Media mischief, clickbait a huge challenge for modern sports

[CryptoBuds]

Solution: To curb this problem, I think the best thing is to arrest fake influencers and journalists spreading false information.

Do you realize how dangerous a system you are advocating?
Are football transfer rumor related to any state security or crime?
It is 99% based on internal discussion and speculation. Along with the negotiation of agent.

Take Turkish journalist Burhan Can Terzi, I think that arresting any sports journalist just for reporting transfer rumor is direct attack on press freedom & freedom of speech. If today journalists start being jailed for reporting wrong transfer saga, tomorrow journalists will be jailed under the tag of fake news for investigative reporting against any govt. You are proposing to put the final nail in the coffin of free journalism! I am not exonerating fake journalist, it definitely need to be addressed, but definitely not through arrest. But yes as you said, they can be fined.

[OgNasty]

I think it is mostly a challenge for the athletes.  They have to worry about how they look and what photos might appear online while they're trying to compete at the highest level.  That is quite a bit of pressure and for some it can take their focus away from what they're doing.  Some athletes may prioritize their looks over training their skills or they may spend time doing photo shoots or interviews to stay on the media's good side.  It is something athletes 40 years ago didn't really have to worry about.

[Oasisman]

Solution: To curb this problem, I think the best thing is to arrest fake influencers and journalists spreading false information. Take them to court, and after that, fine them a huge amount so that others will learn.

Furthermore, social media should restrict accounts known for misleading information. A temporary ban or permanent ban of the account for anyone found guilty of it.

What's your take on this?

I'm not sure what legal charges are applicable in the case where sports journalist publish false information, not unless if it made an impact to the prediction market and sports betting. But, I doubt sportsbooks and prediction market would fall for it, as they have multiple credible sources.
Also, journalist may publish their own prediction based on rumors, and it cannot be tagged as false information.

Temporary ban may not also be a solution, because it will raise questions of unfair treatment.  

I think it's always the headlines that are misleading, for click bait purposes. But when you read the whole article, only then you will understand that all is based on rumors and predictions. So, this will not fall as fake news or false info. Therefore, no legal consequences or the risk of getting banned from the platform.

[uchegod-21]

That is social media for you. You must have grown a thick skin to be able to survive on social media because social media use is filled with unverified information. So if you are a fan or a star and you are relying on the information you got on social media to form decision, you should also make sure that you verify what you believe.

If you are talking about arresting bloggers who post unverified information online, then ask yourself, how many bloggers can we arrest all over the world? There must be some kind of uniform universal rule for mass arrest of fake sports bloggers to be effective.

For me, I think they should be allowed to do their thing. Bloggers like that spice up sports news by making prediction even more difficult. Let them stay, but fans and footballers must not believe every information on social media.

[Cryptohygenic]

If we have to ban social media accounts for spreading lies then we have to ban 90% of the accounts on every platform because each one of them is pretending to live who they wish to be, and in this case they just used clickbait, which is not something strange in the media, right?

How about we stop believing in everything that we see on a random post without any official announcement from the player or team involved?

Obviously the media is full of lies and entertainments that is why it is necessary to do our confirmation before believing what we are offered or presented in the media.
I was browsing the internet sometimes ago and came across this which reflects quickly to me as  I saw this post.
Could be the media we mean.

[alegotardo]

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What's your take on this?

My answer is another question: What do you think these "communicators" are gaining to spread this false information? Is it just to get attention and with that, also get more marketing and financial incentives from sponsors in their programs/audiences/magazines/newspapers? But.... this is controversial, because no serious company is going to financially support someone who spreads false infos.

I think that, most likely, they are also involved in betting, because we know that nowadays prediction markets react very quickly of news, so the more "relevant" the news is, the greater is the impact. And there is only one thing that more profitable than having privileged information: knowing how to manipulate false information and make the market move in the wrong direction while you take advantage of that moment before it corrects itself.... I think that is exactly what they are doing by making up these lies.

[TastyChillySauce00]

There are bunches of fake news spread by garbage journalists, but i don't think to take them to the court will solve this problem. I'd rather try to create my ignore list, then put them in it. It's not all of country has law against the fake news like what Turkey did. You can't expect UK to do the same like Turkey did to Burhan Can Terzi.
In fact, Burhan Can Terzi only gets arrested for a few hours. This is why it's pointless to bring someone who spread fake rumor about the transfer player to the court.

