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Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

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Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#151

Post by WillPostForFood »

guelo wrote: post #48
btilly wrote: post #11

This article criticizes Facebook for firing the human editors that had been keeping things sane. However they were pushed to that by accusations of bias in the right-wing media. Accusations that looked likely to lead to a Congressional investigation. See, for example, http://thehill.com/policy/technology/279361-top-republican-d... . Now they are in a situation where they are damned if they do, damned if they don't. A…

> lead to a Congressional investigation. That really seems like "abridging the freedom of speech" to me. Constitutional conservatives sure love pushing the limits of the constitution when it inconveniences them. But, you know, the election is over so now that the right has total control we must all put aside our differences and work together.

It is kind of Orwellian to claim an investigation of suppression of speech is "abridging the freedom of speech." Nonetheless, it isn't the government's business, what Facebook does with its feed, and constitutional conservatives should recognize that.

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/279498-some-conservativ...

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#152

Post by tn13 »

z_mollusk wrote: post #64
btilly wrote: post #11

This article criticizes Facebook for firing the human editors that had been keeping things sane. However they were pushed to that by accusations of bias in the right-wing media. Accusations that looked likely to lead to a Congressional investigation. See, for example, http://thehill.com/policy/technology/279361-top-republican-d... . Now they are in a situation where they are damned if they do, damned if they don't. A…

"they were pushed to that by accusations of bias in the right-wing media." Accusations of bias? I think you mean to say that actual Facebook employees stated this as a fact. And the story was covered by ALL news outlets, starting with Gizmodo.

And Zuckerberg meeting right wing leaders shows that there was great element of truth in it.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#153

Post by AlexC04 »

psyc wrote: post #132

"Stop the spread of misinformation" is a subset of "stop the spread of information", which is yet one more way of saying that some people can't stand the freedom of speech.

That is fair - however it does not have to be implemented by stopping the information from spreading. An alternative could be to refuse to distribute the false information without a disclaimer reading "DEBUNKED / FALSE / see here for fair balance"

Or include a DIV to one side with a bulleted list of false claims.

Consider the TRUMP quote image: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CRxEt7pU8AAzekC.jpg

People Magazine 1998 - I'd run as a republican because they are the dumbest. I'd lie my face off and they'd love me [paraphrase]

A Facebook-fact-checker wouldn't have to suppress the sharing of the image. Id could create an overlay or add a subtitle or tag which reads "FALSE QUOTE - this isn't real"

Rather than relying on the hundred million individual conversations being maybe fact checked - an algorithm / ai / editorial squad could apply fact checking automatically.

The IMAGE thumbprint / URL flagged in the facebook database as proven false, it gets the extra-content on its own.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#154

Post by brightball »

btilly wrote: post #11

This article criticizes Facebook for firing the human editors that had been keeping things sane. However they were pushed to that by accusations of bias in the right-wing media. Accusations that looked likely to lead to a Congressional investigation. See, for example, http://thehill.com/policy/technology/279361-top-republican-d... . Now they are in a situation where they are damned if they do, damned if they don't. A…

It seems like the best thing to do would be penalize a site if it shows verifiably false content until it both updates the original story and issues a retraction. Facebook could prioritize retractions in its algorithm and ensure that people who saw the original story would see the retraction as well.

Content providers who abide by journalistic guidelines could be prioritized. Providers who actually have an editor could even associate the editor of each article with the post so that the editor's individual track record could be checked alongside the site itself, which would work better for large organizations who have multiple departments and don't deserve to be globally penalized for a single bad editor.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#155

Post by millermp12 »

btilly wrote: post #11

This article criticizes Facebook for firing the human editors that had been keeping things sane. However they were pushed to that by accusations of bias in the right-wing media. Accusations that looked likely to lead to a Congressional investigation. See, for example, http://thehill.com/policy/technology/279361-top-republican-d... . Now they are in a situation where they are damned if they do, damned if they don't. A…

Let's create a Ministry of Truth.

Then we can ban all those sites on homeopath, acupuncture, astrology, stereotype threat and all that other pinko voodoo (the bulk of social "science" papers come to think of it).

