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Facebook’s Walled Wonderland Is Inherently Incompatible with News

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Re: Facebook’s Walled Wonderland Is Inherently Incompatible with News

#11

Post by mozumder »

andrewvijay wrote: post #9
mozumder wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just Facebook, but also Twitter and Reddit. The Republican guy that shot the pizza place in DC today was driven by a conspiracy theory marketed on Reddit. These social-media sites are literally dangerous.

I dont see this kind of influence from twitter and reddit. The personal feeling in facebook is far far higher than twitter and reddit. I have never used reddit. The active user share is no where close to facebook. Their reactions buttons are very much reflective of people's views.

Trump tweets lies to 16 million people at a time.

The Pizza shop conspiracy was heavily marketed on Reddit, and I'll bet the shooter today got all his info from there.

These platforms have a HUGE problem.

Re: Facebook’s Walled Wonderland Is Inherently Incompatible with News

#12

Post by jerluc »

anabis wrote: post #4

I think people are being unreasonably demanding of FaceBook. Fake-news, I can see the problem. However snobbishly trolling with risque art and historical pictures, and slamming FB because the overworked mods were not sophisticated enough to recognize them seems like bullying to me.

How can you find yourself at all sympathetic toward Facebook in this context? This is not about saying Facebook's moderators are doing terribly, the whole point here is to point out the fact that Facebook has a major conflict of interest when it comes to the issue of fake news, and they've avoided admitting that fact entirely.

Re: Facebook’s Walled Wonderland Is Inherently Incompatible with News

#13

Post by andrewvijay »

grzm wrote: post #10
andrewvijay wrote: post #6

> We are not in the business of picking which issues the world should read about. We are in the business of connecting people and ideas — and matching people with the stories they find most meaningful. Our integrity depends on being inclusive of all perspectives and view points, and using ranking to connect people with the stories and sources they find the most meaningful and engaging. Simply incredible. They are ass…

I understand your frustration, though I find statements like Facebook simply kills democracy for their own benefit frustrating as well. Facebook is attempting to police the community they provide. Online communities, while they've been around in some form since the usenet days, are still a relatively new phenomenon, especially at the scale of billions, and there's a lot of stuff to figure out. What concrete steps wou…

One concrete step would be to accept that they easily bring war/peace in any country they are allowed to operate. The moral responsibility of such a huge platform where people interact needs to be very high. Pointing fingers or giving sugar coated answers is not acceptable.

Facebook's motto should be changed from 'connecting people' to 'connecting people to show only what they like'.

See we both are arguing something here that is simply avoided so many times in facebook. That is the whole point. The tradeoff they should be allowing is to allow people to see/confront contradictions. Else its not a debate. Nobody gains knowledge or new thoughts. No one progresses apart from facebook.

Re: Facebook’s Walled Wonderland Is Inherently Incompatible with News

#14

Post by andrewvijay »

mozumder wrote: post #11
andrewvijay wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont see this kind of influence from twitter and reddit. The personal feeling in facebook is far far higher than twitter and reddit. I have never used reddit. The active user share is no where close to facebook. Their reactions buttons are very much reflective of people's views.

Trump tweets lies to 16 million people at a time. The Pizza shop conspiracy was heavily marketed on Reddit, and I'll bet the shooter today got all his info from there. These platforms have a HUGE problem.

I follow him but i have never seen his tweets though. They are big but not as big as facebook especially in the emerging markets.

My mum uses FB everyday but she has no idea about reddit whatsoever. She has heard about the name twitter from some news channel. Do you understand the difference?

Re: Facebook’s Walled Wonderland Is Inherently Incompatible with News

#15

Post by jerluc »

mozumder wrote: post #7

Social media sites always end up turning toxic. The problem is that they give a voice to all the mindless idiots of society. These people should never be given a voice. There is no justification for that. Voices should always be edited and filtered by higher powers. The common opinion is worth nothing, since we already know what it is, so why repeat it?

I think the ultimate issue specifically with Facebook is not that you shouldn't give people voices online, but rather that when the voices form small, tight-knit echo chambers with zero outside challenge, the outcome can be disastrous. I believe this is why the author calls it a "walled wonderland".

Re: Facebook’s Walled Wonderland Is Inherently Incompatible with News

#16

Post by zdkl »

andrewvijay wrote: post #13
grzm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your frustration, though I find statements like Facebook simply kills democracy for their own benefit frustrating as well. Facebook is attempting to police the community they provide. Online communities, while they've been around in some form since the usenet days, are still a relatively new phenomenon, especially at the scale of billions, and there's a lot of stuff to figure out. What concrete steps wou…

One concrete step would be to accept that they easily bring war/peace in any country they are allowed to operate. The moral responsibility of such a huge platform where people interact needs to be very high. Pointing fingers or giving sugar coated answers is not acceptable. Facebook's motto should be changed from 'connecting people' to 'connecting people to show only what they like'. See we both are arguing something…

So the bigger question as far as I've come to think of it: is a for profit company compatible with the role facebook is filling?

