Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#311

Post by antocv » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 10:48 PM UTC

OliverJones wrote: post #296

Here's what to do about Facebook. (1) permanently close your account. https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account (2) if you're like me and you can't do that, "unfriend" everybody except the people you work with. Delete all your affiliations and locations. If enough people did this FB would have to do a little struggling to retain membership. That's the kind of incentive they need. Altruism demonstrably doesn't work…

Alternative, lightweight solution,

* Do not visit facebook often, do so only in incognito mode, delete other existing facebook cookies on all your browsers.

* Do not use facebook app, inform people that it is a battery hog and steals everything it can on your phone.

* Do not accept new friend requests, or send new ones.

* Do not post status updates or any other kind of content

* Do not "Like" things, do not comment. Do not produce anything for facebook actively.

* Keep it only as a place to check if other people upload pictures of you by scrolling the feed a little, to tell them to stop if they post information about you, use the web interface for messaging any friends who dont know any other means of digital communication.

* Sometimes Like things you dont, spread some misinformation, devalue what content/profile they already have about you.

* Ofcourse set all your posts to private, and all other "settings" to maximum privacy, allow noone to write on your "wall" and so on.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#312

Post by knowaveragejoe » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 10:49 PM UTC

dotnetisnotdead wrote: post #255

Bud wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. Telling bullies "no" does risk that other bullies will leave your site. But that risk is already there. And Facebook is already seen as political; that ship has sailed.

It's funny that you don't think people marching in the streets, blocking traffic, screaming obscenities and destroying things right now aren't bullies.

I think you're inferring something here that was never explicitly stated.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#313

Post by baybal2 » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 10:49 PM UTC

btilly wrote: post #11

This article criticizes Facebook for firing the human editors that had been keeping things sane. However they were pushed to that by accusations of bias in the right-wing media. Accusations that looked likely to lead to a Congressional investigation. See, for example, http://thehill.com/policy/technology/279361-top-republican-d... . Now they are in a situation where they are damned if they do, damned if they don't. A…

You can't win against clickfarmers and clickbait networks.

No machine learning will save you from botters as the lion share of commercial botters live in a country from which most of the math research behind machine learning is coming from.

In Russia, few people will start an advertising network startup in their sane mind, commercial scale clickfraud, farming, and botting give an order of magnitude higher returns.

The term "Internet marketing business" is used mostly as an euphemerism for all of the aforesaid here.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#314

Post by Spellman » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 10:51 PM UTC

meric wrote: post #112

Spellman wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have personally asked an individual why they don't trust snopes. Their claim is that it's a Democrat rag towel and shill. I then ask, then what fact-checker would you trust? Their response: None of them. Congratulations. We've reached a point, for this individual, where "facts" as decided in the common forum are suspect and the only thing they trust is themselves (and whatever non-Mainstream Media they listen to).…

Read the wikileaks emails yourself. You've got eyes, you don't need to rely on New York Times editors to read it for you.

Did and done.

However, I fail to see why Wikileaks is considered a Fact-checker, or how this pertains to a belief that NO fact-checker is reliable. Are you claiming that Wikileaks is trustworthy and can replace a fact-checker, but isn't a fact-checker? Because that seems a bit circular and oxymoronic to me.

Perhaps if you provided an alternative fact-checker source? The person in my original post has written off all fact-checking period.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#315

Post by tropo » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 10:56 PM UTC

txru wrote: post #32

btilly wrote: post #11

This article criticizes Facebook for firing the human editors that had been keeping things sane. However they were pushed to that by accusations of bias in the right-wing media. Accusations that looked likely to lead to a Congressional investigation. See, for example, http://thehill.com/policy/technology/279361-top-republican-d... . Now they are in a situation where they are damned if they do, damned if they don't. A…

I think a lot of the problem arose because they kept the content editors close to home. A lot could be solved by just adding people to that department, located across the country in states where they already have offices anyway, or hire editors to work from home. That way, the editorial content wouldn't have to be so biased by region.

That would help.

Another problem is the type of people who would take this job. They must be literate, but not able to find a better job. This will be people with degrees in English, journalism, and similar -- giving a pretty obvious political bias. You won't be getting mechanical engineers, coal miners, patent lawyers, and stock traders.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#316

Post by antocv » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 10:56 PM UTC

lightbyte wrote: post #171

overcast wrote: post #156

This is seriously hilarious. Now that's he's won, against seemingly all odds, we have to find some other reason for why EVERYONE ELSE, was completely WRONG. Every media outlet, everyone in politics, all the polls, completely shit on Trump. Now look who is the most powerful person in the entire world. The Democrats, and the rest, did it to themselves. Overconfidence, smear campaigns, and all of the morons doing the po…

>we have to find some other reason for why EVERYONE ELSE, was completely WRONG >and the people have spoken Trump lost the popular vote, so this isn't true. He got about 25% of the total voting population overall.

