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

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

#211

Post by danudey » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 9:52 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…

Facebook said they don't want to be the arbiters of truth, so they're allowing climate change deniers to prevent their posts from being flagged as false, which they are.

In other words, they're being arbiters of truth.

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

#212

Post by Covzire » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 9:57 PM UTC

jmcqk6 wrote: post #204

Covzire wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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. We desperately need some mechanism for correcting bad thinking based on falsehoods. You can believe whatever you want if your beliefs have no effect on me, but the world has become so complex and interconn…

The best mechanism against bad ideas is to allow trustworthy people who can speak clearly and honestly about those ideas to do so.

The first amendment, in addition to freedom of speech, was supposed to enshrine the idea of a free press so that the two could keep the government in check. The press was supposed to allow honest trustworthy people to become known and to inform the public about issues of the day, and allow their honesty to be questioned and put on trial. The press chose a different path long ago, favoring one political party to an extreme degree where instead of the public's ability to test the honesty of politicians and pundits, we are simply to be told without question, mostly along party lines, what the truth is. Simply adding more power to the press will without a doubt make every problem in America much, much worse in the long run.

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

#213

Post by bhupy » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

Wohlf wrote: post #168

bhupy wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

The case was specifically about a full page ad that the New York Times had taken out that contained a number of factual inaccuracies, such as the number of times King had been arrested during the protests, what song the protesters had sung, and whether or not students had been expelled for participating.

GP asked:

> 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

NYTimes v Sullivan held that unless the "facts" proven wrong are specifically about a private individual, you can't sue for damages if a newspaper publishes information that are factually incorrect. If the NYTimes Editorial Board published an article that claimed that the sky is green, you can't sue them for that. More practically, if the NYTimes Editorial Board published an article that "climate change isn't real", you can't sue them for that either.

Likewise, if Facebook published fact checking info that's proven wrong or misleading, they won't be held liable unless the fact checking info directly defames a private individual.

Also note that this is US-centric. Outside of the US, this kind of publisher speech protection doesn't exist, and such nations can cause legal problems for Facebook. Either FB would have to hide the contents from citizens of those nations, or stop operating there altogether.

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

#214

Post by xg15 » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:02 PM UTC

ksdale wrote: post #193

xg15 wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whether or not people agree on something is completely irrelevant to whether or not it is a fact. Earth will orbit the sun, no matter how many people may or may not be comfortable with it. Finding out what is and what is not a fact can be extremely difficult. However, we've spent the last few centuries developing tools to tackle this problem in the for of the scientific method.

The comment I was replying to pointed out that accurate observations are indisputable facts. To paraphrase the next part, determining causation from observations can be a matter of fact (where you understand the mechanism of causation very well), or of deciding that we're satisfied that the experimentation we've done demonstrates causation (which is not at all the same thing as proving causation). We can also do some…

> what to do when a fact hinges on a study? Who decides if the study is good enough? Obviously there is an objective truth, but is the study enough to find it?

Good point. This is definitely not trivial or easy - but this exactly the problem that empirical science has been developing tools for.

Technically, a theory cannot be "proven" - at some point, there could always appear another Einstein and overturn everything - but there are still theories which stay consistent with all observations - i.e. "facts" - for an extensively long time. The standard model of physics is such an example: It's not "proven", but for decades any attempt to disprove it has failed and an enormous amount of working technology has been developed by assuming the model accurately reflects reality.

In a similar way, a single study is probably not enough to make a new theory credible - however if the claims of the theory can be consistently reproduced in additional studies, this gives more justification to rely on it. (And more justification to be sceptical of critics)

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

#215

Post by erichocean » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:04 PM UTC

forgotmyhnacc wrote: post #106

smt88 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> When you search something e.g. is climate change real, Google ranks the results algorithmically.

On hot-button topics, that's simply not true. Google maintains manual rankings for all sorts of things, and especially manually maintains search suggestions so as to not lead people down the "wrong" path.

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

#216

Post by erichocean » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

jmcqk6 wrote: post #204

Covzire wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>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. We desperately need some mechanism for correcting bad thinking based on falsehoods. You can believe whatever you want if your beliefs have no effect on me, but the world has become so complex and interconn…

> We desperately need some mechanism for correcting bad thinking based on falsehoods.

Let's burn the books promoting the bad thinking and then send the offenders off to re-education camps to be corrected.

Update: Edited for clarity.

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

#217

Post by diegoholiveira » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

koheripbal wrote: post #199

xg15 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, so... now what? You've correctly identified a number of practical problems with combatting misinformation. However, this does not change the fact that misinformation exists and does real harm. So if you can neither change a person's opinion, nor keep them from influencing others, what would you propose we do?

Teach logic. ...at a young age. Fundamental logic and reason. That is the first step. Most of the dangerous content online is visibly illogical, and driven purely on emotion.

We're living in the age of emotions. Reason and logic are dead.

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

#218

Post by jmcqk6 » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:11 PM UTC

Covzire wrote: post #212

jmcqk6 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. We desperately need some mechanism for correcting bad thinking based on falsehoods. You can believe whatever you want if your beliefs have no effect on me, but the world has become so complex and interconn…

The best mechanism against bad ideas is to allow trustworthy people who can speak clearly and honestly about those ideas to do so. The first amendment, in addition to freedom of speech, was supposed to enshrine the idea of a free press so that the two could keep the government in check. The press was supposed to allow honest trustworthy people to become known and to inform the public about issues of the day, and allo…

First of all, talking about "the press" as though it's some monolithic entity is just wrong. "The Press" is made up of thousands and thousands of uncoordinated organizations and people. There are still honest and trustworthy members of "the press" out there and available.

Just as each individual member of "the press" has a responsibility and duty to serve that role well, we also have a shared responsibility to hold them to that standard.

What we are facing here is a not just a failure of "the press", but a failure across society as a whole. We mostly don't want to do the right thing, which means putting aside our egos and focusing on what is actually true. We want to do the thing that feels good, which is getting confirmation of our current beliefs as righteous. "The press" is not responsible for this feeling, but some of them definitely benefit from it.

>allow trustworthy people who can speak clearly and honestly about those ideas to do so

And who, exactly, is going to make these decisions about who is "allowed" to speak or not? What, exactly, is that mechanism?

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

#219

Post by jmcqk6 » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

erichocean wrote: post #216

jmcqk6 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. We desperately need some mechanism for correcting bad thinking based on falsehoods. You can believe whatever you want if your beliefs have no effect on me, but the world has become so complex and interconn…

> We desperately need some mechanism for correcting bad thinking based on falsehoods. Let's burn the books promoting the bad thinking and then send the offenders off to re-education camps to be corrected. Update: Edited for clarity.

Are you done editing your comment yet?

None of those options have been particularly successful, have they?

You're editing your comment so much, it's hard to know what to reply to. The bottom line is that I don't know what the answer is, and lately I fear there is no answer.

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

#220

Post by anonbcpolitics » Tue, Jul 21, 2020, 10:24 PM UTC

Nasrudith wrote: post #122

anonbcpolitics wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.).

"Accountable", there is that weasel word again for "do what we want or else" without even defining it.

I clearly defined what and why. Sorry one word triggered you so bad you couldn't add to the conversation.

Pick from a thesaurus and move on.