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Facebook Is a 'Super Spreader' of Election Misinformation

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Re: Facebook Is a 'Super Spreader' of Election Misinformation

#61

Post by kapuasuite »

cryptica wrote: post #27
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Facebook needs to be nationalized and regulated as a public utility It is outrageous that the history and effects of arbitrary nationalisation is so uncommonly understood.

Railways and telecoms worked out just fine. Sure, in many countries, train tickets have been getting overly expensive under government control but high costs are not such a huge concern in the grand scheme of things. On the other hand, the break up of AT&T in the US had huge benefits for consumers in terms of lowering costs. If Facebook is nationalized, at least they will not manipulate people to serve corporate inte…

> Railways and telecoms worked out just fine. Sure, in many countries, train tickets have been getting overly expensive under government control but high costs are not such a huge concern in the grand scheme of things. On the other hand, the break up of AT&T in the US had huge benefits for consumers in terms of lowering costs. If Facebook is nationalized, at least they will not manipulate people to serve corporate interests (that is the main threat).

You should read up on:

1. The history of railroads and regulation in the United States, including their collapse and resurgence in the 20th Century.

2. The history of Bell as a government-sanctioned monopoly, their breakup and subsequent industry consolidation.

3. The disastrous environmental damage caused by state-owned energy companies.

Re: Facebook Is a 'Super Spreader' of Election Misinformation

#62

Post by carschno »

im3w1l wrote: post #6
arkitaip wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The algorithm is designed to propagate misinformation like crazy because that's what drives engagement and improves Facebook's metrics.

Come on, you know it's not true that it's designed to propagate misinformation. The algorithm can't even tell whether it's misinformation or not.

The above statement only needs a minor correction:

> The algorithm is designed to propagate misinformation like crazy because that's what drives engagement and improves Facebook's metrics.

I would put it like this:

The algorithm design causes the propagation of misinformation like crazy because it optimizes for engagement (which is Facebook's core metric).

Re: Facebook Is a 'Super Spreader' of Election Misinformation

#63

Post by beagle3 »

Dansvidania wrote: post #53
beagle3 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook selects and controls what users see. Facebook chooses to promote disinformation over your friend’s cat pictures because it drives more engagements and thus more money. They are totally responsible for that content, even if this is an emergent property of optimizing for money algorithmically aNd no explicit editorializing takes place. Their users may be dumb f&cks[0] but Facebook is not a dumb pipe. [0] Zucke…

I also do not like the fact that Facebook "optimizes" the content shown to users, and would rather just have no Algorithm at all, but that seems to me like a different (although possibly related) problem.

It would force users to curate and would reduce time spent on FB - both positive outcomes in my book.

The way most people use Facebook is “friend everyone and let god^H^H^H zuck sort it out”.

(Not a Facebook user myself)

Re: Facebook Is a 'Super Spreader' of Election Misinformation

#64

Post by jackric »

albertTJames wrote: post #14

Mercer/Bannon/Trump and co. are super spreaders of misinformation. They happen to also use facebook, but I dont remember any issues of "fake news" in elections pre-2016/brexit. So no, its not inherent to the platform, only to the bad actors on it.

It was there pre 2016 it just didn't have this catchy term "fake news" yet. Ever heard of Gell-Mann Amnesia?

Re: Facebook Is a 'Super Spreader' of Election Misinformation

#65

Post by nkozyra »

harwoodleon wrote: post #9

It’s baked into the business model. Attention is the main material of the business, however it is gotten. It can’t change. Facebook couldn’t afford for it to change.

That's self evident but Facebook could afford not incentivizing political engagement.

It's only fairly recently that this threat vector was exploited. Facebook grew for years without being a disinformation channel.

Re: Facebook Is a 'Super Spreader' of Election Misinformation

#66

Post by pjc50 »

nkozyra wrote: post #65
harwoodleon wrote: post #9

It’s baked into the business model. Attention is the main material of the business, however it is gotten. It can’t change. Facebook couldn’t afford for it to change.

That's self evident but Facebook could afford not incentivizing political engagement. It's only fairly recently that this threat vector was exploited. Facebook grew for years without being a disinformation channel.

As we found out when HN tried to ban politics, everything is political.

Re: Facebook Is a 'Super Spreader' of Election Misinformation

#67

Post by eloisius »

unmdplyr wrote: post #2

> When a Utah county accidentally sent out 13,000 absentee ballots without a signature line, the NewsGuard Red-rated site LawEnforcementToday.com called this a "cheat-by-mail scheme." This isn't a Facebook problem as such. It's just sensationalistic journalism. Just that Facebook as a platform helps amplfiy it. Just my 2 cents.

And Facebook has changed the landscape of journalism to favor drive-by clickbait journalism. Does the riverbed guide the river or did the river carve out the riverbed?

Re: Facebook Is a 'Super Spreader' of Election Misinformation

#68

Post by nkozyra »

pjc50 wrote: post #66
nkozyra wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's self evident but Facebook could afford not incentivizing political engagement. It's only fairly recently that this threat vector was exploited. Facebook grew for years without being a disinformation channel.

As we found out when HN tried to ban politics, everything is political.

I think there's an argument you can never fully ban it and there are ways to subtly inject and influence politics.

But my point was that Facebook could survive and thrive in a hypothetical situation wherein engagement over political content/disinformation was removed.

Re: Facebook Is a 'Super Spreader' of Election Misinformation

#69

Post by albertTJames »

jackric wrote: post #64
albertTJames wrote: post #14

Mercer/Bannon/Trump and co. are super spreaders of misinformation. They happen to also use facebook, but I dont remember any issues of "fake news" in elections pre-2016/brexit. So no, its not inherent to the platform, only to the bad actors on it.

It was there pre 2016 it just didn't have this catchy term "fake news" yet. Ever heard of Gell-Mann Amnesia?

Do you have any example ?
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