They have it backwards. Its not about blocking misinformation. That just puts you in the role of the Inquisition. It's about seeking the truth.
Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation
501–510 of 645 posts
Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation
#502Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have no doubt that a lot of social information is being transferred in a new way, much the same as the introduction of the telephone allowed a lot of social information to be transferred in a new way. My point is that true socializing and socialization are human, not digital experiences. Not trying to be pedantic here. It's just important to sort out the terms used if any analysis is going to be useful. What's happ…
Aren't Bud and you socializing right now? Hell, I even feel I'm socializing a bit with you, how wrong am I?
Are you picking on me? Making a joke that we share? Challenging me to come up with a retort? Asking me to join in to a shared humorous narrative? Giving me a friendly jibe about an error or weakness you perceive?
We assume positive intent online because otherwise we get flame wars, but there's a helluva lot of body language and inflection that can take the comment you made and make it mean a dozen things. All of that is lost. And all of it is important.
In addition to the nuance, would I know severine if I saw them on the street? Miss them if they died? Remember the nice way they did X everytime we met?
We are exchanging written opinions and statements, yes. These exchanges also occur in social interactions. But we are not socializing. There's no bond here that's become stronger, no subtle nuance or interplay that we're managing at a subconscious level. For all either of us knows, the other one is a bot. Or an alien. There's no humanity here.
Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation
#503Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please point to the Obama quote on government appointed gatekeepers.
Here's one relevant monologue: "We are going to have to rebuild within this wild-wild-west-of-information flow some sort of curating function that people agree to," Obama said at an innovation conference in Pittsburgh. "There has to be, I think, some sort of way in which we can sort through information that passes some basic truthiness tests and those that we have to discard, because they just don't have any basis in…
I have no ponies in this race. Counterbalance - charitable interpretation:
"We [the people or the government - does not matter really] are going to have to rebuild within this wild-wild-west-of-information flow some sort of curating function that people [the people] agree to,"
If I interpret "We" as "the government" it still does not matter if "the people" can agree on it as in functioning democracy.
"There has to be, I think, some sort of way in which we [the people] can sort through information that passes some basic truthiness tests and those that we [the people] have to discard, because they just don't have any basis in anything that's actually happening in the world"
Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation
#504Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation
#505Earlier quoted context omitted.
> shut down professional liars Would they really boot CNN? CNN told us this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_X16_KzX1vE They were laughably wrong: https://popehat.com/2016/10/17/no-it-is-not-illegal-to-read-... Maybe one can claim it wasn't an intentional lie, but this guy is someone who really should have known better. So if it wasn't an intentional lie, they were negligent. Not sure where that leaves us.
>Maybe one can claim it wasn't an intentional lie, but this guy is someone who really should have known better. It would be great if an algorithm could fight this type of content, but it probably can't. But we can probably start with sites that publish stories like "Rudy Giuliani SLAPPED A REPORTER WITH HIS DICK last Tuesday" and that might solve enough of this problem to call it a decent win.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
Yes, you can completely filter them out figuring it's not worth the effort, but the problem is that's how you form bubbles to begin with.
Might have more luck boiling them down to verifiable facts and stripping all opinions (especially every explanation of "why X did Y" or "what X means").
Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation
#506Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, trying to solve this problem by creating a definition of "misinformation" sufficiently precise to act on it for all possible articles, then trying to remove it somehow is probably an AI-complete problem. If it's not AI-complete it's probably just plain an ill-formed question. That's before we ask questions about the biases that get embedded into the misinformation detector. This can't be fixed at Facebook scales…
There is no need to create a Grand Unified Theory of misinformation, here. This problem isn't that hard. You filter this stuff and rank it by its SOURCE, not by the content of individual articles. It's not hard to figure out which online sources are pushing out most of the abjectly-bad propaganda, and de-rank them.
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Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation
#507This 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…
Maybe their AI should be trained to fact check stuff posted on Facebook?
So if you post something that claim outrageous things, it would be visible right from the start that the claim is false.
Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation
#508I was thinking something similar about gmail. Once a year or so someone send me powerpoint with "the Mars would be as big as moon" and other obvious nonsense. Gmail should notify them before sending that it is indeed bullshit, if they really want to send it.
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Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation
#509Here'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.…
Also a good tip: unfollow all your friends by default, except for a select few.
Re: Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation
#510Here'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…
No. I find facebook actually useful to talk to my friends and keep in touch with them.
If you unfollow your friends, you can still be in touch. Best of both worlds :)