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I'm not sure that they should take responsibility for it, but I do believe they should make tools available for people to fight it, although I don't think even

I'm not sure that they should take responsibility for it, but I do believe they should make tools available for people to fight it, although I don't think even that is an easy task. Facebook enables fake news by offering a platform where fake news can spread, but it spreads because a lot of people really do believe what is being reported, not because they necessarily want to spread fake news. Fake news, or lies as we should really be calling them, is very much a social problem. We've had "fake news" in the form of parody websites like the Onion for a long time, and whilst a large number of people fell for their stories, they often didn't make the same mistake twice. People are looking for new sources of news, and the combination of this with easily shareable and difficult to verify stories means that the lies spread quickly. Part of this has been caused by the attack on mainstream media (MSM) - people no longer trust the MSM because they're being told not to by politicians, and the fact that they're often caught misreporting stories doesn't help this. So, people turn to smaller more focused sources - often ones which they've never heard of before, and which they haven't been told not to trust. How does Facebook solve this? I'm not sure. Flagging stories as "this hasn't been reported elsewhere", or by filtering new sources of news might be a start, but it wouldn't be a solution. I'm not sure people would trust Facebook to manually moderate content, and it would simply give fake news and politicians the ammunition they needed to target Facebook as being against them. The very nature of news is that its unexpected and mostly unpredictable, so training algorithms to detect fake news reliably, without hiding real news, is a very difficult task. Facebook can't take responsibility for fake news, society needs to do that.

libertine 10y ago
I also don't think they should take the responsability for it (pretty much like Torrent Trackers, or Youtube, when it comes to content distribution). But I think there could be some mechanisms in place, similar to how Youtube handles copyright claims - where upon reporting, or a request for a source from any Facebook user - the publication would get it's Reach capped, or the publication would be hidden, until further evidence is displayed. Now, there are a lot of problems with this approach - first it's user based (which has it's pros and cons), second it may be target for malicious activity and anti-competitive pratices - but on the other hand if the source was displayed, it would somehow protect them (at least briefly), without having the Reach capped, but still flagged if the source is dubious.
- JamesMcMinn 10y ago
  The problem with having to provide a source is that the majority of "fake news" type stories, even the ones that are true, come from anonymous sources "close to X" or "within Y". It also means every Onion story will be capped. Something at a publisher level, where the publisher themselves is given a fake news rating, rather than individual stories, might work, but even that is full of difficult to solve issues.
  - libertine 10y ago
    Well, the Onion is considered a news or entertainment? Publishers always had reputation (good or bad) based on their work, which maybe could be displayed with a rating - the problem is when even those with good rep are wrong...
    - JamesMcMinn 10y ago
      The Onion is listed as a Media/news company on Facebook. For those that know what the Onion is, it's entertainment masquerading as news, but for those who don't know, it certainly looks a lot like news.
- tullianus 10y ago
  Yeah, this sounds prone to malicious abuse, mostly because of the subject matter. I've heard of occasional malicious use of Youtube copyright claims, but in the case of fake news on Facebook, the same system seems like it would devolve to Breitbart readers and Mother Jones readers dogpiling each the other source's articles to limit their reach in the short term. Come to think of it, that might not be the worst thing in the world.
  - CM30 10y ago
    Until they start dogpiling the media that disagrees with both of their biases. Which already happens. If you're far enough on any side of a political spectrum, even reasonable news sounds fake to you.
- 10y ago
amelius 10y ago
I'm all for freedom of speech, but is the "information snack" format of Facebook not simply the wrong format for spreading political views? Imho, at the least, Facebook should merge commenting from larger groups of users on a single political post, in such a way that a balanced view of pro and con arguments can be read. (This means that if one of my friends shares a post, I don't see just my friends' comments).
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  That's what you have in comments sections of news articles (and in comments to posts of fanpages). It's almost always unreadable mess composed of the worst humanity has to offer.
- makomk 10y ago
  I'm not convinced this will help. This is effectively what happens on Twitter, and the fact that the replies are full of links to a Snopes article debunking the claim doesn't seem to stop people from retweeting it even on the left.
stagbeetle 10y ago
> but it spreads because a lot of people really do believe what is being reported, not because they necessarily want to spread fake news. Similar to how some aren't looking for news, but affirmations of their political beliefs.
NoGravitas 10y ago
> people no longer trust the MSM because they're being told not to by politicians I'm not sure that's the biggest part of the problem, though maybe it's different in my bubble. In my experience, the MSM destroyed their own credibility by acting as stenographers for political and corporate power, and, in the process, spreading "fake news". And it wasn't the little independent partisan sources, it was literally the WaPo and the NYT that helped the Bush II regime lie us into the Iraq War (14 years ago today!)[0]. It's hard to gain back credibility when you've so comprehensively destroyed it in order to be close to power. And the NYT and WaPo have not even pretended to be interested in doing so. [0]: http://www.eschatonblog.com/2017/03/only-fools-and-frenchmen.html http://www.eschatonblog.com/2017/03/only-fools-and-frenchmen...
jerf 10y ago
"people no longer trust the MSM because they're being told not to by politicians, and the fact that they're often caught misreporting stories doesn't help this." Chronologically implausible. Trust in the MSM has been collapsing for decades; politicians only recently began telling people not to trust them. Politicians telling people not to trust the media is an effect of the fact that trust had already collapsed, not the cause. If people had trust and regard for the media, then politicians, another group that people have little trust and regard for, telling people not to trust them would have had no effect. Personally, I can't help but notice that almost nobody seems to propose that if the mainstream news organizations want to fight "fake news", maybe they should make the effort to become more trustworthy. Not make an effort to appear more trustworthy, but to become more trustworthy. I think it says something profound about our era that this hardly even comes up.
- Intermernet 10y ago
  >"Not make an effort to appear more trustworthy, but to become more trustworthy" Jon Stewart touched on this recently on an appearance on The Late Show. >"This breakup with Donald Trump has given you, the media, an amazing opportunity for self-reflection and improvement, Instead of worrying about whether Trump is un-American, or if he thinks you're the enemy, or if he's being mean to you, or if he's going to let you go back into the briefings, do something for yourself. Self-improvement! Take up a hobby. I recommend journalism."[1] [1]: https://youtu.be/cmdFne7LnuA?t=9m34s https://youtu.be/cmdFne7LnuA?t=9m34s
BooglyWoo 10y ago
Naive question maybe: why do news articles not cite sources and have a references section at the end, like academic articles?

