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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

#181

Post by grzm »

crdb wrote: post #141
cm127 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ~ William Casey, CIA Director

The discussion by the source of the quote is worth a read (in the comment thread): https://www.quora.com/Did-William-Casey-CIA-Director-really-... > Though not explicitly said at that time, it was made clear in other contexts during my two years in the West Wing in the highest level meetings that the pretext for this mentality was the claim that in a Cold War era when communications were essentially instantaneous, th…

All Cretans are liars.

My brain hurts.

Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#182

Post by hogrammer »

dragonwriter wrote: post #71
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…

Note that when confronted about false stories (which were sourced from white aupremacist propaganda) he retweeted, the President-elect, while still a candidate, responded fairly similarly, so, yeah, it's definitely an attitude that is becoming quite normalized.

The Democrats are just as bad. Hillary opened the first debate with the false news that women only make 73 cents for every dollar men make. The Left also insists that 1 in 4 women are raped in college, and that a massive international sex-Slave business accompanies every Super Bowl.

Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#183

Post by maxerickson »

edgyswingset wrote: post #112
JoshMnem wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

if/when elected officials start screwing with something like Social Security

Buckle up!

http://paulryan.house.gov/issues/issue/?IssueID=9969

Saves Medicare for current and future generations, with no disruptions for those in and near retirement.

For younger workers, when they become eligible, Medicare will provide a premium-support payment and a list of guaranteed coverage options – including a traditional fee-for-service option – from which recipients can choose a plan that best suits their needs.

Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#184

Post by vacri »

fixxer wrote: post #47
duaneb wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd like to see most independents / democratic people unite under a real progressive platform next election and stop the extremist cycle of social issues vs fear mongering. There's virtually zero chance of this happening without another party collapsing first. Hell, even then, independents are harder to herd than cats.

Because very few of them are truly independent.

It's more because 'independent' is a simple description, not a political manifesto.

Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#185

Post by lincar »

wallace_f wrote: post #168

The power Google and Facebook hold to censor and selectively control what people see and hear is terrifying: https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/15/google-and-facebook-ban-fa... In an important aspect, this is not any different han a library deciding to censor what information they make available. In the past this war has been waged before--As Google will ban news over quality of the information, librarians have banned bo…

Watch Fox News if you want to actually know what is going on in the world. Yes, seriously.

Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#186

Post by tottenhm »

prawn wrote: post #134
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 come down to "the end justifies the means". And I'm not sure there's a way to stop it given the core buttons being pushed: confirming bias, bringing audiences to companies, giving people attention. Facebook could probably give people a public rating based on the accuracy of the information they shared, and shame the worst offenders, but neither they nor their users would have an interest in this being establishe…

> neither they nor their users would have an interest in this being established.

I'm on the fence about that one. On the flip-side:

1. If they don't police it, then Facebook as a whole gets a reputation for disinformation. (When I look at Facebook, I personally ignore most shared articles because they're mostly crap, and I don't want to look at them. I only care about the personal goings-on of friends, and the signal-to-noise gets worse over time.)

2. If you take someone who doesn't care about truth, they're not going to introspectively seek-out a metric which might report "You're misinformed and stupid!" BUT If you're self-righteous about the truth, then you might want some objective metrics which say, "Look I don't spread misinformation or live in an echo chamber! But Cheryl does! Look, Cheryl, I'm smarter than you!" That might provide some basis for a viral dynamic.

Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#187

Post by emmfr »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #158

Well all this political talk gives me some ideas. Is it possible, at this stage, for geographically large countries with very large populations to move forward in a coherent way? All of the better places to live, as rated by purchasing power, health, education, what have you, are either geographically small and or have a small population. China, India, Russia, Brazil, USA - all these big places with big pipulations r…

The smaller the population, the higher the variance. Large countries are not bad, they are average. The worst countries, like the best, tend to be small.

Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#188

Post by fixxer »

serge2k wrote: post #173
fixxer wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of a small sample size, right? I guess I'm hesitant to change the political dynamic of a nation based on just that.

There are other good reasons too. The system isn't fair, voters in low pop states have more power than california. The system emphasizes swing states above others, as the country is so split right now. The system is worse for third party candidates (especially if a STV or ranked system was used. This would also please the Bernie or bust folk). The system is outdated, it was meant to have a group of well informed elec…

Yup, agreed. As mentioned above, I'm for pop vote. But... Still a big change and the consequences are very complicated.

Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#189

Post by vacri »

serge2k wrote: post #173
fixxer wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kind of a small sample size, right? I guess I'm hesitant to change the political dynamic of a nation based on just that.

There are other good reasons too. The system isn't fair, voters in low pop states have more power than california. The system emphasizes swing states above others, as the country is so split right now. The system is worse for third party candidates (especially if a STV or ranked system was used. This would also please the Bernie or bust folk). The system is outdated, it was meant to have a group of well informed elec…

> The system emphasizes swing states above others

It's hard to imagine a democratic system where swing voters don't hold disproportionate power. Rusted-on supporters will support you whatever may come, and the opponents' rusted-on supporters will never support you, so as a candidate you spend more time, effort, and money appealing to the noncommittal folks in the middle...

Even excellent voting systems like Condorcet don't change this particular equation; a hardcore supporter of you just simply doesn't need as much of your attention in an electioneering frame of mind.

This all being said, that doesn't mean the current systems in the US aren't horribly misrepresentative. Gerrymandering is a particular problem there.

Re: Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News

#190

Post by tdeck »

grzm wrote: post #153
weaksauce wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sure: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/16/po... and https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-t...

Thanks :) My comment was actually a (poor) attempt at humor. I didn't think it would work if I added /s. Didn't work anyway :)

Don't worry, it's just "Truthiness" all over again.
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