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There are many factors driving the rise of so-called “fake news,” whether it’s stories filled with hyper-inflated rumor and innuendo, or actual hoaxes that have been created and distributed by groups for political or financial gain. Facebook’s pushing of our emotional buttons is part of the picture, but so is what some researchers say is an increase in tribalism.

According to a study published in the American Journal of Political Science, entitled “Fear and Loathing Across Party Lines,” the intense feelings of loyalty or pride that people have for their political affiliation — and, by extension, the negative feelings they have towards the groups they see as their opponents — has intensified over the past few decades.

This phenomenon has become so powerful a predictor of behavior, even outside the realm of politics, that the researchers who did the study say political affiliation now has more influence on what people do and how they behave than race does.

How is this related to the rise of fake news? Because the researchers argue that this powerful desire to be seen as a member of a specific group or tribe influences the way we behave online in a variety of ways, including the news we share on social networks like Facebook.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “What’s Driving Fake News Is an Increase in Political Tribalism”

In courtroom dramas, when a witness is testifying and starts to lie or refuses to answer, the lawyer asking the questions will often ask the judge for “permission to treat the witness as hostile.” At that point, the gloves come off, and the attorney starts to ask pointed questions, and then usually gets the witness to confess to the murder.

That’s the way things work in the movies. It’s not always so simple in the real world, with all of its shades of grey. But there’s an argument to be made that the media in general needs to treat president-elect Donald Trump as a hostile witness. He and the press are not on the same page — they’re not even reading the same book. And that isn’t likely to change. If anything, it’s probably going to get worse.

If you want a picture of what the next four years might look like, take a look at what happened during Trump’s first press conference in six months, held at Trump Tower in New York. According to several of those who were in attendance, the number of Trump loyalists and staffers — who clapped after almost every statement — outnumbered members of the actual press.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “Why the media needs to treat Donald Trump as a hostile witness”

Every day seems to bring a new ethical dilemma involving the soon-to-be president of the United States and the way the media handles his various Twitter pronouncements, including unsubstantiated allegations and foreign-policy gyrations. But the Trump bombshell that hit on Tuesday evening was larger than normal — if the word normal even has any meaning now.

The first explosion came courtesy of CNN, which reported that four senior intelligence officials — the heads of the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and the Director of National Intelligence — gave a briefing to both Donald Trump and President Barack Obama about Russian interference in the election. In that briefing, they summarized some serious allegations made about Trump’s connections to Russia, as well as some eye-opening allegations about his behavior while visiting the country.

According to the documents summarized in this briefing, which CNN’s sources said came from a source they believe to be credible (a former agent for the British security agency MI6), Trump engaged in a variety of sexual acts. The documents allege that these acts were recorded by Russian agents as part of an attempt to compromise the Republican presidential candidate, and they also allege that Trump cut deals with the Russian government related to U.S. foreign policy.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “Here’s why BuzzFeed was right to publish those Trump/Russia documents”

There are a host of important issues surrounding president-elect Donald Trump as he prepares to take office, including potential conflicts of interest involving his business affairs. Given that, it seems more crucial than ever for the press to keep a close eye on him, and the actions of his new administration. But is the traditional White House press corps the best way to do that?

Historically, the White House beat was seen as a plum assignment for the best in the profession. It was filled with newsworthy events, close-up meetings with the president, and the ability to gather behind-the-scenes color that informed the way the nation saw him and his administration. But much of that has changed in the era of always-on social media, to the point where some wonder whether the traditional press corps has outlived its usefulness.

In a recent column at the Poynter Institute, managing editor Ben Mullin argues that time has passed the press corps by. The “confined, ritualistic nature of the White House beat makes it a difficult slog for even the most adversarial reporter,” he says, and with dozens of journalists jockeying for the same stories, very little unique coverage emerges.

Mullin notes that most of the major stories we associate with previous administrations, including blockbuster events like Watergate and the NSA spying scandal, came from outside the White House, and didn’t have anything to do with the traditional press corps. He goes on to quote American University journalism professor W. Joseph Campbell:

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “Here’s why the White House press corps has outlived its usefulness”

As Donald Trump has moved from being just another Republican candidate to the president-elect of the United States, speculation has intensified about the “loose cannon” approach he appears to take when it comes to using Twitter. Does he just tweet whatever he feels like saying at any moment, or are his tweets crafted by a PR team?

According to Sean Spicer, who will soon become the White House press secretary for the Trump administration, no one — including Spicer — has any idea what the incoming president is going to say until they see it on Twitter (or get the blowback from one of his statements, presumably).

