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Deactivating Facebook for just a few weeks reduces belief in fake news

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Re: Deactivating Facebook for just a few weeks reduces belief in fake news

#71

Post by carlosjobim »

Isamu wrote: post #29

Well okay, but Facebook is not an outlier. Every outlet has noticed the popularity that comes with telling people what they want to hear. It’s legal to give “opinion” that has no backing evidence, as opposed to journalism, where people reasonably expect some due diligence. That’s why Hannity, for instance, is quick to point out that he is not a journalist, but in fact an opinion show host. That distinction is meant t…

Journalism is just as protected as political speech. Obviously - since opinion, propaganda and journalism has been intermingled since the very invention of the printing press or even since the first people learned to speak.

The closest you can get to reality is open source journalism, where the outlet also links to their full source documents and tapes, along with the digested news article. Then each and every member of their audience could fact check them. But no news outlet does this, instead they obscure and hide source documents, even though they generally are within the public domain. Even public broadcasters do this, although they shouldn't have any financial interest.

Re: Deactivating Facebook for just a few weeks reduces belief in fake news

#72

Post by jwells89 »

Isamu wrote: post #29

Well okay, but Facebook is not an outlier. Every outlet has noticed the popularity that comes with telling people what they want to hear. It’s legal to give “opinion” that has no backing evidence, as opposed to journalism, where people reasonably expect some due diligence. That’s why Hannity, for instance, is quick to point out that he is not a journalist, but in fact an opinion show host. That distinction is meant t…

Social media like Facebook might be worse to some degree, though, because media outlets don’t have hooks that are as strong and universal as those of social media — there are those with a disposition towards watching shows like Hannity, but the appeal is somewhat constrained, with those who hadn’t been watching unlikely to start watching without outside influence.

By comparison, people from all walks of like come to social media for a wide variety of reasons, meaning the top of the funnel is much larger. Social media also lends an air of legitimacy to posted headlines with the way it attaches familiar, trusted names to them (posters and commenters), which over time trains users to disregard legitimacy of sources. It can also nudge users away from intellectual engagement and toward emotional engagement, with how ragebait headlines tend to be the ones that get posted most often.

Of course, that’s not to downplay the dangers of “news entertainment” on traditional media, but I think social media is its own special brand of insidious.

Re: Deactivating Facebook for just a few weeks reduces belief in fake news

#74

Post by andreygrehov »

Isamu wrote: post #29

Well okay, but Facebook is not an outlier. Every outlet has noticed the popularity that comes with telling people what they want to hear. It’s legal to give “opinion” that has no backing evidence, as opposed to journalism, where people reasonably expect some due diligence. That’s why Hannity, for instance, is quick to point out that he is not a journalist, but in fact an opinion show host. That distinction is meant t…

X has Community Notes. This is a beautiful feature. They target both regular posts and, most importantly, ads. False advertisement is a problem for all social media platforms out there, except X. As a quick example, I regularly see ads about a certain type of game that in reality does not exist. These ads are running everywhere. However, on X, the community notes add a banner right next to the ad saying that this is a fake game, so don't bother buying it. From the financial perspective, such banners do harm the platform. But from the user's perspective, it's amazing.

Re: Deactivating Facebook for just a few weeks reduces belief in fake news

#75

Post by carlosjobim »

bluGill wrote: post #53
mrweasel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But do anyone actually post anything anymore. My account got closed in 2016/17 when I refused to accept their new terms of service. Up until that point I had pretty aggressively filtered my feed down to only things posted directly by people I knew. I think I checked in maybe once every two weeks and spend 2 - 5 minutes catching up. No one posted anything, it was all likes and shared posts. My wife wanted to show me a…

There are posts by real humans - but you are correct Facebook does their best to make them hard to find and rare. I aggressively block everything but real posts, and it is still hard to find real posts.

Almost nobody is posting on Facebook anymore. Instagram has taken over that niche. Facebook is in free fall and has to fill in the feed with anything - anything! Meaning many more ads, AI slop and complete garbage from all over the world.

Re: Deactivating Facebook for just a few weeks reduces belief in fake news

#76

Post by sourcepluck »

I was (probably overly) optimistic there for a few years thinking some new internet type project would come along that would restore some of the balance in the direction of the average person, but it doesn't seem to be happening. I mean, fingers crossed and all that, but it doesn't seem to be here.

The other thing that could feasibly happen would be a bit of a mass exodus away from these things. There seems to be glimmers of that, but again, it is still a niche thing.

