Apple takes a very un-tech approach to solving fake news: human editors

Jefferson Graham | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption 3 big things Apple may soon unveil For those of us who have just about every Apple gadget available from iPhones to Macbooks, you might want to pay attention.

We all agree there's too much disinformation on the Web.

Russians and bots played havoc with Fakebook and Twitter during the 2016 election, because nearly anyone can join and post on social media networks and much of the ad-buying is automated.

This week Apple said it was serious about tackling the issue, and bought a magazine subscription app with popular titles (including Consumer Reports, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker) to beef up its News smartphone and tablet app.

Meanwhile the YouTube video network, fighting a backlash against conspiracy videos that anyone can post to its platform, went in a totally different direction to battle fakeness—turning to crowd-sourced Wikipedia to provide viewers with links to what it hopes are authoritative viewpoints.

Let's take a look at the two approaches.

Apple's News app is on the front page of every iPhone and iPad, and promises to give users a curated, personalized view of the news, with bigger pictures and fonts than seen when reading stories in apps or on the Safari browser. Apple said in 2016 the News app had over 70 million users, and while it hasn't updated the numbers, it does say the app has grown substantially since.

At the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas this week, Apple senior vice-president Eddy Cue said his app is differentiated from what we see on Facebook and Twitter in that it's vetted by human curators and thus, more authentic.

"We want the best articles, we want them to look amazing and we want them to be from trusted sources,” Cue said, per Deadline. “So we don’t have a lot of the issues going around.”

On Apple News, publishers big and small can sign up to have their work included in the app, for free. But unlike on Facebook, on News, would-be publishers need to submit at least three articles to Apple before being approved.

Not so at YouTube, where some 400 hours of video is uploaded every minute, without prior oversight

The video network has been caught in a two-year battle against conspiracy and extremist videos showing up as legitimate news videos, and it has taken several steps to fix the issue, by de-monetizing them and removing their ads, and now, also at South by Southwest, in announcing a new strategy.

YouTube will add links from the crowd-sourced Wikipedia online encyclopedia to conspiracy videos. If you're scratching your head on this, so are we.

Wikipedia is even easier to game than the YouTube algorithm. Anyone can edit a post and add their spin to it —whether that be the biography of President Donald Trump, the history of the Santa Monica Pier or a post about the blogger Lance Ulanoff.

The longtime tech journalist woke up one morning and found that his listing has been updated, falsely, to say that he was "a member of the French Foreign Legion."

It eventually got updated, but Ulanoff doesn't think YouTube will find much success with its Wikipedia fix.

"It will be like a band-aid that will work at first, and within a few days it will be tattered and dirty," he says.

The problem, he notes, is that once Wikipedia is used to verify the bogus videos on YouTube, those same people who make and post the videos will descend upon Wikipedia to synch the facts with their point of view, he says. "It's a very slippery slope."

The bottom line: kudos to Apple for a terrific app that has so far not experienced the issues found on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, and for the video network —nice idea, but it's back to the drawing board. Next?

Flippy lessons - the future won't be here overnight Flippy, the burger flipping robot only lasted two days before the plug was pulled, temporarily, suggesting that the future we dream about is going to take a whole lot longer to arrive. Jefferson Graham explains on #TalkingTech

Meanwhile, in other tech news of the week:

The Grocery Wars: Retail giant Walmart said it would have same-day food delivery available in 100 markets by the end of the year, joining Target and Amazon-owned Whole Foods, which have made the same predictions.

Don't get singer Rihanna mad at you. After she saw an ad on the Snapchat app that appeared to make light of a 2009 assault against her, the singer urged fans to delete the app, causing the stock to fall 3.6%.

Radio (and streaming) giant iHeartRadio filed for bankruptcy, to shed billions of debt. But have no fear, radio and streaming music fans. The 850 stations and the iHeartRadio app will continue to operate.

Flippy update: Last week told about the burger flipping robot installed at a California restaurant to replace cooks. The robot only lasted two days before its owners shut it off. The stated problem: humans needed more training to operate it than originally thought. Update: the robot was scheduled to be back in operation at the beginning of the week, but by Friday, Flippy had yet to be turned on.

This week's Talking Tech podcasts

Self-driving cars/trucks update: Google's Waymo unit is now testing self-driving trucks in Georgia, so let's step back and get an update on the status of self-driving vehicles across the USA.

Apple: No fake news here: Apple News just snapped up Texture, a "Netflix of magazines," app, to include within the News app, which features free content for iPhone and iPad owners.

Cutting the cord, for better services: Former network TV programmer Garth Ancier tells us why he finally ditched cable.

YouTube and Wikipedia? We have a better idea. YouTube has turned to Wikipedia to try and offer viewers another viewpoint on conspiracy videos. We have a better idea.

Online Grocery Wars. Why do Walmart, Target and Whole Foods want to bring food to your front door by the end of the year? We explain.

Inside Books with Launch: John August, the screenwriter and novelist, talks his Launch podcast on Talking Tech.

That's it for this week's Talking Tech weekend wrap. Please subscribe to the TalkingTech newsletter via this link. Follow me on Twitter, @JeffersonGraham and check out my YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/jeffersongraham. If you haven't checked out the daily #TalkingTech podcast yet, now's the time. You can listen on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio or wherever you enjoy online audio.