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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”

#451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Nobody actually wants an "uncensored" Facebook. If you went there and your feed were full of spam, porn, and shock videos, you'd stop going.

Rubbish. Your feed would be full of whatever your friends post.

Unfriending is easy. You see what you want to see.

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

#452

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…

Usually if there is no scientific proof of something, there will be a conspiracy theory on it. Like Bigfoot, no scientific data that he exists. Just some big footprints that someone made with modified shoes.

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

#453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Nobody actually wants an "uncensored" Facebook. If you went there and your feed were full of spam, porn, and shock videos, you'd stop going.

I think a lot of people would prefer a Facebook that showed what your friends post in chronological order, and wistfully say so now and then.

I'm not sure, but it might have once been that way, before I used it.

There is a string you can append to the URL (?sk=h_chr) to get a chrono view, but it doesn't seem to work well; for instance it doesn't go very far back and it's not clear to me that it's complete.

If my friends were posting lots of "spam, porn, and shock videos", I think I'd rather know it, whether or not I could tolerate it.

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

#454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal guess is they are people in a middle management position designated full autonomy on their decision. It just so happens that the cultural beliefs there skew left since it is in California and in tech. Why factual information gets censored though is a genuine question. It is a legitimate "who watches the watchmen" issue seeing as they literally get to enforce whatever ideology tickles their fancy that mome…

This is incredibly off-base. The truth is they have outsourced fact checking to the "International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter" who has to uphold standards not just freely enforce whatever ideology tickles their fancy. Knowing one low-level employee of one of the subcontractors involved; it works something like this: 1. An article is posted to Facebook/Twitter/etc and is automatically flagged based on keywords o…

> 6. Your answers are judged vs the final determination. Those who consistently skew in any direction are dismissed from eligibility to participate in the future.

And if it later turns out that the final determination was wrong, do they go back and reverse this?

I'm sure that there's any amount of process in place, but ultimately if you rely on comparing people to the consensus of their peers then you're going to get the politically approved answer rather than the truth.

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

#455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Nobody actually wants an "uncensored" Facebook. If you went there and your feed were full of spam, porn, and shock videos, you'd stop going.

Yes, that’s exactly the Facebook I want. The one nobody will use.

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

#456
post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook is removing content because they wanted to make money with a website, and the job of statecraft fell in their laps in the process. They didn't volunteer, they aren't qualified, nobody told them they were signing up to run a kingdom, let alone the world. So they don't produce lofty, philosophical, well-thought-out positions on free speech and human rights. They don't carefully manage the public square with th…

Nice comment. I’m not sure that having a Thomas Jefferson on staff would be enough to make a difference though. The real Jefferson had one goal: build a sustainable democratic country that respects the civil rights of its citizens. Your Facebook Jefferson would still have to build an online system that prioritizes facebook’s financial health. Respecting the rights of users would be secondary.

> Your Facebook Jefferson would still have to build an online system that prioritizes facebook’s financial health.

Why do you think that?

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

#457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Nobody actually wants an "uncensored" Facebook. If you went there and your feed were full of spam, porn, and shock videos, you'd stop going.

Your friends post spam, porn, and shock videos?

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

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. 'some group thinks it needs to "protect the others"'. Virtual signaling and safetyism. Hilarious how the virtue signaling elite regularly close their conference calls with "everyone stay safe". Oh, I know you (don't) care about me.

If I never hear the term "virtue signaling" again it will be too soon. Adds about as much to the conversation as calling someone a sissy (or other ruder names I'm sure you can think of) for caring about something and the intent is hardly any different.

Caring about something and announcing that you care about something are two very different things.

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

#460
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said flat-earthers should be censored. I said they are objectively wrong, no matter what they claim. And when they argue that the earth is flat, they aren't arguing about whether it's flat on the scale of my basement.

The problem is that almost any positive statement can be shown to be objectively wrong. "F=m * a", "x^2 = -1 has no solutions", "light travels in straight lines", etc. There are always conditions under which those are true or are good approximations for specific purpose. Spelling out those applicability conditions explicitly is critical in research publications (but even then, only used for the topic under investigat…

So? Wrong information is fine, misinformation is the problem.
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