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Tim Cook Describes Fake News as 'One of Today's Chief Problems'

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As Apple CEO Tim Cook continues to make his rounds in Europe, Good Morning Britain managed to catch him for a quick interview while he was visiting Woodberry Down Primary School yesterday. Regarding fake news, which has been an increasingly hot topic since the U.S. Presidential election got into full swing last year, Cook said that "this is one of today's chief problems."

timcooklefigaro-800x481.jpg

In the wake of growing fake news, companies like Facebook have taken action to bring the quality of an article to their users' attention before they share it with their friends. For Apple, Cook said that the solution to the problem is not a simple one.
"We have to give the consumer tools to help with this. And we've got filter out part of it before it ever gets there without losing the great openness of the internet. And so this is one of today's chief problems, it is not something that has a simple solution."
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Cook covered another topic during his stay in London this week, discussing Brexit with United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May. According to The Independent, in the talk Cook said that he is "very optimistic" about the UK's future outside of the European Union, and that it will be "just fine," although there will undoubtedly be some "bumps in the road along the way."
In a statement released after the meeting, Apple said: "We are proud that Apple's innovation and growth now supports nearly 300,000 jobs across the UK."
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Apple will continue to back the UK in the future, as it currently plans on building a new headquarters at London's Battersea Power Station, expected to be complete by 2021. After its completion, 1,400 employees will be moved from eight locations around London to occupy the company's new UK offices.

Early this morning, Cook also continued documenting his European adventures on Twitter, congratulating the Tate Britain art gallery after he visited its digital artwork exhibit. Yesterday, he stopped in the offices of ustwo games in London to get a sneak peak at the latest mobile game from the company behind Monument Valley.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Tim Cook Describes Fake News as 'One of Today's Chief Problems'
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/02/10/tim-cook-fake-news/
MacRumors said:



As Apple CEO Tim Cook continues to make his rounds in Europe, Good Morning Britain managed to catch him for a quick interview while he was visiting Woodberry Down Primary School yesterday. Regarding fake news, which has been an increasingly hot topic since the U.S. Presidential election got into full swing last year, Cook said that "this is one of today's chief problems."

timcooklefigaro-800x481.jpg

In the wake of growing fake news, companies like Facebook have taken action to bring the quality of an article to their users' attention before they share it with their friends. For Apple, Cook said that the solution to the problem is not a simple one.
Cook covered another topic during his stay in London this week, discussing Brexit with United Kingdom Prime Minister Theresa May. According to The Independent, in the talk Cook said that he is "very optimistic" about the UK's future outside of the European Union, and that it will be "just fine," although there will undoubtedly be some "bumps in the road along the way."
Apple will continue to back the UK in the future, as it currently plans on building a new headquarters at London's Battersea Power Station, expected to be complete by 2021. After its completion, 1,400 employees will be moved from eight locations around London to occupy the company's new UK offices.

Early this morning, Cook also continued documenting his European adventures on Twitter, congratulating the Tate Britain art gallery after he visited its digital artwork exhibit. Yesterday, he stopped in the offices of ustwo games in London to get a sneak peak at the latest mobile game from the company behind Monument Valley.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Tim Cook Describes Fake News as 'One of Today's Chief Problems'
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[doublepost=1486732414][/doublepost]Here is my solution to avoid fake news: don't read/watch the news. It's all fake anyway...
 
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It's heartening to see a leader who (unlike Zuckerberg) realizes that news media is now permanently linked with the way technology companies create their systems and build their interfaces, and that these companies bear a civic responsibility to make sure that unscrupulous actors and propagandists are not taking advantage of them.

This is especially important when our president can't grasp the difference between "fake news" and "news that reports something negative about him."

This is all only going to get worst in our post-fact age, unfortunately.
 
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Ok I get that fake news is basically an evolution of political propaganda, but is it "one of today's chief problems"? Seriously? What about global conflict, population growth, food security, pollution, habitat destruction and species loss, disease, global warming, inequality between and within nations, the plight of Africa...?

And just what does Apple expect to do? I don't use Apple's News app (deleted it) because I disdain anything that tries to track my activity and preferences. I'm smart enough to get my news from quality sources when I feel so inclined and to read critically even from those. The onus is predominantly on the individual here.

Fake news has developed because of a tendency for certain people to believe what they want to believe regardless of truth, which has always existed (case in point: religion!) and the chief combat for this is education.

Seriously, this is just another fluff piece and useless musing from Tim Cook to try and make him sound socially progressive when really he's just the head of a major global corporation.
 
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Scottsoapbox said:
The chief problem is that people aren't educated enough in critical thinking to be able to discern which news is fake.
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Well with there being so little balanced news out there (is there any?) it's not easy working out what's real and what's not. Unless you simply assume it's all fake, probably wouldn't be too far off.

Journalism in general, if you can call it that, really is in the gutter these days. I've stopped reading & watching news for now, blocked all the sites too. When they grow up I'll start again.
 
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Scottsoapbox said:
The chief problem is that people aren't educated enough in critical thinking to be able to discern which news is fake.
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As long as people have biases there will be fake news. There are more sources of news and places to get news than ever before but all it's done really is created silos where people only see and read what they want to hear, what will confirm their biases. The only reason a fake news item catches on and spreads is because someone wants to believe it, wants it to be true.
 
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I'm absolutely all for eradication of Fake News, but only recently have started to wonder if the solution may eventually lead to a double-edged sword scenario…

So I think many already know that Facebook et. al. use algorithms to determine where & how prominently a post appears for others in their social network. What if this kind of manipulation is enacted on a larger scale, but to censor or filter-out dissenting views to give the appearance of consensus.

Fake News solutions - while currently seeming to work on the basis of flagging content with a quality message - could theoretically be used to suppress all updates on a topic at the discretion of whoever is ultimately in control (be it the network itself or a higher governance).
 
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Cole Slaw said:
Dear Tim;
Please focus on running your company to the best of your ability and spend less time on politics and being a social justice warrior.
Thank you.

P.S., if you can find the time could you please update your desktop computers sometime this decade?
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What exactly is the social justice issue involved with fake news?

Seems to me it effects everyone on every side of the political spectrum.
 
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