Tags containing: "fake news"

Fake news fools most of the people most of the time

December 13, 2016 DCN

American adults are fooled by fake news headlines approximately 75% of the time. Those likely to turn to Facebook for news are more likely to think fake news headlines are correct than those using other platforms according to a survey conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs for BuzzFeed News. Consumers find it difficult to filter out fake news headlines without the necessary background filled-in, particularly in social media channels. Interestingly, consumers are even likely to believe fake news headlines that don’t necessarily fit with their ideological beliefs.

Almost one-third of respondents recalled at least one of a selection of fake news headlines from the election. In comparison, 57% of respondents recalled at least one of the real news headlines tested in the survey. Interestingly, consumers who identified themselves as Republican are more likely to think fake election news stories are very or somewhat accurate. Eight in 10 Republicans rated fake news headlines as accurate (among those they recognized), compared seven in 10 Democrats.

The fake news headline recalled by the largest number of respondents, 22%, is the story from the website the Denver Guardian, “FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide.” The highest awareness for a true news headline was at 34% of respondents for recalling Trump “absolutely” requiring Muslims to register.

One of the highest recalled true news headlines was the CBS News post-election story about Donald Trump stating he will not accept a presidential salary, “Donald Trump on Refusing Presidential Salary: ‘I’m Not Taking It.’” More than half of respondents (57%) recalled seeing this headline. Another news headline with a 90% accuracy rating, among the 157 respondents who recognized it, was the New York Times op-ed “I Ran the CIA. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton.”

Respondents rated the fake news story “FBI Director Comey Just Put a Trump Sign on His Front Lawn,” with the highest overall accuracy rating. Among the 186 people who recalled seeing it, 81% said it was very or somewhat accurate.

News headlines tested:

FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide (Fake, 22% recall)
Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President, Releases Statement (Fake, 19% recall)
Donald Trump Protester Speaks Out: “I Was Paid $3,500 to Protest Trump’s Rally” (Fake, 19% recall)
Donald Trump Sent His Own Plane to Transport 200 Stranded Marines (Fake, 14% recall)
FBI Director Comey Just Put a Trump Sign on His Front Lawn (Fake, 10% recall)
Donald Trump on Refusing Presidential Salary: “I’m Not Taking It” (True, 57% recall)
Donald Trump Says He’d “Absolutely” Require Muslims to Register (True, 34% recall)
Trump: “I Will Protect Our LGBTQ Citizens” (True, 27% recall)
Barbara Bush: “I Don’t Know How Women Can Vote” for Trump (True, 25% recall)
Melania Trump’s Girl-on-Girl Photos from Racy Shoot Revealed (True, 23% recall)
I Ran the CIA. Now I’m Endorsing Hillary Clinton (True, 11% recall)

Consumers frequently see fake news in their social media feeds according to another survey on fake news conducted by Morning Consult, a media and technology. They found that amost one-third of respondents (31%) reported seeing a fake news story online more than once a day. Fifty-five percent of those surveyed said they started to read a story online only to realize it was fake.
In terms of social platform usage, participants of the Ipsos survey cited Facebook as the most popular with just less than half (47%) visiting Facebook multiple times per day and another 15% report visiting once a day. YouTube was the second most popular social platform. Twenty percent stated they visit YouTube multiple times per day and 11% visit once a day. The fact that fake news headlines are often remembered and said to be accurate by a strong number of consumers points to the fact that consumers have a difficult time discerning between fact and fictional news on social media.

Perspectives

Media climate change is real. Are you ready?

December 8, 2016 Jason Kint, CEO – DCN

Many of our member companies have stepped into the industry’s latest fray around fake news and its potential impact. Our member companies are not immune. They have a lot at stake because in a world where false stories often can spread faster than the truth, trust matters more than ever. From The Weather Company’s response to Breitbart on the veracity of climate change to NPR’s call for healthy reader skepticism and Vox’s analysis of “Pizzagate,” reputable media outlets are eager to get to the root of the problem.

