Facebook to Let Users Rank Credibility of News • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook to Let Users Rank Credibility of News

#201

Post by asr » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 7:06 PM UTC

yAnonymous wrote: post #72

themagician wrote: post #16

This is the opposite of what they should have done. Shows just how much of an echo-chamber Facebook has become. This is just adding another metric by which garbage can be made legitimate and vice versa. Facebook would be a much better platform if they removed the like and comment count from every post. It’s those numbers that lead people to believe that garbage is legitimate in the first place. By hiding these number…

If you really want to fight the root of the problem, it's not likes and comments, but education. Should we censor social media, because people are too stupid to deal with it? I don't think so and if you do, you're playing in the hands of corporations who want a cheap work force. Your "solution" isn't a solution, but a hot fix that will cause more damage in the future. It's exactly the shortsighted crap politics are t…

It's sort of ironic that a proposal not to show "likes" comes in for strident criticism on HN. After all, this very site has vacillated a few times on whether or not to show the karma score for each post, and seems to have decided it's better for the community not to do so.

Re: Facebook to Let Users Rank Credibility of News

#202

Post by marenkay » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 7:26 PM UTC

darkstar999 wrote: post #116

marenkay wrote: post #81

Why not remove anything except from social interaction from FB instead of this? IMHO anything on FB beyond connecting with people is worthless anyway and mostly driven by bots and not people these days.

Because they'd be giving up a big chunk of traffic and "engagement". http://fortune.com/2017/09/08/facebook-twitter-snap-news/

^ using social media as trustworthy news source is troubling IMHO. That could only work if social media was under the same legal regulation as press is.

But user ranking is basically FB saying "no, no. We don't do news, that's not our business. Sign waiver here"

Re: Facebook to Let Users Rank Credibility of News

#203

Post by booleandilemma » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 7:27 PM UTC

dagw wrote: post #108

fortythirteen wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem isn't that simple. Most mainstream news, including CNN, have traded in objective reporting for idealogical dissemination. You can very often, legitimately call CNN "not credible". Just in the last couple years they have: 1. Told their viewers that it was illegal to read the DNC emails leaked to Wikileaks themselves, and to just listen to what CNN has to say about them. 2. Got caught posing one of their ca…

to the user that downvoted my comment: which of the four bullet points was false? Didn't downvote (and I don't have CNN), but your complete lack of links to back up any of the things you mentioned makes it very hard to judge if they're actually true or false.

The story of CNN misreporting the fish story is true.

I won’t bother linking to CNN directly because they’ve probably edited their original article by now, but here’s a link from WAPO:

https://washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/11/06/c...

Re: Facebook to Let Users Rank Credibility of News

#204

Post by marenkay » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 7:27 PM UTC

mythrwy wrote: post #110

marenkay wrote: post #81

Why not remove anything except from social interaction from FB instead of this? IMHO anything on FB beyond connecting with people is worthless anyway and mostly driven by bots and not people these days.

That is the real answer. Facebook and news are two separate phenomenon. Or at least they should be.

I would very much say: any form of social media and news should not be mixed. Social media is basically attention whoring for everyone these days, truth or value does not matter much in that regard.

Re: Facebook to Let Users Rank Credibility of News

#205

Post by transitionnel » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 7:35 PM UTC

I think Facebook's main benefit from this is that they will now have users clicking a button essentially to say, "yes, I believe this." Now they have a direct metric for what type of manipulation works for that user. Because really, no user can actually verify the truth of a media outlet's claims without heroic efforts.

Re: Facebook to Let Users Rank Credibility of News

#206

Post by soundwave106 » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 7:37 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #191

soundwave106 wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all news is political news. I don't use my Facebook much except to occasionally share vacation photos these days. Checking recently seems to show no news of any sort. Just some silly memes, weather phenomenon (supermoons!), pop-geek-culture stuff, and daily status updates. Since it's the season, there's some American football discussion, which people obviously have disagreements on, of course, but in that "sport"…

I believe Facebook has a responsibility to not show Alex Jones videos even to those that would agree with them.

