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Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

washingtonpost.com

191–200 of 335 posts

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

#191
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…

How does having known unknowns help our leaders to establish policies?

I respect the want to not have a stance - but having no stance is not a way in which a decision can be made.

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

#192
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…

And no, this is not me expressing my liberal bias. It's one thing to have opinionated headlines like the Huffington Post

Yea, yeah it is. I'm a liberal and can see how HuffPo is trash. I might be willing to grant that HuffPo uses softer titles and hides their outrage/fear/hate-mongering slightly better. Maybe it's not just seeing them as more tame because they're more agreeable to one's politics.

But as I was writing this comment I flipped over to both to check their headlines. Right now HuffPo [0] looks exactly like the Drudge Report when they think they've got something juicy. Does nobody else think that font treatment should be saved for a "holy shit airplanes just hit the twin towers" level of importance and immediacy?

Spoiler alert: HuffPo is no better than Breitbart. In fact they share a co-founded, Andrew Breitbart.

[0] http://archive.is/jAnzR

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

#193
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…

I haven't been to Yahoo.com in years, and was intrigued by (and doubting) your statements - low and behold, half way down the page is this:

"Voting for Team Hillary is Anti-Christ: E-Mails Expose Plot to Overthrow Authority of Pope, Create Catholic Spring to Foment Revolution & Attack Evangelicals-Who Has Place in Hillary's America?"

This goes quite beyond "opinionated" headlines.

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

#194
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…

Here's Glenn Greenwald, who can hardly be accused of being right-wing or a Trump supporter, on media bias: The U.S. media is essentially 100 percent united, vehemently, against Trump, and preventing him from being elected president. I don’t have an actual problem with that because I share the premises on which it is based about why he poses such extreme dangers. But that doesn’t mean that as a journalist, or even jus…

It seams like in this election even traditionally right learning news papers like the WaPo or WSJ are pilling onto trump. Not to mention countless regional newspapers that have a right leaning edition staff.

Bias disclosure: Left leaning, not by my own choice. More centrist, along the lines of the Economist editing staff view of the world. So not by choice, because there's not really centrism left.

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

#195
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…

Here's Glenn Greenwald, who can hardly be accused of being right-wing or a Trump supporter, on media bias: The U.S. media is essentially 100 percent united, vehemently, against Trump, and preventing him from being elected president. I don’t have an actual problem with that because I share the premises on which it is based about why he poses such extreme dangers. But that doesn’t mean that as a journalist, or even jus…

What hole do you have to be living in where you don't see or recognize the "media" outlets that support Trump? There are entire networks dedicated to it ...

CNN is not the only "media" - get your head out of your ass Glenn.

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

#196
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.

Hogwash.

First, there's the spectrum of finding where human life begins. There's many stances here from at the point of conception to post-birth, and everywhere between.

Then there's the factor of a woman's right to her body and life. Given the first factor - we have a whole new complex spectrum here where we weigh in the life of the infant vs the life of the mother.

To further complicate this, there's the woman's right to privacy. This was the basis by which Roe v Wade was decided in the first place.

So there's at least 3 spectrum on which any citizen can find themselves in the middle of in that issue.

I agree that humans probably don't have the ability to be politically unbiased. I'm just not sure that bias matters that much. But to pretend that there are issues without middle ground is to fall into the trap that so many groups face these days - that divisive and non-empathetic stance will tear at us and divide us further. There's simply no place for it.

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

#197
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…

And no, this is not me expressing my liberal bias. It's one thing to have opinionated headlines like the Huffington Post Yea, yeah it is. I'm a liberal and can see how HuffPo is trash. I might be willing to grant that HuffPo uses softer titles and hides their outrage/fear/hate-mongering slightly better. Maybe it's not just seeing them as more tame because they're more agreeable to one's politics. But as I was writing…

Huff Post is complete trash, but there is a big difference between fabricated stories and garbage presentation.

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

#198
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…

Here's Glenn Greenwald, who can hardly be accused of being right-wing or a Trump supporter, on media bias: The U.S. media is essentially 100 percent united, vehemently, against Trump, and preventing him from being elected president. I don’t have an actual problem with that because I share the premises on which it is based about why he poses such extreme dangers. But that doesn’t mean that as a journalist, or even jus…

Glenn Greenwood has essentially the level of anti-establihsment-media (and pro-conspiracy) bias that he accuses the establishment media of having anti-Trump bias, so, no, him saying something like this doesn't make me reconsider anything.

Not all bias is based in partisan politics.

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

#199
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…

I haven't been to Yahoo.com in years, and was intrigued by (and doubting) your statements - low and behold, half way down the page is this: "Voting for Team Hillary is Anti-Christ: E-Mails Expose Plot to Overthrow Authority of Pope, Create Catholic Spring to Foment Revolution & Attack Evangelicals-Who Has Place in Hillary's America?" This goes quite beyond "opinionated" headlines.

Black propaganda.

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

#200
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that paragraph is not suggesting the far-right may be responsible, why does it refer to their "bitter protests" immediately after the theory that an "angry underclass" are burning cars? Why even mention the far-right at all, if nobody is suggesting they have something to do with these crimes?

They're implying that the far-right protests caused the "Arab ghetto kids" in question to become the "angry underclass", not that the "angry underclass" was itself far-right. The sentence could definitely be written more clearly.

I think it is a wrong thing to imply. Just looking at the crime statistics for the past decade debunks this hypothesis.

The arab demographic has always been troublesome in Scandinavia.

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