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Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

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Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#351

Post by Chaebixi »

lerpa wrote: post #316
cat199 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and what precisely is the difference between a 'reporting ring' and an 'activist group', algorithmically?

Isn't mass reporting done by people a form of activism. Don't know why you want to diferentiate, activism doesn't have to be "good".

> Isn't mass reporting done by people a form of activism. Don't know why you want to diferentiate, activism doesn't have to be "good".

Any kind of "mass reporting" should be blocked, regardless of the motivation. The only question when evaluating a report should be is it of a valid guideline violation or not.

The core problem here seems to be that Facebook doesn't have a human in the loop to filter the bad reports from good. Maybe they do have a human in the loop, but that human isn't trustworthy. In any case, their system clearly needs more work.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#352

Post by eighthnate »

mtgx wrote: post #82
tudorconstantin wrote: post #14

As a Romanian what seems to happen is that a large group of supporters of the ruling party were coordinated in reporting the protests-related posts. I think facebook could easily implement an algorithm to detect reporting rings and actually suspending their member's accounts. Just like reddit is doing with the upvoting rings.

> algorithm to detect reporting rings How the hell is this not a thing already at Facebook? Are you freaking serious, Facebook? And you want to impress us with your lame "AI"?! Reddit has had ring voting protection for years , and it only has 1/10 of Facebook's userbase. I sure hope Facebook isn't planning on developing a self-driving car software platform.

> Reddit has had ring voting protection for years

It does? Is that why reddit is inundated with political propaganda everyday?

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#353

Post by Chaebixi »

onewaystreet wrote: post #145
flexie wrote: post #26

I chose to believe that this is a side-effect of facebook trying to combat fake news with some lame algorithms and an understaffed department of reviewers, not facebook actively trying to please the Romanian authorities. But even so, this shows how utterly unprepared facebook is for its role as a de facto news business. A bunch of engineers thinking they are smarter than they actually are unwillingly facilitate the e…

Every time Facebook has stepped in to "fix" something they have been criticized by one side or another. They have learned that it's safer for them to do nothing and then blame the algorithm when enough people complain. No one gets fired when the algorithm does something wrong.

> They have learned that it's safer for them to do nothing and then blame the algorithm when enough people complain

When Facebook does that, people need to call them out on their bullshit. "The algorithm" and Facebook are exactly the same thing.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#354

Post by eighthnate »

This, boys and girls, is why you don't want to support censorship. I'm laughing at all the pro-censorship commenters here who are getting upset because their side is now being censored. Give companies/governments/etc to censor the "alt-right" and you are giving them the power to censor the lgbt, protestors, etc.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#355

Post by eighthnate »

cat199 wrote: post #28
ccozan wrote: post #4

Proof that any technology has a double use. Once is good to filter spam/fake news, but in this case the fast spreading of the news is crucial for rallying people to a cause.

and isn't it surprising that anything that is anti-EU is 'spam/fake news' and that anything that is pro-EU is 'crucial for rallying people to a cause'..

Welcome to the wonderful world of propaganda. The top voted comments here are praising reddit for cracking down on "upvote rings" when reddit hasn't. Reddit, even their admins, actively work to push liberal propaganda on their platform. Hence why if you go on reddit any time of day, you'll see an anti-trump post.

The hypocrisy of the pro-censorship propagandists is disappointing. But then again, they are only interested in spreading propaganda themselves. They just want everyone to see their own fake news and ban their opponents' fake news.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#356

Post by simonh »

salvar wrote: post #314
simonh wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still no actual suggestion of an alternative.

That's not an answer to my question. Did you accidentally reply to the wrong comment?

No I suggested a possible alternative and asked if there were any others. All I got back was snark.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#357

Post by simonh »

jacobr wrote: post #271
simonh wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without Capitalism we wouldn’t have anything like Facebook or Twitter. These services don’t control ‘the’ flow of information, they are entirely additive to what we had before. Arguing that we have worse options for communication now is bizarre. So what is the non capitalist alternative? State controlled social media services? Really? That would be a better option in Romania right now? Facebook is far from perfect, I…

> So what is the non capitalist alternative? State controlled social media services? The alternative is not state controlled media, but rather anything other than an oligopoly. For several reasons it overtook IRC, personal websites, etc, but alternatives are not unthinkable.

Not unthinkable, but all the ones that have been suggested are, either unusable for most people. ‘Install your own server!’ Or quite possible but nobody is actually doing it, and therefore are irrelevant. That’s the thing with Capitalism, it gets stuff done.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#358

Post by simonh »

lakechfoma wrote: post #330
simonh wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, fair enough. Systems like that do exist, but practically nobody uses them. We need an alternative that actually addresses people's need in a way they access. But even in the system you describe, what is to stop biased operators from infiltrating the system and biasing the distribution of messages to filter out opposing views, or generating fake content? How does a system like that maintain integrity? Until you ha…

You're right but at least that pie in the sky is something WE lowly mortals can have a say in. FB/Twitter/Google are black boxes and we have no idea what their real interests are, how they implement/enforce/change the processes that skew the media we consume. Would it actually be any better? Who knows but something has gotta give cause what we got now is definitely broke and not going to be fixed

Of course we have a say. We can choose which services we use, and we can vote in and lobby governments that regulate them effectively.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#359

Post by simonh »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #338
nickpp wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like “National Socialist German Workers' Party”?! I always found it funny they call it far right .

That's called branding. The name was chosen to be appealing to the German people, not to be an accurate description of their form of government. Unless you think North Korea (official name "Democratic People's Republic of Korea") is actually a democratic republic, this should not be a difficult concept to understand.

Right, because National Socialism was a system in which a dictator for life ran a single party system running a command economy and police state, with systematic persecution of minorities and dissenters, while Russian Communism in contrast was... er... completely different than that... somehow.

Re: Facebook users in Romania see content related to street protests reviewed

#360

Post by simonh »

freeflight wrote: post #266
simonh wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without Capitalism we wouldn’t have anything like Facebook or Twitter. These services don’t control ‘the’ flow of information, they are entirely additive to what we had before. Arguing that we have worse options for communication now is bizarre. So what is the non capitalist alternative? State controlled social media services? Really? That would be a better option in Romania right now? Facebook is far from perfect, I…

> These services don’t control ‘the’ flow of information, they are entirely additive to what we had before. They very much do control the flow by "personalizing" the content people see and don't see based on how likely somebody is to click something for ad-revenue. That's the direct result of the "capitalist nature" of these platforms; If they can't monetize it, it's of no interest to them, so they try to capitalize…

They control ‘a’ flow of information.
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