Our members have also called upon the technology enablers that make it so easy to share information to step up and help ensure our brands can serve as proxies for credibility and reputation to guard against further pollution of the web. Because we all realize that it is way too easy to retweet or to re-share news without vetting it ourselves.

Without a doubt, fact checking and fake news are a couple of the topics that dominated the media mindset in the final months of 2016. But as we head into the New Year—and a drastically different political landscape—it is a good time to take a clear-eyed look at what lies ahead.

So, here’s my “forecast” for DCN’s premium publishers in 2017:

1. Duopoly Powers (DCN Outlook: Cloudy start with clear skies ahead)

Unfortunately, the industry was seduced into seeing Google and Facebook as friends when the truth is they are better described, as they often are now, as “frenemies.” We must face up to the fact that two public companies operating effective monopolies in their carved-out lanes (search and social media, respectively) will never be “friends” with the serfs working their land.

The duopoly powers have three things in common: 1) they control much of the data collection across the web and app world; 2) they own the technologies to deliver and target ads; and 3) they often control how or if they’re even measured. So no one should be surprised that they also control 100% of the growth in the U.S. digital advertising industry. This is real. The press is talking about it. And regulators are asking about it.

However, one thing is certain: Monopolies eventually draw scrutiny which can open up competition. And a competitive distribution environment almost always leads to more opportunity and value for content companies. So, the ultimate question to be asked is how valuable would these two companies be without all the information, entertainment and news brands that populate them. I expect these discussions to continue into 2017. I also expect the New Year to bring warm hugs from Facebook and Google. If not, they really have let their egos and quarterly earnings usurp common sense.

2. Net neutrality (DCN Outlook: Stormy)

ISPs welcome Trump their savior. The consolidated large media distribution companies fought incredibly hard for many years to support “net neutrality” but avoid any legitimate regulation to enforce it. They ultimately failed in 2014 because, simply put, the rules make sense: Protect the 1^st amendment and emerging players by allowing content companies and consumers to unite without gatekeepers choking the access points to the world wide web.

Well something funny happened after the fight was thought to be mostly over: Republicans swept Washington and are now in position to roll back regulations. It’s not a question of when but how. The companies best equipped to fight this off, Google and Facebook (despite opposition from open internet advocates) are likely to stay on the sidelines as they have deep fears of the privacy rules that were also put in place. If net neutrality is overturned, the only certain losers will be publishers and their consumers. As Barry Diller said at Ignition: “It would be wildly criminal” to lose net neutrality.

If net neutrality is indeed neutered, expect more M&A activity as content companies marry up with the pipes in the blueprint of AT&T and Time Warner. The content company can then combine the data of its friendly distributor with its own media and advertising inventory. Unfortunately, there can only be so many suitors and even if mergers can get around the obvious consumer concerns, it still doesn’t get around the scale issue. ISPs see all of the data for only the percentage of market they control. Google and Facebook have the tremendous advantage of seeing nearly everything for everyone.

3. Advertising transparency will grow (DCN Outlook: Sunny)

In 2016, the marketers (ANA) released their landmark investigation on transparency practices. The agencies (4As) released their own transparency rules. Publishers mostly watched the tussle with the underlying sentiment that the more transparency from start to finish, the better the digital advertising ecosystem will work in providing value to brand advertisers. Simply put, marketers want to run their advertising in trusted environments that enhance their brands and messaging.

As comScore research showed, DCN’s members offer precisely these environments. Too often the complexity and opacity of the current programmatic digital advertising environment pushes quality marketing messages into invalid and often fraudulent impressions but also into inappropriate placements that hurt their brands rather than provide value. This discussion is far from over. Audits are growing, agencies are making waves and I expect more information to surface. The Department of Justice’s subpoena earlier this week only confirms it.

4. Golden Age of Journalism (DCN Outlook: Windy)

In 2013, Henry Blodget, Editor in Chief of Business Insider, famously wrote we were entering a “golden age of journalism.” Repeat after me “golden age.” His arguments were that the world was more informed, every journalist on earth had more distribution opportunities to reach consumers directly across devices and platforms, there is more talent than ever coming into the field, and the peril of newspapers and magazines were greatly exaggerated. When I get a minute, I want to ask Henry if he still believes this, particularly the last point.

