[deleted]
Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”
61–70 of 259 posts
Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”
#62Consider the outrageous claim that Tucker Carlson made today (that NYT was "planning" to dox him). Was it true? Did he just cleverly "pre-empt" it? Or did he intentionally create a story to teach a lesson to the NYT reporters? Things are made much murkier when you then find out that, yes, indeed, he was actually doxxed before once. And people did actually show up to his house to protest. And even more amazingly, the…
Any aspiring authoritarian knows that once the public can be convinced everyone is hysterical and biased, it's that much easier to get the average Joe to throw up his hands and say "whatever, I'll just support the strong man who will help me get mine, since other politicians are just going to get theirs, and I certainly can't trust the media."
Tucker invented a story, regardless of his personal history, likely to deflect from the fact that he was recently named in a civil suit that details sexual assault by a Fox employee. Whatever your background, making things up for TV is not defensible.
EDIT: and if his personal history induces him to invent narratives, it's clear he doesn't belong in his current profession
Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
How many of them even realize that their worldview is potentially being shaped by the moderation teams of the tech they consume? And what alternatives exist to the major platforms (Facebook, reddit, etc)? They're effectively a captive audience.
How is it that you figured out that you should read sites other than Facebook, and that the (presumably) mindless masses on Facebook have not? What specifically makes them captive? Why do you believe that? Are the audiences of other extremely popular websites also captive? Why or why not?
>mindless masses
Perhaps you meant this hyperbolically but I do not believe it to be an exaggeration.
>What specifically makes them captive
They are captive because of a combination of their ignorance and the network effect. If all of your friends are on Facebook for example you'll have to leave them behind if you delete your account.
Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”
#64What a disgustingly terrible article. Never explains what precise facts Facebook is taking into consideration as opinion, just throws around political leanings and pointlessly polarizes it as "climate scientists" vs "climate change deniers". This is the kind of journalism that only serves to divide the people even further by empowering their tribalism instead of trying to discuss the matter at hand.
[deleted]
Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”
#65What a disgustingly terrible article. Never explains what precise facts Facebook is taking into consideration as opinion, just throws around political leanings and pointlessly polarizes it as "climate scientists" vs "climate change deniers". This is the kind of journalism that only serves to divide the people even further by empowering their tribalism instead of trying to discuss the matter at hand.
Here's the Daily Wire article (paywall, so here's a mirror):
https://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2020/6/29/on-beha...
And here's a reasonable analysis of what it gets wrong: https://sciencefeedback.co/evaluation/article-by-michael-she...
Flagging it as misleading seems fair.
I cannot find the Washington Examiner oped in question.
Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”
#66What a disgustingly terrible article. Never explains what precise facts Facebook is taking into consideration as opinion, just throws around political leanings and pointlessly polarizes it as "climate scientists" vs "climate change deniers". This is the kind of journalism that only serves to divide the people even further by empowering their tribalism instead of trying to discuss the matter at hand.
More insidiously, it's another drumbeat for the idea that we need classical media gate keepers to invade people's personal space and "correct" any wrong-think. Very dangerous and unwelcome idea for a free society. The media has no valid purpose for having the power to amend private citizens conversations, we wouldn't tolerate at a bar and we shouldn't on our personal web space.
[deleted]
Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”
#67I remember being very concerned that the fact checkers wouldn't be operating in a vacuum and we'd have a bunch of facebook execs being arbiters of truth. And that appears to be exactly what has happened. This is terrifying. A handful of mainstream publications and a bunch of basically unknown facebook folks are now the censors. We've already seen well known EFF activists rated untrue for their arguments against warra…
... And before that, there was local news and newspapers. Some time before that it might be your boss, your parents, or the local clergy. This is no change, but business as normal. What has changed is that we actually have easy access to information outside of the keyholders. So when the government and some in society dismiss complaints about police brutality, we can have the retribution of actual video (an example w…
There's quite a difference between social media interjecting its opinion into your private, personal conversations and whatever the clergy at your local church back in the 90s would have said. They would not have even had visibility into say, what you might be talking about at the local pub or hanging out with your neighbors. A local newspaper might pitch a story, but editorials were clearly labeled and there were often competing newspapers in most towns. Statistically, police brutality isn't a problem and far more people suffer from the effects of too little policing than not (see murder rate in Chicago or Juarez). In this era, we suffer from magnification and amplification of the marginal. A thing that does not occur very often, statistically, can get blown completely out of proportion. The power of social media is the power of propaganda. Propaganda has been used throughout history to start wars, revolutions, religious battles, etc. It has the ability to shape the perception of reality in a way that has heretofore been unthinkable. Facebook alone has an audience and reach that no TV channel or newspaper has ever had. Quantity has a quality all its own.
Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”
#68I remember being very concerned that the fact checkers wouldn't be operating in a vacuum and we'd have a bunch of facebook execs being arbiters of truth. And that appears to be exactly what has happened. This is terrifying. A handful of mainstream publications and a bunch of basically unknown facebook folks are now the censors. We've already seen well known EFF activists rated untrue for their arguments against warra…
The problem is that there is a well-funded war on facts. This isn't new either; the legacy version was the systematic denial that smoking caused cancer. This has been going on since the 1950s, and is still being litigated. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3490543/ The result of this is that any single point of fact-determination becomes a target. It's good of Facebook to take some kind of stand against th…
Ideally, facts could assert themselves. Unfortunately, humans are needed to assert facts, and therefor any judgements based on facts require human interpretation.
We can dissolve interpretations down as far as we like to leave as little room for bias and dishonesty (and that is a useful effort), but ultimately there will always be POWER in the hands of those who we abdicate arbitration authority to.
...and power corrupts.
The alternative is creating a diverse ecosystem of organizations/individuals who's analysis/logic people can choose to subscribe to and judge based on the reputation that they garner over time.
...and diversity of thought and analysis liberates.
Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”
#69Would be nice to know what the actual claims are. I'm not at all a climate change denialist, but some of the things claimed by people trying to raise awareness for climate change are outright false, or at least extremely unlikely, e.g. humans almost certainly aren't going to go extinct because of climate change. But it can still be catastrophic at a society level. It's a shame the issue is so polarized, because while…
Sounds like this is about Michael Shellenberger, the long-time climate activist recently turned climate realist.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/shellenberger-on-behalf-of-en...
Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”
#70I don't understand why it's Facebook's role to teach people. Maybe if regulations were instead imposed on school curriculums we wouldn't have dumb adults arguing about climate change, flat earth or mask wearing. Combat issues at the root not the fruit.
It isn't! When Facebook announced the program [1], they made it clear that they had no interest in becoming arbiters of truth; fact checking was about preventing hoaxes, stories like "5G causes coronavirus" that are just completely and unambiguously made up. The expectation that Facebook fact checkers should intervene in live political controversies was inevitable IMO, but I don't think many people would explicitly endorse the idea that Facebook has to teach people good climate science.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/15/13960062/facebook-fact-c...