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Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

#31

Post by intended »

>some users began falsely reporting items as untrue, a new twist on information warfare for which it had to account

"new",

> But how these new credibility systems work is highly opaque, and the companies are wary of discussing them, in part because doing so might invite further gaming — a predicament that the firms increasingly find themselves in as they weigh calls for more transparency around their decision-making.

Fractal stupidity - this is the term for this situation

You build better systems, which dont ACTUALLY capture the core bad behavior.

Users figure out the edges of said system, and start finding newer ways to slip through the gaps.

Now you need a new system.

Repeat till the history of the system looks like a pullitzer prize winning Kafka novel.

Re: Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

#32

Post by reaperducer »

vorpalhex wrote: post #16

> Because Facebook forwards posts that are marked as false to third-party fact-checkers, she said it was important to build systems to assess whether the posts were likely to be false to make efficient use of fact-checkers’ time. This seems like a "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" kind of thing. On one hand, I understand not wanting to forward every single story when a troll is mass-reporting, on the o…

third-party fact-checkers

This is the part that stood out to me.

It's allows Facebook to tell lawmakers and the public "Hey, look! We're taking things seriously!"

Until something goes wrong. Then they can lay the blame on someone else and issue another non-apology apology saying, "We can do better."

Re: Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

#33

Post by mipmap04 »

vorpalhex wrote: post #16

> Because Facebook forwards posts that are marked as false to third-party fact-checkers, she said it was important to build systems to assess whether the posts were likely to be false to make efficient use of fact-checkers’ time. This seems like a "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" kind of thing. On one hand, I understand not wanting to forward every single story when a troll is mass-reporting, on the o…

What would be a viable alternative? I don't think they can just ignore the issue and, as you mention, can't review every single story. They'll have to rely on some form of sampling for the reviewers. Would it be better to just take a truly random sample of all reports? I don't think that would be very effective given the number of publications they have to review. Do you let users review the content for veracity? Seems like that just creates a situation where the group with the most participants pick the news. I'm not sure this is the optimal path, but to say that Facebook has learned nothing is disingenuous.

Re: Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

#34

Post by Tarq0n »

vorpalhex wrote: post #16

> Because Facebook forwards posts that are marked as false to third-party fact-checkers, she said it was important to build systems to assess whether the posts were likely to be false to make efficient use of fact-checkers’ time. This seems like a "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" kind of thing. On one hand, I understand not wanting to forward every single story when a troll is mass-reporting, on the o…

Do you check your spam filter to see what it's been filtering still? Text classification has gotten very reliable over the last decade, the process just needs to be transparent.

Valve also does something similar with their anti-cheat system called overwatch. A machine learning system selects which replays are most likely to result in a conviction, then those replays are shown to human peer-reviewers who must come to a consensus on whether the replay shows cheating or not. The pre-selection stage greatly increases the efficiency of the system.

Re: Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

#35

Post by xienze »

Tarq0n wrote: post #34
vorpalhex wrote: post #16

> Because Facebook forwards posts that are marked as false to third-party fact-checkers, she said it was important to build systems to assess whether the posts were likely to be false to make efficient use of fact-checkers’ time. This seems like a "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" kind of thing. On one hand, I understand not wanting to forward every single story when a troll is mass-reporting, on the o…

Do you check your spam filter to see what it's been filtering still? Text classification has gotten very reliable over the last decade, the process just needs to be transparent. Valve also does something similar with their anti-cheat system called overwatch. A machine learning system selects which replays are most likely to result in a conviction, then those replays are shown to human peer-reviewers who must come to…

There’s a difference between filtering for spam content and the much more complicated job of determining “truth”, especially given that what is “true” in political matters is highly subjective.

Re: Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

#37

Post by dsfyu404ed »

mipmap04 wrote: post #33
vorpalhex wrote: post #16

> Because Facebook forwards posts that are marked as false to third-party fact-checkers, she said it was important to build systems to assess whether the posts were likely to be false to make efficient use of fact-checkers’ time. This seems like a "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" kind of thing. On one hand, I understand not wanting to forward every single story when a troll is mass-reporting, on the o…

What would be a viable alternative? I don't think they can just ignore the issue and, as you mention, can't review every single story. They'll have to rely on some form of sampling for the reviewers. Would it be better to just take a truly random sample of all reports? I don't think that would be very effective given the number of publications they have to review. Do you let users review the content for veracity? See…

[deleted]

Re: Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

#38

Post by traek »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #37
mipmap04 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be a viable alternative? I don't think they can just ignore the issue and, as you mention, can't review every single story. They'll have to rely on some form of sampling for the reviewers. Would it be better to just take a truly random sample of all reports? I don't think that would be very effective given the number of publications they have to review. Do you let users review the content for veracity? See…

[deleted]

> Lakes turn into swamps which turn into forests given enough time.

While this is literally true, it's not clear to me that it's a relevant metaphor for online communities.

Re: Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

#39

Post by _bxg1 »

pc86 wrote: post #11
_bxg1 wrote: post #10

I'll just leave this here https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit

A. A dictatorial, totalitarian government rating all its citizens based on opaque criteria and using that to restrict access to essential services, financial support, and general life and liberty. B. A private company scoring its users to combat spam, as all social networks do.

It's a short hop to banks (also private companies!) asking Facebook for those numbers, and it's not a stretch for the government to do the same.

Re: Facebook is rating the trustworthiness of its users on a scale from zero to one

#40

Post by akhilcacharya »

FabHK wrote: post #19

I wonder whether there's some PageRank-like principal eigenvalue problem under the hood (similar to EigenTrust). As my Linear Algebra prof used to say - deep down, everything is just linear algebra... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PageRank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EigenTrust

I bet your graph theory professor thought otherwise!
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