Facebook Isn’t Just Allowing Lies, It’s Prioritizing Them • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Isn’t Just Allowing Lies, It’s Prioritizing Them

#21

Post by mostlysimilar » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 11:36 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #15

The NY Times isn't just allowing lies, it's prioritizing them. By allowing a certain law professor to publish opinion pieces that contain hyperbole, innuendo, and other misleading rhetoric, the NY Times is increasing the reach of this law professor. If it had not been for this opinion piece, millions of readers would otherwise have been unaware of this law professor, but are now exposed to his rhetoric thanks to the…

Honest question: can you pay more money to NY Times to get your opinion piece more exposure? Can you target individual readers as an audience based on data NY Times has on them?

Re: Facebook Isn’t Just Allowing Lies, It’s Prioritizing Them

#22

Post by weberc2 » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 11:38 PM UTC

csallen wrote: post #5

rory096 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an op-ed by a law professor at Columbia, not the Times' editorial opinion.

Who decides who's allowed to publish op-eds in the Times and what topics those op-eds will be about?

I’m no great fan of NYT, but the alleged point of an opinion column is to present a debate, not to host opinions that the editorial team supports. However, I think there’s a strong case to be made that this isn’t how the NYT operates in practice, and that they mostly pick articles that advance their agenda.

Re: Facebook Isn’t Just Allowing Lies, It’s Prioritizing Them

#23

Post by AnimalMuppet » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 11:39 PM UTC

buboard wrote: post #2

This kind of bla bla is getting boring. > By refusing to stay out of politics, the company is building the case for its own breakup. What does NYtimes think will change if FB and instagram separate?

That quoted line... wow.

Is Facebook "in politics" more than carrying ads? I mean, I'm sure they lobby some (all the tech big boys do these days), but I don't think that's what's being referred to.

And if it's just carrying ads... there's this First Amendment thing. If the government were to want to break up Facebook because Facebook carried political ads, that would be really problematic.

Re: Facebook Isn’t Just Allowing Lies, It’s Prioritizing Them

#24

Post by masonic » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 11:40 PM UTC

softwaredoug wrote: post #18

csallen wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who decides who's allowed to publish op-eds in the Times and what topics those op-eds will be about?

Op-Ed authors submit essays, and editors accept or decline. More info here: https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-us/articles/115014809107-How-...

  and editors accept or decline

I think that's the very point @csallen was making.

Re: Facebook Isn’t Just Allowing Lies, It’s Prioritizing Them

#25

Post by 50656E6973 » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 11:41 PM UTC

Mass media in general has been profiting off rumors, gossip, and falsehoods for a long time.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

The difference here is FB is doing it algorithmically on a much larger scale.

Re: Facebook Isn’t Just Allowing Lies, It’s Prioritizing Them

#26

Post by bhupy » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 11:42 PM UTC

> By refusing to stay out of politics, the company is building the case for its own breakup.

Wouldn’t this be an unconstitutional basis for breaking up a company?

A popular jab at Zuck/FB is that the First Amendment doesn’t apply to private corporations, but only to the government.

Once a government decides that Facebook’s maximally permissive view on speech/ads is unacceptable, and goes on to pursue punitive action against it, isn’t that within the realm of the sort of government action that the First Amendment prohibits? How is that any different from the government applying punitive action against CNN or the NYTimes for publishing ads it deems dangerous/unacceptable?

Re: Facebook Isn’t Just Allowing Lies, It’s Prioritizing Them

#27

Post by Spivak » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 11:45 PM UTC

Man the NYT editors must really hate FB to post an article like this every week. It’s not like I like Facebook or anything but this is just exhausting.

They’re a forum with user generated content and ads. They’re undertaking a huge moderation effort already — trying to have their army of underpaid moderators also police facts is just a problem that can’t solved because lies are cheap to spread and expensive to refute.

You could say something snarky like “well FB just shouldn’t exist then” which doesn’t take into account any replacement someone on HN would approve of would have worse moderation than FB.

The format of massive scale public square social media is the reason this happens. And unless you want to tell the world to get off Twitter and eat their vegetables there’s only so much you can do to keep fights from breaking down in a huge public meeting of people who are addicted to arguing and 0 distance away from every conversation.

Re: Facebook Isn’t Just Allowing Lies, It’s Prioritizing Them

#28

Post by alwayseasy » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 11:46 PM UTC

narrator wrote: post #8

cyrksoft wrote: post #3

What about traditional media lying all the time? By citing "sources" journalists can say whatever they want without any kind of accountability. This is just old media crying for losing to new media platforms.

True. The number of "anonymous sources say..." stories in the New York Times has gotten to the point of absurdity. Might as well be getting the news from 4chan.

That's not how it works in real media organizations like the NYT. Here's a nice example of how AP explains "anonymous sources" to its journalists and readers. It's harder to trick the New York Times than Jacob Wohl and QAnon believers thought: https://www.ap.org/about/news-values-and-principles/telling-...

Re: Facebook Isn’t Just Allowing Lies, It’s Prioritizing Them

#29

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 11:47 PM UTC

mostlysimilar wrote: post #21

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #15

The NY Times isn't just allowing lies, it's prioritizing them. By allowing a certain law professor to publish opinion pieces that contain hyperbole, innuendo, and other misleading rhetoric, the NY Times is increasing the reach of this law professor. If it had not been for this opinion piece, millions of readers would otherwise have been unaware of this law professor, but are now exposed to his rhetoric thanks to the…

Honest question: can you pay more money to NY Times to get your opinion piece more exposure? Can you target individual readers as an audience based on data NY Times has on them?

[deleted]

Re: Facebook Isn’t Just Allowing Lies, It’s Prioritizing Them

#30

Post by Spivak » Mon, Nov 04, 2019, 11:48 PM UTC

mostlysimilar wrote: post #21

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #15

The NY Times isn't just allowing lies, it's prioritizing them. By allowing a certain law professor to publish opinion pieces that contain hyperbole, innuendo, and other misleading rhetoric, the NY Times is increasing the reach of this law professor. If it had not been for this opinion piece, millions of readers would otherwise have been unaware of this law professor, but are now exposed to his rhetoric thanks to the…

Honest question: can you pay more money to NY Times to get your opinion piece more exposure? Can you target individual readers as an audience based on data NY Times has on them?

I mean you can buy ads same as Facebook. It’s hard to SEO the NYT but if anyone could pay to get their posts a bigger organic audience on FB nobody would buy ads.