8 ms·

It is unfortunate that platforms like Facebook have become the beacons of pessimism. I am talking in the context of the usage of social media tools to harm soci

It is unfortunate that platforms like Facebook have become the beacons of pessimism. I am talking in the context of the usage of social media tools to harm society, rather than help it. For me, FB, TW, etc have become unreliable sources of news. Here, FB is trying to limit ads from pages that share false news, but who will decide that?? 1. FB - Leads to a dangerous slippery slope of putting too much power into a single,private, profit-seeking entity. 2. Users - It alienates sections of society. 3. Other sources - Inherently unreliable. Seemingly, FB getting into the media distribution business itself is troublesome for a society, especially when you have a platform whose algorithms prioritize profit, consequently leading to construction of powerful echo chambers. The trouble with these echo chambers is that they nullify efforts of the society to promote meaningful debate and discussion. Even before the era of FB, the world was struggling with misinformation, lies, subversion of facts, etc. Now we have reached a point where Presidents can lie, often within a span of a few hours, and it's essentially forgotten and things move on. These echo chambers are the primary culprit for this IMV. When efforts to educate constituents is taken head on with echo chambers, the echo chambers inevitably win. Reminds me of the novel where the speaker in a press conference is denouncing country A, and is handed over a note from his aide, and the speaker immediately switched the narrative denouncing country B, all the while the press simply accepts what is told.

