Facebook adds a 'fake news' reporting option

#1

Post by vadimbaryshev » Sun, Dec 11, 2016, 8:04 PM UTC

Facebook adds a 'fake news' reporting option
engadget.com

Re: Facebook adds a 'fake news' reporting option

#2

Post by XJOKOLAT » Sun, Dec 11, 2016, 8:51 PM UTC

Stable door: closed. Horse: bolted.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Re: Facebook adds a 'fake news' reporting option

#3

Post by monochromatic » Sun, Dec 11, 2016, 8:57 PM UTC

There are some shady sites out there that peddle totally fake news for ad impressions. I'm fine with disrupting their business model.

But what are the odds that legitimate (or even fringe, semi-legitimate) right-wing news sites bear the brunt of this movement?

Re: Facebook adds a 'fake news' reporting option

#4

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Dec 11, 2016, 8:59 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Facebook adds a 'fake news' reporting option

#5

Post by maxerickson » Sun, Dec 11, 2016, 9:00 PM UTC

monochromatic wrote: post #3

There are some shady sites out there that peddle totally fake news for ad impressions. I'm fine with disrupting their business model. But what are the odds that legitimate (or even fringe, semi-legitimate) right-wing news sites bear the brunt of this movement?

I think they at least deserve a chance to try to get it right.

Re: Facebook adds a 'fake news' reporting option

#6

Post by heavymark » Sun, Dec 11, 2016, 9:09 PM UTC

Yes Facebook did add that feature... last year. Engadget is simply reporting on something Facebook announced they added publicly last year. https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/01/news-feed-fyi-showing-f...

Re: Facebook adds a 'fake news' reporting option

#7

Post by brownbat » Sun, Dec 11, 2016, 9:10 PM UTC

There's a long series of experiments on a phenomenon called "the hostile media effect."

Basically if you show two opposing interest groups the same film clip, both will rate it as highly inaccurate and biased against their point of view.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hostile_media_effect

I'm excited for the results of Facebook's experiment, but fully expect this to remain an unsolved problem for the foreseeable future.

Re: Facebook adds a 'fake news' reporting option

#8

Post by thrill » Sun, Dec 11, 2016, 9:41 PM UTC

Because everyone knows Facebook users are the epitome of fact curation.

Re: Facebook adds a 'fake news' reporting option

#9

Post by nitrogen » Sun, Dec 11, 2016, 9:42 PM UTC

monochromatic wrote: post #3

There are some shady sites out there that peddle totally fake news for ad impressions. I'm fine with disrupting their business model. But what are the odds that legitimate (or even fringe, semi-legitimate) right-wing news sites bear the brunt of this movement?

In my community, I could see the opposite happening. Anti-vax marked as true, scientific articles marked as fake.

Re: Facebook adds a 'fake news' reporting option

#10

Post by XJOKOLAT » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 5:17 AM UTC

heavymark wrote: post #6

Yes Facebook did add that feature... last year. Engadget is simply reporting on something Facebook announced they added publicly last year. https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/01/news-feed-fyi-showing-f...

What proportion of users do you think were aware of it?

And, if left to users, considering we have the type of users who believe in a #BoycottStarwars movement, would you really want to leave this feature in the hands of said users?