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Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

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Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#201

Post by philwelch »

bastardoperator wrote: post #117
webdoodle wrote: post #38

The 'elites' control the narrative through propaganda censors like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit. Anything that doesn't conform to their predetermined agenda gets discredited, the author smeared, then eventually banned from posting. These are legitimate 1st amendment issues that need to be defended or what little freedom we have left will be boiled away like baby frogs.

Pot meet kettle. You're spreading propaganda about propaganda. I need concrete evidence of who these 'elites' are. Names, dates, actionable steps taken by individuals, and proof of the agenda. If you can't provide these basic data points, from this vantage point you're no different then the folks you're complaining about. This has nothing to do with 1A. Businesses have the right to refuse service if you're being too…

"We are flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation." -- Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#202

Post by kradeelav »

ineptech wrote: post #108
OldManAndTheCpp wrote: post #12

"Fact checking" serves only to ossify the current view on any emerging discussion. Vatican "fact checkers" kept Galileo under house arrest for spreading "fake news", in a sense. This is an unwinnable fight, the only reasonable response is to abandon the pretense that opinions are facts, and that most people can't distinguish truth from falsehood.

I don't think it's unwinnable; we don't want FB to arbitrate between competing scientific opinions, we just want them to blackhole Magic Healing Water and Covid Vaccine 5G Drone Tracker type bullshit. It may be true that it's hard to draw a clear line between bullshit and almost-bullshit, but it's hard to draw a clear line between porn and almost-porn and they somehow manage to do that okay. edit because apparently t…

YMMV, but I don't think social media companies have done well at all regarding the latter with erotic works.

Every single (semi)-erotic artist i know has faced a daily struggle of avoiding their work (and livelihoods) being demonetized somehow - whether it be shadowbans, straight up sudden bans, deactivations of accounts under false pretenses, etc. One could argue there's a difference between 2D art and "live action porn' but I'd say as an artist the line is a lot fuzzier than most think, as there tends to be a suspicious amount of activist work that tends to get shoved under the "porn" rug because it makes it easier to hide dissenting minority opinions.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#203

Post by throwaway_2009 »

threatofrain wrote: post #138
throwaway_2009 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your doctor is, indeed, simply a fact checker. A real one. Much as I and you, I assume, are fact checkers; we attempt to determine the veracity of information we encounter. Your doctor is not a "fact checker" in the newspeak meaning of the term, because your doctor is not preventing other people from speaking to you.

My doctor chooses not to be a facilitator of speech for everyone, just like the BMJ or Facebook. The difference is that Facebook is free to the users and ad-supported. That difference meant world-changing virality. --- You had a deleted post talking about how I'm masturbating. It may surprise you that HN also "censors" you.

You are masturbating because you're debating a non sequitur with yourself; your doctor and Facebook are completely different entities with different purposes and goals, I explained that and you've continued the bizarre train of thought.

I have little patience for such nonsense, good day.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#204

Post by 0xcde4c3db »

moolcool wrote: post #98
nradov wrote: post #33

In 2018 Facebook "fact checked" a Babylon Bee article with this headline: “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine to Spin News Before Publication”. (Babylon Bee is a humor site and clearly labeled as such.) https://twitter.com/Adam4d/status/969405110324523008

It'd be easier to identify Babylon Bee content as satire if they were actually funny

It was never at the level of The Onion, but I think it was actually somewhat funny back when it was primarily about satirizing American culture from a Christian perspective (e.g. [1]). At some point it seemingly pivoted to just going viral among a conservative/Republican audience, humor and commentary be damned.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20160325165926/http://babylonbee...

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#205

Post by johncena33 »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #135
Mezzie wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wouldn't work, at least not outside of places like HN with a strong technical bent and a strong assumed knowledge base of the people. I've done fact-checking work professionally; it's not that fact-checking itself is difficult, it's that fact-checking can only work as intended in certain information environments, and mass media is NOT one. I've also studied filter bubbles, algorithmic influences on political POV…

Wouldn't work here either. Just look at how the lab leak theory was handled on Hacker News. The community and dang both failed spectacularly in that instance. How many other instances have we gotten it wrong but just don't know because views here are as subject to ideological mania as anywhere else?