libertine 10y ago

I also don't think they should take the responsability for it (pretty much like Torrent Trackers, or Youtube, when it comes to content distribution). But I think there could be some mechanisms in place, similar to how Youtube handles copyright claims - where upon reporting, or a request for a source from any Facebook user - the publication would get it's Reach capped, or the publication would be hidden, until further evidence is displayed. Now, there are a lot of problems with this approach - first it's user based (which has it's pros and cons), second it may be target for malicious activity and anti-competitive pratices - but on the other hand if the source was displayed, it would somehow protect them (at least briefly), without having the Reach capped, but still flagged if the source is dubious.

JamesMcMinn 10y ago
The problem with having to provide a source is that the majority of "fake news" type stories, even the ones that are true, come from anonymous sources "close to X" or "within Y". It also means every Onion story will be capped. Something at a publisher level, where the publisher themselves is given a fake news rating, rather than individual stories, might work, but even that is full of difficult to solve issues.
- libertine 10y ago
  Well, the Onion is considered a news or entertainment? Publishers always had reputation (good or bad) based on their work, which maybe could be displayed with a rating - the problem is when even those with good rep are wrong...
  - JamesMcMinn 10y ago
    The Onion is listed as a Media/news company on Facebook. For those that know what the Onion is, it's entertainment masquerading as news, but for those who don't know, it certainly looks a lot like news.
tullianus 10y ago
Yeah, this sounds prone to malicious abuse, mostly because of the subject matter. I've heard of occasional malicious use of Youtube copyright claims, but in the case of fake news on Facebook, the same system seems like it would devolve to Breitbart readers and Mother Jones readers dogpiling each the other source's articles to limit their reach in the short term. Come to think of it, that might not be the worst thing in the world.
- CM30 10y ago
  Until they start dogpiling the media that disagrees with both of their biases. Which already happens. If you're far enough on any side of a political spectrum, even reasonable news sounds fake to you.
10y ago

amelius 10y ago

I'm all for freedom of speech, but is the "information snack" format of Facebook not simply the wrong format for spreading political views? Imho, at the least, Facebook should merge commenting from larger groups of users on a single political post, in such a way that a balanced view of pro and con arguments can be read. (This means that if one of my friends shares a post, I don't see just my friends' comments).

TeMPOraL 10y ago
That's what you have in comments sections of news articles (and in comments to posts of fanpages). It's almost always unreadable mess composed of the worst humanity has to offer.
makomk 10y ago
I'm not convinced this will help. This is effectively what happens on Twitter, and the fact that the replies are full of links to a Snopes article debunking the claim doesn't seem to stop people from retweeting it even on the left.

stagbeetle 10y ago

> but it spreads because a lot of people really do believe what is being reported, not because they necessarily want to spread fake news. Similar to how some aren't looking for news, but affirmations of their political beliefs.

NoGravitas 10y ago

> people no longer trust the MSM because they're being told not to by politicians I'm not sure that's the biggest part of the problem, though maybe it's different in my bubble. In my experience, the MSM destroyed their own credibility by acting as stenographers for political and corporate power, and, in the process, spreading "fake news". And it wasn't the little independent partisan sources, it was literally the WaPo and the NYT that helped the Bush II regime lie us into the Iraq War (14 years ago today!)[0]. It's hard to gain back credibility when you've so comprehensively destroyed it in order to be close to power. And the NYT and WaPo have not even pretended to be interested in doing so. [0]: http://www.eschatonblog.com/2017/03/only-fools-and-frenchmen.html http://www.eschatonblog.com/2017/03/only-fools-and-frenchmen...

jerf 10y ago

"people no longer trust the MSM because they're being told not to by politicians, and the fact that they're often caught misreporting stories doesn't help this." Chronologically implausible. Trust in the MSM has been collapsing for decades; politicians only recently began telling people not to trust them. Politicians telling people not to trust the media is an effect of the fact that trust had already collapsed, not the cause. If people had trust and regard for the media, then politicians, another group that people have little trust and regard for, telling people not to trust them would have had no effect. Personally, I can't help but notice that almost nobody seems to propose that if the mainstream news organizations want to fight "fake news", maybe they should make the effort to become more trustworthy. Not make an effort to appear more trustworthy, but to become more trustworthy. I think it says something profound about our era that this hardly even comes up.

Intermernet 10y ago
>"Not make an effort to appear more trustworthy, but to become more trustworthy" Jon Stewart touched on this recently on an appearance on The Late Show. >"This breakup with Donald Trump has given you, the media, an amazing opportunity for self-reflection and improvement, Instead of worrying about whether Trump is un-American, or if he thinks you're the enemy, or if he's being mean to you, or if he's going to let you go back into the briefings, do something for yourself. Self-improvement! Take up a hobby. I recommend journalism."[1] [1]: https://youtu.be/cmdFne7LnuA?t=9m34s https://youtu.be/cmdFne7LnuA?t=9m34s

BooglyWoo 10y ago

Naive question maybe: why do news articles not cite sources and have a references section at the end, like academic articles?