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Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

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Re: Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

#191

There have numerous times in history where free speech has been stifled and it turned out to be a bad idea. But I'm sure this time is going to be different

Free speech is not being stifled. They want to regulate content in their site. You can publish your content in other places. I appreciate fake news being cleaned in my timeline, if the cost is no more than some occasional legit news being pruned once in awhile.

Alternatively don't offload the responsibility of what is acceptable content to a powerful 3rd party and use your common sense. Free speech isn't there to protect stuff what you agree with

Re: Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

#192

Interesting. I wonder if this includes lies told in private messages?

That would be the day - encrypt your Messenger convos, but they show Ads and ensure you aren't bullying or lying to anyone.

"No honey, I'm still at work"

trustworthiness_score -= 0.1

Re: Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, fake news also includes slanted coverage of true events (i.e. covering events in such a way as to convey a sponsored message, biased polling methodology, etc.). That encompasses statistically approaching 100% of trashy sources you’re likely to encounter as 'sponsored content', as well as a healthy portion of more established sources' content. I'd be likely to report a majority as fake news in perfectly good fa…

The thing is that pretty much all reporting has bias. Interpretation is inextricable from observation. Bias in and of itself is not a bad thing -- it provides a framework for meaningful discourse. IMO the real issue is being unaware of these biases. Introspection and constant self-evaluation is key.

Reporting to me is largely facts with a baseline humanist bias (i.e. AP, Reuters, AFP wire reports) while editorial is opinion seasoned with facts, or all too often, fact-like flavor enhancers. All I'm saying is flavor enhancer sensitivity is real, and Yelp makes tons of money helping you avoid low quality fare (not only due to the protection racket they're running).

Re: Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

#194
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please keep partisan flamebait and political battle off HN. It's not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

In the times we are in, one cannot separate politics from tech, have to really reconsider whether to continue using HN since I strongly believe we in the tech community should have more not less discussion about such issues. Why can't HN be a place were we nerd out over new frameworks but engage in partisan political discussion over the impact of what we build?

Many politicized topics appear on HN. That's inevitable and it's fine. The problem is that people start doing political battle in the threads: flaming each other, bashing their enemies, and so on. That turns the threads into flamewars, which are aptly named because, like fire, they consume everything. We can't allow that; it would destroy HN's mandate, i.e. the gratification of intellectual curiosity. So we have to moderate. The values by which we do that are at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

The goal isn't to eliminate political discussion from HN, but to prevent the community from destroying itself. One reason people want to have political discussion here is that HN hasn't already destroyed itself for thoughtful, substantive conversation. This attraction makes it particularly vulnerable, so we all have to be careful. It's ok to comment on politics, but not ok to do it in the usual browbeating way.

Re: Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech is not being stifled. They want to regulate content in their site. You can publish your content in other places. I appreciate fake news being cleaned in my timeline, if the cost is no more than some occasional legit news being pruned once in awhile.

Alternatively don't offload the responsibility of what is acceptable content to a powerful 3rd party and use your common sense. Free speech isn't there to protect stuff what you agree with

It takes valuable time to do that and I don't care who does the cleaning as long as it works. If it doesn't, people will always be aware of that and sites like Facebook risks to lost all of their business in that scenario.

Re: Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

#196
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please keep partisan flamebait and political battle off HN. It's not what this site is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

In the times we are in, one cannot separate politics from tech, have to really reconsider whether to continue using HN since I strongly believe we in the tech community should have more not less discussion about such issues. Why can't HN be a place were we nerd out over new frameworks but engage in partisan political discussion over the impact of what we build?

Yes we can separate it. You've just likely never personally dealt with someone in a high US office that you've disagreed with so you're venting on every outlet available to you.

Re: Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

#197
Facebook is already strict enough and doesn't need detection algorithms like this. I once setup an array of doppelgänger accounts to see how long it would take for Facebook to correlate the accounts and ban all those accounts in one fell swoop. It was not long until each account was subjected to a rigorous test, where I was asked to match people's Facebook photos with their username. A daunting task if most of your friends were token friends added merely to boost your profile and make it seem popular. Of course I managed to solve half of those prompts, but the other doppelgänger accounts were swiftly banned, leading me to think that Facebook's algorithm works half the time, which in computer science terms is not good enough, but in reality, is enough to deter a substantial amount of bad actors.
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