I've noticed the quality of conversations on HN have deteriorated drastically after dang took over. There're simply too many threads where the whole conversation is complaining, whining, dunking, outrage etc.

Anytime there's a thread on Netflix, there'd be a group of users who would start complaining about Netflix recommendations. Even when the article has nothing to do with recommendations. I am using Netflix as an example, this pattern you'll notice in many other HN threads.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#206

Post by tehnub »

goopthink wrote: post #46

In addition to the points raised by BMJ and in the comments below, there is a limit to what independent fact checking can accomplish. For example, are their fact checkers conducting their own scientific experiments validating claims and outcomes of a scientific paper? Are fact checkers reaching out to sources from a news article and verifying quoted information? When “breaking news” or “scoops” are reported presentin…

Indeed, as we saw in the recent-ish fact checking failure by the New Yorker about the "rent-a-family" business in Japan: https://newrepublic.com/article/160595/new-yorker-japan-rent...

From the article:

>An emerging theme in both controversies is that there is a fatal chink in the armor of even the most rigorous fact-checking process—that it is especially vulnerable to a naked betrayal of trust by an author or source. There is only so much a fact-checker can do if someone is intent on telling lies, particularly when the stakes are so low [...]

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#207

Post by scotty79 »

BlueTemplar wrote: post #56

> As current and incoming editors in chief, we are responsible for everything The BMJ contains. And here lies the crux of the issue : Facebook (and other Meta services) currently don't. While since they decided that they wanted to moderate themselves what people were posting on their websites, and they are neither a small service, or a nonprofit (or potentially other attenuating circumstances), they should be respons…

> As current and incoming editors in chief, we are responsible for everything The BMJ contains

That's also not a very honest claim in such broad sense of term "responsible" that we usually use when we talk about what Facebook does.

Was Lancet responsible for publishing Andrew Wakefield paper? Yes. Does it try to pay for damages suffered by every person who had infectious disease with severe outcome that was a result of people not taking the vaccine because of modern anti-vaccine movement this paper has spawned? No.

They are responsible for what they wrote. Not for what people reading it did. But when we talk about Facebook we want it to be responsible for all societal impact. So the people shouldn't be surprised that Facebook might not only consider if something is true or accurate, but also if it remains so in the heads of the readers. Because we expect Facebook to consider it.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#208

Post by thepasswordis »

How do we keep getting this so wrong?

No central authority on truth. Not twitter, not Facebook, not the King, not the church.

The fact is that many of the “facts” that twitter, Facebook, and google “checked”, they were wrong about, and they are doing j told damage to our society.

Facebook is a company which, remember, performed psychological experiments on their users without their consent. Twitter has an opaque algorithm which appears to intentionally foment rage and misunderstanding.

Why in gods earth would we trust these people, whose entire business model relies on either subtly misrepresenting reality to make you more “engaged”, or just blatantly tailoring their entire service to make you angry, with being the arbiter of what is true?

Do people realize how insane that is? Twitter and Facebook, who appear to be using adversarial psychology techniques to make us angry, theyre going to tell us what is real? They’re going to be in charge of building the foundation of our being?

No.

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#209

Post by colinmhayes »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #76
nradov wrote: post #33

In 2018 Facebook "fact checked" a Babylon Bee article with this headline: “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine to Spin News Before Publication”. (Babylon Bee is a humor site and clearly labeled as such.) https://twitter.com/Adam4d/status/969405110324523008

That made me laugh. I don’t know anyone who would think that is a serious article.

I know plenty

Re: Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg

#210

Post by colinmhayes »

GSimon wrote: post #130
chrisseaton wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they should mark the content more clearly as satire to avoid causing confusion?

Just to be clear what you're saying, you personally, or for the sake of others, need satire labels to identify that "CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine to Spin News Before Publication" is satire? That is the statement you just made?

70 million people voted for Trump. Yes, many people will read that headline and tell all their friends about how CNN is spinning the news. Have you not met many people?
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