There doesn't seem to be a straw that breaks the camel's back, with this whole social media / internet freedom thing. Monopolies concentrate, rights dwindle, stability flounders, war flares up, climate crisis accelerates worsens, and just glimmers of resistance.

Re: Deactivating Facebook for just a few weeks reduces belief in fake news

#77

Post by rascul »

austin-cheney wrote: post #61

Maybe it’s because I’m old, but it still completely blows my mind that people rely on social media for news. To me social media is no different than Saturday morning cartoons (American phenomenon from the 80s/90s) that fill children’s minds with advertisements of sugar cereal and action figure toys, except social media is 24/7 and just stupid enough to become a drug habit.

I use Twitter to follow certain sports and sports teams. One of the best places for that news. I don't use Twitter for anything else though so I don't know what it's like.

Re: Deactivating Facebook for just a few weeks reduces belief in fake news

#78

Post by jjulius »

hi41 wrote: post #37
jjulius wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Meetup app also helps connecting with people with similar outdoor activities such as hiking. Hah! It's funny that you mention that. Like OP, I've also kicked social media and heavy internet use to the curb. I also happen to love multi-day backpacking trips, but one of the things I love the most about them is the complete solitude I can have for days on end! Something about being completely disconnected like that is…

>>love multi-day backpacking trips Nice! I also dream of going on such trips. Do you have any good websites that I can use. I am starting out and prefer trails that are flat.

AllTrails is a great site for someone starting out! Its map is handy for finding trails and trailheads near you, and you can filter for the type of hikes you're looking for. I tend to prefer higher destinations in alpine-y areas above treeline, and this is my usual method for finding hikes:

- Load up CalTopo (a phenomenal mapping website)

- Head to a wilderness area I know I want to visit

- Find trails that look like fun destinations, see if I can connect those trails to other trails (I prefer hiking in loops, rather than out-and-backs)

- Head to hiking forums to scour trip reports for information about the trails/route I'm looking at to make sure my idea works

I live in the PNW, so I'm frequently on the NWHikers and OregonHikers forums, both equally amazing resources for on and off-trail research. Definitely see if you can find a forum-based community for your region, they've been a consistently positive experience for me compared to, say, a FB hiking group for the region.

Re: Deactivating Facebook for just a few weeks reduces belief in fake news

#79

Post by coolhand2120 »

nonameiguess wrote: post #64
coolhand2120 wrote: post #18

When people say "fake news" it means different things to different people. "Hunter Biden's laptop is a Russian plant" was considered the truth and anything to the contrary "fake news". It wasn't just a mistake, it was a hard lie. Having any single entity determine what is "fake" and what is "real" is incredibly dangerous. We can't even agree if 72F degrees is the correct room temperature - let alone complex things li…

I don't want to be overly cynical and say it was intentional, but the term was watered down to become meaningless, but when it first came into use, it had a pretty clear and unambiguous meaning that I don't think any reasonable person would argue with. The Washington Post published an expose early in 2016 about two men in Orange County who had the brilliant idea of exploiting pre-election hysteria by registering hund…

A democracy with the government in control of speech is not a democracy. If you control what people can see, you control what they think. That's why it's the very first most important amendment. Without the free distribution of information we're all useless idiots to the people in control of the distribution. We've already seen censorship be used to sway elections, do you think that's OK?

Re: Deactivating Facebook for just a few weeks reduces belief in fake news

#80

Post by orangecat »

p_j_w wrote: post #54
bgun wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "treatment" TikTok is receiving is a requirement that its US presence should be sold to a US company. Facebook is already a US company, so I'm not sure what you mean. TikTok is not actually getting banned, unless it fails to achieve that sale, which is highly unlikely.

> I'm not sure what you mean. Stop with the intentionally obtuse “well akshually” stuff. You know what I meant: lawmakers should put Facebook under the same scrutiny and find a legal loophole that allows them to stop the harm Facebook is causing. > TikTok is not actually getting banned Semantic bullshit. Similarly strong logical footing as “we’re democratic we just don’t allow non-communist political parties.”

Whether feed-driven social media is bad is orthogonal to whether China controlling TikTok is a national security threat. Personally I believe both are true, but the latter is much easier to deal with via legislation.

Semantic bullshit. Similarly strong logical footing as “we’re democratic we just don’t allow non-communist political parties.”

Would you be fine with Yandex running TikTok?

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