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

[lazyrighteye]

Tim does not care about your privacy. He cares that you think Apple cares about your privacy so that you will buy an iPhone. This social justice Apple is all about marketing and Tim's self riotousness (which is why I will never buy another Apple product). Tim is creating a brand image here, nothing more. Why? Because it sells iPhones and fills his bank account with millions of dollars so he can continue to send out emails with MLK quotes at the end to make himself seem more of a justice warrior. He clearly likes to feel important.

Apple never stood for diversity and human rights....it stood for making the worlds best products to help improve everyone's life. Not the rich with $10k watches. Apple is now about luxury and less about the common man. Tim has turned Apple into a social justice organization that makes luxury phones. Tim Cook will go down in history as the CEO that destroyed Apple. The iPhone train is going to run out of steam at some point and he has done nothing to diversify Apples portfolio. There is no plan B. Sure it's diversified with woman, LGBT, minorities, and the workforce and apparently hires people on visas.....but that means nothing when all you make is phones, watches, and occasionally a Mac that nobody wants. Tim Cooks portrait will be hung up with Gil Amilio in the hall of shame. Someday this social justice crap won't be popular and nobody will care about Tim and his movements. In reality Apple has done nothing that will stand the test of time. In the long road of things, his FBI charade means nothing. If the government wanted Apple to comply...they would or Timmy would end up in jail. Watch how fast he caves when faced with a jail cell. Suddenly social justice won't matter to him. The only reason it went away was because the FBI found another way in...no because of our heroes stance on privacy. Apples core is about money, shareholders, & profit. It is profitable to be the only game in town that appears to support your privacy. Apple is selling you out for advertising just like Google, don't kid yourself. Where do you think all the road traffic data in the world comes from on Google maps? Your phone. Did Timmy ask you if it was okay? No! But I thought he cared about your privacy? Clearly not if your phone is using your location for traffic data that you don't earn a cent on and don't know about. iAd knew everything about you so I could sell ads to a very specific group. Apple knows more about you than you probably realize. It probably has the same profiling tools that Google does....they just don't talk about it. Apple is very secretive....ever wonder why? Is it really to hide products or is it to hide other things we don't know about. There sure is a lot of employees on the payroll for a company that doesn't make anything new often and has the manufacturing offshore. There is probably a department in there dedicated to tracking and learning about you. Steve Jobs would sell you out in a heart beat as well if he thought it was what he needed. Read up on him if you don't believe me. Pretending Apple is anything else but a greedy corporation is delusional. At the end of the day it comes down to how much money they made....they are not a 501(C)(3).

Which is another perspective. Thanks for sharing!

 

[wizard]

http://thehill.com/homenews/news/318794-cnn-host-fake-news-the-n-word-for-journalists

How anyone watches this channel and worse buys into their tears is beyond me.

And why is Tim injecting himself into this trashy content? His sole responsibility is to deliver profit to shareholders. Just like The Verge is to report on tech. Every liberal is falling apart. It's adorable.

Come on here, Cook is a died in the wool Democrat, he positively hates the idea that they lost so badly in the last election. The goal here is to get people to accept censorship of the media and more importantly the news.

Does anybody really think that Apple or Facebook will implement their censorship systems without bias? Seriously people need to wake up here, this is nothing more than the left trying to extend control of the media.
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Agree. An uninformed populace is very dangerous. As is a populace that relies on government or corporations to tell them what is fake and what isn't. Fake news must be dealt with, but we walk a very dangerous line in doing so. Must be sure we stay on the side of keeping things honest vs. censorship and spin.

The problem is there is no way to do that. Any attempt at managing the news leads to censorship. Apple effectively does that now, supposedly for your benefit. This is why i don't bother with Apples services.

All I can do is shake my head in disgust/fear.

You should fear what these companies are trying to do! Even if they have good intentions it leads to conflicts with information flow.

A good example of unintended results is the filtering many politicians have demanded at public libraries. You know to protect the kiddies from titties. The problem is somebody going to the library to research a health issue gets stymied. I only bring this one up due too one to many female friends coming down with breast cancer.

As bad as that censorship is this is a far more hideous attempt at censorship. Cook can wrap it in gold but underneath it is all bull crap and will do use no good.

 

[IJ Reilly]

The only way to stop fake news is to implement censorship. Without censorship, each individual person has to be able to determine for themselves what is factual and what is not. Leaving censorship to the government, or some greedy corporation is a recipe for disaster (at least if one values freedom, freedom of speech, and economic well being.)

Now determining if fake news is fake is surprising simple. Instead is paying attention or believing the news story headline or first paragraph (if news publishers even write paragraphs anymore), examine all of the text or video and ask if the headline was true, what would you expect in the body of the article.

If some key information is missing, then the news is probably fake. This is how people lie without thinking they are lying. Leaving information out is not considered lying these days.

