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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

#611

Post by sushiwarrior »

hedonistbot wrote: post #496
EvilTerran wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, and I would find something in them to have him hanged. ... and now Wikileaks has invited the whole internet to come play Richelieu with them, only with ten thousand times the ammunition the Cardinal (apocryphally) asked for. The online mob has been accusing (eg) Podesta and his correspondents of all kinds of insane things - from corruption & arms dealing t…

>... and now Wikileaks has invited the whole internet to come play Richelieu with them But why do you think that the whole internet wants to play the part of Richelieu, everyone is allowed to choose the role they want and wikileaks does not hide the context of the emails, everyone is perfectly able to check the whole correspondence. If anything the mass media is hiding the context because of their format and time lim…

Wikileaks is being unbiased by claiming to be entirely unbiased on what they choose to release (yes, they CHOOSE what they want to release, what to save for insurance, etc.) yet not acknowledging the dangerous false equivalency of saying that this system implies there is no possible way that the other party would do the same things. Until we have equal information about both sides, this is dangerous. Wikileaks gets to be the unfair arbiter of truth while claiming total transparency that we know doesn't exist.

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

#612

Post by sushiwarrior »

tomp wrote: post #548
knz wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I think they should just leak it all rather than controlling the flow to suit their political agenda.

The way I understand, they've been burned before by leaking all at the same time - there's an initial "shock", theneveryone forgets about it. If your purpose is generating the maximum amount of outrage and controversy (and, consequentially, change), it makes sense to publish things slowly. Although I agree that the timing was probably connected with the US elections. But again, that's a good think - the only way orga…

So is Wikileaks an organization interested in free information, or using "free information" for maximum political effect? If they are twisting the knife and trying to find out how to cause the maximum possible damage for one side only, then they are clearly not a neutral organization and obviously should be treated as such. If their goal is maximum political discourse, then they are obviously a political organization, not an information or "truth" organization.

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

#613

Post by sushiwarrior »

234dd57d2c8db wrote: post #254
pimlottc wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on. You've highlighted one staff member as having once mentioned having a personal political leaning (like most people do) and that she once worked at a blog with a tarnished reputation and spun that into implying Snopes is untrustworthy. I'm sure you could meet this extremely low bar of "proof" for practically any news organization. If you really want to present a case of bias, find some real evidence. Specific…

This post wasn't meant to be a thorough debunking of Kim and snopes. I actually think snopes does a mostly good job of producing accurate information. However, it does show in some cases, such as the Hillary Libya "We didn't lose one person" question from the debate. http://www.snopes.com/hillary-clinton-benghazi-msnbc/ Snopes and Kim claim "Hillary Clinton overlooked Benghazi victims when she said that "we didn't lo…

Trump was a massive supporter of going into Libya[1] and doing "something" about Gaddafi. These world leaders are stuck with the hard problem of satisfying dumb idiots at home who think that the US can wave a wand and stop people across the sea from killing each other because it sucks seeing the poor brown people kill each other, yet they are only doing so because we meddled in their affairs before, and yet we are proposing to solve it by meddling in their affairs more. The US, including Trump, asked for Libya, and now Clinton is on the hook because the US population is too misinformed to understand why Libya is on edge, why it was America's fault, and why there will be no easy solution because, again, until America stops doing this it won't stop.

This is the issue. Americans don't know what they want and are mad because they feel like they somehow have a special place in the world everyone else is "stealing" from them somehow. This attitude is "anti-American" because it is the unfortunate truth, and America just voted that the truth hurts but it would rather blame it on the immigrants and mexicans and muslims. This is scary. You cannot have the attitude that you somehow have a god-given "right" to jobs in your country, and that filthy immigrants are stealing them because they are bad people. Conservatives feel like the government is a credit card they can use to get more when they want it, no matter what the consequence for the rest of the world. This entitlement is a style of attitude and thinking that is guaranteed to cause global conflict, and is the inevitable end of a culture war between western thinking and other powers. Obama proposed to fix this by being basically an apologist and reparist for the rest of the world, but the rest of the world is so fucked up because of America's history of trying to decide what's best for it that it is starting to turn on America, and deciding it doesn't really need them any more. This stubborness is war-mongering and why it is better to have free trade and globalism rather than using literal direct conflict to solve perceived differences between countries.

[1]: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/...

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

#614

Post by linkregister »

emodendroket wrote: post #598
linkregister wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of a unified "ruling class" is laughable. The current president is constantly at odds with the political party that controls the Senate and the House of Representatives. I also disagree with the notion that most congressmen are out of touch with their voters. Each individual congressman is pursuing the agenda he or she was voted into office by his or her constituents. An example: some constituents want to re…

Of course there are multiple elements of the ruling class with different interests. But I think it's also safe to say there are a lot of issues where Republicans and Democrats are in complete agreement and their constituents are not.