Here is what I do know: Running uphill makes the heart and other muscles stronger. The pressures on media properties whether from CFOs, shareholders or from the President-elect will result in stronger brands. This is what motivates them. At the core of the matter, the public (particularly the next generation) wants an independent and strong press. The Constitution protects it. The well-documented acceleration of New York Times digital subscription business is a direct outcome of a unified vision for the company and a fight to double-down on its subscribers. So yes, it’s still possible that we are in a golden age. (And Dean Baquet, EIC of NYT agrees!)

While we may not be able to control the weather, our ability to predict it accurately (or not) can greatly affect its impact. Taking a clear, informed view and building our strategies accordingly will allow us to be prepared for anything from the extreme heat of consumer mistrust to the mudslides resulting from a torrent of bad actors.

As witnessed by The New York Times’ post-election subscriber surge; as seen through Dow Jones CEO Will Lewis’ belief that the furor around fake news will prompt Google and Facebook to own up to their role in the media ecosystem; and as expressed by Michael Rosenblum on the Huffington Post—there are also opportunities that come with fair winds and stormy weather alike. And we, as the trusted media brands, need to be ready for whatever is next in this rapidly changing media climate.

Perspectives

Stamping out fake news will take collaboration by platforms and publishers

December 1, 2016 Mark Glaser, Founder and Publisher – MediaShift

Since Donald J. Trump became president-elect of the United States, attention on “fake news,” its role during the U.S. election, its contribution to social media echo chambers (and subsequently, our understanding of reality) has taken America by storm. By one professor’s estimate, at least 120 fake news sites exist. Apparently, fake news entrepreneurs can earn anywhere from $10,000 a month, to $3,000 a day—even as much as $10,000 a day from Google AdSense.

Facebook’s role as the garden where these fake news “insects” roam wild is under even more scrutiny, as is the payment mechanisms from Google. Just what these companies ought to do, though, and how publishers can assist with their efforts, has been a trial-and-error process that leaves few, if any, industry analysts satisfied in the current hyper-partisan, “post-truth” world. But some common themes have emerged in the search for solutions.

First, Admit There’s a Problem
One is that the leaders of these tech companies must acknowledge with resolute conviction that they do contribute to the spread of misinformation. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg immediately denied the claim that Facebook played a major role in the elections and declared that “more than 99 percent of what people see is authentic.” Six days later, after more intense coverage on the issue—including word that a renegade group of workers within Facebook had formed a task force to deal with the problem—Zuckerberg wrote a more thoughtful post on Facebook, outlining some of the projects in motion to mete out fake news.

“We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves, but instead rely on our community and trusted third parties,” he wrote before specifying efforts like third party verification from fact-checkers and improvements on the quality of “related articles.” “Disrupting fake news economics” is also a goal, and Facebook updated its Audience Network policy as well to align with that. Now, it states “it will not display ads in websites or mobile apps that hold fake news,” as Adweek’s Marty Swant and Christopher Heine reported.

Google too revealed it was working on policy changes to keep fake news sites from using its AdSense advertising network. The new mandate pressures publishers to prove their legitimacy. “Moving forward, we will restrict ad serving on pages that misrepresent, misstate, or conceal information about the publisher, the publisher’s content, or the primary purpose of the web property,” Google said.

Second, Take Concrete, Transparent Steps
The moves are not quite enough, though, according to DCN CEO Jason Kint. In a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Kint argues that the two companies owe both users and democracy far more, especially with their resources. “Wouldn’t it make sense for you to pursue cleaning up the garbage littering the digital media ecosystem with the same excitement, investment and vigilance with which you pursue these huge, visionary projects?” Klint wrote. “We don’t see that in your public statements or actions.”

