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    Kesava AndersonMelanie Ehrenkranz
    10/02/17 11:32am

    Perhaps, and this is just a thought, people should learn to use their critical thinking skills than to just accept everything at face value. I understand that there’s some draw to just being able to read a headline and take it for face value. But then again, isn’t that why the country is so divided. Memes and fake news abound, and we know it. And yet, we check our brains at the door in exchange for a story that fits our personal views. I think we’ve gone from the information age, to the misinformation age and George Orwell should be proud for such an accurate prediction of the future.

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      jeff4066Kesava Anderson
      10/02/17 11:38am

      Or we’re just getting older faster. There are real studies about how older people become the targets of so many scams. Apparently, their ‘bullshit detector’ gets weaker over the years.

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      ChiSwedeKesava Anderson
      10/02/17 11:39am

      I’d say about 50% of America checks their brains at the door. Don’t generalize this to the entire population (just generalize it to 1/2) Trump got elected b/c a huge subset of Americans believe anything that’s put in front of them if it fits their world views. Some of us still think.

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    PirateRadioMelanie Ehrenkranz
    10/02/17 12:00pm

    This is a problem with having such a large population of the world being technologically incompetent. Google is not a news network, they don’t hand pick stories nor does some one sit in an office ti find search results for you.

    Everything google does is based on trending algorithms. There is no such algorithm which determines if something is true or false. Which means it is based on the most popular assumption.

    The only thing Google can do is manually remove references after the fact. If you want accurate news, go to an actual news source like

    https://apnews.com/

    http://www.bbc.com/news

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      davidwizardPirateRadio
      10/02/17 12:41pm

      “The only thing Google can do is manually remove references after the fact.”

      That’s demonstrably false. They could easily blacklist subreddits from their “top stories” module. There’s no reason a message board should appear next to actual news stories, and it would take a single programmer about 20 seconds to make this change.

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      Civil Discorddavidwizard
      10/02/17 12:50pm

      Exactly there is no reason that message boards should be near a news section.

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    Not Enough Day DrinkingMelanie Ehrenkranz
    10/02/17 11:27am

    There’s also Judge Napolitano of Fox News going around telling people that the guns used were outlawed, but as far as I know police haven’t released any details of the guns. These people don’t give a shit about facts. Just pick a narrative and make shit up...their audience isn’t interested in truth.

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      Travistech22Not Enough Day Drinking
      10/02/17 2:56pm

      He definitely shouldn’t be stating as such without confirmation, but the rate of fire from the guns only points to three possibilities for the armaments used in this heinous terrorist attack:

      1: Bumpfire stock. Honestly the least likely given the level of skill needed to get the improved rate of fire from the weapon.

      2: Gatling conversion. Most likely, given its low cost and relative ease of use. Assuming the shooter had something to stabilize the weapons while firing like a bipod, it could easily have gone this route.

      3: Illegally modified weapons for full auto: Fairly likely, given the ease of access to the parts needed, and all that would be required beyond acquisition would be a flagrant disregard for the ATF and some basic gunsmithing skills.

      If it is number three, then they would in fact be illegal armaments, and if it’s either of the prior 2, I could easily see some ATF missive coming down the pipeline in the coming weeks about such devices.

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      Not Enough Day DrinkingTravistech22
      10/02/17 3:02pm

      You can legally purchase fully automatic weapons in the US. They are expensive and require extensive paperwork, but they are not illegal and there’s absolutely no reason to rule out their use here until there is more information available. What if this guy is one of the regular visitors to Knob Creek where hundreds of machine gun enthusiasts show up every year?

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    Babylon SystemMelanie Ehrenkranz
    10/02/17 12:43pm

    This trend is very dangerous. The social media corporations are now realizing they have the power to sway the brain dead masses. How long until they are making backroom deals with certain entities to manipulate society?

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      Captain ContrarianBabylon System
      10/02/17 12:56pm

      Yeah... pretty sure the tech giants were in bed with the various political machines since day one.

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      dirtfarmerBabylon System
      10/02/17 1:55pm

      Already done, comrade.

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    lightninglouieMelanie Ehrenkranz
    10/02/17 12:09pm

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      EclecticKiteOrchestralightninglouie
      10/02/17 1:19pm

      Well number 3 invalidates the entire Gizmodo Media platform

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      99telepodproblemslightninglouie
      10/02/17 4:38pm

      See, taking those steps requires consideration and thought. I wish there was more of that in the world.

      After monitoring the live stream of a Las Vegas police scanner last night and reading the comments, it becomes very clear how people immediately, and often dangerously, spin off on incomplete or erroneous information.

      As SWAT teams were clearing the hotels making sure there no shooters elsewhere a persistent rumor got started that there was an active shooting incident at the Bellagio.

      Also the police were using the code AMA for something and trolls were saying it meant American Muslim Assailant. And some people believed it.

      In short, carefully considered, critical filtering of information is hard to come by, especially in the foaming madness of a sudden crisis.

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    YeezusHChristMelanie Ehrenkranz
    10/02/17 11:41am

    So you are saying the early headline which pointed to pepe the frog and the it is Wednesday my dudes frog going on a killing spree was incorrect?!

    When horrible events happen I’ve taken to getting a few different sites takes before even beginning to think through the event. It scares me that someone might just be going to breitbart or huffpo and calling that being informed.

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      Kesava AndersonYeezusHChrist
      10/02/17 12:02pm

      Then you should be terrified.

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    foufoufunMelanie Ehrenkranz
    10/02/17 12:33pm

    I thought that 4chan posts weren’t picked by search engine bots because the posts are so volatile.

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      Travistech22foufoufun
      10/02/17 2:59pm

      If the search terms coming up in the algorithm are being repeated fairly constantly throughout the thread, it will get pulled by their crawlers. Same for Reddit or any forum system.

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      foufoufunTravistech22
      10/02/17 4:03pm

      But reddit post stay forever unless they are manualy deleted. 4chan post are automaticaly deleted once they reach the bottom (15th page). Usualy it is a good practice to exclude those pages from search engines.

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    LykeuhfoxMelanie Ehrenkranz
    10/02/17 12:00pm

    Google or not, don’t take information at face value without checking the source (I mean 4chan, really?)- ESPECIALLY on a breaking story like this. Even major news outlets get first reports wrong often. Even from something like CNN, I’ll check the news with the full expectation that any of the details I’m reading could be false as more information becomes available.

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      Captain ContrarianLykeuhfox
      10/02/17 12:54pm

      Wait at the very least 24 hours for every breaking news. There hasn’t been a point in history when news outlets, mainstream or otherwise, distributed wildly incorrect, mutually contradictory news items in the wake of a major event.

      And, of course, depending on the nature of the event sometimes the truth needs days, weeks, months or years to be uncovered.

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      Vegas En FuegoLykeuhfox
      10/02/17 2:01pm
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    gramercypoliceMelanie Ehrenkranz
    10/02/17 12:14pm

    Evidently, Facebook’s top story for awhile was a dumb “Gateway Pundit” post, the source for well-researched journalism like this:

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    Lenny ValentinMelanie Ehrenkranz
    10/02/17 12:16pm
    One might assume that the carousel of stories at the top of your Google search would be the most relevant and credible links based on their query, but to make that very reasonable assumption would be a mistake.

    One might assume, yes, but doing so would be a mistake, seeing as computers run program code, chewing through information given them to process; they’re not telepathic, omnipotent and reality-transcending.

    Unfortunately, Google’s searches follows the same garbage in, garbage out (GIGO) rule that all such algorithms do.

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