Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#181

Post by MistahKoala » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 1:18 PM UTC

Today's news presented to me by Facebook includes Putin prepping for a Third World War by having diplomats' families return home.

My understanding of it is that he made some pronouncement that their kids are best off returning to Russia for a good, traditional nationalistic education - which has somehow warped into something more apocalyptic. Certainly, Facebook didn't originate that interpretation, but it's helping to propagate a story that's only being reported by tabloid outlets; there is no other facet of the rumour being presented by more measured and reasonable outlets.

Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#182

Post by seertaak » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 1:20 PM UTC

panic wrote: post #177

seertaak wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The top Breitbart headline ... is willfully [sic] inciting anti-immigrant sentiment by taking numbers out of context. > The number is true but the inference is false. How are the numbers taken out of context? In your opinion, how would that headline read if the numbers weren't taken out of context? Or does the mere act of publishing the headlines (at all) make Breitbart guilty of taking the numbers out of context i…

In your opinion, how would that headline read if the numbers weren't taken out of context? "Criminal Aliens Arrested for Sex-Related Crimes 70,000 Times Between 1955 and 2010 — But Paul Ryan Targets Trump" The original headline creates an emotional impact by implying certain things: that these 70,000 events are sexual assaults (not generic sex crimes like indecent exposure etc.) against women (implying a relationship…

OK, so it seems you have two objections. First that the headline omits the fact that that the period involved is not annual, thus optically inflating the figure. Second, you object that the phrase "sexually assaulted" is used instead of the more accurate and neutral phrase "arrested for sex-related crimes".

I have to say I agree with you on both counts. It would have been more accurate and neutral to write the headline as you suggest. (It would also have been longer and more boring.) Regarding your second point, a quick google search reveals that sex-related crimes encompass:

- Sexual Assault: Describes the catch-all crime that encompasses unwanted sexual touching of many kinds, with links to state penal code and federal law on related crimes. - Solicitation: It's illegal to entice someone else to commit a crime (such as prostitution). ... - Statutory Rape

I have no idea how the figures break down in these categories, so it's hard to the degree of unfairness being applied. If all of the 70K cases were rape, then Breitbart may actually be overly nice :) (Not saying it's likely!)

So thanks for that clarification. I would say, however, that this kind of headline is pretty typical for all news agencies. For example, during the Brexit "debate" in Britain, news outlets like BBC also quoted figures that were aggregated over a number of years to highlight the potential losses to the UK economy. Ditto the Daily Mail on the other side of the aisle. If this is the evidence that Breitbart is a shoddy news outlet, then I contend that the evidence is fairly weak.

Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#183

Post by nkrisc » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 1:24 PM UTC

Maybe Facebook's human-curated news content had a political slant because much of the fake news out there has the opposite political slant. Perhaps an unintended consequence?

Or perhaps it's just that the fake news that is shared on Facebook has a particular slant, thus removing that content gave the appearance of a preference for a different political slant on the part of the curators.

Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#184

Post by devrelm » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 1:27 PM UTC

seertaak wrote: post #174

panic wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The top Breitbart headline, "Criminal Aliens Sexually Assault 70,000 American Women — But Paul Ryan Targets Trump", is willfully inciting anti-immigrant sentiment by taking numbers out of context. According to the report they cite, 69,929 criminal aliens (or 3% of the total criminal alien population they measured) had been arrested for sex-related crimes between August 1955 and April 2010. The number is true but the…

> The top Breitbart headline ... is willfully [sic] inciting anti-immigrant sentiment by taking numbers out of context. > The number is true but the inference is false. How are the numbers taken out of context? In your opinion, how would that headline read if the numbers weren't taken out of context? Or does the mere act of publishing the headlines (at all) make Breitbart guilty of taking the numbers out of context i…

> How are the numbers taken out of context?

The numbers lack context in that they don't specify a rate, merely a value. It makes it sound like 70K women are attacked each year by undocumented immigrants, when the reality is that the number is closer to 1.27K per year since 1955. Let's do some back of the napkin math:

There are about 11 million undocumented immigrants in the US, meaning that the rate of sexual assault victims per undocumented immigrant would be ~0.012%. Meanwhile, in 2006, 300,000 college women were raped.[1] With 300 million people (in 2006), that puts the rate for the general population at 0.1% of victims per person. That's nearly 10x the rate of the undocumented immigrant population, and that's only including college-aged rape victims, rather than sexual assault victims of all ages as the 70K number claims to be.

Meanwhile, we have Trump who has no fewer than 4 woman claiming he sexually assaulted him. Divide that over the 70 years of Trump's life, and at 0.057 women-per-year you have a 1-man rate of 5.7% -- 57x the rate of the general population. Seems like Paul Ryan is targeting the right person, and that Breitbart is using bad logic.

[1]: https://www.nsopw.gov/en-US/Education/FactsStatistics#victim...

Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#185

Post by seertaak » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 1:28 PM UTC

vinhboy wrote: post #34

Thank god someone is writing about this. Recently I've been on the Yahoo's homepage a lot, because of Fantasy Football, and I noticed that a lot of the content is exactly like the article says, fake news from right-wing propaganda sites. And no, this is not me expressing my liberal bias. It's one thing to have opinionated headlines like the Huffington Post, it's another thing to have a completely fictional headline c…

Here's Glenn Greenwald, who can hardly be accused of being right-wing or a Trump supporter, on media bias:

    The U.S. media is essentially 100 percent united, vehemently, against Trump, 
    and preventing him from being elected president. I don’t have an actual problem 
    with that because I share the premises on which it is based about why he poses 
    such extreme dangers. But that doesn’t mean that as a journalist, or even just 
    as a citizen, that I am willing to go along with any claim, no matter how fact-free, 
    no matter how irrational, no matter how dangerous it could be, in order to bring 
    Trump down.

