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Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

theatlantic.com

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Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#81

Post by partisan »

electricEmu wrote: post #41
partisan wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've simply restated the problem. Why not contribute to the discussion? How would you fix Google and Facebook? How would you hold them responsible and accountable? And why?

> You've simply restated the problem. Why not contribute to the discussion? I'm sorry, but I've already asked a direct question and do not consider it a restatement of the problem.

It really would be a better exercise for you to think through how you would actually hold them accountable.

What service do they provide, concretely? What are their SLAs? What does your contract with them say? Every service is a contract between a service provider and a paying customer. There is a specific set of parameters the service provider must adhere to. What would a contract with Facebook or Google and their non-paying customers look like? Should people pay for the service or should we expect Google to eat the cost?

What is "news"? How do you know it when you see it? How do they detect fake news? What about all of the opinion pieces that appear on the Google News front page? Should those be included or excluded? Are we talking about white listing websites? Who controls that list and how do you get on it? Or, should Google hire people to filter the news for you?

I am asking you to think about what you are proposing so that you can see that there are problems there, some of them big in scope. Considering think about it is not a solution.

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#82

Post by have_faith »

saimiam wrote: post #80

If we all such smart people/techies, can we spitball a better breaking news feed algorithm into existence? I'll kick it off - 1. Focus all news on Who? What? When? Where? Omit the "Why?". 2. When in doubt cite the primary news sources (police feeds/courtrooms/local authorities/opposition leaders/pictures/geo tagged and timestamped audio&video feeds with geo tags) 3. Secondary news sources like news orgs and journalis…

I've been toying with the idea of building a meta-news site of sorts for a while. Only one page per story (as opposed to the scatter-shot approach of normal news sites), stick just to facts, don't report death tolls while the bodies are still warm, anti-sensationalist and so on. Just curate a list of primary and secondary sources for a given story and present an overview of the story with opposing viewpoints. Very dry from a presentation perspective.

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#83

Post by yosito »

llamataboot wrote: post #20

Zeynep Tufekci had a couple great columns about this recently regarding FB and the US elections this year. While I recognize that there's always a concern about who the gatekeepers get to be in the marketplace of ideas, I think this is a considerably more complex issues than "let all the information go wherever it wants and let the people sort it out" Putting 4Chan in a top news slot is not "allowing unedited and unf…

This is a very good point! I would also add that those with the resources to control filtering (Google, Facebook, China, Russia, the US, etc) will be the ones who ultimately control it.

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#84

Post by yosito »

kashprime wrote: post #46
llamataboot wrote: post #20

Zeynep Tufekci had a couple great columns about this recently regarding FB and the US elections this year. While I recognize that there's always a concern about who the gatekeepers get to be in the marketplace of ideas, I think this is a considerably more complex issues than "let all the information go wherever it wants and let the people sort it out" Putting 4Chan in a top news slot is not "allowing unedited and unf…

It would be trivial for FB and Google to allow tailoring of feeds. Even keyword exclusions or subject filters would be a huge step-up from the gamified engagement-getting monster that we have now.

This is more of a political challenge than a technical one. One that I'd say is worth fighting for.

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#85

Post by saimiam »

have_faith wrote: post #82
saimiam wrote: post #80

If we all such smart people/techies, can we spitball a better breaking news feed algorithm into existence? I'll kick it off - 1. Focus all news on Who? What? When? Where? Omit the "Why?". 2. When in doubt cite the primary news sources (police feeds/courtrooms/local authorities/opposition leaders/pictures/geo tagged and timestamped audio&video feeds with geo tags) 3. Secondary news sources like news orgs and journalis…

I've been toying with the idea of building a meta-news site of sorts for a while. Only one page per story (as opposed to the scatter-shot approach of normal news sites), stick just to facts, don't report death tolls while the bodies are still warm, anti-sensationalist and so on. Just curate a list of primary and secondary sources for a given story and present an overview of the story with opposing viewpoints. Very dr…

How do you make it sufficiently authoritative and trustworthy so that the general population including us doesn't go out and seek hearsay and speculation to get their jollies.

