Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#61

Post by crankylinuxuser » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

TomMckenny wrote: post #37

new2628 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not arguing in good faith. You are making a caricature of the opposing argument, presenting in the worst light possible.

I'm pointing out a problem with a real post that actually exists right at this very moment.

Indeed you are.

Enter "US-linked Australian church fined US$98,000 for selling bleach as coronavirus ‘miracle cure'"

citation: https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/australasia/article/3084250/u...

And thats just a single example of content that can get people killed.

We also already have FB playing MinTruth as well here with "Post shared incorrect number of deaths caused by respiratory diseases in Ceará"

citation: https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/internacional/en/scienceandhea...

This one gets harder as who has the better/right-er numbers? Is Bolosonaro lying? Probably. But how do you tell? Who's fact-checking the fact-checkers?

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#62

Post by lr4444lr » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

guscost wrote: post #18

dilippkumar wrote: post #10

This article misses a crucial point: I do not want fact checked information. I do not want a ministry of Truth telling me what’s an acceptable set of statements to trust. I do not want a third party providing unsolicited opinions on how much I conform with the acceptable statements a ministry of Truth has blessed for public use. I’ll provide three arguments. First, how will Facebook or any other entity that takes on…

I've sent a message to my district representative, encouraging a change to the law: > In Green v. AOL (2003), the court established: > There is no real dispute that Green's fundamental tort claim is that AOL was negligent in promulgating harmful content and in failing to address certain harmful content on its network. Green thus attempts to hold AOL liable for decisions relating to the monitoring, screening, and dele…

I have no idea why you're being downvoted. The legal background on this problem is useful, and highlights the real problem with platforms like Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook engaging in content moderation in any capacity beyond preexisting legal mandates (e.g. removing illegal content). The key to judgment in favor of AOL was their "hands off" approach. (https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/cases/green-v-america-onli...) As soon as today's social media platforms give even the implicit guarantee to their end users that they've vetted content to some "standard", they're just asking for liability. Once they get into the politics game as per Hawley's bill seeks to prevent, they're gonna face FEC regulations and a host of state and local election law issues as well. Is this really the road they want to go down? I don't think the execs smug in the certitude of their vision of what their communities "should" be seeing and not seeing are thinking this through.

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#63

Post by onepointsixC » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:53 PM UTC

dilippkumar wrote: post #10

This article misses a crucial point: I do not want fact checked information. I do not want a ministry of Truth telling me what’s an acceptable set of statements to trust. I do not want a third party providing unsolicited opinions on how much I conform with the acceptable statements a ministry of Truth has blessed for public use. I’ll provide three arguments. First, how will Facebook or any other entity that takes on…

>First, how will Facebook or any other entity that takes on the responsibility to fact check stand up to coordinated misinformation campaigns like “Iraq has WMDs” where an omniscient fact checker could have literally saved thousands of lives.

It gets worse. We did find WMD's in Iraq [1]. But those were Chemical weapons and obviously not the WMD's we were looking for in the first place. So even your omniscient fact-checker would be implicitly lying, as while the statement “Iraq has WMDs” is objectively true, it isn't precisely true that they have the WMD's which there was a coordinated misinformation campaign about. Even with objective truth, a fact-checker could be selectively used and misused for nefarious purposes.

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/03/world/middlee...

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#64

Post by guscost » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:53 PM UTC

lr4444lr wrote: post #62

guscost wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've sent a message to my district representative, encouraging a change to the law: > In Green v. AOL (2003), the court established: > There is no real dispute that Green's fundamental tort claim is that AOL was negligent in promulgating harmful content and in failing to address certain harmful content on its network. Green thus attempts to hold AOL liable for decisions relating to the monitoring, screening, and dele…

I have no idea why you're being downvoted. The legal background on this problem is useful, and highlights the real problem with platforms like Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook engaging in content moderation in any capacity beyond preexisting legal mandates (e.g. removing illegal content). The key to judgment in favor of AOL was their "hands off" approach. ( https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/cases/green-v-america-onli..…

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

- Upton Sinclair

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#65

Post by munificent » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:54 PM UTC

The answer is obvious: Facebook loves misinformation.

Facebook's business model is fairly straightforward: they want you to spend as much time on Facebook as possible so you can consume as many ads as possible. Contentious, provocative content drives engagement. It's easier to provide an unending source of engaging content if you don't restrict that content to the set of things that are true. Truth has the unfortunate tendency to be boring in most cases.

If Facebook nuked all the lies, Facebook would be less interesting and ad revenue would go down.

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#66

Post by kick » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:55 PM UTC

oarabbus_ wrote: post #19

kick wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and you go to Facebook for your scientific and world news? Facebook is a toy. Relying on a platform with a built-in way to reply to posts with nothing more than a laugh-cry-smiley to deliver you accurate news in the first place is ridiculous. They could never be a Ministry of Truth or whatever you're implying, because it's a toy. If they want to fact-check posts on their site, it changes literally nothing of impor…

>Facebook is a toy. A toy, is that so? I know quite a number of people (engineers, marketers, companies) that exist solely due to Facebook advertising. You should let them know their livelihood rests on a toy. >...and you go to Facebook for your scientific and world news? Why do you frame it as some ludicrous idea? Is this more preposterous than getting your science and world news from an email chain, or from Fox/CNN…

A toy, is that so? I know quite a number of people (engineers, marketers, companies) that exist solely due to Facebook advertising. You should let them know their livelihood rests on a toy.

