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People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

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Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#111

Post by didericis »

The worst thing about widespread fake information is the ease with which you can convince yourself that everything you don't like is fake. We don't really have a defense against it that allows for people with opposing perspectives to coexist.

I wonder if it's possible to somehow create a "consistency checker" that can check to see what claims are compatible with what other claims. Not a truth checker; that's far too dangerous and easily abused. But a system that just checks for consistency, combined with a "web of trust" where you can see the connections to people with different perspectives who you know are NOT liars/can connect to events you KNOW are true. That might help people trust information from outside of their comfort zone and identify problems with their own outlook.

There's precedent for that kind of a thing in the math world. MetaMath is an example of a system that verifies proofs based on substitution rules alone, plus whatever axioms you add to the system. Natural language news stories that need to correspond to reality are obviously a much different beast, and maybe it's impossible to do something equivalent with knowledge that isn't as rigid/formal as math, but it's tempting to try.

Could easily backfire and make the problem worse if done improperly, though. The risk is that such a system could be taken over/hijacked my ideologically motivated individuals to reinforce their own ideas and hide inconsistencies rather than shine a light on them.

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#112

Post by SiVal »

digi59404 wrote: post #75

Did anyone stop and consider these aren’t fake people but people who value anonymity? I have 20 friends who use such tools and tech to hide their identities. Yes they lean right, slightly but they do. They all do this to avoid being found by employers and other. One of my friends is a prominent person in a legal field, another one is a member of a three letter group. Other than my real name - My Facebook profile has…

The fact that you were already downvoted after zero minutes supports your thesis. That could have been your employment being downvoted instead of HN points. In China, critics of the political enforcement systems are also more likely to try to remain anonymous or completely silent, while those who proclaim their support (and their lack of tolerance for dissidents) usually want their identities known. And the Chinese media use that to claim the former group are crackpots, criminals, and fakes, while the latter are respectable, mainstream Solid Citizens.

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#113

Post by mistersquid »

knzhou wrote: post #108
schnevets wrote: post #92

Facebook won the social media war by cultivating a smaller, more selective group of users (college students). It meant sharing had some more definitive meaning, and provided some added safety for marketplace and message board functions. It was their secret weapon against the MySpaces and CraigsLists, and yet they completely abandoned it. If they really wanted to further their company mission, their Manhattan Project…

That is a catch-22, isn't it? The common definition of "winning the social media war" is to get a lot of users. That is inherently contradictory to "cultivating" a "selective group". Just as water flows downhill, there will inevitably be a few most popular social networks, which will inevitably be driven by clickbait and moral panic and targeted by all bad actors. I already saw that happen with atheism. When I was yo…

> Now about a hundred million Americans are effectively athiests and we're no more rational than before.

The US has approximately 330 million people. Asserting more than 1/3 of all adults (330 million includes children) in the US are atheist is a bold and, in your comment, unsubstantiated claim.

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#114

Post by schnevets »

jordigh wrote: post #91
bonestamp2 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

!!! SPOILER ALERT ABOVE !!! Hopefully you saw this before reading the above comment.

Spoiler alerts are a 20th century invention. Everyone has been taught to get angry about spoilers, but the very word "spoiler" itself is an internet invention coined in Usenet. The idea of society at large working hard to keep a fictional story secret is a marketing ploy invented by Alfred Hitchcock to sell more movie tickets to his mystery films. It used to be common to know everything about a story before you even…

This is a fascinating perspective I never really considered. The implications of "Spoiler Culture" on modern storytelling and consuming entertainment really are massive.

The seasonal buzz about Christmas movies has me dwelling on the paradox between the backlog vs. the new release. 21st century entertainers are competing against an entire century of modern culture available to viewers in a second.

How is it that my home has Netflix, HBO, and Hulu, and yet my wife and I are still paralyzed about what to watch every night? Why do we naturally lean towards the fresh thing on the front page?

Movies and other art forms are just bandwidth now, so Hollywood has to artificially set the value through marketing and buzz. It seems like every studio is combating this existential threat in different ways (Sunday night dramas that trigger water cooler conversations, visually stunning films that are meant for the big screen, twist-filled plotlines, podcasts and other media focused on discussing the "latest episodes").

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#115

Post by digi59404 »

elliekelly wrote: post #76
digi59404 wrote: post #75

Did anyone stop and consider these aren’t fake people but people who value anonymity? I have 20 friends who use such tools and tech to hide their identities. Yes they lean right, slightly but they do. They all do this to avoid being found by employers and other. One of my friends is a prominent person in a legal field, another one is a member of a three letter group. Other than my real name - My Facebook profile has…

Surely that scenario is the exception and not the rule. But also, if you have the Facebook app on your phone, or associated with your phone number or email, you’re not anonymous. It’s been an issue for sex workers in the past who try to conceal their identity on social media but Facebook still manages to suggest their “Johns” as friends.

This isn’t true. I have Facebook on my phone and there’s no way to identify me by my phone number. It’s unlisted on my profile and not public. Searching for me by number or email does not work. I’ve check my Fb privacy settings quite often and try to find workarounds.

