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Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

lgraham.senate.gov

21–30 of 94 posts

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#21
post #7

Facebook Counsel says: Our authenticity policy is the cornerstone of how we prevent abuse on our platform, and was the basis of our internal investigation and what we found. From the beginning, we have always believed that Facebook is a place for authentic dialogue, and that the best way to ensure authenticity is to require people to use the names they are known by. Fake accounts undermine this objective, and are clo…

And who determines what's fact and fiction?

Is it the news agency? So they just have to say "We 100% believe aliens live on the dark side of the moon" and it gets counted as fact?

Or is it the government? And anything the government doesn't like is fake news.. and everything they do like is fact?

I think this is much more difficult than you're assuming. Impossible really.

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#22
post #16

Hey Russians! If you guys have worked out how to get the herd to stampede, then why for the love of cabbage, do you need to use this skill to just cause randomness??? I mean can't you guys get the herd to buy Russian iPhones or line up for Russian super hero movies or something? I really can't understand what the Russians have gained here. If Mueller's final report says the Russians had a major influence on the elect…

Are you serious? Donald is SIGNIFICANTLY more pro-russia than Hilary would have been. Ex-post facto that justified it. Actions of Donald: 1. Intense skepticism of NATO (Russia hates this). 2. attempted to remove sanctions 3. Return spy compounds 4. America turning inwards and rejecting its international role as the hegemonic power and guarantor of western institutions. 5. The russians have preferred the republicans for a few years now since they were viewed as being more real-politik.

But mostly Donald wasn't hilary. Putin HATED Hilary for complex reasons linked to 1. bill clinton's expansion of NATO 2. What putin perceived as american support for violent regime change i.e. which he viewed as an existential threat. This included Hilary speaking in public in support of Russian dissidents and her exulting in the overthrow and execution of gaddafi (while she was secretary of state) 3. Hilary was basically an anti-russia hawk in general.

It seems the active measures campaign was never expected to result in Donald winning. I think the reasonable expectation was that hilary would be discredited and ineffective after winning with no clear mandate and intense resistance by the right. It was by no means random. It is intensely idiotic to think a nation state ruled by a canny, KBG trained, dictator would invest substantial resources and risk American retaliation to cause 'randomness'. His actions had chaotic results to be sure...but he had clear goals.

"If Mueller's final report says the Russians had a major influence on the election then what happens? I can't imagine it being good for anyone."

and the alternative being we close our eyes and pretend not to see? hopefully it would result in a return to paper ballots and hardened cyber security all across the Western world.

At this point though, we all know what the Mueller report will say in its generality. YES the russians had major influence on the election. Denying that at this point is delusional! Mueller is more about what role auspices of the trump campaign violated the law in their acceptance of russian aid...that is still somewhat of an open question as to degree and the level of criminality but it is quite clear that the Trump campaign had some amount of communication and coordination with agents of the Russian government.

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#23
post #7

Facebook Counsel says: Our authenticity policy is the cornerstone of how we prevent abuse on our platform, and was the basis of our internal investigation and what we found. From the beginning, we have always believed that Facebook is a place for authentic dialogue, and that the best way to ensure authenticity is to require people to use the names they are known by. Fake accounts undermine this objective, and are clo…

Nutrition labels treat the symptom, not the cause.

IMO the root cause is a neglected and underfunded education system, that does not adequately prepare people for the levels of psychological manipulation the will experience in the form of marketing.

Sure, a nutrition label might help, but it's kind of passing the buck - "We don't need to fix our education system, people just need to be able to count to five so they know how many truth stars this article has, then they can make up their own mind!"

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#24
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The icon would provide users an assessment of the news outlet's ratio of fact versus fiction and reporting versus opinion. Yes, we should always trust powerful institutions to tell us what the truth is...

I agree, sans-sarcasm. It's better than the alternative, which is allowing Russian disinformation to determine facts.

Absolutely. Such institutions have never abused such power in the past and surely never will.

They would never use fear to manipulate public discourse for example.

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#25
post #7

Facebook Counsel says: Our authenticity policy is the cornerstone of how we prevent abuse on our platform, and was the basis of our internal investigation and what we found. From the beginning, we have always believed that Facebook is a place for authentic dialogue, and that the best way to ensure authenticity is to require people to use the names they are known by. Fake accounts undermine this objective, and are clo…

`nutrition labels` are already kind of subjective as we keep finding out just what information is actually most important to our health and revising the labels. Having a "truth vs fiction" rating next to news sites isn't as easy as you think. Sure, some things are easy to qualify - but when it comes to wars, motivations, scandals - many common stories will always be left with two equally disputed sides of the story.…

> we keep finding out just what information is actually most important to our health and revising the labels.

As long as we can, and do, revise the labels, that's exactly what we want. Not only would trying to determine the absolute best things to put on the label be time consuming and take forever to accomplish, we would still find more stuff to change later. Perfect is definitely the enemy of good in this case.

