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

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

#201

Post by bduerst » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 5:58 PM UTC

TallGuyShort wrote: post #196

bduerst wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Gigapixel is a 360 of the stage so you can see which politicians attended, and not of the crowds in attendance, which the National Park Service's drones captured. You said 'high resolution video' which the gigapixel is not. Can you link these reliable sources you keep eluding to?

Nah I'm done commenting on this. There's clear imagery from both ABC and CNN I've referred to elsewhere in this thread. And it's a bloody 360 image - how hard is that?. If you want to pretend those sources are right-leaning and pretend this is actually a clear-cut case of people being willfully ignorant, whatever. edit: knock yourself out then if you really couldn't find it from all my other comments on the topic: ht…

If you're going to claim something is fake news and elude to 'high def video' proving it, then why can't you provide that video when someone asks for it?

I'm beginning to agree with you about this being "a clear-cut case of people being willfully ignorant."

Edit: The video you linked in your edit does not show the crowds. Why did you edit that video link in? Where is the high-def video you eluded to proving the NPS photos were fake news?

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

#202

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 5:58 PM UTC

quoquoquo wrote: post #56

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…

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…

[deleted]

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

#203

Post by globuous » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 6:02 PM UTC

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?

Ooooof course the Godwin Law's still a thing...

Totalitarianism has emerged in societies lacking free speech as well. it's usually a lot more complicated than that.

Regulating free speech is indeed a slippery slope. But it might need to be regulated, I don't have no idea to be honest. A free market works best for the common good when it's regulated though, and I could see it being the same way for free speech. But a slippery slope it is.

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

#204

Post by bllguo » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 6:05 PM UTC

peoplewindow wrote: post #195

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…

I very very rarely downvote anything on HN. I feel downvoting should be used for empty or "me too"-like comments that don't add anything. Your post isn't like that, but in your case I made an exception anyway because you started like this: trying to manipulate the naive herd of sheep who blindly follows whatever people like on Facebook I realise you genuinely do believe that there are vast numbers of people who are l…

Reductive. You seem to be searching for a reason to disagree. He/she stated his point crudely, granted, but he/she did have one: There are certain forms of speech that are outlawed in certain places in the interest of preventing harm to people. For instance, countries with anti-Holocaust-denial laws. Yet they remain reasonably free and tolerant societies. CP is another example. Many governments and people operate without the idea (delusion?) that all speech should be allowed. Fetishization of free speech is a uniquely US-centric phenomenon.

Your faux outrage is irritating. You're really going to debate that fake news on FB and elsewhere has had a real impact shaping beliefs and attitudes?

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

#205

Post by thomnottom » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 6:05 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #190

TallGuyShort wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2017/01/politics/trump-in... Really - there are stronger arguments against Trump.

Yea that picture definitely reinforces the original Parks Service one. You can see all the empty space and people milling around, not that far in the background. The Obama inauguration was shoulder to shoulder standing room only.

It's funny, I never bothered much analyzing these photos but now that I have it's obvious how much the Gigapixel backs up the WaPo photos.

And yet the parent seems to believe that pointing out optical perspective differences means we're calling those pictures "right-leaning".

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

#206

Post by bduerst » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 6:05 PM UTC

darepublic wrote: post #169

bduerst wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(inb4 1st amendment is only for the gov - that is a selective truth. the principles of free speech exist outside of government.) Except they don't. You should have said "inb4 John Stuart Mill", one of the founders of free speech philosophy who said that that the harm principle trumps freedom of speech (i.e. if an expression causes harm, then that expression can be silenced). This idea of freedom of speech "as a prin…

The problem is when certain groups take the definition of harmful speech beyond all reasonable limitations. Certain powerful groups spoke of favorably by the media would designate the Google memo as harmful hate speech that needs to be suppressed. Then they will go one step further and say sympathizing with the memo is also naturally a form of harmful speech. We've already slid too far down this slope. I expect in th…

No, that isn't a problem. JSM also defined the Offense Principle, which doesn't trump freedom of speech. You're free to whinge about future hypothetical scenarios of you crying in front of liberal leaders so long as it doesn't cause harm.

