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Facebook Says It’s Policing Fake Accounts, but They’re Still Easy to Spot

nytimes.com

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Re: Facebook Says It’s Policing Fake Accounts, but They’re Still Easy to Spot

#51

Post by ksk »

jmcqk6 wrote: post #28
menacingly wrote: post #5

I get that facebook my have complicated motives here, but I don't know that "easy to spot" is a good yardstick. First, there are the countless instances where something is trivial for a single person to suss out that doesn't scale. Second, and perhaps most importantly, I don't think simple hunches about fake accounts are really actionable here. Having an account that "originated in the Middle East" that now presents…

>First, there are the countless instances where something is trivial for a single person to suss out that doesn't scale. This is an interesting argument to me. It's basically conceding a shittier solution, because we "can't scale" the effective one. As we talk more and more about automation, I think this is similar to what we've seen in meat space with things like tools. I've heard so many people complain about chine…

Well said. Also one other thing to consider is what companies do and don't consider to be an extension of themselves. Facebook would sooner fire an employee who said women are dumb, than even consider putting hard cash towards policing people/groups/pages who espouse identical viewpoints. The later is always easily rationalized away.

Re: Facebook Says It’s Policing Fake Accounts, but They’re Still Easy to Spot

#54

Post by [deleted] »

jmcqk6 wrote: post #28
menacingly wrote: post #5

I get that facebook my have complicated motives here, but I don't know that "easy to spot" is a good yardstick. First, there are the countless instances where something is trivial for a single person to suss out that doesn't scale. Second, and perhaps most importantly, I don't think simple hunches about fake accounts are really actionable here. Having an account that "originated in the Middle East" that now presents…

>First, there are the countless instances where something is trivial for a single person to suss out that doesn't scale. This is an interesting argument to me. It's basically conceding a shittier solution, because we "can't scale" the effective one. As we talk more and more about automation, I think this is similar to what we've seen in meat space with things like tools. I've heard so many people complain about chine…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Says It’s Policing Fake Accounts, but They’re Still Easy to Spot

#55

Post by [deleted] »

menacingly wrote: post #5

I get that facebook my have complicated motives here, but I don't know that "easy to spot" is a good yardstick. First, there are the countless instances where something is trivial for a single person to suss out that doesn't scale. Second, and perhaps most importantly, I don't think simple hunches about fake accounts are really actionable here. Having an account that "originated in the Middle East" that now presents…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Says It’s Policing Fake Accounts, but They’re Still Easy to Spot

#56

Post by [deleted] »

menacingly wrote: post #5

I get that facebook my have complicated motives here, but I don't know that "easy to spot" is a good yardstick. First, there are the countless instances where something is trivial for a single person to suss out that doesn't scale. Second, and perhaps most importantly, I don't think simple hunches about fake accounts are really actionable here. Having an account that "originated in the Middle East" that now presents…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Says It’s Policing Fake Accounts, but They’re Still Easy to Spot

#58

Post by sverige »

anigbrowl wrote: post #23
lostapathy wrote: post #2

A major failing with Facebook's process for reporting accounts is that there is no way to enter any text to help them figure it out. I have seen numerous accounts that are breaking the TOS, but it's only obvious if you know some other bit of easily verifiable information. Without fail, whenever I report one of these accounts facebook tells me "thanks but they're fine, feel free to block them if you still feel this wa…

They don't care anyway. A while back I got a notification that a sexually explicit picture had been removed from my page. I had never seen the picture in question, said so, and asked where it had been posted, as I was worried that my account had been compromised. They completely ignored the question and I got back a standard 'we've reviewed the picture and found it's not compliant with our community standards' reply.…

> Like many people, I'd really like to leave the platform but not the network of friends that I communicate regularly with. And no, email and or other channels are not good substitutes. Any alternative has to offer at least the same degree of functionality/convenience to be worth using.

Not picking on you specifically, but I've noticed that this is the standard line used by people who love to complain about how shitty facebook (or sometimes twitter or some other social media site) is, but who don't want to vote with their feet.

I have no accounts and never have, yet magically I have been able to keep in touch with everyone that matters in my life. I don't think I've missed out on anything important, either. Then again, I lived a good portion of my adult life before social media was invented, so maybe I just have some skills that a younger generation never acquired. Or maybe just different expectations.

Seriously, this stuff has existed for just over a decade yet people act as if they can't live without it. It makes me fear for the future health and well-being of society.

Re: Facebook Says It’s Policing Fake Accounts, but They’re Still Easy to Spot

#59

Post by twothamendment »

mikestew wrote: post #39
jmcqk6 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>First, there are the countless instances where something is trivial for a single person to suss out that doesn't scale. This is an interesting argument to me. It's basically conceding a shittier solution, because we "can't scale" the effective one. As we talk more and more about automation, I think this is similar to what we've seen in meat space with things like tools. I've heard so many people complain about chine…

Things mass produced cheaply are lesser quality, but we're willing to make the trade off as a society because we get things for cheaper. Problem is, from what I'm seeing, is that the market bifurcates into "shitty, but cheap" and "OMG, the price, but quality". I want the middle way: "reasonably priced, 'good enough' quality, and won't break the bank". Tools are a prime example. You had Snap-On/Matco/etc., Sears Craft…

Wandering far from Facebook (the farther the better IMHO) - Craftsman has been dead to me for years so I tried a Dewalt socket/wrench set. The name should be around a while, they have a good warranty and they feel like I shouldn't need it. It was god to see someone was trying to fill in that middle of the road "good enough" and affordable.

Re: Facebook Says It’s Policing Fake Accounts, but They’re Still Easy to Spot

#60

Post by Stranger43 »

rosser wrote: post #42
Stranger43 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The college student problem is btw a very real concern in social science i.e. way to many studies have been made using local college students as study subjects, which is useless in a world where the average person speaks bad English and think the US is the biggest threat to world peace(however wrong that view might be). I.E. you cannot and should not build your algorithm about what is normal for your local but have t…

I'm talking about literally dozens of verbatim-identical posts on known-divisive issues, from different accounts in different cities — or even countries, though many-to-most of them are already in the US, mitigating so much of your counter-argument — and specifically not the viewpoint they're espousing (except insofar as that viewpoint tends, "with a probability approaching unity", to be driving an extant sociocultur…

If you have to defend democracy by restricting one if it's foundational pillars what are you really defending.

I am not arguing the problem of money/power being used to amplify speech is not real i am arguing that it's something we have to deal with as a part of how real world democracies works when it's not constrained by an Jacobin state where the media have to abide by a very narrow set of standards for what can be reprinted defined by someone who don't really answers to nobody. And it's sure as hell not limited to Russia.

Fake news and media manipulation really isn't a new problem, Hearst and Pulitzer used to make their living from soving dissent and and anger, and we call those days the golden age of journalism, we have an multi trillion dollar advertising industry that does nothing but manipulate people into doing things/buying things they might not have done otherwise. Not to mention the circus of day to day politics in pretty much every democratic state.

The notion that democracy needed to be protected by a powerful benevolent central committee(with universal authority and no restrictions) is in many way what separated communist from socialists back when the old European empires fell apart, and new systems had to be created, and while the communist states did hold out far better then many democratic socialist states it was not an particularly attractive society for anyone to live in.

We live in a world of 6 billion people most of them in a partially shared economy so for the US to have to live with foreign people interfering in us elections is not anti-democratic it's widening the definition of demos to everyone affected by a election, just as the US public itself reserves the right to try and influence foreign elections.

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