5 ms·

> Facebook simply kills democracy for their own benefit. Give me a break. It's not Facebook's job to tell the truth from the lies. They provide a social networ

by aikah 10y ago

> Facebook simply kills democracy for their own benefit. Give me a break. It's not Facebook's job to tell the truth from the lies. They provide a social network, for profit. They are not a charity or a non profit. They sell ads. If "news filtering" aligns with their bottom-line they'll do it, if it doesn't, they won't, that's business. Now to anybody who thinks he can control the internet and what people read/think/discuss I say good luck with that. What kills democracy is people incapable of convincing others that they are being mislead/wrong without insulting them with all possible -ism . What kills democracy is people on both side being so extreme they just can't talk to each other anymore. Facebook isn't responsible for that. The lack of moderation on both political sides is, your politicians are. People need to stop blaming Facebook for everything. Nobody is forced to use their platform , I don't have a Facebook and never go on Facebook.

zoul 10y ago
Nobody is forced to use Facebook, but the fact is that for a vast number of people it represents the main source of news. Which, if this source can be easily gamed, is a problem. Since how do you “convince others that they are being misled” if the “alternative” media, plenty represented in their news feeds, discredit the traditional, trustworthy media first? There is a great Guardian Long Read about this very topic: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/12/how-technology-disrupted-the-truth https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/12/how-technology...
- fleitz 10y ago
  Isn't it up to the viewer not the publisher to decide what is trustworthy? Perhaps when major media get so many real stories about democracy wrong and the alt media get them right it's time to stop trusting the people getting things wrong and start trusting the people getting things right. Fuck, even the NYT had to recommit itself to journalism their reporting this year was so bad. 'As we reflect on the momentous result, and the months of reporting and polling that preceded it, we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism.' When you publish articles saying that the support of a candidate is more important than reporting the truth... well... people stop trusting you as someone who tells the truth no matter how politically unpopular it is, and start thinking of you as the political hacks that they are, and openly admit to being. 'In any normal election year, we’d compare the two presidential candidates side by side on the issues.'
  - gmac 10y ago
    Isn't it up to the viewer not the publisher to decide what is trustworthy? That's difficult if the publisher (Facebook) only shows them untrustworthy material, and the viewer is not aware that this is the case.
    - fleitz 10y ago
      If people in China can figure out that the state is lying to them, I'm pretty sure we can figure it out that random sites on the internet aren't trustworthy. The alt-media links extensively to MSM to point out their lies and inconsistency, I'm sure someone has realized that CNN, and MSNBC, and NYT are a thing. Even if you're not right wing, you'd probably at some point heard of Noam Chomsky who goes on similar rants about how even highly regarded NYT publishes articles that are pretty much propaganda. And then there's Jason Blair...
      - deleted 10y ago
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        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
  - pg314 10y ago
    > 'In any normal election year, we’d compare the two presidential candidates side by side on the issues.' You're lifting one sentence out of context. The rest of the paragraph reads [1]: "In any normal election year, we’d compare the two presidential candidates side by side on the issues. But this is not a normal election year. A comparison like that would be an empty exercise in a race where one candidate — our choice, Hillary Clinton — has a record of service and a raft of pragmatic ideas, and the other, Donald Trump, discloses nothing concrete about himself or his plans while promising the moon and offering the stars on layaway." The president-elect's walking back on so many of his promises since the election seem to be vindicating these comments. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/opinion/sunday/hillary-clinton-for-president.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/opinion/sunday/hillary-cli...
andrewvijay 10y ago
>It's not Facebook's job to tell the truth from the lies. No its not. They need to show all articles to the people that form bubbles is the point here. > They provide a social network, for profit. yes, but their influence on the world politics and emotions cannot be ignored simply because they are a for profit company. Business is simply not an excuse to separate people in bubbles. >Nobody is forced to use their platform Do you really think that everyone decides on how they should use facebook before they do? No. People are not blaming FB for everything. Only about forming bubbles that can bring about significant social changes for humans. I'm not really worried about Trump but for anyone dying or suffering because of his decisions, FB has a huge part in that. There's no denying in that.
whowalrus 10y ago
> Now to anybody who thinks he can control the internet and what people read/think/discuss I say good luck with that. Well Facebook _is_ doing that as we speak, but they don't consider it controlling what people read - they're just giving their users what they think they want. For their bottom-line. Which is their business. But there's no harm in pointing out that a for-profit entity isn't behaving in a socially responsible manner. Even if you or I don't use the platform.
grive 10y ago
