Trolls in the Dungeon

Stories built upon half-truths or outright lies are storming the United States by force. Angry people on all sides are making claims against several issues including health care, taxes, immigration, or foreign policies (to name a few).

While it is interesting to watch as these issues are picked apart by the media and the American people, it is not surprising to watch as the Internet trolls load up on their “fake news” ammunition and petty insults to distract and redirect the average reader’s attention.

There are endless examples of this behavior throughout the Internet, and it is not limited to one side of an argument. In many political articles, the comments are riddled with attacks on the writer’s character or snips about another commenter’s mother. And people with completely different world views, who align themselves with opposing political parties, are all guilty of attacking their opponent’s character or turning insults back onto their foes.

There seems to be a distinct attitude within the comments of an article, and it can be very off putting for many readers when these waves of hostility take over a place meant for discussion.

While it can be amusing on a surface level to watch a bunch of volatile schmucks insult each other left and right, it is obvious that there is no room for an actual discussion to grow. The comments can quickly become a place where individuals with real concerns are afraid to speak up because they do not wish to be publicly ridiculed.

Watching these verbally abusive brawls unfold is rapidly becoming an everyday norm. But was this always the outcome of online conversations? Were the actual concerns and issues that most citizens without a voice in America could be drowned out and overshadowed by the reckless and problematic arguments of the radical few?

Well, yeah. Of course! Negative seems to strongly outweigh the positive when it comes to human nature.

Within the last week, the Republican party has been pushing to pass their health bill in order to repeal and replace the American Care Act (ACA) put into play during Barak Obama’s presidency.

Now, should one take a moment to peruse the comment sections of most news sites that report on breaking news, such as USAToday, The Washington Times, The Guardian, The Hill, or Fox News, a clearer story can be sorted out.

Nearly every comment section has been over-run by hostile and ugly insults or hate speech.

Below are a few gems that I found in, "Trump Blames the Democrats for GOP Health Care Bill Failure, Says ObamaCare is 'Imploding'," which focuses on the more recent topic of the GOP’s health care bill.

These insults against people’s character and criticism against issues that are not dire or even being argued tell a troubling story. Many people do not want to hear what they do not agree with, and they are willing to insult their enemies (ad hominem) and turn ugly comments thrown their way back onto their opponents (tu quoque.) This is not the way respectable people should act.

And now, those who speak up in this era are labeled as “easily offended” or “weak.”

“‘Poor Little Snowflake’ – the Defining Insult of 2016,” published by The Guardian, sums up the dynamic of people who resort to insulting and blaming others who do not share their views. This article looks at the term “snowflake,” which has been thrown around left and right since the beginning of the US election, and focuses on how it has been used as an insult.

Basically, anyone who disagrees with an argument, or asks that offensive topics and reasoning be questioned and rebuked, are deemed “thin-skinned and weak minded.”

The author of this article, Rebecca Nicholson, writes:

So if the right are calling the left snowflakes for being liberal, and the left are calling the right snowflakes for expressing offence, and the old are calling the young snowflakes for being too thin-skinned, and the young are pointing out that the older generation seem to be the most offended by what they’re doing, then the only winner is the phrase itself.

Her words tell a story that there is no sure way to win these arguments, but her observations should serve as a wake-up call. Do not take the comments personally. Instead, participate in local politics, keep yourself updated on breaking news from multiple websites – even websites with views that do not share your exact values – and do not let the comments get you down.

Staying well informed is a great way to stand above the rioting crowds, and it is also a great contribution to the cleanup of the Internet comment sections. If there are not enough rude and angry people in the comments, the discussions will eventually die out.

Keep on keeping on and please, don’t feed the trolls. 

Logical Fallacies in Fake News

A logical fallacy is an error made in terms of reasoning. Fortunately fallacies can be identified from the lack of evidence that's supposed to back up the other person's claim(s).

A good example is Alex Jones (a conservative radio show host) who often discusses conspiracy theories and news on his radio show (as well as his website) called InfoWars. The problem is that his news is filled with logical fallacies, such as the Slippery Slope (also known as The Camel's Nose fallacy) and the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.

Jones shared his views about the Pizzagate incident back in December, and not only was it fake news with a bunch of unreliable "evidence" (as far as the FBI obtaining "secret codes" that are used by pedophiles when trafficking children), but he even started off with an irrelevant topic in the video.

Logical Fallacy In Fake News

The topic of fake news has been a rather controversial topic these past years. This is partially due to the recent presidential election. The election brought up a lot of articles that had no truth value, but people would believe it anyways. Why would this be? Due to the fact that it's what they want to believe. If it helps their point they are trying to make then they will believe it and use it against others.

