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

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

#131

Post by ohstopitu » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 1:48 PM 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…

funny enough, I have extended family in India that went through the entire process and had lots of issues, but even then, I only heard praises of the govt's efforts, nothing against it.

After you mentioned, I decided to look up news against the effort and I realized there was a lot of news against it but it not only didn't appear on my Facebook, but also on Twitter and Reddit (one of the few places where I expected to see opposing view points).

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

#132

Post by matt4077 » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 1:50 PM UTC

stale2002 wrote: post #32

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?

Whoa bro, send your authoritarianism elsewhere please. The people with power who try to screw over society for their own benefit always go with the same argument. I know best, so please give me all the power so I can use it to enrich myself.

You could make an argument that the elites of the past didn't do the worst job. The media was surprisingly independent (i. e.Watergate), and even the candidates for President were – for the most part – quite respectable even when they were decided on in smoke-filled back rooms.

I know it's fundamentally undemocratic. But pragmatically it wasn't the worst. Another example would be the trust people (used to) have in the Supreme Court. For most of the 20th century, it was the most rigorous intellectual and moral institution, even though it's the least democratic.

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

#133

Post by Pigo » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 1:51 PM UTC

herbst wrote: post #104

This is just getting more stupid everday. Facebook is no and never was a news platform. It is a crappy social network and only reflects your inner friend circle. Why anyone and especially facebook should care about fake news is beyond me.

I think people who are so concerned about Facebook policies and practices are way too invested in it, and should focus on spending less time on it. It's just a platform for showing grandma pictures of the kids, providing ex's a means to stalk you, and check out the latest virtue signaling. Anyone using it as a primary news source is doing everything else wrong too. I don't expect Facebook to start restructuring just because people are still looking for a scapegoat.

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

#134

Post by edblarney » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 1:52 PM UTC

I do not accept the author's premise that 'personalized curation' inherently implies 'false news'.

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

#135

Post by edblarney » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 1:55 PM UTC

herbst wrote: post #104

This is just getting more stupid everday. Facebook is no and never was a news platform. It is a crappy social network and only reflects your inner friend circle. Why anyone and especially facebook should care about fake news is beyond me.

This is valid.

Facebook might have a 'moral responsibility' on a civic level, to address issues within it's community, but ultimately, if people are choosing what they are going to read, well then so bit it.

Suppose someone invented an 'open ranking' system whereby news and content from various sties was socially ranked, but wherein there was no 'central platform' ... we would see the same thing but have nobody to blame.

If e-mail had bee designed just a little bit differently - and it was more identity/socially oriented, more conducive to 'sharing' ... then again, we'd have nobody to blame but that form of 'email' - not an organization.

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

#136

Post by edblarney » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 1:57 PM UTC

ivanhoe wrote: post #42

How is this different from news sites? They also earn the most of money from advertisers and the main criteria for those advertisers are page views. We still completely lack a viable internet business model that would strongly encourage the quality and not quantity...

Well, one 'difference' is that many 'real news' sites are going out of business :)

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

#137

Post by rimantas » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 1:58 PM UTC

The urge to flag any post that has "Walled X" in it gets stronger every day.

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

#138

Post by yummyfajitas » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 1:59 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #123

noxToken wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The stuff that goes round on facebook is often both hyper-partisan and low quality, because people are sharing it for group-belonging purposes not for use as facts. This is only tangentially related. This is why the pieces lambasting Tomi Lahran saying that views like here don't deserve a platform are, in my opinion, wrong.[0] It was the 2nd second result after searching for that interview, and I've seen it shared…

> inciting violence I don't think there's actually a clear dividing line for this, especially when we consider "dog whistle politics" and things like the notorious "blood libel", Protocols of the Elders of Zion , etc; there's definitely a category of material which is both false/misleading and intended to incite prejudice against a particular group - but stops short of mentioning actual violence.

What about material that's true but is also hateful?

The thing I've discovered is that a lot of "racist" and "hateful" blogs tend to be reasonably accurate - often more so than the mainstream media on their topics of interest. Typical facts they like to discuss:

- Black on white crime is far more common than the reverse, and far more common than police shootings.

- Black people underperform whites educationally and this is probably NOT due to things like poverty (e.g. on the SAT, blacks with $200k/year family income perform about the same as whites with $20k income).

- Muslim immigrants in Europe seem to commit a lot of sexual violence against white women, and European police often play it down to avoid seeming racist.

These are all true facts (I can cite sources if you like, but we shouldn't derail the discussion for it), but sites that spread this stuff are very often quite hateful.

It would be great if the "bad guys" were all liars and the "good guys" were completely truthful. But in reality that's just not the case.

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

#139

Post by herbst » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 2:03 PM UTC

edblarney wrote: post #135

herbst wrote: post #104

This is just getting more stupid everday. Facebook is no and never was a news platform. It is a crappy social network and only reflects your inner friend circle. Why anyone and especially facebook should care about fake news is beyond me.

This is valid. Facebook might have a 'moral responsibility' on a civic level, to address issues within it's community, but ultimately, if people are choosing what they are going to read, well then so bit it. Suppose someone invented an 'open ranking' system whereby news and content from various sties was socially ranked, but wherein there was no 'central platform' ... we would see the same thing but have nobody to bl…

Exactly. If you are in a specific subreddit for example it is also biased. Even the "all" page is biased because reddit is reddit, but no one complains.

I assume also because people on reddit realize reddit is just a tool and not build their lives a round it which seems to be the case with a lot of facebook users.

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

#140

Post by herbst » Mon, Dec 05, 2016, 2:04 PM UTC

Pigo wrote: post #133

herbst wrote: post #104

This is just getting more stupid everday. Facebook is no and never was a news platform. It is a crappy social network and only reflects your inner friend circle. Why anyone and especially facebook should care about fake news is beyond me.

I think people who are so concerned about Facebook policies and practices are way too invested in it, and should focus on spending less time on it. It's just a platform for showing grandma pictures of the kids, providing ex's a means to stalk you, and check out the latest virtue signaling. Anyone using it as a primary news source is doing everything else wrong too. I don't expect Facebook to start restructuring just…

Exactly. Lets assume the onion is suddenly the main news source for a majority even thought they are open about beeing fake. Where is the problem? If people choose to live in their bubble its their choice.