Although he doesn't name them, it seems to me he's likely referring to the vary news outlets you would consider beyond reproach (say, NYT or WaPo). Does this perhaps make you reconsider your position?

EDIT: formatting.

Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#186

Post by artimaeis » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 1:35 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #131

unityByFreedom wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You make it sound illogical. > As a religious conservative, I do really want that supreme court seat. That factors heavily in the decision. Sorry, that's my bias seeping in. I respect your choice. > The President has to really ask for permission for everything else (laws, budgets, wars, etc.), but justice nomination is very largely his choice. Don't be surprised if that factors heavily in my decision. Not nuclear.…

>Personally I think the risks posed by Trump with his thumb on the nuclear button are greater than the lives saved by repealing abortion rights. I'm not sure if this was a subtle way to imply that, although the risk of Trump using the bomb is negligible, it's still greater than zero, which is the number of lives you consider lost to abortion. Impressive accidental troll. :) Realistically, what evidence do you have th…

> Did he vote for the Iraq war?

No, he's never served as a politician and so has no platform record. He's never demonstrated an ability to serve his country so I don't understand why we should entrust him with our most powerful station.

> Has he shown an inclination towards mass murder in other scenarios?

I don't believe there's any evidence of that.

> What evidence do you have that Trump has any more likelihood of using a nuclear bomb against the wishes of congress than Hillary?

To me it's his lack of temperament. I'm confident he means what he says that he doesn't want to use nuclear weapons. But in dire situations which may arise, I personally do not trust his temperament or judgement in dealing with foreign powers. This is because he's shown many times that he only cares for the most short-term benefits. His tax plans demonstrate this, his inability to explain many of his plans demonstrates this, and his history in business demonstrates this.

Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#187

Post by ascagnel_ » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 1:36 PM UTC

jsmith0295 wrote: post #133

jwatte wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what they say: Facts have a well known liberal bias!

I think that may be true, but only because what is widely considered and presented as fact by the most mainstream sources of information actually have a significant center left bias. I think it's generally missed because people confuse bias as having to do with having a more extreme political position, when you can actually be biased in favor of any part of the political spectrum including the center.

As someone with a left-leaning bias, I agree with your assessment, if only in the sense that the loudest and most powerful voices in the most reputable newsrooms tend to also have (implicit) left-leaning biases. I would love for their to be a conservative equivalent (this was the reason for the founding of Fox News pre-Ailes: get a bunch of conservatives in the newsroom and have them do their jobs to the best of their ability, following an implicit rather than explicit bias).

Does any equivalent exist today (eg trying to report as an outlet run by conservatives instead of a conservative outlet)?

Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#188

Post by cmdrfred » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 1:37 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #132

jmspring wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Very largely his choice" ... then why hasn't the current nominee see a vote in congress?

Still his choice. Show me which supreme court justice wasn't selected by a president.

Show me one that wasn't approved by congress.

Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#189

Post by ascagnel_ » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 1:38 PM UTC

panic wrote: post #177

seertaak wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The top Breitbart headline ... is willfully [sic] inciting anti-immigrant sentiment by taking numbers out of context. > The number is true but the inference is false. How are the numbers taken out of context? In your opinion, how would that headline read if the numbers weren't taken out of context? Or does the mere act of publishing the headlines (at all) make Breitbart guilty of taking the numbers out of context i…

In your opinion, how would that headline read if the numbers weren't taken out of context? "Criminal Aliens Arrested for Sex-Related Crimes 70,000 Times Between 1955 and 2010 — But Paul Ryan Targets Trump" The original headline creates an emotional impact by implying certain things: that these 70,000 events are sexual assaults (not generic sex crimes like indecent exposure etc.) against women (implying a relationship…

Also worth noting that these are arrests, not convictions. The police can relatively easily arrest, but need more evidence to charge and eventually convict.

Re: Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

#190

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Oct 13, 2016, 1:38 PM UTC

seertaak wrote: post #182

panic wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your opinion, how would that headline read if the numbers weren't taken out of context? "Criminal Aliens Arrested for Sex-Related Crimes 70,000 Times Between 1955 and 2010 — But Paul Ryan Targets Trump" The original headline creates an emotional impact by implying certain things: that these 70,000 events are sexual assaults (not generic sex crimes like indecent exposure etc.) against women (implying a relationship…

OK, so it seems you have two objections. First that the headline omits the fact that that the period involved is not annual, thus optically inflating the figure. Second, you object that the phrase "sexually assaulted" is used instead of the more accurate and neutral phrase "arrested for sex-related crimes". I have to say I agree with you on both counts. It would have been more accurate and neutral to write the headli…

The lack of context renders it meaningless.

They cite 70,000 sexual assaults from 1955-2010 and characterize it as a crisis. Yet, there are over 200,000 sexual assaults and rapes annually, and 80,000 sexual assaults in prisons alone annually. (https://www.rainn.org/statistics/scope-problem) If the 70,000 number was equally distributed, than 1,272 sexual assaults by criminal aliens would happen each year, which represents 0.006% of the total.

Is this a good thing? No. Is this some existential crisis where illegals are flooding over the border to rape american women? No.