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

#811

Post by intended » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 6:29 AM UTC

zahlman wrote: post #670

qingcharles wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

Didnt Musk imply that the ex head of Twitter T&S was a pedophile

The exact tweet being - “ looks like Yoel is arguing in favor of children being able to access adult Internet services in his PhD thesis.”

Or this one where he accused his disabled employee ?

(using community notes to make the point no less) https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1633011448459964417?ref_src=tw...

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

#812

Post by intended » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 6:31 AM UTC

emmelaich wrote: post #684

o11c wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly, if "ban people for joke violence" is the price we have to pay for "ban people for real violence", I'll take it.

But what if banning joke violence increases the chance of real violence?

Not the person you responded to, but I assume they would be ok with unbanning the joke in that case.

I would rather people not die.

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

#813

Post by jheriko » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 6:37 AM UTC

hopefully i stop getting trouble for reposting things verifiable in the public record that other people spoke about in 2018, and not being banned for supporting capital punishment, a thing legal in the US, the native state of the brand.

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

#814

Post by zahlman » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 6:42 AM UTC

cmdli wrote: post #781

zahlman wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's trivial to find examples. I put "fact checkers were wrong" into DDG and turned up: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2025/01/07/five-times-f... https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o95 https://reason.com/2021/12/29/facebook-masks-false-informati... Even when they aren't wrong, they can be biased. See for example: https://www.allsides.com/blog/media-bias-alert-politifact-fa... Also, compare and contrast how the…

In the examples you provided, they mostly deal with hotly-contested information around Covid-19, where there exists countless amounts of incorrect information, politicized reporting, and straight up propaganda. I'm not surprised that Facebook's fact-checkers got a couple articles mislabeled, especially if they blended in with the wave of genuine disinformation that accompanied the pandemic. Given that there seems to…

You asked if I saw examples and said that you haven't seen any examples; I showed you examples.

There certainly are more examples, and the free speech advocates I know do talk about the subject generally quite a bit.

One I just now remembered: Dr. John Campbell (https://www.youtube.com/@campbellteaching) has run into issues with this and has pointed out many other cases where established "knowledge" about Covid that we were previously not allowed to criticize, turned out to be objectively wrong. These disputes have resulted in many other people being censored despite later being shown to be correct, or at least reasonably justified by the best information available at the time.

This is someone who was proactively warning about the potential severity of Covid well before others, and advocating for proper hand-washing very early on (before more science emerged suggesting that skin contact is a relatively minor transmission vector). In the early days of the pandemic, he was complaining loudly about Fauci's initial mask rhetoric, arguing that the general population absolutely should wear masks and that production needed to step up. He's been doing serious medical content on Youtube for 17 years (sort by oldest to see) and first posted about Covid on Jan 26 2020 when awareness was still low and it was imagined that the virus had been contained to China and presented extensive detail on what little was known at the time (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPvpfC7NfR0).

But now he mostly makes videos against "the establishment", out of frustration with their unwillingness to consider new science over dogma.

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

#815

Post by intended » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 6:43 AM UTC

skillpass wrote: post #188

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.

I’ve seen this happen before. Back in the good ole days of the libertarian internet.

You had subreddits which had zero moderation, because again “the best ideas succeed”. Those places got filled with the hate speech, vitriol, harassment, stalking and toxicity.

Minorities and women left, because they were basically hunted.

Logical arguments dont work, because hate, harassment and anger are emotionally driven behaviors.

This creates the toxic water cooler effect. The fact that its ok to say horrible things, attracts more people who are happy to say those things.

You lose diversity of arguments, view points and chances to challenge ideas.

You increase radicalization, dramatically speed up the sharing and conversion of anger into action.

Eventually, the subs brought in moderation. As did every social media platform in existence. The people who didn’t like it, created their own spaces.

Which didn’t do well. Because those positions and spaces are NOT popular. Facing this fact, they are now turning to shut off opposition and moderation, because that is necessary to keep the ball going.

This isn’t even opinion, this is the history of the past 30 years. It’s not even that old!

I really do hope this time its different. Genuinely, I said it when the new communities were created. I meant it then, I mean it now.

Moderation is fucking toxic and unhealthy. I rejoined moderation recently, and in the first 10 frikking items, I had to see a dead baby pic from an un covered ethnic war zone.

