Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Testimony of Facebook, Google, and Twitter to US Senate

lgraham.senate.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 94 posts

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

#61

Post by AlexandrB »

rhcom2 wrote: post #54
factsaresacred wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 i…

That's the line Trump loves to get people to believe, that random fake blogs are equal to newspapers in their disinformation. And why investigate it? Everyone is just as bad /s

> And why investigate it? Everyone is just as bad /s

I find the same is true of discussions about tech companies and privacy: "Oh they're all stealing all your data anyway, so why bother choosing on that basis." The irony, of course, is that this subtly undermines the premise of capitalism and especially Libertarianism (I get this from libertarian friends a lot). If you claim that my choice of search provider is meaningless, how can the market self-correct if people start to value privacy?

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

#62

Post by ak4g »

factsaresacred wrote: post #50
bllguo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if your false equivalence were true, maybe both are bad? It's funny because this whataboutism is exactly the kind of thinking that Russian bots are accused of spreading.

> It's funny because this whataboutism is exactly the kind of thinking that Russian bots are accused of spreading. "exactly the kind of thinking" - critical thinking, it's called. It's in low supply lately. 'whataboutism' is a valid argument given the assertions that this is unique event, a bridge too far. When, in fact, the US have been doing it for years: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/10/13…

That was then. Try and find a post-Cold-War instance of the US deciding to usurp free and fair elections for our own economic or security purposes. We weren't doing it for the fun of it, and in a unipolar world order, we don't do it at all.

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

#63

Post by silverbax88 »

sova wrote: post #32
ruytlm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I get what you are saying, but remember that the big, evil, powerful people in the world who are manipulating this system are mostly grandparents or old enough to be grandparents. I'm pretty sure it's not specific to age, but cognitive education.

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

#64

Post by cryoshon »

rgbrenner wrote: post #21
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…

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.

just get a bunch of scientists who have no connection to any of the relevant fields to redirect their attentions to finding out if a thing is fact or fiction and i assure you that you will have an answer that is more honest and more accurate than otherwise

PS they'll need funding, and more time than you have to give

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

#65

Post by lubesGordi »

rhcom2 wrote: post #58
lubesGordi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference between censoring 'fake news' and making it illegal? The disinformation issue is deep, and people want to just call some things disinformation and other things truth. It's intellectual laziness. You're not going to get to truth by blindly believing trusted sources. You need to do your own research. And what, you're going to let the CIA decide what is a trusted source? The route this is going is…

People are now blindly believing any source if it backs up their opinion. You're not going to be able to get primary sources on everything so at some point you will HAVE to trust some source.

Well, I call it remaining agnostic. If you can't get a primary source on something political in nature (especially political), then you can't draw conclusions or argue about it.

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

#66

Post by xienze »

arel wrote: post #42
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…

> divisive social and political messages If the actor is a foreign government and the intent is to destabilize a country thats ok with you?

And yet, when these very same messages are repeated by our own media, celebrities, and universities (white people are bad, don’t stand for the National Anthem, etc.), it’s somehow... a good thing?

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

#67

Post by outlace »

factsaresacred wrote: post #50
bllguo wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if your false equivalence were true, maybe both are bad? It's funny because this whataboutism is exactly the kind of thinking that Russian bots are accused of spreading.

> It's funny because this whataboutism is exactly the kind of thinking that Russian bots are accused of spreading. "exactly the kind of thinking" - critical thinking, it's called. It's in low supply lately. 'whataboutism' is a valid argument given the assertions that this is unique event, a bridge too far. When, in fact, the US have been doing it for years: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/10/13…

I think the point is if we as a society shoot our selves in the foot, that’s one thing, but it’s another if we let someone else do it. And the argument that we do it to others is irrelevant. If country X hacks our companies to steal trade secrets, does that mean we shouldn’t try to stop it just because we might be doing the same to others? That’s just laying down on the tracks.

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

#69

Post by crazy1van »

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…

Education might be the root cause and it might be neglected but in the US it certainly isn't underfunded.

Source: http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2015/apr/21/jeb...

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

#70

Post by peterlk »

kbenson wrote: post #47
ruytlm wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's not at an article level, it's at an institution level. If an institution is known to publish misleading article with half-truths or non-truths, a rating which indicates that (and links to a list with examples) would be beneficial. Institutions that want to be seen as credible will strive to be accurate and fix any mistakes. There are definitely problems with this, but the idea that we just need to fix our educat…

I disagree that education is a cop-out. Telling people what is credible and what is not is part if the mess that we're in now. If I can stand up a fancy looking "news" site, write my opinion as fact, and have people believe me, that is a problem of our education system.

That principle of freedom of information is what the internet is built on. A large number of retweets does not make something factual.

Post reply on HN