If the headline is radically different than the body, then the news is probably fake. It was written in order to generate emotion, not to convey news (or facts).

Normally, I consider the story with these characteristics as propaganda. While there might be a kernel of truth, its usually not worth the time to try to read past the publishers lies.

How on God's green Earth is your test ever going to work? Fake news is the delibrate peddling of lies. The liars don't stop lying at the headline, they lie right throughout the copy. They fabricate whatever "facts" they need to support the lie. The only way to combat fake news is for it to be truthed out and revealed. The people who do this are called journalists. You know, the people we are told we should despise?

 

[Cineplex]

How on God's green Earth is your test ever going to work? Fake news is the delibrate peddling of lies. The liars don't stop lying at the headline, they lie right throughout the copy. They fabricate whatever "facts" they need to support the lie. The only way to combat fake news is for it to be truthed out and revealed. The people who do this are called journalists. You know, the people we are told we should despise?

What sucks today is that a lot of the "journalists" write stories about things they saw on twitter. Like Engadget for example. That place is filled with editors that are social justice warriors to the max and will print anything they see on Twitter without any fact checking whatsoever. An editor there wrote a story about NASA sending a telescope to another galaxy. Not even close to the real story. All of the real journalists at newspapers are writing stories about kittens stuck in a tree because "that's what the readers want"! Feature lifestyle stories!

 

[macs4nw]

It's like News Papers these days are no longer that, they have become "Opinion Papers".

You hit the nail on the head. And everybody is entitled to an opinion, whether that opinion is well researched or not, and whether we agree with it or not, and most importantly, barring libel or hate crimes, everyone is entitled to express those opinions. Of course we all know the truth is not always black or white, different people have different interpretations of facts, and people tend to be more inclined to believe what fits their narrative according to prior-held beliefs, etc. All of which makes for a perfect opportunity for those having dishonest intentions to inject fake news into the avalanche of news the average person is bombarded with on a daily basis.

Sorting fact from fiction can then become a full-time job, which the average person leaves to the news media, at which point we're back to square one, as these very people, well intentioned they may be, also have their own biases, agendas, and personal beliefs. Now of course news organizations and journalists can fact-check statements and opinions, but that doesn't necessarily mean the truth will come out purely objectively. They can suppress certain information, or highlight other things. Many media outlets have their own political slants, although they may not readily admit to it.

A number of countries around the world have existing laws that prohibit knowingly disseminating false information, but those cases are notoriously difficult to prosecute. These laws have been found to be "inconsistent with the guarantee of freedom of expression" by some UN bodies, and intent would have to be proven, in addition to proving what a person genuinely believed, a difficult task at best.

Fake news is a problem that will get worse, and I cannot think of any solution that will not somehow curtail our sacred 1st Amendment rights.

 

[IJ Reilly]

What sucks today is that a lot of the "journalists" write stories about things they saw on twitter. Like Engadget for example. That place is filled with editors that are social justice warriors to the max and will print anything they see on Twitter without any fact checking whatsoever. An editor there wrote a story about NASA sending a telescope to another galaxy. Not even close to the real story. All of the real journalists at newspapers are writing stories about kittens stuck in a tree because "that's what the readers want"! Feature lifestyle stories!

Somebody writes a bad story, so now journalism as a profession can be trashed? Maybe not what you meant, but this is certainly what's happened over the last 20 years or so.

 

[wizard]

Actually testing combined with withholding high school diplomas from those that failed would do wonders for this country. Just try hiring young people these days with just a high school education. You cant tell based on their diploma if they can add and subtract with a calculator at hand. Don't even ask about work ethic.

For those of us in the USA, that is almost entirely the fault of the education system and the 'professional educators' worrying more about standardized test performance rather than actually teaching kids to think and other skills needed for life.

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Interesting that "fake news" wasn't a problem until the day Trump was elected.

Are we out of touch here? It was a significant part of the political discussion before Trump was elected. Further Clinton seemed to blame her loss on fake news

And let me guess...
All of the news sources you agree with are legitimate, all news sources you disagree wit are fake. Got it.

Yep that is exactly what the problem is. It is why these attempts at censorship are so hideous. The last thing we need is Cook deciding for us what news is worthwhile. Apples current services are bad enough that i don't use them.

 

[Cineplex]

Somebody writes a bad story, so now journalism as a profession can be trashed? Maybe not what you meant, but this is certainly what's happened over the last 20 years or so.

