Ending our third party fact-checking program and moving to Community Notes model • Hacker News Board

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

#291

Post by hbn » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 7:19 PM UTC

JohnMakin wrote: post #183

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…

Me and my friend share a joke instagram account where we'll randomly make stupid posts just to entertain ourselves. One time he posted a picture of himself holding a chair, standing on one foot with a goofy smile on his face, captioned "I'll hit you with this chair! Just kidding!"

It got the account suspended until we deleted the post, claiming the post, and I quote, "could encourage physical violence and lead to a risk of physical harm, or a direct threat to public safety."

I sent an appeal, saying it was a clear joke that isn't directed at anyone, but after supposed "review" they determined the post is indeed against ToS.

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

#292

Post by techfeathers » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 7:20 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #265

techfeathers wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Harris supporter, I actually agree, I think it was way too heavy handed and hurt Harris more than helped. I’m not sure anymore what the goal of fact checking is (I’ve always felt it was somewhat dubious if not done extremely well).

Any fact checker is going to be inevitably biased. For a debate, there should be two fact checkers, each candidate gets to pick a fact checker. That could lead to a debate between the fact checkers, which would derail the debate. Better to not have fact checkers as part of the debate, and leave the fact checking to the post-debate analysis.

Agreed, I always felt like most of the fact checking that has become vogue in the past ten years is designed to comfort the people who already agree, not inform people who want genuine insight.

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

#293

Post by raphman » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 7:21 PM UTC

qingcharles wrote: post #186

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.

[Posted also in another thread:]

I am not so sure that Musk or right-wing moderators are directly to blame for the lack of published community notes. My guess: in recent months, many people (e.g., me) who are motivated to counter fake news have left Twitter for other platforms. Thus, proposed CNs are seen and upvoted by fewer people, resulting in fewer of them being shown to the public. Also, I ask myself: why should I spend time verifying or writing CNs when it does not matter - the emperor knows that he is not wearing any clothes, and he does not care.

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

#294

Post by oguz-ismail » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 7:22 PM UTC

insane_dreamer wrote: post #284

quantadev wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with "fact-checking" is that if it's done by humans at all then it will be heavily biased. With Silicon-Valley people being in charge of "fact-checking" for the past decade there's been countless examples of them doing mass cancellations calling things lies that we all know ended up being true.

> countless examples of them doing mass cancellations calling things lies that we all know ended up being true really? like what, exactly? please give concrete examples or this is just hot air

peaceful protests?

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

#295

Post by hsuduebc2 » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 7:22 PM UTC

It's just cheaper. That's the most important thing for corporations. It's also harder to accuse them of bias. Personally, I'm a little dubious about the effectiveness of fact checkers on people's opinions. If someone is a dullard who is willing to believe the most absurd propaganda or every conspiracy theory that exists, a fact checker won't solve the problem. They are used to being told that they are wrong. Of course they just can shadowban this content but in the end they profit from that.

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

#296

Post by redserk » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 7:23 PM UTC

jjulius wrote: post #266

redserk wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going back even further, one of the initial draws of Instagram pre-acquisition was that you could escape the toxicity of trolls and other socially unproductive behavior on Facebook. Meta has a big problem coming up. They'll get to the point where they won't be able to hide Facebook and Instagram's lackluster appeal. I suspect we'll start seeing advertisers peel away, followed by a few savvy investors first. Let's jus…

>Let's just hope this doesn't trigger a market-wide correction. My flippant, "I hate social media and think it was largely a mistake and needs to go away," view is to cheer for that correction. That said, I understand that I'm very biased here and might be ignorant. Is there a reason I shouldn't cheer for such a correction?

I'd cheer for a correction if it were limited to social media valuations. My fear is that social media tanks followed by people broadly pulling money out of the market.

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

#297

Post by tshaddox » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 7:26 PM UTC

circlingthesun wrote: post #210

JohnMakin wrote: post #183

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…

I once posted a picture of an email stating my train was delayed in French. So the word 'retard' appeared in it. Instagram banned me from monetization or partnerships or something on my account, because the word for delay in French is offensive in English.

> because the word for delay in French is offensive in English

It's also the word for delay in English.

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

#298

Post by maxehmookau » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 7:26 PM UTC

"Our fact checking wasn't good enough, so we're outsourcing it to the public."

This is insane and clearly a political move. Maybe we just don't require social media as a species. That might be nice.

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

#299

Post by wyager » Tue, Jan 07, 2025, 7:26 PM UTC

insane_dreamer wrote: post #284

quantadev wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with "fact-checking" is that if it's done by humans at all then it will be heavily biased. With Silicon-Valley people being in charge of "fact-checking" for the past decade there's been countless examples of them doing mass cancellations calling things lies that we all know ended up being true.

> countless examples of them doing mass cancellations calling things lies that we all know ended up being true really? like what, exactly? please give concrete examples or this is just hot air

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/republican-led-us-house-pan...

There was a long period where people were getting banned from Twitter and Meta platforms for posting (true) claims about the Hunter Biden laptop story (which was, of course, extremely politically consequential)