Advice wanted – dubious news sites

[Site Admin]

Personally as a self-confessed ‘news junkie’ i check out the newsfeed stories on our site every day. I do edit out a very small number of posts that are absolutely nothing to do with SC but until now I have always let all news posts through. Some of them have obviously been negative but there’s a fairly clear free speech argument to allow their publication.
Today we had our first post originating from what I would describe as a fake news source. Breitbart.com. This site knowingly posts information as true it knows to be false. Not every story. But many.
Should we allow Breitbart stories in our newsfeed? Who should decide?
I realise I am likely to be the only person who spotted the Breitbart story. But that’s today. What about tomorrow?
Opinions and advice welcome..

[Bill Tod]

Interesting. This week I also got a Breibart story on my newsfeed on my phone. I didnt read it, and opted not to receive any more stories from the site, for the reasons you give. So my response to your question, don’t block the feed but allow individual readers to decide whether they want to read a Breibart story or not.

[Site Admin]

@Bill Tod said:
Interesting. This week I also got a Breibart story on my newsfeed on my phone. I didnt read it, and opted not to receive any more stories from the site, for the reasons you give. So my response to your question, don’t block the feed but allow individual readers to decide whether they want to read a Breibart story or not.  

That’s sort of my instinct and what I will do short term for sure, but it will become a worry if it grows as I fear it will. I can’t help but think Breitbart know ‘liberals’ will react like this and are exploiting what they see as our ‘weakness’.

[Mike Aaronson]

I agree with Bill – but you could maybe put a general health warning above the newsfeed just to make clear that we are not vouching for the accuracy of the items in it?

[Author]

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