Live data from Hacker News

Facebook Is a 'Super Spreader' of Election Misinformation

newsweek.com

91–100 of 150 posts

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

#91
post #66
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.

That it is hard to ban politics doesn't mean everything is political. If everything were political, we would have much less fun.

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

#92
post #86
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Value measures bereft of an encompassing political framework tend to very quickly degrade in terms of who can enact more existential violence on the other, and even that, given enough time for adaptation can stabilize into an equilibrium indistinguishable from a polity.

This is the driving force behind symbiosis, family rearing, community building, business, justice systems (and the necessity of blind spots with regards to Law Enforcement to universally apply) and the "taming" of the criminal element as a much needed escape valve for development away from dysfunctional political dead ends. Quite to the contrary, all life tends toward the political, and politik as it happens makes all other value measures besides existence possible.

So quite to the contrary, from the system-centric point of view, in which a eukaryotic organism can be considered a policy of living tissues, extant fauna, and set of evolvedmechanisms for keeping everyone alive and in check, the stable political equilibrium from which all other activity inherent to prolonged existence can take place, the political is life.

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

#93
post #5

Facebook needs to be nationalized and regulated as a public utility. It's outrageous that this hasn't already happened. How much more election meddling do they need to get away with before everyone understands that this is necessary? At this stage, all remaining Facebook investors are deeply immoral individuals. All the reasonable moral individuals have already cashed out. The government should just screw over the re…

> 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.

You got any specific examples or texts that one should know of?

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

#94
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…

> “the free market of ideas” -as well as the idea that Facebook should remain a neutral party at all cost

were abandoned by facebook the moment non-customizable feed algorithms replaced chronology, not after the resulting system lost whatever 'objectivity' remained.

this, and not the resultant 'gaming' of the implicitly-clickbait-biased platform, are the root cause 'that led to overcompensating in the wrong direction, and the current situation.'

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

#95
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.

It's all about incentives! They make money on ads, the more the better.

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

#96
post #10

Facebook should be taken offline a week before the election.

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.

Since when is your ability to talk to your family depending on facebook. What about email, phone calls, or a zoom call?

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

#97
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That it is hard to ban politics doesn't mean everything is political. If everything were political, we would have much less fun.

I mean, this year, car tires became political at one point.

I am continuously surprised at how things I thought were ‘above the fray’, can become a political issue.

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

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That it is hard to ban politics doesn't mean everything is political. If everything were political, we would have much less fun.

I mean, this year, car tires became political at one point. I am continuously surprised at how things I thought were ‘above the fray’, can become a political issue.

It's only because people can make anything political, despite doing so being a monumentally stupid idea.

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

#100
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?

The EPA has something called a Dose-Response Curve.

Depending on what's being dumped in the river the polluter can be thrown in jail, the govt can be sued, the river can be closed off etc etc

But what helps in determining damage is the curve. On all kinds of chemicals.

Right now when Facebook allows ppl to swim in info sewage no one knows what the dose - response is.

There is no EPA.

Post reply on HN