There are physical shops for LEGO, too. Even third-party ones! Ooh, and King & Supercell are billion-dollar companies! I love toys, I think they're great. I don't think you should be getting news from them.

Why do you frame it as some ludicrous idea? Is this more preposterous than getting your science and world news from an email chain, or from Fox/CNN, or your wonky neighbor next door?

It's just as ludicrous as the idea of people getting their news from Candy Crush, MySpace or a tabloid. Getting news from an e-mail chain is ridiculous if you don't know anybody on it, or who runs it.

I happen to have some intelligent friends who share thoughtful, measured news articles on Facebook. Perhaps these complaints of junk science and tabloids being passed around is actually a problem of an individual's circle and who they actively follow.

Then surely you'd get the same information say, in person. Or using e-mail. As such, Facebook censoring them would just mean you'd move somewhere else. No possibility of a Ministry of Truth there. There are people in Second Life that act as newscasters, too. Still a toy.

This post seems more about personal dislike of Facebook rather than the parent commenter's point about the dangers of appointing Facebook as a Ministry of Truth.

I actually love Facebook. It's a neat toy. I love the research that comes out of it. If you search my HN profile you can see a lot of sentiment to this end.

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#67

Post by aeturnum » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:55 PM UTC

TomMckenny wrote: post #20

dilippkumar wrote: post #10

This article misses a crucial point: I do not want fact checked information. I do not want a ministry of Truth telling me what’s an acceptable set of statements to trust. I do not want a third party providing unsolicited opinions on how much I conform with the acceptable statements a ministry of Truth has blessed for public use. I’ll provide three arguments. First, how will Facebook or any other entity that takes on…

So the enormously popular post telling parents to make their kids drink Lysol should not have even the slightest warning next to it because the poster could be like Galileo or Einstein?

I think you're begging the question and using reducto-ad-absurdum here.

dilippkumar was highlighting that if people are prepared to believe extremely fringe ideas then simply telling them that a central authority thinks a fact is wrong will not effectively dissuade them. Your question elides that concern by simply re-pointing out that fake information is problematic. Fake information is problematic, but there is reason to believe that simply labeling the article about drinking lysol "false" is a sub-optimal strategy.

So the answer to your question is no, we shouldn't avoid labeling that post false "because the poster could be like Galileo or Einstein," but I also do not think that was what dilippkumar was saying. I think he was trying to point out the problematic nature of "fact checkers" for people who don't trust traditional sources of authority.

If you'd like an example closer to home, ask the crypto community what they think of NSA advice on ECC curves.

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#68

Post by new2628 » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:56 PM UTC

evan_ wrote: post #57

new2628 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an excellent summary, and I fully agree with it. As a modest addition: - In many important cases, there is no fact, just differing viewpoints and opinions. One man's terrorist is another one's freedom fighter. Violent insurgency for one, legitimate fight for liberty and justice for the other. In fact, reasonable people will even disagree on whether in some topic there are facts or only opinions, let alone abo…

This is absurd. There is an objective reality and things actually do happen. You can observe, record, and measure these things. Whether or not we say someone is a terrorist or a freedom fighter doesn't change the fact that they e.g. drove a truck bomb into a government building.

Yes, "they drove the truck ..." may be a fact, but why they did it, what they wanted to achieve with it, what effect it actually had, are opinion-based, and are far more interesting than the underlying objective fact.

Otherwise, you could report the JFK assassination by focusing on the weather that day and the tire pressure of his car, and the angle in which sunlight reflected on the windshield.

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#69

Post by kick » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:57 PM UTC

jasonheh wrote: post #43

kick wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and you go to Facebook for your scientific and world news? Facebook is a toy. Relying on a platform with a built-in way to reply to posts with nothing more than a laugh-cry-smiley to deliver you accurate news in the first place is ridiculous. They could never be a Ministry of Truth or whatever you're implying, because it's a toy. If they want to fact-check posts on their site, it changes literally nothing of impor…

People do go to Facebook for their news. Whether you like it or not, or think those people are fools, it's true. What Facebook decides is deserving of censorship matters because we have to live with those fools.

If you believe that Facebook is something more than a toy, then it seems reasonable that they'd have freedom of expression, press, speech, so on. As such, if people choose to get their news from Facebook, it's no different than them getting their news from Reuters, FOX, the New York Times, or Bloomberg. Surely you wouldn't imply any of them wouldn't have editorial control.

Comment sections on news outlets can remove whatever they want, I don't see why it'd be any different for Facebook, if you genuinely consider them a news outlet.

Re: Why Is Facebook So Afraid of Checking Facts?

#70

Post by kick » Thu, May 14, 2020, 4:59 PM UTC

xienze wrote: post #33

kick wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...and you go to Facebook for your scientific and world news? Facebook is a toy. Relying on a platform with a built-in way to reply to posts with nothing more than a laugh-cry-smiley to deliver you accurate news in the first place is ridiculous. They could never be a Ministry of Truth or whatever you're implying, because it's a toy. If they want to fact-check posts on their site, it changes literally nothing of impor…

> They could never be a Ministry of Truth or whatever you're implying, because it's a toy. Well apparently not, politicians the world over are frightened of Facebook’s potential for spreading misinformation. Recall that the 2016 presidential election was apparently turned via $100K of Facebook ads that had little or nothing to do with the candidates in question.

Politicians continue to be technologically-illiterate. More news at ten.