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Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

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Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#81

Post by woodchuck64 »

mzw_mzw wrote: post #44
woodchuck64 wrote: post #29

One thing's for certain: Facebook AI research is running deep-layered natural-language ANNs right now on a year of election comments and likes. I think well before four years they'll know exactly how to detect bubbles of alternate political reality and also how to break them up. There will be some interesting decisions facing them before the next election.

Do you trust them to break up all the alternate reality bubbles, or just the ones they don't like? What's truly dangerous here is that one organization has so much control over what news people see.

There's got be some non-political algorithms. Maybe tracking news articles to their sources (text/phrase similarity searching), showing sources, and flagging quality by accuracy of details? A few years of improvement on automatic text summarizing might be able to catch political "telephone" articles that erase and morph crucial details.

Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#82

Post by sxg »

thebooktocome wrote: post #59
ochoseis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The economist is another good option. They have decent digital versions, including a daily edition that's just enough news for me.

The Economist carries just as much propaganda as any other political magazine. They're better at hiding it, perhaps.

What publication would you recommend instead if I'm looking for relatively unbiased, fact-based news?

Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#83

Post by j1vms »

gcatalfamo wrote: post #3

Does Snowden really think that the canonical man on the street is here waiting to be advised on this topic? The people who were influenced the most by fake news are those who probably don't even feel there exists a fake news issue.

> The people who were influenced the most by fake news are those who probably don't even feel there exists a fake news issue.

Which points the way towards the question of whether some people ever really want to know the truth about stuff they already decided is important to them, for whatever reason.

Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#85

Post by lbenes »

havetocharge wrote: post #39
canistr wrote: post #21

If the problem is that Facebook provides an echo-chamber that exacerbates the influence of one particular viewpoint, wouldn't the solution be for Facebook to begin injecting opposing content directly into the newsfeed? You can kind of see this with trending topics. If you don't follow a particular topic but suddenly see it trending in your feed, there's a chance you may random walk into clicking it. If Facebook opens…

It's not the Facebook that provides echo chamber, it's the individuals themselves who create it via their friend selections.

It's not just your circle that determines what show up in your feed. The algorithms re-enforce peoples views by putting stories in your feed it thinks you will 'like'. If it thinks you're pro-Trump, you will have more pro-Trump stories even if you have an even mix of Trump/Hillary supporters in your circle. Many times the sensational stories that are most likely to be 'liked' are also the fake ones. There no warning that the story came from an unreliable source.

Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#86

Post by fixxer »

rhblake wrote: post #79
fixxer wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Changing from electoral college to pop vote also means the nature of campaigning will change. California, for example, has a huge population of Republicans and now their vote would matter. I don't think Trump did any non military focused rallies there. I am in Illinois. I didn't vote in 2008 or 2012 because I knew my vote would have no impact. Give me a popular vote and you might have Romney... Be careful what you wi…

> California, for example, has a huge population of Republicans and now their vote would matter. And at the same time votes from Democrats in California would also matter more. I'd assume a number of people who'd vote Democrat in CA don't vote because they know the Democrats won't lose anyway.

Maybe. My point isn't partisan, but more along the lines of "you don't know how this will play out."

I'm all for a popular vote, but I don't think you're going to see a swing to the left necessarily.

Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#87

Post by spenvo »

JacobJans wrote: post #66

I have interacted with several people on Facebook who rely on fake news sources. I pointed out fake news articles several times on one person's Facebook page. She agreed the articles were not true. However, she added "I don't have time to figure out if they're true. People can read your comments." I asked her what she thought of the fact that this particular article, which was blatantly false, was shared 16,000 times…

It's not just on Facebook. I have a close family member who was genuinely excited by Assange insinuating Clinton's camp murdered a DNC staffer (without offering any proof to that effect), simply because it would lower her chances of winning.

Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#88

Post by fixxer »

duaneb wrote: post #69
fixxer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because very few of them are truly independent.

I don't necessarily disagree, but how does this follow from what I said? I'd argue people are TOO independent to reach a third party consensus.

Independent white men are generally Republican voters, for example. Big difference between being independent and not identifying with a party.

Hence, they are hard to herd because they are actually already decided.

This isn't conjecture. I've seen the base files.

Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#89

Post by personlurking »

burkaman wrote: post #53
jaredtking wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in a similar boat as you having quit Facebook several years ago after the revelations about the emotion manipulation experiments they were running. At first I did not understand why people were so polarized about the candidates. Now I'm attributing this mainly to being cut off from Facebook. EDIT: By polarized I mean intense hatred, coming from both sides

Were you also cut off from all forms of media? Even the most neutral sources had stories about how both candidates were the most disliked in history, protests and violence at rallies, etc. Even if you personally didn't have any strong opinions, anyone who even casually followed the news should have understood the general sentiments of the country.

It is possible to (use FB and) steer clear of news about the candidates while still consuming media (including HN & Reddit) on a daily basis. I successfully did it for the entirety of the run up to the election (including the night of). The most I knew were a few headlines about Hillary's email scandal and that Trump wanted to build a wall.

That said, I happen to live abroad (which doesn't stop local media and locals from trying to talk about it).

Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#90

Post by dllthomas »

hdctambien wrote: post #77
CalChris wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Romney lost 51-47 in the popular vote.

Of those that voted. I think fixxer is saying that there are alot of people that don't vote (about half of the voting population) because they are an X in a Y state so they don't think their vote will change that. But if the electoral college went poof, a lot more of the missing 50% would vote and that could change the expected value of a popular vote.

This isn't so much directed at you, but this seems a great place to note that there are races on the ballot other than president, usually your local elections will have a bigger impact on your day-to-day life than the national ones, and your vote carries orders of magnitude more weight. Pay attention down-ballot!
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