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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

#111

Post by 542354234235 »

raxxorrax wrote: post #91
pjc50 wrote: 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 think what people mean when they say everything is political is that the actions of our politics shapes just about every aspect our lives. You might think that driving to a restaurant to buy a meal isn’t political, but everything about is the result of decisions of voters, politicians, and bureaucrats. How smooth the drive is dependent on how much money your city allocated tax money for road maintenance and how city planners decided to lay out your area. The laws and regulations, and the competence of the enforcement, on safety effect your chance of getting sick. The laws on tax burdens, labor laws, minimum wage laws, trade agreements, etc. factor into the price of your meal. Your level of disposable income to go buy meals is effected by those labor laws, wage laws, cost or rent or a mortgage (which itself is effected by city planning of what types of space can be built where), and on and on.

The point of “everything is political” is to snap people out of the mistaken idea that politics is just abortion, voting, gun rights, and tax loopholes.

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

#112

Post by 542354234235 »

salawat wrote: post #92
waihtis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rega…

When you are struggling to meet the word count on your essay.

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

#113

Post by pjc50 »

foldr wrote: post #73
pjc50 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

There was a period a few years ago where a total ban was attempted, then rolled back after a couple of weeks - users protested by flagging everything and writing a comment saying how X was in fact political.

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

#114

Post by dredmorbius »

foldr wrote: post #73
pjc50 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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.

There was a political detox week for years ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13108404

It ended early:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13133823

Numerous references:

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

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

#115

Post by pjc50 »

waihtis wrote: post #86
pjc50 wrote: 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.

The question "what has value, and to whom" is extremely political.

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

#116

Post by 542354234235 »

eloisius wrote: post #109
op03 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I like your analogy. Maybe it's because I'm older than last time I cared about something this much, but this time I really don't have a solution that's consistent with any ideology that I have. For most of my adult life, I've leaned towards libertarian. I don't see the free market solving this one very well. I'm also skeptical of a government-sponsored ministry of truth, though. I'm at a loss for how to "fix" the eff…

It sometimes really scares me to think about. The power of algorithms combined with big data is showing itself to be scarily good at influencing behavior. It is basically exploiting quirks of our brains to get us to do certain things more (namely stay on a particular platform and engage with it). It is like those optical illusions that are made so that even if you are told what you are really seeing, you are incapable of getting your brain to “fix” the illusion. But what if almost everything around was an AI designed optical illusion that is constantly tweaked and improved until you are incapable of having an accurate visual understanding of the world around you. That is what our digital spaces are starting to feel like. But instead of just our visual centers, where we can just say “I know my eyes are playing trips on me”, it is a much deeper level of the brain, like our reward center, our values, our information processing.

And in the big scheme of things, algorithms aren’t even all that good yet. They are only going to get better at manipulating us and making us want and need it. Like the study with the mice that would compulsively push a lever to deliver drugs until they starved to death. Using digital stimulus to illicit the addictive biochemical reaction in our brain instead of a drug’s more direct chemical delivery method. Or maybe I’m just paranoid.

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

#117

Post by 542354234235 »

russellbeattie wrote: post #83

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 reelecte…

> 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.

I don’t understand what you mean here. Why does Trump need to be reelected? There is always outrage to be generated for clicks. There was no shortage of outrage during Obama’s term. Even things that were objective non issues, like the tan suit, was whipped into a viral attention storm. “Obama's tan suit shocks social media”. It seems like social media is just designed to promote outrage, since outrage produces virality, but not that it needs Trump specifically. Is there something I’m not getting relating specifically to Trump and Facebook?

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

#118

Post by NLMichel »

acje wrote: post #78

'Super Spreader' hardly describes Facebooks reach. It's an entire (miss)information pandemic in its own right.

And don't think it stops at the US border, this is a segment from the Dutch TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLoR2Spftwg Funny thing they just copy/paste the US conspiracies on Dutch politicians.

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

#119

Post by grep_name »

I don't doubt that facebook's algorithm results in disinformation through their quest for engagement, but does anyone know a good resource that talks about the specifics of what ideas are most spread in this way with some numbers?

My issue is that I read about this often (and care about these issues), but I have not used facebook since 2010 and so I have no experience with what everyone's talking about. I feel like in order to understand I need some data to work with that is more specific than 'flagged false', because facebook is just not part of my experience right now and I don't know what people are actually saying on the platform

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

#120

Post by raxxorrax »

542354234235 wrote: post #111
raxxorrax wrote: post #91

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 think what people mean when they say everything is political is that the actions of our politics shapes just about every aspect our lives. You might think that driving to a restaurant to buy a meal isn’t political, but everything about is the result of decisions of voters, politicians, and bureaucrats. How smooth the drive is dependent on how much money your city allocated tax money for road maintenance and how cit…

Partly true. On the other hand I think it is a common mistake to attribute economic success to politics. Sure, they lay the framework, but that doesn't mean they are responsible for success or failure. Of course politicians like to claim it anyway.

> The point of “everything is political” is to snap people out [...]

Oh, wow. That can make sense, but I had a complete different interpretation. I understood it as prompt to reflect on everything you do with an examination if it furthers partisan goals.

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