I miss the myspace days when we just modified our profiles and chatted with each other. There was no "news feed." Facebook was unbearable before the election, I stopped logging in more than once a week just to check on family. I don't care what anyone's opinion of the day is on the political issue of the day.
Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News
111–120 of 342 posts
Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News
#112I 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…
I've had similar experiences on Facebook. Facts don't matter. Even when linking to proof that something is fake news, the fake news doesn't get removed or addressed. This article about how Macedonian high school students are behind a lot of the fake news is worth reading: https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became...
This has me deeply, deeply concerned. The election is one thing, but what happens if/when elected officials start screwing with something like Social Security, resulting in a generation of people who had their tax dollars deferred, but saw no benefit when they retired? In a post-fact world, I'm not convinced that the people will take action against such a thing.
Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News
#113I 'quit' Facebook two years ago. I occasionally log back in to see what people are getting out of it- and my outsider observation is that Facebook unintentionally feeds people with borderline personality disorder.
(http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/borderline-per... )
I find it amusing that so many facebook users are identifying Facebook's "fake" news feeds as the source of the election's problems.
If Facebook were to honestly tackle that problem, there won't be much Facebook left.
Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I'm gonna need a massive citation here.
> This isn't conjecture. I've seen the base files.
Until you share, it's conjecture.
Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It would drastically reduce the voting power of several red states. Only recently (since 2000) has the EC being different than the popular vote been a problem. Both times it's gone in the republicans favour. It would definitely be radical change though.
Kind of a small sample size, right? I guess I'm hesitant to change the political dynamic of a nation based on just that.
Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News
#116Newspeak, Thoughtcrime, Facebook, Saveyourself, Createtime, Deleteaccount.
Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't really go on Facebook. Can you give an example of the type of fake news story you're talking about?
Here's a classic example, though the original website is down, so I linked to the Facebook Debug tool: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/debug/sharing/?q=http%...
Did you notice that you are replying to a person with no facebook account to a link that requires a facebook login to view? Maybe that's unavoidable, given the topic, but it's not visible without logging in.
Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News
#118I 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…
I've been "unfriended" more than once for doing this -- people don't like being called out for spreading fake news, especially when the fake news supports their own personal worldview.
Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News
#119The last 12 months I have visited Snopes more times than not in order to disprove some of the articles my Facebook friends choose to share.
It's slightly alarming that people don't think they need to fact check. You know it's bad when the President-elect opens up about his internet fact checking[0].
It sets a dangerous precedent. There are less intelligent people in this world who read deeply into these "articles" and act on them. They choose to take it as fact because it's a website. It's scary.
What can we do? Upvotes/downvotes? Won't work at scale, because likes/shares have a connotation of legitimacy.
Can we educate the public? We can try, but some people are so far from being able to (or willing to) learn. They'll discard any help, citing propaganda, claiming "xyz source" is trying to influence their thinking; how dare they.
Can you tell this exhausts me?
Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News
#120The article says this:
Snowden’s comments echoed those of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who said that it’s “extremely unlikely hoaxes changed the outcome of this election in one direction or the other.”
But he's NOT echoing Zuckerberg's comments - either in spirit or intent. He's pointing out a bigger problem inherent in relying on Facebook as a single source for news.