Editorial: Can Apple News+ kill 'fake news' and save journalism?

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 71
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    Political rival groups define each other's news outlets as fake, that's both predictable and par for the course I guess.  Defining scientific facts as fake news is bloody dangerous.  Measle epidemics (and what next, polio and smallpox?) is an example of unbelievably ignorant people believing fake news. 
    montrosemacsberndogroundaboutnow
  • Reply 22 of 71
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    MacPro said:
    Political rival groups define each other's news outlets as fake, that's both predictable and par for the course I guess.  Defining scientific facts as fake news is bloody dangerous.  Measle epidemics (and what next, polio and smallpox?) is an example of unbelievably ignorant people believing fake news. 
    Sure, that's pretty dumb I would agree.

    However, the denial of scientific fact is not just limited to one side.


    designrberndogSpamSandwichchemengin
  • Reply 23 of 71
    FolioFolio Posts: 698member
    Enjoyed this DED roundup, including his constructive criticism of Apple. Ironic perhaps that so many here in comments bring up cable news, a progenitor pre-internet of our problems. Erosion of thoughtful prose threatens democracy. Lets hope this thrill with immediacy and distraction subsides. Already you see books (last ad-free bastion) rebounding, and new potential w audiobooks, podcasts, etc. Glad that Apple is entering this realm, and is likely to do more good than harm, unlike some others.
    Dan_Dilger
  • Reply 24 of 71
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    I have issues with Apple News that goes even more basic than whether they are politically bias. 

    First the UI blows. Especially the magazine side. 

    Second, they say that their machine learning figures out what each of us wants to read about. Yeah right. I continue to get the same crap that I scroll right past and nothing like the topics I saved or anything like what I have liked. 

    third. What if I don’t want them curating what I read about. What if I want to add my own sources etc. there should be an option but there isn’t
    SpamSandwichchemengin
  • Reply 25 of 71
    FolioFolio Posts: 698member
    AppleNews and Plus probably launched prematurely. It's easy to improve upon. Cable news channels formed C-Span in USA as a public service. Usually Book-TV produces stimulating material. Interesting how the Internet giants have done nothing half as imaginative to try and up the intellect level of public discourse.
    Dan_Dilger
  • Reply 26 of 71
    danoxdanox Posts: 2,800member
    apple ][ said:
    danox said:
    Those who live in the southeastern part of America or the midwest (fly over places) the world is passing you by, Apple can't save the stupid area's of America, Apple also can't save the old-line Newspapers, or magazines who are 25 years into the internet age and still have no clue about tech or how use it they seem to want a white knight to save them from themselves and that will not happen.
    I'm definitely not in the midwest or one of the "flyover" places as liberals like to call it, but I'm going to defend them. I'm in a large metropolitan area, one of the biggest, but it can definitely be argued where the stupid areas of America are and where most of the stupid and delusional people can be found. I would argue that they can largely be found in certain feces infested places close to the coasts and without many of those places in the middle that liberals despise, the backbone of the US, all of those elitist morons who are in actuality ignorant, hateful losers would starve to death in a week or two. It would be a fun experiment to see played out sometime. 

    Those places I named are hopeless in America, you move out of those areas if you have half a brain, to get away from stupid (Tennessee and Texas thank god my parents got out of those areas).
  • Reply 27 of 71
    Apple saved music with iTunes because the ripping of music was a known illegal activity.  And the price worked out by Steve Jobs was a good price.  Ninety nine cents per song made sense versus being forced to buy full albums.  Win/win for customers and artists.

    Magazines are so lame these days they can't be given away.  And that is when they do it legally online.  Most are political and their politics is very unattractive.  So who wants lame politics dressed up in a fancy graphical cover or with the NYT logo?  And Apple is likely to exclude political opinions it finds unacceptable, which means it will exclude what half the population wants.   I don't think Apple will exhibit a hearty appreciation of the wide open expression of ideas from across the spectrum. More likely it will be like Facebook and Twitter which censor voices that don't fit the liberal template.  If Apple does that with Apple News it will not be a big success or even a good product.
    Wrong: File sharing wasn’t initially regarded as illegal. Also, when iTunes opened the labels were already trying to sell their songs on new forms of physical media and digital through stores from a Microsoft, Sony and on their own. 

    Also, lots of magazines have great content that many people don’t see because they spend their free time scrolling through the Facebook feed of radical trash and outrage mongering. 

    Apple doesn’t exclude political opinions. Voices espousing hatred and violence are not open expressions from across the spectrum. The are terrorism and deserve to be silenced. 