He also underscored the necessity of transparency. Zuckerberg’s post, for example, had left some industry analysts wondering—who are the independent fact-checkers Facebook will be working with? When news broke that the company was secretly developing censorship tools to enter China, many in the tech industry bristled at why it couldn’t devote that kind of stewardship to curbing fake news.

Zeynep Tufekci, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina School of Information and Library Science, stressed that Facebook needs to open up its walled garden of data on fake news and its influence. “Unfortunately, Facebook exercises complete control over access to this data by independent researchers,” she wrote in an Op-Ed for the New York Times. “It’s as if tobacco companies controlled access to all medical and hospital records.”

Roles for Publishers, Ad Tech
If Facebook is akin to a tobacco company, that means that publishers and news outlets must work harder to depend less on Facebook and more on alternative means of distribution, to reduce the monopoly it has over publishers. Publishers also need to look internally at themselves. Fraudulent ads have been known to appear on the New York Times, for example, because human oversight of programmatic advertising is often lacking. Even if the Times has one of the “cleanest ad experiences in the publishing business,” as public editor Liz Spayd wrote, the Times should do more to ensure this stepsister of fake news doesn’t appear.

Ad tech firms, who tend to take a “who am I to decide?” approach to fake news, as Digiday’s Lucia Moses wrote, might also want to focus less on the dollars earned and have an empathy check. Perhaps they could take a tip from AppNexus Inc., which operates one of the biggest digital advertising services. The company did a “human audit” of the so-called alt-right website Breitbart News, found it violated hate speech rules, and so barred Breitbart from using its ad tech service. Even if AppNexus wasn’t looking at fake news, per se, its hard scrutiny shows how firms can be serious about the range of issues it has presented.

The publishing and platform businesses ultimately serve their users. For publishers to truly emphasize facts in the click-bait, competitive nature of the web, they need to prime their audiences with less of an emotional reaction toward consuming information, and write headlines and news alerts appropriately instead of amplifying false claims. That also requires much-needed media literacy for all of us, especially in light of news that students cannot identify fake news.

Indeed, no one technology company or publisher can save us now. This is a group effort.

Perspectives

Media winners and losers post-election

November 17, 2016 Mark Glaser, Founder and Publisher – MediaShift

Donald Trump’s ascent to president-elect of the United States was a complete shock — that is, according to mainstream media experts and journalists, many of whom initially considered his campaign a joke.

Now, just as Americans are divided, the media is even more polarized, with journalists forced into a moment of self-reflection as they gear up to cover the new administration. Let’s take a moment to consider how the media business fared during the campaign and election cycle.

Ad Spending

Losers: Hillary Clinton’s campaign; the broadcast industry
Winners: Donald Trump’s campaign; earned media

Compared to the 2012 elections, 2016’s presidential race proved to be a loss for the candidate who invested in running expensive television ads. As of late August, Hillary Clinton’s campaign and pro-Clinton PACs had spent more than $90 million on political advertising following the primaries while Donald Trump spent nothing, as Variety’s Jan Dawson reported.

By late September, it was obvious this unevenness had affected the broadcast industry: Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc. took back its political-spending forecast for the year because of the unpredictability of the campaign, the Wall Street Journal’s Austen Hufford and Rebecca Ballhaus reported. The move sent broadcast industry stocks tumbling.

Following suit, Gray Television Inc., which owns stations in 51 markets across the U.S., also “withdrew its guidance for political advertising revenue for the rest of the year.” The primary reason above all else was the uncertainty from Donald Trump challenging the status quo — in this case, not putting in the ad dollars expected for a presidential campaign. Instead, Trump largely took to Twitter and free media to get his point across, and the simple messaging associated with his campaign helped enable its efficacy.

As Hufford and Ballhaus wrote, “Industry watchers are divided over whether the lower spending is a short-term anomaly caused by the abnormal nature of Mr. Trump’s campaign or a sign of a broader rollback of the importance of television advertising.”

One thing is certain: A frugal campaign that results in a victory is a win.

