4 ms·

> who fact checks the fact checkers? Who polices the police? Who governs the government? Who grants authority to the authorities? In western democracies, ide

> who fact checks the fact checkers? Who polices the police? Who governs the government? Who grants authority to the authorities? In western democracies, ideally the answer is all the same: the people. Ideally, once a power broker starts to lose credibility, they start to lose their power. And that's really what this is about. Facebook has lost credibility given the ease these new social technologies have been co-opted into propaganda tools. Sure, on one level they might want to discredit stories, but I think the far more likely scenario is Facebook as a platform for eyeballs has been discredited, and fewer people taking it seriously hurts the stock price. Even as a developer (and potential employee lead), I've more viciously ignored the quarterly facebook recruiter cold-call inbox spam because I frankly don't want to participate in what's become a propaganda mill this election season... I use react and recommend the technology all the time, I have friends who do great work at facebook, and most importantly, I actively use it every day... I just personally want to contribute my efforts elsewhere (after all, cigarette smokers smoke cigarettes every day too). At the end of the day, the credibility of the fact checkers comes from community consensus on the legitimacy of fact checkers. The problem is that micro-targeting groups while maximizing eyeball engagement has connected these groups more closely while breaking community consensus. Without community consensus, fact checkers have no credibility (and neither will Facebook the eyeball platform). In other words, the paradox is we're more social yet more isolated at the same time. I appreciate this fact checker gesture, but at the end of the day, facebook's real credibility problem is they need to align their profits with community and community consensus, not being individually social.

floatrock 10y ago
As a followup thought, > facebook's real credibility problem is they need to align their profits with community consensus and being community-social, not being individually social. The best litmus test for this is going to be whether everyone will see the same "disputed by 3rd parties" warning, or whether that warning will be micro-targeted to individual echochambers like everything else is. If my echochamber will show a warning next to a breitbart piece but my conservative uncle won't see it because his echochamber disagrees with the fact checking, that's going to be a huge red flag that facebook is only continuing the individually-social behavior that created this credibility problem in the first place.
DrScump 10y ago
"fact checkers comes from community consensus on the legitimacy of fact checkers..." There's a danger there. "Community consensus" condemned Galileo when he dared mention a heliocentric solar system, for one example. Did that make the Earth-centered solar system "fact"?
- floatrock 10y ago
  Community consensus also eventually vindicated him. More importantly, what's the alternative? Turning it all off and thinking independently is one option. Kudos to those who do that, but if you're here reading this, by definition you want to participate in social media. So then the question becomes how do we build a less toxic and more productive social media?
  - dabockster 10y ago
    > So then the question becomes how do we build a less toxic and more productive social media? 1. Enforce a basic standard of conduct. That is, define the point at which a conversation becomes toxic. Encourage people to "respectfully disagree" with each other so conversations don't degrade too far. 2. Enforce posting/commenting styles similar to something like the AP Style Guide. Encourage proper punctuation and grammar throughout the platform. Also encourage the community to enforce this on their own. (Yes, I am a grammar nazi in this case. But I'm tired of seeing things like "u r stoopid !!!" as a post or comment.) 3. Hire or appoint real people to review complaints. Do not rely on an automated system for this. 4. Use a temporal based feed only (newest posts first). Do not show an algorithmic feed "tailored" to a user's current interests. 5. Operate as a small group/company. Don't try to become a publicly traded multinational corporation with too many investors to answer to. 6. Be as transparent and neutral as possible. Have a place for users to chime in on the development of new features and bug fixes.

floatrock 10y ago

As a followup thought, > facebook's real credibility problem is they need to align their profits with community consensus and being community-social, not being individually social. The best litmus test for this is going to be whether everyone will see the same "disputed by 3rd parties" warning, or whether that warning will be micro-targeted to individual echochambers like everything else is. If my echochamber will show a warning next to a breitbart piece but my conservative uncle won't see it because his echochamber disagrees with the fact checking, that's going to be a huge red flag that facebook is only continuing the individually-social behavior that created this credibility problem in the first place.

DrScump 10y ago

"fact checkers comes from community consensus on the legitimacy of fact checkers..." There's a danger there. "Community consensus" condemned Galileo when he dared mention a heliocentric solar system, for one example. Did that make the Earth-centered solar system "fact"?

floatrock 10y ago
Community consensus also eventually vindicated him. More importantly, what's the alternative? Turning it all off and thinking independently is one option. Kudos to those who do that, but if you're here reading this, by definition you want to participate in social media. So then the question becomes how do we build a less toxic and more productive social media?
- dabockster 10y ago
  > So then the question becomes how do we build a less toxic and more productive social media? 1. Enforce a basic standard of conduct. That is, define the point at which a conversation becomes toxic. Encourage people to "respectfully disagree" with each other so conversations don't degrade too far. 2. Enforce posting/commenting styles similar to something like the AP Style Guide. Encourage proper punctuation and grammar throughout the platform. Also encourage the community to enforce this on their own. (Yes, I am a grammar nazi in this case. But I'm tired of seeing things like "u r stoopid !!!" as a post or comment.) 3. Hire or appoint real people to review complaints. Do not rely on an automated system for this. 4. Use a temporal based feed only (newest posts first). Do not show an algorithmic feed "tailored" to a user's current interests. 5. Operate as a small group/company. Don't try to become a publicly traded multinational corporation with too many investors to answer to. 6. Be as transparent and neutral as possible. Have a place for users to chime in on the development of new features and bug fixes.