    And if Facebook and Twitter actually used any sort of “liberal template” it wouldn’t be largely recruiting old people into right wing hate and rage, with funding from Russia seeking to destabilize the west by funding right wing nationalism. 
    "File sharing was initially regarded as illegal."   Tell that to this Minnesota woman who is the subject of this 2006 report from The Guardian,

    "A Minnesota woman, one of the last people to be individually prosecuted in the US for illegal downloading and file-sharing, faces a $220,000 bill after a federal court ruling on Tuesday.

    The federal appeals court reversed a district court's decision to reduce Jammie Thomas-Rasset's owed damages to $54,000 from $1.5m. Tuesday's ruling (pdf) sets the damages at $220,000 and forbids Thomas-Rasset from making sound recordings available for distribution."

    "Apple doesn’t exclude political opinions. Voices espousing hatred and violence are not open expressions from across the spectrum. The are terrorism and deserve to be silenced."  Tell that to The Human Coalition, "a pro-life group tells LifeNews that Apple approved and subsequently removed its app from the App Store after criticism from abortion activists and liberal media outlets. As Human Coalition informs LifeNews, it released a mobile app allowing pro-life individuals and church groups to pray for Human Coalition’s abortion-seeking clients, who remain anonymous, in real time. The app, “Human Coalition,” was available for android devices in the Google Play Store, and in the Apple App Store for iOS."   This is exactly what I stated - Apple censoring conservative views. Not hateful.   Just people who are advocating that unborn babies not be killed.  Where is the hate in that controversy?

    "And if Facebook and Twitter actually used any sort of “liberal template” it wouldn’t be largely recruiting old people into right wing hate and rage, with funding from Russia seeking to destabilize the west by funding right wing nationalism."   This sentence is so incoherent it is not able to be refuted because it contains no intelligence.   Now of course regarding Russia, the Mueller report did not find any basis of Russian collusion but we are soon to learn that the Democrat candidate did fund Russian created fake news that tried to subvert the election.  I will note that this quoted statement includes the strange intolerance that was the very point of my comment.  It is this sort of hate filled attitude that Apple may fall prey to and which would harm its business.  Steve Jobs never engaged in this sort of hatred of the customer base.  We will see if Apple is a beacon of free speech or if it exhibits the same aggressive censorship that Facebook and Twitter employ to silence conservative opinion.


    SpamSandwich
  • Reply 28 of 71
    frantisekfrantisek Posts: 756member
    No. Reality so distorted that even those people thinking writing true are often not doing that. And only few people can evaluete news without subjective personal point of view. And what is true for us. Often what we want to believe to. It is very hard to convince someone to change his belief even facts are evident. And there is so many personal, regional, family, business, state interests that influence all this.... Often listening, reading news and only I believe it that it porably happened but not how and why. And worst fake news are no news, silence about important topic. Most common journalism tool.
    designr
  • Reply 29 of 71
    rogifan_newrogifan_new Posts: 4,297member
    No. Next question.
    DAalsethCarnagechemengin
  • Reply 30 of 71
    mpantonempantone Posts: 2,033member
    DAalseth said:
    No.
    The problem is that "fake news" a term I detest, no longer means "propaganda put out for nefarious purposes by the bad guys". It now means "Anything I don't happen to agree with and anyone who puts out stuff I disagree with is therefore the bad guys." So Apple News+ may uphold the highest journalistic standards, but all that means is that it will get labeled "Fake News" and "Main Stream Media" by those who most should be reading it. 
    No Apple can't save journalism. Which is too bad.
    True journalism died in the Nineties.

    Sorry about that.
  • Reply 31 of 71
    danox said:
    Those who live in the southeastern part of America or the midwest (fly over places) the world is passing you by, Apple can't save the stupid area's of America, Apple also can't save the old-line Newspapers, or magazines who are 25 years into the internet age and still have no clue about tech or how use it they seem to want a white knight to save them from themselves and that will not happen.
    "Apple can't save the stupid area's of America."     ---   Apple is headquartered in the Stupid Area of America.  If you go there, be sure to get the Poop App for your iPhone. 
  • Reply 32 of 71
    mac_128mac_128 Posts: 3,454member
    designr said:
    mac_128 said:
    designr said:
    apple ][ said:
    danox said:
    Those who live in the southeastern part of America or the midwest (fly over places) the world is passing you by, Apple can't save the stupid area's of America, Apple also can't save the old-line Newspapers, or magazines who are 25 years into the internet age and still have no clue about tech or how use it they seem to want a white knight to save them from themselves and that will not happen.
    I'm in a large metropolitan area, one of the biggest, but it can definitely be argued where the stupid areas of America are and where most of the stupid and delusional people can be found. I would argue that they can largely be found in certain feces infested places close to the coasts and without many of those places in the middle that liberals despise, the backbone of the US, all of those elitist morons who are in actuality ignorant, hateful losers would starve to death in a week or two. It would be a fun experiment to see played out sometime

