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

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

#161

Post by justin66 » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 6:02 PM UTC

stronglikedan wrote: post #101

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…

> The problem is there are three groups: climate deniers, climate alarmists, and climate realists.

Unless these labels are ones that people apply to themselves, you're being pretty unhelpful by labeling people.

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

#162

Post by vorpalhex » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 6:06 PM UTC

pjc50 wrote: post #76

koheripbal wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is normally why we have limits on behavior like using violence to push viewpoints. You can't reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into, but we also know that if you try to suppress them then they'll double down on their viewpoint. The best way to push a cause is to have a martyr.

There is no person fit to play the censor. Power corrupts. What starts as an intent to stop climate change denialism ends with being false about warrantless surveillance. What starts with trying to limit hate speech frequently ends with picking favorites.

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

#163

Post by newacct583 » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 6:14 PM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #160

newacct583 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in a fact-checker-visible sense it isn't, though. We know who the actors were and what they did and how they wrote about it. The US civil war is one of, if not the, best-attested conflicts of its century. What is there to fact check? Like I said, I'm curious and suspect the real issue is a little deeper.

I'm not particularly familiar with the matter, but the actions and wirittings are still subject to interpretation. Some examples might be: What was the reason for the confederacy to declare independence. What were General E Lees motivations for joining the war. What was the motivation for most soldiers (who were not slave owners) joining the war. You can find hundreds of books disputing these topics.

Once again, reasons and motivations aren't the subject of "fact checking" in the sense we're discussing. That's interpretive history, not factual stuff. And I'd be shocked beyond belief if Facebook was actually stepping in here, which is why I asked for a cite.

I'll be blunt: this didn't happen. They never fact checked a post about a confederate general, and if they did it was over some kind of obviously false thing that wouldn't be controversial.

Edit: OK, I found a situation: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/jun/12/facebook-p...

tl;dr: Facebook put a fact check warning on a piece that claimed in isolation that "Lee opposed both secession and slavery" without mentioning the fact that he led the confederate army in war against the United States or that he personally owned slaves. That seems about right to me.

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

#164

Post by chillacy » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

octaveguin wrote: post #118

This problem was created by social media by choosing which articles to show in your news feed based on engagement. That is, how much you'll emotionally react to it. The solution is not to add another layer of "fact checking". That's super dubious. Get rid of what got us here. News feeds organized by engagement are evil. Dismantling them would solve both the production and consumption of emotion driven information.

Traditional news media is also organized by engagement: an entire department is responsible for picking the home page of a newspaper and importance of each story.

The major publications do a better job at not sensationalizing everything, but this has been a problem since 1890 at least: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism

That social media naturally tends to become a tabloid magazine may be more a reflection on readers than the editor (whether human or machine).

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

#165

Post by nazgulsenpai » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 6:17 PM UTC

vorpalhex wrote: post #162

pjc50 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This is normally why we have limits on behavior like using violence to push viewpoints. You can't reason someone out of something they didn't reason themselves into, but we also know that if you try to suppress them then they'll double down on their viewpoint. The best way to push a cause is to have a martyr. There is no person fit to play the censor. Power corrupts. What starts as an intent to stop climate change de…

This is extraordinarily well put.

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

#166

Post by chillacy » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 6:22 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #142

jfengel wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Facebook endumbens people. It's there front and center of the stupidification process, whether it wants to be or not. Facebook isn't making anyone dumb. They were already dumb; you just didn't notice before.

For more evidence consider magazines from the front counters of grocery stores. That stuff is at grocery store checkouts, by popularity it's more representative of what people like than say... pg's essays.

That Snapchat's (curated!) discover tab looks like that suggests to me that this content really is just popular with people and even human editors recognize that.

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

#167

Post by codecamper » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 6:23 PM UTC

maybe this is because Zuck flies between Hawaii and SF about 2 times every month? (just guessing based on his freckle count)

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

#168

Post by Wohlf » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 6:27 PM UTC

bhupy wrote: post #34

throw737 wrote: post #10

Question: facebook as a platform is not liable for information it contains. However if Facebook would publish fact checking info, that is wrong or missleading, are they liable? Could I sue facebook if their "facts" were proven wrong, and cause me damage?

> Could I sue facebook if their "facts" were proven wrong, and cause me damage? Per the landmark ruling NYTimes v Sullivan — no, you'd probably lose that case.

This case seems to apply to public officials, I assume it would be different for private citizens?

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

#169

Post by Latty » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 6:27 PM UTC

s1artibartfast wrote: post #123

vkou wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Different cultures may disagree on what the policy should be, but Zuckerberg has the ability to create nudity rules that are objective, whether you agree with them or not. For example, FB can make a policy that says no exposed nipples for females. There may be different opinions on the value of such a policy, but not the execution/implementation. This is much more difficult for a policy stating that content must not…

I saw someone who was posting close-ups of nipples without specifying a gender to make the point that it isn't really that simple.

Is a trans woman's nipple OK? What about a trans man? What if the trans man has large breasts? What if a cis man has large breasts? What about the tattoo nipple of a cancer survivor?

Nothing is simple, there are value judgements at every turn. The implementation is absolutely making judgements.

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

#170

Post by catalogia » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 6:27 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #116

catalogia wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If that's the case, the problem isn't with video evidence, the problem is people don't know how to make logical arguments. Facebook didn't say they would be moderating discussion in that way.

I don't think it's just a matter of people being illogical, (although it's certainly the case that all people will be illogical at least some of the time.) How people interpret what they observe is fundamentally subjective.

> "Facebook didn't say they would be moderating discussion in that way."

Sure, I'm responding more to the notion of "Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to believe facts" My point is that video doesn't always make it clear what the facts are. It's not merely a matter of 'some people don't believe facts' because in many cases different people can view the same video and, with a large degree of confidence and in good faith, have different opinions on what the facts are.