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Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

wsj.com

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Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#891

Post by creato »

nradov wrote: post #791
beachy wrote: post #783

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to cherry-pick from your reply here, if $2M is the biggest ticket item you have to show for independent research on this topic - then you're woefully short given Facebook's revenues and size. 10 short years ago, nobody could have imagined that huge swathes of the population could have been swayed to accept non-scientific statements as fact because of social media. Now we're struggling to deal with existential th…

10 short years ago, huge swaths of the population were swayed to accept non-scientific statements like eating fat and cholesterol were unhealthy. I don't think Facebook is the problem here. How much exactly do you think Facebook ought to donate to independent researchers? Most tech companies donate ~0$ to such efforts.

> 10 short years ago, huge swaths of the population were swayed to accept non-scientific statements like eating fat and cholesterol were unhealthy. I don't think Facebook is the problem here.

That's a horrible example, I don't think that is even remotely comparable to swaying the population into burning down dozens (hundreds?) of cell towers or accusing Bill Gates of starting the coronavirus pandemic.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#892

Post by john_minsk »

alpacaillama wrote: post #804
nradov wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You missed the point. Too many people are credulous, and lack a rigorous education in epistemology and the scientific method. This has been a problem forever and isn't something Facebook can fix.

I don’t expect them to come out with a perfect solution but if they can’t fix it and no one else can, but they still contribute to it I don’t see how why they should be above criticism and reproach? Also the article mentions that even though they had they option to reduce it, they actively chose not to. How is this not something that I shod be critical of? Why is growth above everything else important? What if they d…

If no one else can fix it - we should criticise with a remark that BTW this is not fixable at the moment

Otherwise: Earth's gravity is too strong. Planes use too much fuel. Let's criticise Earth...

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#893

Post by sub7 »

guy_ro wrote: post #758

Hey, Facebook VP of Integrity here (I work on this stuff). This WSJ story cites old research and falsely suggests we aren’t invested in fighting polarization. The reality is we didn’t adopt some of the product suggestions cited because we pursued alternatives we believed are more effective. What’s undeniable is we’ve made significant changes to the way FB works to improve the integrity of our products, such as fundam…

> Facebook VP of Integrity

hahahhahahhahahhahahah

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#894

Post by 2019-nCoV »

creato wrote: post #891
nradov wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10 short years ago, huge swaths of the population were swayed to accept non-scientific statements like eating fat and cholesterol were unhealthy. I don't think Facebook is the problem here. How much exactly do you think Facebook ought to donate to independent researchers? Most tech companies donate ~0$ to such efforts.

> 10 short years ago, huge swaths of the population were swayed to accept non-scientific statements like eating fat and cholesterol were unhealthy. I don't think Facebook is the problem here. That's a horrible example, I don't think that is even remotely comparable to swaying the population into burning down dozens (hundreds?) of cell towers or accusing Bill Gates of starting the coronavirus pandemic.

Yes, the misleading dietary advice was objectively worse. How many needless deaths lost to the likes of diabetes and heart disease. The ramifications of the replication crisis (of which social media censorship also runs afoul) run much deeper.

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#895

Post by iliekcomputers »

cryptoz wrote: post #344
iliekcomputers wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you link said paper?

There are a lot of sources to read, including follow-up papers by other teams that evaluate if Facebook had "informed consent" (they did not) to emotionally manipulate their users. https://www.google.com/search?q=facebook+paper+emotionally+m...

Thank you!

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#897

Post by [deleted] »

nradov wrote: post #803
alpacaillama wrote: post #796

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is classic whataboutism. What does people being led to believe that fat was healthy have to do with Facebook’s deliberate inability to make their content less divisive

You missed the point. Too many people are credulous, and lack a rigorous education in epistemology and the scientific method. This has been a problem forever and isn't something Facebook can fix.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#898

Post by creato »

2019-nCoV wrote: post #894
creato wrote: post #891

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 10 short years ago, huge swaths of the population were swayed to accept non-scientific statements like eating fat and cholesterol were unhealthy. I don't think Facebook is the problem here. That's a horrible example, I don't think that is even remotely comparable to swaying the population into burning down dozens (hundreds?) of cell towers or accusing Bill Gates of starting the coronavirus pandemic.

Yes, the misleading dietary advice was objectively worse. How many needless deaths lost to the likes of diabetes and heart disease. The ramifications of the replication crisis (of which social media censorship also runs afoul) run much deeper.

I think you are knowingly missing the point. Nutritional experts disagreed among themselves, and probably still do. Is there even a single 5G engineer that will take up the cause of 5G causing coronavirus? How about an immunologist that will claim Bill Gates is trying to inject people with microchips delivered in vaccines?

Re: Facebook executives shut down efforts to make the site less divisive

#900

Post by burfog »

guy_ro wrote: post #827
fogetti wrote: post #813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi there. Have you ever considered making the decision making open? I mean it seems you are obsessed with criticism and scrutiny. Then here is an idea for you: invite journalists from major media outlets to your decisions making. Then you can avoid these "unfortunate" cherry-pickings as you put it. Why I am saying this: it seems you sit backwards on your high horse, criticising those people who for all intents and pu…

Yep we actually do this! (invite journalists to decision-making meetings). One of our regular meetings is about the content policies, we publish the minutes here - https://about.fb.com/news/2018/11/content-standards-forum-mi... - and have also hosted journalists and outside academics from time to time.

Journalists are generally, as a group, far from the political center.
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