Mr. Conservative’s owner worries about fake-news crackdown

On the eve of the presidential inauguration, as Donald Trump prepared to take the oath of office and millions of Americans readied themselves to march in opposition, the man behind a blog called Mr. Conservative mused about the lost art of debate.

Cyrus Massoumi, 25, has been in the business of click-bait headlines and spreading what he calls “tilted news,” or information with a hard-right point of view, since he graduated from Redwood High School.

[...] he’s worried about what the next several years may bring — not for politics, but rather for society as tech companies grapple with what to do about hyper-partisan websites and fake news and, in some cases, struggle to tell the difference.

Lies and misinformation on the Internet have become a focal point for many in postelection America as companies, people and media organizations grapple with the impact of fast-spreading falsehoods on discourse and politics.

Many have thrust blame onto Internet companies like Facebook and Google, which act as conduits of information for the vast majority of computer-using adults.

A Stanford University study released this week found that social media may not have played as big a role in the election as people think — though researchers did not reach a conclusion on the extent to which fake news may have swayed the results.

Massoumi was an early player in the game of manipulating news headlines to tap into people’s anger and fear to gain influence and clicks — and cash.

Ohio State Professor Kelly Garrett said this unwillingness to debate and examine one’s own beliefs is what drives people to partisan sources and fake news.

Liberal and conservative news outlets alike, he said, tap into anger and fear, which drive a wedge between people along ideological lines that can be hard to bridge.

Soon, he found his way onto conservative Facebook pages, where he helped other publishers attract more readers with outrageous headlines.

Garrett, the Ohio State professor, said that before the Internet, most media organizations largely reported the same information.

[...] when you have an outlet that primarily is the ideological drumbeat — ‘Look at all these terrible things that people on the other side have done’ — it mobilizes people while also undermining all of the institutions around which we have historically found common ground.

[...] that distinction doesn’t prevent critics from lumping the site in with fake-news outlets as social media companies like Facebook come up with easier ways to report and remove false information.

Facebook announced last month that it would work with independent fact-checkers to verify stories circulating on the social network as part of a series of experiments designed to contain the spread of misinformation.

To a first 100 days of fodder, a change in the political tide and his own plan to fight back against fake news, possibly helped by Facebook’s emphasis on video.