Having worked in a newspaper from 2005-2011 I can tell you that all of the good reporters are stuck doing "feel good" lifestyle pieces under the direction of the publishers. I worked for a paper owned by CNHI (a really crappy company to work for...scum of the industry) and the story was the same across all the properties. Kittens in a tree gets front page placement while real news get ignored. It's not the journalists fault, its the management. The days of medium market and small market papers doing quality work is gone....and it is the publishers and management fault. I used to see the Pulitzer's the paper won over the years everyday and wonder WTF happened. Then I saw it and heard it. Publishers just don't want it, they want "squirrel finds a nut" and that's it. It was painful to see the amount of stories trashed due to the advertising content not being enough to justify the extra page. Good quality stories tossed in the bin for rubbish. Add that to the fact places like CNHI are forcing people to take unpaid weeks off every quarter and there is no real talent willing to work at these places. The industry has destroyed itself and the expense of the reporters and public.

 

[DoctorTech]

Cool, see you in 8 years!

My wife told me she was a part of the 30 million woman march. On November 8 she was one of approximately 30 million women who marched to the polling booth and voted for Trump LOL.

 

[tedson]

The real problem is people labeling opinion that they disagree with as fake news.

 

[DoctorTech]

Is the News app not part of Apple's "services"?

If the populous starts believing all news is "fake", then that would destroy credibility and usefulness of the News app. That is an issue a CEO would/should care about. Especially, since services have become such a big part of the company's bottom line.

I used the news app for about 1 week but had to quit because of the bias of what did and didn't consider "news".

Has any media outlet in the U.S. (or the Apple News app) mentioned the whistle blower inside of NOAA who showed "irrefutable evidence" to the UK Daily Mail about how NOAA manipulated climate data and violated their own policies to get the "Pause Buster" paper published before the Paris climate summit?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...rs-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html

 

[LizKat]

"Fake news" has been around for years, if not decades. The problem is that many people under the age of 35 lack critical thinking and discernment skills. That's a real shame.

Agreed it's a shame. Not sure about that age cutoff. At least half the boomers are short a few circuits if they think Trump can bring back obsolete jobs while keeping our air and water clean. But hey, they're old now so that wiring problem will resolve itself.

The youngsters, though, yeah, maybe do need to improve their vocabulary, as well as some of their reading comprehension skills. For instance, a news report that Trump said something on Twitter this morning is not fake if he parked his remark on his Twitter account for the whole planet to see. If it's embarrassing that he rolled the sense of that remark back later on because his first tweet was a lie,,,, that still doesn't make the news report of the first tweet fake. It just makes it a report of a lie.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Having worked in a newspaper from 2005-2011 I can tell you that all of the good reporters are stuck doing "feel good" lifestyle pieces under the direction of the publishers. I worked for a paper owned by CNHI (a really crappy company to work for...scum of the industry) and the story was the same across all the properties. Kittens in a tree gets front page placement while real news get ignored. It's not the journalists fault, its the management. The days of medium market and small market papers doing quality work is gone....and it is the publishers and management fault. I used to see the Pulitzer's the paper won over the years everyday and wonder WTF happened. Then I saw it and heard it. Publishers just don't want it, they want "squirrel finds a nut" and that's it. It was painful to see the amount of stories trashed due to the advertising content not being enough to justify the extra page. Good quality stories tossed in the bin for rubbish. Add that to the fact places like CNHI are forcing people to take unpaid weeks off every quarter and there is no real talent willing to work at these places. The industry has destroyed itself and the expense of the reporters and public.

I was a freelancer for a number of years, towards the end of the decline and fall period of regional newspapers. First they paid me very little, then nothing; eventually, they didn't care if I wrote at all. The papers that survived are mere shadows of their former selves and exist mainly due to consolidation. I don't blame the newspapers so much as the media consumption trends in the digital age. A certain part of that was inevitable, but of course the relentless attacks on the media as an institution haven't helped at all. The audience now is for bias confirmation. Hardly anybody wants to read about anything that doesn't represent what they already believe, and now they can easily get by without encountering a single refutation of what they already believe. And yet, quite a bit of good reporting is still being done, for the small audience who still cares.

All this before we even get to fake news, the next logical step beyond bias confirmation. Once objectivity is rejected as a concept, what do you have left?

 

[rizzo41999]

I'm not listening any social cause he's advocating. Sure it's completely legal, but if Cook wants to help America, then bring that money over seas back here.

 

[StonewallBrown]

I used the news app for about 1 week but had to quit because of the bias of what did and didn't consider "news".

Has any media outlet in the U.S. (or the Apple News app) mentioned the whistle blower inside of NOAA who showed "irrefutable evidence" to the UK Daily Mail about how NOAA manipulated climate data and violated their own policies to get the "Pause Buster" paper published before the Paris climate summit?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...rs-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html

Considering, even the Daily Mail is a source for News, yes. You control the sources of the app. Apple pushes nothing on you. Although, I'm unsure of the wisdom of using Daily Mail as an example of proper journalism, but to each their own. That's the point of the app.

