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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

#51

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?

This seems like something DNS providers would be better suited to handle, assuming its something you would want to stop.

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

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They played with flagging satirical articles back in 2014: http://mashable.com/2014/08/17/facebook-satire-tag/

I see a lot of comments on satire links that clearly demonstrate that large numbers of people can’t always spot satire. That possibly says more about the current cultural and political climate than it does about people’s gullibility though.

It's not Facebook's job to spot satire or fakes for people. Users expect a "common carrier" type experience, not news curation.

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

#53
post #39
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fake news" appears to be "news I don't like" and has no correlation with the accuracy of the content. Conveniently, Facebook seems to agree with many major media outlets about what news they don't like, so they can present their arbitrary definition of "fake" as objective and conveniently no one can break through the bubble to prove otherwise.

Some groups flat out make up news stories to fit some narrative. What else are you going to call that than 'fake news'? 'Candidate X comes out as gay.' 'Secret photos reveal candidate X at KKK lynching.' Are both rather over the top, but also the kind of lies that influence elections.

If you don't like that, you're going to hate the physical realm, where anyone can make any claim and you're left with nothing but your wits to discern the truth

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

#54
So how does Facebook really know if something is fake?

You can't trust user reports. They will say a story is fake when they don't like it.

You can't trust some worker in Bangladesh to determine this either just as easily as you can determine if something is NSFW.

You still can't trust AI.

So how? It hires specialists in each field to determine what is real and what is not?

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

#55

I guess Facebook gets to decide what is "False News". This is an egregious example of Doublespeak. All news to an extent is "false" and not necessarily true. We're truly fucked

We need to nationalize social media and turn it into a civil right to free speech, along with all the protections that goes with it.

As a libertarian I never thought I'd hear myself say that.

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

#56

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…

The game has changed. There are people with intolerant and twisted views trying to manipulate the naive herd of sheep who blindly follows whatever people like on Facebook.

Knowing the tactics of people behind fake news, it's good that Facebook is responding accordingly to punish and get rid of bad actors on their platform.

It's once again showing that we can't have pure anarcho decentralization. It would be a haven for bad actors that goes unpunished.

We can absolutely set definition for what is bad and what isn't bad. What is clearly bad is writing fake news about certain group of ethnic group you hate and manipulating others into believing your twisted idiosyncratic views about Jews, Hindus and Moors.

edit: there is some heavy downvote brigading going on here. I've alerted the mods.

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

#57
post #39
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fake news" appears to be "news I don't like" and has no correlation with the accuracy of the content. Conveniently, Facebook seems to agree with many major media outlets about what news they don't like, so they can present their arbitrary definition of "fake" as objective and conveniently no one can break through the bubble to prove otherwise.

Some groups flat out make up news stories to fit some narrative. What else are you going to call that than 'fake news'? 'Candidate X comes out as gay.' 'Secret photos reveal candidate X at KKK lynching.' Are both rather over the top, but also the kind of lies that influence elections.

You can find the same crap with slightly better spell checking by the checkout isles in the grocery store.

This isn't new.

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

#58
post #8

I hate the idea of information being filtered through Snopes. Why is a huge global corporation like FB using a dodgy divorced couple to decide who sees what, seems ridiculous to me. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4042194/Facebook-fac... AP has other issues to put it politely.

Wait, are you critiquing Snopes based on the personal lives of the people who run it, based on an article about them in a tabloid? Are you trolling?

If you were applying for a security clearance and the government discovered you had massive amounts of debt and lots of questionable history that's ripe for blackmail, you would likely be denied. That's because those things could be used as leverage against you to make you act immorally.

So yes, I'm quite interested in the personal lives of the people running a company about to be ordained as "the objective truth" by Facebook/Google/et al

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

#60
post #54

So how does Facebook really know if something is fake? You can't trust user reports. They will say a story is fake when they don't like it. You can't trust some worker in Bangladesh to determine this either just as easily as you can determine if something is NSFW. You still can't trust AI. So how? It hires specialists in each field to determine what is real and what is not?

This is the real issue. Sure, there's the whole thing about it being a slippery slope to straight up shadow banning or otherwise censoring users deemed as "purveyors of fake news", but that's further down the road.

How the hell are they going to measure this?

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