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

arstechnica.com

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

#101

Post by stronglikedan »

jeffreyrogers wrote: post #49

Would 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…

The problem is there are three groups: climate deniers, climate alarmists, and climate realists. The first two are much louder than the third, so the debate quickly turns into an extremist yelling match full of misinformation in the public arena. Most people never settle into the minority middle ground of climate realist, because it can be difficult to muddle through the extremist views to get to the truth. And even if you do, the majority of people will just make it a point to tell you how wrong you are anyway.

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

#102

Post by johndavidback »

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…

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

There is arguably a large social benefit to preventing widespread misinformation being disseminated. Perhaps no great business benefit - indeed it is likely a massive expense. But someone somewhere is paying that cost, however it manifests.

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

#103

Post by vkou »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #92
pjc50 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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... )

The grey area and room for debate is much greater for truth than nudity and sexuality. zuckerbergs policy preference was no censorship of fake news, not no censorship whatsoever.

> The grey area and room for debate is much greater for truth than nudity and sexuality.

That's your subjective opinion. Different cultures will significantly disagree with you (and with the Zuck) on what the gray area for nudity and sexuality is.

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

#104

Post by LoSboccacc »

fdschoeneman wrote: post #83

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.

cherry picking truths and listing them out of context (i.e. wildfire reduction without mentioning land usage changed) may not be fake news, but it definitely smells like propaganda

not defending Facebook actions, which are wrong for a different set of motives detached from the actual article quality, but this isn't the censorship smoking gun people want it to be

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

#105

Post by catalogia »

dfxm12 wrote: post #89
catalogia wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I don't mean these to be metaphors to some other situation. I mean them to be real examples of the shortcomings of video evidence in determining objective truth. Both are examples that doubtlessly cause heated arguments facebook moderators are expected to moderate.

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

#106

Post by forgotmyhnacc »

smt88 wrote: post #81
refurb wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pr…

How does this argument apply to Google? When you search something e.g. is climate change real, Google ranks the results algorithmically. If Google doesn't do fact checking, are they liable for false statements?

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

#107

Post by SaltyLemonZest »

wl wrote: post #98
SaltyLemonZest wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. T…

If this were a debate for or against a proposition, your criticism would make a lot of sense. Even if there's some false and misleading information used to support the proposition, the proposition can still be adequately supported by other information and arguments. However, that's not the context of the analysis. The question isn't "Does this guy have a point?" It's "Does this article spread misinformation?" The ana…

I'm not sure I agree. A claim that the article "mixes accurate and inaccurate claims in support of a misleading and overly simplistic argumentation about climate change" strongly suggests that the guy doesn't have a point. Perhaps more importantly, a "partly false" tag on Facebook suggests the same - fact check tags will inevitably be interpreted as a claim that the article's not worth reading.

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

#108

Post by Barrin92 »

pjc50 wrote: post #79
refurb wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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... )

not just anything sexual, but mere nudity on social media platforms seems to be controversial. I remember the "female presenting nipples" debacle on Tumblr including pictures of breast-feeding mothers.

"no censorship" apparently means, "don't anger American conservatives", not "everyone can speak and share".

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

#109

Post by octaveguin »

pjc50 wrote: post #87
chrisco255 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!)

I don't want to go down this rabbit hole but a lot of people believe that terrorism isn't a large problem. The outsized response to it has been.

Neither position is an absurd one to take.

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

#110

Post by Chirael »

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…

This reminds me of when people said that the DMCA would be used to silence critics, or DRM would be used to prevent people from fixing their own devices. In those other cases, too, the outcome was obvious and predicted, but they went ahead anyway.

We can only hope, pray, and take action[1] to try to prevent the same thing from happening with the government trying to force companies to build backdoors into encryption, a battle we have been fighting for literally decades[2].

[1] https://act.eff.org/action/stop-the-earn-it-bill-before-it-b... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipper_chip

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