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Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

lgraham.senate.gov

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

#31

Post by sova »

comex wrote: post #28
Xeoncross wrote: post #10

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.…

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 chec…

Yes but there IS a legal definition for reporting vs opinion and it is easy enough to put an article in Column Op-Ed instead of Column New Info

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

#32

Post by sova »

ruytlm wrote: post #23
sova wrote: 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 k…

Think of grandma, man. Make life easy for grandma.

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

#33

Post by eplanit »

sova wrote: 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…

"an assessment of the news outlet's ratio of fact versus fiction and reporting versus opinion"

Assessed by who? the Ministry of Information? No thanks.

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

#34

Post by markcerqueira »

sova wrote: 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…

> Also count "impressions" as the number of times something appeared on screen.

I was under the impression that this was the standard, widely used definition of an impression which you are correct differs from the normal definition of impression.

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

#35

Post by kbenson »

sjeohp wrote: post #24
jonny_eh wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Absolutely right!

We should definitely shut down all Department of Education educational minimums as well! Those are just used to control the populace anyway.

And the FDA? That's just a way to control what we put in our bodies!

The SEC and financial regulations? When's the last time they helped anyone?

...

That was sarcasm, in case someone is experiencing a Poe moment.

In all these cases, the rules and regulations help some more than others, and may even be abused to help those with connections. That doesn't mean the institutions do not impart a net benefit to the country, and in many cases many orders of magnitude more than the problems they cause (in my opinion, at least).

A n agency with clear and transparent rules as to how to score institutions and what is considered true and what is considered false could do some real good. It could also be abused, but I don't think the idea should be immediately discounted before we explore how it might work a bit more in depth.

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

#36

Post by goialoq »

cwkoss wrote: post #26
Xeoncross wrote: post #10

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…

Verrit verifies quotations, not content. They don't say whether you should trust the source; that's up to you.

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

#37

Post by goialoq »

sova wrote: post #27
rgbrenner wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Which independent fact-checking firms do you trust?

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

#38

Post by factsaresacred »

> 56% of total ad impressions were after the election.

> Most of the ads appear to focus on divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum, touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights.

> Many of the ads and posts we’ve seen so far are deeply disturbing—seemingly intended to amplify societal divisions and pit groups of people against each other.

"Deeply disturbing". The contrived pearl-clutching really is something else. Disturbing for whom, exactly? One ad apparently talked about saying Merry Christmas again. This is the 'meddling' they speak of.

And this is what the media does 24/7. Every day they shove divisive social and political messages down our throats.

What is the crime here?

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

#39

Post by bllguo »

ruytlm wrote: post #23
sova wrote: 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 k…

Yes.. even if you figure out a perpetually unbiased system to do the fact-checking and labeling, uneducated people will still be manipulated into distrusting the labels. Fact checking organizations already exist and people still think Fox is a beacon of truth.

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

#40

Post by rrhd »

factsaresacred wrote: post #38

> 56% of total ad impressions were after the election. > Most of the ads appear to focus on divisive social and political messages across the ideological spectrum, touching on topics from LGBT matters to race issues to immigration to gun rights. > Many of the ads and posts we’ve seen so far are deeply disturbing—seemingly intended to amplify societal divisions and pit groups of people against each other. "Deeply dist…

You don't see the Russians attempting to influence the US elections via social engineering as a problem?
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