briholt 9y ago
"Fake news" appears to be "news I don't like" and has no correlation with the accuracy of the content. Conveniently, Facebook seems to agree with many major media outlets about what news they don't like, so they can present their arbitrary definition of "fake" as objective and conveniently no one can break through the bubble to prove otherwise.
- Retric 9y ago
  Some groups flat out make up news stories to fit some narrative. What else are you going to call that than 'fake news'? 'Candidate X comes out as gay.' 'Secret photos reveal candidate X at KKK lynching.' Are both rather over the top, but also the kind of lies that influence elections.
  - menacingly 9y ago
    If you don't like that, you're going to hate the physical realm, where anyone can make any claim and you're left with nothing but your wits to discern the truth
    - uep 9y ago
      > If you don't like that, you're going to hate the physical realm, where anyone can make any claim and you're left with nothing but your wits to discern the truth So you're saying that we should let these organizations lie as much as they want, because people lie in your day-to-day life? The people you meet in your day-to-day life and lie to your face are much more limited in the number of people they can influence with lies. Why shouldn't we make enormously more powerful institutions more accountable for lies?
    - ebola1717 9y ago
      This misunderstands the way technology, social media in particular, have exacerbated problems with misinformation. No one is claiming the media was perfect before. Obviously hoaxes and false rumors have always been a thing. But social media has made disinformation scalable.
      - menacingly 9y ago
        Speed and scale of speech do not impact whether or not it's got an equal seat at the table. It just means you're cool with any expression as long as it's not threatening. Which there's nothing special about, it's how basically everyone is by default. There's no principle there.
        Retric 9y ago
        Propaganda is used because it works and scale ends up changing type. Consider the difference from 1 dead cell vs 1 million dead cells at the tip of your finger vs 1 billion dead cells in your arm.
        9y ago
- TallGuyShort 9y ago
  If anyone wants an example of this, look at the coverage of the crowd size at Trump's inauguration. That's still held up as the canonical example of the Trump administration's "alternative facts" (in fact that's when the phrase was coined, I believe). But there's high resolution video of the crowds during the ceremony that clearly contradicts the photos of sparse crowds. I also think the guy is a lying moron, but the fact that that photo is still the cover image for campaigns against him should give people pause...
  - kumarvvr 9y ago
    Great example. FB is becoming a tool to assault rationality of gullible people ( mind you, I am an engineer, good exposure to various news sources, etc and I too have fallen for certain news articles), its extremely effective at nudging people into a fantasy comfort zone, and hold them there. The strength of its algorithm increases as a person is nudged further.
  - gscott 9y ago
    The crowds up close in the ceremony but further out Obama had more overflow.
    - TallGuyShort 9y ago
      I'm talking about images like this: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/01/20/us/politics/trump-inauguration-crowd-1484943564224/trump-inauguration-crowd-1484943564224-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/01/20/us/politics/trump.... You can count the lanes that run across the mall before you see any open space, and the photo on the right was clearly not taken any time near the actual ceremony because my memory of live video and recorded video during the ceremony simply doesn't come close to matching. I really don't care how it actually compares to Obama, and I really don't see why Trump cared so much, but the fact is the pictures are clearly not "facts" either. Yet disputing them is still held up as a common example of "deniers".
      - jhpriestley 9y ago
- maxerickson 9y ago
  Yes, there was an intentional campaign to conflate news that people didn't like with sites that were literal fake news, not mistakes or biased coverage, articles made up whole cloth to smear people and such.
- riffraff 9y ago
  This seems an oversimplification. Yes, some stuff is arguable, mostly when it involves politics, but there is a ton of stuff on facebook like "Bolivia expels McDonalds and Coca-Cola", or "check this video on why positive ions released by salt lamps can cure cancer".
aaron-lebo 9y ago
The lying isn't new, none of the dynamics are new, it's just the sheer velocity it all happens at. You lie about something 100 years ago and the press talks about that lie for weeks or months because information moves so slowly. You lie today and there's another tweet to cover in an hour and people forget about it (like you said). The funny thing is Zuckerberg has repeatedly used the line that "Facebook isn't a media company" which is either delusional and naive or Littlefinger doublespeak.
- kumarvvr 9y ago
  Well, the echo chambers, or at least the effectiveness of them is absolutely new. In the past you shared and discussed news at gatherings of all kinds, and unless its a cult (which are easy to identify, and if required, outlaw) you had a fair chance of atleast coming across differing opinion. You had a face, a body and a mind attached to a differing opinion, a great humanizing factor. That is missing in FB echo chambers.
samfpetersen 9y ago
Oceania was at war with Eastasia, Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.
MBCook 9y ago
> ...dangerous slippery slope of putting too much power into a single,private, profit-seeking entity. That's the problem. We're ALREADY THERE. It happened years ago. It's not a slippery slope, it's the thing behind us. And that's not even mentioning Google. At least they're trying (VERY late, if you ask me). They could have chosen to let it continue and profit off it. After all we know it makes lots of clicks and ad revenue. We can't pretend his is something that's about to happen. It HAPPENED.
- kumarvvr 9y ago
  They are trying it now because the negative press about their main products role in the election debacle might hurt their bottomline. IMV their response is very late, very weak and a half hearted attempt.
  - MBCook 9y ago
    I agree COMPLETELY. All I can say is 'at least they're trying' even if it's years late. I'd hate to see what happened if they didn't do anything at all.
    - Applejinx 9y ago
      There's an argument people make, that they ought to seek profit wherever it lies, without questioning who's paying that bill. I can see a whole bunch of scenarios where adopting that course of action would lead to some ridiculously disastrous results, quite a lot worse than doing nothing at all. For specifics, look at entities in the world that are already known to spend lots of money in advancement of their narratives. We don't even have to look to Russia first. Try the fossil fuel industry. I'm pretty sure the notion of a 'marketplace of influencers' through buying idea distribution on Facebook (with or without pseudo-grassroots camouflage) almost defaults to those who are up to no good: that's who has the money, in 2017.
jobu 9y ago
> For me, FB, TW, etc have become unreliable sources of news. For me, it has shown that a large chunk my social network is incapable of detecting bullshit. Last year I tried linking to Snopes or Politifact when people would post obvious falsehoods, but most people just don't care. What I want from FB is a feed that doesn't include shares or likes of any external content. Seeing and reading about life events of my friends and family is what got me hooked on FB, but right now that's all lost in the torrent of bullshit.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > it has shown that a large chunk my social network is incapable of detecting bullshit Most people didn't have to. When they heard something, it had been filtered. We switched context on millions of people without warning.
- briholt 9y ago
  I'd be careful, both Politifact and Snopes have been caught pushing their own slanted narratives. Example: When Bernie says black youth unemployment is ~50%, it's true. When Trump says the same, it's false. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jul/13/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-says-real-unemployment-rate-african/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jul/... http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2016/jun/20/donald-trump/trump-misleadingly-puts-black-youth-unemployment-r/ http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2016/jun/20/do...
  - claytonjy 9y ago
    I've had similar thoughts on where they draw the line between "Mostly False" and "Mostly True", but in this case it seems reasonable to give more credit to the one who responded to request for clarification and pointed to a specific study the number was drawn from. Still, I think "Mostly True" is a bit too generous for Bernie's claim.
  - eregorn 9y ago
    You know, I've not paid attention too much when this argument is made since I usually keep my pony on snopes, not politifact, but I'm glad curiousity got me this time. This is a bit misleading in itself. Bernie's saying its 50%~, Trump is saying its 60%~. Sure its a 8 percent difference at most, but that difference reveals how they got their number. The gist of both articles is that Bernie is inflating his number with people that have part-time work but want full-time while Trump is inflating with high school and college students. The rulings on both articles basically point to this: Sander's number has more issue with semantics than actually including people that are not actively seeking a job like Trump's number. Trump doesn't get POF because of your objection: while derived wrong it's "decently" close. Quotes because an 8 point difference is very large when talking unemployment numbers.
stcredzero 9y ago
The trouble with these echo chambers is that they nullify efforts of the society to promote meaningful debate and discussion. I saw this coming years ago. So did others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc

