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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

#431

"OMG, Trump has won through lies and deception! We failed to stop him. How on Earth did that happen? We must out-manipulate our opponents next time." If you read between the lines, this is what the article condenses to. The discussion here is mostly creepy groupthink shit. Social networks fact-checking their content? What's next? Should AT&T stop the spread of misinformation over its phone lines? Should USPS fact-che…

Such a comment betrays an incredibly unsophisticated understanding of the issues being discussed. Perhaps a revisit to McLuhan's maxim would be enlightening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko6J9v1C9zE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoCrx0scCkM

Perhaps you could avail yourself of some of your erudition and explain what relationship these three links have to your objection.

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

#432

"OMG, Trump has won through lies and deception! We failed to stop him. How on Earth did that happen? We must out-manipulate our opponents next time." If you read between the lines, this is what the article condenses to. The discussion here is mostly creepy groupthink shit. Social networks fact-checking their content? What's next? Should AT&T stop the spread of misinformation over its phone lines? Should USPS fact-che…

What would be so bad about at&t offering a service that banned fraudsters from calling you? Or if the USPS refused to deliver mail that said "URGENT TIME SENSITIVE" on the envelope unless the sender could prove it really was urgent? As someone with elderly relatives who've fallen for scams over email (which major email providers already do block, automatically), I would celebrate both of those outcomes.

> What would be so bad about at&t offering a service that banned fraudsters from calling you?

That isn't what we're talking about, now is it?

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

#433
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).…

Snopes did put out a lot of articles this season where the claim of "false" seemed to hinge on some sort of hair-splitting rather than the core of the claim being inaccurate.

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

#434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).…

>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). We have reached a point where the only truth is what they decide is the truth. // This is similar to the UK going in to the Brexit vote. Politicians that were promoting the break away from Europe were push…

Well, I mean, they ARE the same experts who told us deregulation of finance was a good idea.

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

#435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such a comment betrays an incredibly unsophisticated understanding of the issues being discussed. Perhaps a revisit to McLuhan's maxim would be enlightening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko6J9v1C9zE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UoCrx0scCkM

Perhaps you could avail yourself of some of your erudition and explain what relationship these three links have to your objection.

https://www.fastcoexist.com/3061574/the-new-nationalism-of-b...

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

#436

"OMG, Trump has won through lies and deception! We failed to stop him. How on Earth did that happen? We must out-manipulate our opponents next time." If you read between the lines, this is what the article condenses to. The discussion here is mostly creepy groupthink shit. Social networks fact-checking their content? What's next? Should AT&T stop the spread of misinformation over its phone lines? Should USPS fact-che…

The irony here is also the idea that all of this so-called propaganda comes from the right. The left is constantly selecting it's own set of "facts" and tactfully leaves out whatever doesn't agree with their agenda. Simply look at all the disingenuous pro-Clinton fact checking throughout the election. Just look at the number of rape, assault, race-baity bullshit that is circulated by liberals every day. There article…

Eh... unless you have numbers, I'm going to disagree. I don't visit FB much, but I've seen enough other social media to know that both sides play the same game. They both leave out data, mis-use existing data, and outright lie. I'd love statistics to prove me wrong.

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

#437
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…

"This article criticizes Facebook for firing the human editors that had been keeping things sane."

Read your comment. Let's think. What you mean is, Facebook fired human editors, who they contracted out moderation to. They contracted this job out, and kept it on the down low, because it was a breach of their promise with users of their platform. "keeping things sane." What exactly does this comment mean? What you mean by that, I assume, is 'don't allow anything to trend that might upset the leftist 'social justice warriors.' In other words, keeping things sane, meant don't allow posts to trend, that contradict, or prove false, the beliefs of the people whose primary mechanism of accomplishing agenda, is to 'get triggered' or to freak out, cause a scene, cry foul. The primary class of posts that could have or as Facebook claims 'should have' been censored, were Wikileaks. The Wikileaks were DKIM verified, and of reliable source. They were however not in the best interest of the left. They helped Donald Trump win. They spread the word, that Hillary Clinton was lying about a plethora of different things. These "Social Justice Warriors' believe that the US, themselves, and Hillary herself deserve to be president. Their response to people posting anti-Hillary ads, memes, leaks, or posts, is to flame them. Attack them. So what you are claiming, is that Facebook should have done a better job, of keeping things sane; a better job of limiting contradictory ads, statements, and shares from Hillary's opponent or opposing voters. Facebook was extremely sane during the weeks leading to election. Any insanity before election day I assume, was people have arguments or conversations on each others posts, discussing who to vote for. Are you suggesting that we should have silenced these debates? Are you suggesting we should have blocked Trump ads? I pushed a lot of content on Twitter and Facebook, and the majority of it was generated by users on Reddit. I have a list of 75 top ten trending Hashtags, which were removed from twitter by moderators. They were removed from the trending list. The list of 75 hashtags, are entirely non-violent, non-harrassing, and simply brief descriptions of illegal or unsettling things that Hillary Clinton said or did during her time in office. They are summaries of quotes from Wikileaks emails. Are you telling me that removing those hash tags was simply a peace-keeping measure? Are you saying that this was not blatant censorship to push Twitter's own agenda?

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

#438

In corporate speak "misinformation" is defined as "any information that doesn't support our narrative". Certainly it is the goal of Facebook, the government, and every other large media corporation to control the flow of information. You need look no farther then Obama's recent statement that news needs to be "curated" by government appointed gatekeepers, to filter out all that pesky information that doesn't jive wit…

Do you mind linking to where Obama said that? The closest I can find is this: https://www.yahoo.com/news/obama-decries-wild-west-media-lan... >"We are going to have to rebuild within this wild-wild-west-of-information flow some sort of curating function that people agree to," Obama said at an innovation conference in Pittsburgh. Why do you think that the curation is going to be done by the government or by government…

It's implied by the use of the word "we" and the fact that he is a government employee.

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

#439
Here's a tool someone could write. Write a browser add-on which modifies Facebook pages so that the news links are changed to Google, Bing, and Wikipedia searches for the news headline. Connect to Google/Bing in a mode with no signin or cookie info, so you don't get "search personalization". This will get you out of Facebook's filter bubble quickly. Google and Bing have problems, too, but they are somewhat better at blocking spam, having been at it longer and being in the business of forcing spammers to buy their ads instead.

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

#440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you could avail yourself of some of your erudition and explain what relationship these three links have to your objection.

https://www.fastcoexist.com/3061574/the-new-nationalism-of-b...

Brexit and Trump and Syriza and Bernie and all the rest of it point to the collapse of the middle class across the industrialized world more than anything else.
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