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

#201

Post by mason240 » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 1:57 PM UTC

unityByFreedom wrote: post #67

paulddraper wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's being supported by the evangelicals who will not remove their vote from Trump on the grounds that they really want that supreme court seat. You make it sound illogical. As a religious conservative, I do really want that supreme court seat. The President has to really ask for permission for everything else (laws, budgets, wars, etc.), but justice nomination is very largely his choice. Don't be surprised if that…

> You make it sound illogical. > As a religious conservative, I do really want that supreme court seat. That factors heavily in the decision. Sorry, that's my bias seeping in. I respect your choice. > The President has to really ask for permission for everything else (laws, budgets, wars, etc.), but justice nomination is very largely his choice. Don't be surprised if that factors heavily in my decision. Not nuclear.…

Personally I think people pushing this level of fear mongering should be embarrassed.

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

#202

Post by makomk » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 1:58 PM UTC

jsmith0295 wrote: post #124

untog wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Not well versed in Huff Po but the left-leaning likes of NYT publish stories based in fact and backed up with reporting. Breitbart report whatever they wish without ever confirming if anything in a story is true.

NYT might publish actual stories, but they also publish what is effectively propaganda. A lot of more "legitimate" news sources also have a tendency to selective report on things which fit a pre-established narrative on a topic that can effectively bury the truth. Here's an example where CNN did this: http://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/aug/16/cnn-edits-out-... And sadly the Washington Times is the least biased so…

Yeah, Witness, for example, how the NYT spun the fact that Trump may have been able to use past business losses to offset income for tax purposes as some diabolical tax avoidance scheme not available to ordinary people, even describing it as a government bailout. Letting business owners earn back the money they've lost without adding insult to injury by taxing them on it is not a "bailout" in any normal sense of the word, just how income tax works for businesses, and while losing money does avoid income tax it doesn't exactly benefit the person doing it.

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

#203

Post by oldmanjay » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 2:08 PM UTC

popmystack wrote: post #148

angry-hacker wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I just checked the stories of Breitbart and looks all the things they write are true and have sources. Just checked few, I'm not an expert. I only read American propaganda newspapers sometimes out of morbid curiosity. The difference is how you spin the headlines and the facts. Both parties are guilty. Both parties feel only other side is doing it or say but look at the other website or magazine. Huff is full of…

>Huff is full of titles Trump is sexual predator without facts, just talks. We have, on record, him describing sexual assault. With his own words. On the other hand, some of the people who now are claiming Bill is a rapist once testified under oath that he did _not_ rape them. On top of the fact that there is zero evidence in favor of that statement. That's the difference. And you would definitely know this if you we…

We have him on record joking around with someone about actions he didn't take. It's hardly the confession the breathless Twitter hordes want it to be, not to ruin your emotionally resonating state of being

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

#204

Post by YCode » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 2:08 PM UTC

josefresco wrote: post #193

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…

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.

Article now says "Editor's Note: This post is no longer available on the Huffington Post.", but you can read the intro on Yahoo.com still.

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

#205

Post by Bartweiss » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 2:15 PM UTC

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…

The Turing Test thing was my first reaction also. These are sites consciously imitating the stylistic markers of real news, where the only signal for falsification is the content of the story. They regularly fool real people - sometimes because The Onion's sarcasm slips past someone, sometimes because the piece is 100% plausible, yet false.

Facebook could save itself some predictable pain by blacklisting The Onion and SportsPickle and other high-profile fake news sites, but they aren't going to be able to crack this problem with algorithms (or if they do, those algorithms will have far better uses).

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

#206

Post by return0 » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 2:17 PM UTC

andygates wrote: post #163

return0 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fake news are easier to detect. Bias is always subtle and insidious.

And yet we see the general readers swallowing fake news as if it were truth, and even retorting that they don't care if it's fake, it's the kind of thing those people would do. This is out of the scope of news and into the scope of propaganda, and it does matter.

They are very rarely "actual fake news", but usually untruths presented in a way that is impossible to falsify. At least to my experience. Perhaps you could cite a news item that survives but is proved to not have happeend.

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

#207

Post by mrob » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 2:20 PM UTC

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

Those two options are not mutually exclusive. All healthy humans have an instinctive aversion to murder, and murder is universally considered morally wrong, but they do not have such an aversion to infanticide. In many cultures infanticide has been considered acceptable, and even in modern American people aren't going to ask too many questions if a new mother claims it was an accident. A new-born baby does not speak, it does not use tools, it fails the mirror test. By any objective measure it's less of a person than many animals we kill without a second thought. There's a strong argument that the mother should be allowed to make that decision, possibly even up to a short time (eg. 24 hours) post-birth.

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

#208

Post by boona » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 2:22 PM UTC

MistahKoala wrote: post #181

Today's news presented to me by Facebook includes Putin prepping for a Third World War by having diplomats' families return home. My understanding of it is that he made some pronouncement that their kids are best off returning to Russia for a good, traditional nationalistic education - which has somehow warped into something more apocalyptic. Certainly, Facebook didn't originate that interpretation, but it's helping…

There's a lot more back story. [Here is a video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqD8lIdIMRo) of Putin explaining that we're essentially on the brink of a major world war, and that the average citizen in the western world is oblivious to it. (Or just look up "Putin's warning" and pick your outlet.) Couple that with Hillary's insane anti-Russian position and things could get ugly really quickly.

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

#209

Post by drzaiusapelord » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 2:26 PM UTC

te_chris wrote: post #138

hueving wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The NYT editorial board put this on the front page of the paper: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/opinion/end-the-gun-epidem... They are very upfront about their biases, but they have biases nonetheless.

But everything has biases. Objectivity is a fib used by bullshit factories like RT to cast doubt over everything. It's not about bias at all, it's about credibility. NYT has credibility, BBC, NPR, The Times of London, Guardian, etc all do. RT, HuffPo, Brietbart do not.

The Guardian which is extremely left leaning and makes questionable claims like "black torture sites in Chicago." I've been to the Homan station. You can walk in. Its not a "black site" nor is torture done there, at least no proof than some drug addict's claims with zero followup or physical evidence or jury conviction. Worse, the 48 hour holding without charges period which are often claimed to be "illegal" are perfectly legal as per Illinois law. Almost all states allow a 24-48 hour holding period.

The "black site" narrative went completely unquestioned in the liberal press. There is zero self-policing here or signs of skepticism with liberal claims. Heck, the "clock boy" was lauded by the liberal press and Obama for being this amazing genius being attacked by racists, when it was a purposeful ruse to get teachers scared to make this kid and his dad celebrities for the purpose of helping his dad's political career and perhaps a big jury payout for "damages" soon. Only hated skeptic Richard Dawkins was remotely skeptical of these claims only to be drowned out on Twitter by liberals calling him a racist.

I think a lot of this is liberal bias. Liberals can't see their own bias objectively because they're too close to the problem, the same way conservatives can't see bias at Fox. Guardian, Independent, Salon, etc are just as bad as Brietbart if not worse, because they sell the idea of being 'fact-based' when they're propaganda outlets for a certain viewpoint which generates ad impressions and gets subscriptions via endless outrage, anti-US bias, and pandering to our emotions.

Lets stop pretending liberals don't have their army of brietbarts too.

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

#210

Post by return0 » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 2:30 PM UTC

pvdebbe wrote: post #119

return0 wrote: post #99

Fake news are better than biased news.

In a sense, biased news are also fake. They don't cover the whole truth and may contain traces of nontruths. Similarly, all fake news are biased, unless they are markov chain -generated gibberish with apolitical sample data.

I'm talking about factually fake. Hiding some truth is distinct from telling a lie.