News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News • Hacker News Board

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#101

Post by jwtadvice » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 9:15 PM UTC

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…

Facebook censored me when I tried to share the Snowden Documents.

I barely trusted them before and haven't trusted them since.

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#102

Post by jwtadvice » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 9:19 PM UTC

_dark_matter_ wrote: post #57

basch wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

would these measures end up blocking something like a modest proposal

A Modest Proposal is not, and never was, "News". It is opinion.

Most news is (unfortunately) nothing more than opinion. Either the opinion of "an unnamed official", the opinion of a contributor, the opinion of a sponsor, or the opinion of an editor.

Take the recent opinions of anonymous officials that Russia's objective in leaking DNC corruption was to get Trump elected. That's being reported on as news and fact, with the opinion aspect of it turned down to obscurity.

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#103

Post by halpiamaquark » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 9:19 PM UTC

morgante wrote: post #35

halpiamaquark wrote: post #32

The kosher fact checkers list includes the biased and opinion-based Politifact and Snopes.

Let me guess: any source which doesn't corroborate your worldview is biased.

Politifact and Snopes push their opinionated worldview as though it is objectively true and morally righteous.

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#104

Post by jwtadvice » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 9:25 PM UTC

mozumder wrote: post #77

seanca wrote: post #52

Facebook seems to be stumbling down the same page that Twitter did here in terms of attempting to regulate some content, by means that they themselves determines to be un-biased and in the best interests of users... which hasn't quite worked out so well for Twitter. If everything is fine and unmoderated, there is no bias. If some things are flagged, not allowed, etc, I don't care how much a 3rd party is trusted. It's…

Unmoderation = infinite spam.

Spam platform = infinite spam.

Facebook makes its money from spam, as do the news.

Because they've lost credibility there's this new huge reach to label things as condoned or not. That's not going to solve the ultimate problem, which is that the information industry has become a platform where the highest spam bidder wins dissemination on the platform, rather than what spam is shared by people.

This is just one more step in the centralization of control of social media. There's still going to be plenty of spam, it just has to pay the gatekeeper (Facebook) or otherwise be on its good side.

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#105

Post by halpiamaquark » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 9:25 PM UTC

st3v3r wrote: post #38

halpiamaquark wrote: post #32

The kosher fact checkers list includes the biased and opinion-based Politifact and Snopes.

They aren't. You'll have to provide evidence for your claim.

Let's see some statistical analysis that the fact checkers FB claims are disinterested arbiters of fact aren't in fact pushing an agenda before we go along with censorship maybe.

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#106

Post by seanca » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 9:59 PM UTC

jwtadvice wrote: post #104

mozumder wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unmoderation = infinite spam.

Spam platform = infinite spam. Facebook makes its money from spam, as do the news. Because they've lost credibility there's this new huge reach to label things as condoned or not. That's not going to solve the ultimate problem, which is that the information industry has become a platform where the highest spam bidder wins dissemination on the platform, rather than what spam is shared by people. This is just one more…

Exactly. What someone else might call spam, Facebook might call "great news."

If having free speech produces "infinite spam", then that's a byproduct worth the benefits of not being limited on what ideas are ok to say and what ideas are not.

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#107

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 10:19 PM UTC

morgante wrote: post #61

r2dnb wrote: post #55

Remember : - It all started with Facebook being accused of manipulating the timeline to remove conservative stories during the campaign - At the time, their PR was along the lines of : we will fire the staff and replace it with an "objective" algorithm - Shortly before the end of the campaign, the Fake News narrative started to be tested under various forms ("conspiracy theories are going mainstream", "damaging rumor…

First of all, you have the chronology right but the causation wrong. After conservative pressure to stop editorially reviewing news, fake news has increasingly trended. Since the election, people have realized how untenable this is and so Facebook is looking for a solution. This has nothing to do with the bill of rights. Facebook is not the government, government is not requiring fake news to be censored, and the fac…

[deleted]

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#108

Post by DrScump » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 10:22 PM UTC

morgante wrote: post #61

r2dnb wrote: post #55

Remember : - It all started with Facebook being accused of manipulating the timeline to remove conservative stories during the campaign - At the time, their PR was along the lines of : we will fire the staff and replace it with an "objective" algorithm - Shortly before the end of the campaign, the Fake News narrative started to be tested under various forms ("conspiracy theories are going mainstream", "damaging rumor…

First of all, you have the chronology right but the causation wrong. After conservative pressure to stop editorially reviewing news, fake news has increasingly trended. Since the election, people have realized how untenable this is and so Facebook is looking for a solution. This has nothing to do with the bill of rights. Facebook is not the government, government is not requiring fake news to be censored, and the fac…

  This has nothing to do with the bill of rights.

Agreed.

  You don't have an inalienable right to spread
  whatever political lie you want

In the U.S., you do. "Real" media do it all the time. There are laws against making slanderous or libelous statements against individuals and entities, but every American has the right to say, "the moon landings were faked and greens are smarter than libertarians" if they want.

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#109

Post by morgante » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 10:26 PM UTC

DrScump wrote: post #108

morgante wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all, you have the chronology right but the causation wrong. After conservative pressure to stop editorially reviewing news, fake news has increasingly trended. Since the election, people have realized how untenable this is and so Facebook is looking for a solution. This has nothing to do with the bill of rights. Facebook is not the government, government is not requiring fake news to be censored, and the fac…

This has nothing to do with the bill of rights. Agreed. You don't have an inalienable right to spread whatever political lie you want In the U.S., you do. "Real" media do it all the time. There are laws against making slanderous or libelous statements against individuals and entities, but every American has the right to say, "the moon landings were faked and greens are smarter than libertarians" if they want.

You dropped the most important part of that quote: "to millions of people."

You're free to go on any street corner and rant about the moon landings. Facebook just isn't under any obligation to give you a platform to reach millions of people with that.

Re: News Feed FYI: Addressing Hoaxes and Fake News

#110

Post by DrScump » Thu, Dec 15, 2016, 10:29 PM UTC

floatrock wrote: post #56

gfodor wrote: post #4

ok, so now the obvious question becomes, who fact checks the fact checkers? i don't blame facebook, but the people that have been asking for this i guess are about to get what they deserve: more consolidation of the power of persuasion of the masses into the hands of facebook. want to instantly discredit a story? just UPDATE stories SET disputed = t WHERE ID = ?

> who fact checks the fact checkers? Who polices the police? Who governs the government? Who grants authority to the authorities? In western democracies, ideally the answer is all the same: the people. Ideally, once a power broker starts to lose credibility, they start to lose their power. And that's really what this is about. Facebook has lost credibility given the ease these new social technologies have been co-opt…

"fact checkers comes from community consensus on the legitimacy of fact checkers..."

There's a danger there. "Community consensus" condemned Galileo when he dared mention a heliocentric solar system, for one example. Did that make the Earth-centered solar system "fact"?