Apple's Cook Blasts 'Mind Killing' Fake News

Apple CEO Tim Cook has called for a campaign against fake news.

Its purveyors -- largely interested only in getting the most clicks -- are defeating the people who are trying to tell the most truth, he told the UK's Daily Telegraph in an exclusive interview last week.

Fake news is "killing people's minds in a way," Cook said.

The worldwide epidemic of fake news requires a crackdown by both government and tech, he said, but care must be taken not to step on the freedoms of speech and the press.

Cook suggested the impact of fake news could be curbed by building public awareness with a massive public service campaign.

Tech can do its part to fight the spread of fake news by creating tools to reduce its volume on the Internet, he added, while government can support the cause by bringing the fight into the classroom.

"Kids will be the easiest to educate," he told the Telegraph. "At least before a certain age, they are very much in listen and understand [mode], and they then push their parents to act."

The challenge to Cook or anyone else wishing to crackdown on fake news will be nailing down what exactly "fake news" is.

"'Fake news' has gone in six months from a useful description to something that's absolutely meaningless," said Dan Kennedy, an associate professor at the school of journalism at Northeastern University.

Fake news originally was the product of bogus news publishers that posted wildly exaggerated or entirely made-up stories to garner clicks just for advertising revenue.

"Now it's meaningless, because the Trump White House calls anything it doesn't like 'fake news,'" Kennedy told TechNewsWorld.

"What referred to stories that contained misinformation or disinformation is largely a meaningless term," echoed John Carroll, a mass communications professor atBoston University.

"A number of people have appropriated it to mean news that they don't like," he told TechNewsWorld.

"I don't know what 'killing people's minds' means," he added, "but I know fake news is eroding public discourse, and giving people a false impression not only of the news media but also current events."

source:technewsworld.com