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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

#181

Post by ipython »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #164
saxonww wrote: post #4

What I think I just read is that content moderation is complicated, error-prone, and expensive. So Meta is going to do a lot less of it. They'll let you self-moderate via a new community notes system, similar to what X does. I think this is a big win for Meta, because it means people who care about the content being right will have to engage more with the Meta products to ensure their worldview is correctly represent…

> I think this is a big win for Meta, because it means people who care about the content being right will have to engage more with the Meta products to ensure their worldview is correctly represented. Strong disagree. This is a very naive understanding of the situation. "Fact-checking" by users is just more of the kind of shouting back and forth that these social networks are already full of. That's why a third-party…

I have a complicated history with this viewpoint. I remember back when Wikipedia was launched in 2001, I thought- there is no way this will work... it will just end up as a cesspool. Boy was I wrong. I think I was wrong because Wikipedia has a very well defined and enforced moderation model, for example: a focus on no original research and neutral point of view.

How can this be replicated with topics that are by definition controversial, and happening in real time? I don't know. But I don't think Meta/X have any sort of vested interest in seeing sober, fact-based conversations. In fact, their incentives work entirely in the opposite direction: the more anger/divisive the content drives additional traffic and engagement [1]. Whereas, with Wikipedia, I would argue the opposite is true: Wikipedia would never have gained the dominance it has if it was full of emotionally-charged content with dubious/no sourcing.

So I guess my conclusion from this is that I doubt any community-sourced "fact checking" efforts in-sourced from the social media platforms themselves will be successful, because the incentives are misaligned for the platform. Why invest any effort into something that will drive down engagement on your platform?

[1] Just one reference I found: https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2024292118. From the abstract:

> ... we found that posts about the political out-group were shared or retweeted about twice as often as posts about the in-group. Each individual term referring to the political out-group increased the odds of a social media post being shared by 67%. Out-group language consistently emerged as the strongest predictor of shares and retweets: the average effect size of out-group language was about 4.8 times as strong as that of negative affect language and about 6.7 times as strong as that of moral-emotional language—both established predictors of social media engagement. ...

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

#182

Post by lazyeye »

yodsanklai wrote: post #132
saxonww wrote: post #4

What I think I just read is that content moderation is complicated, error-prone, and expensive. So Meta is going to do a lot less of it. They'll let you self-moderate via a new community notes system, similar to what X does. I think this is a big win for Meta, because it means people who care about the content being right will have to engage more with the Meta products to ensure their worldview is correctly represent…

> They aren't explicit about it, but it's clear that pressure does not exist anymore It's clear that the pressure comes now from the other side of the spectrum. Zuck already put Trumpists at various key positions. > I think this is a big win for Meta, because it means people who care about the content being right will have to engage more with the Meta products to ensure their worldview is correctly represented. It's…

Is it less concerning if Facebook only worked with one side of politics? How is reducing censorship a bad thing?

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

#183

Post by JohnMakin »

I'm certain it will make parts of the user experience worse, but at least for the Threads app, this seems at least a little necessary - if you're aiming to be the "new" twitter or whatever social need twitter was fulfilling, you need to break free of the shackles of IG/Meta moderation, which is very unforgiving and brutal in very subtle ways that aren't always easy to figure out. But basically, I find a platform like Threads/Twitter are probably unusable for a lot of people unless you can say "hey, you're an asshole" every now and then without Meta slapping you on the wrist or suppressing your content.

One of the only visible actions Meta has taken on my account was once when a cousin commented on a musical opinion I had posted to facebook, I jokingly replied "I'll fight you" and I caught an instant 2 week posting ban and a flag on my account for "violence." Couldn't even really appeal it, or the hoops were so ridiculous that I didn't try. The hilarious thing is these bans will still let you consume the sites' content (gotta get those clicks), you just are unable to interact with it. This kind of moderation is pointless as users will always get around it anyway - leading to stuff like "unalive" to replace killing/suicide references, or "acoustic" to refer to an autistic person, etc. Just silliness, as you'll always be able to find a way to creatively convey your point such that auto-moderators don't catch it.

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

#184

Post by GuinansEyebrows »

pbasista wrote: post #160
aurareturn wrote: post #104

I speculated what Zuckerberg wanted and what he'd do when he visited Mar-a-lago[0]: * Push to ban Tiktok * Drop antitrust lawsuits against Meta * Meta will relax "conservative" posts on its platforms * Zuckerberg will donate to Trump's cause So far, Zuckerberg has already donated to Trump's cause. Now he has relaxed "conservative" posts on its platforms directly or indirectly. When Trump comes into power, he'll likel…

> ban Tiktok I would be really interested in how someone could spin advocating for less moderation and at the same time asking to ban the competitors' social media platforms.

you’re assuming some kind of ideologically purity when it comes to “freedom of information” when the real answer is profit motive.

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

#185

Post by megous »

1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #134

Perhaps, given the situation with Twitter, now "X", more web and mobile app users will come to understand that despite its size, Facebook is someone's personal website. Like "X", one person has control. Zuckerberg controls over 51% of the company's voting shares. Meta is not a news organization. It has no responsibility to uphold journalistic standards. It does not produce news; in fact, it produces no content at all…

News organizations have no responsibility either.

And I don't see why publisher of news even if they just re-publish should not be held to some responsibilities, like eg. abstaining from nefarious manipulation of content people see on their platform.

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

#186

Post by qingcharles »

theptip wrote: post #118

Community notes seems to be quite well received. I like that the algorithm seems to be public and (IIUC) tamper-evident. The obvious context is that either Meta gets out of the content moderation game voluntarily, or the incoming admin goes to war with them. > focusing our enforcement on illegal and high-severity violations. I imagine this will in practice determine how far they can go in the EU. Community notes, sur…

I really like Community Notes, and hate the rest of what Twitter has become.

But... Community Notes is subject to "tampering." Elon's either removes the CNs himself from his posts, or his brigade downvote them to infinity so they don't appear on all the misinfo he posts.

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

#187

Post by WalterBright »

saxonww wrote: post #4

What I think I just read is that content moderation is complicated, error-prone, and expensive. So Meta is going to do a lot less of it. They'll let you self-moderate via a new community notes system, similar to what X does. I think this is a big win for Meta, because it means people who care about the content being right will have to engage more with the Meta products to ensure their worldview is correctly represent…

The trouble with fact checkers was quite evident in the Trump-Harris debate.

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

#188

Post by skillpass »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #166

I'm sure it's a win for Meta (less responsibility, less expense, potentially less criticism, potentially more ad dollars), but certainly a loss for users. More glad than ever that I deleted my FB account 10 years ago, and Twitter once it went X.

Why is it “certainly a loss for users”? Many are likely to enjoy the ability to post without censorship on topics they care about.

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

#189

Post by TheMagicHorsey »

yodsanklai wrote: post #139
multimoon wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> America is the most successful country on this earth According to what metrics? life expectancy? crime rate? wealth per inhabitant? education? work life balance? health care? happiness? incarceration rate? human rights? corruption? freedom of press? American tax dollars aren't spent in Europe or elsewhere in the world for some altruistic reason. The US want to maintain their hegemony and prevent other powers from e…

The part of China that is innovative is not communist. They have the most free-market labor market, the most free-market regulations in everything except media (which is heavily controlled by the state).

China is the most brutally capitalist society in the world, with a dictator sitting on top managing it at the margins and ensuring media will never be free and threaten the communist party.

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