Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#61

Post by mrguyorama » Fri, May 24, 2019, 5:36 PM UTC

chiefalchemist wrote: post #46

criley2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without political advertising, the amount of fake news spread in Groups in the form of memes and images is absolutely fracking staggering. If you go through the facebook feed of a conservative facebook user in their 50s+, you quite literally will see all lies and propaganda, and nothing real (for one ex: see the horribly faked Nancy Pelosi video that spread like wildfire yesterday, despite it's obvious fakeness)…

Fake news is the symptom. The disease is confirmation bias. The internet, and particularly social media, has become the most efficient and effective confirmation bias machine ever. People gladly (read: voluntarily) crawl into their self-fulfilling echo chamber and instantly become the master of their own universe. They get to believe whatever it is they want to believe. No assumption too strange. No "belief fetish" t…

>mass education in critical thinking and self-awareness

Does not fix confirmation bias, because people who are in deep in their own little holes don't want to know

Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#62

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, May 24, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

zlakb wrote: post #45

TeMPOraL wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With press, at least everyone is reading the same lies. Hyper-targeted fake news makes it impossible to discuss anything, because across groups, everyone has their own set of "facts", making people talk past each other.

Yes, because there's only one TV channel and one newspaper.

For any given news story, there are usually few "traditional" sources covering it, with only a fraction of them being widely popular. It's a manageable amount. Social media has switched the way people consume news (and content in general) - they're no longer consumed on per-source basis, but on per-story basis. I.e. most people don't read a particular news site, they read whatever stories from whatever sources happen to be on their Reddit or Facebook feed.

Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#63

Post by notacoward » Fri, May 24, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

KirinDave wrote: post #56

notacoward wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Based on the number of comments already which don't even address the OP and add absolutely nothing to the discussion (including yours) so is Hacker News. Maybe the solution is for people to be less toxic, instead of blaming platforms.

"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

Physician, heal thyself. You're contributing to (what you see as) flamebait just as much as I was. At least I made a relevant suggestion (people vs. platforms). Also, IIRC the mods take a dim view of people presuming to do their jobs, especially when they do so selectively and aggressively. It's a form of stalking.

Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#64

Post by chiefalchemist » Fri, May 24, 2019, 7:29 PM UTC

mrguyorama wrote: post #61

chiefalchemist wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fake news is the symptom. The disease is confirmation bias. The internet, and particularly social media, has become the most efficient and effective confirmation bias machine ever. People gladly (read: voluntarily) crawl into their self-fulfilling echo chamber and instantly become the master of their own universe. They get to believe whatever it is they want to believe. No assumption too strange. No "belief fetish" t…

>mass education in critical thinking and self-awareness Does not fix confirmation bias, because people who are in deep in their own little holes don't want to know

No argument from me. I was being over the top. We're not going to mass educate critical thinking, too many other paper tigers would fall,that's for sure. It's also difficult to scale it and get it to stick.

That said, I still think it's important to keep in mind that fake news is a symptom. Get that context wrong and any potential solutions are simply shooting at the wrong target.

Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#65

Post by mythrwy » Fri, May 24, 2019, 11:53 PM UTC

criley2 wrote: post #55

bluedino wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> If you go through the facebook feed of a conservative facebook user in their 50s+, you quite literally will see all lies and propaganda, There are no lies or fake memes for the left?

I didn't say that, but in order to prevent a "whatabout" or "false equivalence" attack, I will state up front: Conservatives are more likely to create, spread and fall for fake news than liberals. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau4586 "Conservatives were more likely to share articles from fake news domains, which in 2016 were largely pro-Trump in orientation, than liberals or moderates" We can speculat…

There is plenty of anti-science thinking in certain camps of the left as well.

Phone radiation, GMOs, nuclear power, dietary trends, mushrooms are conscious, the list of foo is pretty long if you look. Along with the anti-math, anti-logic, anti-historical evidence view of economics.

But I don't disagree there is a fair amount of right wing kookage spread about. Perhaps more than it's left wing counterpart.

For a long time I didn't really believe the "right wing" fake news thing was real. I'd never actually seen it. Then I visited my father in law who breathlessly informed us at dinner Obama was going to jail as they had proved his birth certificate was fake! Curious I looked at his facebook feed and almost fell over, it was almost all fake news right wing straight out of a parallel universe and really obviously nonsense for the most part. I don't know where he even found that stuff. So ya, it does happen. And I say that as a person who is very much not a leftist (nor a facebook user).

For whatever it's worth, I like to think of myself as a member of the "do what makes sense party". But we have few members and no groundswell and no formal organization it appears. Sadly.

Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#66

Post by wheelerwj » Sat, May 25, 2019, 2:29 AM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #4

During the recent Australian election there were a number of Facebook advertisements by political figures which were completely false e.g. Labor party imposing a death tax. And given that the election result was pretty close it could've easily have made a difference. So I couldn't care less whether Facebook culled 3 billion profiles or not. What I need is for Facebook to make the hard choice and stop allowing politic…

its an interesting proposition. maybe it would also help remove the need for some of the money that goes into politics.

Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#67

Post by MeltySmelty » Sat, May 25, 2019, 2:29 AM UTC

notacoward wrote: post #63

KirinDave wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."

Physician, heal thyself. You're contributing to (what you see as) flamebait just as much as I was. At least I made a relevant suggestion (people vs. platforms). Also, IIRC the mods take a dim view of people presuming to do their jobs, especially when they do so selectively and aggressively. It's a form of stalking.

shuttup fagboi

Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#68

Post by toasterlovin » Sat, May 25, 2019, 3:39 AM UTC

chiefalchemist wrote: post #64

mrguyorama wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>mass education in critical thinking and self-awareness Does not fix confirmation bias, because people who are in deep in their own little holes don't want to know

No argument from me. I was being over the top. We're not going to mass educate critical thinking, too many other paper tigers would fall,that's for sure. It's also difficult to scale it and get it to stick. That said, I still think it's important to keep in mind that fake news is a symptom. Get that context wrong and any potential solutions are simply shooting at the wrong target.

> We're not going to mass educate critical thinking, too many other paper tigers would fall,that's for sure. It's also difficult to scale it and get it to stick.

The bigger problem is that confirmation bias is an evolutionarily useful adaptation. Good luck fighting those.

Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#69

Post by toasterlovin » Sat, May 25, 2019, 3:52 AM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #41

criley2 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even without political advertising, the amount of fake news spread in Groups in the form of memes and images is absolutely fracking staggering. If you go through the facebook feed of a conservative facebook user in their 50s+, you quite literally will see all lies and propaganda, and nothing real (for one ex: see the horribly faked Nancy Pelosi video that spread like wildfire yesterday, despite it's obvious fakeness)…

>> If you go through the facebook feed of a conservative facebook user in their 50s+, you quite literally will see all lies and propaganda, There are no lies or fake memes for the left?

The left is too busy trying to institutionalize the insane idea that objectivity and individualism are values of white supremacy to bother with merely spreading memes.

Re: Facebook: Another three billion fake profiles culled

#70

Post by rwmj » Sat, May 25, 2019, 4:57 AM UTC

They didn't catch the 3 fake profiles I set up on Facebook. I've not used them for five or more years, but I checked recently and they are still there and still let me log in without so much as a "where you been". They all have obviously fake names and were used only for testing advertising at various times in the past.