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Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

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Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#101

Post by RankingMember »

AlexC04 wrote: post #76

I think it would be relatively easy to have an "auto-snopes" feature which detects a URL being shared and immediately attaches a post that says "this has been debunked by X" For example - I've seen dozens of links to Michael Moore's trumpland speech which strategically ends with the phrase "America will elect Trump and it will feel great" Sample: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-25/michael-moore-trump... He conc…

This is a brilliant idea.

My hope is for a similar thing to exist in real-time in future political debates, where live fact-checking spits back at anyone who speaks a mis-truth, nipping B.S. in the bud.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#102

Post by triplesec »

Very relevant to understanding today's media and politics is Adam Curtis' new documentary film Hypernormalisation. It's long but very worth it

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04b183c

If anyone has links to the BBC iplayer for the US, if there is one, or another legit source for outside the UK, please do reply with it.

I strongly encourage you to watch it, and if you can only find it from a dodgy source, buy someone a classic BBC DVD of something for Festivus so support their making more. (lots of things, Dr Who, Jeeves and Wooster, the Century of the Self...)

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#103

Post by 234dd57d2c8db »

AlexC04 wrote: post #76

I think it would be relatively easy to have an "auto-snopes" feature which detects a URL being shared and immediately attaches a post that says "this has been debunked by X" For example - I've seen dozens of links to Michael Moore's trumpland speech which strategically ends with the phrase "America will elect Trump and it will feel great" Sample: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-25/michael-moore-trump... He conc…

Unfortunately, sites like snopes and politifact also succumb to the same type of bias as the right-wing sites. See this article where politifact was handed propaganda material from the Clinton foundation and parroted it without doing any actual checking about AIDS drugs the Clinton foundation was funding:

http://www.politifactbias.com/2016/11/the-daily-caller-polit...

The problem is a lack of education by the consumer. I suggest everyone read this book as an intro on the topic:

https://www.amazon.com/How-Lie-Statistics-Darrell-Huff/dp/03...

Everyone has an agenda, follow the money, and trust no one. Whether it's right-wing like Alex Jones or Left-wing like the Tampa Bay Times a.k.a politifact, you need to be suspicious and do your own research if you want the truth.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#104

Post by Bud »

jerf wrote: post #27
btilly wrote: post #11

This article criticizes Facebook for firing the human editors that had been keeping things sane. However they were pushed to that by accusations of bias in the right-wing media. Accusations that looked likely to lead to a Congressional investigation. See, for example, http://thehill.com/policy/technology/279361-top-republican-d... . Now they are in a situation where they are damned if they do, damned if they don't. A…

Yes, trying to solve this problem by creating a definition of "misinformation" sufficiently precise to act on it for all possible articles, then trying to remove it somehow is probably an AI-complete problem. If it's not AI-complete it's probably just plain an ill-formed question. That's before we ask questions about the biases that get embedded into the misinformation detector. This can't be fixed at Facebook scales…

There is no need to create a Grand Unified Theory of misinformation, here.

This problem isn't that hard. You filter this stuff and rank it by its SOURCE, not by the content of individual articles.

It's not hard to figure out which online sources are pushing out most of the abjectly-bad propaganda, and de-rank them.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#105

Post by Terribledactyl »

Bud wrote: post #56
agildehaus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the solution to "damned if you do, damned if you don't" here is to just remove the stupid news sidebar.

No. The solution is to continue to provide news, to curate it, to shut down professional liars, and to tell the critics that if they don't like it, they are free to encourage their followers to use other social media.

I just don't know where the cutoff is for professional or habitual liars. There are many ways to mislead, cherry picking data, methodological errors, straight up confusion and overwhelming technical data. Do we need to model the frequency of offense or severity?

I'm not really going for the whole slippery slope aspect, more I feel like I'm miscategorizing the problem.