Trump didnt loose the popular vote yet, until the final vote is counted, it seems CNN and others are still shitting.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#317

Post by DefaultUserHN » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 11:00 PM UTC

yolesaber wrote: post #267

dasil003 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put some perspective on this, I am from Minnesota, I was there in 1998 and I helped Jesse Ventura get elected. It had a remarkably similar vibe of unexpected victory up-ending the establishment. Of course Jesse Ventura is much more of a rational and thinking man than Trump, but the race was similar in that no one took him seriously and he won in a huge upset against the major party candidates. The thing with Trump…

>What the intelligent Trump supporter would say is that establishment politicians have duped everyone too, and that Hillary was not going to further your interests And that is why your "intelligent" Trump supporter is still clueless in this case, because he just voted in a white house full of career politicians (Newt Gingrich? Are you kidding me?). It's clear that Trump was mostly a protest vote against the establish…

Again with the racist accusation. You are either trolling or you have no intention of ever understanding why Trump supporters supported Trump, or you're just venting your anger from Hillary's humiliating defeat.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#318

Post by dasil003 » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 11:01 PM UTC

yolesaber wrote: post #269

weberc2 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally I blame it on the left's constant, ruthless beratement and demonization of Christian|white|rural|blue-collar|conservative people. I'm not surprised they pushed back after a decade of bullying in the name of tolerance.

Oh yeah I forgot it was the evil left that was demonizing people during the past ten years. Certainly no Christians during that time berated and demonized someone just on the basis of say, their sexual orientation or religious beliefs. Give me a break. The right lost the culture wars (for good reason as their regressive social policies trampled all over civic rights) and this is them sending our country into a suicid…

Have you been on Twitter lately? If you phrase one thing the wrong way you get branded as a bigot, racist, sexist, whatever, and the torches and pitchforks come right out. If you don't see the parallels between the extreme right and the extreme left and prescribed moral code of what ideas and views are acceptable to express then you are not as smart and objective as you think you are.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#319

Post by return0 » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 11:03 PM UTC

tdb7893 wrote: post #305

return0 wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume that pollsters did their job well. There is a pattern here, they got it wrong both with Brexit and with Trump. I think bad polling was not the reason. The media, the government and academia have created an atmosphere of militant orhodox liberalism, where dissenting voices are not only silenced, but often ridiculed, doxxed, forced to resign etc. These people will choose to disappear from the polls. They will…

He is in charge of the EPA now but he tweeted that global warming is a conspiracy created by the Chinese. He is in charge of the State Department but he thinks that Mexico will pay for a border wall. He is charge of the FDA and he thinks that vaccines cause autism. Some of his views are deeply disturbing on a level much deeper than just "orhodox liberalism"

The response to people who are wrong should be to engage and argue with them. By tossing them as deplorables they will keep to themselves until they can get back at you.

Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation

#320

Post by Spellman » Thu, Nov 10, 2016, 11:03 PM UTC

Spellman wrote: post #87

AlexC04 wrote: post #76

I think it would be relatively easy to have an "auto-snopes" feature which detects a URL being shared and immediately attaches a post that says "this has been debunked by X" For example - I've seen dozens of links to Michael Moore's trumpland speech which strategically ends with the phrase "America will elect Trump and it will feel great" Sample: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-25/michael-moore-trump... He conc…

I have personally asked an individual why they don't trust snopes. Their claim is that it's a Democrat rag towel and shill. I then ask, then what fact-checker would you trust? Their response: None of them. Congratulations. We've reached a point, for this individual, where "facts" as decided in the common forum are suspect and the only thing they trust is themselves (and whatever non-Mainstream Media they listen to).…

I should also clarify that I'm not saying snopes is the end-all fact-checker. I would have been curious and explored any alternative, "non-liberal" fact-checker.

My point is that this individual has written off all fact-checking as an entire discipline. They are the final arbiter of truth. That fundamentally prohibits discussion of almost anything, or at least makes it extraordinarily labor intensive.

One might counter-argue, well, start with their beliefs and work outwards to illustrate contradictions and such. Very Kantian. Except that is 1) very labor intensive, and 2) doesn't cover all issues.