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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”

#161

Post by aeturnum »

jensensbutton wrote: post #119
dumbmachine wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By adding content to user's newsfeed , they ( facebook's algorithm ) have made a explicit decision to share the piece of content and implicit decision that they deem the post safe for sharing. In that case shouldn't a speaker operator be responsible for the voices they amplify?

You only see things in your newsfeed from people you've explicitly added to your network (i.e. explicitly opted in to receiving content from). Is facebook wrong for showing you the things you said you want it to show you?

> Is facebook wrong

I think this is an unhelpful framing of the situation, because as you imply Facebook is of course not wrong.

If you have one friend and your feed is entirely full of their posts, Facebook is off the hook. But, for most users, the situation is far more complex. People have many friends, they may also be in groups. They probably will not be on facebook long enough for them to see all of the posts and, if they are, their attention levels will differ over the entire corpus.

In this situation facebook begins to have agency - which is different from being wrong. They didn't make the content, they didn't create the link that brought the content to you, but of all the content they could show they did show you this and not that. It's a relatively new kind of agency, one that we didn't have a lot of practical experience with before very recently, so they can be forgiven somewhat for their difficulty grappling with it. However, they're an important part of the chain of information organization and it would be foolish to pretend they have no responsibility.

Re: Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”

#162

Post by droidist2 »

ben_w wrote: post #146
decremental wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So just unfollow her. It sounds like you have some major issues with her personally anyway so how is this a failure by the platform and not just you subjecting yourself to a negative situation?

The stuff she writes directly (rather than liking memes from groups she’s in) is as interesting as any other friend’s posts. Reason I mention her politics is because they’re about as extreme as you can get. The problem is that Facebook is convinced that I, a British citizen living in Berlin, want to see “Bernie Sanders Dank Memes” (or whatever it was, there are many) even though I’ve clicked on the button labeled “do…

Yes, I hate how Facebook (and especially Twitter!) have now chosen to not just show me my friends' posts, but posts they like and respond to. A like has basically become a retweet.

Re: Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”

#163

Post by gunapologist99 »

whakim wrote: post #147
the-pigeon wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would take this a step further and say that all social media recommendation algorithms should be publicly reviewable. The claim is that this algorithms are neutral. But we know many contain ways for the owner to artificially boost preferred content. And algorithms tend to have the biases of their creators in them. Controlling what people see is an important power and one that should be regulated.

I agree that the algorithms should be publicly reviewable. But I'm not sure that solves the central issue which is that there's a tension between what's financially good for social networks (algorithms that increase engagement - which disproportionately favors echo chambers, controversial and shallow content, etc.) and what's good for the general public.

> what's good for the general public.

I personally don't really care what facebook (or anyone else) believes is good for me.

I'll be the judge of that, thank you very much.

And if I want to eat chocolate all day, I'll do that, too.

Re: Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”

#164

Post by lallysingh »

the-pigeon wrote: post #128
saurik wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to differentiate the recommendation algorithm parts of these products from the communication parts. If Facebook is recommending something, that's on them, and if they want to not recommend my content to anyone, so be it; but I should be able to post something seen only by the people who opted in to following me without them getting in the way.

I would take this a step further and say that all social media recommendation algorithms should be publicly reviewable. The claim is that this algorithms are neutral. But we know many contain ways for the owner to artificially boost preferred content. And algorithms tend to have the biases of their creators in them. Controlling what people see is an important power and one that should be regulated.

I don't see how this will help. FB et. al. work by shoehorning complex nuances into intentionally crude metrics like "engagement.". If they show the engagement-focused algorithm, that shows they're "just trying to engage users."

What would the algorithm show that isn't already apparent?

Re: Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”

#165

Post by specialist »

crummybowley wrote: post #6

And 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.

If all my phone calls were on party lines, and the carrier made me listen to the most outrageous trolls, carefully selected to instigate fights, then ya your analogy holds.

Re: Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”

#167

Post by gunapologist99 »

sam0x17 wrote: post #156
pier25 wrote: post #15

Earlier 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.

That said, SMS carriers filter and block TONS of messages and have been doing it for years. Our startup works in that space so we have to deal with this problem all the time and I can tell you last November if you tried to send a text message with the word "election" in it in an automated fashion, it was most likely getting blocked.

Yes, and now the U.S. mobile telcos are applying a completely subjective "reputation" "brand trust score", which sounds a lot like the Chinese social credit score. Oh, and they're charging a ton more for the privilege of sending a small number of texts, too.

I guess when you engage in price-fixing in the open and call it "setting a standard", then anti-trust rules don't apply..

Re: Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”

#168

Post by mikem170 »

ravenstine wrote: post #135
kspacewalk2 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is a private company that allows you to sign up to use its wholly-owned platform, and it's allowed to censor for whatever clever/asinine reasons it comes up with. Your only recourse is to disengage.

The reason the private-company argument is really tired is that it's simply not something that we take to its logical end in society; the returns of company freedoms are diminished and even counter-productive when a company reaches ultimate freedom to do whatever it wants. A diverse society isn't sustainable if people from different backgrounds don't have the same opportunities to participate in society. This is exac…

Whole heartily agree! From this medium post [0]:

> In the United States the statement is often heard, that “corporations are private businesses, so they can do whatever they want.” This assertion is particularly false when referring to entities like Facebook, Amazon, Exxon, and Pfizer, because…

> - the phrase goes directly against a basic knowledge of the history of incorporation — corporations were originally designed and granted special legal privileges by government, only because they were expected to serve a pubic good.

> - the phrase goes directly against the dictionary definition, and investment industry terminology — a public company is defined as a company whose shares are traded freely on a stock exchange, hence the term IPO (initial public offering).

> - the phrase ignores real-world government involvement—many large corporations are state and federally sponsored (e.g. subsidized, bailed out, and given perks), by money which ultimately comes from the tax-paying public.

> In reality, all big corporations are some combination of state-chartered, publicly-traded, and government-sponsored. By definition many are public companies, while others have complicated hybrid characteristics.

[0] https://ptolemy3.medium.com/but-corporations-are-private-com...

Re: Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”

#169

Post by BurningFrog »

the-pigeon wrote: post #128
saurik wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need to differentiate the recommendation algorithm parts of these products from the communication parts. If Facebook is recommending something, that's on them, and if they want to not recommend my content to anyone, so be it; but I should be able to post something seen only by the people who opted in to following me without them getting in the way.

I would take this a step further and say that all social media recommendation algorithms should be publicly reviewable. The claim is that this algorithms are neutral. But we know many contain ways for the owner to artificially boost preferred content. And algorithms tend to have the biases of their creators in them. Controlling what people see is an important power and one that should be regulated.

> Controlling what people see is an important power and one that should be regulated.

This will give the power of what people see to the regulators.

Re: Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”

#170

Post by chris_wot »

My wife tried to hide her age, but not being terribly Facebook savvy changed her DOB to the current date.

She was immediately blocked from Facebook. She appealed and gave her proof of age. Still, Facebook wouldn’t budge.

Facebook’s automated mechanisms suck. If they can’t tell that someone who has been on the platform for over a decade with photos showing she is a middle aged women, married with two kids, is not, in fact, several days old, then they have no business fact checking posts from the CDC!

The simple fact is, I have massively decreased my use of Facebook in the last 6 months. I really feel that for the health and safety of everyone it might be a good idea for others to do so also.

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