I think more of an issue besides google and facebook would be the way reporters used the information and also presented twitter as a unequivocal source of information.
Google and Facebook Have Failed Us
121–130 of 191 posts
Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us
#122I 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…
We have no hope of ever understanding even a fraction of the things in the world well enough to make an informed decision about them. For example, I am not a climate researcher, so I simply don't understand climate science well enough to make an informed decision about the topic of climate change. I have opinions about it, but I recognize those are based on faith of who I think has the best handle on the truth about this topic. Every one of us takes most things in our lives on faith to one degree or another.
And that's why it matters that google curates content. 99% of what they curate we cannot research in depth ourselves within our lifetime. We have to be able to trust that they've done the job of curation properly.
Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us
#123I agree with the article. I think more humans do need to be added to the "decision-making" process. I mean, com'on, promoting 4chan to the top spot in a news channel? Too many people in this country don't bother to check, they figure if it's the top article it must be true.
> I agree with the article. I think more humans do need to be added to the "decision-making" process.
Not really useful when most journalists already demonstrate how even professionals can't check their sources.
Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
The unfiltered results ARE the truth. 4chan is the truth. In the sense that "Someone posted this thing on 4chan." And that's the only truth there is in internet-land: Someone posted something. Is it real? Is it true, what they posted? Or is it "fake news?" You will never know, and you probably shouldn't try to take it that far. Or if you do, at least be able to handle the cognitive dissonance of believing it and not-…
> Is it true, what they posted? Or is it "fake news?" You will never know What nonsense. There are degrees of trust you can put in claims, based on a variety of factors. And you don't really believe it, either, as further on in your comment you say "The only thing you can truly know is what you witness in person". If you could know something is true from personally witnessing it you could know that a claim contradict…
I already said all that a lot more efficiently in my comment.
Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The only thing you can truly know is what you witness in person. > The good news is, that which you can't witness with your own eyes, rarely has any real effect on your life Not only anti-rationalist and anti-Enlightenment, but you're even disagreeing with object permanence!
> Not only anti-rationalist and anti-Enlightenment, but you're even disagreeing with object permanence! And not even "not only" that, it also veers into the dirty movement of muddying the waters of responsible reporting, into a discussion of "what is truth really?". When "nothing is true", every venue from 4chan to infowars is equal in its non-truth to AP/Reuters/WaPo/NYT/Atlantic/etc. When all media is fake, listeni…
Yeah no it doesn't. Just one more thing to ignore. Unless I personally saw someone turn gay from drinking water, but even if I thought I saw that, I wouldn't totally believe that either.
And I did mention trusted parties, which could be a reporter. You guys are just not in the mood for philosophising tonight I guess. You want to be certain of things. Disappointing response. Should've avoided the term "fake news." It's Pavlovian.
Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
All of them? Maybe I'm naïve, but I don't buy the inherent importance of doing selection. If I could trust that the news source includes all relevant facts they encounter, it'll be enough; I can reach my own conclusions. > However, you can sort of get this if you limit yourself to "agency" news, ie AP or Reuters. I've heard something about "wire services" before, but I'm not sure if there are any accessible to indivi…
How do news organisations get "facts"? Recycling https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15356836 :
Journalism is not about digging until you find some kind of underlying "fact", there simply isn't time and what you're asking for could potentially be an extraordinary amount of work; journalism is about reporting what the reporter sees and what people tell them. Obviously it's incumbent on them to evaluate their sources, but not usually to write next to the sources' words the journalist's own opinion of the situation.
So for example in the Vegas situation, there will be a large number of official statements put out by various official bodies; or the reporter might call the hospital or a contact there; or they might go there and interview some people standing around.
But remember that this stuff does not cross the bar into what science or history would consider a fact. It's a snapshot of who's available and summary of what they said. There are always more people or organizations you could call for a quote, more people you could interview. And of course not all of them can or should be reported directly - there may be whistleblowers or vulnerable people to protect with a layer of indirection.
Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us
#127I 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…
problem is when things are not as easy as black & white or good & bad. In reality things can be fuzzy.
Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can't just decide what is true. Think back to the US election you can't just "decide" that the story of thousands of Ohio ballots pre-marked for Hillary Clinton was true. http://www.snopes.com/clinton-votes-found-in-warehouse/ You can't just decide that the story of a protester with a rape Melania was true http://www.snopes.com/2016/11/14/melania-sign-at-anti-trump-... You can't just decide for yourself that clim…
...so you outsource your Truth to Snopes, got it. I hope Snopes never lets you down. people will always draw conclusions based on their own observations, good thing Einstein didn't have snopes to say "Actually, the Theory of Relativity is a myth: Pants on Fire rating!
Snopes is apparently beyond reproach on HN.. as the downvotes prove, ha.
Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
So first "top news spot" means that if you searched for the name of this person who got falsely accused on 4chan, you found the false accusation on 4chan (as the first result). That's all. Calling this a "top news spot" ... I have no words. Perhaps we should say that this complaint is "fake news" ? I get that newspapers and even journalists have their existence threatened by Facebook and Google, but ... this is a low…
This is entirely a blown-up issue that is being used as a cover to start censoring and monitoring our communications on a far worse level.
Calm down! Nobody mentioned children yet!
Re: Google and Facebook Have Failed Us
#130I 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…
We have no hope of ever understanding even a fraction of the things in the world well enough to make an informed decision about them. For example, I am not a climate researcher, so I simply don't understand climate science well enough to make an informed decision about the topic of climate change. I have opinions about it, but I recognize those are based on faith of who I think has the best handle on the truth about…
I remember when search engines were just search engines.