Facebook’s Walled Wonderland Is Inherently Incompatible with News • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by JumpCrisscross » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 10:36 AM UTC

andrewvijay wrote: post #14

mozumder wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> My mum uses FB everyday

Facebook has 1.7 billion users; that is more than Twitter's 313 million and Reddit'a tens of millions [1].

I am agreeing with your point, in this limited case, albeit not with how you're making it.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-net...

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

#72

Post by k-mcgrady » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 10:43 AM UTC

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."

No, people and politicians are killing democracy.

People choose to get their news from unreliable sources. They act like they care about an issue yet only know the headline. But they can sign an online petition and post it on social media so they look and feel good.

Politicians can openly lie on the largest of stages. When called out on it (which rarely happens) they can stick to their lie despite opposing evidence. And they win because of it. A good example of this was the claim during Brexit that £350m per week would go to the NHS if we left the EU. After the referendum was over one of the leading figures admitted on TV that the claim was BS. When you can win by openly lying to the people, why wouldn't you? I think in situations like this elections/votes should be re-run.

My point is that Facebook has nothing to do with democracy. There are plenty of alternative news sources, some that are even reliable, and people instead get their news on Facebook because they don't actually care.

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

#73

Post by k-mcgrady » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 10:47 AM UTC

rgbrgb wrote: post #68

fleitz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it up to the viewer not the publisher to decide what is trustworthy? Perhaps when major media get so many real stories about democracy wrong and the alt media get them right it's time to stop trusting the people getting things wrong and start trusting the people getting things right. Fuck, even the NYT had to recommit itself to journalism their reporting this year was so bad. 'As we reflect on the momentous res…

> Isn't it up to the viewer not the publisher to decide what is trustworthy? If we want to have healthy democracy, it's up to all of us to figure out how to get every citizen to consume factual information and let them know when they're being lied to. That's a Hard Problem with an incredibly valuable solution. To me it seems like FB is well positioned to play a role here. They've figured out how to get a huge populat…

>> "If we want to have healthy democracy, it's up to all of us to figure out how to get every citizen to consume factual information and let them know when they're being lied to."

What do you do when the people don't actually care? IMO people don't want their views challenged. They're happier when they accept stuff they agree with and can get up on their high horse about stuff they disagree with (signing the odd petition or two). I've been shocked by people I know who are very well educated that don't know about major news stories, even ones that effect the field they're in. And when I explain the story to them, they don't care.

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

#74

Post by bionsuba » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 10:47 AM UTC

Hideo Kojima keeps getting proved right:

    But in the current, digitized world, trivial information is accumulating every second.
    Preserved in all its triteness.
    Never fading, always accessible.
    The digital society furthers human flaws and selectively rewards development of convenient half-truths.
    You exercise your right to "freedom" and this is the result.
    All rhetoric to avoid conflict and protect each other from hurt.
    The untested truths spun by different interests continue to churn and accumulate in the sandbox of political correctness and value systems.
    Everyone withdraws into their own small gated community, afraid of a larger forum.
    They stay inside their little ponds, leaking whatever "truth" suits them into the growing cesspool of society at large.
    The different cardinal truths neither clash nor mesh.
    No one is invalidated, but nobody is right.
    Not even natural selection can take place here. The world is being engulfed in "truth."

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

#75

Post by pjc50 » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 10:48 AM UTC

k-mcgrady wrote: post #72

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." No, people and politicians are killing democracy. People choose to get their news from unreliable sources. They act like they care about an issue yet only know the headline. But they can sign an online petition and post it on social media so they look and feel good. Politicians can openly lie on the largest of stages. When called out on it (which rarely happ…

Indeed. Fake news sarts at the top. From today's Mail:

"Now for Italexit! Italian Prime Minister resigns after EU referendum loss" https://twitter.com/MailOnline/status/805670033875726336

.. except that the referendum has nothing to do with the EU, it was about internal constitutional change, and Italy is no closer to leaving the EU.

People read the Mail and Express because they don't care about whether their news is reliable, reasonable or democratic.

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

#76

Post by mozumder » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 10:49 AM UTC

briandear wrote: post #67

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.

Any proof it was a "Republican?" The WaPo story made no mention of political party. Do we say "Democrat guy" when referring to the Orlando shooter? He actually was a Democrat. James Holmes who shot up the Colorado movie theater -- also a registered Democrat and even volunteered for the Obama campaign. Andrew Stack who flew his plane into the Austin IRS building -- was a supporter of communism. John Patrick Bedell who…

> Any proof it was a "Republican?"

Yes. His party registration. https://voterrecords.com/voter/49988317/edgar-welch

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

#77

Post by pjc50 » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 10:51 AM UTC

fleitz wrote: post #53

pg314 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 'In any normal election year, we’d compare the two presidential candidates side by side on the issues.' You're lifting one sentence out of context. The rest of the paragraph reads [1]: "In any normal election year, we’d compare the two presidential candidates side by side on the issues. But this is not a normal election year. A comparison like that would be an empty exercise in a race where one candidate — our choi…

If they weren't publishing bullshit why are they rededicating themselves to journalism? Shouldn't they instead be saying, 'We got everything right, we reported all the facts, like the polls sampling Dems and women @ 60%, and Hillary lost surprising absolutely no one with a rudimentary understanding that the population of the US is 50/50 male / female' The context always was that this wasn't a normal election year and…

> Alt-media is believed because it resonates with the overall feeling people get from the news, which is why the times had to do a mea culpa on the election because they lied so much that after Clinton lost even their base knew that they were just making shit up with no regard to reality which is why Trump won because proper defenses couldn't be put in place because the NYT was blatantly lying to everyone about Trump's chances in hopes that people would just believe Hillary was going to win and stay home.

I hate to sound like Grammar Clippy, but: consider using more than one comma or breaking all those subclauses into separate sentences.

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

#78

Post by caconym_ » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 10:52 AM UTC

welanes wrote: post #50

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…

> They are asserting themselves only as a business and not emotional influencers...The emotional influences that facebook brings in people is very powerful. The same could be said of TV networks, Spotify, Twitter, Google photos. We are the catalyst that turn stories, music, photos into emotional reactions. We control the dials. Facebook makes it incredibly easy to step outside our bubbles. Click the Like button on a…

People aren't rational. We're riddled with cognitive biases and bugs, and prone to addictive/self-destructive behavior. This is true whether or not you think people are "responsible" for these flaws, whatever that means to you.

We should be talking about how our media, including the social kind, can best convey useful, accurate information and stimulate critical thinking. Throwing up our hands and blaming people for being manipulated by algorithms that are basically designed to put them in "bubbles" simply isn't constructive.

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

#79

Post by pjc50 » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 10:54 AM UTC

camillomiller wrote: post #24

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.

Well, what's dangerous is that those sites operate in country where getting a gun is so damn easy

I'm kind of surprised that the interaction between bonkers US conspiracy politics and actual shootings is so _low_. It's as if the beliefs have a sort of ritual status that "everybody knows" they're not expected to act on.

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

#80

Post by thatfrenchguy » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 10:55 AM UTC

Ygg2 wrote: post #51

I have a huge problem with this article. I don't think anything it says cannot be applied to people using Internet without Facebook or Google. Internet is the filter bubble. Facebook is just its latest upgrade.

Media is the filter bubble :-)