Fake News / Social Media warriors

MiniMarc said:
This has been a big thing on my facebook the last week or so.
Taking Aleppo as the main example...

I see lots of people appauled / posting reports and urging to give to charities / sign petitions / thoughts are with aleppo etc....
Everything Ive seen looks like its obviously horrific.

and then...
On the opposite side I have friends claiming its fake news and showing videos of arab tv channels interviewing ppl welcoming the 'liberation of allepo' but they all say " You'll never see this on western news"etc. Citing the west as instigators of war and controlling the reporting to get what they want...

My friends claiming fake news are not idiots or classic tin foil hat brigade..

I did watch some of the live broadcast of the emergencey meeting they held. The russian guy had some very interesting things to say which ive not heard in any newspaper / bbc report

So I wonder what everyone else thinks on this subject or if they've experienced this?
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Watch Al Jazeera news for balance
 
soha said:
There was a video on fb this week about the BBC faking a chemical attack news story, complete with actors etc. I don't really pay attention to the news because I do believe a lot of it is propaganda.

Denzel Washington was interviewed recently and asked about fake news stories and I thought his reply was pretty smart "if you don't watch the news your uninformed, if you do watch the news your misinformed"
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The thing is that sometimes there's no way to check the source. That scumbag who was recently fined for harassing a father and daughter who were severely injured in the Manchester Arena bombing provided as sources websites that were un-checkable. Either the websites shut down, never existed or were links that led to links that led to links etc that had information that again was un-checkable or was completely baseless. And yet he still sold books and made money from Youtube channels. Go figure. I KNOW the bombing was real- my cousins work at North Manchester General and Manchester Royal Infirmary and one was re-tasked to A&E in her hospital and the other called in on her day off. By pure coincidence their mother (my aunt) was on duty during the first Manchester bombing and the Strangeways riots
 
Padster said:
The thing is that sometimes there's no way to check the source. That scumbag who was recently fined for harassing a father and daughter who were severely injured in the Manchester Arena bombing provided as sources websites that were un-checkable. Either the websites shut down, never existed or were links that led to links that led to links etc that had information that again was un-checkable or was completely baseless. And yet he still sold books and made money from Youtube channels. Go figure. I KNOW the bombing was real- my cousins work at North Manchester General and Manchester Royal Infirmary and one was re-tasked to A&E in her hospital and the other called in on her day off. By pure coincidence their mother (my aunt) was on duty during the first Manchester bombing and the Strangeways riots
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It says a lot about people that they're willing to believe such outlandish claims without being able to find a source. I guess the case you describe is the equivalent of Alex Jones' Sandy Hook claims in the US. It might sound a bit "so what?", but ultimately the number of people who believe this conspiraloon stuff is terrifying and it works to undermine faith in institutions and more reliable news sources, and can influence how people vote.
 
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