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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

#201
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote a reply to this asking about the alternate category of material which is both true/accurate and also intended to incite negative feelings. That comment was flagged to death. I guess that's the answer - it's not just "fake" news we want suppressed.

I read the post before it was removed. I don't agree with a lot of it (like declaring lists of things true and then qualifying individual items with "probably because"), but I get your point. You have to tread very carefully. A better example would be a statement made by Trump's recent pick for National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, in his book "The Field of Fight": "I don't believe all cultures are morally equiva…

The statement is a problem because it is so general that it is devoid of any useful meaning, but it rather works as a huge dog-whistle.

In the context of Flynn's other rhetoric, he's clearly referring to American Culture vs Islamic and other non European cultures. So why didn't he just state that directly, like you did? Why the "political correctness" around not using concrete examples of the "cultures" he is referring to? Probably because he is trying to maintain the thinnest possible veneer of plausible deniability of bigotry by avoiding making those references to specific cultures.

However, even if you take his statement in isolation, how do you measure the morality of something as large as a "culture" anyway? Do you take the laws of a country that represses a huge number of it's citizens, like Saudi Arabia? There are huge numbers of individuals who do not subscribe to the "morality" of the culture that the world associates them with.

Over-generalizing about cultures and denying individuals in those cultures moral agency is one step on the path to justification of terrible acts against them.

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

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There should be a way for us to navigate different bubbles, to inhabit different, neutral profiles to explore other niches of population Twitter is the app for that. Set up lists of different individuals so you can switch between different viewpoints in two clicks. No need to follow anybody on your list. It's actually fascinating to do so. Watch 'the reality' of a current or political event contort as you switch fr…

I'm surprised that more people don't know about lists, it seems like Twitter doesn't promote it as much as they should.

Weird, I don't even know about Twitter Lists, but then again I don't use Twitter much. It would be very convenient!

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

#203
post #99
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, people can perfectly continue to blame Facebook for these problem It's just scapegoating. It's useless and a waste of time. The time you spend blaming Facebook is the time you don't spend actually fixing what should be fixed : creating an healthy environment for debate. Blaming this or that website is easy and it doesn't solve anything. Quitting the extremist views, quitting calling people morons,trolls,doucheb…

On the contrary, I think it is crucial for us to fight against websites selling audiences. Fake news exists because they are able to sell ads on their pages, and they are profitable because they attract people, creating feelings, outrage, unreasonable reactions that feeds the pre-existing bias in the whole population. Fighting these should be cutting their revenue streams. Google did just that, but it is a survival m…

Great comment!

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

#204
post #114
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Click the Like button on a Page that challenges your beliefs, interact with that information and you'll see more of it. That's precisely the problem with it. I'd like to read more on extremists groups and see how and why they exists, what kind of people they are, why do they think the way they do, what their fight is in our society. This is the first step to build a dialog. However, "liking" their pages is out of q…

> However, "liking" their pages is out of question. I will not support them, I will not help them further their propaganda, their hateful rhetoric. I would like to understand them, but in no way do I want to support them.

Consider the possibility that if you and your friends "liked" pages of "extremist" groups that you disagree with, then when they pay to boost a post, part of that money will be wasted on showing it to you. So while you are supporting them (by making it seem like more people like their page), you are also weighing on them financially. Not a huge impact in either case, but worth considering both sides of the coin.

I agree that there should be a way to follow-without-liking. That would make it possible for advertisers to use clickfarms to impair their competitors, by flooding them with fake followers who then suck up the competitors' advertising dollars. There's always an unintended consequence!

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

#205
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…

> connecting people to show only what they like

But should Facebook decide what I should be shown for my own good? Because I mostly just really don't want to see what Facebook doesn't show me.

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

#206

Another article that avoids talking about the root cause because it's too unpalatable. Blaming facebook is misguided. Free speech is inherently incompatible with news.

Care to elaborate? I'm willing to accept the idea that market forces / consumer demand is inherently incompatible with the news but free speech?

Most people have preferences for belief that prioritize other factors above truth. They are served by false or misleading news. Any attempt to distinguish this "fake news" from real news is contradictory to free speech.

In short, people don't want news. News has to be forced on them, which is anti-freedom.

In theory, you could also address this by making sure reality aligns with the ideal state of every person who consumes news, but come on.

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

#207
post #201
post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the post before it was removed. I don't agree with a lot of it (like declaring lists of things true and then qualifying individual items with "probably because"), but I get your point. You have to tread very carefully. A better example would be a statement made by Trump's recent pick for National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, in his book "The Field of Fight": "I don't believe all cultures are morally equiva…

The statement is a problem because it is so general that it is devoid of any useful meaning, but it rather works as a huge dog-whistle. In the context of Flynn's other rhetoric, he's clearly referring to American Culture vs Islamic and other non European cultures. So why didn't he just state that directly, like you did? Why the "political correctness" around not using concrete examples of the "cultures" he is referri…

Flynn does go on in the book and explicitly state Islamic (don't recall if it mentions Islamist) culture is "evil", etc. I specifically mention a country rather than a extremist group. So he's not really hiding behind much.

> how do you measure the morality of something as large as a "culture" anyway?

Well, you can't. At least, not without being in terms of your own culture. That is, culture defines morals, in my opinion.

But I see no problem in pointing out these problems--as long as you don't go as far as pre-emptively accusing individuals or demanding they account for them. Eg., accosting Scientologists over Scientology.

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

#208
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I wrote a reply to this asking about the alternate category of material which is both true/accurate and also intended to incite negative feelings. That comment was flagged to death. I guess that's the answer - it's not just "fake" news we want suppressed.

Well, there's "true" and there's "an accurate summary of events".

I could sift through arrest records in my city and publish a list of Group X (let's pick an established group, like Italians) and make them look like monsters. But that's just a framing exercise.

For instance, the immigrant rape issue. Yes, of course many immigrants have committed sexual assaults. But are they more numerous per-capita, or more vicious? I see sources saying they're rape machines, and others saying it's all made up, but I don't see anything believable that says "Yes, and 2% more than ..."

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

#209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate? I'm willing to accept the idea that market forces / consumer demand is inherently incompatible with the news but free speech?

Most people have preferences for belief that prioritize other factors above truth. They are served by false or misleading news. Any attempt to distinguish this "fake news" from real news is contradictory to free speech. In short, people don't want news. News has to be forced on them, which is anti-freedom. In theory, you could also address this by making sure reality aligns with the ideal state of every person who co…

Yeah I agree with this. The problem is people want their biases confirmed and don't actually want news. One solution is the gov't "regulating" the news to make sure the people get their informational vegetables which is clearly a violation of freedom of the press/speech.

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

#210
post #50

> 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…

> If we're not seeing it, it's probably because we don't want to.

This is the big problem for me. I have struggled with Facebook for years because I really do want my friend's unfiltered feeds. In the end it just became impossible. I would have conversation after conversation where people told me they had posted something but I just never got to see it.

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