“I do not get a memo [about what the tweets will contain]. He drives the train on this,” Spicer said during an event on Wednesday night in Chicago, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The event also included President Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, as well as political commentator David Axelrod, a former Obama adviser.

At the same time, however, Spicer also rejected the idea that Trump doesn’t consider what he is going to say, or what the potential outcome of his comments might be. It’s a “misconception… that he is just randomly tweeting,” Spicer said. “He is a very strategic thinker.”

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “No one knows what Trump is going to tweet, his press secretary says”

It was a small step, perhaps, but still a noteworthy one. After months of denying that Facebook was a media company, Mark Zuckerberg admitted in a recent one-on-one interview with his COO, Sheryl Sandberg, that the social network is a media company — although not a traditional one.

For years, Zuckerberg has argued that Facebook is just a simple technology platform, one that distributes content created by others, using an impersonal and objective algorithm. In other words, not a media company. And certainly not an “arbiter of truth,” as he put it.

That position has been getting increasingly difficult to defend, however, as Facebook has been paying media companies to create content and planning to fund and develop its own TV-style shows. Not only that, but the social network has also borne part of the blame for the rise of “fake news,” and has recently announced plans to try and help stamp out the problem.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “Mark Zuckerberg finally admits Facebook is a media company”

Regardless of what you think of its content or publishing strategies, BuzzFeed is one of the world’s leading new-media entities, with an audience of over half a billion people. So it’s always interesting to hear from BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti about what the future holds.

A memo to BuzzFeed staff that was published at Recode contains a number of interesting elements, including a previously unreleased statistic about the company’s financial health. According to Peretti’s letter, BuzzFeed’s revenue grew by more than 65% this year, which he said continues a trend of more than six years of double-digit revenue growth.

That’s a remarkable track record for a media company, let alone one based on an entirely new model of publishing, a company that initially began as a kind of research project for Peretti, who was also involved in the early days of The Huffington Post.

Earlier this year, there were reports that BuzzFeed had missed its revenue targets for 2015. The Financial Times said the company had made only $170 million instead of $250 million, and that it had “slashed its internal projections” for 2016 to $250 million from $500 million.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “BuzzFeed’s CEO on the future of media: The internet always wins”

How quickly we forget. Just a few months ago, Donald Trump was conducting an unprecedented attack on the mainstream press by keeping them in pens at his rallies, subjecting them to abuse, taking away press passes from newspapers. But now, it seems, all is forgiven.

So what changed? The President-elect — who hasn’t held a traditional press conference since July, it should be noted — offered up the opportunity for an off-the-record chat in a gold-leaf ballroom in his version of Versailles, the Trump Tower. And it seems to have been a fairly friendly get-together between a would-be tyrant and the press he has harassed for months.

This is a strategy that abuse victims understand all too well. First come the punches, then the apologies and flowers. And with each gesture, Trump pulls the media in closer, hoping to blunt the force of any future criticism. Will it work? Or will the press see through the charade?

The arguments for participating in such off-the-record briefings are fairly obvious, just as they were for technology titans like Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Apple CEO Tim Cook, who met with Trump at a tech summit last week in another part of the Trump Tower.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “The media needs to challenge Trump, not go off the record with him”

After weeks of denying that the spread of viral “fake news” stories was a problem that it needed to be concerned about, Facebook (FB) has finally announced some concrete measures designed to blunt the force of hoaxes and misinformation, including a partnership with external fact-checking organizations who call out fakes. Now comes the hard part.

Within hours of the announcement on Thursday—which involves making it easier for users to flag fakes, as well as alerting readers when the accuracy of a story has been called into question—conservative outlets were already dismissing the move as a conspiracy of left-leaning partisans, designed to smother alternative sources and protect existing “gatekeepers.”

All of this helps explain why Facebook didn’t want to wade into this issue in the first place, not to mention why it resists being defined as a media company so strenuously (although it clearly is one). Facebook likes things that are neat and tidy, like algorithms—not things that are all muddy and gray and complicated, like defining what constitutes fake news.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “Facebook Says it Will Fight Fake News — Now Comes the Hard Part”

Every time the topic comes up, Mark Zuckerberg strenuously denies that his creation is as a media company. “We’re a tech company,” the Facebook CEO protests, waving his hands and pointing at the social network’s algorithm, the way a magician waves a handkerchief to try and distract you.

And yet, the evidence continues to pile up that Facebook not only is a media company — or at least acts a lot like one, and should probably be treated like one — but may be the most powerful media entity in the world.