Much fake news is written with many logical fallacies connected to them. A logical fallacy as defined by Purdue OWL "is common errors in reasoning that will undermine the logic of your argument". The 3 common fallacies are Ad hominem, the attacking of a person rather than their argument, hasty evidence, making your own conclusion based on bias opinion, and genetic fallacy,  where a person or idea's origins define what it is. Fallacies show up in arguments to make it seem believable to the point that it influences others to believe it.

Many journalists believe that during this presidential election ad hominem was overused. Each candidate attacked the other in whatever way possible in order to win the presidency.  This election has shown a high in politic awareness. Even though the cause of this awareness is due to the fake articles and headline that people have read.

Logical fallacies have been apart of news posts since the printing press was invented. It has increasingly become more of a problem while being connected to fake news, and has started to turn people against each other. It has caused the loss of friends and family around the world.

Fallacies In News

Logical fallacies are flaws in reasoning. You see this on many occasions. A lot of politicians use this to try and undermine their opponent. When trying to make a good point or argument, one must have facts and truth behind what they are talking about. People tend to use the "if this occurs, then this will happen" theory. This was the case when the republicans said that Obamacare would fail if this and that, instead of giving facts on why it wasn't the best idea. Many people tend not to stick with the issue, but say thing that are very irrelevant to the topic.

Just as well as they do it in politics, they use it in plenty of other media sources. They use it in the comments of news and even sports. People bashing one another using fallacies. They make arguments towards each other that has nothing to do with the issue. I read a sports report on Kobe Bryant and why he might be the greatest of all time which was of course the authors opinion. But instead of focusing on basketball and facts on why he wasn't, people in the comments were bringing up his 2004 rape charges that had nothing to do with basketball.

Ad Hominem Fallacy is used way to much in politics as we seen this year. The whole police election felt as if the candidates were trying more to tear their opponent down then stick to the facts ad issues at hand. I also read a story on a author who wrote about the War against ISIS. The story to me had plenty of facts and had reliable sources. But I seen in the comments people bashing this author. Someone said how can we believe this guy who isn't married with kids. The very point of that had no fact but instead basing his view on his personal life.

After all we live in a world where Logical fallacies are used in many different scenarios. People bring up things that have nothing to do with the argument and for that I don't have an answer. The media plays the biggest role in giving people their opinion. Social media lets them speak behind a keyboard on any discussion they want to join. Most of the comments you will read will be biased or have no reasoning behind an argument.

Logical Fallacies in News

When it comes to news and politics, most of what you hear during the elections and debates are the competitors attacking each other to get their point across. This is called "Ad Hominem", a logical fallacy that means attacking an opponent's character or personal traits in order to invalidate their arguments. What is a logical fallacy, you ask? Logical fallacies are "errors in reasoning that render an argument invalid." 

There are many examples in the news where ad hominem comes into play. This article on President Trump from USA Today is one them. During the campaign, Trump pretty much always let his opinions known about his opponent, Clinton's, character. 

Ad hominem is not the only logical fallacy you see in the news and politics. When someone answers a criticism with criticism, it is called the "Tu Quoque" fallacy. This fallacy can also be found in the news, but of course mostly in politics. It is more specific than ad hominem, therefore harder to find. However, an article on Forbes' website provides a perfect example. 

Although the article is an opinion article, it still sums up tu qouque in an interesting way. It says, 

"It is entirely true that "tu quoque" is a logical fallacy, it being a specific case of the ad hominem one. The truth or not of something is not dependent upon who says it nor either what they've said nor how they've acted in the past. Yet while it's a logical error, in that it doesn't invalidate the argument being put forward, it's still a very useful technique. For if "you do it too" is indeed a truth then we can weigh what it is that we're being told to do more carefully."

This is a good way, I believe, to put the fallacy in perspective.

Why do peoples logical fallacies? That is a question that will probably never have an answer. All i can say is, when people feel as if they are being attacked, they get defensive and attack back. These fallacies will always be used in politics and sometimes even entertainment.

Logical Fallacies in Fake News

Logical fallacies pop up everywhere in the media. Usually they appear in ads or in political news. Logical fallacies are basically errors in reasoning that render an argument invalid. Usually, in a broader sense, all logical fallacies are mostly non-sequiturs, or arguments where the conclusion doesn't make sense. The most common types of logical fallacies are: Ad Hominem, Appeal to Authority, Appeal to Force, Appeal to Humor, Appeal to Ignorance, Bandwagon, Hasty Generalization, Name-Calling, Non-Sequiturs, Poisoning the Well, Red Herring, Slippery Slope, Stacking the Deck, and Straw Man.

