Earlier quoted context omitted.
There really isn’t any such thing as fact checking, only narrative pushing.
Can you fact check the flat Earth theories? Sometimes there is objective truth and sometimes there isn't.
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Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”
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Re: Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”
#92And this is why Facebook has no business being part of fact checking. While it may look different, this is no different than two folks on the phone getting interrupted by ATT and being told they are incorrect on their assumptions about topic X. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are the carrier, and should be treated as such.
Nonsense
Carriers do not have any staff monitoring the content being posted, nevermind the largest such staff in the world
Carriers do not have algorithms seeking out what content on what phone call creates the most 'engagement' (which is probably inversely correlated with truth value) and then actively interrupting your other calls to pushing that content into your stream. Again, nevermind that FB has the largest such feed-selecting algorithm on the planet.
Carriers do not select and push one news source over another, based on the level of times it gets mentioned on the calls.
These are all editorial functions, far more selective and influential than any newsroom editor.
The idea that they should be treated as carriers may have been originally true when the feeds were absolute literal timelines of items posted by 'friends' you selected, in strict chronological order.
But once they (FB, Twitter, etc.) started tracking "likes" and activity, and favoring one bit of content over another to surface and emphasize/de-emphazise in your feed, they became editors.
That point was decades ago, and it is time to stop treating them with that old trope. The fact that they fail at their fact checking is no reason to say that they shouldn't do it (and yes, if they would go back to strict chronological feeds fully selected by us, with no algorithmic prioritizing, I'd agree that we should again treat them as carriers).
They should not be able to have it both ways -- being the largest editors in the world = all the power, but treated as innocent carriers = none of the responsibility.
Re: Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you fact check the flat Earth theories? Sometimes there is objective truth and sometimes there isn't.
The problem is who decides. Once you create a fact checking entity, it will decide for itself what are object truths. Within a fact checking entity you essentially have the same issue as regulatory capture.
Exactly. It should be the user who decides which filters are applied for them. Right now, there is no choice.
Re: Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”
#94TLS issues accessing this page
Re: Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”
#95OK, random thought experiment. As someone without a facebook it's hard for me to evaluate, but how much damage would really be caused if facebook just disappeared one day?
A lot of small businesses thrive on Facebook pages, restaurants too, at least in my country. Those would go under fast
Facebook has taken up much of the local classifieds business that Craigslist took from local newspapers 15-20 years ago.
For me, the most effective directory of contractors is through Facebook. I hate it, because Facebook does a bad job of building and presenting that directory, but it's the largest and most relevant one.
Re: Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you fact check the flat Earth theories? Sometimes there is objective truth and sometimes there isn't.
If there's anything that flat Earth theories prove then it would be that there is no objective truth that can be universally agreed upon. So sure we can suppose that there is an objective truth (ironically this point is also debated), but who do you trust to be its arbiter?
There is objective truth. The earth is objectively not flat. There are people who don't agree with that (or at least who say they don't), but the earth is objectively not flat, whether or not some people don't agree. Not only that, it's provably not flat. So those who don't agree, well... they prove the contrariness of human nature, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Re: Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
There really isn’t any such thing as fact checking, only narrative pushing.
Can you fact check the flat Earth theories? Sometimes there is objective truth and sometimes there isn't.
Well the obvious response to that is at one point in human history the objective truth was that the Earth was flat.. you could literally be killed if you denied the Earth was flat.
There is great danger in giving one group of people the power to choose what is "objective truth"
Re: Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you fact check the flat Earth theories? Sometimes there is objective truth and sometimes there isn't.
The problem is who decides. Once you create a fact checking entity, it will decide for itself what are object truths. Within a fact checking entity you essentially have the same issue as regulatory capture.
Being the fact checker could be a very profitable position.
Re: Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are the carrier, and should be treated as such. It's more nuanced than that because ATT doesn't repeat a phone call it has deemed interesting to millions of other people.
If everyone involved in the conversation wants to be involved, and no laws are broken, and the platform interferes, then it's censorship. If there's some kind of algorithm putting the content in front of people who didn't ask for it (e.g. not followers/friends/subscribers/whatever), then you have a point.
Technology changes - magnifies, accelerates, projects, distorts - many social effects. One of those is removing the previously invisible, small cost of spreading an idea.
If two people want to have a conversation or exchange a letter, or one person wants to speak to everyone within earshot or post a sign for people walking by to read, that's one thing. Maybe you say something dumb, and it gets shot down, or maybe it gets propagated, but it needs to have an R0 greater than 1 to endure. If you need some level of capital and agreement to have a publisher run a thousand pamphlets with your idea, that's another, you can leverage previous efforts to amplify weak ideas, but more people are involved and able to provide some sort of sanity filter. On the Internet, the cost to promote an idea is near zero, and algorithms can amplify something dumb but catchy to millions of people in a heartbeat.
It used to require a few seconds of talking per person you wanted to reach, now it costs a few seconds to post a message that might be seen by millions. The difference is minuscule in absolute value (perhaps a monetary value of a few cents) but huge in relative terms (how many percent less than a few cents is zero cents?).
Maintaining policy on censorship while ignoring this massive change in the landscape is shortsighted. Yes, a physical public venue ought not censor someone who wants to talk to other people there, but a digital platform with an audience of millions should think carefully about the effects of messages that their technology amplifies.
Re: Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”
#100These discussions lack a lot of nuance. I think all of these things are worth considering: * FB is a company, not a government, so they can more or less do what they want. * It's concerning that one company has so much influence. "Just go somewhere else" is tough with the network effects that a system like theirs has. * FB is responsible for tons of misinformation spreading and is very toxic in a lot of ways. I'm not…
The government is leaning on FB to do what the government wants. It's a slight of hand. FB is a government agent.
I do not think FB is a "government agent" from everything I've read. They operate within government rules and regulations, and they're certainly going to listen to the government, but listening is normal for any company. They can still do what they want.