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News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

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Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#91

Post by redthrowaway »

morgante wrote: post #89
redthrowaway wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Politifact will generally use the most generous possible reading of what a Democrat says, or the least generous reading of what a Republican says, when determining truth or falsehood. Take a look at these two stories: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/... http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/sep/... Now, the first story is simply true. Hillary Clinton did attack her…

> Hillary Clinton did attack her husband's mistresses and accusers, and there's a long history of documentation of that > But Politifact labels it "mostly false" because it was never proven to have come directly from her. These statements are mutually incompatible. There can't be a long history of documentation for something which is proven. Start your own fact-checker. Your examples just affirm that Politifact is do…

If all of your employees are doing one thing, it's safe to assume you've told them to, even if your fingerprints aren't on the proverbial gun. Your comment is exactly what I'm accusing politifact of: you're being as uncharitable as possible to the claim, ignoring common sense and plain language in order to find a reading of it you can say is false.

Thing is, you're not pretending to be impartial and non-partisan. Nor am I. Politifact is. When Politifact's standard of objectivity is indistinguishable from that of a reasonably intelligent random commenter on the Internet, that's a problem.

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#92

Post by organsnyder »

jackcosgrove wrote: post #24
pavanky wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the alternative? Right now the alternative is to add another layer of bias in between.

The alternative is to allow free and open communication that is unmediated, unannotated, and unmoderated by any authority, and to allow information consumers to decide what they should and should not read and believe themselves. It's the difference between the web and a walled garden. I get that FB is interested in mediating, annotating, and moderating content, since they are a walled garden. That's why I choose not…

That's a pipedream. There will always be human interference, whether it be direct, or a consequence of some humans' decisions regarding algorithm design.

As it is, Facebook's current (pre-fact-checking) algorithm prioritizes shallow engagement over other metrics. That leads to sensationalist clickbait receiving preferential treatment. Human decisions led to this outcome.

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#93

Post by throw2016 »

Nothing can help an ignorant or illiterate population. If that is your premise the next logical step is censorship and this is censorship.

How does the arrogant assumption of ignorant readers so weak willed they can be 'led ashtray' by 'fake news' even take hold? Do people really believe that 'other people' believe everything they read?

The ridiculous idea that people are naive is a fabricated construction designed to empower some while 'infantalising' the rest and is inherently anti-democratic.

Ordinary scepticism and not believing everything you read or hear is a basic human skill.

This fake news scare and blame 'Putin' for everything wrong in the world is so illiterate, juvenile and insulting to basic human intelligence and reflects something dangerously wrong in our media, politics and the tech community.

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#94

Post by r2dnb »

morgante wrote: post #85
r2dnb wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Facebook is this era's nightly news and, just like the nightly news, they have a right to avoid sharing crazy conspiracy theories and outright lies. I have no problem with that. I have a problem with them choosing what I can share with my friends, and more generally what people can share with each other. "Sorry it's fake news so we limited the reach". The problem is that they are not open. My only problem is opacity…

> I have no problem with that. I have a problem with them choosing what I can share with my friends, and more generally what people can share with each other. They're not policing what you share with your friends, just what you can do on their platform. They are under no obligation to provide infinite reach for whatever drivel you want to share. If you're sitting in a bar sharing racist anecdotes with your friends, t…

>It has nothing to do with what individual corporations can do.

My point was that we should pay attention as "citizens" because Freedom of Speech is / may be concerned. I wasn't trying to build a legal case with references accurate enough to be received by a judge. This is a about "Freedom of Speech" is the only thing I was trying to say.

>If you don't like what Facebook's policies, go share somewhere else

You're ignoring my point on the fact that FB is not a corporation like another. According to you Microsoft could have gotten away with : "People can use another OS" in the 90s, but this is not how things worked out. We need to respect law and understand why this kind of laws have been put in place. We paid a huge price before understandind why we needed them, repeating history will be expensive.

I can understand your point, I hope you could understand mine too even if you disagree.

Finally

>Will provide links to third-party analysis for any flagged stories, and list the criteria for third-party fact-checking. [0]

Thanks, this is interesting. Let's see how it turns out.

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#95

Post by dtjbfh »

eridius wrote: post #27
nostromo wrote: post #8

The timing of this makes it seem politically motivated. I've seen plenty of fake news on my liberal feed. Things like 9/11 conspiracy theories, anti-vaccination stories, stories about the dangers of genetically modified foods, etc.