I really want this to succeed, and want it to be good for users. I am hoping it is.

But experience is clear - making space for hurtful speech, results in more hurtful speech and people just leaving to places where they dont have to be harassed.

Blue sky should probably see a jump in users over time this year.

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

#816

Post by est » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 6:46 AM UTC

CN was like a crowd-sourcing disagreement sticker that gets attached to some content. Yes it will be abused.

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

#817

Post by intended » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 6:54 AM UTC

raxxor wrote: post #3

donohoe wrote: post #2

From bad to worse. Meta is probably one of the single largest funders of fact checking. Now that appears to be coming to an end. Third parties will no longer be able to flag misinfo on FB, Instagram or Threads in the US. This is not good imho.

I think internet discussion worked far better without fact checkers, where some of them cannot really be called accurate. The community notes are the better approach. They aren't always correct either, but it certainly is the better fit for freedom of expression and freedom of speech. Fact checkers are the authority approach that just does not fit.

When you say this, what are you referring to? Was this about the general vibe of online conversations, or are you talking about specific incidences or traits?

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

#818

Post by toasteros » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 6:55 AM UTC

davidw wrote: post #228

tptacek wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get how the partisan story is easy to tell here, but I'm saying something pretty specific: I think it would have been product development malpractice for this decision not to have been in the works for many, many months, long before the GOP takeover of the federal government was a safe bet. Community Notes has been that successful, and Facebook's fact-checkers have been that much of a product disaster. I've never s…

As a product decision taken independently, maybe. Running one of those things at scale with all kinds of people trying to subvert it for various reasons, including some downright evil ones, is not an easy task. Announced together with everything else and given the timing, I just can't help but think there's a political component to all of it.

> I just can't help but think there's a political component to all of it.

"We're moving to Texas to eliminate perceptions of bias" is the biggest giveaway of this.

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

#819

Post by motorest » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 7:08 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #217

davidw wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ideological bits are: * Dana White added to the board. * "Move our trust and safety and content moderation teams out of California, and our US content review to Texas. This will help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content." - like people being in Texas makes them more objective?! The actual mechanisms of running a social media network at scale are tricky and I think most of us would…

I get how the partisan story is easy to tell here, but I'm saying something pretty specific: I think it would have been product development malpractice for this decision not to have been in the works for many, many months, long before the GOP takeover of the federal government was a safe bet. Community Notes has been that successful, and Facebook's fact-checkers have been that much of a product disaster. I've never s…

> I get how the partisan story is easy to tell here, but I'm saying something pretty specific: I think it would have been product development malpractice for this decision not to have been in the works for many, many months, long before the GOP takeover of the federal government was a safe bet.

You're just stating that, in your personal opinion, a scenario would be bad. That says nothing about it actually taking place.

You're expressing your personal opinion in response to a message listing facts supporting the belief the scenario is actually taking place.

Meaning, it's still plausible this is what is actually happening.

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

#820

Post by intended » Wed, Jan 08, 2025, 7:09 AM UTC

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…

The principle is sound, but it’s a principle.

The mechanisms of online speech show us a few other issues.

For example certain ideas are far more “fit” for transmission and memory than others. Take a look at something as commonplace as “ghosts” or the idea of penguins. Ghosts are in all cultures, and they are essentially people with some additional properties. Penguins are birds that dont fly.

Brains absorb stories and ideas like flightless birds easily, because they build on pre existing concepts.

Talk about spacetime, or multiple dimensions and you aren’t going to have the same degree of uptake.

So when I put certain ideas into competition with each other, all else being equal - the more suited for human foibles, the more successful the idea.

People also dont make that much effort to seek out forbidden knowledge. Conservative main stream media has made many things forbidden - 1/3rd of America isnt aware that Obamacare and the ACA are the same thing.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant for certain breeds of germs. Many others get on just fine.

In my many decades of online existence, which includes being on multiple sides of moderation, extremism was on the rise from before, because we had created the arguments and structures that thrive on it.

Content moderation was a hap hazard effort created out of necessity to stall it.

Personally - I hope this works. Moderation sucks, and is straight up traumatic. If we can get better, more effective market places of ideas, then I am all for it.

I care about the effectiveness of the exchange of ideas. I see free speech as a principle that supports this. But the goal is always the functioning of the marketplace.