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Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

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Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#51

Post by crooked-v »

new2628 wrote: post #31
TomMckenny wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the enormously popular post telling parents to make their kids drink Lysol should not have even the slightest warning next to it because the poster could be like Galileo or Einstein?

You are not arguing in good faith. You are making a caricature of the opposing argument, presenting in the worst light possible.

Posts telling parents to make their kids drink bleach or disinfectant is, sadly, not actually a caricature. See, for example, how "Miracle Mineral Supplement" (aka, chlorine dioxide, aka bleach) gets pushed by malign quacks as a cure for HIV, malaria, hepatitus, autism, acne, cancer, COVID-19, etc. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Mineral_Supplement

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#52

Post by olivermarks »

dilippkumar wrote: post #10

This article misses a crucial point: I do not want fact checked information. I do not want a ministry of Truth telling me what’s an acceptable set of statements to trust. I do not want a third party providing unsolicited opinions on how much I conform with the acceptable statements a ministry of Truth has blessed for public use. I’ll provide three arguments. First, how will Facebook or any other entity that takes on…

Free Speech is the foundation of western democracies. Having #BigTech censoring and grading free speech is antithetical to this. If I want to verify the veracity of ideas and opinions I am currently free to browse the internet and do my own research. I don't need to be policed by a commercial website with highly dubious surveillance capitalism goals and have them tell me what to think.

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#53

Post by ojnabieoot »

rwmj wrote: post #38
dilippkumar wrote: post #10

This article misses a crucial point: I do not want fact checked information. I do not want a ministry of Truth telling me what’s an acceptable set of statements to trust. I do not want a third party providing unsolicited opinions on how much I conform with the acceptable statements a ministry of Truth has blessed for public use. I’ll provide three arguments. First, how will Facebook or any other entity that takes on…

You are missing the whole point. Facebook (and Youtube etc) do not simply show you all opinions in the world at the same time with equal weight. They select things for you to view based on your prior interactions with the website. So they can emphasize and deemphasize articles and videos to show you next. Across their entire userbase selecting articles that are based in reality will have a large effect.

This is the real point: Facebook's "Ministry of Truth" is currently a "Ministry of Clicks and Ad Engagement" and Facebook is happy to interfere in the free flow of information if they can make a quick buck off it. Likewise with Google searches, Twitter feeds, and so on. There is no such thing as a for-profit internet content platform which truly engages in some competitive free market. Reddit is sort of close, at least in principle - Google and Facebook aren't even on paper.

I would agree that this is gross and I don't personally use Facebook. But the idea that profit-motived filtering and selection is OK, yet additionally filtering out clear and dangerous misinformation is somehow 1984-level authoritarianism, is just dumb. Considering Facebook has been complicit in stolen elections and genocide, it's dangerously dumb.

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#54

Post by new2628 »

protonfish wrote: post #32
new2628 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an excellent summary, and I fully agree with it. As a modest addition: - In many important cases, there is no fact, just differing viewpoints and opinions. One man's terrorist is another one's freedom fighter. Violent insurgency for one, legitimate fight for liberty and justice for the other. In fact, reasonable people will even disagree on whether in some topic there are facts or only opinions, let alone abo…

If you honestly believe there is no objective truth, then there is no value in anything you say. Please stop posting anything ever again.

Apart from the aggressive nature of your comment, indeed, in most areas of interests to humans there is no objective truth or it is not as interesting as the motivations and interests of the involved parties.

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#55

Post by mlang23 »

TomMckenny wrote: post #20
dilippkumar wrote: post #10

This article misses a crucial point: I do not want fact checked information. I do not want a ministry of Truth telling me what’s an acceptable set of statements to trust. I do not want a third party providing unsolicited opinions on how much I conform with the acceptable statements a ministry of Truth has blessed for public use. I’ll provide three arguments. First, how will Facebook or any other entity that takes on…

So the enormously popular post telling parents to make their kids drink Lysol should not have even the slightest warning next to it because the poster could be like Galileo or Einstein?

No. Kids of such parents should be rescued from their tormentors. Stupid people will not go away just because you install some sort overload truth provider.

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#56

Post by rwmj »

creaghpatr wrote: post #48
rwmj wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the whole point. Facebook (and Youtube etc) do not simply show you all opinions in the world at the same time with equal weight. They select things for you to view based on your prior interactions with the website. So they can emphasize and deemphasize articles and videos to show you next. Across their entire userbase selecting articles that are based in reality will have a large effect.

>So they can emphasize and deemphasize articles and videos to show you next. Maybe they should stop doing that then.

I mean, that's their vastly lucrative model to engage the attention of people on their websites, but sure we could ask them to stop I suppose.

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#57

Post by evan_ »

new2628 wrote: post #16
dilippkumar wrote: post #10

This article misses a crucial point: I do not want fact checked information. I do not want a ministry of Truth telling me what’s an acceptable set of statements to trust. I do not want a third party providing unsolicited opinions on how much I conform with the acceptable statements a ministry of Truth has blessed for public use. I’ll provide three arguments. First, how will Facebook or any other entity that takes on…

This is an excellent summary, and I fully agree with it. As a modest addition: - In many important cases, there is no fact, just differing viewpoints and opinions. One man's terrorist is another one's freedom fighter. Violent insurgency for one, legitimate fight for liberty and justice for the other. In fact, reasonable people will even disagree on whether in some topic there are facts or only opinions, let alone abo…

This is absurd. There is an objective reality and things actually do happen. You can observe, record, and measure these things. Whether or not we say someone is a terrorist or a freedom fighter doesn't change the fact that they e.g. drove a truck bomb into a government building.

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#58

Post by Mountain_Skies »

TomMckenny wrote: post #20
dilippkumar wrote: post #10

This article misses a crucial point: I do not want fact checked information. I do not want a ministry of Truth telling me what’s an acceptable set of statements to trust. I do not want a third party providing unsolicited opinions on how much I conform with the acceptable statements a ministry of Truth has blessed for public use. I’ll provide three arguments. First, how will Facebook or any other entity that takes on…

So the enormously popular post telling parents to make their kids drink Lysol should not have even the slightest warning next to it because the poster could be like Galileo or Einstein?

If the Lysol post was never made, do you think the parents who would have fallen for it will be safe for the rest of the duration of children's lives? Point here is that in your scenario the problem isn't the Lysol message, it's the low intelligence of the parents. If they fall for a post telling them to give their child Lysol, it's just a matter of time before they do something equally as dangerous and it should be surprising that they haven't yet done so. Are you going to monitor their interactions with the world 24/7 for the entirety of their lives? That's the only way you're going to accomplish what you're asking for here.

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#59

Post by spiderfarmer »

new2628 wrote: post #31
TomMckenny wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the enormously popular post telling parents to make their kids drink Lysol should not have even the slightest warning next to it because the poster could be like Galileo or Einstein?

You are not arguing in good faith. You are making a caricature of the opposing argument, presenting in the worst light possible.

That’s not even the worst light possible. The whole antivax movement has done a lot more harm.

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#60

Post by crooked-v »

new2628 wrote: post #47
TomMckenny wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pointing out a problem with a real post that actually exists right at this very moment.

It is easy to pick one clear-cut case that supports one's viewpoint. The question is how to handle the more murky cases.

Sure, but by answering the clear-cut cases you've at least defined boundaries for your problem space.
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