7 ms·

This is the third time I've seen something on this today. So what's the plan then? Start a Facebook "Ministry of Truth"?

rublev 10y ago
The plan is to 'move on' from the internet and its novelties and use it like just another educational tool when you need to.
- MorePowerToYou 10y ago
  +1 can't wait to get my friends and family back from their social media and infotainment addictions. The internet has so much potential to help human society.
- user5994461 10y ago
  And what? We'll get back to newspapers? One newpapers for the democrat & One newpapers for the republicans. People will be able to read only the one they relate better to, just as with the internet :D
  - grzm 10y ago
    One distinction with newspapers is that people pay subscriptions for newspapers. This changes the relationship between the consumers, the publishers, and the advertisers.
  - rublev 10y ago
    I didn't mean 'go back' to anything, rather unplug from the constant information highway because it's a farce.
nathancahill 10y ago
A lot of subreddits (r/politics for example) have tags like "Misleading title". Maybe something like that? Many of my friends sincerely believe the fake news they have read on these sites, because nothing suggests that it might be fake. It's so sad. When I ask them for sources for "facts" like "Obama is a Muslim", they send me a list of news articles that "proves it". Fact checking sites are "the corrupt media" and "liberal bias". btw, these aren't uninformed people. They watch the news, debate with friends and vote. It's the sincerity that they believe the news with that's so depressing.
- bjt2n3904 10y ago
  Sure, misleading title. We should also probably weight the score a little heavier so misleading news doesn't percolate to the top of people's news feeds. It's not filtering, it's just curating! Weren't we angry at Facebook just a few months ago for doing just that? Who gets to decide what's "relevant"? What's "misleading"?
- narrator 10y ago
  /r/politics is a really bad example because it was completely taken over by pro-Hillary sentiment during the campaign. Then it all flipped back to neutral after the campaign.
  - belltaco 10y ago
    It didn't really flip back to neutral. Go read the recent top poss.
  - nathancahill 10y ago
    It's a perfect example. Bias != Fake. Bias is fine. People are always going to share articles biased towards their views.
jimbokun 10y ago
How about integrating fact checking sites into their news feed, displayed prominently?
- adnzzzzZ 10y ago
  Most of those sites are extremely biased. If you think that's a good idea it's because the bias leans towards what you agree with.
  - fudgie 10y ago
    I've only seen these sites being accused of being leftist, so shouldn't there be a market for a right-leaning one?
  - jimbokun 10y ago
    This right here is exactly the problem. A nihilistic viewpoint that nothing at all is knowable, because every source of information is equally suspect. This is kind of why we humans invented science, you know, so we might actually figure out some things about the world. Randomly selected Politifact article: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/nov/07/donald-trump/closing-argument-donald-trump-wrongly-says-he-outd/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/nov/... Not just their opinion, but how they arrived at that opinion. Links to Billboard's data on Jay-Z and Beyonce's concert attendance, and Trump's own claims about his crowds. Reality doesn't always just come down to differing opinions. Many things are actually knowable, to anyone willing to investigate and entertain the possibility they are wrong.
    - adnzzzzZ 10y ago
      Bias can appear both in what facts they decide to cover and in how they cover it. The first part is the one people usually ignore and the easiest to hide. You can just fact check one person on their every sentence and not fact check the opponent on their every sentence. You can also decide to only fact check mostly true or true statements for one person and mostly false or false statements for the other person. You'd be performing proper fact checking most of the time, but you'd be helping one person more than the other.
skrap 10y ago
There already is a "Ministry of Truth", as you put it. The point of the article is that Facebook _already_ picks and chooses which shared items it promotes into your feed, so the news you get exposed to is already the product of human judgement. So, Facebook can't merely wash its hands of culpability in the propagation of fake news as the product of some "mathematically neutral algorithm". There's no such thing. Not saying I agree 100%, but I think there's something there worth considering.
maxerickson 10y ago
They have already taken up editorial roles. It's entirely reasonable to demand that they do it responsibly.
kevando 10y ago
Thank you Hacker News for being a place to notice this stuff

rublev 10y ago

The plan is to 'move on' from the internet and its novelties and use it like just another educational tool when you need to.