Pollsters and Data Journalists

Losers: Nearly everyone who predicted a win for Clinton.
Winners: Nate Silver for hedging; Allan Lichtman

From the New York Times to the Huffington Post, nearly every major media outlet using data science had specified that Donald Trump had a slim chance at winning — and so everyone in that crowd lost. “I’ve believed in data for 30 years in politics and data died tonight,” Republican strategist Mike Murphy declared in a tweet. “I could not have been more wrong about this election.”

But as numerous journalists and analysts have written since the elections, the wrongness has more to do with the failure of interpretation rather than a direct failure of numbers. Writing in Vanity Fair, Nick Bilton argued this is nothing new. “Polling has grown less accurate in recent years as society has changed,” he said. He cited how landline ownership in the U.S., a traditional polling method, has diminished, alongside the willingness to pick up the phone when an unfamiliar number calls. Then there’s the silent majority: “What’s clear now is that most of those who decided not to speak publicly about what they really planned to do in the voting booth were Trump supporters,” he wrote.

In an op-ed for the Guardian, data journalist Mona Chalabi argued that the obsession with “predicting opinions rather than listening to them” is to blame. Chalabi, who used to work at FiveThirtyEight, said that data journalism can be consumed by its own arrogance, to the extent that simply saying “it’s complicated” is not good enough. And Americans, who crave simplicity and a desire to know, wouldn’t have accepted that answer anyway.

Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight took heat for giving Hillary Clinton less of a chance than other sites, so he earned a slight repreive post-election. And then there’s the case of Professor Allan Lichtman, who uses a simple “13 keys” approach with true/false answers, and predicted that Trump would win. He now has picked the right winner since 1984 (though he was off on the popular this time, as Clinton won that).

Regulators and Mergers

Likely Losers:

Donald Trump regularly accused the media of being out to get him and claimed the elections were rigged. Now it looks like his administration would likely block certain mergers and acquisitions that would consolidate media power, notably the $85.4 billion AT&T/Time Warner deal.

The point of acquiring Time Warner — which owns CNN, which Donald Trump has frequently touted as biased — was for AT&T to diversify its revenue sources. As Jim Puzzanghera wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “the deal would transform telecommunications giant AT&T, which bought DirecTV last year, into the nation’s largest entertainment company.”

But Trump says the deal is precisely the kind of power structure he’s fighting against, as “it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.” Comcast’s 2011 acquisition of NBCUniversal is just as bad. “Deals like this destroy democracy and we’ll look at breaking that deal up and other deals like that,” Trump has said. “This should never ever have been approved in the first place.”

Still, the stock market has rallied since the election in the assumption that Trump will not follow through on a lot of his promises, so we’ll see if he backs up his rhetoric with action.

Social Media

Losers: Facebook and other social media for allowing the spread of fake news, and filter bubbles
Winners: Facebook and Twitter on election night with massive audiences and interactions

What happens with too many algorithms and an excessive number of news sites available on social media? Confirmation bias becomes the norm and it’s easy to miss out on other views, for one. That’s long been a concern as Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites — but especially Facebook, with its enormous power and reach. It’s in no small part why many Americans may have been shocked at the election results if nothing on their News Feeds hinted that such an outcome could have been likely.

But in the lead-up to the election — even as it helped Americans register to vote — Facebook’s series of missteps have shown the social giant is struggling to come to terms with the role it played in the U.S. election. Critics argue that Facebook allowed fake news, hyper-partisan websites and conspiracy theories to run rampant and spread untrue and misleading information. As Mark Zuckerberg remains firm that 99 percent of Facebook’s content is authentic, BuzzFeed’s Sheera Frenkel reported that an anonymous internal task force has formed within the company to take on fake news. And both Google and Facebook recently announced plans to stop allowing ads on sites with fake news.

Meanwhile, social media continues to dominate during big news events, and election night was no different. Twitter had a record 75 million tweets about the election that night, while Facebook had 115 million people generating 716 million likes, posts, comments and shares related to the election, and 643 million video views too. So while social media has been under the microscope for the spread of fake news, it still has massive reach and is becoming an ingrained media habit that’s hard to supplant.