Sunday 18 December 2016

"Fake News" Is Old Hat in My World

So much about "fake news" in the regular news lately.

For example, today a poll was published revealing that 52% of Republicans "incorrectly" believe that Trump won the popular vote. (ICYMI, they're still counting but Clinton is 2.8 million votes ahead at the moment.)

As a long-time blogger about matters reproductive and, perforce, follower of Big Fetus™, I've been chuckling over the outrage some are expressing over the insane shit people will believe.

Big Fetus™ was the original fake news peddler.

Abortion causes breast cancer. Abortion causes post-abortion syndrome. Abortion causes infertility. Abortion causes substance abuse. Abortion causes child abuse. Abortion causes mental illness.

That last one has been debunked many, many times, most recently last week. In fact, not only does having an abortion NOT cause depression, the opposite is actually true. Being denied an abortion -- being FORCED to remain pregnant against one's will -- is actually a tad more harmful to one's mental well-being.

Who woulda thunk?

Here's another oft-repeated tweet from LieShite. Planned Parenthood sells "baby parts."


I saw the tweet again today. That lie was definitively debunked over a year ago. (The fetus freak illustrator needs an anatomy lesson.)

But it doesn't matter how often or how authoritatively these things get trashed. They are Zombie Lies.

In fact, there's a Big Fetus™ Fake News Industry devoted to creating and perpetrating fake news. We've reported on it a lot calling it BAD (biased, agenda-driven) Science.

Rewire, formerly RH Reality Check, has a terrific series called "False Witnesses" on the most prominent scientists willing to lie for fetus freak funding.

But here's a good thing: All this wailing about "fake news" seems to be making people pay more attention.

In France, politicians are debating a bill to ban anti-choice websites from spreading "false information" about abortion.
"Freedom of expression should not be confused with manipulating minds," Socialist Family Minister Laurence Rossignol said as the debate kicked off.
(Isn't that a refreshing notion?)

In even better news, fetus freaks are feeling the heat.

Dig the headline: "Facebook’s push to snuff out fake news poses threat to pro-life, traditional values reporting"

Translation: Facebook will stop hosting our lies! Waaaah!
Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday that the website had the responsibility to make sure it “has the greatest positive impact on the world.” He added that “with any changes we make, we must fight to give all people a voice and resist the path of becoming arbiters of truth ourselves.”

But Facebook’s partnership with Snopes, Factcheck.org, ABC News and PolitiFact to manage fact checking in this new initiative raises the question of who will determine what constitutes “fake news.” That leads then to the issue of whether information on Facebook will be censored to fit a particular worldview.
Um, yeah. That worldview is called reality.

Fetus freaks and their allies should create their own version of Facebook, where they don't have to be troubled by True Facts.

Oh wait. They did that when they got mad at Wikipedia for its "reality bias." They created Conservapedia, which, if you've never partaken, you need to.

Here are the first three sentences in the entry for abortion.
Abortion is the induced termination of a pregnancy,[1] often causing fetal pain. Abortion has two victims: the unborn child, and the mother who can never forget the loss she caused. Breast cancer rates increase by more than six times for women who have abortion, according to a recent study.
Of course that "recent study" is one of the oft-debunked ones.

So, I'd like to think that reality will battle back. That people who care about truth will win. But I really think that fake news is here to stay.

Because people who believe it cannot be argued with. They are not rational.

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