> They sell ads. If "news filtering" aligns with their bottom-line they'll do it, if it doesn't, they won't, that's business. Yep, that's what is said when saying "Facebook [...] kills democracy for their own benefit". They provide a discourse perceived as the public discourse for a profit. Some people are considering that this exercise is a threat to democracy, and even though you seem to imply that you are more versed / cynical / aware ("Give me a break"), that's precisely the for profit part that ruffles some feathers. > What kills democracy is people incapable of convincing others that they are being mislead/wrong without insulting them with all possible -ism . Offering a platform for misleading news does not help and actually plays an active part in this. > What kills democracy is people on both side being so extreme they just can't talk to each other anymore. Facebook isn't responsible for that. Building a bubble is the prime example of how you can stop separated communities from talking to each other. You can say that the separation existed before Facebook, before other online communities, it does not make it any less salient that these bubbles exists and that it is in the monetary interest of Facebook to further them in order to sell better targeted ads. They whole business plan, their whole point of existing is depending on practices and behaviors that are currently a problem in our democracies. This means that as of now, Facebook will fight for these problems when they fight for their business. Even if you don't use Facebook or other social networks on the Internet, this means that as an individual citizen your country / nation is being influenced by these products. Even if you choose to not use them, it is perfectly reasonable to go out of your way to tell people to stop using them and to fight their influence in your country. So, people can perfectly continue to blame Facebook for these problems. No one says that they should be alone in being blamed on this, no need to exaggerate the critics to make them appear ridiculous. But acknowledging these problems is absolutely critical these days.
- aikah 10y ago
  > So, people can perfectly continue to blame Facebook for these problem It's just scapegoating. It's useless and a waste of time. The time you spend blaming Facebook is the time you don't spend actually fixing what should be fixed : creating an healthy environment for debate. Blaming this or that website is easy and it doesn't solve anything. Quitting the extremist views, quitting calling people morons,trolls,douchebags when they disagree with this or that political line and actually engaging them strictly on ideas instead of dismissing their concerns as -ism or -phobia is the only way you're going to make people listen to what you have to say. If you filter people's news, they'll just go somewhere else that give them what they want. And then you'll wake up again not understanding the result of the last elections because you lived in your own, filtered echochamber.
sergiosgc 10y ago
> Give me a break. It's not Facebook's job to tell the truth from the lies. They provide a social network, for profit. They are not a charity or a non profit. They sell ads. If "news filtering" aligns with their bottom-line they'll do it, if it doesn't, they won't, that's business. This is a technology forum, so I'll warn beforehand that my opinion, although it has political conclusions, is from a systems perspective and not meant to cause a flame war. Your position, above, is a very common defense of capitalism. Each agent should act on its best interest, and disregard all else. Distilled like that, it's the purest form of capitalism. While that position has its merits, we should understand its limitations. It prevents capture of companies by the power struggle. On the other hand, in this case, it is failing to act on FB's exploitation of a negative externality. FB, by keeping users in their comfort zone is preventing society from improving. And is profiting from it. It gains the profit, sheds some costs to the society at large. Capitalism is the best society optimization mechanism we know. It is not perfect, though. It creates local maximums, it is short sighted and we must always be careful about its limitations.
- asdfasdfa11112 10y ago
  Is FB keeping users in their comfort zone, or have users clearly and regularly indicated they want their ideologically safe spaces? If the latter, any attempts FB makes will be create an exodus, lose-lose.
- nickik 10y ago
  > Each agent should act on its best interest, and disregard all else. Distilled like that, it's the purest form of capitalism. No. Each agent should act according to his own will and believes, that often is in his own best interest, but that not always true. Its a hard case to actually prove this assertion of facebook. I have not spent any time an it or read much research on it. Is it really that different from all Americans reading the same newspapers that thought the Spanish American War was a great idea?
isaiahg 10y ago
Did you even read his comment. He was talking about facebook already manipulating content to only give content people want without opposing viewpoints thus creating small bubbles around us. When it's their own algorithms causing the problem then it is their job to fix it.
matt4077 10y ago
i wouldn't blame them in the moral sense of the word. But looking at the world today, it is obvious that something has changed. From Erdogan in Turkey, to Trump, Brexit, today's referendum in Italy etc, the is a definite trend. Now some people obviously welcome this trend, but lets just assume there are a few who see this as quite frightening. I've been debating the causes of this with friends, and it's actually quite murky. The US is running with the "too much identity politics" and/or "economic stagnation for the white lower class" as explanations. The problem is that these simply don't work in other places: Germany is doing better than ever, economically. And even if you're unemployed, your basic needs are not in danger. Britain was doing fine, as well. Same for Turkey. Germany has 1 Million Syrian refugees. But the US only took 10,000 and the UK haa half that. The one mechanism that's universal is the change in media consumption. The media used to be controlled by the elites, who generally remained within the narrow window that's sometimes called "reality". Now, it's a free-for-all and groups have started to coalesce around any possible ideological bend. Facebook is probably the central mechanism. People always seek the approval of their peers, and it has become so much easier to get that gratification, even if it's from people you rarely see in person. Of course it'd be possible to change all that by "not using Facebook". But we all know it's impossible to change human nature. That's why people are grasping at ideas of how to inhibit this mechanism.
Aqueous 10y ago
Unfortunately, a large percentage of the world's population is on Facebook which means that a large percentage of the world's news is being consumed through Facebook. Many would argue that, simply due to the enormous amount of power it wields, Facebook has a responsibility to look past its narrow commercial interests.

