Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion” • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”

#71

Post by refurb » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 3:51 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #7

I 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…

Yup. This is why I actually agree with Zuckerberg on his “no censorship” approach.

He’s smart enough to recognize that taking on the burden of what should be censored and what shouldn’t is a quagmire he’d prefer to avoid. No matter how “good” your filters are, you’re going to piss off a massive group of customers, despite all the effort.

It’s just a massive time sink with little to no benefit.

“The only way to win is to not play at all.”

Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”

#72

Post by catalogia » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 3:51 PM UTC

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #22

vorpalhex wrote: post #7

I 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…

Even in cases of clear video of an event, two people may come to opposing conclusions about what the video actually depicts. An example I saw on HN recently was the video from Seattle of a car hitting and killing two protestors on a highway. One commenter believed the video depicted reckless but ultimately unintentional manslaughter, while another believed it depicted premeditated murder. I think they were both sincere in their opinions, but they both watched the same video and can't both be right.

Another example are the videos of the collapse of the WTC7 building. Many people view those videos and perceive an intact building being intentionally demolished. I view those same videos and perceive a building gutted by debris and fire collapsing under it's own weight. We watch the same videos but come to opposite conclusions.

Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”

#73

Post by lazyjones » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

wl wrote: post #65

mixedCase wrote: post #13

What 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.

The "reasonable analysis" is hilarious. E.g.: climate change is affecting wildfires, BUT fires have decreased. Says a Geography professor from Swansea.

This kind of stuff only serves to create more doubt about climate science and, unfortunately among some people, science in general.

Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”

#74

Post by tzs » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

I think the problem with Facebook and similar platforms is that they tend to merge everything into one stream. You see news, opinion, humor, satire, and ads all in one continuous feed, often not labeled as to which type it is (except ads usually say "sponsored" or something like that).

Furthermore, they are designed to get you to consume as much of this stream as possible. They would rather have you shallowly engage 120 article in an hour than deeply delve into 2 articles.

(In fact, their stupid system actually penalizes you for going too deeply into an article, but I'll save the rant that would follow if I went into detail on that for another time...)

This results in their readers often failing at telling news, opinion, humor, etc., apart.

They should probably separate stuff out, like newspapers and magazines usually do. Then fact check everything in news, and perhaps have a disclaimer in the opinion section clearly stating that the articles are the opinions of their authors and have specifically not been fact checked.

Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”

#75

Post by jfengel » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

curiousgal wrote: post #28

I 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.

Facebook endumbens people. It's there front and center of the stupidification process, whether it wants to be or not. And it wants to be: it's aware that the mechanisms it uses to attract eyeballs (and thus revenue) favor lies and propaganda over facts. Facts are boring. Proof that your ideological enemies are out to get you is endlessly fascinating.

They want to have it both ways, to remain sticky but without having the world become a worse place for it. I'm sure they'd love it if schools didn't also contribute to the increasing gullibility of the US, but that's not something they can control. Their own feeds, by contrast, is something they have power over.

Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”

#76

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #68

pjc50 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 corr…

> The alternative is creating a diverse ecosystem of organizations/individuals who's analysis/logic people can choose to subscribe to

Allowing people to "choose" to subscribe to certain things has the ability to get them and others killed. That's why I mentioned the blood libel, while desperately casting around for something that people on HN wouldn't pointlessly dispute as subjective.

The bar for "this is genuinely dangerous" should be very high, though!

(the question of "what is a fact" could easily absorb a large part of an undergraduate History and Philosophy of Science degree, but we can all agree that there are certain things which are provably not facts?)

Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”

#77

Post by anonbcpolitics » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 3:53 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #43

atlgator wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook can’t have it both ways. They can’t tell Congress they are like the telephone company (an agnostic communication channel) and then turn around and censor whatever they feel like. Either take responsibility for the content or stay out of it.

The whole point of section 230 of the CDA was to say that they can. Before 230, there had been court rulings that said if a platform moderated user supplied content they were liable for that content. Section 230 was written to reverse those rulings. I'm not sure why, but a myth has taken hold that under 230 you have to be neutral to get the liability shield.

It's not a new myth but a new suggestion.

230 was written for a bulletin board site in '96.

Twitter and other social media behemoths still enjoy this protection.

There's been proposals to hold these behemoths accountable by taking away their liability IF they do not act neutral and meet a certain criteria (X users, X income, etc.).

Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”

#78

Post by fdschoeneman » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 3:54 PM UTC

According to the Ars piece, the outsourced fact checkers claimed an opinion piece was false because all of the facts in it were cherry picked:

"The researchers found that the post by the CO2 Coalition was based on cherry-picked information to mislead readers into thinking climate science models are wrong about global warming."

This is not a logical argument. Facts are correct or incorrect, whether they're cherrypicked or not.

Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”

#79

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

refurb wrote: post #71

vorpalhex wrote: post #7

I 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…

Yup. This is why I actually agree with Zuckerberg on his “no censorship” approach. He’s smart enough to recognize that taking on the burden of what should be censored and what shouldn’t is a quagmire he’d prefer to avoid. No matter how “good” your filters are, you’re going to piss off a massive group of customers, despite all the effort. It’s just a massive time sink with little to no benefit. “The only way to win is…

> I actually agree with Zuckerberg on his “no censorship” approach.

But this is a complete nonsense! Facebook cheerfully and aggressively censors anything sexual, far over and above local concerns of legality. Even before FOSTA/SESTA.

(example list from 2018 of censored FB content rules: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/24/facebook-content-that-gets-y... )

Re: Facebook overrides fact-checks when climate science is “opinion”

#80

Post by barbacoa » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

dependenttypes wrote: post #50

vorpalhex wrote: post #7

I 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…

> We've already seen well known EFF activists rated untrue for their arguments against warrantless surveillance Got a link about that?

From my understanding the story is:

* Patriot act is up for renewal

* Amendment proposed to not allow section 215 to be used to search internet history W/O warrant.

* Patriot act reauthorized W/O internet history protection amendment.

* PF rules "[Congress] voted for federal agencies to have access to your internet history without obtaining a warrant." is false because of semantic word games.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/may/21/facebook-p...