One example of logical fallacies in fake news is an article that I found called Trump is Fascinating...The Road Kill Effect. The author Debra Jane Campbell says that "As a professor of logic, I am deeply troubled by the lack of argument surrounding the issues of this campaign and the continual use of the ad hominem fallacy." The ad hominem fallacy is the argument or reaction is directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining. Throughout the campaign, there was a lot of use of the fallacies to distract viewers from the real issues and divert attention away from real questions that needed answers.  The news sometimes uses these fallacies to make a point, and it sometimes does not work because the readers or viewers know the truth. 

Logical fallacies make the news less believable by diverting attention from where it should be, on the facts. For me, I would rather have all of the facts from the news and if I wanted opinions I would watch something other than the news. 

Logical fallacy is an error in reasoning that messes up an argument. An example is like someone saying honey roasted peanuts are nasty, therefore siracha peanuts are nasty too. But honey roasted and siracha peanuts have two different flavors.

I researched an article saying Time Magazine uses logical fallacies in the “technology hoax” page. The article in Time Magazine says that the technology in this generation is hurting kids in school and growing adults. They say that kids don’t learn well with technology and adults are becoming addicted to video games.

The article says “Tech in the classroom not only leads to worse educational outcomes for kids, which I will explain shortly, it can also clinically hurt them.” There was a peer- review showing screen time increases the risk of ADHD, aggression, depression, etc.

In my opinion, I think kids learn better with technology in the classroom. I have experienced this in my last two years of high school when the school board decided to fund our schools with three IPad carts and two extra MacBook carts. I had the best experience with using the IPads because we also get to interact with everyone in the room. An example is a website called Kahoot.

Throughout the whole article, AJ Juliani posted most of the logical fallacies he found in the Time magazine article. AJ Juliani is a parent and teacher which shows that he has more experience with kids learning with technology more than Time magazine. He said the role of technology is going to change for the better and I completely agree with him.

http://ajjuliani.com/the-logical-fallacies-of-time-magazines-technology-hoax-article/

Logical Fallacies In Relation to the News

A logical fallacy is a mistake in reasoning. They are basically like tricks that are used often by the politicians or the media to fool people. An article written on the The Stranger website talks about how Fox News uses logical fallacy to talk about the kayak protesters in Seattle.

The http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/16/seattle-kayak-shell-protest_n_7298518.html article explains that the Seattle protesters are protesting against Royal Dutch Shell Company's plans to resume oil exploration in the Arctic and keep the two of its drilling holes in the city port. According to the articles author, Anzel Hers, the type of fallacy that is used by the Fox News is the "tu quoque" fallacy. It occurs when someone is focusing on the acts of the person making the argument, instead of the actual argument. During the Fox news airtime, 5 of the talkers were talking about the Seattle protesters but they were not actual talking about what they are trying protest, they are basically slamming them for protesting in the kayaks. They are talking trash about Seattle in general saying that they "basically have nothing....they have water, they have rain". The author points out that water is used to bring life to the planet so what they said was misguided and it made them look unprofessional on live television. The people on the news also talked about the shows that were made in Seattle. After all the time they had on air, they never even mentioned anything about the protest or why they were protesting and if they are making any progress on it.

As I was looking through the comments about the article, I realized that a lot of people were basically saying that Fox News is known for doing this. Some actually talked about the issue itself and what they thought about it. Some argued and some were debating about it in a normal manner. Some comments were about the fallacy itself such as some agreeing with it and some disagreeing. There were not much of the same type of comments on the article, they all ranged in different ways.

I thought this was a good example of logical fallacy in news, especially since it was in the air as well, not just online.

International Fake News

 International news is exactly what you would expect- fake news deliberately being spread between different countries. It's spread the same way any other fake news is (especially on social media), but it can be a little more challenging to spot.

As you might imagine, attempting to figure out if news from another country is a reliable source isn't the easiest thing to do.

An example is from Amnesty International just last month reporting that up to 13,000 had been hanged in a Syrian prison for an "extermination" campaign. 

The problem with this report is that there so happens to be no evidence whatsoever, being the reason why it was dismissed as "fake news" by the former UK Ambassador, Peter Ford. You can hear what Mr. Ford had to say about the report from the video below when speaking to an interviewer of Sky News.

