I really don’t know what’s the point in posting news with just a short excerpt and no way to get to the source. It is confusing and goes against the ability to use brains to decide if something is actually true or just some kind of misinfo.

I propose:

Link sources: All news posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. This rule can be opted-out by individual comms.

above is based on /c/news rule #4
  1. Link sources: All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. If you are citing a Twitter post as news, please include the Xcancel.com (or another Nitter instance) or at least strip out identifier information from the twitter link. There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance, such as Libredirect or archive them as you would any other reactionary source.

Problems:

  • What constitutes “news” exactly?
  • thefunkycomitatus [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    24·
    7 天前

    I think that we all should be more critical about social media posts and the role they play in our understanding of the world. Social media itself is not for spreading sound information or informing the masses. Just like the TV news media before it was not nor the newspapers before that. We must think structurally, systemically, and really question the value of this stuff even if it reports news we want to hear.

    • Soot [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      13·
      6 天前

      For a community that prides ourselves on seeing past propaganda and libshit, we would do well to hold our own information sharing to higher standards

  • dead [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    18·
    7 天前

    I completely agree.

    I would also add that headlines are not written by the same person as the article. I frequently see screenshots of headlines on hexbear without any link attached. The article is written by the author/writer. The headline is written by the editor. Sometimes the headline is inaccurate to the article.

    • Kumikommunism [comrade/them, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      24·
      7 天前

      Just to back this up, as someone who has also been bothered by it, yes, it’s happening a lot.

      There’s also just straight up fake news posted here a lot that everyone just thoughtlessly buys into, like this: https://hexbear.net/post/7283937
      And there’s even someone all the way at the bottom of the comments comparing it to another time they were tricked by a different bit of fake news.

          • hellinkilla [they/them, they/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
            4·
            7 天前

            the “article” looks to be some sort of live stream daily update. It says later “As of 5pm on Thursday 8 January, other sources began confirming the withdrawal of US embassy staff. In tandem, journalist Vanessa Beeley released the following news. It is currently unclear if the series of events are related or not:” [a bunch of stuff about Iran] Sometimes the news mega is like that. (To my eyes at least.)

            Looking it up I found similar stories from Sept 2024 and June 2025 but everything from Jan 2026 looks like Canary is the source. I didn’t thoroughly read the comments bu scrolling through couldn’t find any debunking; but meme-based analysis might have gone over my head.

            If someone posts a debunking of a news (or other statement of fact) it should become a pinned comment, and/or the thread is locked/deleted. Should be a note in the mod log as people who do it consistently might require sanctions.

            Once I made a post of a historical factoid I heard on a podcast then like a million people replied to say it was fake. A mod deleted it before I saw all that. (Which I agreed with.) So I guess they do that sometimes under current rules.

    • hellinkilla [they/them, they/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
      16·
      7 天前

      I probably should have saved up a portfolio of evidence before making this post since I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I think it is happening more than enough.

      In the moment the one that prompted me to finally make it was https://hexbear.net/post/7392713 but it’s also maybe questionable if it is “news”. I think it is but you could argue it’s more like opining or discussing. But there are lots of comments that read as though it is a presentation of fact. Is it? I don’t know. I don’t know where it even comes from.

      • microfiche [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        9·
        7 天前

        I didn’t mean to be accusatory. If I was, I’m sorry. I mostly just shitpost here, and I’m not really Extremely Online, so paying attention to the things that actually happen here sometimes go right over my head.

        • hellinkilla [they/them, they/them]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
          10·
          7 天前

          Huh? It was a perfectly reasonable question. :)

          And if my example is the only one presented… then the proposal died on the floor because it would indeed be pointless. I posted this partly to know if anyone else is bothered by this or maybe it’s just a pet peeve for me that I tend to notice too strongly.