briholt 9y ago

"Fake news" appears to be "news I don't like" and has no correlation with the accuracy of the content. Conveniently, Facebook seems to agree with many major media outlets about what news they don't like, so they can present their arbitrary definition of "fake" as objective and conveniently no one can break through the bubble to prove otherwise.

Retric 9y ago
Some groups flat out make up news stories to fit some narrative. What else are you going to call that than 'fake news'? 'Candidate X comes out as gay.' 'Secret photos reveal candidate X at KKK lynching.' Are both rather over the top, but also the kind of lies that influence elections.
- menacingly 9y ago
  If you don't like that, you're going to hate the physical realm, where anyone can make any claim and you're left with nothing but your wits to discern the truth
  - uep 9y ago
    > If you don't like that, you're going to hate the physical realm, where anyone can make any claim and you're left with nothing but your wits to discern the truth So you're saying that we should let these organizations lie as much as they want, because people lie in your day-to-day life? The people you meet in your day-to-day life and lie to your face are much more limited in the number of people they can influence with lies. Why shouldn't we make enormously more powerful institutions more accountable for lies?
  - ebola1717 9y ago
    This misunderstands the way technology, social media in particular, have exacerbated problems with misinformation. No one is claiming the media was perfect before. Obviously hoaxes and false rumors have always been a thing. But social media has made disinformation scalable.
    - menacingly 9y ago
      Speed and scale of speech do not impact whether or not it's got an equal seat at the table. It just means you're cool with any expression as long as it's not threatening. Which there's nothing special about, it's how basically everyone is by default. There's no principle there.
      - Retric 9y ago
        Propaganda is used because it works and scale ends up changing type. Consider the difference from 1 dead cell vs 1 million dead cells at the tip of your finger vs 1 billion dead cells in your arm.
        9y ago
TallGuyShort 9y ago
If anyone wants an example of this, look at the coverage of the crowd size at Trump's inauguration. That's still held up as the canonical example of the Trump administration's "alternative facts" (in fact that's when the phrase was coined, I believe). But there's high resolution video of the crowds during the ceremony that clearly contradicts the photos of sparse crowds. I also think the guy is a lying moron, but the fact that that photo is still the cover image for campaigns against him should give people pause...
- kumarvvr 9y ago
  Great example. FB is becoming a tool to assault rationality of gullible people ( mind you, I am an engineer, good exposure to various news sources, etc and I too have fallen for certain news articles), its extremely effective at nudging people into a fantasy comfort zone, and hold them there. The strength of its algorithm increases as a person is nudged further.
- gscott 9y ago
  The crowds up close in the ceremony but further out Obama had more overflow.
  - TallGuyShort 9y ago
    I'm talking about images like this: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/01/20/us/politics/trump-inauguration-crowd-1484943564224/trump-inauguration-crowd-1484943564224-videoSixteenByNineJumbo1600.jpg https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/01/20/us/politics/trump.... You can count the lanes that run across the mall before you see any open space, and the photo on the right was clearly not taken any time near the actual ceremony because my memory of live video and recorded video during the ceremony simply doesn't come close to matching. I really don't care how it actually compares to Obama, and I really don't see why Trump cared so much, but the fact is the pictures are clearly not "facts" either. Yet disputing them is still held up as a common example of "deniers".
    - jhpriestley 9y ago
maxerickson 9y ago
Yes, there was an intentional campaign to conflate news that people didn't like with sites that were literal fake news, not mistakes or biased coverage, articles made up whole cloth to smear people and such.
riffraff 9y ago
This seems an oversimplification. Yes, some stuff is arguable, mostly when it involves politics, but there is a ton of stuff on facebook like "Bolivia expels McDonalds and Coca-Cola", or "check this video on why positive ions released by salt lamps can cure cancer".

