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No it's not. People just in general have a herd mentality. If social signals are important to you, if your need to fit in is more important than having your own

No it's not. People just in general have a herd mentality. If social signals are important to you, if your need to fit in is more important than having your own opinion then no amount of "fixing" the algorithm is going to change that. Furthermore those 40% comes from all sorts of papers but all but one was against Trump. Yet he won. Fake news is only useful to fuel your anger if you have already decided. The reason why people are swing voters is exactly because they weight in many factors not because they let themselves be fooled by fake news IMO. Furthermore the beauty of networks like Facebook and Twitter is that they are self-correcting. The lie doesn't travel faster than the rebuttal of that lie. Lastly I am not sure the article has a very clear idea of what actually constitutes a lie since a lot of those lies are really just different interpretation of the same things. And FB is actually quite good at having related articles of something which often will have different views in them. Facebook is one of the places where you actually meet most people of dissenting views to yours.

jon-wood 10y ago
> Furthermore the beauty of networks like Facebook and Twitter is that they are self-correcting. The lie doesn't travel faster than the rebuttal of that lie. I don't think this is entirely true, as the lie and its rebuttal are likely to be travelling within independent filter bubbles. One bubble sees the lie, the other sees the rebuttal, and both think all is well.
maskedinvader 10y ago
'Facebook is one of the places where you actually meet most people of dissenting views to yours.' I think Facebook has a strong motivation to tailor the newsfeed algorithm to keep you longer on Facebook, see more ads, generate more clicks and revenue etc, so there might be a case to be made in order to engage you more, the algorithm should show you more content you like or tend to agree with than ones you would not want to engage with (remember Facebook doesn't have a dislike button), so I think its not really a great place to meet most people of dissenting views to yours, I would actually speculate that its probably the other way around, Facebook is one fo the places where you meet most people sharing the same views as yours. /0.2$ edit: typo
- ThomPete 10y ago
  Yet one of the things about facebook is the many debates there.
- noobiemcfoob 10y ago
  > I think Facebook has a strong motivation to tailor the newsfeed algorithm to keep you longer on Facebook I agree, though you take that to mean they must want to show the user things she likes. Me personally, the best way to keep me on anything is to show me someone making an almost good argument but with a few crippling flaws. I'll spend hours on the rebuttal. That said, I believe you're right that Facebook skews towards your likes over intelligently tailoring the stream for us argumentative folks.
onion2k 10y ago
If social signals are important to you, if your need to fit in is more important than having your own opinion then no amount of "fixing" the algorithm is going to change that. Removing the algorithm (or at least defaulting it to 'off') so users can see everything, and consequently see whether they hold a majority opinion or not, would go some way to fixing the problem. At the moment someone can be in a tiny minority yet feel like everyone around them feels the same way, giving them a wildly skewed view of the real world.
- caseysoftware 10y ago
  But we've seen the results of that... people muting or unfriending each other. People will construct their bubble one way or another. Taking away the tools to do it doesn't make society better.
bbctol 10y ago
If social signals are important to you, the algorithm that presents those social signals is really important, no? What a herd mentality does depends on how the herd is made. Rebuttals to lies don't travel as fast as lies at all, especially not when the system is designed to keep audiences engaged by only presenting them with whichever side makes them feel better.
- ThomPete 10y ago
  I don't believe it is and Facebook claims it's not. So unless I see evidence of the opposite I have to go with my own experience.
boardwaalk 10y ago
People do have a herd mentality but that doesn't argue against the influence of Facebook but for it. In a world of personalized algorithms, A-B testing, nudging, etc, that Facebook and how it works certain having a significant effect on people who use it on an aggregate level is fairly obviously. Just because people have an inclination towards something negative doesn't mean a tool that enables it is blameless. As a thought experiment: If people are inherently somewhat violent, would someone who gave everyone a gun not be influential in what happened after?

jon-wood 10y ago

> Furthermore the beauty of networks like Facebook and Twitter is that they are self-correcting. The lie doesn't travel faster than the rebuttal of that lie. I don't think this is entirely true, as the lie and its rebuttal are likely to be travelling within independent filter bubbles. One bubble sees the lie, the other sees the rebuttal, and both think all is well.

maskedinvader 10y ago

'Facebook is one of the places where you actually meet most people of dissenting views to yours.' I think Facebook has a strong motivation to tailor the newsfeed algorithm to keep you longer on Facebook, see more ads, generate more clicks and revenue etc, so there might be a case to be made in order to engage you more, the algorithm should show you more content you like or tend to agree with than ones you would not want to engage with (remember Facebook doesn't have a dislike button), so I think its not really a great place to meet most people of dissenting views to yours, I would actually speculate that its probably the other way around, Facebook is one fo the places where you meet most people sharing the same views as yours. /0.2$ edit: typo

ThomPete 10y ago
Yet one of the things about facebook is the many debates there.
noobiemcfoob 10y ago
> I think Facebook has a strong motivation to tailor the newsfeed algorithm to keep you longer on Facebook I agree, though you take that to mean they must want to show the user things she likes. Me personally, the best way to keep me on anything is to show me someone making an almost good argument but with a few crippling flaws. I'll spend hours on the rebuttal. That said, I believe you're right that Facebook skews towards your likes over intelligently tailoring the stream for us argumentative folks.

onion2k 10y ago

If social signals are important to you, if your need to fit in is more important than having your own opinion then no amount of "fixing" the algorithm is going to change that. Removing the algorithm (or at least defaulting it to 'off') so users can see everything, and consequently see whether they hold a majority opinion or not, would go some way to fixing the problem. At the moment someone can be in a tiny minority yet feel like everyone around them feels the same way, giving them a wildly skewed view of the real world.

caseysoftware 10y ago
But we've seen the results of that... people muting or unfriending each other. People will construct their bubble one way or another. Taking away the tools to do it doesn't make society better.

bbctol 10y ago

If social signals are important to you, the algorithm that presents those social signals is really important, no? What a herd mentality does depends on how the herd is made. Rebuttals to lies don't travel as fast as lies at all, especially not when the system is designed to keep audiences engaged by only presenting them with whichever side makes them feel better.

ThomPete 10y ago
I don't believe it is and Facebook claims it's not. So unless I see evidence of the opposite I have to go with my own experience.

boardwaalk 10y ago

People do have a herd mentality but that doesn't argue against the influence of Facebook but for it. In a world of personalized algorithms, A-B testing, nudging, etc, that Facebook and how it works certain having a significant effect on people who use it on an aggregate level is fairly obviously. Just because people have an inclination towards something negative doesn't mean a tool that enables it is blameless. As a thought experiment: If people are inherently somewhat violent, would someone who gave everyone a gun not be influential in what happened after?