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Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

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Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#211

Post by Applejinx »

peoplewindow wrote: post #195
quoquoquo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The game has changed. There are people with intolerant and twisted views trying to manipulate the naive herd of sheep who blindly follows whatever people like on Facebook. Knowing the tactics of people behind fake news, it's good that Facebook is responding accordingly to punish and get rid of bad actors on their platform. It's once again showing that we can't have pure anarcho decentralization. It would be a haven f…

I very very rarely downvote anything on HN. I feel downvoting should be used for empty or "me too"-like comments that don't add anything. Your post isn't like that, but in your case I made an exception anyway because you started like this: trying to manipulate the naive herd of sheep who blindly follows whatever people like on Facebook I realise you genuinely do believe that there are vast numbers of people who are l…

Sadly, there is no difference between the 'clever' person who thinks they're exempt, and the masses of programmed people who (thinks the clever person) passively accept what they're being fed. It's just all people, full stop, so yes they do exist in these vast herd-like numbers, and yes they're vulnerable to being programmed, and yes this is happening and always has.

If there's a difference it's akin to the change from animal power to internal combustion: a difference of degree and mechanic, not the fundamental operation being carried out. But like the change to internal combustion, this change can be pretty revolutionary all the same.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#212

Post by peoplewindow »

meri_dian wrote: post #72

Unfortunately we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, we could have completely open and unfiltered platforms which guarantee freedom of expression but at the same time leave our institutions (public and private) vulnerable to malicious influence. On the other hand, we could attempt to build systems whose purpose is to remove fake news, so defending ourselves against a particularly aggressive fo…

Is it complex? I don't think so at all.

Facebook can easily just tag stories they think are false, and give people a button to hide or show such stories (or even show ONLY such stories to make it easier for people to build trust in the system). It would be a kind of spam filter for news stories.

Facebook could then stay neutral, could avoid claims of censorship, people who want to only see "true" news could be happy, people who don't trust Facebook's friends to filter their news feed could also be happy, and everyone wins.

They aren't doing that because their goal is not to help people detect fake/false news. Their goal is to suppress it entirely. They do this because like quoquoquo above, they believe their userbase contains vast numbers of sheep who are incapable of rational thought. Just tagging things won't be the "solution" to the existence of such people, which is why their tactics are controversial.

Are they right about their users? It's a big world. But rather than try to help people spot BS and learn from it, their view appears to be that such people are irredeemable.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#213

Post by ZenoArrow »

ricw wrote: post #180
wooter wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sad to me that people are so quick to dismiss the principles of free speech on the basis that "the game has changed" after thousands of years of human history proving it hasn't. (inb4 1st amendment is only for the gov - that is a selective truth. the principles of free speech exist outside of government.)

Thousands of years? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's really only been put into a constitution a smigeon more than 200 years ago. But that's besides the point. Freedom of speech has always been an imperfect principle. At anytime we are and have been censored in any society. In the west we probably have fewer censorships, but still we censor child porn, financial cheating / insider trading as well as "hate speech". An…

> "Thousands of years? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's really only been put into a constitution a smigeon more than 200 years ago."

'Origins of freedom of speech and expression' section found here suggests otherwise (unless you want to be particular about the term 'constitution', rather than what it represents):

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#214

Post by Frondo »

bllguo wrote: post #204
peoplewindow wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I very very rarely downvote anything on HN. I feel downvoting should be used for empty or "me too"-like comments that don't add anything. Your post isn't like that, but in your case I made an exception anyway because you started like this: trying to manipulate the naive herd of sheep who blindly follows whatever people like on Facebook I realise you genuinely do believe that there are vast numbers of people who are l…

Reductive. You seem to be searching for a reason to disagree. He/she stated his point crudely, granted, but he/she did have one: There are certain forms of speech that are outlawed in certain places in the interest of preventing harm to people. For instance, countries with anti-Holocaust-denial laws. Yet they remain reasonably free and tolerant societies. CP is another example. Many governments and people operate wit…

Thank you. Fetishization of free speech is a good way to put it--and it's a position that I would say comes from people who lack perspective; the people who are going to be the last ones targeted by the actual violence that's already happening.

Again I'd like to ask, what's the free speech answer to nazis and white supremacists raising their fists to my friends and loved ones? How do we free-speech our way out of the violence that's already coming?

I'd love to be a free-speech absolutist but, right now, I can't square it with the suffering and violence being brought down on the most vulnerable.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#215

Post by whack »

pier25 wrote: post #54

So how does Facebook really know if something is fake? You can't trust user reports. They will say a story is fake when they don't like it. You can't trust some worker in Bangladesh to determine this either just as easily as you can determine if something is NSFW. You still can't trust AI. So how? It hires specialists in each field to determine what is real and what is not?

"The company has already been working with outside fact-checkers like Snopes and the AP to flag inaccurate news stories. (These aren’t supposed to be stories that are disputed for reasons of opinion or partisanship, but rather outright hoaxes and lies.) It also says that when a story is marked as disputed, the link can can no longer be promoted through Facebook ads."