aaron-lebo 9y ago

The lying isn't new, none of the dynamics are new, it's just the sheer velocity it all happens at. You lie about something 100 years ago and the press talks about that lie for weeks or months because information moves so slowly. You lie today and there's another tweet to cover in an hour and people forget about it (like you said). The funny thing is Zuckerberg has repeatedly used the line that "Facebook isn't a media company" which is either delusional and naive or Littlefinger doublespeak.

kumarvvr 9y ago
Well, the echo chambers, or at least the effectiveness of them is absolutely new. In the past you shared and discussed news at gatherings of all kinds, and unless its a cult (which are easy to identify, and if required, outlaw) you had a fair chance of atleast coming across differing opinion. You had a face, a body and a mind attached to a differing opinion, a great humanizing factor. That is missing in FB echo chambers.

samfpetersen 9y ago

Oceania was at war with Eastasia, Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.

MBCook 9y ago

> ...dangerous slippery slope of putting too much power into a single,private, profit-seeking entity. That's the problem. We're ALREADY THERE. It happened years ago. It's not a slippery slope, it's the thing behind us. And that's not even mentioning Google. At least they're trying (VERY late, if you ask me). They could have chosen to let it continue and profit off it. After all we know it makes lots of clicks and ad revenue. We can't pretend his is something that's about to happen. It HAPPENED.

kumarvvr 9y ago
They are trying it now because the negative press about their main products role in the election debacle might hurt their bottomline. IMV their response is very late, very weak and a half hearted attempt.
- MBCook 9y ago
  I agree COMPLETELY. All I can say is 'at least they're trying' even if it's years late. I'd hate to see what happened if they didn't do anything at all.
  - Applejinx 9y ago
    There's an argument people make, that they ought to seek profit wherever it lies, without questioning who's paying that bill. I can see a whole bunch of scenarios where adopting that course of action would lead to some ridiculously disastrous results, quite a lot worse than doing nothing at all. For specifics, look at entities in the world that are already known to spend lots of money in advancement of their narratives. We don't even have to look to Russia first. Try the fossil fuel industry. I'm pretty sure the notion of a 'marketplace of influencers' through buying idea distribution on Facebook (with or without pseudo-grassroots camouflage) almost defaults to those who are up to no good: that's who has the money, in 2017.

jobu 9y ago

> For me, FB, TW, etc have become unreliable sources of news. For me, it has shown that a large chunk my social network is incapable of detecting bullshit. Last year I tried linking to Snopes or Politifact when people would post obvious falsehoods, but most people just don't care. What I want from FB is a feed that doesn't include shares or likes of any external content. Seeing and reading about life events of my friends and family is what got me hooked on FB, but right now that's all lost in the torrent of bullshit.

JumpCrisscross 9y ago
> it has shown that a large chunk my social network is incapable of detecting bullshit Most people didn't have to. When they heard something, it had been filtered. We switched context on millions of people without warning.
briholt 9y ago
I'd be careful, both Politifact and Snopes have been caught pushing their own slanted narratives. Example: When Bernie says black youth unemployment is ~50%, it's true. When Trump says the same, it's false. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jul/13/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-says-real-unemployment-rate-african/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jul/... http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2016/jun/20/donald-trump/trump-misleadingly-puts-black-youth-unemployment-r/ http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2016/jun/20/do...
- claytonjy 9y ago
  I've had similar thoughts on where they draw the line between "Mostly False" and "Mostly True", but in this case it seems reasonable to give more credit to the one who responded to request for clarification and pointed to a specific study the number was drawn from. Still, I think "Mostly True" is a bit too generous for Bernie's claim.
- eregorn 9y ago
  You know, I've not paid attention too much when this argument is made since I usually keep my pony on snopes, not politifact, but I'm glad curiousity got me this time. This is a bit misleading in itself. Bernie's saying its 50%~, Trump is saying its 60%~. Sure its a 8 percent difference at most, but that difference reveals how they got their number. The gist of both articles is that Bernie is inflating his number with people that have part-time work but want full-time while Trump is inflating with high school and college students. The rulings on both articles basically point to this: Sander's number has more issue with semantics than actually including people that are not actively seeking a job like Trump's number. Trump doesn't get POF because of your objection: while derived wrong it's "decently" close. Quotes because an 8 point difference is very large when talking unemployment numbers.

stcredzero 9y ago

The trouble with these echo chambers is that they nullify efforts of the society to promote meaningful debate and discussion. I saw this coming years ago. So did others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc