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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”

#481
I think there's a pretty clear explanation, when you look how this link and the information within it is being used in the anti-vaxx/covid denial groups.

1. People post CDC link out of context, and claim how all the numbers of infections from previous year are inaccurate. How testing is useless, covid doesn't exist etc.

2. Facebook fact-checks this, and marks the content as "False information"

3. The link gets marked as false information in the system, and regardless of the context that popup shows up, as they can not check every single comment written around this link and even if they could it would delay marking it as false information substantially.

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

#482

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…

Yes.

Plus its not “people” will believe whatever bits of misinformation is out there.

Take it this way from marketing speak:

—————-

Content is being made and iterated upon rapidly, over social media to find new and innovative ways of winning “mindshare” among consumers.

With new technology we can cluster user groups and tailor make perfect user experiences after extensively a/b testing content to most closely match user preferences.

All of this can be done cheaply and at scale, for increasingly new types of content and complexity levels.

————

That is the problem. It’s not whether people will believe misinformation, its that content creation is faster at changing and sounds plausible enough to slip past your typical bullshit filter.

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

#483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's important to remember the history here. In 2015 social media was basically the wild west. You could get away with saying all sorts of crazy stuff and nobody cared. After the 2016 election all of the big social media CEOs were dragged in front of Congress to testify about fake news, Russian propaganda, etc. They were directly threatened by lawmakers that if they didn't shape up by censoring us that lawmakers woul…

There seems to be this pervasive myth that conservatives are being censored on sites like Facebook. That's at odds with the fact that far right misinformation still dominates those websites. Just what evidence would be sufficient to convince conservatives that they aren't being unduly censored? https://www.npr.org/2021/03/06/974394783/far-right-misinform... https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/02/01/censorship-co…

I don’t believe there is anything I or anyone else could say that would change your mind.

Out of curiosity, when I said "anti-war leftists" did you perceive that to mean something negative/radical about them relative to when I said "moderate Republicans"? Also, what gave you the impression that I meant one of those was getting censored more than the other?

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

#484
post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of this is also true for our actual government[0]. I have zero confidence that if our government were in charge of running Facebook/Twitter/any other social media app the results would be better. [0] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/16/white-house-says-facebook-ne...

The government, in theory, is bound by the first amendment. FB being run by a government bound by traditional first amendment restrictions would be worlds better than what we have now.

If the majority of people here are software engineers, would it surprise people that someone has automated the job of crafting believable bullshit? Not to mention disseminate it faster and better than we have ever been able to?

I see it as a problem that we can iterate “content” faster, identify “audience groups”, run marketing analytics, A/b test “narratives”, all to craft believable, plausible “content” and then mass broadcast it.

We’ve built systems that create content faster and better than a normal human BS filter can block.

How does this have anything to do with the First Amendment? How do free speech rules bring the balance of power back to individual human levels of filtering?

Mind you the First Amendment is an American construct. It does nothing for things like genocides in Myanmar, or journalist suppression or hate crimes and the like.

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

#485
post #127
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you fact check the flat Earth theories? Sometimes there is objective truth and sometimes there isn't.

Did Covid escape from a lab? True/False please.

Bringing up the lab leak theory is 2021's "but her emails."

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

#486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The internet will kill most every institution that predated it. Citizen journalism killed media. Netflix/YouTube killed Hollywood. Blockchains will replace 51% democracy with 100% democracy. Dying inherited institutions are grasping to stay relevant with appeals to authoritarianism. Free speech is now a hinderance and a liability to their existence. As their relevance dwindles, tyranny becomes their only tool.

Can you expand on that 100% democracy part? It doesn't seem like any system would allow 100% of the people to all be governed by their preferred set of rules when at least some of those rules would always conflict with ones that others want to live with.

Arrows theorem?

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

#487
post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Please tell us more about the increasing worldwide infantilization. How do you measure and track it? What trends in the measurement have you noticed over time that makes you says it's increasing? Also, can you say more about which groups think they are the single source of truth?

Oh yes please. Metrics, anyone.

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

#488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iirc, he was asking a CDC official whether the application of a disinfectant to infected lungs had been investigated. A stupid idea on its face, but at no point did he recommend the consumption of bleach as a cure or a treatment for covid.

Rather than trying to tease out the explicit meaning or jokes or subtext, we could just consider the rise of bleach ingestion at the time. Responsible people with a platform speak responsibly.

He literally never talked about injecting bleach. Please stop spreading misinformation. Instead of criticizing him on important issues like not pardoning Assange/Snowden, ideologues keep making stuff up and destroying their own credibility. I provided my sources in this comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28004191

As for the rise of bleach ingestion, that was happening prior to this out of context news even admitted by left leaning sources.

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

#489
post #251
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's encouraged to use test that can detect both to save both time and resources. It's literally in the announcement.

If labs want they can still test them separately.

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

#490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic, but the CDC doesn't see themselves as a single source of truth. They defer to the scientific consensus of people who specialize in understanding how viruses work, how pandemics work, and who have a process for learning facts by interrogating reality.

They defer to the scientific consensus of people who specialize in understanding how PLANET ORBITS work. Consensus brought us an earth centric solar system and low fat heart healthy grains with an obesity epidemic and rampant heart disease.

Consensus also brought us showers, I suppose. The rules of the road?

I mean, I suppose the opposite of consensus is tyranny.

It sounds like your problem may be that people sometimes get it wrong, and not consensus or its opposites?

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