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Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

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Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#141

Post by dado3212 »

philjohn wrote: post #22

They've also said there will be more harmful (but legal) content on there as they'll no longer automatically look for it, but require it to be reported before taking action. As someone who worked on harmful content, specifically suicide and self injury, this is just nuts - they were raked over the coals in both the UK by an inquest into the suicide of a teenage user who rabbit holed on this harmful content, and also…

> So, we’re going to continue to focus these systems on tackling illegal and high-severity violations, like terrorism, child sexual exploitation, drugs, fraud and scams.

I don't think this is exhaustive, and I think SSI (suicide/self-injury) + ED/etc. stuff is considered high-severity.

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#142

Post by hmmm-i-wonder »

raxxor wrote: post #9
hmmm-i-wonder wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen a single discussion be worse off due to fact checking, but I've seen tons of discussions where having it would improve things. I have seen people get mad because they can't post BS without it being challenged. To claim internet discussion worked better without fact checking is something I haven't seen any actual evidence for, just opinions like yours. Community notes is just a watered down, more easily…

Claims are challenged all the time by other users and there are enough cases where fact checkers were wrong or heavily biased. EU legislation tries to introduce "trusted flaggers". A ridiculous approach, an information authority by a state-like entity doesn't work, even if they paint these flaggers as independent. They simply are not, a trusted and verifiable fact. Community notes provide higher quality info, it is t…

>Claims are challenged all the time by other users and there are enough cases where fact checkers were wrong or heavily biased.

I've only seen a handful of cases where they were wrong of heavily biased, but I've seen hundreds of cases where the poster refuses to accept they are wrong and the fact checkers are right.

>Community notes provide higher quality info, it is the better approach. That is an opinion of course.

Roughly the same info but from less trusted sources and with less controls being higher quality sounds like a big bag of wishes but not grounded in reality.

>We will probably see community notes on trusted flaggers.

I expect lots of partisan complaining and yelling, but not a lot of actual valid challenges.

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#143

Post by oliviergg »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #8

Corporate censorship should have never happened. It is a huge corruption of public discourse and the political process. These platforms have hundreds of millions of users, or more, and are as influential as governments. They should be regulated like public utilities so they cannot ban users or censor content, especially political speech. Personally I don’t trust Zuck and his sudden shift on this and other topics. It…

But being at the head of a social network is political. Every choice is political. Allowing extreme speech to circulate is political, not authorizing it is political too. It is not corporate censorship, it's regulation. without regulation, it will be the voice of the loudest / strongest. And I think we need some rationality, not polarisation.

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#144

Post by jjulius »

gizmo wrote: post #33
jjulius wrote: post #21

If you think this move exists in a vacuum or is actually about "getting back to their roots with free speech", you're wrong. Alongside Dana White joining the board[0], it's clear that this is solely about currying favor with the incoming administration. [0] https://www.npr.org/2025/01/06/nx-s1-5250310/meta-dana-white...

It's not solely about currying favor. Many tech giants hate getting pushed around by politicians and courts around the world demanding censorship. Free speech rights in the US are much stronger than elsewhere in the world, and even businesses as large as Meta need political support to successfully push back on censorious overreach. For context, in Germany you can face up to 3 years prison time for insulting a politic…

>It's not solely about currying favor. Many tech giants hate getting pushed around by politicians and courts around the world demanding censorship.

Taking steps to not be pushed around by an incoming president who has clearly suggested he'll push them around is, quite literally, currying favor.

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#145

Post by hmmm-i-wonder »

kcplate wrote: post #53
hmmm-i-wonder wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen a single discussion be worse off due to fact checking, but I've seen tons of discussions where having it would improve things. I have seen people get mad because they can't post BS without it being challenged. To claim internet discussion worked better without fact checking is something I haven't seen any actual evidence for, just opinions like yours. Community notes is just a watered down, more easily…

Exposure to many viewpoints, including wrong ones, provides a counterbalancing effect. When you actively try and suppress information you create a “forbidden knowledge” effect where people seek out silos where extreme and wrongheaded information gets passed without the “sunlight is the best disinfectant”—-it grows faster…becomes more wrong, more extreme, and more dangerous. Seems to me in my experience after decades…

>Exposure to many viewpoints, including wrong ones, provides a counterbalancing effect. When you actively try and suppress information you create a “forbidden knowledge” effect where people seek out silos where extreme and wrongheaded information gets passed without the “sunlight is the best disinfectant”—-it grows faster…becomes more wrong, more extreme, and more dangerous.

Fact checkers don't suppress information, they add context and information to posts others make and provide the exposure to many viewpoints that echo chambers often do not have.

