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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

#991

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is research that shows exposure to suicide and self injury content increases suicidal ideation. Yes. However, I find this obsession with harm-based value judgment to the exclusion of all other considerations ethically problematic, to put it mildly. Ethics does not reduce solely to considerations of harm.

Would you mind expanding on that please, what are the ethically problematic things you are trying to balance against this?

I reject the implicit assumption that Zuckerberg has an ethical duty to reduce indirect harm from hosting content, and I also reject the implicit assumption that ethical calculations ("balancing" harm) are a meaningful way to reason about ethics. I think both of these assumptions are ethically problematic. The only reason Zuckerberg apologized to parents is because other people would have punished him had he not, which does not imply sound ethics or that he agrees with what he said.

I also think normalizing an infrastructure whose sole purpose is to suppress speech is ethically problematic. Rights are rarely expanded once taken.

You're right that people post abhorrent stuff on such sites, but I prefer approaches like filters over suppression. I also think that if reducing indirect harm is important to certain people (like reducing suicide), then there are known effective ways that don't require coercive power, like the public campaigns against smoking and MADD which have both had significant impacts.

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

#992

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind expanding on that please, what are the ethically problematic things you are trying to balance against this?

I reject the implicit assumption that Zuckerberg has an ethical duty to reduce indirect harm from hosting content, and I also reject the implicit assumption that ethical calculations ("balancing" harm) are a meaningful way to reason about ethics. I think both of these assumptions are ethically problematic. The only reason Zuckerberg apologized to parents is because other people would have punished him had he not, whi…

In what way is not recommending content, or demoting it in feeds, coercive?

I'm sorry, but maximalist free speech positions fail in the face of reality.

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

#993
post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fact checking, Community Notes, whatever you want to call it, is inherently political.

[deleted]

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

#994

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…

> Trump says the unemployment rate for African-American youths is 59 percent. > In May, the bureau said the employment-population ratio for blacks ages 16 to 24 was 41.5 percent. Flipped over, that would mean that the unemployment ratio - although such a statistic is not published by the bureau - would be 58.5 percent. That’s pretty close to the 59 percent figure Trump cited, Sinclair noted. > Mostly False Crazy

> But there are differences between the ratio and the widely used unemployment rate, which Trump used in citing the percentage.

> The unemployment rate reflects the number of jobless people who are actively seeking work as a percentage of the available workforce - defined as those who have jobs or trying to find one.

> The May unemployment rate for blacks ages 16 to 24 was 18.7 percent. The rate for whites in the same age group was 9.1 percent.

> The employment-population ratio is a far broader measure that counts all civilians in its equation - even those who don’t work and aren’t looking for a job. In the 16- to 24-year-old category, it includes high school and college students who are not employed or seeking jobs.

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

#995

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that different from fact checkers? They can also be driven by large actors who pay shills to influence public opinion? Only the name "Community Notes" is less misleading then "Fact checkers".

Fact checkers are employed by Meta?

Who are pushed by the government to censor vaccine side effects:

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/10/mark-zuckerberg-says-biden-p...

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

#996

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, how to fact check the fact checkers? If we could have legitimate fact checking that really works, then I guess we wouldn't need any politics at all.

> Indeed, how to fact check the fact checkers? Like any other work, it can be reviewed by supervisors within the company and/or the client (Meta). If a sample of an employee's work shows that they often hide content that isn't factually false, they are performing their job poorly. If Meta doesn't like the job the company is doing, the contract can be cancelled. > If we could have legitimate fact checking that really…

Hey, some news came out that might give you an insight to why the fact checking might not always work:

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/10/mark-zuckerberg-says-biden-p...

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

#997

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That ignores the regulations in the EU, and the UK (coming into force this year), and also the huge volume of lawsuits they are facing in the US. Does everyone remember Zuck turning around to apologise to the parents in that senate hearing? Those parents must feel this is a slap in the face.

This is a decision for the US market first and foremost. The lawsuits you mention are sadly irrelevant to the decision-making; again, if you are about to be forced to make this change by Trump, the results of some cost/benefit study will not sway his reasoning. His decision is already made. FWIW I would not be surprised if the bluster about championing free speech abroad gets quietly forgotten; we’ll see. They explic…

I mean, we can tell it's not about free speech because it specifically allows you to target gay and trans people, calling them mentally ill, but not religious people.

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

#998

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. The only implementation of ATProto so far has been heavily criticized for immediately blocking anyone with wrong opinions, while at the same permitting pedolovers post without much trouble (that butterfly logo is a well-known pedophile logo). More reports about the awful actions of bluesky/ATProto: https://www.newsweek.com/conservatives-join-bluesky-face-abu...

The Bluesky pedo trope is a right wing falsehood, yet another piece of their misinformation agenda ATProto is an open protocol, anyone can add content to the network. Bluesky is a company that operates the most used application, a micro logging platform like Twitter. Musk Social has far more awful actions and far more awful personal posts by the oligarch himself. The "awful" thing of blocking trolls on Bluesky is wha…

So basically you do admit to have moderation in place to deal with "awful shit", which in your eyes looks fine. But at the same time more than half of the western world is nowadays disagreeing with you and winning elections across different places. In fact, even Zuckerberg had to reduce their censorship and discrimination towards others.

Your platform is just a safe space, but it ain't defacto decentralized nor valuing an impartial worldview the slightest. Enjoy it.

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

#999
post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans don't care about facts. There's a reason why you have Creationists at the highest levels of government.

Unnecessary attacks like this don't help your cause and part of what has driven the other side to the point they are at.

"Look at what you made me do"

No, you never had any moral backbone and you are just looking at the first excuse to behave like the psycho you have always been.

The only other possible explanation is that you are stuck at the psychological maturity of a small child, throwing a destructive tantrum any time anyone opposes you.

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

#1000

Asterisk just published an interview with the folks behind Community Notes at X (Twitter) - https://asteriskmag.com/issues/08/the-making-of-community-no... I don't use Twitter so I hadn't seen it in action, but the interview convinced me that this is a good approach. I think this approach makes sense for Facebook as well.

Thanks for sharing this. So many people commenting on this topic have no idea how community notes even works. Today's New York Times article also failed to explain it, while just giving a general negative tone to the idea of switching to this model.

I have seen so much on Twitter that demanded a community note I had to leave.

It's a terrible solution.

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