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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”

#271

Post by contravariant »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #96
contravariant wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)_/¯

For all intents and purposes there is always an objective truth, the hard question is when you consider it proven.

Even for the flat Earth theory it's hard to dismiss it offhand. I mean sure there are plenty of experiments you can do to show that it is pretty close to a sphere. But who do you trust to do those experiments?

Either the person fact-checking needs to do the experiments/research themselves (which doesn't scale well) or they need to trust other people to have done the experiments. However at that point you're simply placing the word of some people above the word of others, which is not objective at all.

And even assuming you've actually picked honest people acting in good faith you're still relying on people to not be confidently incorrect, which I can fairly confidently say is always going to go wrong at some point.

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

#272

Post by 13years »

tshaddox wrote: post #258
13years wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

No, I'm not asserting that view. However, what you are stating I think is the viewpoint of most people. They will accept the claim as valid.

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

#273

Post by icebraining »

TrispusAttucks wrote: post #240
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…

You are absolute right. Censorship is... A STRANGE GAME. THE ONLY WINNING MOVE IS NOT TO PLAY.

Except that's not a winning move either, because (currently) you'll be heavily criticized for it as well.

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

#274

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

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…

If stuff people see on Facebook has absolutely no effect on their believes, then, yes, it wouldn't make sense for Facebook to delete disinformation.

It also wouldn't make sense to post any dis- or -information on Facebook. And it wouldn't make any difference if Facebook deleted anything or not, so people could stop complaining about "censorship" for exactly the same reason you want people to stop demanding action from Facebook.

The fact that the latter two aren't happening seems to suggest nobody–you included–believes it's all quite as meaningless.

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

#275

Post by dathinab »

manofmanysmiles wrote: post #33
jtbayly wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assume it has been claimed on FB that this is proof that the flu didn't disappear but just got misdiagnosed as Covid, and/or that the Covid tests results couldn't be trusted at all, hence they have been withdrawn.

How should this be interpreted? Isn’t implying that the test can’t tell the difference between flu and covid? If that’s true, then, how can we be sure that flu hasn’t been misdiagnosed? What percentage of Covid cases were classified using PCR tests?

This groups of people do not just imply that

> Isn’t implying that the test can’t tell the difference between flu and covid?

they are strongly convinced that this is the case, quoting papers or research showing that in some rare cases with some methods you could have tests which could sometimes confuse Covid with other Corona Viruses (not flu, completely ignoring that this might not apply to the tests they are speaking about or that the probabilities are negligible.)

I had to realize that the majority of people (which haven't studied something where they had to learn it) do not understand stochastic at all, but believe they have some basic understanding of probabilities (which they don't have).

Furthermore it's not uncommon for people to reject truth which do not fit into their world view.

Not to long ago I realized that a relative of mine does not understand the difference between false positives and false negatives and that they are not equally likely. They knew the (fast, non PCR) test can be wrong and as such believed it can be equally wrong in all directions including false positives. So because it was confirmed that the test have many false negative they believed that they also must have many false positives and as such the increase in cases must be because of this false positives...

I tried to reach out to them and explain them that false positives and false negatives are not the same and just because something can likely fail in one way it doesn't mean it will also fail likely in another way. But I completely failed to reach them, they insisted on their opinion being correct and went very fast into a defensive mode where it's impossible to reach them no matter what how reasonable and convincing your arguments are.

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

#276

Post by coryrc »

Terretta wrote: post #230
gunapologist99 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The discussion about the algorithmic feed seems to be out of context for this thread (i.e., Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”) I don't believe the problem is facebook recommending anything -- the problem is facebook trying to ban certain content entirely (at least in the context of this thread -- algorithmic feeds are a separate problem.)

> I'm not making the connection between an algorithmic feed and anything I wrote. > The title of this thread is 'Facebook is now claiming official CDC.gov links are “False Information”'. > I don't believe the problem is facebook recommending anything -- the problem is facebook trying to ban certain content entirely You say you don't believe (a), and you state that the problem is (b). I'm seeing "belief" without subst…

I have a friend who posts once in a blue moon. When he posts, it's usually the first thing on my feed, even many days later. My wife's cousin posts batshit stuff multiple times a day. I fail to see how a strict timeline won't result in my stream being more looney?

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

#277

Post by wellbehaved »

908B64B197 wrote: post #193
ravenstine wrote: post #117

I actually verified this yesterday on my own FB acount. https://imgur.com/a/5tgkbFL Not sure if it's still happening, but you can test it if you make the post visible to only you and you wait ~5 minutes for that misinformation message to show up. Even if the fact checker had some kind of point, I don't know how labeling an authoritative source as "false information" helps anyone understand anything just because part…

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.

Such a sad commentary that you so blithely assume that if it's on a government website then it's not misinformation. Across the ages, governments have been the most heinous purveyors of misinformation, and are the biggest misinformation threats to humanity. Ergo the 1st Amendment.

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

#278

Post by Barrin92 »

13years wrote: post #59
slg wrote: post #36

Earlier 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.

> Once you create a fact checking entity, it will decide for itself what are object truths

okay, so what? What do you think a court does? The guy who reads the meter at the water sanitation plant or someone who hands out parking tickets?

A fact checker is nothing but an institution with the authority to adjudicate on some questions which are relevant for the maintenance of the platform, no different from any other authority that manages public conduct. Where is the problem?

And of course fact-checkers are not unaccountable. Like in this case their behavior itself is topic of public discourse.

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

#279

Post by pessimizer »

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 censoring because politicians who are also murmuring about tech antitrust are demanding that they do. They're just trying to survive the rage cycle.

edit: So since they don't have any overarching philosophy about what to censor, some of the choices they make are overzealous or bizarre.

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

#280

Post by mynameisash »

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 will find plenty of ... "proof" there.

Unfortunately, I think this is true but not realized.

I found out that my brother was "going to do his own research" on the COVID-19 vaccines, which really is just code for, "I'm going to look online at sources in my echo chamber." (Because how many people really do their own research by talking with virologists, epidemiologists, etc.?)

It wasn't until he had some social pressure and the death of two acquaintances that he decided it was important to go get vaccinated.

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