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#26
post #7

Facebook Counsel says: Our authenticity policy is the cornerstone of how we prevent abuse on our platform, and was the basis of our internal investigation and what we found. From the beginning, we have always believed that Facebook is a place for authentic dialogue, and that the best way to ensure authenticity is to require people to use the names they are known by. Fake accounts undermine this objective, and are clo…

`nutrition labels` are already kind of subjective as we keep finding out just what information is actually most important to our health and revising the labels. Having a "truth vs fiction" rating next to news sites isn't as easy as you think. Sure, some things are easy to qualify - but when it comes to wars, motivations, scandals - many common stories will always be left with two equally disputed sides of the story.…

Some of the fact checking websites are just blatant partisan punditry disguised as 'fact-checking'. (Verrit is worst offender: labeling something as 'True' if someone said something verbatim, even if it is not a factual assertion).

Even the ones with decent records often display bias, ex. when someone they like says something where the thesis is correct but a supporting fact is incorrect, they'll mark it as "mostly true". But when someone they don't like does the same, they'll mark it as "mostly false".

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#27
post #7

Facebook Counsel says: Our authenticity policy is the cornerstone of how we prevent abuse on our platform, and was the basis of our internal investigation and what we found. From the beginning, we have always believed that Facebook is a place for authentic dialogue, and that the best way to ensure authenticity is to require people to use the names they are known by. Fake accounts undermine this objective, and are clo…

And who determines what's fact and fiction? Is it the news agency? So they just have to say "We 100% believe aliens live on the dark side of the moon" and it gets counted as fact? Or is it the government? And anything the government doesn't like is fake news.. and everything they do like is fact? I think this is much more difficult than you're assuming. Impossible really.

Independent fact checking firms exist, I don't think it is a stretch to distill their info into an easily comprehended badge icon. Google, according to their Counsel, is already giving anti terror groups flagging software.

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#28
post #7

Facebook Counsel says: Our authenticity policy is the cornerstone of how we prevent abuse on our platform, and was the basis of our internal investigation and what we found. From the beginning, we have always believed that Facebook is a place for authentic dialogue, and that the best way to ensure authenticity is to require people to use the names they are known by. Fake accounts undermine this objective, and are clo…

`nutrition labels` are already kind of subjective as we keep finding out just what information is actually most important to our health and revising the labels. Having a "truth vs fiction" rating next to news sites isn't as easy as you think. Sure, some things are easy to qualify - but when it comes to wars, motivations, scandals - many common stories will always be left with two equally disputed sides of the story.…

I haven’t watched the testimony, but I don’t think the suggestion is for the government to make the judgements for the labels - at least, that sounds like an epically terrible idea, especially (but not only) given the current president’s predilection for calling any news he doesn’t like “fake”. Rather, I think social media platforms would be expected to do that themselves, maybe by contracting with external fact checking sites, like Facebook is already doing in order to label specific articles (as opposed to entire sites) “disputed”.

But yes, creating any centralized pseudo-authority on what counts as truth - even a private one committed to neutrality and limited to a specific social media platform - carries significant risks. I think some existing sites, such as Politifact, currently do a pretty good job of distinguishing “this is false” from “this is political spin I disagree with”. But they’re not perfect - they clearly have a bias, like everyone else - and other fact checkers tend to be somewhat worse, from what I’ve seen, ranging from Snopes to fact-checking articles in WaPo, NYT, etc.

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#29
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

`nutrition labels` are already kind of subjective as we keep finding out just what information is actually most important to our health and revising the labels. Having a "truth vs fiction" rating next to news sites isn't as easy as you think. Sure, some things are easy to qualify - but when it comes to wars, motivations, scandals - many common stories will always be left with two equally disputed sides of the story.…

Some of the fact checking websites are just blatant partisan punditry disguised as 'fact-checking'. (Verrit is worst offender: labeling something as 'True' if someone said something verbatim, even if it is not a factual assertion). Even the ones with decent records often display bias, ex. when someone they like says something where the thesis is correct but a supporting fact is incorrect, they'll mark it as "mostly t…

That's the same as the lion telling the tamer how safe it is in the cage. Needs to be independent firm or NGO or company internal team. Ideas and solutions please!

Re: Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

#30
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The icon would provide users an assessment of the news outlet's ratio of fact versus fiction and reporting versus opinion. Yes, we should always trust powerful institutions to tell us what the truth is...

I agree, sans-sarcasm. It's better than the alternative, which is allowing Russian disinformation to determine facts.

> It's better than the alternative, which is allowing Russian disinformation to determine facts.

No it's not better. "Russian disinformation" is a bullshit term to describe overblown and mostly ineffective tactics used by just about all governments.

Disinformation clogs the web. From WaPo to NYT to Salon to [insert media outlet here]. The very same bozos who sold you the Iraq war.

The dumbness of American discourse is almost too much to bear. Your shining city upon a hill apparently can't handle $100,000 worth of targeted ads. It's embarrassing.

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