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

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

#81

Post by smt88 » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:00 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 think it's fine for Facebook to opt out of fact-checking, as long as they also opt out of algorithmic syndication of content.

If my feed is going to have posts shared by others (even non-friends) or, worse, op-eds in it, then FB is vouching for whatever I see. If they share a link with 50 million people, they're certainly responsible for the consequences.

Worse is the ad side, where Facebook wants to continue to profit from well-funded wars against science while still claiming to be neutral.

If you get paid to broadcast a message and then broadcast it, you are not neutral.

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

#82

Post by jeromegv » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:02 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…

But he already plays by having an algo that suggest you articles/news/groups to join. It would be one thing if it was just a dump of what your friends post and nothing else. But the moment you "suggest" content to people, you take an editorial stance. If you take an editorial stance and start pushing an article to millions of people, then you have a responsibility.

You can't have it both ways. This isn't a phone company.

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

#83

Post by fdschoeneman » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:02 PM UTC

According to the piece, the 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”

#84

Post by christiansakai » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:03 PM UTC

Or we could get rid of Democracy and back to kingship/dictatorship. /s

But on a serious note. It seems that the requirement of functioning Democracy is under the assumption that the majority is educated and know what is good for them. Information warfare like this spells disaster for Democracy.

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

#85

Post by calimac » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:07 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.

read the full code.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

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

#86

Post by wl » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

lazyjones wrote: post #73

wl wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your summary of his comment is misleading because you omit his explanation of how both are true.

> “Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003″.

> It is correct that the total global area burned has OVERALL declined over the last decades, BUT this is incorrectly used to argue that climate change is not affecting wildfires. The overall decrease is largely due a substantial reduction in flammable vegetation in African grasslands arising from human land use changes.

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

#87

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #67

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... 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 of…

> A thing that does not occur very often, statistically, can get blown completely out of proportion.

9/11 only happened once, and killed far fewer Americans than American police have since then. Therefore terrorism isn't a problem.

(This argument isn't false, but it's highly misleading!)

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

#88

Post by SaltyLemonZest » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:13 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 analysis is, ironically, guilty of the same cherry-picking it accuses the original article of. The checkers identify two false claims and two misleading ones out of Shellenberger's bulleted list of twelve "facts few people know". But the summary never engages with the article's core claim, that climate change won't be the end of the world or of human society even though many in the general public think it will. The first checker explicitly agrees with that claim!

There's also a larger question here. If claims which dispute scientific consensus are fact-checkably false, what does that mean for scientific debate? If Facebook had been created in the 60s, would Freudianism have been forever locked in as an effective form of psychiatry?

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

#89

Post by dfxm12 » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:13 PM UTC

catalogia wrote: post #72

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... 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 since…

In this context, an apt metaphor would involve one commenter believing that the people were not struck by a car, or that the building still stands...

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

#90

Post by jariel » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 4:13 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…

"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."

This isn't the hurdle - the reality of nuance is the hurdle.

Any one of us would have tremendous difficulty in parsing through the reams of various ways people can comment on the world around them.

It's an impossible problem. Not even a team of people watching your every post would produced consistent results.

"The earth increases in temperature by 0.1 degrees last year" - says John. Well ... there are a handful of different ways of indicating the 'Earths Temperature' so we're already dead in the water.

"The winters are colder where I am so looks like 'global cooling to me'" - says Judy. Well, if it is getting cooler where this person is, it would look like the Earth is cooling to a person with that narrow frame of reference.

If it was a war of 'scientific voices' with references to specific articles etc. this would be one thing, but we're talking about FB: casual discussion and propagation of 'water cooler banter'.

I don't think anyone has a solution.