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Facebook to ban misinformation on voting in upcoming U.S. elections

reuters.com

51–60 of 151 posts

Re: Facebook to ban misinformation on voting in upcoming U.S. elections

#52
post #50
post #40

I really don't think you should remove information (or even be able to sue someone, except for defamation) for it being false, because it gives people the false impression that if information is printed or allowed on Facebook that it's probably accurate. We need to give everyone the impression that whatever they read might be false, because it actually might be false. Maybe that will make people think critically abou…

An ability to trace the sources of the posts might be interesting. And connecting that to discourse about the typical accuracy of those sources. "This content paid for by... here's the other content they paid for/posted, the trend of topics they discuss, and a weighted bullshit meter" But Facebook plainly wants to moderate the narratives for themselves; until recently their entire news feed was human curated. Now the…

I think that leaving information up on the website, but make plainly visible the sponsor (and a list of other items sponsored), would be a decent feature that Facebook would absolutely never implement.

Re: Facebook to ban misinformation on voting in upcoming U.S. elections

#53
I really think they have better things to worry about. Maybe fixing their news feed so that I don't see the same four pieces of content day after day after day. With a few hundred contacts on Facebook that aren't unfollowed, I should be seeing something, but it's not surfacing at all. Even if I turn on notifications for particular people that I really care about seeing content from, about half the time I don't see things. Really makes it pointless to bother with Facebook very much.

Re: Facebook to ban misinformation on voting in upcoming U.S. elections

#54
post #47
post #40

I really don't think you should remove information (or even be able to sue someone, except for defamation) for it being false, because it gives people the false impression that if information is printed or allowed on Facebook that it's probably accurate. We need to give everyone the impression that whatever they read might be false, because it actually might be false. Maybe that will make people think critically abou…

This. Assume everything is false until proven otherwise.

That is terribly inefficient.

Re: Facebook to ban misinformation on voting in upcoming U.S. elections

#55
post #40

I really don't think you should remove information (or even be able to sue someone, except for defamation) for it being false, because it gives people the false impression that if information is printed or allowed on Facebook that it's probably accurate. We need to give everyone the impression that whatever they read might be false, because it actually might be false. Maybe that will make people think critically abou…

Agreed. Critical thinking is becoming a lost art that we should not use "workarounds".

Also, who gets to decide what is true? Silicon Valley tech employees lean overwhelming to the left. How do you remove this bias?

But really, this is a problem of society in general, not a tech problem. People are trained to take what they here with a grain of salt. Having official fact checkers lends authority to what is on Facebook which may or may not be true based solely on whether it was flagged / censored.

Re: Facebook to ban misinformation on voting in upcoming U.S. elections

#56
post #37
post #27

"On the issue of fake news, Facebook has held off on a total ban, instead limiting the spread of articles marked as false by vetted fact-checkers. However, that approach can leave fact-checkers overwhelmed and able to tackle only the most viral hoaxes." Does anyone else find this concerning? Even the smallest bias held by fact-checkers can dramatically skew things towards one side e.g. only "fact-check" articles that…

You find it concerning because it's easy to abuse. The fact-checkers get to decide what is "true", and other Facebook users are unlikely to listen to you if you try and convince them that the fact-checkers are wrong.

Honestly, the much harder problem is convincing people that fact checkers are right, if they already disagree with the fact checker. And they are much more numerous than those who already happened to agree with the fact checker.

Re: Facebook to ban misinformation on voting in upcoming U.S. elections

#59
post #40

I really don't think you should remove information (or even be able to sue someone, except for defamation) for it being false, because it gives people the false impression that if information is printed or allowed on Facebook that it's probably accurate. We need to give everyone the impression that whatever they read might be false, because it actually might be false. Maybe that will make people think critically abou…

It was clear the internet was full of lies long before the aol dial up days. If the message hasn’t sunk in by now I think people aren’t going to get it, ever. I’m not sure there’s even a positive way out of this for Facebook.
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