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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

#81

Post by loveJesus »

Hallelujah. Well, i see social media corporations are censoring in favor of their view of things. Because those in our society are divided, we can not be be a 'neutral arbiter' of truth in this world. For example, @LiveAction and other pro life accounts are not permitted to advertise on twitter, etc...

If anything we can have the ability to turn off specific advertisements. I thought it would be nice to have a list of curators, who could digitally sign page content. Then have like a GPG trust chain where people can say the people they value curating. We can choose anyone who we align with their values, and we can view and search the web with information that is weighed according to our local web of trust. It could also be used to help young children as well to have some kind of firewall against bad information. And for adults I would rather be exposed to all ideas of the spectrum, which gives me the ability to fact check things for myself. I have had this idea for some time now. The idea is we get to choose our own analyzers and work together to establish the truthfulness of the web. And if i can help someone with it thanks be to God in Jesus name

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

#83

Post by russellbeattie »

They made $22 billion in revenue this past quarter helping destroy the country. Every Facebook employee is laughing their asses off at you personally right now. "LOL! Look, HN is complaining about Facebook again! Hysterical!" They're emailing the link above with laughing emojis and dollar signs, while they customize their new Tesla order in another window.

The fact is, they will all lose money if Trump isn't reelected. Every single FB employee knows this, and does their part to keep the rage machine working. No conspiracy theory needed here, it's all part of the job.

If this wasn't the case, we would have a simple setting on the home feed to exclude shared links and news. One click and no more Fox News hatred from your crazy uncle. But we don't have that option. Why? All I want from Facebook is to see updates of distant relatives on vacation, or graduation photos, etc. But they don't make money if there's no anger, so oh well.

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

#84

Post by sveme »

izacus wrote: post #77
sveme wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually always a good guidance: What's the business model/the aim of a company? Does it align with my own aims and wishes? It's the basic difference between Google/Facebook and Apple. Google/Facebook sells ads, Apple sells hardware. Google/Facebook need to know as much as possible about you to sell more ads. Apple does not. Obviously, these things can change.

If that's true, why did Apple ads start showing in iOS? There's now a promotion for Apples services in iOS 14 settings, we're getting notifications about Apple arcade things, the Apple Ads tracking setting is ON by default and split from 3rd party ad tracking settings... Not to mention their actions like political censorship (just from today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24939717 ) Your narrative fits Apple m…

As I said, things can change, company aims can change - and as you said, it's not clear cut anymore whether Apple is to be trusted.

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

#85

Post by croon »

fakedang wrote: post #71
irjustin wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the top comment has it right. The result is actually an emergent property of "increase attention/engagement to the max". This is actually an algorithmic result that was just one of many possibilities. So, I don't blame the developers 100%. Forest/trees problem. What I do blame is Zuckerberg & the Board's decision to not 180' on the algorithm and lower engagement now that we know this is the result - money & p…

Let's be honest here. Facebook for Zuckerberg is just a political tool for him now. Earlier, he wanted to run for President, which is obviously at severe conflict with the FB board's stated vision. Now he has realized that he can just twist any nation into his image. Money and power, at the end of the day.

I'm unsure of his politics, but if I'm understanding them correctly, he's failing quite miserably if that's what he's trying.

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

#86

Post by waihtis »

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.

Politics is not the root value of all things and so this cannot be true.

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

#87

Post by Sacho »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #36
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... I shouldn't talk to family overseas during this time or find another way to do it? Or everyone not living in the US should not have facebook before an American election? It would seem to be more prudent to disallow political ads the week before. Or make it a crime to, say, spread wrong information about voting. And so on.

> I shouldn't talk to family overseas during this time or find another way to do it? A speed bump on posts (not messages or comments) isn’t a bad idea. One month before an election, there is a fifteen-minute cooldown on posts. One week before, a one-hour cooldown. One day before, three. This lets people keep talking. But it slows the reproduction rate and gives people a shot, even if a long shot, at fact checking.

In my country, which is a tiny part of Europe, there is an election every month. There's over 100 countries with a larger population. Some of the largest countries are so large that they would undoubtedly have elections pretty much constantly. How are you going to decide which country's elections should be throttled by Facebook?

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

#88

Post by foldr »

arethuza wrote: post #80
foldr wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to start a meta flamewar, but I don't think HN has ever officially banned political discussion tout court. There's always been a fair amount of it on the site for the past decade, as far as I remember.

The guidelines says the following are off-topic: "Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon." So I'd say HN explicitly allows some political content as long as it is "interesting". https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Yes indeed. That's the policy on stories, though. I think the policy on political discussion in comments (which often occurs in threads for "non-political" stories) has always been fairly unrestrictive.

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

#89

Post by throw0101a »

izacus wrote: post #77
sveme wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's actually always a good guidance: What's the business model/the aim of a company? Does it align with my own aims and wishes? It's the basic difference between Google/Facebook and Apple. Google/Facebook sells ads, Apple sells hardware. Google/Facebook need to know as much as possible about you to sell more ads. Apple does not. Obviously, these things can change.

If that's true, why did Apple ads start showing in iOS? There's now a promotion for Apples services in iOS 14 settings, we're getting notifications about Apple arcade things, the Apple Ads tracking setting is ON by default and split from 3rd party ad tracking settings... Not to mention their actions like political censorship (just from today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24939717 ) Your narrative fits Apple m…

> If that's true, why did Apple ads start showing in iOS?

Just because Apple does things besides sell hardware, doesn't mean those other things are their primary focus. "Services" make up 'only' 22% of their revenue:

* https://sixcolors.com/post/2020/10/apple-q4-2020-results-rec...

I'd hazard to guess that App stores, Music, Pay, and TV make up the majority of revenues—and not ads.

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

#90

Post by throw0101a »

sgdesign wrote: post #7

One thing I still don’t quite understand is how a system like this one can develop when the people developing it almost certainly are completely opposed to these ideas on a personal political level. I almost feel like it was an excess of idealism and belief in “the free market of ideas” -as well as the idea that Facebook should remain a neutral party at all cost- that led to overcompensating in the wrong direction, a…

> One thing I still don’t quite understand is how a system like this one can develop when the people developing it almost certainly are completely opposed to these ideas on a personal political level.

$$$

Does it have to be more complicated than that?

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