Well, on the one hand, sure. I think Alex Jones is a conspiracy-theory charlatan, a good representative of "fake news" as a matter of a fact (see: Pizzagate). The fact that his site also pushes dubious supplements (like "super advanced vitamin B-12" and "survival shield", which is a "proprietary nascent iodine" formula) says it all to me.

On the other hand, no. I'm not comfortable with a social media network that determine your news feed "appropriateness", via an opaque Brazil-esque (the movie, not the country) bureaucratic process that says "yay" or "nay". And while Alex Jones may be an easier business case here due to the "fake news" elements, I'm not seeing much transparency about what their post blocking process really is. Other than it seems real messy and haphazard, and a lot of people complain about it for various reasons, whether you are a black person posting police brutality videos, or are activists documenting the Rohingya genocide, or have conservative opinions, or are Palestinian, or post breasts no matter the purpose, or post iconic Vietnam war photos, or various other reasons that come up in articles.

If Facebook made their guidelines clear, and the process was transparent, I'd be more comfortable. When the Wikipedia community decides a source is no longer reliable, you can at least read the debate on the reliable source noticeboard. They have guidelines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliab...) and an ID guide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable...). It's possible to disagree with the decision still, but at least you have better context.

Re: Facebook to Let Users Rank Credibility of News

#207

Post by hackinthebochs » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 7:39 PM UTC

emodendroket wrote: post #188

hackinthebochs wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the new spin doesn't even make logical sense. Sure it does. The appearance of a wide division in our political landscape leads to a wide division in our political landscape. People tend to "pick sides" in political fights and when something gives the appearance of a serious political dispute, people are motivated to pick sides and entrench their opinions. This is in keeping with getting Trump elected, as a large par…

Maybe it makes sense, but Vladimir Putin has superpowers if everything people blame on him is true. And Mr. Hearn's article nicely illustrates how shaky the foundation is for a lot of claims of Russian influence.

This is one of the most absurd talking points of this whole thing. It doesn't take "superpowers" to zero in on existing rifts in a society and magnify them. It has been well documented that Putin has a well-oiled disinformation machine that is adept at exploiting existing social issues.

Re: Facebook to Let Users Rank Credibility of News

#208

Post by knight17 » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 7:46 PM UTC

walterbell wrote: post #181

sanmon3186 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that Facebook walls are visible to everyone, any controversial topic usually gets reaction from both sides. Whatsapp groups are formed based on likemindedness (I am excluding core family and friends). I call these groups echo-pipes which silently form a larger echo chamber.

Are these public groups? How are they discovered?

WhatsApp groups are not discoverable (or publicly listed) unless someone invites you or provides you with a specific invite link with which you can join the group.

Re: Facebook to Let Users Rank Credibility of News

#209

Post by paulsutter » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 7:57 PM UTC

tbirrell wrote: post #155

paulsutter wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about yourself or other people? My Facebook feed is mostly personal updates about hundreds of people I have met, and it feels like the most democratic media I’ve ever seen. It improved a lot when I unfollowed the handful of people who post junk like sportsball. Are you assuming the faceless masses are exposed to some unimaginable horror that you aren’t seeing? Or tell us more about the horrors you do…

It's more like, letting users "legitimize" news is how you get bots screwing with everything. It may not be a problem for some, including myself since my feed is similar to how you describe yours, but network waide, it will pose an issue.

So, your feed seems fine, my feed seems fine, but somehow the electorate at large is subject to mass mind manipulations by bots?

Re: Facebook to Let Users Rank Credibility of News

#210

Post by xster » Mon, Jan 22, 2018, 7:57 PM UTC

And Rome lets the mob run the Comitia Tributa via popularity contests, including dismissing opposition Tribunes.

I'd argue Rome died not in 476 but in -121 when the Senate killed Gaius Gracchus and didn't realize they needed reform and create an actual political process that doesn't lead to smooth talkers and thus tyranny.

I believe Plato's and the Founding Fathers' preferred solution here would be for each individual to find the smartest willing person they know and let them offer their analysis for consideration.