Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by Natsu » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 5:32 AM UTC

wyager wrote: post #49

vinhboy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're repeating the false narrative that unbiased news does not exist. There are lots of unbiased news outlets who just report on stories as they come in. I learn about all sorts of government corruption and waste from NPR, NYTimes, WaPO, etc... And relating to current events, I also learn about all the unscrupulous things Clinton did from these sources. I don't need to be inundated with right-wing propaganda be unb…

> NPR, NYTimes, WaPO Not directed at you specifically, but if you think those sources are unbiased, it just means that you're bad at detecting bias. Edit: Haha, this one struck a chord.

WaPo is one of those doing some fairly shady things, in fact:

https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/2699

http://heavy.com/news/2016/07/wikileaks-emails-clinton-berni...

I'm still waiting for them to do a story on their own involvement here....

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

#52

Post by timehastoldme » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 5:34 AM UTC

narrator wrote: post #37

vinhboy wrote: post #34

Thank god someone is writing about this. Recently I've been on the Yahoo's homepage a lot, because of Fantasy Football, and I noticed that a lot of the content is exactly like the article says, fake news from right-wing propaganda sites. And no, this is not me expressing my liberal bias. It's one thing to have opinionated headlines like the Huffington Post, it's another thing to have a completely fictional headline c…

They really should filter the news to each person's individual bias. It'd just be easier that way. Cognitive dissonance is real and it can cause serious emotional distress. That's not a good way to drive engagement.

Ethically, it's absolutely unconscionable to show people only what they want to see, enabling our worst features to simply fester unchallenged.

From a Machiavellian standpoint (read: Thiel or Zuckerberg), this isn't an intelligent long-term strategy, unless your view of how dumb and malleable people are is such that by playing your cards right, so few people would catch on that it would not hurt the bottom line.

EDIT: could you explain why you want to delete this post?

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

#53

Post by jsmthrowaway » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 5:36 AM UTC

wyager wrote: post #49

vinhboy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're repeating the false narrative that unbiased news does not exist. There are lots of unbiased news outlets who just report on stories as they come in. I learn about all sorts of government corruption and waste from NPR, NYTimes, WaPO, etc... And relating to current events, I also learn about all the unscrupulous things Clinton did from these sources. I don't need to be inundated with right-wing propaganda be unb…

> NPR, NYTimes, WaPO Not directed at you specifically, but if you think those sources are unbiased, it just means that you're bad at detecting bias. Edit: Haha, this one struck a chord.

Name an unbiased publication from your perspective.

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

#54

Post by wyager » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 5:37 AM UTC

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #53

wyager wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NPR, NYTimes, WaPO Not directed at you specifically, but if you think those sources are unbiased, it just means that you're bad at detecting bias. Edit: Haha, this one struck a chord.

Name an unbiased publication from your perspective.

> Name an unbiased publication from your perspective.

https://arxiv.org/archive/math

If you mean a news publication, I can't, because they don't exist.

We can maybe go for less biased, but that's a much more complicated question. Sorted by minimal bias, I'd probably just start linking to other arxiv URLs.

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

#55

Post by vinhboy » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 5:37 AM UTC

wyager wrote: post #49

vinhboy wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're repeating the false narrative that unbiased news does not exist. There are lots of unbiased news outlets who just report on stories as they come in. I learn about all sorts of government corruption and waste from NPR, NYTimes, WaPO, etc... And relating to current events, I also learn about all the unscrupulous things Clinton did from these sources. I don't need to be inundated with right-wing propaganda be unb…

> NPR, NYTimes, WaPO Not directed at you specifically, but if you think those sources are unbiased, it just means that you're bad at detecting bias. Edit: Haha, this one struck a chord.

I am completely ok with you directing that comment at me, because I fundamentally disagree with your assessment.

I have a pretty complete understanding of current events from reading those sources.

For your statement to be valid, you'd have to prove that there is a considerable amount of information missing and is only available via conservative media.

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

#56

Post by jsmthrowaway » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 5:37 AM UTC

wyager wrote: post #54

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Name an unbiased publication from your perspective.

> Name an unbiased publication from your perspective. https://arxiv.org/archive/math If you mean a news publication, I can't, because they don't exist. We can maybe go for less biased , but that's a much more complicated question. Sorted by minimal bias, I'd probably just start linking to other arxiv URLs.

Edit: The comment this one responded to has been basically rewritten, so my reply is no longer appropriate and I cannot delete it.

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

#57

Post by lucio » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 5:39 AM UTC

FullMtlAlcoholc wrote: post #45

mjfl wrote: 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…

>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. You're falling into the trap of American politics by making every issue a binary choice. For instance, I find the abortion debate to be such a non-issue and if someone asks me what my stance is, I respond by saying I haven't done enough resear…

You should note that you have the luxury to even consider the issue of abortion because you've already been born.

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

#58

Post by wyager » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 5:39 AM UTC

vinhboy wrote: post #55

wyager wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> NPR, NYTimes, WaPO Not directed at you specifically, but if you think those sources are unbiased, it just means that you're bad at detecting bias. Edit: Haha, this one struck a chord.

I am completely ok with you directing that comment at me, because I fundamentally disagree with your assessment. I have a pretty complete understanding of current events from reading those sources. For your statement to be valid, you'd have to prove that there is a considerable amount of information missing and is only available via conservative media.

> being covered by conservative media.

Where the hell did I say that conservative media was unbiased?

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

#59

Post by wyager » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 5:40 AM UTC

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #56

wyager wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Name an unbiased publication from your perspective. https://arxiv.org/archive/math If you mean a news publication, I can't, because they don't exist. We can maybe go for less biased , but that's a much more complicated question. Sorted by minimal bias, I'd probably just start linking to other arxiv URLs.

Edit: The comment this one responded to has been basically rewritten, so my reply is no longer appropriate and I cannot delete it.

I was disagreeing with the OP's assertion that NPR, NYTimes, and WaPO are unbiased. I'm not sure what you expected.

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

#60

Post by InclinedPlane » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 5:45 AM UTC

It was never very good to start with, when the whole thing turned to garbage when they fired the curation team I took that opportunity to block the element using ublock.