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Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#21

Post by criley2 »

Shish2k wrote: post #13
criley2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without political advertising, the amount of fake news spread in Groups in the form of memes and images is absolutely fracking staggering. If you go through the facebook feed of a conservative facebook user in their 50s+, you quite literally will see all lies and propaganda, and nothing real (for one ex: see the horribly faked Nancy Pelosi video that spread like wildfire yesterday, despite it's obvious fakeness)…

Do you think any other platforms are doing better, or is all social media inherently doomed?

To me, it's Pandora's Box. It's an information singularity. We have political information anarchy. Anyone can do a hack job on a video and get 100,000,000 views and a Presidential tweet and control a news cycle. People are afraid of "Deep fakes" but the reality is is that people are so conditioned towards accepting faked information that "shallow" (lol) fakes are already extremely effective.

It's not "social media" which is doomed, but it's our systems of government. China does just fine with controlled social media that is heavily censored precisely as the government wishes. It's not social media which is doomed, it's democracy, because authoritarians can exert power and control.

It reminds me of the Paradox of Tolerance. [1]

So long as social networks (and we as a society) tolerance this anti-intellectualism and choose fake news over real news, real information can never flourish.

But what can you do? Pass laws (which explicitly violate our American 1st Amendment)? Wait on Facebook to fix one of their biggest engagement (read: profit) drivers? Or just let everything come crashing down and shrug?

Who knows. The answer is aggressive moderation and banning fake news. Recreating the culture of intellectualism and truth. Emphasizing critical thinking. But I am extremely pessimistic that anything will (or even can) be done.

We're in meme-fueled political quicksand. I don't want to sound defeatist, but maybe after a generation or two passes and the millenials are older, this type of information warfare won't be nearly as effective [2]. Until then... good luck.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

[2] https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau4586 ("We also find a strong age effect, which persists after controlling for partisanship and ideology: On average, users over 65 shared nearly seven times as many articles from fake news domains as the youngest age group.")

Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#22

Post by zlakb »

criley2 wrote: post #7
threeseed wrote: post #4

During the recent Australian election there were a number of Facebook advertisements by political figures which were completely false e.g. Labor party imposing a death tax. And given that the election result was pretty close it could've easily have made a difference. So I couldn't care less whether Facebook culled 3 billion profiles or not. What I need is for Facebook to make the hard choice and stop allowing politic…

Even without political advertising, the amount of fake news spread in Groups in the form of memes and images is absolutely fracking staggering. If you go through the facebook feed of a conservative facebook user in their 50s+, you quite literally will see all lies and propaganda, and nothing real (for one ex: see the horribly faked Nancy Pelosi video that spread like wildfire yesterday, despite it's obvious fakeness)…

Yes, let's go back to when only the press could lie.

Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#23

Post by hombre_fatal »

Shish2k wrote: post #13
criley2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without political advertising, the amount of fake news spread in Groups in the form of memes and images is absolutely fracking staggering. If you go through the facebook feed of a conservative facebook user in their 50s+, you quite literally will see all lies and propaganda, and nothing real (for one ex: see the horribly faked Nancy Pelosi video that spread like wildfire yesterday, despite it's obvious fakeness)…

Do you think any other platforms are doing better, or is all social media inherently doomed?

A favorite format on Reddit is for the entire submission to be a screenshot of tweet text (just the text), or tweet text caption and an image or article headline, possibly with no visible link to the source, not even a link to the tweet. Something you can just create in MS Paint.

And 10k comments taking it for face value, getting riled up over a screenshot of some text. Often when you google the headline, you either can't find it or it's on some bullshit website. Or you read the article and the tweet text everyone is replying to is 100% bullshit like any other clickbait.

It's not just Facebook.

Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#24

Post by threeseed »

fredley wrote: post #19
pluma wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same way you enforce any other rule. Same way they already enforce the rules they have? I hope you weren't hoping for an argument about slippery slopes. And yes, of course that means they may have to hire more moderators and of course that means more expenses. Who ever said Facebook should get away with no moderation just because they're successful?

I mean what's to prevent me putting up ads that I say aren't political, but are? By the time they've been reported and taken down it's already too late?

In your case just use the same approach as spam.

Ask all users to report political advertising. If it reaches a certain threshold take down the ad. Manually review it. If it is political then ban the user, payment method and IP address.

Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#25

Post by pjc50 »

criley2 wrote: post #7
threeseed wrote: post #4

During the recent Australian election there were a number of Facebook advertisements by political figures which were completely false e.g. Labor party imposing a death tax. And given that the election result was pretty close it could've easily have made a difference. So I couldn't care less whether Facebook culled 3 billion profiles or not. What I need is for Facebook to make the hard choice and stop allowing politic…

Even without political advertising, the amount of fake news spread in Groups in the form of memes and images is absolutely fracking staggering. If you go through the facebook feed of a conservative facebook user in their 50s+, you quite literally will see all lies and propaganda, and nothing real (for one ex: see the horribly faked Nancy Pelosi video that spread like wildfire yesterday, despite it's obvious fakeness)…

It's not enough to delete Facebook. In fact, if your own feed isn't full of fake news then it doesn't help. You have to get other people, especially those you aren't already in contact with, to delete it too.

> bad political actors picking stories that drive unrest

Unfortunately this has been endemic in the British press for as long as I have been around. The latest round is cherry-picked anti-trans articles. It's not just a social media problem.

Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#28

Post by Kurtz79 »

zlakb wrote: post #22
criley2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without political advertising, the amount of fake news spread in Groups in the form of memes and images is absolutely fracking staggering. If you go through the facebook feed of a conservative facebook user in their 50s+, you quite literally will see all lies and propaganda, and nothing real (for one ex: see the horribly faked Nancy Pelosi video that spread like wildfire yesterday, despite it's obvious fakeness)…

Yes, let's go back to when only the press could lie.

Press can be made accountable for what it reports to a large extent, outright lies can be called out and the newspaper or whoever signs the byline can be sued in extreme cases.

An anonymous fake news article has no risk or accountability for its author, that's the main difference.

Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#29

Post by dexen »

threeseed wrote: post #20
fredley wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if it is banned, how on earth are you going to enforce it in any meaningful way? Truth, lies, boots, World...

Simple really. 1) Ban any political figure who buys a political ad. If you set an example others will follow. 2) Facebook/Twitter/etc already have a verification mechanism and so anyone who isn't verified and using words like tax, election, vote etc can be sent to a moderation queue.

>anyone who isn't verified and using words like tax, election, vote etc can be sent to a moderation queue

chuckle

Do you propose that in earnest in order to save the democracy[1]? Or are you being ironic and it's simply lost on me...?

What other words would you put on the moderation graylist? "Death penalty", "whistleblower", "sexual assault", "guns", "public education", "welfare", "war", "weapons of mass destruction"? Let's top it up with "conspiracy theory" and "fake news", just to max out the irony meter.

[1] or the republic, where applicable

Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#30

Post by baq »

zlakb wrote: post #22
criley2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without political advertising, the amount of fake news spread in Groups in the form of memes and images is absolutely fracking staggering. If you go through the facebook feed of a conservative facebook user in their 50s+, you quite literally will see all lies and propaganda, and nothing real (for one ex: see the horribly faked Nancy Pelosi video that spread like wildfire yesterday, despite it's obvious fakeness)…

Yes, let's go back to when only the press could lie.

yes, please. that's better than now.
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