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#116

Post by digi59404 »

clSTophEjUdRanu wrote: post #90
digi59404 wrote: post #75

Did anyone stop and consider these aren’t fake people but people who value anonymity? I have 20 friends who use such tools and tech to hide their identities. Yes they lean right, slightly but they do. They all do this to avoid being found by employers and other. One of my friends is a prominent person in a legal field, another one is a member of a three letter group. Other than my real name - My Facebook profile has…

Why are they all, in unison, spreading political bs? Don't be naive. These are not accounts for privacy minded people, this is orchestrated bad-faith people attempting to sabotage elections.

Whether you like it or not - Political bs to one person is another persons truth.

Only through solid and level communication do we remove lies, slander, and fake news.

In 2016 - The man who ran the largest fake news website on the internet. Abcnews.com.co ran it was a joke and a means to make money. He had no ill intent. He had no skin in the game politically. He was just a dude trying to make money.

And afterwards he fell into a depression for the belief he got Trump elected.

There’s no sides to this issue than people are willing to accept.

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#117

Post by klyrs »

SiVal wrote: post #112
digi59404 wrote: post #75

Did anyone stop and consider these aren’t fake people but people who value anonymity? I have 20 friends who use such tools and tech to hide their identities. Yes they lean right, slightly but they do. They all do this to avoid being found by employers and other. One of my friends is a prominent person in a legal field, another one is a member of a three letter group. Other than my real name - My Facebook profile has…

The fact that you were already downvoted after zero minutes supports your thesis. That could have been your employment being downvoted instead of HN points. In China, critics of the political enforcement systems are also more likely to try to remain anonymous or completely silent, while those who proclaim their support (and their lack of tolerance for dissidents) usually want their identities known. And the Chinese m…

> The fact that you were already downvoted after zero minutes supports your thesis.

Alternative theory: multiple dissenting comments explain how GP is possibly oversimplifying the situation, and some downvoters have similar takes.

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#118

Post by kibwen »

SiVal wrote: post #112
digi59404 wrote: post #75

Did anyone stop and consider these aren’t fake people but people who value anonymity? I have 20 friends who use such tools and tech to hide their identities. Yes they lean right, slightly but they do. They all do this to avoid being found by employers and other. One of my friends is a prominent person in a legal field, another one is a member of a three letter group. Other than my real name - My Facebook profile has…

The fact that you were already downvoted after zero minutes supports your thesis. That could have been your employment being downvoted instead of HN points. In China, critics of the political enforcement systems are also more likely to try to remain anonymous or completely silent, while those who proclaim their support (and their lack of tolerance for dissidents) usually want their identities known. And the Chinese m…

The fact that you allege to interpret downvotes as censorship rather than rejection of an absurd hypothesis supports the thesis that HN is no more immune to politically-motivated spin doctors than Facebook or Reddit.

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#119

Post by digi59404 »

pera wrote: post #99
digi59404 wrote: post #75

Did anyone stop and consider these aren’t fake people but people who value anonymity? I have 20 friends who use such tools and tech to hide their identities. Yes they lean right, slightly but they do. They all do this to avoid being found by employers and other. One of my friends is a prominent person in a legal field, another one is a member of a three letter group. Other than my real name - My Facebook profile has…

> I have 20 friends who use such tools Wait, do you have 20 friends that ran StyleGAN2 for a couple of hours to generate human faces? Can't they just avoid uploading a profile picture? When I used Facebook my avatar was an anime and my name was an obvious joke. I didn't need to simulate a natural person identity.

One of these friends works somewhere Edward S worked. A building with guards and guns.

You tell me.

Re: People Who Do Not Exist Invade Facebook

#120

Post by schnevets »

knzhou wrote: post #108
schnevets wrote: post #92

Facebook won the social media war by cultivating a smaller, more selective group of users (college students). It meant sharing had some more definitive meaning, and provided some added safety for marketplace and message board functions. It was their secret weapon against the MySpaces and CraigsLists, and yet they completely abandoned it. If they really wanted to further their company mission, their Manhattan Project…

That is a catch-22, isn't it? The common definition of "winning the social media war" is to get a lot of users. That is inherently contradictory to "cultivating" a "selective group". Just as water flows downhill, there will inevitably be a few most popular social networks, which will inevitably be driven by clickbait and moral panic and targeted by all bad actors. I already saw that happen with atheism. When I was yo…

The measurement for success isn't "a lot of users", the measurement is "a lot of real users". Bots do not click on ads and make users more distrustful of the content on the platform. Even the most ill-informed person adds more to a group than an automated propaganda machine.

I don't have a way for Facebook to counter the rise of AI and other technology trends short of all new accounts submitting a vial of blood to guarantee they are a unique human being. I'm being facetious here... but Zuck would probably love this dystopia. If Facebook devoted their near-infinite resources to solving this modern problem of technology, they would be in a much better shape today. The internet, privacy activists, and humanity as a whole may not be better off, but FBs value would be.

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