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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

#101

Post by graphitezepp »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #57
Retric wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I find it actually kinda worrying that many seem to have a perception that making up news is a new thing. The only thing that has changed is the volume of information, people in control of news sources have been lying since time immemorial.

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

#102

Post by ctdonath »

659087 wrote: post #71
ctdonath wrote: post #44

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 censors…

None of those previous platforms had anywhere near the reach Facebook has, or the amount of control Facebook has over the private and public communications and content seen by their users.

Yup. Was astounding that AOL bought Time Warner Communications, no previous platform had anywhere near the reach, nor the amount of control over private & public communications and content seen by others.

Scale may differ, but principles remain exactly the same.

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

#103

Post by kumarvvr »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #67
briholt wrote: 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.

If anyone wants an example of this, look at the coverage of the crowd size at Trump's inauguration. That's still held up as the canonical example of the Trump administration's "alternative facts" (in fact that's when the phrase was coined, I believe). But there's high resolution video of the crowds during the ceremony that clearly contradicts the photos of sparse crowds. I also think the guy is a lying moron, but the…

Great example. FB is becoming a tool to assault rationality of gullible people ( mind you, I am an engineer, good exposure to various news sources, etc and I too have fallen for certain news articles), its extremely effective at nudging people into a fantasy comfort zone, and hold them there. The strength of its algorithm increases as a person is nudged further.

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

#104

Post by gscott »

TallGuyShort wrote: post #67
briholt wrote: 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.

If anyone wants an example of this, look at the coverage of the crowd size at Trump's inauguration. That's still held up as the canonical example of the Trump administration's "alternative facts" (in fact that's when the phrase was coined, I believe). But there's high resolution video of the crowds during the ceremony that clearly contradicts the photos of sparse crowds. I also think the guy is a lying moron, but the…

The crowds up close in the ceremony but further out Obama had more overflow.

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

#105

Post by arrrg »

jdc0589 wrote: post #63
zorked wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phenomenon we're talking about here isn't one that causes profound ontological and ethical questions. We're talking about simple, obvious bullshit.

for now. people are unsettled because this is a classic slippery slope situation, or it has the potential to be anyway.

Slippery slope arguments are not particularly convincing. You need strong argumentative support to make it plausible and work.

Just saying “A may be harmless but will lead to the unintended consequence of B” is just not at all convincing, as are most of the times slippery slope arguments are used.

Make no mistake, slippery slopes do actually exist, but that’s not some kind of automatic mechanism that always kicks in. If someone makes a slippery slope argument I want them to show me that those consequences are actually plausible.

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

#106

Post by dragonwriter »

wooter wrote: post #61
quoquoquo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

sad to me that people are so quick to dismiss the principles of free speech on the basis that "the game has changed" after thousands of years of human history proving it hasn't. (inb4 1st amendment is only for the gov - that is a selective truth. the principles of free speech exist outside of government.)

> the principles of free speech exist outside of government

The principle of free speech is that actors who are not exercising the monopoly, coercive power of government are free to choose which views to express or relay, and that persuasion not obligation (legal, moral, or otherwise) of some actors to neutrality will determine the success of ideas in spreading.

The concept of free speech does not involve some private actors being entitled to other private actors’ resources.

(There is a legitimate issue with some “private” actors being really public actors where the structure of property rights and natural features of the market for certain infrastructure creates monopolies or oligopolies on essential mechanisms of communication.)

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

#107

Post by gmarx »

ctdonath wrote: post #44

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 censors…

I'm not ready to say fail but Facebook is not what it was. I go to it out of habit now and think very carefully before I post anything...then usually decide not to. It's boring. I think it will hang around like that land line phone number you had growing up (yes, I'm old. What of it?) but eventually your parents move to Florida and that number is gone. Facebook seems likely to degenerate into an old people's online contact list app

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

#108

Post by Daishiman »

wooter wrote: post #61
quoquoquo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

sad to me that people are so quick to dismiss the principles of free speech on the basis that "the game has changed" after thousands of years of human history proving it hasn't. (inb4 1st amendment is only for the gov - that is a selective truth. the principles of free speech exist outside of government.)

What do you mean? The thousands of years of human history have shown, if anything, that most institutions have heavily regulated speech and there's really no corrlation between institutional or societal success and free speech.

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

#109

Post by wu-ikkyu »

quoquoquo wrote: post #76
wooter wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sad to me that people are so quick to dismiss the principles of free speech on the basis that "the game has changed" after thousands of years of human history proving it hasn't. (inb4 1st amendment is only for the gov - that is a selective truth. the principles of free speech exist outside of government.)

So do you support people manipulating and creating fake news but not the people who are trying to prevent it from happening? Facebook can absolutely kick out people who don't behave on their platform. Playing the freedom of speech card doesn't work when you actively try to oppress other's freedom of speech through tactical manipulation. Punishing individuals and groups who willfully and knowingly engage in spreading…

>Punishing individuals and groups who willfully and knowingly engage in spreading information containing false facts concocted to support their intolerant views is absolutely necessary to protect freedom of speech

Punishing people for spreading information you don't like in the name of protecting free speech is double speak

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

#110

Post by Daishiman »

wooter wrote: post #99
MBCook wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...after thousands of years of human history proving it hasn't. People couldn't manipulate millions of others as easily. You couldn't even REACH millions of people easily. And you had to be an actual authority figure to be given that power (perhaps a corrupt practice but still). The communications landscape is quite different from 2000, remarkably different from 1980, extremely different from 1960, a world away fro…

so how did Hitler rise? How did freedom of speech treat the West at the time? How did the opposite help Europe?

Are you actually trying to say that Hitler rose to power because his speech was censored?
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