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Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

nytimes.com

31–40 of 47 posts

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#31
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how awful and terrible and threatening to democracy it is when Google and Facebook suddenly made it easy to be exposed to lots of alternative points of view on the same story You are being sarcastic here but (imho) gossip, fake news, and echo chambers are really threatening democracy. > I haven't seen much self reflection amongst journalists The problem is that journalists are getting caught in a vicious circle. Ei…

Echo chambers? Would you lump existing media outlets into that bucket? I think if there's one thing that 2016 revealed very clearly it's the extent to which journalists tend to line up behind whatever the political elite groupthink is, regardless of how well it matches what the overall population thinks. The Guardian has become something of a joke paper - on the rare occasions these days that they open the comments t…

you're speaking as someone who takes a wildly extreme position

so the mild liberal/left views in The Guardian seem like "wildly extreme" positions to you

probably you live in a right-wing social media echo chamber

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#32
post #26

Hold on. The NYT just admitted bias recently regarding their reporting on the election, and an opinion piece talks about 'Liberal Intolerance' in the NYT, but now FB is almost as culpable due to false stories? I still think there is a higher signal-to-noise ratio when there are many people able to debunk a piece on FB or other social media, than when a hardcopy, accepted as trusted source such as the NYT once was, po…

The fact that a lot of media didn't think Trump would win is unrelated to the fact that fake news is damaging to democracy. Just like fake science is damaging to scientists. Fake scientific articles are read, quoted and shared through the scientific community and it can take a long time to weed out. How many people still believe Obama is a muslim because they read it (repeatedly) on Facebook? I'm guessing millions.

The "curated news" is not a solution, its a bigger problem.

When you request top 10 voted posts thats what you get. Not the truth. If voters believe 1 like = 1 truth, then you have identified the problem with democracy that have always existed.

> Just like fake science is damaging to scientists. Fake scientific articles are read, quoted and shared through the scientific community and it can take a long time to weed out.

No its not. Scientist = Sceptic.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#33
post #26

Hold on. The NYT just admitted bias recently regarding their reporting on the election, and an opinion piece talks about 'Liberal Intolerance' in the NYT, but now FB is almost as culpable due to false stories? I still think there is a higher signal-to-noise ratio when there are many people able to debunk a piece on FB or other social media, than when a hardcopy, accepted as trusted source such as the NYT once was, po…

I think the purported liberal slant of the mainstream media is a separate (though related) issue from the blatantly-false news stories that come from both sides of the aisle, that permeate through social media platforms.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#34
There are also lots of fake articles from the alt-left being shared with millions in FB.

An example, is the foto of thousands of Albanian immigrants on a boat going to Italy in the 80's, being shared as being the foto of thousands of European refugees running away from the Nazis and going to North Africa in the 40's, that keeps resurfacing all the time.

Articles like this one from NyTimes, implying that this kind of stuff only favours the right are a big part of the problem. It passes a message that censorship is good, but only if it's applied solely to the right wing.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Echo chambers? Would you lump existing media outlets into that bucket? I think if there's one thing that 2016 revealed very clearly it's the extent to which journalists tend to line up behind whatever the political elite groupthink is, regardless of how well it matches what the overall population thinks. The Guardian has become something of a joke paper - on the rare occasions these days that they open the comments t…

you're speaking as someone who takes a wildly extreme position so the mild liberal/left views in The Guardian seem like "wildly extreme" positions to you probably you live in a right-wing social media echo chamber

How would we resolve this dispute? I don't think my views are extreme, nor does opinion polling indicate that they are.

I regularly read papers across the political spectrum: The Guardian, the Financial Times, the Economist, the Daily Mail, the Express, the Telegraph, and often stories from the New York Times and the Washington Post (I like news). That seems like a pretty broad reach. I don't think it's an echo chamber.

I also use Google News a lot. That throws up a pretty random selection of sources on whatever the topics of the day are.

The Guardian regularly runs articles by authors like these:

https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jessicavalenti

https://www.theguardian.com/profile/joris-luyendijk

Example articles:

In Brexit Britain, being a foreigner marks me out as evil

Why the mediocre male's days may be numbered

After Brexit, a game plan for the EU: unleash Project Pain: Nobody wants to be vindictive, but maximum political and economic damage would stop other arsonists.