    I'd be the first to agree that there's a fair amount of arrogance emanating from the coastal areas that often derisively dismiss "flyover country" (or other areas that they deem to be stupid or "on the wrong side of history"). And I also suspect I disagree with folks that happen to inhabit those areas on many issues. But your response is pretty harsh and inflammatory. I think we can all do better than this.
    I always laugh when I read these kinds of comments, especially when California has the 6th largest economy in the world.

    I agree we can do better, but we rarely do, especially around here.


    What does the size of California's economy have to do with this? Are you referring to how they'd fare without "flyover country"?
    The argument posed was that the stupid and delusional people “infest” places close to the coasts, and without the middle of the country the “ignorant”, “elitist morons”, and “hateful losers” would “starve to death in a week”. Seems unlikely the 6th largest economy in the world would starve to death without the middle of the country, ever, nor that it could achieve such status being run by stupid people. Meanwhile, farmers in the Midwest are going bankrupt in record numbers thanks to supporting Trump and his tariffs, as China and other countries look elsewhere for their agricultural needs. Meanwhile those coastal cities taxes are paying for subsidies that aren’t really helping farmers survive, or ensure once the tariffs are lifted, that the international business they’ve lost will ever return. So whose news is fake again?
    charlesgres
  • Reply 33 of 71
    anantksundaramanantksundaram Posts: 20,403member
    metrix said:
    If Apple News is presenting CNN, MSNBC and the major news networks, and then censoring others, they are in fact directly promoting Fake News, since those outlets are the major sources of fake news. So how exactly will Apple 'save journalism'?
    I might tend to agree however since Fox is on an island by themselves meaning every other world news organization has been defined as CNN fake news I disagree. If Fox cannot make one criticism about the President it is worthless. Nope I am not a Demo, I am independent.
    In fairness, I’ve not heard CNN say a single positive thing about Trump. Not one. 
    designrchemengin
  • Reply 34 of 71
    cgWerkscgWerks Posts: 2,952member
    Don't have time to read the (lengthy) article at this point, but to answer the "Can Apple News+ kill 'fake news' and save journalism?" simply...

    No

    I don't want my news being curated by the MSM, the government, or someone like Apple or Google. None of them have my best interest at heart, and even if they were honest and trying to pick the best stuff (which they aren't), why would we think they would be capable of doing such a thing?

    If we want good news once again, we first need to start paying journalists for doing journalism. That means the public must be willing to pay for it (vs the ad-driven model), and even then, there is still the issue of bias... so we need journalists with a broad spectrum of worldview we can compare (which means not censoring or excluding the ones we disagree with).

    Then, it will also take a good amount of public liberal education (classical sense, and real education, not what we mostly have today) and fact-checking to hold the journalists to account... as well as good access to original source material on which they are reporting.

    It will never be perfect, but could be much, much better. I'm not even sure if having some Apple curators pick stuff is much of an improvement (it might actually be worse).
    designr
  • Reply 35 of 71
    I'd like to see a video version of Apple News on Apple TV.
  • Reply 36 of 71
    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger Posts: 1,583member
    "File sharing was initially regarded as illegal."   Tell that to this Minnesota woman who is the subject of this 2006 report from The Guardian,

    "A Minnesota woman, one of the last people to be individually prosecuted in the US for illegal downloading and file-sharing, faces a $220,000 bill after a federal court ruling on Tuesday.

    The federal appeals court reversed a district court's decision to reduce Jammie Thomas-Rasset's owed damages to $54,000 from $1.5m. Tuesday's ruling (pdf) sets the damages at $220,000 and forbids Thomas-Rasset from making sound recordings available for distribution."

    2006 was half a decade after the iPod came out. Napster peaked, got sued and then was out of business in the summer of 2001 right as iPod was arriving. 1998-2001 was early file trading.  

    The world changes fast. Two years ago the USA was a liberal democracy. Now it’s a religio-fascist republic where votes don’t matter and white supremacists are indoctrinated by state TV to unthinkingly march to  nationalist socialism—with a planned economy laid out by a flamboyant figurehead who seized power and wants to scuttle all checks and balances of the legislative branch and fill the courts with one political party while refuting science because he has a “good brain.” 

