You can believe everything positive about the candidate you favor and everything negative about the one you abhor. Or you can believe proven truth and be skeptical about innuendo. I’ve chosen; I’m for truth. And that means I’m holding Trump responsible for his actual reprehensible actions, not the reprehensible innuendoes that BuzzFeed published. Let’s review what Trump…
Here are some things to know about truth: Truth exists. Finding truth takes work. And truth changes over time. I devote my energy to finding and promoting that truth, even when it is uncomfortable. It’s time for our biggest technology companies to do the same. Myths are persistent Megan Scudellari published an article in Science one year…
In an op-ed in today’s Boston Globe, the influential economist Jeffrey D. Sachs laments the lack of trust in modern American politics. He then proposes that we solve it with (among other things) “e-parties” and “e-governance.” But proposals like this ignore the way that trolls and partisans now wreck every online social space. Sachs’ op-ed,…
The problem of fake news on Facebook is now a news story. The last few days have seen tons of articles about it, most misleading or wrong. Ironically, these are exactly the kind of articles that spread virally, with misleading headlines. The headlines I show here are real, only the articles don’t match the headlines (yup, clickbait). None…
Liberals and NeverTrump types are heartsick after Trump’s election. This has resulted in a slew of futile and counterproductive ideas on how to stop him. Please put your emotions in escrow and think a minute. Evaluate what will actually make a difference, and stop wasting effort on pointless screaming and whining. In the list below,…
Mark Zuckerberg defended Facebook this weekend regarding the role of fake news in the election. It’s way worse than he says, and he has a lot of work to do to fix it. Ignorance is the biggest problem in our democracy, and Facebook is making it worse. First, let me ask you: was your news…
Lies masquerading as truth on the Web are a real problem. Now Sam Mallikarjunan is going to try to solve the problem. Mallikarjunan and his partner Andrei Oprisan are creating a browser extension called Verytas that changes the background color of stories you read: green for true, red for false, purple for satire. How does Verytas know? The…