MorePowerToYou 10y ago
+1 can't wait to get my friends and family back from their social media and infotainment addictions. The internet has so much potential to help human society.
user5994461 10y ago
And what? We'll get back to newspapers? One newpapers for the democrat & One newpapers for the republicans. People will be able to read only the one they relate better to, just as with the internet :D
- grzm 10y ago
  One distinction with newspapers is that people pay subscriptions for newspapers. This changes the relationship between the consumers, the publishers, and the advertisers.
- rublev 10y ago
  I didn't mean 'go back' to anything, rather unplug from the constant information highway because it's a farce.

nathancahill 10y ago

A lot of subreddits (r/politics for example) have tags like "Misleading title". Maybe something like that? Many of my friends sincerely believe the fake news they have read on these sites, because nothing suggests that it might be fake. It's so sad. When I ask them for sources for "facts" like "Obama is a Muslim", they send me a list of news articles that "proves it". Fact checking sites are "the corrupt media" and "liberal bias". btw, these aren't uninformed people. They watch the news, debate with friends and vote. It's the sincerity that they believe the news with that's so depressing.

bjt2n3904 10y ago
Sure, misleading title. We should also probably weight the score a little heavier so misleading news doesn't percolate to the top of people's news feeds. It's not filtering, it's just curating! Weren't we angry at Facebook just a few months ago for doing just that? Who gets to decide what's "relevant"? What's "misleading"?
narrator 10y ago
/r/politics is a really bad example because it was completely taken over by pro-Hillary sentiment during the campaign. Then it all flipped back to neutral after the campaign.
- belltaco 10y ago
  It didn't really flip back to neutral. Go read the recent top poss.
- nathancahill 10y ago
  It's a perfect example. Bias != Fake. Bias is fine. People are always going to share articles biased towards their views.

jimbokun 10y ago

How about integrating fact checking sites into their news feed, displayed prominently?

adnzzzzZ 10y ago
Most of those sites are extremely biased. If you think that's a good idea it's because the bias leans towards what you agree with.
- fudgie 10y ago
  I've only seen these sites being accused of being leftist, so shouldn't there be a market for a right-leaning one?
- jimbokun 10y ago
  This right here is exactly the problem. A nihilistic viewpoint that nothing at all is knowable, because every source of information is equally suspect. This is kind of why we humans invented science, you know, so we might actually figure out some things about the world. Randomly selected Politifact article: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/nov/07/donald-trump/closing-argument-donald-trump-wrongly-says-he-outd/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/nov/... Not just their opinion, but how they arrived at that opinion. Links to Billboard's data on Jay-Z and Beyonce's concert attendance, and Trump's own claims about his crowds. Reality doesn't always just come down to differing opinions. Many things are actually knowable, to anyone willing to investigate and entertain the possibility they are wrong.
  - adnzzzzZ 10y ago
    Bias can appear both in what facts they decide to cover and in how they cover it. The first part is the one people usually ignore and the easiest to hide. You can just fact check one person on their every sentence and not fact check the opponent on their every sentence. You can also decide to only fact check mostly true or true statements for one person and mostly false or false statements for the other person. You'd be performing proper fact checking most of the time, but you'd be helping one person more than the other.

skrap 10y ago

There already is a "Ministry of Truth", as you put it. The point of the article is that Facebook _already_ picks and chooses which shared items it promotes into your feed, so the news you get exposed to is already the product of human judgement. So, Facebook can't merely wash its hands of culpability in the propagation of fake news as the product of some "mathematically neutral algorithm". There's no such thing. Not saying I agree 100%, but I think there's something there worth considering.

maxerickson 10y ago

They have already taken up editorial roles. It's entirely reasonable to demand that they do it responsibly.

kevando 10y ago

Thank you Hacker News for being a place to notice this stuff