    I wrote an article about digital magazines and newspapers and the comments are all demanding to know why “liberals” are censoring their TV and also why their 75+ year old king is not getting glorified on the TV outside of the only thing they watch. Sad. 
    kruegdudeDAalseth
  • Reply 37 of 71
    "File sharing was initially regarded as illegal."   Tell that to this Minnesota woman who is the subject of this 2006 report from The Guardian,

    "A Minnesota woman, one of the last people to be individually prosecuted in the US for illegal downloading and file-sharing, faces a $220,000 bill after a federal court ruling on Tuesday.

    The federal appeals court reversed a district court's decision to reduce Jammie Thomas-Rasset's owed damages to $54,000 from $1.5m. Tuesday's ruling (pdf) sets the damages at $220,000 and forbids Thomas-Rasset from making sound recordings available for distribution."

    2006 was half a decade after the iPod came out. Napster peaked, got sued and then was out of business in the summer of 2001 right as iPod was arriving. 1998-2001 was early file trading.  

    The world changes fast. Two years ago the USA was a liberal democracy. Now it’s a religio-fascist republic where votes don’t matter and white supremacists are indoctrinated by state TV to unthinkingly march to  nationalist socialism—with a planned economy laid out by a flamboyant figurehead who seized power and wants to scuttle all checks and balances of the legislative branch and fill the courts with one political party while refuting science because he has a “good brain.” 

    I wrote an article about digital magazines and newspapers and the comments are all demanding to know why “liberals” are censoring their TV and also why their 75+ year old king is not getting glorified on the TV outside of the only thing they watch. Sad. 
    So, Corrections the Minnesota woman was fines $200K because file sharing was illegal.  It was a form of stealing.   Napster went out of business because its business was theft.  Your last sentence again, like last time, explores new frontiers in incoherence.
    cgWerksSpamSandwich
  • Reply 38 of 71
    MisterKitMisterKit Posts: 492member
    I don’t see a clear path going forward for a coherent fact based presentation of news that offers up a good business model.

    Apple News+ is a pretty good attempt but I wasn’t too knocked out after giving it a free trial. The magazines are really good but it didn’t draw me in for regular reading. Lacking more top shelf news sources was a letdown.

    If Apple refines News+ I may try it again in the future.
  • Reply 39 of 71
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    corrections said:Now it’s a religio-fascist republic where votes don’t matter and white supremacists are indoctrinated by state TV to unthinkingly march to  nationalist socialism—with a planned economy laid out by a flamboyant figurehead who seized power and wants to scuttle all checks and balances of the legislative branch and fill the courts with one political party while refuting science because he has a “good brain.” 
    It sounds like you've been watching too much of the Handmaid's Tale and not realizing that it's just a fictional series.

    Trump won fair and square, he didn't seize power, what a ridiculous thing to claim. It's the sorelosers who still can't accept reality and get over their loss. Any talk of Russia is complete nonsense and a few facebook ads bought for tiny sums amounting to thousands of dollars is complete peanuts and had zero effect on any election.

    The sorelosers spent billions and still lost. And the main interference in the election has been from the sorelosers with their hoaxes and fake dossiers perpetrated by the side that lost. They cheated and they still lost. The stupid is really strong with that side.

    And the economy is doing great, with less regulations and less hindrances for businesses. It's the other party that wants more regulation, higher taxes and state control over everything, including the private sector.

    And claiming that there is no bias against conservatives on either Facebook or Twitter is also complete nonsense, as there are examples almost daily of discrimination, and nobody buys their excuses that a "mistake" was made anymore, because those "mistakes" always seem to only target one side. Hate speech to a leftist is basically anything that they disagree with, including the term "learn to code", meanwhile they are free to make actual death threats on twitter and nothing seems to ever happen to them. I guess that death threats and threats of actual violence are ok, as long as it's coming from a liberal.

    The liberal fake news dominance and their censorship fetish is getting less effective for each day that passes, and that's a wonderful thing. I'd like to see some of them go out of business soon, that would be fantastic. 
    edited May 2019 cgWerksjeffythequickdesignr
  • Reply 40 of 71
    22july201322july2013 Posts: 3,564member
    If curation is censorship, then let the people decide. Specifically, Apple should let its users decide on an individual basis if they want their news curated or not. That's a win-win scenario. I want to pay for my uncensored news, but I also want to be anonymous to the people I'm paying, which no existing paid news service permits except Apple News. So right now I'm stuck with Apple. It's not my first choice, but it's my only choice. Apple is the only company on earth that respects my privacy in this way. I don't see anyone else who will take my money and respect my privacy. I'm begging people to take my money and only Apple will take it. Am I the only person on the planet that wants News, privacy, and non-censorship? 
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