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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”

#251

Post by nafix »

lpat wrote: post #191
nafix wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure about that? Can you explain to me what the wording from the CDC announcement means?

If I understand correctly it means that the old tests tested only for covid and the new ones test for covid and influenza at the same time. This makes them more efficient because you won't have to test twice to detect each virus separately.

That's not why they are decommissioning this test though. There's no reason that both this test, and a covid/influenza test cannot coexist. CDC is explicitly decommissioning this test, and it's not clear why in their announcement. I'm just trying to gain more context here. It's pretty easy to see how this could imply that the current PCR test could have issues.

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

#252

Post by inetknght »

foepys wrote: post #225
gunapologist99 wrote: post #210

Facebook seems to be censoring so much because Facebook believes that most people will actually believe whatever bits of misinformation are floating around out there. But is everyone that easily manipulated? More importantly, does everyone actually believe that they can be easily manipulated, or do they just think that everyone else is so easily manipulated, but somehow they're above the fray? And at what point does…

> FB only works when you and 99% of your social group are on there. You can choose whatever social group you want on social media. The days of physical presence and limited supply of peers are over. Your IRL friends don't believe that the government is made up of lizard people? Go find yourself a Facebook, Telegram, Discord, etc. group, you will find plenty of like-minded people and "proof" there. People can and do s…

> You can choose whatever social group you want on social media

What social group you want is guided by what social groups are recommended to you

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

#253

Post by gpm »

saurik wrote: post #26
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.

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.

That's how facebook works, no?

There are two (or more) feeds of information on facebook:

- The main one, which only shows posts sent to the "recommend this to people queue" based on facebooks recommendation algorithms.

- Messenger, which directly sends messages to people in a FIFO fashion, which I assume facebook doesn't censor as heavily (though I can't say I've tested).

The fact that the recommendation based stream is more popular is a reflection that facebooks curation is actually useful, but it doesn't mean messenger doesn't exist.

Nor do I see that messenger must exist, facebook isn't morally obligated to provide a "non recommend feed" to you if that isn't the product they want to sell you. Perfectly good alternatives even exist, in the form of "blogs" (say, substack).

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

#254

Post by huffmsa »

jdavis703 wrote: post #218
908B64B197 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why they can't add a regex to ok *.gov$ websites. > Nevertheless, the level of carelessness upon which this mechanism seems to have been built upon is an embarrassment. Same mechanism would flag and ban folks who argued that the lab leak hypothesis was a possibility and was worth investigating... Interesting how the media changed their narrative on this one.

Are we sure government websites won’t contain misinformation? For example, senior government leadership was advising the consumption of bleach as a COVID-19 cure.

Like how the surgeon general and head of infectious diseases said masks were no good.

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

#255

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

afavour wrote: post #217
gunapologist99 wrote: post #210

Facebook seems to be censoring so much because Facebook believes that most people will actually believe whatever bits of misinformation are floating around out there. But is everyone that easily manipulated? More importantly, does everyone actually believe that they can be easily manipulated, or do they just think that everyone else is so easily manipulated, but somehow they're above the fray? And at what point does…

> do they just think that everyone else is so easily manipulated, but somehow they're above the fray? Based on my own anecdotal evidence, it’s exactly this. The people that went down the rabbit hole of QAnon on YouTube are, in their mind, the informed ones. They’re the ones that went out of their way to do the research and the rest of us are just lemmings. Thus, spending hours staring at an algorithmically generated…

I think there's also a tendency for the targeting of any given scam/psyop/sales pitch/etc. to make targets look foolish to non-targets. That is, the more narrowly targeted it is to bypass your bullshit filter, the more obvious it seems to someone else. So they walk away from hearing about your situation thinking that they're too smart to be fooled... only to fall for something that was designed to bypass their bullshit filter, possibly without even realizing it.

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

#256

Post by 13years »

slg wrote: post #182
13years wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fair, but this is a question of implementation. Objective truth being hard to define doesn't mean there is no such thing as objective truth.

The view of "if we just implement it right" it will be fine is a fallacy.

These organizations represent immense power through influence. By their very existence arises the conflict power and truth. If you can have influence over the fact checkers, then you have influence over truth. Who would you trust to form such an organization? Where is the oversight? Who monitors the monitors?

