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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

#221

Post by chrisco255 »

Frondo wrote: post #139
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.)

Here's how I've come to feel about this: If this is the world we're headed into, by treating free speech as an absolute and inviolate, then I'm not sure it's a world I want to live in. When nazis start inciting riots against my friends and loved ones, and quislings defend that speech as ok to disseminate because free speech, is this the world I want to live in? I'm lucky, I don't look like anyone who's a target for w…

You probably look like a target for other extremist groups (Islamic terrorists, gangs, etc...). No one is talking about speech that incites violence though.

They're talking about social media and the definition of "fake news". As I've come to experience in my life a lot of people don't even realize how biased their points of view are.

Data and statistics can be manipulated to support certain points of view. Lots of fallacies are regularly exploited by articles of all types on both sides of the spectrum. If you leave a group of conservatives to define what is fake news and what is not, you'll get quite a different list than if you left a group of liberals to do the same.

There's a real slippery slope here. Free speech is as much a social convention as it is legal protection from the government. Facebook has a near monopoly on social media. Google has the same for search. If Facebook and Google get to be the arbiter of truth, then free speech is lost.

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

#222

Post by wooter »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #213
ricw wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thousands of years? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's really only been put into a constitution a smigeon more than 200 years ago. But that's besides the point. Freedom of speech has always been an imperfect principle. At anytime we are and have been censored in any society. In the west we probably have fewer censorships, but still we censor child porn, financial cheating / insider trading as well as "hate speech". An…

> "Thousands of years? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's really only been put into a constitution a smigeon more than 200 years ago." 'Origins of freedom of speech and expression' section found here suggests otherwise (unless you want to be particular about the term 'constitution', rather than what it represents): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

399BC - Socrates speaks to jury at his trial: 'If you offered to let me off this time on condition I am not any longer to speak my mind... I should say to you, "Men of Athens, I shall obey the Gods rather than you."'

Socrates was sentenced to death for "corrupting the youth" - an act of speech. Considered by some to be a final nail for ancient athens - who had adored free speech before so much as to name a warship after the concept.

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

#223

Post by majewsky »

joshuamorton wrote: post #208
majewsky wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ar…

> Is there some social contract that all people are entered into with Facebook?

They have written community rules (don't know the exact name) that members are expected to comply with.

> What large portion of the internet do they "govern"?

The Facebook website (duh). Which, for a surprising amount of people, is literally "the internet" (or at least the part of it that they most interact with).

> As best as I can tell you're arguing that any sufficiently large entity is essentially a government.

No. For instance, Toyota is not a government because it does not set rules under which I can use their cars. Facebook does set rules under which I can use their platform, and it enforces them (which is the entire point of the submission). Setting rules and enforcing them is governance.

In fact, every moderator on any public forum is in the governance business. Since Facebook is so large, I find it reasonable to liken it to a government in terms of influence of its governance.

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

#224

Post by chrisco255 »

ebola1717 wrote: post #118
menacingly wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This misunderstands the way technology, social media in particular, have exacerbated problems with misinformation. No one is claiming the media was perfect before. Obviously hoaxes and false rumors have always been a thing. But social media has made disinformation scalable .

For as long as I can remember, National Enquirer and other magazines like that adorned the racks of every grocery store and book store I've ever been to. Yellow journalism was coined as a term over 100 years ago. There's nothing new about "fake news". And it has been scalable since the invention of the printing press.

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

#225

Post by chrisco255 »

Retric wrote: post #171
menacingly wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but look at how you're framing it. the undesirable speech isn't a disease the body has, it's a part of the body. we are the collective, even the gross parts. if we want to change what we don't like, we do it with competing ideas, not by cutting them off

These are not competing ideas, they are just lies. I have no problem with the Weekly World News being on a fiction shelf, but we have libel laws for a reason. The truth does not have a sign outside saying 'This is true' and lies repeated often enough get a following. PS: There is a huge difference between blowing things that actually happened out of proportion to support an argument and saying anything that someone m…

So what is the definition of "fake news"?

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

#227

Post by Applejinx »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #58
ch4s3 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Everybody can be leveraged. It's a matter of how vulnerable or weak the one being leveraged is, who's doing the pressuring, and what the latter stand to benefit by doing it.

For that reason, I'm also interested in who's being made the gatekeeper, because I already know who's out there wanting what, and how much capital they have. None of this happens in a vacuum.

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

#228

Post by eregorn »

briholt wrote: post #90
jobu wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For me, FB, TW, etc have become unreliable sources of news. For me, it has shown that a large chunk my social network is incapable of detecting bullshit. Last year I tried linking to Snopes or Politifact when people would post obvious falsehoods, but most people just don't care. What I want from FB is a feed that doesn't include shares or likes of any external content. Seeing and reading about life events of my fri…

I'd be careful, both Politifact and Snopes have been caught pushing their own slanted narratives. Example: When Bernie says black youth unemployment is ~50%, it's true. When Trump says the same, it's false. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jul/... http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2016/jun/20/do...

You know, I've not paid attention too much when this argument is made since I usually keep my pony on snopes, not politifact, but I'm glad curiousity got me this time. This is a bit misleading in itself.

Bernie's saying its 50%~, Trump is saying its 60%~. Sure its a 8 percent difference at most, but that difference reveals how they got their number. The gist of both articles is that Bernie is inflating his number with people that have part-time work but want full-time while Trump is inflating with high school and college students.

The rulings on both articles basically point to this: Sander's number has more issue with semantics than actually including people that are not actively seeking a job like Trump's number. Trump doesn't get POF because of your objection: while derived wrong it's "decently" close. Quotes because an 8 point difference is very large when talking unemployment numbers.

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

#229

Post by ch4s3 »

olivermarks wrote: post #186
kadenshep wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You backed up your point with a website that is staunchly pro pseudo-science and fear mongering, which contains multiple sources from the Daily Mail yet again to make their point. Of course you won't have to go far to find circular sources in an echo chamber, but finding qualified sources for your point seems to be difficult.

You are clearly debating based on perceptions of my being part of 'a certain segment of people with particular persuasions'. I gave up Facebook but I am very interested in who gets to decide what information I am allowed to see via the internet. I don't think either the Daily Mail or Snopes are credible information filters. I would hope for something better. 'Pseudo science' is another case in point. who gets to deci…

No, your evidence is just form ridiculous sources. The "FoodBabe" article repeats the same nonsense from the DailyMail, and throws in some Monsanto fearmongering.

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

#230

Post by peoplewindow »

Applejinx wrote: post #219
peoplewindow wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it complex? I don't think so at all. Facebook can easily just tag stories they think are false, and give people a button to hide or show such stories (or even show ONLY such stories to make it easier for people to build trust in the system). It would be a kind of spam filter for news stories. Facebook could then stay neutral, could avoid claims of censorship, people who want to only see "true" news could be happy,…

They're correct. People cannot spot BS and learn from it, including you and I. We'll put much effort into mastering a certain area of reality and truth, and find other horizons clouding over by the day: we cannot, as humans, reality-check everything we're confronted with, because it's too much. We're not shepherds or subsistence farmers anymore, with a world tightly constrained and comprehensible. Our world expanded,…

Speak for yourself. I've got much better at spotting BS over the years and frequently do my own fact checks on claims that are dubious.
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