Where do I sign the petition?

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#156

Post by overcast »

This is seriously hilarious. Now that's he's won, against seemingly all odds, we have to find some other reason for why EVERYONE ELSE, was completely WRONG. Every media outlet, everyone in politics, all the polls, completely shit on Trump. Now look who is the most powerful person in the entire world.

The Democrats, and the rest, did it to themselves. Overconfidence, smear campaigns, and all of the morons doing the polls.

We are all sick of politicians, and the people have spoken, let's just see what happens. Get over it already.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#157

Post by gregpardo »

Spellman wrote: post #87
AlexC04 wrote: post #76

I think it would be relatively easy to have an "auto-snopes" feature which detects a URL being shared and immediately attaches a post that says "this has been debunked by X" For example - I've seen dozens of links to Michael Moore's trumpland speech which strategically ends with the phrase "America will elect Trump and it will feel great" Sample: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-25/michael-moore-trump... He conc…

I have personally asked an individual why they don't trust snopes. Their claim is that it's a Democrat rag towel and shill. I then ask, then what fact-checker would you trust? Their response: None of them. Congratulations. We've reached a point, for this individual, where "facts" as decided in the common forum are suspect and the only thing they trust is themselves (and whatever non-Mainstream Media they listen to).…

The problem these 'fact' checkers have become leftist doctrines... You just point to snopes or politifact and that is end of discussion? That's not how the world works. Wikileaks is a far more credible source than either of these. People need to do their own research if they want to form conclusions not just little to prepackaged conclusions.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#159

Post by jerf »

Bud wrote: post #104
jerf wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, trying to solve this problem by creating a definition of "misinformation" sufficiently precise to act on it for all possible articles, then trying to remove it somehow is probably an AI-complete problem. If it's not AI-complete it's probably just plain an ill-formed question. That's before we ask questions about the biases that get embedded into the misinformation detector. This can't be fixed at Facebook scales…

There is no need to create a Grand Unified Theory of misinformation, here. This problem isn't that hard. You filter this stuff and rank it by its SOURCE, not by the content of individual articles. It's not hard to figure out which online sources are pushing out most of the abjectly-bad propaganda, and de-rank them.

"This problem isn't that hard. You filter this stuff and rank it by its SOURCE, not by the content of individual articles."

I don't think reifying ad hominem into code is the solution to the problem.

Of course, if you don't mind a rare few false positives here and there on articles, I've got your filter right here:

    def source_is_trustworthy(source):
        return False
Remember as you sit here thinking through your exceptions what we're talking about; if your "trustworthy" source was confidently telling you about how Clinton was going to win, it's not one of the exceptions. I won't say I was confident Trump would win, but I was certainly less suprised than most; the fact that I generated this somewhat more predictive model by tossing out pretty much every "mainstream" news source is not a good sign for them. And to be honest, Trump news isn't the only thing that I find this useful for. Beyond the bare facts, most media outlets really aren't good for much anymore, and do you ever have to de-spin their news just to get those bare facts in the first place. (I can't, however, pack up into a recipe how to do this yourself. I think we're in a period of transition in the news industry, much greater than just "the internet makes the old dinosaurs stumble" makes it sound, and I'm at the moment not really all that confident in anything.)

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#160

Post by rwhitman »

cjjuice wrote: post #150
rwhitman wrote: post #140

If you do a root cause analysis of this election's result, much of it points back to Silicon Valley in one way or another. Workforce automation created millions of unemployed people in places far away from economic hubs, with no hope of employment in their hometowns or re-skilling for the new roles, leaving them desperate. Proliferation of mobile apps lead to an explosion in use of social media. The wild popularity o…

Yes, Federal jobs should have been moved from cities to fill those lost. Norway did something similar.

Agreed. Though personally I believe Silicon Valley shares a responsibility - tech companies should encourage more remote work and smaller hub offices in less dense urban areas. It would save them money and help distribute economic gains outside of just the major urban centers.

This was a root cause of Brexit in my opinion as well - all of the UK's best jobs are stuffed into London and London only.

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