Hey, misogynist killjoys: stop denying that Hillary has made history

Why we need to lose biased words like 'mistress' for good

and from others there:

The far right tell us kindness is weakness. We can’t give in to that: Urging people to be something as squishy as ‘kind’ may seem childish. But compassion is a revolutionary tool that can steer people away from bigotry

The US will no longer feel like a haven for Jews under Trump

A win for Trump was a win for bigotry. Here’s how we resist him

I have no hesitation at all in describing these as extreme views, but these were just a random selection of headlines I pulled from their website in 90 seconds.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A vast majority of these claims are extraordinary and have no sourcing. Source on using government as her personal piggy bank?

The Clinton Foundation is known to have directly misappropriated government donations. Donors to the organization also seem to have received preferential treatment from the State Department: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/wikileaks-chel... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/us-politics/114379... Other major conflicts of interest involved Russia and Haiti. If you need direct evidence of Hillary's…

I had to find the emails the first article references by myself because they didn't link to them. I was drawn to because the pull quotes sounded out of context, and they are. The emails referenced dont say nearly what the article claims, it's extremely unclear how they came to their conclusion.

The second article you cite expressly avoids saying any preferential treatment was received, and notes the donation was unsolicited.

What major conflicts of interest involved Russia and Haiti? Both of those are a contradiction in terms - at what point would Clinton have multiple interests in them?

The 33k emails are gone, so I can't read them. You note they show her direct involvement. Direct involvement in what? How do you have access to the emails? Have you considered leaking them?

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#37
The suggestion that Facebook and other channels of distribution should filter "fake" or "bad" news is not well thought out. Why would we want a private entity have any say in what is being shared? We should be fighting for net neutrality, not for what amounts to censorship.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you're speaking as someone who takes a wildly extreme position so the mild liberal/left views in The Guardian seem like "wildly extreme" positions to you probably you live in a right-wing social media echo chamber

How would we resolve this dispute? I don't think my views are extreme, nor does opinion polling indicate that they are. I regularly read papers across the political spectrum: The Guardian, the Financial Times, the Economist, the Daily Mail, the Express, the Telegraph, and often stories from the New York Times and the Washington Post (I like news). That seems like a pretty broad reach. I don't think it's an echo chamb…

Look at this mild piece of liberalism:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/09/electi...

"This is a terrifying moment for America. Hold your loved ones close"

of course, this is an "Opinion" piece, that's where Guardian airs it's worst bias, The feminism section if full of them.

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#39
post #25

This looks like a continuation of a long running theme in the media: how awful and terrible and threatening to democracy it is when Google and Facebook suddenly made it easy to be exposed to lots of alternative points of view on the same story. The media have been going after Google News for years with various arguments. Now they're latching on to "Only human editors can ensure your news is not fake". I suspect it'll…

> how awful and terrible and threatening to democracy it is when Google and Facebook suddenly made it easy to be exposed to lots of alternative points of view on the same story You are being sarcastic here but (imho) gossip, fake news, and echo chambers are really threatening democracy. > I haven't seen much self reflection amongst journalists The problem is that journalists are getting caught in a vicious circle. Ei…

> The problem is that journalists are getting caught in a vicious circle. Either they present true news and have little viewers, or present gossip or echo what people want to hear and have lots of viewers.

I think the problem lies in that the assumption that investigative journalism, of the kind that is vital to democracy, must be profitable. But why would that be the case? And if it cannot be profitable, should we not institute good journalism as a matter of public policy?

In other words, let's return PBS and NPR to their former funding levels, when they could afford to have actual journalists and newsrooms and operate somewhat independently of the market.

How to make people care about the truth is a matter for another discussion (and certainly not a problem in Facebook's charter).

Re: Mark Zuckerberg Is in Denial

#40
post #25

This looks like a continuation of a long running theme in the media: how awful and terrible and threatening to democracy it is when Google and Facebook suddenly made it easy to be exposed to lots of alternative points of view on the same story. The media have been going after Google News for years with various arguments. Now they're latching on to "Only human editors can ensure your news is not fake". I suspect it'll…

> how awful and terrible and threatening to democracy it is when Google and Facebook suddenly made it easy to be exposed to lots of alternative points of view on the same story You are being sarcastic here but (imho) gossip, fake news, and echo chambers are really threatening democracy. > I haven't seen much self reflection amongst journalists The problem is that journalists are getting caught in a vicious circle. Ei…

>You are being sarcastic here but (imho) gossip, fake news, and echo chambers are really threatening democracy.

What is threatening democracy is the absence of critical thinking among population (across the political spectrum).

But hey, you know, "math is hard"...

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