Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
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Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#2A previous discussion on the"Open letter from the BMJ to Mark Zuckerberg" mentioned in this article had 677 comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29595598
Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#3From the last discussion: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/what-the-heck-happened-to-t...
The BMJ is not the shining city on the hill here. You can have problems with Facebook policing information, but Thacker is unquestionably an anti-vax conspiracy theorist and the BMJ is allowing him to use their reputation to push that narrative.
Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#4Frankly, if I were the BMJ I would start contacting lawyers and issuing writs. I'm unsure of exactly what or where or how, but the principle that peer-reviewed scientific articles are being shadowbanned as "false" and unshareable by a for-profit, unqualified US organisation is...deeply offensive. A large lawsuit by an organisation such as the BMJ (an impact factor 40 journal first published in its current form in about 1840) would, at the very least, highlight how Facebook rapidly has become a publisher and its algorithms shape what people see.
It's like making a collage. If you put newspapers in a shop window, and sell them, you're a shop. You don't write the newspapers. If you cut out individual letters from newspapers and give them to people, you're not a shop, and you've made the message you create. Facebook is cutting out alternate sentences-to-paragraphs from the tabloids and selling a set of stories it thinks its users like, interspersed with ads. That question of degree is very much the sort of thing that legal brains like to get involved in.
Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#5Frankly, if I were the BMJ I would start contacting lawyers and issuing writs. I'm unsure of exactly what or where or how , but the principle that peer-reviewed scientific articles are being shadowbanned as "false" and unshareable by a for-profit, unqualified US organisation is...deeply offensive. A large lawsuit by an organisation such as the BMJ (an impact factor 40 journal first published in its current form in ab…
Deeply offensive doesn't mean illegal. Unless there's a law that you can point at which bans this, there's no point in hiring lawyers because any challenge will be immediately thrown out. The real issue here in my view is that Facebook - a private company with no legal requirement to keep publishing anything that people post - is becoming the de facto news source for vast numbers of people. And, God help me, I have some sympathy for Facebook here if, as another commenter says, this study is being taken out of context and being used to push anti-vax conspiracy theories. It's such a complex issue.
Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#6Facts are facts! If the fact checking does not match reality, it is the reality that needs to be fixes!
Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#7Frankly, if I were the BMJ I would start contacting lawyers and issuing writs. I'm unsure of exactly what or where or how , but the principle that peer-reviewed scientific articles are being shadowbanned as "false" and unshareable by a for-profit, unqualified US organisation is...deeply offensive. A large lawsuit by an organisation such as the BMJ (an impact factor 40 journal first published in its current form in ab…
Facebook is working as intended, a weapon to capture the audience and control the narrative and overthrow governments. No one would want Facebook to change.
Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#8Frankly, if I were the BMJ I would start contacting lawyers and issuing writs. I'm unsure of exactly what or where or how , but the principle that peer-reviewed scientific articles are being shadowbanned as "false" and unshareable by a for-profit, unqualified US organisation is...deeply offensive. A large lawsuit by an organisation such as the BMJ (an impact factor 40 journal first published in its current form in ab…
Just to clarify, the article in question is not a scientific paper in BMJ. It's a feature, so pretty much like a regular news article.
Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#9Frankly, if I were the BMJ I would start contacting lawyers and issuing writs. I'm unsure of exactly what or where or how , but the principle that peer-reviewed scientific articles are being shadowbanned as "false" and unshareable by a for-profit, unqualified US organisation is...deeply offensive. A large lawsuit by an organisation such as the BMJ (an impact factor 40 journal first published in its current form in ab…
Deeply offensive doesn't mean illegal. Unless there's a law that you can point at which bans this, there's no point in hiring lawyers because any challenge will be immediately thrown out. The real issue here in my view is that Facebook - a private company with no legal requirement to keep publishing anything that people post - is becoming the de facto news source for vast numbers of people. And, God help me, I have s…
If they are actually being labelled as false as part of the justification , there is at least an arguable case of defamation, stronger in a jurisdiction like Britain where truth of the damaging published characterization is a defense that the defendant must prove rather than falsity of the claim being an element that the plaintiff must prove.
Re: Facebook versus The BMJ: when fact checking goes wrong
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Deeply offensive doesn't mean illegal. Unless there's a law that you can point at which bans this, there's no point in hiring lawyers because any challenge will be immediately thrown out. The real issue here in my view is that Facebook - a private company with no legal requirement to keep publishing anything that people post - is becoming the de facto news source for vast numbers of people. And, God help me, I have s…
If they are actually being labelled as false as part of the justification , there is at least an arguable case of defamation, stronger in a jurisdiction like Britain where truth of the damaging published characterization is a defense that the defendant must prove rather than falsity of the claim being an element that the plaintiff must prove.
Defamation by... censoring?