Efforts under way in Japan to detect fake news ahead of election

Japanese mass media researchers and journalists have ramped up their efforts to identify dubious information on the internet related to the upcoming House of Representatives election in a bid to stem the spread of fake news affecting voter behavior.

How in the world are they ever going to know the difference between what is "fake" and what isn't, when it comes to anything that comes from mouths of a politician here? It's next to impossible to verify one way or another in the time frame that they have left, 2 days?

With Abe the only man able to prevent rural Hokkaido's imminent destruction by North Korean ICBM-mounted nuclear weapons, this is not the time for such trivial topics as "fake news"!

Daisuke Furuta, chief editor of BuzzFeed Japan, which is one of the five online media organizations, said, "It is media that have know-how to verify whether news items are inaccurate or intentionally false rumors.

Says the guy from the "news" organization embroiled in endless plagiarism scandals.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/benny-johnson-got-fired-at-buzzfeed-you-will-believe-what-happened-next/2015/06/09/da9fe3f8-e37f-11e4-b510-962fcfabc310_story.html?utm_term=.b7d717013534

There is a mountain of BuzzFeed plagiarism stories on the interwebs for those who can be bothered to look. BuzzFeed as a guardian against fake news is laughable.

seems like this could be another fake news story.

It should be remembered that in the former Soviet Union there was no fake news because the governement controlled all news. At the moment governements do not but are trying to control news on social media by labelling what they do not like as fake.

North Korea wants war with America and Japan, real. America just wants to defend itself from North Korea, fake. Really?

I want to see someone develop an app to detect fake empathy by politicians.

There's no way to counter fake news besides making the sharing and creation of fake news a crime with civil or even criminal penalties, or restricting free speech. In today's world, even if a fake news story is taken down after say 2 hours, the damage has already been done and is also irreversible. This will definitely become one of the defining issue of our times as fake and false flag news becomes more and more sophisticated and destructive

There has been a lot of "fake news" lately: mostly stories about companies faking their test results or accounts (Nissan, Kobe Steel, Toshiba, JNFL ....). Crooked politicians are amateurs by comparison.

There has always been fake news. It has existed as long as humans have communicated, and has often driven public policy. Much of that fake news was propagated by established media outlets. The only thing new is that the ability to widely spread fake news is now being given to everyone, not just to a few elite media giants.

So why all the sudden talk about "fake news?" I suggest it's to warm the public to the idea of government suppression of free speech. Seems to be working so far.

It should be remembered that in the former Soviet Union there was no fake news because the governement controlled all news. At the moment governements do not but are trying to control news on social media by labelling what they do not like as fake.

Interesting you mention Soviet Union. Their newspaper "Pravda" means "truth".

The leftists and anti-US factions are masters at labeling anything they disagree or contrary to their agenda as "propaganda" or "fake news" when in reality their statements are filled with mixture of half-truths, lies and twisted propaganda to sound like "truth".

Efforts under way in Japan to detect fake news ahead of election

Does that include articles that unequivocally claim that Abe is going to win with a landslide, or just news that is not endearing to him?

How in the world are they ever going to know the difference between what is "fake" and what isn't, when it comes to anything that comes from mouths of a politician here?

It's easy. Are their lips moving?