by aikah 10y ago

zoul 10y ago

Nobody is forced to use Facebook, but the fact is that for a vast number of people it represents the main source of news. Which, if this source can be easily gamed, is a problem. Since how do you “convince others that they are being misled” if the “alternative” media, plenty represented in their news feeds, discredit the traditional, trustworthy media first? There is a great Guardian Long Read about this very topic: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/12/how-technology-disrupted-the-truth https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/jul/12/how-technology...

fleitz 10y ago
Isn't it up to the viewer not the publisher to decide what is trustworthy? Perhaps when major media get so many real stories about democracy wrong and the alt media get them right it's time to stop trusting the people getting things wrong and start trusting the people getting things right. Fuck, even the NYT had to recommit itself to journalism their reporting this year was so bad. 'As we reflect on the momentous result, and the months of reporting and polling that preceded it, we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism.' When you publish articles saying that the support of a candidate is more important than reporting the truth... well... people stop trusting you as someone who tells the truth no matter how politically unpopular it is, and start thinking of you as the political hacks that they are, and openly admit to being. 'In any normal election year, we’d compare the two presidential candidates side by side on the issues.'
- gmac 10y ago
  Isn't it up to the viewer not the publisher to decide what is trustworthy? That's difficult if the publisher (Facebook) only shows them untrustworthy material, and the viewer is not aware that this is the case.
  - fleitz 10y ago
    If people in China can figure out that the state is lying to them, I'm pretty sure we can figure it out that random sites on the internet aren't trustworthy. The alt-media links extensively to MSM to point out their lies and inconsistency, I'm sure someone has realized that CNN, and MSNBC, and NYT are a thing. Even if you're not right wing, you'd probably at some point heard of Noam Chomsky who goes on similar rants about how even highly regarded NYT publishes articles that are pretty much propaganda. And then there's Jason Blair...
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
- pg314 10y ago
  > 'In any normal election year, we’d compare the two presidential candidates side by side on the issues.' You're lifting one sentence out of context. The rest of the paragraph reads [1]: "In any normal election year, we’d compare the two presidential candidates side by side on the issues. But this is not a normal election year. A comparison like that would be an empty exercise in a race where one candidate — our choice, Hillary Clinton — has a record of service and a raft of pragmatic ideas, and the other, Donald Trump, discloses nothing concrete about himself or his plans while promising the moon and offering the stars on layaway." The president-elect's walking back on so many of his promises since the election seem to be vindicating these comments. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/opinion/sunday/hillary-clinton-for-president.html http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/25/opinion/sunday/hillary-cli...

andrewvijay 10y ago

>It's not Facebook's job to tell the truth from the lies. No its not. They need to show all articles to the people that form bubbles is the point here. > They provide a social network, for profit. yes, but their influence on the world politics and emotions cannot be ignored simply because they are a for profit company. Business is simply not an excuse to separate people in bubbles. >Nobody is forced to use their platform Do you really think that everyone decides on how they should use facebook before they do? No. People are not blaming FB for everything. Only about forming bubbles that can bring about significant social changes for humans. I'm not really worried about Trump but for anyone dying or suffering because of his decisions, FB has a huge part in that. There's no denying in that.

whowalrus 10y ago

> Now to anybody who thinks he can control the internet and what people read/think/discuss I say good luck with that. Well Facebook _is_ doing that as we speak, but they don't consider it controlling what people read - they're just giving their users what they think they want. For their bottom-line. Which is their business. But there's no harm in pointing out that a for-profit entity isn't behaving in a socially responsible manner. Even if you or I don't use the platform.