We are seeing what "reasonable censorship" actually looks like. It is an oxymoron.

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

#257

Post by snowwrestler »

gunapologist99 wrote: post #210

Facebook seems to be censoring so much because Facebook believes that most people will actually believe whatever bits of misinformation are floating around out there. But is everyone that easily manipulated? More importantly, does everyone actually believe that they can be easily manipulated, or do they just think that everyone else is so easily manipulated, but somehow they're above the fray? And at what point does…

Facebook is removing content because that is ground they want to stand on. Removing content feels like censorship, so it lends itself to political grandstanding in their favor. Millions of people get upset and demand that Facebook handle all content neutrally, which is exactly what Facebook wanted everyone to think in the first place.

The real issue with Facebook is the editorial decisions they make about promoting some content over others. It’s totally optional and is also a powerful form of censorship. A link that shows up in no one’s “algorithmic timeline” is worthless, even if it is not actually removed from the platform.

The essential lie is that the algorithm is neutral. It’s not; it is intentionally biased to favor Facebook’s goals: increase ad inventory and the data used to target ads.

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

#258

Post by tshaddox »

13years wrote: post #244
tshaddox wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is who decides. The problem is the poorly-considered but extremely widespread epistemology that goes something like "whether a claim is true depends on how convinced certain people are of that claim." > Once you create a fact checking entity, it will decide for itself what are object truths. No, it will just make claims, which may be true or false. There's nothing mysterious or troubling about this. The…

It is exactly what they are doing. You are playing with semantics. The public as well as private companies use the claims as an argument for validation of truth. The troubling aspect is it comes with some level of authority backing the claims. There are consequences for not aligning with the positions of the claims.

It very well may be an explanation of the truth, and there's nothing wrong with that. If that's what you mean by "validation" then that's great! But if you mean that whether a claim is "valid" depends on any one person or source's position on the claim, then you're back to that bad epistemology I described.

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

#259

Post by cmurf »

bitL wrote: post #241
gunapologist99 wrote: post #210

Facebook seems to be censoring so much because Facebook believes that most people will actually believe whatever bits of misinformation are floating around out there. But is everyone that easily manipulated? More importantly, does everyone actually believe that they can be easily manipulated, or do they just think that everyone else is so easily manipulated, but somehow they're above the fray? And at what point does…

The issue is an increasing infantilization world-wide where some group thinks it needs to "protect the others", assuming they are the single source of truth and that it's obvious they are. It's a well known bias which for some reason aligns with the current zeitgeist. As everything before, it shall too pass at some point.

It's not a new problem.

20 years ago at a national park with signs "don't feed the wildlife" with a parent teaching her 3 year old to feed the wild life within 3 feet of such a sign. I said "do you see the sign? why are you doing this?" She scoffed, pouted, and ran with her child to her car and drove away.

We treat her like a child because so many adults act like children. They seek what their parents never gave them, and unfortunately keep barking up the wrong tree, but you can't just refrain from sugggesting they not feed wildlife or it leads to mayhem.

Today we have so many humans defecating in the lakes near Maroon Bells that the park might close. For at least a decade that park has a "pack it out" policy, including your own poop. There are that many people pooping in the woods, and it's not good enough to dig holes. People so infantilized they lack the emotional coping skill to poop in a sack and pack it out, so they swim out in a lake with numerous "do not swim" signs and take a dump.

People are fucking stupid. If you don't tell them this, they think it isn't true, and the rules for for someone else.

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

#260

Post by ClumsyPilot »

codeecan wrote: post #243
afavour wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do they just think that everyone else is so easily manipulated, but somehow they're above the fray? Based on my own anecdotal evidence, it’s exactly this. The people that went down the rabbit hole of QAnon on YouTube are, in their mind, the informed ones. They’re the ones that went out of their way to do the research and the rest of us are just lemmings. Thus, spending hours staring at an algorithmically generated…

If you believe "the vaccine turned people into the Hulk", thats a mental health problem. But when inconvenient claims, like "vaccines can cause blood clots in rare cases", often flagged as misinformation, you don't instil much confidence with the public. And so they go out and get information from other sources.

"If you believe "the vaccine turned people into the Hulk", thats a mental health problem."

Then half the population is mentally ill. Come to think of it, that would explain a lot of issues we are dealing with...

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