Tim Cook raises alarm over fake news


Tim Cook interview with The Guardian:

"We must try to squeeze this without stepping on freedom of speech and of the press, but we must also help the reader. Too many of us are just in the complain category right now and haven't figured out what to do."

He said that this crackdown would help providers of quality journalism and help drive out clickbait. "The outcome of that is that truthful, reliable, non-sensational, deep news outlets will win," Mr Cook said.

If it's on the Internet, it has to be real, right?

I don't think this is really a new problem and the technological solution is simply to stop elevating garbage content. That should solve part of the problem. Another part is to address the revenue stream. If ad networks and advertisers decide to only support quality, there won't be money to be made by writing fan fiction of current events.

The harder part is people want to believe and share things that align to their view. Whether it's real or not isn't very relevant. I don't think there's a technology fix there.