My confidence interval tells me something different.
These eggheads concocted an equation in order to quantify fake news. That's one approach I guess, but it seems to me emotion does not lend itself to a mathematical equation very well. I could be wrong but it just doesn't pass the smell test for me.
A scientist in a laboratory can measure exact amount of chemicals that go into making Silly Putty, for example. They can add a little of this or subtract a little of that, but the key is they can accurately measure each portion for each experiment as they go along. I just don't see how you can measure fake news to any degree of accuracy.
What if CNN buried a pile of stories on Hillary Clinton's poor health? It's just a hypothetical of course, but would Bernie have been the candidate instead of Hillary? Does a non-event (burying stories) qualify as fake news if the news was never made public?
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Let's flip this whole thing on its head and approach it from the other angle. Suppose I set out to prove fake news affected the last two presidential elections. And not only did fake news affect the elections but they were actually the deciding factor. Could I do it?
Probably. On one hand it would be relatively easy to prove that the Obama/Romney election was decided by fake news. On the other hand, not so easy at all for the recent election. Two different animals completely, but it would most likely hinge upon my personal definition of fake news.
Still, I could probably accomplish the task if my goal from the beginning was to prove a preconceived conclusion.
