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Facebook Has Repeatedly Trended Fake News Since Firing Its Human Editors

washingtonpost.com

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

#31

Post by leepowers »

What is the error rate of fake news over verified (real) news? A 5% margin of error could be acceptable. A 50% error rate would indicate a serious problem.

> As part of a larger audit of Facebook’s Trending topics, the Intersect logged every news story that trended across four accounts during the workdays from Aug. 31 to Sept. 22. During that time, we uncovered five trending stories that were indisputably fake and three that were profoundly inaccurate.

Yes, but out of how many Trending stories in total? Eight fake stories over a three week period seems like an acceptable rate of error.

Trending stories are popular stories. A fake story has an element of satire. These stories could be popular because of the satire (and the subsequent humor). Trending does not imply veracity.

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

#33

Post by mzw_mzw »

jwatte wrote: post #21
popmystack wrote: post #2

Yeah, all because people wanted to scream "bias." Sadly the community here seemed apt to agree with it, but I definitely have my opinions on that. Quoted from a previous thread: >Did the standard for their sources remain relatively constant regardless of the material being discussed? There isn't a clear answer here, but that doesn't make it defacto censorship of one set of particular political opinions. The sources t…

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

In the case you describe, "they" tend to be a) propagandists and b) poorly-informed people robotically repeating the last political meme those propagandists spoon-fed them.

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

#34

Post by vinhboy »

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 created by right-wing websites. Something along the lines of "Obama lets immigrants across border to kill white people"...

I think tech culture's misguided desire to treat everyone "equally" creates a huge imbalance. You can't put the NYTimes in the same category as Breitbart. Just as you wouldn't compare it to "National Enquirer".

Edit: To keep my reply on topic, I am adding this thought: I think Facebook knew this would happen and that is why they had humans curated the trending list. I don't think they deserved the negative backlash, although I understand the slippery slope it creates.

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

#35

Post by mjfl »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #22
mjfl wrote: post #4

You're going to have to break the Turing Test before you get good automated content curation. There will always be error. People are worried about bias. I'm skeptical that humans have the ability to be politically unbiased on an individual level. Many modern political issues do not have a middle ground - take abortion, you are either for choice, or you believe it is infanticide. So let's stop pretending to be unbiase…

> take abortion, you are either for choice, or you believe it is infanticide I don't. It's fundamentally a question about when sex cells become a person, and if rights accumulate sequentially or instantaneously. There are lots of lines one can reasonably draw, e.g. independent viability (downside: disenfranchises premature babies), consciousness (no way to measure it), neural activity (how much?), heartbeat (why not…

It is my perception that people with the middle views you describe would still be considered "pro-choice" and would largely vote "pro-choice" but perhaps I am wrong. If those people were split 50/50 in the way that they vote I would concede that there is a middle ground in that issue.

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

#36

Post by [deleted] »

leepowers wrote: post #31

What is the error rate of fake news over verified (real) news? A 5% margin of error could be acceptable. A 50% error rate would indicate a serious problem. > As part of a larger audit of Facebook’s Trending topics, the Intersect logged every news story that trended across four accounts during the workdays from Aug. 31 to Sept. 22. During that time, we uncovered five trending stories that were indisputably fake and th…

[deleted]

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

#37

Post by narrator »

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…

They really should filter the news to each person's individual bias. It'd just be easier that way. Cognitive dissonance is real and it can cause serious emotional distress. That's not a good way to drive engagement.

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

#38

Post by dlss »

tdaltonc wrote: post #23
jcoffland wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you prove that you believe something?

It's hard to fake an IAT. https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/education.html

In my experience it's relatively easy if you essentially treat an IAT test as a method acting challenge.

According to the literature it's relatively easy for study participants when given a couple tries to get it "right": http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2004-17684-002

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

#40

Post by vinhboy »

narrator wrote: post #37
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…

They really should filter the news to each person's individual bias. It'd just be easier that way. Cognitive dissonance is real and it can cause serious emotional distress. That's not a good way to drive engagement.

You're repeating the false narrative that unbiased news does not exist.

There are lots of unbiased news outlets who just report on stories as they come in. I learn about all sorts of government corruption and waste from NPR, NYTimes, WaPO, etc... And relating to current events, I also learn about all the unscrupulous things Clinton did from these sources.

I don't need to be inundated with right-wing propaganda be unbiased. Just as I wouldn't spend too much time reading HuffPo or ThinkProgress.

No one news source is complete, or 100% correct, but not every news source is credible or deserve our attention.

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