If Snopes/AP tells me something is false, I'm perfectly willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps this will change in the coming decade, but for now, this seems like a perfectly reasonable heuristic.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#216

Post by meri_dian »

peoplewindow wrote: post #212
meri_dian wrote: post #72

Unfortunately we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, we could have completely open and unfiltered platforms which guarantee freedom of expression but at the same time leave our institutions (public and private) vulnerable to malicious influence. On the other hand, we could attempt to build systems whose purpose is to remove fake news, so defending ourselves against a particularly aggressive fo…

Is it complex? I don't think so at all. Facebook can easily just tag stories they think are false, and give people a button to hide or show such stories (or even show ONLY such stories to make it easier for people to build trust in the system). It would be a kind of spam filter for news stories. Facebook could then stay neutral, could avoid claims of censorship, people who want to only see "true" news could be happy,…

You're not addressing the problem of how a system could reliably distinguish fake news from real news.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#217

Post by Applejinx »

MBCook wrote: post #173
kumarvvr wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are trying it now because the negative press about their main products role in the election debacle might hurt their bottomline. IMV their response is very late, very weak and a half hearted attempt.

I agree COMPLETELY. All I can say is 'at least they're trying' even if it's years late. I'd hate to see what happened if they didn't do anything at all.

There's an argument people make, that they ought to seek profit wherever it lies, without questioning who's paying that bill. I can see a whole bunch of scenarios where adopting that course of action would lead to some ridiculously disastrous results, quite a lot worse than doing nothing at all.

For specifics, look at entities in the world that are already known to spend lots of money in advancement of their narratives. We don't even have to look to Russia first. Try the fossil fuel industry.

I'm pretty sure the notion of a 'marketplace of influencers' through buying idea distribution on Facebook (with or without pseudo-grassroots camouflage) almost defaults to those who are up to no good: that's who has the money, in 2017.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#218

Post by Applejinx »

whack wrote: post #215
pier25 wrote: post #54

So how does Facebook really know if something is fake? You can't trust user reports. They will say a story is fake when they don't like it. You can't trust some worker in Bangladesh to determine this either just as easily as you can determine if something is NSFW. You still can't trust AI. So how? It hires specialists in each field to determine what is real and what is not?

"The company has already been working with outside fact-checkers like Snopes and the AP to flag inaccurate news stories. (These aren’t supposed to be stories that are disputed for reasons of opinion or partisanship, but rather outright hoaxes and lies.) It also says that when a story is marked as disputed, the link can can no longer be promoted through Facebook ads." If Snopes/AP tells me something is false, I'm perf…

So: buy Snopes, and the AP.

These are not wealthy or powerful entities.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#219

Post by Applejinx »

peoplewindow wrote: post #212
meri_dian wrote: post #72

Unfortunately we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand, we could have completely open and unfiltered platforms which guarantee freedom of expression but at the same time leave our institutions (public and private) vulnerable to malicious influence. On the other hand, we could attempt to build systems whose purpose is to remove fake news, so defending ourselves against a particularly aggressive fo…

Is it complex? I don't think so at all. Facebook can easily just tag stories they think are false, and give people a button to hide or show such stories (or even show ONLY such stories to make it easier for people to build trust in the system). It would be a kind of spam filter for news stories. Facebook could then stay neutral, could avoid claims of censorship, people who want to only see "true" news could be happy,…

They're correct. People cannot spot BS and learn from it, including you and I. We'll put much effort into mastering a certain area of reality and truth, and find other horizons clouding over by the day: we cannot, as humans, reality-check everything we're confronted with, because it's too much. We're not shepherds or subsistence farmers anymore, with a world tightly constrained and comprehensible. Our world expanded, leaving us behind.

I'm tempted to call this an iron law and suggest it's why we've never spotted alien intelligence in the so-vast universe. Perhaps intelligent species inevitably turn to expanding communication, and drown in it very quickly—their efforts turned to zero-sum gains, eventually triggering their destruction one way or another.

Re: Facebook says Pages that regularly share false news won’t be able to buy ads

#220

Post by wooter »

MBCook wrote: post #170
wooter wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so how did Hitler rise? How did freedom of speech treat the West at the time? How did the opposite help Europe?

That was less than 100 years ago, after the invention of radio and newsreels; I'm not shire how it proves the point of unfettered free speech either. I'd love to see examples of unfettered free speech from the 1600s or much MUCH easier.

Ancient Athenians adored freedom of speech. Naming a warship after the very concept.

399BC - Socrates speaks to jury at his trial: 'If you offered to let me off this time on condition I am not any longer to speak my mind... I should say to you, "Men of Athens, I shall obey the Gods rather than you."'

1516 - The Education of a Christian Prince by Erasmus. 'In a free state, tongues too should be free.'

In the 1600s, Galileo was executed for mere speech.

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