Fake news was a massive problem this election cycle, and it really highlighted Facebook's large influence and their inability to actually do anything about it. So yes, Facebook dealing with fake news here is a reaction to what happened during the election, but that's not a bad thing. Fake news turns out to be a serious problem and it needs to be fixed, regardless of your political leanings. Edit: Why am I being downv…

There's no evidence that "fake news" is actually a serious problem, other than getting a lot of likes on Facebook. Seems to me "fake news" is an agenda-driven narrative by the mainstream media to salvage their waning reputation and discredit alternative media. For instance: https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post-disgrace...

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#96

Post by ghostly_s »

sigmar wrote: post #50
danso wrote: post #34

> We’ve found that a lot of fake news is financially motivated. Spammers make money by masquerading as well-known news organizations, and posting hoaxes that get people to visit to their sites, which are often mostly ads. So we’re doing several things to reduce the financial incentives. On the buying side we’ve eliminated the ability to spoof domains, which will reduce the prevalence of sites that pretend to be real…

I saw people share fake articles from that site on facebook. It is a big problem because non-technical people do not know that abcnews.com.co is a subdomain of com.co, not a subdomain of abcnews.com.

Isn't .com.co a second-level domain for Colombia?

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#97

Post by tyleraldrich »

r2dnb wrote: post #81
tyleraldrich wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It seems like citizens are no longer awake and fighting for the bill of rights" Nothing in the bill of rights applies here. You don't have freedom of speech on Facebook - They make the rules and decide what is allowed and not allowed. It's a company, not the US Government. If enough of their users are upset that fake news like "The Pope endorses Donald Trump" (a real example) is surfacing constantly on their news fe…

I just posted on an another thread that the problem here is that Facebook positionning / PR is to be say that they are a neutral agent. "Share what you want with your friends / family etc." This is why this case is different. If I use ExxonMobilBook, I kind of know what to expect of Greenpeace related stories. Given their size, extra-precaution needs to be taken. They either need to rollback, or make their agenda mor…

"They either need to rollback, or make their agenda more appearent."

That is an opinion. They, in reality, don't need to do anything, nor do they owe you anything. Just because their positioning/PR makes them seem neutral, that doesn't mean they are required to be. They don't need to take precaution, and I will eat my shoe if this decision is what causes Facebook to lose users. Fact of the matter is, 99.9% of users don't care, .09% are cool with facebook doing this, and .01% (you) want them to roll back.

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#98

Post by legostormtroopr »

morgante wrote: post #85
r2dnb wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Facebook is this era's nightly news and, just like the nightly news, they have a right to avoid sharing crazy conspiracy theories and outright lies. I have no problem with that. I have a problem with them choosing what I can share with my friends, and more generally what people can share with each other. "Sorry it's fake news so we limited the reach". The problem is that they are not open. My only problem is opacity…

> I have no problem with that. I have a problem with them choosing what I can share with my friends, and more generally what people can share with each other. They're not policing what you share with your friends, just what you can do on their platform. They are under no obligation to provide infinite reach for whatever drivel you want to share. If you're sitting in a bar sharing racist anecdotes with your friends, t…

> If you're sitting in a bar sharing racist anecdotes with your friends, that bar has the right to kick you out if they feel like.

Except for a lot of people there is no other bar. Your friends are in that bar, the bar has used their position to close other bars. And the only other bar still open is 20 miles away in a basement.

> If you don't like what Facebook's policies, go share somewhere else. There's even an alt-right social network you'll fit right in on.

The media is pushing the line "Alt-right == Nazi", so you are calling someone a Nazi because they have issues with Facebook controlling what their users see. After Facebook has already admitted to large scale manipulation of their users emotions[0].

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-...

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#99

Post by morgante »

legostormtroopr wrote: post #98
morgante wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have no problem with that. I have a problem with them choosing what I can share with my friends, and more generally what people can share with each other. They're not policing what you share with your friends, just what you can do on their platform. They are under no obligation to provide infinite reach for whatever drivel you want to share. If you're sitting in a bar sharing racist anecdotes with your friends, t…

> If you're sitting in a bar sharing racist anecdotes with your friends, that bar has the right to kick you out if they feel like. Except for a lot of people there is no other bar. Your friends are in that bar, the bar has used their position to close other bars. And the only other bar still open is 20 miles away in a basement. > If you don't like what Facebook's policies, go share somewhere else. There's even an alt…

There are tons of other bars. What exactly has Facebook done to close other bars?

Twitter is still around and very popular. So is Reddit. Heck, there's even a social network built just for people like you: https://gab.ai/

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#100

Post by jscheel »

The sad thing is, most people who share fake news will just claim that Facebook is now part of the Soros-Clinton conspiracy to support the MSM and hide the truth from the public. I like that they have a specific set of guidelines for determining the veracity of a news story, and I'm sure this will go a long way towards removing the financial incentive, but I'm guessing it won't sway many minds.
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