I mean, what interest could the identity of the killer have for people while the shootout was in progress. Why not just stop once the basic unbiased facts have been surfaced? Everything else can wait for the cold light of reason and time.

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#86

Post by oddlyaromatic »

have_faith wrote: post #82
saimiam wrote: post #80

If we all such smart people/techies, can we spitball a better breaking news feed algorithm into existence? I'll kick it off - 1. Focus all news on Who? What? When? Where? Omit the "Why?". 2. When in doubt cite the primary news sources (police feeds/courtrooms/local authorities/opposition leaders/pictures/geo tagged and timestamped audio&video feeds with geo tags) 3. Secondary news sources like news orgs and journalis…

I've been toying with the idea of building a meta-news site of sorts for a while. Only one page per story (as opposed to the scatter-shot approach of normal news sites), stick just to facts, don't report death tolls while the bodies are still warm, anti-sensationalist and so on. Just curate a list of primary and secondary sources for a given story and present an overview of the story with opposing viewpoints. Very dr…

The difficulty is that curating involves editorial decision making and some threshold for what you consider to be a fact. There's very little someone won't find fault with. But maybe if the sites editorial standards are also published, people could adjust for that themselves?

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#87

Post by pjc50 »

kashprime wrote: post #46
llamataboot wrote: post #20

Zeynep Tufekci had a couple great columns about this recently regarding FB and the US elections this year. While I recognize that there's always a concern about who the gatekeepers get to be in the marketplace of ideas, I think this is a considerably more complex issues than "let all the information go wherever it wants and let the people sort it out" Putting 4Chan in a top news slot is not "allowing unedited and unf…

It would be trivial for FB and Google to allow tailoring of feeds. Even keyword exclusions or subject filters would be a huge step-up from the gamified engagement-getting monster that we have now.

Yes - which is why they won't do it. Like out-of-order feeds, where engagement conflicts with usefulness they'll pick engagement and ad views every time.

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#88

Post by oelmekki »

Actually, I would tend to think net neutrality should apply to content host as well. Provided content is not illegal, obviously.

The best to do to fight false info is to shame those who share it, just like we shame news outlets which do not verify their sources. It's probably the best way to make sure everybody double check what they post (plus, if citizen start to check their sources, that's a huge win).

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#89

Post by pjc50 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #63
mc32 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I posted elsewhere on this thread, journalism isn't exactly about the straight facts. It's always more about story and slant related to facts, sometimes more loosely than others. For example, it will take a lot of time for investigators to get close to the truth of what happened but no one is going to wait for official reports before publishing their takes on the incident --and I'm not nor would expect that. But w…

I wish there was a journalist outlet that would not care about story. Just facts. Preferably in bullet points (narratives are misleading). I'd be a paying subscriber to that.

Which facts? The very selection of relevance itself tells a story.

However, you can sort of get this if you limit yourself to "agency" news, ie AP or Reuters. If you have a big chunk of money and news is important in your work, you'll have a Bloomberg terminal.

Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us

#90

Post by gldalmaso »

trgv wrote: post #11

I think there's already too much filtering. People need to make up their own minds regarding what is true and what isn't, what's worth their time and what's bullshit, which links to click on and which to avoid. If people can't handle this then we need to spend more money on education, or just accept that some people disagree with us. I don't think aggressively filtering "untrustworthy" content will lead to a net bene…

If we simply leave it up to people, we already know the outcome. Some, maybe even a lot of people will take fabricated lies as facts and proceed to engage other people with these facts, sometimes violently.

By doing that we are empowering the people who fabricate lies to move an agenda. It's ridiculously cheap to make fake news and the value gained is immense because people are having a hard time filtering it themselves. It is the social media equivalent of the Mirai Botnet.

Do we want to live in a world where the best lier wins?

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