<story><title>Terry Pratchett warns Bill Gates about fake news (1995)</title><url>https://twitter.com/20thcenturymarc/status/1133395241837506561</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hirundo</author><text>&amp;gt; Captioning his find, Burrows said that the fantasy writer had “accurately predicted how the internet would propagate and legitimise fake news”&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s like when you have one clock, you know what time it is. When you have two clocks they&amp;#x27;re always somewhat different, and so you&amp;#x27;re no longer certain of the time, and have less faith in clocks.&lt;p&gt;Fake news has always been with us and the internet just propagates it along with everything else. Contrary to the claim that the internet legitimized it, it made us more aware of how common it is, delegitimizing all news sources in the way that multiple clocks delegitimize clocks.&lt;p&gt;But clocks at least can be made quite accurate. I&amp;#x27;m not at all sure that&amp;#x27;s true of news sources.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>gregmac</author><text>Building on that analogy, the trouble with one clock is you only know what time it is &lt;i&gt;if it&amp;#x27;s correct&lt;/i&gt;. If you take the time to verify and&amp;#x2F;or set it against an accurate time source, then this is no problem.&lt;p&gt;However, it seems more and more people are skipping that verification step, and just assuming the clock is right. When presented with two conflicting clocks, instead of questioning what&amp;#x27;s going on and trying to find another clock to verify current time, they pick a side, rejecting one of the clocks as &amp;quot;fake&amp;quot; and continue using the one that most aligns with what they &lt;i&gt;think&lt;/i&gt; the time should be.</text></comment>
<story><title>Terry Pratchett warns Bill Gates about fake news (1995)</title><url>https://twitter.com/20thcenturymarc/status/1133395241837506561</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>hirundo</author><text>&amp;gt; Captioning his find, Burrows said that the fantasy writer had “accurately predicted how the internet would propagate and legitimise fake news”&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s like when you have one clock, you know what time it is. When you have two clocks they&amp;#x27;re always somewhat different, and so you&amp;#x27;re no longer certain of the time, and have less faith in clocks.&lt;p&gt;Fake news has always been with us and the internet just propagates it along with everything else. Contrary to the claim that the internet legitimized it, it made us more aware of how common it is, delegitimizing all news sources in the way that multiple clocks delegitimize clocks.&lt;p&gt;But clocks at least can be made quite accurate. I&amp;#x27;m not at all sure that&amp;#x27;s true of news sources.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>coldtea</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;Fake news has always been with us and the internet just propagates it along with everything else. Contrary to the claim that the internet legitimized it, it made us more aware of how common it is, delegitimizing all news sources in the way that multiple clocks delegitimize clocks.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s also that those in power would love it for their opinions to be the &amp;quot;authoritative&amp;quot; ones and only ones permitted to be heard. Same for mainstream media (though for them it&amp;#x27;s their business model).&lt;p&gt;The internet allows the &amp;quot;unwashed masses&amp;quot; to voice their opinions and viewpoints too. And of course those higher up will always have a distaste for those opinions.&lt;p&gt;Imagine everybody being able to  criticize the Vietnam War in the sixties, or e.g. segregation in the 40s, or prohibition in the 20s, or the war on drugs in the 80s, or McCarthyism, on a platform that could get equal eyeballs as the Time or TIME LIFE or NYT. All those critiques would be discarded as &amp;quot;fake news&amp;quot;, &amp;quot;propaganda&amp;quot; and so on too (in fact whatever little was, e.g. in underground papers and so on, got exactly those labels).&lt;p&gt;Of course people would also be able to voice their support those things, but that we be business as usual. People touting the elite&amp;#x27;s opinions were never without a soapbox in the mainstream media. The revolution is in the ability of the &amp;quot;unwashed masses&amp;quot; to speak for themselves.</text></comment>