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

#207

Post by jjjhjhjhj » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 6:06 PM UTC

peoplewindow wrote: post #195

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…

I very very rarely downvote anything on HN. I feel downvoting should be used for empty or "me too"-like comments that don't add anything. Your post isn't like that, but in your case I made an exception anyway because you started like this: trying to manipulate the naive herd of sheep who blindly follows whatever people like on Facebook I realise you genuinely do believe that there are vast numbers of people who are l…

Are your reading comprehension skills really that bad, or are you simply an idiot? What he's saying is that there's other people who are taking advantage of the gullible through Facebook.

Do you want another Trump? Facebook certainly don't, or they wouldn't roll this out.

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

#208

Post by joshuamorton » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 6:08 PM UTC

majewsky wrote: post #191

joshuamorton wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to be clear here, it was the British government declaring his speech treasonous and attempting to censor him? If so then yes I agree. Government censorship is unacceptable. But that's not really comparable to private entities censoring on their own private whims.

For all intents and purposes, Facebook is the government of a large part of the internet.

What does this sentence mean?

In what way is Facebook at all comparable to a government? Is there some social contract that all people are entered into with Facebook? If so, what are the rights and responsibilities of that contract? And do note here, I'm talking about an implied social contract, not an actual contract (like an EULA).

What large portion of the internet do they "govern"? As best as I can tell you're arguing that any sufficiently large entity is essentially a government. That's ridiculous. So please, please explain what you do mean.

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

#209

Post by smhost » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 6:11 PM UTC

wooter wrote: post #187

smhost wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the fear of censorship is that truth will be obscured. If free speech is being abused to do what we're afraid censorship will do, doesn't that create a contradiction in your logic? And to be clear, what we mean by "fake news" are stories that are demonstrably false with incorrect information that's never corrected even when it's revealed to be false. We're _not_ talking about what Trump calls "fake news," by whic…

> If free speech is being abused to do what we're afraid censorship will do, doesn't that create a contradiction in your logic? Irrelevant. Limiting speech doesn't solve that contradiction, it only guarantees the worse outcome. More speech solves your proposed "contradiction" just fine.

That seems like a distinction without a difference. Would you be happier with a system that pushed disproportionately more "true" speech at the vulnerable (ignorant) demographic?

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

#210

Post by peoplewindow » Mon, Aug 28, 2017, 6:13 PM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #134

neuronexmachina wrote: post #85

Back in November, PC World did some testing with fake FB accounts to see what fake news would be targeted at them. It was pretty eye-opening: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3142412/windows/just-how-part... > The Macedonians may still be at it, because our Republican supporter, Todd White, was flooded with partisan posts. Worse, over a little more than two days, we counted 10 such posts in his feed that were fake, mos…

Sounds like there is an untapped market segment. By the next US election, someone will have figured out what kind of content gets Democrats riled up, and makes a ton selling headlines to the highest bidder.

Er, that's easy. It's done already by large corporate news sources. Just go browse The Guardian or The Independent (both UK outlets) to find a constant series of clickbait stories designed to maximally upset people with Clinton-style views. Random Macedonians can't make money doing it because those advertising dollars are already sucked up by much larger and better known brands.

There may also be a structural issue (in the USA). If you lean Democrat you probably trust mainstream US media sources like the NYT, Washington Post, CNN, ABC etc. These sources all very openly pushed Clinton and her policies. If you hear a story that sounds initially dubious, you search Google and you don't find anything to support it, you probably will conclude it's not true.

However if you lean Republican and already don't trust these media sources, searching for a story and not finding it will not tell you anything, because you are already expecting those sources to try and suppress information that makes left-leaning causes look bad. So you might find a bunch of YouTube videos or right wing blogs or whatever and conclude that is sufficient.

The US media does publish a lot of biased unfactual garbage, including lots of opinion dressed up as fact, but it's usually quite skillfully done and they avoid pushing stories that are trivially false like "Putin issues arrest warrant for George Soros".