You're wasting your time by doing it when the news get spread has no impact to the result from the player transfer itself.

I'd completely agree with this if it is about politics, foreign affairs, etc, but arresting someone for posting false information about someone transferring to another team is a little too excessive, don't you think?.

I'm with you. Arresting someone just because he spread a fake player transfer rumor sounds like a dictator.

My answer is another question: What do you think these "communicators" are gaining to spread this false information? Is it just to get attention and with that, also get more marketing and financial incentives from sponsors in their programs/audiences/magazines/newspapers? But.... this is controversial, because no serious company is going to financially support someone who spreads false infos.

in X, engagement = money. The bigger engagement you get, the bigger reward you get from Elon. You can also potentially get sponsorship from companies due to how big your engagement even when the news you reported is not true.

[yhiaali3]

The digital space, and especially social media, has become full of fraudsters who are looking to increase followers, likes and views in order to make more profits, and in pursuit of that they do not hesitate to spread lies and misinformation.

Not everyone can be held accountable because there are huge numbers, but at least the famous influencers who have large numbers of followers should be held accountable because they have a great ability to influence society through the news they publish and which their followers believe.

[Dogedegen]

I firmly hold that the proliferation of misinformation and social media trying to attain audience by promoting fake news are so alarming. The shocking news heard about the exit of the star players are intentionally instituted to create an outrage and attention amongst the football players fans. Regrettably, the manager of digital platform are usually slow to take stringent actions against misinformed people who disseminate fake news. This lack of action will help to spread fake news without one being afraid of the offenders.

Trying to achieve personal interest at the expense of the fabricated news is unhealthy to the readers that want to know the truth on the ground. Failure to regulate has made the Internet full of the pitfall of deceptive descriptions. App managers are needed to urgently improve the integrity of sports news.

I mentioned already some problems that relate to this, but to expand on what you are saying I want to say that many people and even politicians are handling this topic wrong. We shouldn't punish individual people for posting any kind of misinformation or similar because this is always going to happen. It should happen only in cases if people are under some kind of paid campaign or if they are people of influence or people whose job is to report on event and spread the news like journalists. If we had laws that prevented them from posting very obvious misinformation but kept their freedom of reporting, then we would solve a very big problem of the modern world. Right now we have usually 2 cases, either there are no laws that deal with such things or there are laws that are way too strict like in the UK. They don't have to be focused on misinformation but as soon as they limit how people interact on a massive scale then it is related to this topic too.

The digital space, and especially social media, has become full of fraudsters who are looking to increase followers, likes and views in order to make more profits, and in pursuit of that they do not hesitate to spread lies and misinformation.

Not everyone can be held accountable because there are huge numbers, but at least the famous influencers who have large numbers of followers should be held accountable because they have a great ability to influence society through the news they publish and which their followers believe.

I don't think the problem of holding people accountable comes from the huge numbers. If they make laws that they are going to enforce and then have high punishments, they only need to deal with some high profile cases and most of the misinformation is going to stop. That is what happens when punishments are big, because people stop doing the wrong things out of fear of the punishment. It is never going to stop all of it, but it can create a big reduction.

[Julien_Olynpic]

In my opinion, it's important to distinguish between clickbait headlines and the dissemination of fake news. They're far from the same thing. A clickbait headline is simply news, presented in a slightly more emotional way to attract attention. Yes, clickbait can often contain lies, but more often than not, it's a slight embellishment or distortion of facts that are generally true—simply an emotional distortion. A fake is still a fake—it's just a lie. There are, however, some intermediate elements—for example, unverified facts, rumors, and controversial versions. These aren't lies and aren't even always fakes, just rumors. But that's the basis for the existence of the tabloid press.

[9ja Amaka]

I read that humans evolved from apes precisely because of their love of gossip and rumors!

Ouuuch! This is hilarious.

What's your take on this?

I don't know what those people who spread false information online hope to gain. Even if you want to trend online, as an influencer or a journalist must it be through misleading people with false informations? Come on there are other ways to trend online. I think is high time socal Media owners start taking actions, they should give those posting misleading informations online permanent ban, I believe that would be fair enough. Because wrong informations can put people in danger.

What they want is money! money! money!
Ways to trend as a sports journalist or analyze is true banter, transfer news and quick updates on the sports. That include true and fake information

I will be locking this thread now. I appreciate the wonderful feedbacks.