Maybe the metadata on misinformation looks different from the real deal. How quickly does it spread, and through which people? No need to actually judge the content.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#106

Post by Bud »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #74
Bud wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're actually not; that's simply false. No, Facebook is not "at it's best" [sic] when it sticks to birthday wishes and cat pictures. It's actually at its best when it is truly social , in all senses of the word. When it facilitates real communication on real issues across a broad spectrum of people. When it spreads information, not misinformation.

Social communication is in-person, face-to-face communication. It's not moving bits around over an http interface. I love idealists, but it's time to take an honest accounting of the differences between the promises of the internet and the actuality.

Not anymore. I'm sorry, but that that view is now obsolete.

The fact is that large and increasing quantities of our social communication now occur online.

I'm not claiming this is salutary or calling it a good thing. I'm just stating the fact.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#107

Post by linkregister »

tnones wrote: post #88
Bud wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a proper response to "accusations of bias" from alt-right white-nationalist thug media. Never mind whether the accusations "looked likely to lead to a Congressional investigation". The response is to tell them to fuck off, and that the professional editors in your private company will continue to do their job however they see fit. Period, paragraph.

The only reason it looks alt-right white-nationalist to you is because anyone on the left who disagrees with prevailing left wing dogma is branded a heretic and a bigot, and shut down quickly. Take The Guardian. They employ people like Jessica Valenti and Laurie Penny who publish feminist clickbait. Then they aggressively moderate comments which explain why those two are ill-informed at best and dishonest manipulator…

I think The Guardian is a bad example of this. Their articles follow a particularly narrow group of viewpoints. They will never have the mainstream (liberal) appeal as the New York Times or the Washington Post.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#108

Post by Bud »

gph wrote: post #77
Bud wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a proper response to "accusations of bias" from alt-right white-nationalist thug media. Never mind whether the accusations "looked likely to lead to a Congressional investigation". The response is to tell them to fuck off, and that the professional editors in your private company will continue to do their job however they see fit. Period, paragraph.

First of all your use of biased language is ridiculous, you are as bad as the 'alt-right white-nationalish thug media' and I wish people like you had no place in rational discussions. Second if you tell them to "Fuck off" you risk losing a significant chunk of your user base who believes their content and information is being manipulated against them. Facebook isn't in the politics business, they are in the social ne…

You're right. Telling bullies "no" does risk that other bullies will leave your site. But that risk is already there.

And Facebook is already seen as political; that ship has sailed.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#109

Post by linkregister »

Spellman wrote: post #87
AlexC04 wrote: post #76

I think it would be relatively easy to have an "auto-snopes" feature which detects a URL being shared and immediately attaches a post that says "this has been debunked by X" For example - I've seen dozens of links to Michael Moore's trumpland speech which strategically ends with the phrase "America will elect Trump and it will feel great" Sample: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-25/michael-moore-trump... He conc…

I have personally asked an individual why they don't trust snopes. Their claim is that it's a Democrat rag towel and shill. I then ask, then what fact-checker would you trust? Their response: None of them. Congratulations. We've reached a point, for this individual, where "facts" as decided in the common forum are suspect and the only thing they trust is themselves (and whatever non-Mainstream Media they listen to).…

I have personally seen people turn away from Fox News after an excess of anti-Trump coverage; though I guess by now Fox is prolific enough to reliably called Mainstream Media.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#110

Post by fullshark »

agildehaus wrote: post #19
btilly wrote: post #11

This article criticizes Facebook for firing the human editors that had been keeping things sane. However they were pushed to that by accusations of bias in the right-wing media. Accusations that looked likely to lead to a Congressional investigation. See, for example, http://thehill.com/policy/technology/279361-top-republican-d... . Now they are in a situation where they are damned if they do, damned if they don't. A…

I think the solution to "damned if you do, damned if you don't" here is to just remove the stupid news sidebar.

The news sidebar to me now is only a "Click to see if this random celebrity died or not" bar
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