Re: Facebook’s Walled Wonderland Is Inherently Incompatible with News

#17

Post by aikah »

andrewvijay wrote: post #6

> We are not in the business of picking which issues the world should read about. We are in the business of connecting people and ideas — and matching people with the stories they find most meaningful. Our integrity depends on being inclusive of all perspectives and view points, and using ranking to connect people with the stories and sources they find the most meaningful and engaging. Simply incredible. They are ass…

> Facebook simply kills democracy for their own benefit.

Give me a break. It's not Facebook's job to tell the truth from the lies. They provide a social network, for profit. They are not a charity or a non profit. They sell ads. If "news filtering" aligns with their bottom-line they'll do it, if it doesn't, they won't, that's business.

Now to anybody who thinks he can control the internet and what people read/think/discuss I say good luck with that.

What kills democracy is people incapable of convincing others that they are being mislead/wrong without insulting them with all possible -ism . What kills democracy is people on both side being so extreme they just can't talk to each other anymore. Facebook isn't responsible for that. The lack of moderation on both political sides is, your politicians are.

People need to stop blaming Facebook for everything. Nobody is forced to use their platform , I don't have a Facebook and never go on Facebook.

Re: Facebook’s Walled Wonderland Is Inherently Incompatible with News

#18

Post by grzm »

andrewvijay wrote: post #13
grzm wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand your frustration, though I find statements like Facebook simply kills democracy for their own benefit frustrating as well. Facebook is attempting to police the community they provide. Online communities, while they've been around in some form since the usenet days, are still a relatively new phenomenon, especially at the scale of billions, and there's a lot of stuff to figure out. What concrete steps wou…

One concrete step would be to accept that they easily bring war/peace in any country they are allowed to operate. The moral responsibility of such a huge platform where people interact needs to be very high. Pointing fingers or giving sugar coated answers is not acceptable. Facebook's motto should be changed from 'connecting people' to 'connecting people to show only what they like'. See we both are arguing something…

Facebook's motto should be changed from 'connecting people' to 'connecting people to show only what they like'.

Is this what you think Facebook should be? Or what you think is a more accurate description of what Facebook is?

What would this look like in concrete steps? How do you manage bullying? Knowingly spreading misinformation and disinformation? What prevents Facebook from becoming one big flamewar? How do you decide how to confront contradictions? What about people who don't want to use Facebook for debate?

It's all well and good to make statements like The tradeoff they should be allowing is to allow people to see/confront contradictions. Else its not a debate. Nobody gains knowledge or new thoughts. No one progresses apart from Facebook. It's another thing all together to put in place the features that make this possible. I challenge you to put forth some concrete features that would address the concerns you have.

Re: Facebook’s Walled Wonderland Is Inherently Incompatible with News

#19

Post by grzm »

zdkl wrote: post #16
andrewvijay wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One concrete step would be to accept that they easily bring war/peace in any country they are allowed to operate. The moral responsibility of such a huge platform where people interact needs to be very high. Pointing fingers or giving sugar coated answers is not acceptable. Facebook's motto should be changed from 'connecting people' to 'connecting people to show only what they like'. See we both are arguing something…

So the bigger question as far as I've come to think of it: is a for profit company compatible with the role facebook is filling?

And if it's not for profit, it will still need income. Where will that income come from?

Re: Facebook’s Walled Wonderland Is Inherently Incompatible with News

#20

Post by cmurf »

mozumder wrote: post #8
andrewvijay wrote: post #6

> We are not in the business of picking which issues the world should read about. We are in the business of connecting people and ideas — and matching people with the stories they find most meaningful. Our integrity depends on being inclusive of all perspectives and view points, and using ranking to connect people with the stories and sources they find the most meaningful and engaging. Simply incredible. They are ass…

It's not just Facebook, but also Twitter and Reddit. The Republican guy that shot the pizza place in DC today was driven by a conspiracy theory marketed on Reddit. These social-media sites are literally dangerous.

Hardly any different than fanatic religions. Even the KKK gets freedom of speech and assembly. I think the problem with digital walled gardens is when the filter totally prevents critical thinking and sometimes even the ensuing cognitive dissonance. Most will resolve the dissonance via withdrawal, not changing their minds. But even withdrawal is better than escalation.

If the walled garden makes it easy for people to confuse belief and knowledge, it's a problem.

If people with kooky beliefs are repressed, it's also a problem.

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