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Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

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Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#41

Post by menacingly »

The risk here is not that the system will have bad goals, it's that it's easy for manipulation to redefine the core terms used to classify "bad" content. Even now, we regularly see even clear terms like "correct" or "incorrect" applied by fact-checking websites through a fairly biased lens.

This is not a partisan issue, when you start down the road of handing the keys to shaping public thought to a powerful party, you're there when the power changes too.

This is no different than being able to tell when someone is bullshitting just as you walk through every day life, and thinking we need to shield the poor naive populace from harmful ideas is borderline stereotypical paternalism.

This is all obviously a big deal to old media, who have made an art not out of sharing incorrect truths, but of very selectively sharing truths, to the point that what emerges does not really represent the truth at all. They didn't lie, but they aggressively shaped. Of course democratic access to the pieces they'd rather suppress (on both sides) threatens that model. They'd love us to toss out this particular bath water.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#43

Post by MBCook »

kumarvvr wrote: post #18

It is unfortunate that platforms like Facebook have become the beacons of pessimism. I am talking in the context of the usage of social media tools to harm society, rather than help it. For me, FB, TW, etc have become unreliable sources of news. Here, FB is trying to limit ads from pages that share false news, but who will decide that?? 1. FB - Leads to a dangerous slippery slope of putting too much power into a sing…

> ...dangerous slippery slope of putting too much power into a single,private, profit-seeking entity.

That's the problem. We're ALREADY THERE. It happened years ago. It's not a slippery slope, it's the thing behind us. And that's not even mentioning Google.

At least they're trying (VERY late, if you ask me). They could have chosen to let it continue and profit off it. After all we know it makes lots of clicks and ad revenue.

We can't pretend his is something that's about to happen. It HAPPENED.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#44

Post by ctdonath »

I've followed social media for a long time (starting back when one could actually read every single Usenet post daily).

There is a definite life cycle to social media sites. Those reaching the "too big to fail" stage are usually about to. AOL, CompuServe, MySpace, etc were all indominately massive juggernauts reaching to take over the media world - and vanished almost overnight. The sudden influx of editorial censorship in Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc is a clue that a large number of legitimate users (who just happen to hold differing expressions of differing views) are facing the option of leaping to another up-and-coming site. Between that, boredom with format limitations, and an otherwise growing sentiment of malaise, I'm seeing the signs that FB etc won't be with us much longer.

And no, it's not "different this time". It's the same this time.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#45

Post by SCHiM »

I really really doubt that this is going to have any effect at all. Although many are septic of the attribution of "actual cyber attacks", I doubt that that skepticism can be stretched to include the disinformation/fud spread by the West or Russia.

That is to say (although it might not be the case now) that these websites/accounts are not dependent on ads for funding or growing their audience. This might cut down on lazy journalism (or churnalism as it's called) but as soon as the free proxies for the disinformation dry up, a couple of 'funded-behind-the-scenes' will take their place.

As for stopping the growth of the respective perpetrators audiences, likely also ineffective. There's a bunch of alternative platforms that lend themselves very well to fud spreading, twitter or a google search come to mind. Ultimately people, once converted, want to read and talk about the latest and greatest evil of . No need to take out ads, your friends will want to tell you.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#46

Post by MBCook »

So you can't buy ads to bring people to your page.

How about you can't monetize your page? How about every time you do this you get shut down for X time (hours?) and it doubles every time you reoffend within a short amount of time. One or two free strikes.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#47

Post by samstave »

bluetidepro wrote: post #2

This is really interesting. I wonder how it will effect Pages that are known for sarcastic/satire type of content on purpose. Pages like The Onion, Hard Times, etc. I feel like there would have to be a lot of work in the fact-checking part of this. At what point will it be too manual of a process, or will the algorithm start to fail on these "grey" areas? Also, it's nice to see Facebook implement a feature solely for…

Don't forget this infamous onion revelation, way before Snowden:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ380SHZvYU

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#49

Post by stcredzero »

menacingly wrote: post #41

The risk here is not that the system will have bad goals, it's that it's easy for manipulation to redefine the core terms used to classify "bad" content. Even now, we regularly see even clear terms like "correct" or "incorrect" applied by fact-checking websites through a fairly biased lens. This is not a partisan issue, when you start down the road of handing the keys to shaping public thought to a powerful party, yo…

This is all obviously a big deal to old media, who have made an art not out of sharing incorrect truths, but of very selectively sharing truths, to the point that what emerges does not really represent the truth at all. They didn't lie, but they aggressively shaped.

Well and empirically demonstrated in the 80's by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky.

http://a.co/7VVDGJz

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#50

Post by [deleted] »

gcatalfamo wrote: post #22

I think it's kinda pointless. By definition, false news generate some kind of shock feeling that urge people to comment and share the link, creating a viral loop of people (a digital angry mob) fueling the false content as real. Blocking it to be advertised might - just might - slow its viral expansion. Is that the best FB can do about this?

[deleted]
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