve got to be careful, you shouldn’t just lump this in with the clickbait crap. Actually in a lot of ways I think Jones’ shtick is more dangerous. But they’re clearly different.

Now then there’s the claim that ‘Fake News’ somehow swayed the election. I find this pretty dubious. Conspiracy nonsense tends to only really appeal to those already inclined to believe it. So I don’t think there were a bunch of people who were gonna vote for Hillary but then heard about the Pope endorsing Trump or Alex Jones rambling about Hillary being a Globalist, and then decided to vote for Trump as a result.

So, I just want to make clear that I don’t think the term fake news is very helpful in the way the mainstream media has been using it. But now I wanna get to the main point I wanted to make, and that’s this:

A lot of people in what for the lack of a better term ill call the ‘alternative Media’ have been very critical of the mainstream media narrative on ‘fake news’. Now they haven’t so much been saying what I just said, that it’s a flawed concept that isn’t very helpful, but have been resorting to whataboutery. Saying, ‘oh, its so hypocritical for the mainstream media to call out ‘fake news’ because they themselves are so dishonest’.

Now I’m the first to admit the mainstream media is not perfect, heck its not even close. I think their coverage of this election was a disgrace. But I think there’s still a dangerous false equivalency going on here. It simply isn’t true to say that what’s wrong with mainstream media is even in the same order of magnitude as what’s wrong with the wackier end of alternative media.

When dealing with whether or not some major institution in our society has failed us, the first and most fundamental question we have to ask ourselves is: compared to what? What is the glorious, non biased, completely objective alternative to the mainstream media? Well, we know that now, it’s the self described `alternative media`. So let’s take a look at this ‘alternative media’.

Now the first thing you’ll notice is that a chunk of the alternative media is just straight up batshit insane people. Alex Jones, Mike Cernovich, the ‘Manosphere’, and everyones favorite racist, imbecilic, fuckwits: the alt right. But let’s be generous and put the kooks to the side for a moment and focus on the alternative media figures who aren’t completely certifiable.

Let’s start on the left. Probably the most prominent example of left wing alternative media is The Young Turks. TYT is clearly biased for starters. I know that seems like a rather mundane observation but its important. These people are always going on and on about how the Mainstream Media is biased. Its so biased. Its shutting out Bernie. Its not covering our pet issues. But they then do a show witch is vastly more biased than anything on the main networks and clearly designed to push an agenda. They gave up any pretence of objectivity during the primaries. When anyone with half a brain could see that Hillary was obviously going to win, TYT went full throttle on indulgent leftist ‘Bernie can still win’ fan fiction.

Now let’s move over to the right. Are things any better there? Nope. So for starters the absolute dumbest shit about the modern internet savvy right is that these supposed edgy freethinkers have committed to worshipping at the altar of the most ignorant, dishonest, fraudulent blowhard ever to run for the office of President. They seem to think shitting on SJWs and worshipping God Emperor Trump are a substitute for ideas and policies. Now let’s talk about these anti social justice warrior warriors.

The internet, and YouTube in particular, has created over the past few years a vast ‘anti SJW’ industrial complex that churns out endless hot takes on how Red Haired, non binary, millennial special snowflakes are the worst. Now as someone who spends a lot of my time on a college campus, I can concur that SJWs are pretty fucking annoying. Ill even admit that enjoyed watching a lot of these videos. But for fucks sake, have some perspective man. How many fucking videos do you need to make about this relatively minor problem?

Now another group big on YouTube is the so called ‘Skeptic Community’ and they too have trafficked in a lot of this anti SJW stuff. And man has this community gone off the fucking deep end. People like Sargon of Akkad, Dave Rubin, and the Amazing Atheist. Man, I even used to like these guys. I feel almost violated by the utter horseshit they’ve been spewing. Now they’re officially “not for Trump”. But for some reason they hardly ever criticized Trump and spewed Trumpkin anti Hillary talking points all the fucking time.

So looking around at this so called alternative media, I see a whole lot of absolute garbage. Its honestly depressing how bad some of this shit is. Now are you honestly gonna tell me that MSNBC and the New York Times is worse than all this crap. I don’t think so.

So for the good of all of us, please tell the mainstream media to get better, please stop watching CNN and Fox News. Read good journalists and stop reading bad ones. But whatever you do, please don’t get your news from the ideologues, cranks, frauds, and edgelords of the alternative media.”