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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

#461
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).…

It's reasonable to not trust a media outlet until it's earned your trust. Until then, cross check with the source material, as more often than not, journalists spin and filter the information in their product.

By the way, Snopes is not a common forum and is edited by a very small team. It is a single point of failure and is easily biased. No one entity should be the gatekeeper of truth.

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

#462
post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one relevant monologue: "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. "There has to be, I think, some sort of way in which we can sort through information that passes some basic truthiness tests and those that we have to discard, because they just don't have any basis in…

I don't see anywhere he says that there will be government appointed gate keepers

Obama saying "we" is not referring to his administration?

What do you think "we" refers to?

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

#463

"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…

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

#464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, it must be me, but you ranked "Monetary policy" WAY more likely than I would (rates near zero for so long doing so little must at least put SOME doubt in your model), and "denial of quantum randomness" way less credible than I see it as. Like, man, reasonable people can disagree about pilot waves and many worlds. Are there some confusing, emotionally laden, difficult questions of fact in there? Yes. Are some thi…

Rates near zero is part of the reason the stock market has been on a tear the last few years. It also was a driver of the housing bubble. It didn't cause the hyperinflation that a lot of people thought would come, but the Great Depression is Bernanke's area of expertise, and he had sound theoretical reasons to believe QE wouldn't spark serious inflation.

The near zero rates occurred in response to the economic crisis after the housing bubble burst, not a driver of the bubble.

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

#465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't make generalizations about large groups of people. It leads to irreconcilable feuds.

You shouldnt let a fear of feuds control you.

Maybe the word "feud" wasn't strong enough. Have you seen what's happening in Turkey? My Turkish friend suggested that's where this leads.

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

#466
post #280
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> shut down professional liars Would they really boot CNN? CNN told us this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X16_KzX1vE They were laughably wrong: https://popehat.com/2016/10/17/no-it-is-not-illegal-to-read-... Maybe one can claim it wasn't an intentional lie, but this guy is someone who really should have known better. So if it wasn't an intentional lie, they were negligent. Not sure where that leaves us.

>Maybe one can claim it wasn't an intentional lie, but this guy is someone who really should have known better.

It would be great if an algorithm could fight this type of content, but it probably can't.

But we can probably start with sites that publish stories like "Rudy Giuliani SLAPPED A REPORTER WITH HIS DICK last Tuesday" and that might solve enough of this problem to call it a decent win.

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

#468
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tend to agree—I think that the more we get upset by these sorts of behaviors, the more it encourages them. "Don't feed the trolls" is really the only thing that works, and it's a pretty miserable experience to have nothing you can do about harassment. Which isn't to say I disapprove of reddit, twitter et al removing hate speech; just that it's a very late and reactive solution to a problem that seems inherent in so…

> hate speech On many subreddits, being in opposition to illegal massive immigration is being considered as a 'hate speech' and is a reason for ban.

Err, citation needed. Preferably by someone employed by Reddit. If it's just the subreddit.... I don't know what to tell you beyond "find better ones".

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

#469

This is seriously hilarious. Now that's he's won, against seemingly all odds, we have to find some other reason for why EVERYONE ELSE, was completely WRONG. Every media outlet, everyone in politics, all the polls, completely shit on Trump. Now look who is the most powerful person in the entire world. The Democrats, and the rest, did it to themselves. Overconfidence, smear campaigns, and all of the morons doing the po…

>we have to find some other reason for why EVERYONE ELSE, was completely WRONG >and the people have spoken Trump lost the popular vote, so this isn't true. He got about 25% of the total voting population overall.

> Trump lost the popular vote, so this isn't true. He got about 25% of the total voting population overall.

Since the "popular vote" doesn't elect the president but the Electoral College, each candidate must campaign to win the Electoral College. That is the strategy to win presidency. If you change it to "popular vote" you will see campaign strategy change to optimize towards that metric. It's not something you can look at "in retrospect". Trump would have played the game slightly differently if that was the case.

So actually everyone crying about the fact that he didn't win "popular vote" are just displaying their own ignorance on campaign strategy every time they bring up this point.

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