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Sunday, April 2, 2017

What is Fake News?

By jamesbaxley


We now live in the post-truth era where all news is deemed fake. The 2016 Presidential election blew the doors wide open on the alt-left fake news establishments: These being the legacy news media outlets. 


What happened was a clash of old media platforms (print, television) and the cable news media platform (CNN, FOX, MSNBC) collectively known as the mainstream media or more commonly the alt-left fake news networks and the new platform which is the internet (Youtube, blogs). Old media and cable was caught with their pants down.


It doesn’t make sense that these media giants would out of the blue start peddling fake news. There has to be more to it than that unless they have always been the bearer of fake news and they finally got caught by the new-media players, the alternative media.


So that brings me to the question: What is fake news? Is it news you don’t agree with? Or news which ignores facts? News manipulated for a targeted audience? Yes, yes, and yes.


"What we are talking about are stories that are fabricated out of thin air” according to Guy Campanile, a 60 Minutes producer. “By most measures, deliberately, and by any definition, that’s a lie." 


Fake news goes much further than being “fabricated” from nothing. Fake news can take a quote or sound bite and spin it into something completely different than it was intended. A great example of this was the claim that the 2016 Presidential election was hacked and influenced by President Putin and his band of hackers.


Donald Trump’s off the cuff remark during the debates, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” Hillary Clinton and her mob of henchmen, the MSM seized the moment and tried to spin it into Trump having a relationship with Putin. Of course Trump was being facetious. “Of course I’m being sarcastic” the future president told Fox and Friends.


This is a great example of fake news. The Left and those on the Right who don’t like Trump are using it to distract, misdirect, and take attention off of important issues. That is the mark of a good piece of fake news.


But fake news can be “fabricated out of thin air” as Campanile suggested. The New York Times is guilty of this and excels. The alt-left fake news organization the New York Times not only helped President Bush to sway American citizens into supporting him with the Iraqi Invasion in 2003, but the conflict has been responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of people, the displacement of arguably a million people, and the destruction of a country with a history dating back before Europe existed. 


What if the news is wrong? Is that fake news? Fake news is meant to mislead. To misrepresent. To misdirect. Wrong news is from negligence, it wasn’t intentionally meant to mislead. 


What about when there are two sides of a story, such as the shooting of Michael Brown on August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri. Brown, an 18-year-old black man, was fatally shot by Darren Wilson, 28, a white Ferguson police officer, after reportedly robbing a convenience store.


We all know the story that was being passed around as the legitimate story, but the other side of the story was being, whether intentionally or not covered up at least by the MSM.


The false narrative "hands up" was widely circulated within the black community immediately after the shooting and it contributed to the strong protests and outrage about the killing of the unarmed man. By the way, this is a technique used by community organizers such as Saul Alinsky and future President of the United States Barack Obama.


It is no secret how community organizers work as it is fully documented in Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals. Rules for Radicals was a guide for community organizers to use in uniting low-income communities, or "Have-Nots", in order for them to gain social, political, legal, and economic power; this sounds like Cultural Marxism.


Numerous witness accounts were consistent with Wilson's account and also agreed with the physical evidence at hand. Many witnesses, who were African American corroborated that Wilson acted in self-defense during the event. A number of the witnesses who corroborated Wilson's account of events expressed fear and apprehension in testifying, saying that they had been harassed or threatened by individuals from the Ferguson community. 


Witness 108, a 74-year-old black male, told detectives that the police officer was "in the right" and "did what he had to do," and that statements made by people in the apartment complex about Brown surrendering were inaccurate. Witness 108 later told investigators that he "would have fucking shot that boy, too", and mimicked the aggressive stance Brown made while charging Wilson. He explained that Wilson told Brown to "stop" or "get down" at least ten times, but instead Brown "charged" at Wilson. Witness 108 also told detectives that there were other witnesses on Canfield Drive who saw what he did.


California Assemblyman Ed Chau (D-Monterey Park), introduced legislation aimed at criminalizing fake news, "The California Political Cyber Fraud Abatement Act or AB 1104 for short, would have effectively made it a crime to be wrong on the Internet.


The text of the bill implicated anyone who writes, publishes or even shares news stories that could be false, if those news stories are later found to have had an impact on an election.  From the bill:

18320.5. It is unlawful for a person to knowingly and willingly make, publish or circulate on an Internet Web site, or cause to be made, published, or circulated in any writing posted on an Internet Web site, a false or deceptive statement designed to influence the vote on either of the following:
(a) Any issue submitted to voters at an election.

(b) Any candidate for election to public office.

"The California Political Cyber Fraud Abatement Act” infringes on Constitutional guarantees of free speech. Political advocacy is a form of protected speech under the First Amendment, and the Supreme Court has been adamant that political advertising—even when it involves smears, exaggerations and “poetic license”—is included under the umbrella of “political advocacy.”


Kate Starbird, a University of Washington assistant professor sums it up nicely, “It isn’t a traditional left-right political axis,” she found. There are right-wing sites like Danger & Play and left-wing sensationalizers such as The Free Thought Project.”


Starbird continues, “The true common denominator, she found, is anti-globalism — deep suspicion of free trade, multinational business and global institutions.” 


She proclaims that we may be headed toward “the menace of unreality — which is that nobody believes anything anymore.” Alex Jones, she says, is “a kind of prophet. There really is an information war for your mind. And we’re losing it.” 

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