grive 10y ago

> They sell ads. If "news filtering" aligns with their bottom-line they'll do it, if it doesn't, they won't, that's business. Yep, that's what is said when saying "Facebook [...] kills democracy for their own benefit". They provide a discourse perceived as the public discourse for a profit. Some people are considering that this exercise is a threat to democracy, and even though you seem to imply that you are more versed / cynical / aware ("Give me a break"), that's precisely the for profit part that ruffles some feathers. > What kills democracy is people incapable of convincing others that they are being mislead/wrong without insulting them with all possible -ism . Offering a platform for misleading news does not help and actually plays an active part in this. > What kills democracy is people on both side being so extreme they just can't talk to each other anymore. Facebook isn't responsible for that. Building a bubble is the prime example of how you can stop separated communities from talking to each other. You can say that the separation existed before Facebook, before other online communities, it does not make it any less salient that these bubbles exists and that it is in the monetary interest of Facebook to further them in order to sell better targeted ads. They whole business plan, their whole point of existing is depending on practices and behaviors that are currently a problem in our democracies. This means that as of now, Facebook will fight for these problems when they fight for their business. Even if you don't use Facebook or other social networks on the Internet, this means that as an individual citizen your country / nation is being influenced by these products. Even if you choose to not use them, it is perfectly reasonable to go out of your way to tell people to stop using them and to fight their influence in your country. So, people can perfectly continue to blame Facebook for these problems. No one says that they should be alone in being blamed on this, no need to exaggerate the critics to make them appear ridiculous. But acknowledging these problems is absolutely critical these days.

aikah 10y ago
> So, people can perfectly continue to blame Facebook for these problem It's just scapegoating. It's useless and a waste of time. The time you spend blaming Facebook is the time you don't spend actually fixing what should be fixed : creating an healthy environment for debate. Blaming this or that website is easy and it doesn't solve anything. Quitting the extremist views, quitting calling people morons,trolls,douchebags when they disagree with this or that political line and actually engaging them strictly on ideas instead of dismissing their concerns as -ism or -phobia is the only way you're going to make people listen to what you have to say. If you filter people's news, they'll just go somewhere else that give them what they want. And then you'll wake up again not understanding the result of the last elections because you lived in your own, filtered echochamber.

sergiosgc 10y ago

> Give me a break. It's not Facebook's job to tell the truth from the lies. They provide a social network, for profit. They are not a charity or a non profit. They sell ads. If "news filtering" aligns with their bottom-line they'll do it, if it doesn't, they won't, that's business. This is a technology forum, so I'll warn beforehand that my opinion, although it has political conclusions, is from a systems perspective and not meant to cause a flame war. Your position, above, is a very common defense of capitalism. Each agent should act on its best interest, and disregard all else. Distilled like that, it's the purest form of capitalism. While that position has its merits, we should understand its limitations. It prevents capture of companies by the power struggle. On the other hand, in this case, it is failing to act on FB's exploitation of a negative externality. FB, by keeping users in their comfort zone is preventing society from improving. And is profiting from it. It gains the profit, sheds some costs to the society at large. Capitalism is the best society optimization mechanism we know. It is not perfect, though. It creates local maximums, it is short sighted and we must always be careful about its limitations.

asdfasdfa11112 10y ago
Is FB keeping users in their comfort zone, or have users clearly and regularly indicated they want their ideologically safe spaces? If the latter, any attempts FB makes will be create an exodus, lose-lose.
nickik 10y ago
> Each agent should act on its best interest, and disregard all else. Distilled like that, it's the purest form of capitalism. No. Each agent should act according to his own will and believes, that often is in his own best interest, but that not always true. Its a hard case to actually prove this assertion of facebook. I have not spent any time an it or read much research on it. Is it really that different from all Americans reading the same newspapers that thought the Spanish American War was a great idea?

isaiahg 10y ago

Did you even read his comment. He was talking about facebook already manipulating content to only give content people want without opposing viewpoints thus creating small bubbles around us. When it's their own algorithms causing the problem then it is their job to fix it.

matt4077 10y ago

i wouldn't blame them in the moral sense of the word. But looking at the world today, it is obvious that something has changed. From Erdogan in Turkey, to Trump, Brexit, today's referendum in Italy etc, the is a definite trend. Now some people obviously welcome this trend, but lets just assume there are a few who see this as quite frightening. I've been debating the causes of this with friends, and it's actually quite murky. The US is running with the "too much identity politics" and/or "economic stagnation for the white lower class" as explanations. The problem is that these simply don't work in other places: Germany is doing better than ever, economically. And even if you're unemployed, your basic needs are not in danger. Britain was doing fine, as well. Same for Turkey. Germany has 1 Million Syrian refugees. But the US only took 10,000 and the UK haa half that. The one mechanism that's universal is the change in media consumption. The media used to be controlled by the elites, who generally remained within the narrow window that's sometimes called "reality". Now, it's a free-for-all and groups have started to coalesce around any possible ideological bend. Facebook is probably the central mechanism. People always seek the approval of their peers, and it has become so much easier to get that gratification, even if it's from people you rarely see in person. Of course it'd be possible to change all that by "not using Facebook". But we all know it's impossible to change human nature. That's why people are grasping at ideas of how to inhibit this mechanism.

Aqueous 10y ago

Unfortunately, a large percentage of the world's population is on Facebook which means that a large percentage of the world's news is being consumed through Facebook. Many would argue that, simply due to the enormous amount of power it wields, Facebook has a responsibility to look past its narrow commercial interests.