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Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

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Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#141

Post by ctdonath »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #65
ctdonath wrote: post #44

I've followed social media for a long time (starting back when one could actually read every single Usenet post daily). There is a definite life cycle to social media sites. Those reaching the "too big to fail" stage are usually about to. AOL, CompuServe, MySpace, etc were all indominately massive juggernauts reaching to take over the media world - and vanished almost overnight. The sudden influx of editorial censors…

Yeah, no. The reasons that those other systems failed has nothing to do with this particular issue. People will still be able to share their bullshit to like minded people to their hearts' content, which is how the vast majority of information gets shared through facebook. All facebook is saying is that they will not take money from these bullshit mills. The vast majority of people couldn't care less about whether Br…

Imputing & dismissing a large fraction of your audience, or friends of your audience, as "deplorable" is not a wise marketing move. They may be 50+, they may watch Fox News, but they consider Breitbart a canary in the coalmine, and may prove quick to throw their not-inconsiderable weight behind cheesy non-sequitur upstart quietly years in the making.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#142

Post by menacingly »

quoquoquo wrote: post #56
menacingly wrote: post #41

The risk here is not that the system will have bad goals, it's that it's easy for manipulation to redefine the core terms used to classify "bad" content. Even now, we regularly see even clear terms like "correct" or "incorrect" applied by fact-checking websites through a fairly biased lens. This is not a partisan issue, when you start down the road of handing the keys to shaping public thought to a powerful party, yo…

The game has changed. There are people with intolerant and twisted views trying to manipulate the naive herd of sheep who blindly follows whatever people like on Facebook. Knowing the tactics of people behind fake news, it's good that Facebook is responding accordingly to punish and get rid of bad actors on their platform. It's once again showing that we can't have pure anarcho decentralization. It would be a haven f…

what I love about this site is even when I disagree with a position, I would be hard-pressed to find it worded better and more clearly stated

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#143

Post by joshuamorton »

wooter wrote: post #123
joshuamorton wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point? I doubt anyone argued that the British East India Company needed to act as a distributor for that paper.

my point is that anyone who explicitly refused to reprint Benjamin Franklin's writings on the realities of the US because they were declared fake and treasonous deserved to be called censorious and biased against freedom of speech. Mind you, more than a couple of his articles were actual fake news meant to stoke discussion on British policies.

So to be clear here, it was the British government declaring his speech treasonous and attempting to censor him?

If so then yes I agree. Government censorship is unacceptable. But that's not really comparable to private entities censoring on their own private whims.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#144

Post by quoquoquo »

wooter wrote: post #82
JacobJans wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is no different than being able to tell when someone is bullshitting just as you walk through every day life, and thinking we need to shield the poor naive populace from harmful ideas is borderline stereotypical paternalism. There is a huge difference. If someone is bullshitting you in real life, you don't give them a giant microphone so they can reach millions of people. You ignore them, or politely engage in…

of course they're entitled not to. however, they allow BS they agree with so they must accept that obvious bias will be called obvious bias.

> they allow BS they agree

What BS specifically do you disagree with? Do you realize your own bias with that statement?

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#145

Post by smhost »

wooter wrote: post #123
joshuamorton wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your point? I doubt anyone argued that the British East India Company needed to act as a distributor for that paper.

my point is that anyone who explicitly refused to reprint Benjamin Franklin's writings on the realities of the US because they were declared fake and treasonous deserved to be called censorious and biased against freedom of speech. Mind you, more than a couple of his articles were actual fake news meant to stoke discussion on British policies.

But the fear of censorship is that truth will be obscured. If free speech is being abused to do what we're afraid censorship will do, doesn't that create a contradiction in your logic?

And to be clear, what we mean by "fake news" are stories that are demonstrably false with incorrect information that's never corrected even when it's revealed to be false. We're _not_ talking about what Trump calls "fake news," by which he means any narrative that doesn't paint him in a positive light.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#146

Post by bduerst »

wooter wrote: post #61
quoquoquo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The game has changed. There are people with intolerant and twisted views trying to manipulate the naive herd of sheep who blindly follows whatever people like on Facebook. Knowing the tactics of people behind fake news, it's good that Facebook is responding accordingly to punish and get rid of bad actors on their platform. It's once again showing that we can't have pure anarcho decentralization. It would be a haven f…

sad to me that people are so quick to dismiss the principles of free speech on the basis that "the game has changed" after thousands of years of human history proving it hasn't. (inb4 1st amendment is only for the gov - that is a selective truth. the principles of free speech exist outside of government.)

>(inb4 1st amendment is only for the gov - that is a selective truth. the principles of free speech exist outside of government.)

Except they don't. You should have said "inb4 John Stuart Mill", one of the founders of free speech philosophy who said that that the harm principle trumps freedom of speech (i.e. if an expression causes harm, then that expression can be silenced).

This idea of freedom of speech "as a principle" being a blank check to express whatever you want without consequences, is a new development.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#148

Post by sageikosa »

quoquoquo wrote: post #56
menacingly wrote: post #41

The risk here is not that the system will have bad goals, it's that it's easy for manipulation to redefine the core terms used to classify "bad" content. Even now, we regularly see even clear terms like "correct" or "incorrect" applied by fact-checking websites through a fairly biased lens. This is not a partisan issue, when you start down the road of handing the keys to shaping public thought to a powerful party, yo…

The game has changed. There are people with intolerant and twisted views trying to manipulate the naive herd of sheep who blindly follows whatever people like on Facebook. Knowing the tactics of people behind fake news, it's good that Facebook is responding accordingly to punish and get rid of bad actors on their platform. It's once again showing that we can't have pure anarcho decentralization. It would be a haven f…

Yes we can set definition of what is bad and what isn't. Enjoy my exercise of it with this downvote.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#149

Post by wooter »

quoquoquo wrote: post #144
wooter wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

of course they're entitled not to. however, they allow BS they agree with so they must accept that obvious bias will be called obvious bias.

> they allow BS they agree What BS specifically do you disagree with? Do you realize your own bias with that statement?

yup, bias is unavoidable. human rights organizations are obviously biased and not only am okay with that, but I support it.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#150

Post by riffraff »

briholt wrote: post #28
kumarvvr wrote: post #18

It is unfortunate that platforms like Facebook have become the beacons of pessimism. I am talking in the context of the usage of social media tools to harm society, rather than help it. For me, FB, TW, etc have become unreliable sources of news. Here, FB is trying to limit ads from pages that share false news, but who will decide that?? 1. FB - Leads to a dangerous slippery slope of putting too much power into a sing…

"Fake news" appears to be "news I don't like" and has no correlation with the accuracy of the content. Conveniently, Facebook seems to agree with many major media outlets about what news they don't like, so they can present their arbitrary definition of "fake" as objective and conveniently no one can break through the bubble to prove otherwise.

This seems an oversimplification.

Yes, some stuff is arguable, mostly when it involves politics, but there is a ton of stuff on facebook like "Bolivia expels McDonalds and Coca-Cola", or "check this video on why positive ions released by salt lamps can cure cancer".

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