People haven't stopped posting wrong and biased information with fact checkers, they just have the counterpoint to their bullshit displayed alongside their posts on the platform.

>Seems to me in my experience after decades of watching and participating in online discussion extremism really only became more problematic when fact checking and active efforts to suppress took hold. Whatever the good intentions may have been, the results were worse.

My decades of watching is exactly the opposite. Extremism is and was rampant long before fact checking, and fact checking really only served to push some of the most extreme content to the margins and to smaller platforms that don't have it. It concentrates it in some ways as many of these opinions fall apart quickly when exposed to truth and facts.

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#146

Post by oliviergg »

multimoon wrote: post #97
coldpepper wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The faster we decouple from societies like american, the better we europeans will be. We europeans defend our European way of life, against the degenerate capitalism of the US.

I challenge you to find another economic system that has worked in history, because it sure isn’t communism if that’s what you’re referencing. This is also aside from the fact that Europe is also a subscriber to capitalism. America is the most successful country on this earth and we bankroll most of the rest of the world but somehow we’re always the bad guys. As an American I’d be very happy if my tax dollars stopped…

Communism is the godwin point of economical discussion. There is so much more possibility than unregulated capitalism / Individualism

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#147

Post by hmmm-i-wonder »

leovingi wrote: post #49
hmmm-i-wonder wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't seen a single discussion be worse off due to fact checking, but I've seen tons of discussions where having it would improve things. I have seen people get mad because they can't post BS without it being challenged. To claim internet discussion worked better without fact checking is something I haven't seen any actual evidence for, just opinions like yours. Community notes is just a watered down, more easily…

> I haven't seen a single discussion be worse off due to fact checking The idea that there is some official governing body that has access to undisputable facts and they have the power to designate what you or I or anyone else can talk about is preposterous and, frankly, anyone on a site called Hacker News should be ashamed for supporting it.

>The idea that there is some official governing body

Platforms were encouraged to create their own departments, and have. There is no "one" or "governing" body here, so this is more hyperbole in this already flagrantly absurd discussion.

>have the power to designate what you or I or anyone else can talk about is preposterous

No one is stopping you from posting bullshit, fact checkers simply post the corresponding challenge or facts that allow others to see the lack of truth in your statements.

The idea you can say whatever you want, lie all you want, and be unchallenged as some form of right is absurd. Claiming because you can be challenged is censoring you or preventing you from talking is also completely absurd.

>and, frankly, anyone on a site called Hacker News should be ashamed for supporting it.

Frankly anyone on this site should be able to separate hyberbolic strawmen from reality.

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#148

Post by barbazoo »

BryantD wrote: post #57
philjohn wrote: post #22

They've also said there will be more harmful (but legal) content on there as they'll no longer automatically look for it, but require it to be reported before taking action. As someone who worked on harmful content, specifically suicide and self injury, this is just nuts - they were raked over the coals in both the UK by an inquest into the suicide of a teenage user who rabbit holed on this harmful content, and also…

This exactly mirrors my thoughts, although I don't work in your field. One quote: "For example, in December 2024, we removed millions of pieces of content every day. While these actions account for less than 1% of content produced every day, we think one to two out of every 10 of these actions may have been mistakes (i.e., the content may not have actually violated our policies)." That is first order data and it's in…

> we think one to two out of every 10 of these actions may have been mistakes

May have been a mistake? Reminds me of RTO and the subjective feeling of being more productive in the office. They have the feeling they may have made mistakes and base their new policy on that feeling.

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#149

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

Tech has become so entrenched with Government.

The Metaverse and the WFH bets made by Zuck were controversial but at least it was something rooted in tech and population habits trends and vision without any political poop attached to it.

This one is pure political poop to please Orange Man.

Also I believe that fact-checking needed to be slowly sunsetted after the COVID emergency was over, but the timing of this announcement and the binary nature of the decision means that it was done with intention to get in the graces of the new administration.

If these techs executives become the American equivalent of Russian Oligarchs I hope that States would go after their wealth based on their residence and even ADS-B private jet trackers if they were to move to say Wyoming but partying every weekend in Los Angeles/NYC etc.

Re: Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model

#150

Post by aprilthird2021 »

aimazon wrote: post #17

Mark has looked at what has happened to Twitter since Musk took over, a notable decline in activity and value… and decided he wants a piece of that? Musk is begging people on Twitter to post more positive content, as it devolves into 4chan-lite. If Musk’s ideological experiment with Twitter had proven the idea that you can have a pleasant to use website without any moderation then Mark’s philosophical 180 would at le…

I have a feeling it is more part of an agreement with the new administration. It was an agreement with the old administration that led to the current platform where there is way too much overreach on things the govt didn't want discussed: COVID, Palestine, immigration, etc.
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