Fake News Posted Internationally

Fake news has been reported around the U.S. often lately due to election tensions. What is scary about this is some people actually voted for candidates because they believed the unrealistic article they found on social media and biased news sites. Facebook, one of the most popular social media sites, has put out a tool to flag what users think is fake news and Facebook researchers will look through the article to find the truth. Facebook has also embedded a post that appears in your news feed that gives 10 tips to spot fake news. This includes watching headlines, looking at URL's, credibility of sources, unusual formatting, photos, dates, evidence, researching other reports, a joking story, or looking for intentionally false articles.

With the U.S. trying to better handle all the fake news everywhere, the problem is also happening internationally in Germany and Indonesia. These two governments are preparing programs to detect false information put online. With the parliamentary elections happening in Germany, their government is taking action to stop the spread of fake news. Angela Merkel, German Chancellor, states that the media has changed in the past years by adding new outlets for creating new ways to post fake articles.

Most fake news articles are created for a profit purpose. With each click there was another dollar sign added to the publishers bank account. The most controversial thing against fake news is the bias that is behind it all, and these publishers looking for profit will create these stories to appeal to the biased side they believe will get the most attention.

France is also taking measure to make sure that fake news is less of an issue. They have created a website named CrossCheck that people can post articles they think aren't true and editors will fact check it.

Controversies over fake news have heightened since the 2016 election. The bias of both liberal and conservative views have come out in news sites and the media. Countries around the world have been preparing for the worst in unrealistic news by providing ways to stop it. The goal of these programs is to stop the lies and start the truth.

The Impact of Fake News on International Politics

Over the course of the past year and a half, American politics has been riddled with stories of misinformation and claims of fake news stories. Throughout the election cycle, many candidates were bombarded with stories from mainstream or third party news sources that were ladened with falsehoods, with the intent of interfering with a candidate’s campaign. Over in France, a similar trend is starting to form with news sites coming out of the woodwork with their own claims about French politicians in order to sway public opinion.

An example of the spread of misinformation in the French election cycle is the false story that Saudi Arabia is funding Emmanuel Macron’spresidential campaign. The story, which has gained almost 10,000 likes and shares on Facebook, was promoted by the niece of apposing candidate Marine Le Pen. The story was refuted after it was pointed out that the site it was posted on was a clone of a reputable Belgian news source, which was being used to spread false information. While the sharing of said misinformation by Le Pen’s niece may not have been intentional, thousands of people were still introduced to the article through her, and their opinion of Macron may have changed because of it.

In an effort to combat this wide spread trend of false information throughout election cycles, many news organizations are partnering together to help prevent the spread of fake news. On February 28^th 37 French and international media outlets along with Google formed “CrossCheck” a news coalition with the main idea being to help the French voting population make sense of who and whom not to trust on their social media feed. If someone sees an article or piece of news in regards to the French election and would like to know if the information they are being presented is factual or not, they are able to submit an online form.

Another source of information that is cracking down on the spread of fake news is Facebook. Facebook is launching an anti-fake newsregimen for the French election cycle similar to the one set in place for the United States election and in Germany. Under this system if two companies are able to support a claim that an article is spreading misinformation, the content will be flagged as disputed, and will give a warning to users before they share. This system they are putting in place is helpful in that, it keeps people aware of what they are sharing onto their timeline for others to see. In this day and age the information more and more people are buying into flashy and outrageous titles without fact checking the information behind those titles. With a system like this in place, more people are going to be more aware of what information they are putting forward and the credibility of said information.

Fake News taking over the World?

Fake news can be found pretty much anywhere in the world not just in the United States of America. With the help of social media like, Facebook. Fake news is spreading more rapidly than ever before not just across the nation but across the world. Many Facebook users that do not know how to acknowledge accounts posting links to fake news may be sharing those links to their own group of friends/followers exposing them to fake news.

According to, Veronica Rocha and Richard Winton, writers of Los Angeles Times, said Fake news was spread throughout Facebook and Instagram reporting deportation checkpoints. When Fontana police were interviewed they said “It appears that unknown subjects are trying to create a public panic…”

By news spreading like this many families of immigrants living in their countries hear this throughout social media and get a sense of worry for that family member in the United States and maybe share this post on their accounts hoping to help other but instead are helping the spread of fake news.

Many countries are very aware of fake news spreading across the world. Countries such as Germany and Indonesia are getting programs to begin monitoring fake news. They’ll be monitoring from social media accounts to websites to stop the act of fake news.

Even Facebook has said that they’ll be updating its trending section to help with the fight of fake news.