 

[hawkeye_a]

I miss Steve Jobs' class & demeanor when it came to the privacy of his personal politics, and his focus & dedication to the company he ran.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Considering, even the Daily Mail is a source for News, yes. You control the sources of the app. Apple pushes nothing on you. Although, I'm unsure of the wisdom of using Daily Mail as an example of proper journalism, but to each their own. That's the point of the app.

And considering that the Mail's coverage of climate change has been questioned in this instance and before.

http://www.lse.ac.uk/GranthamInstitute/news/more-fake-news-in-the-mail-on-sunday/

http://www.snopes.com/2017/02/08/noaa-scientists-climate-change-data/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/science/2015-climate-study-data.html?_r=0

 

[Gasu E.]

[doublepost=1486732414][/doublepost]Here is my solution to avoid fake news: don't read/watch the news. It's all fake anyway...

The main purpose of the fake news sites is to delegitimize all news sources. Sounds like you fell for it.
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I'm glad Facebook has Politifact on the case...View attachment 687883

Politifact reviewed that and re-set the Webb rating to "Half True".

http://www.politifact.com/virginia/...bb-says-us-didnt-have-income-taxes-until-191/

For failing to actually check the site, you get at best a "Half True" on your post.

 

[Urban Joe]

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.

If there's any silver lining it's that fake news is re-training people to be skeptical about what they read...especially regarding important issues. The big question though is who can you trust? Im not sure we can really trust tech companies to be unbiased. We need to learn to discern not be treated like infants and have everything pre-filtered. That's way too much like communist China to suit me. The answer is easy. Consumer/Reader Beware. Time to grow up and start thinking critically.

 

[coolbreeze]

You admit to watching CNN?

Never, but I do admit to seeing the report on Fox News, then googling it

CNN is garbage.

 

[Snoopy4]

Tim, your left slanted algorithm in your news feed product is part of the problem.

 

[budselectjr]

Tim, your left slanted algorithm in your news feed product is part of the problem.

Was going to post the same thing. I removed the news app because of all the lib garbage it spams updates for.

 

[nt5672]

How on God's green Earth is your test ever going to work? Fake news is the delibrate peddling of lies. The liars don't stop lying at the headline, they lie right throughout the copy. They fabricate whatever "facts" they need to support the lie. The only way to combat fake news is for it to be truthed out and revealed. The people who do this are called journalists. You know, the people we are told we should despise?

There are no journalists any more. Journalism school is all about indoctrination into political correctness, socialism, and fascism. Free speech is not even allowed on campus anymore. Tolerance is forbidden. Today fake news by political hacks is taking down every national media organization. The people that want to understand, understand. Those that don't, don't understand because it requires original thought, understanding of history, understanding of the U.S. Constitution, and a desire to fight for freedom, equality, and self determination. None of these ideals are desired, let alone taught in school any more.

For example, Tom Cook is using immigration as a means to cheap labor. Any one that reads the laws of this country understands that Trump's immigration order was legal. Why? Because it was legal the ~19 times Obama did the same thing, and no one complained. It is easy to spot fake news if you want to spot fake news. The problem is that a large percentage of the people in America don't care about anything except looking good to their friends. All you have to do to look good is go along with the fascists, socialists, and political correctness. Standing up for tolerance, freedom of speech, and equal rights is difficult, when it is so easy to be a racist. (Racist here is selecting or rewarding people based on their race).

Today it is politically correct to be a racist, so people are. It is politically correct to be intolerant, so people are. It is politically correct, to make decisions on emotion, instead of the rule of law, so people do.

 

[69650]

His claim of "300,000 jobs supported by Apple in the UK" is fake news. Just another attempt to spin his way out of Apple's tax dodging. Apple contributes absolutely nothing to the UK economy.

 

[IJ Reilly]

There are no journalists any more. Journalism school is all about indoctrination into political correctness, socialism, and fascism. Free speech is not even allowed on campus anymore. Tolerance is forbidden. Today fake news by political hacks is taking down every national media organization. The people that want to understand, understand. Those that don't, don't understand because it requires original thought, understanding of history, understanding of the U.S. Constitution, and a desire to fight for freedom, equality, and self determination. None of these ideals are desired, let alone taught in school any more.

For example, Tom Cook is using immigration as a means to cheap labor. Any one that reads the laws of this country understands that Trump's immigration order was legal. Why? Because it was legal the ~19 times Obama did the same thing, and no one complained. It is easy to spot fake news if you want to spot fake news. The problem is that a large percentage of the people in America don't care about anything except looking good to their friends. All you have to do to look good is go along with the fascists, socialists, and political correctness. Standing up for tolerance, freedom of speech, and equal rights is difficult, when it is so easy to be a racist. (Racist here is selecting or rewarding people based on their race).

Today it is politically correct to be a racist, so people are. It is politically correct to be intolerant, so people are. It is politically correct, to make decisions on emotion, instead of the rule of law, so people do.

When I recover from the case of rhetorical whiplash I got reading this, I'll get back to you.