Zuckerberg et al would like to pretend that Facebook is just a platform, agnostic about content, just distributing whatever its users want, and run by an impartial algorithm. But the reality is that the site routinely removes content for its own purposes (often without saying why), and more recently it has begun funding, buying and developing its own content, specifically video.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “Facebook’s claim that it isn’t a media company is getting harder to swallow”

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg initially scoffed at the idea that hoaxes, misinformation and “fake news” were a problem on the social network, or that they may have influenced the election of Donald Trump. But now, the company finally seems to be taking some responsibility for the role it plays in spreading that kind of content — and it’s about time.

In a blog post, Facebook announced that it is implementing a series of steps aimed at stamping out the problem of hoaxes and fake news, including a) the ability for users to more easily report fakes, b) a co-operative effort with third-party verification organizations such as Politifact and Snopes that will alert readers when a story’s accuracy is disputed, and c) cracking down on sites that pretend to be legitimate news outlets.

These moves are not going to solve the problem entirely, of course — in part because the term “fake news” includes a host of different kinds of content, from outright fakes and wholly manufactured stories to news reports from reputable outlets that make poorly-supported claims or haven’t been independently verified. But they are an important first step at rooting out what Facebook calls “the worst of the worst.”

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “Facebook is finally starting to take some responsibility for fake news”

There was a flurry of interest recently in a lawsuit launched by some Facebook shareholders, who apparently believe that they got the short end of the stick in the company’s recent share restructuring. Here’s a news flash for them: You always had the short end of the stick.

The lawsuit relates to the changes that CEO Mark Zuckerberg made earlier this year, in which he issued a new class of stock that will allow him to maintain control over the company even if he sells or gives away most of his shares.

The plaintiffs argue this could be damaging to their interests, since their shares might drop in value. And the lawsuit alleges that Silicon Valley venture capitalist and board member Marc Andreessen was personally advising Zuckerberg, while also sitting on a supposedly impartial advisory committee overseeing the restructuring maneuver.

As titillating as it might be to read Andreessen’s text messages to Zuckerberg, however — in which the former quotes from a 1950’s movie with Burt Lancaster, and says “The cat’s in the bag and the bag’s in the river” — the whole thing feels like a bit of a sideshow.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “Zuckerberg’s control over Facebook is absolute, lawsuit or no lawsuit”

The media world continues to undergo an unprecedented amount of upheaval, with continents slamming into each other, vast chasms suddenly appearing under our feet, and glaciers melting at hyper-speed. But one thing remains largely unchanged, and that is the 800-pound gorilla whose shadow continues to loom over the landscape — a gorilla named Facebook.

The social network’s dominant position at the top of the media food-chain is something that most publishers have already become accustomed to, whether they like it or not. But that dominance was reinforced with the election of Donald Trump as the next president of the United States, an outcome that many believe Facebook played a role in, thanks to its distribution of so-called “fake news.”

This phenomenon was like a one-two punch to the solar plexus of the media industry. On the one hand, it drove home just how big a role Facebook plays in the news consumption of large numbers of people. But at the same time, it also made it abundantly clear how little the social network really cares about the news it distributes. So much power, and yet so little responsibility.

As a former Facebook staffer described it, all the network really cares about is whether users find the content in their feeds engaging or not, and “bullshit is really engaging.” The question of whether or not the stories those users share are accurate or not is largely irrelevant.

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “Prediction for 2017: The media’s Faustian dance with Facebook continues”

A new survey commissioned by BuzzFeed found that most people believed the “fake news” stories they got through Facebook. But the survey also showed something else interesting: Namely, that the vast majority of people don’t remember the news they get from Facebook at all, real or fake.

The survey, which was done by Ipsos, asked more than 3,000 people whether they recalled seeing a random selection of six real and fake headlines. The stories chosen included one about Pope Francis endorsing Donald Trump (untrue), one about the former head of the CIA endorsing Hillary Clinton (true) and nine other selected stories, both fake and real.

Those who took part in the survey included a mix of Clinton and Trump voters, as well as those who said they didn’t vote. They were asked first if they remembered either seeing or hearing about a specific headline, and then whether they believed it was true or not.

The headline on the subsequent BuzzFeed story by media editor Craig Silverman was “Most Americans Who See Fake News Believe It, New Survey Says.”

Note: This was originally published at Fortune, where I was a senior writer from 2015 to 2017

Continue reading “Real or fake, most people don’t remember the news on Facebook”