What would be an example of one of these issues?

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

#615

Post by tomp »

sushiwarrior wrote: post #612
tomp wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I understand, they've been burned before by leaking all at the same time - there's an initial "shock", theneveryone forgets about it. If your purpose is generating the maximum amount of outrage and controversy (and, consequentially, change), it makes sense to publish things slowly. Although I agree that the timing was probably connected with the US elections. But again, that's a good think - the only way orga…

So is Wikileaks an organization interested in free information, or using "free information" for maximum political effect? If they are twisting the knife and trying to find out how to cause the maximum possible damage for one side only, then they are clearly not a neutral organization and obviously should be treated as such. If their goal is maximum political discourse, then they are obviously a political organization…

Why do you think they wouldn't be causing damage for the other side, if they could? I mean, even if they had emails of the GOP, I doubt it would really hurt Trump in any way, it's not like he had their support anyways... Actually, it would probably help him!

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

#616

Post by baby »

amelius wrote: post #510
baby wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I find facebook actually useful to talk to my friends and keep in touch with them.

If you unfollow your friends, you can still be in touch. Best of both worlds :)

Or just use messenger.com instead of facebook.com : o no feed

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

#617

Post by erdevs »

colllectorof wrote: post #363

"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…

> "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."

This is a ridiculous oversimplification of a complex and important set of issues.

The issue is the spread of facts vs misinformation, not liberalism vs conservativism, nor Democrats vs Republicans, nor Trump vs anti-Trump. Facts can work on both sides, as can misinformation. It's kind of fucked up to assume facts somehow only go one way.

> Social networks fact-checking their content? What's next? Should AT&T stop the spread of misinformation over its phone lines? Should USPS fact-check your mail?

Well, gee... Let's think carefully. Are your private phone calls on AT&T a public discourse? Is your mail? Do either AT&T or USPS signal boost some of your discussions during public transmittal? Is your analogy even logical?

Facebook is a communication medium, as you said. Moreover, it has a set of rules and policies governing what can be shared, which shared content gets shown to a given user, and how the content is further propagated and boosted. The entire discussion, which your post is completely sidestepping, is what content should or shouldn't be propagated and boosted.

One can make arguments for more rules or fewer on this, for different rules or keeping the same rules. But asserting that it is a non-issue or drawing false equivalences are non-arguments irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

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

#618

Post by erdevs »

colllectorof wrote: post #363

"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…

> "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."

This is a ridiculous oversimplification of a complex and important set of issues.

The issue is the spread of facts vs misinformation, not liberalism vs conservativism, nor Democrats vs Republicans, nor Trump vs anti-Trump. Facts can work on both sides, as can misinformation. It's kind of fucked up to assume facts somehow only go one way.

> Social networks fact-checking their content? What's next? Should AT&T stop the spread of misinformation over its phone lines? Should USPS fact-check your mail?

Well, gee... Let's think carefully. Are your private phone calls on AT&T a public discourse? Is your mail? Do either AT&T or USPS signal boost some of your discussions during public transmittal? Is your analogy even logical?

Facebook is a communication medium, as you said. Moreover, it has a set of rules and policies governing what can be shared, which shared content gets shown to a given user, and how the content is further propagated and boosted. The entire discussion, which your post is completely sidestepping, is what content should or shouldn't be propagated and boosted.

One can make arguments for more rules or fewer on this, for different rules or keeping the same rules. But saying it's a month issue or drawing false equivalences are non-arguments irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

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

#619

Post by erdevs »

briholt wrote: post #412
colllectorof wrote: post #363

"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…

Agreed. This appears to advocate to fight propaganda with more propaganda. I don't trust anyone at Facebook to determine "facts."

Why? Facts are facts. The definition of a fact is that is an objective, verifiable statement. Trust does not come into play because you don't need to trust anyone judgment to verify a fact. Judgment is not involved.

Whether Fox fired Megyn Kelly or not is a fact. Facebook's is judgment is not involved in verifying it.

Whether an FBI agent that examined Clinton's emails is now dead or not is a fact. Facebook's judgment is not involved in verifying this fact.

You are conflating fact checking with opinion editing. The suggestion here is not that FB should filter out any kind of objectively verifiable fact, no matter which way the fact is used. It's that perhaps FB should filter out or at least not signal boost objectively verifiably false information.

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