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Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#2
Yeah, all because people wanted to scream "bias." Sadly the community here seemed apt to agree with it, but I definitely have my opinions on that. Quoted from a previous thread:

>Did the standard for their sources remain relatively constant regardless of the material being discussed? There isn't a clear answer here, but that doesn't make it defacto censorship of one set of particular political opinions. The sources that were discussed aren't credible in any meaningful form. The fact that they happen to be largely conservative seems like a problem conservatives should address instead of calling it censorship.

But ironically, for posting that, I was meant with censorship.

People in aggregate are terrible at curation. You really do need editors for a reason. But Facebook should have been extremely blunt about the situation before. The fact that its curators let through more "liberal" sources than conservative ones, doesn't necessarily mean they're biased. It really could just be that conservative sources are far more likely to not be at a high enough standard to be posted -- which seems to be the case given the examples in the article.

Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#3
The next billion dollar startup will be a self-reprogramming, employee-less AI company which can self-produce memetic lolcat videos and celebtity gossip. >.In other news, humans now have even fewer jobs to do... all those idle people without jobs (ie, truck/taxi drivers, pilots, ship captains, BS office jobs) are completely, harmless, disorganized and bear absolutely no ill will against the vast majority of new wealth trickling upwards at an accelerating rate, into fewer hands.

Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#4
You're going to have to break the Turing Test before you get good automated content curation. There will always be error.

People are worried about bias. I'm skeptical that humans have the ability to be politically unbiased on an individual level. Many modern political issues do not have a middle ground - take abortion, you are either for choice, or you believe it is infanticide. So let's stop pretending to be unbiased. Information aggregators should have their members clearly spell out their positions on popular issues in their bios (an openness that should be a part of the responsibility of being an information aggregator) and there should be "block designed" hiring around these issues to maximize political diversity and reduce bias in aggregate. Otherwise network effects are just going to cluster people with similar opinions around each other.

Just a thought.

Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#5
post #4

You're going to have to break the Turing Test before you get good automated content curation. There will always be error. People are worried about bias. I'm skeptical that humans have the ability to be politically unbiased on an individual level. Many modern political issues do not have a middle ground - take abortion, you are either for choice, or you believe it is infanticide. So let's stop pretending to be unbiase…

How do you prove that you believe something?

Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#6

Yeah, all because people wanted to scream "bias." Sadly the community here seemed apt to agree with it, but I definitely have my opinions on that. Quoted from a previous thread: >Did the standard for their sources remain relatively constant regardless of the material being discussed? There isn't a clear answer here, but that doesn't make it defacto censorship of one set of particular political opinions. The sources t…

> But ironically, for posting that, I was meant with censorship.

Not trying to put words in your mouth, but this comes across as "when my opinion is downvoted then it's censorship, but when views I don't agree with are downvoted it's because they are not at a high enough standard".

Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#7
post #4

You're going to have to break the Turing Test before you get good automated content curation. There will always be error. People are worried about bias. I'm skeptical that humans have the ability to be politically unbiased on an individual level. Many modern political issues do not have a middle ground - take abortion, you are either for choice, or you believe it is infanticide. So let's stop pretending to be unbiase…

Because optimizing for engagement is the modern equivalent of pandering?

Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#8

Yeah, all because people wanted to scream "bias." Sadly the community here seemed apt to agree with it, but I definitely have my opinions on that. Quoted from a previous thread: >Did the standard for their sources remain relatively constant regardless of the material being discussed? There isn't a clear answer here, but that doesn't make it defacto censorship of one set of particular political opinions. The sources t…

> But ironically, for posting that, I was meant with censorship. Not trying to put words in your mouth, but this comes across as "when my opinion is downvoted then it's censorship, but when views I don't agree with are downvoted it's because they are not at a high enough standard".

You shouldn't downvote based on disagreement, on top of the fact that that seems like an incredibly disingenuous sentiment, what is your point?

Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But ironically, for posting that, I was meant with censorship. Not trying to put words in your mouth, but this comes across as "when my opinion is downvoted then it's censorship, but when views I don't agree with are downvoted it's because they are not at a high enough standard".

You shouldn't downvote based on disagreement, on top of the fact that that seems like an incredibly disingenuous sentiment, what is your point?

Not fully sure what you mean here. I did not downvote your comment. I also have no idea what "seems like an incredibly disingenuous statement". I posted how your comment comes off to me, in case you were not aware it was coming off that way, or in case I was misinterpreting then perhaps you would clarify.
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