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Why does it need to be regulated? What ever happened to 'don't believe everything you read' and 'do your research'? No one has ever said Facebook holds anythi

by ProAm 9y ago

Why does it need to be regulated? What ever happened to 'don't believe everything you read' and 'do your research'? No one has ever said Facebook holds anything remotely truthful, it's a social network. Your friends are not 100% honest or accurate. Same goes for Twitter, Reddit, Quora,...etc... It's always been a YMMV scenario, but for entertainment.

stochastic_monk 9y ago
The problem is that people trust their friends on facebook. How do you protect the people who can't use critical thinking to get answers? Using your reasoning, you might ask why it's bad to let vulnerable elderly individuals be hoodwinked out of their savings. What happened to their responsibility? It seems to me that the people as a body are incapable of managing themselves and so they need safeguards. (Wow, that makes me sound like a dictator.)
- dvt 9y ago
  > Using your reasoning, you might ask why it's bad to let vulnerable elderly individuals be hoodwinked out of their savings. What happened to their responsibility? It's a bit different because in your case, we're actively reducing harm. You can't just say "censorship will fix it" or "oversight will fix it" unless we're talking about specific scenarios. Which is why, in general censorship and oversight doesn't really fix anything. This is also why laws are very detailed and specific. It would be nice to say "be good to one another" and be done with it.
  - stochastic_monk 9y ago
    I agree. It would take a very specific set of interventions. What could do good? A disclaimer every time you log in saying "Pro tip: get your news from reliable sources, not your facebook feed."? Are there any ways people could be prompted to do the right thing? The question is then: what can be done? Just because it's hard to know how to handle the problem doesn't mean we shouldn't try to.
- ProAm 9y ago
  >The problem is that people trust their friends on facebook. Do they? I don't, most of my friends are idiots (and still my best friends) Isn't that their fault however? The government cannot tell you to trust or distrust your friends. > How do you protect the people who can't use critical thinking to get answers? It's a scary world when you want the government to tell you what you are allowed to read and believe.
  - stochastic_monk 9y ago
    1. You're not the problem. (And I wasn't either until I stopped using it years ago.) But many of the rest of people who use facebook are. And that's what makes manipulating them through faux grassroots methods so effective. 2. I didn't say I wanted the government to tell me or other people what they were allowed to read and believe. I'm saying I somehow want something to be done to help people realize that they can't trust everything they read online for unverified sources. You're right that the government can't tell us whether to trust or distrust our friends. But can people be taught to think for themselves? Maybe a better option is adding training to the curriculum specifically designed to teach students how to classify sources by bias and by probable authenticity.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
s0rce 9y ago
Looks like people aren't smart enough to do this on their own (sadly). Either they need education (difficult, expensive and some people don't want to be "educated") or just regulate what they see and read.
- ProAm 9y ago
  It's a scary world when you want the government to tell you what you are allowed to read and believe.
xena 9y ago
That assumes people have the ability for critical thought, which is usually developed in school. Schools in the US have not been doing well due to lack of funding, so it makes sense that the populace at large is a bunch of idiots.
- whatyoucantsay 9y ago
  > Schools in the US have not been doing well due to lack of funding Lack of funding isn't the cause. Schools in the US receive more funding per pupil than schools in the EU or top performing Asian countries. More directly, the US spends more than Canada and gets far worse results. It's difficult to find the root of problem, but I would blame religiosity and widespread violent crime. Young earth creationists are still doing their best to hamstring the sciences no amount of money spent on a child can make up for a father who is dead or imprisoned.
  - Splatter 9y ago
    Your reply started out good then sort of went off the rails. Care to cite supporting data that shows where "religiosity" and Young earth creationists are having a material impact on the overall US education system in the 21st century?
    - whatyoucantsay 9y ago
      As of 2014, well within the 21st century, 73% of Americans believe that God intervened in designing humans. 31% believe that evolution occurred but God guided the process, 42% of Americans believe that God created humans directly in their present form and only 19% believe that humans evolved without divine participation in the process. http://news.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx http://news.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-... How could the educational system possibly be unaffected by most of the country still denying a foundational part of modern science? Upon further investigation, we can see that it's not unaffected. Pitched battles are still being waged on intellectual ground settled generations ago in nearly every other developed country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_and_evolution_in_public_education_in_the_United_States#Recent_developments_in_state_education_programs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_and_evolution_in_publ...
rtkwe 9y ago
What happened is that in a quest for more use and engagement sites and networks tuned their feed generation algorigthms to things that you’re more likely to like which isn’t stuff that goes against your world view/current conception of things. And there’s plenty of people out there more than happy to spin out tons of content for every niche so if you’re just looking and not critical of what sources you’re finding there’s a supporting source out there for every BS facebook/reddit/twitter post.
- Spivak 9y ago
  Right, but this same argument could be equally applied to any search engine or any popular 'content-neutral' platform.
  - rtkwe 9y ago
    Facebook is in somewhat of a special position at this time because it is a really major source for a lot of people to get their news.
intended 9y ago
Yeah its always been the YMMV scenario - even when it was only the old coders on the web. With everyone on the web, it turns out that now large meta processes - like elections, are being affected. At this point, things are no longer the same, and new meta systems are required. The world changed, and the internet is no longer just for us.

by ProAm 9y ago

stochastic_monk 9y ago

The problem is that people trust their friends on facebook. How do you protect the people who can't use critical thinking to get answers? Using your reasoning, you might ask why it's bad to let vulnerable elderly individuals be hoodwinked out of their savings. What happened to their responsibility? It seems to me that the people as a body are incapable of managing themselves and so they need safeguards. (Wow, that makes me sound like a dictator.)

dvt 9y ago
> Using your reasoning, you might ask why it's bad to let vulnerable elderly individuals be hoodwinked out of their savings. What happened to their responsibility? It's a bit different because in your case, we're actively reducing harm. You can't just say "censorship will fix it" or "oversight will fix it" unless we're talking about specific scenarios. Which is why, in general censorship and oversight doesn't really fix anything. This is also why laws are very detailed and specific. It would be nice to say "be good to one another" and be done with it.
- stochastic_monk 9y ago
  I agree. It would take a very specific set of interventions. What could do good? A disclaimer every time you log in saying "Pro tip: get your news from reliable sources, not your facebook feed."? Are there any ways people could be prompted to do the right thing? The question is then: what can be done? Just because it's hard to know how to handle the problem doesn't mean we shouldn't try to.
ProAm 9y ago
>The problem is that people trust their friends on facebook. Do they? I don't, most of my friends are idiots (and still my best friends) Isn't that their fault however? The government cannot tell you to trust or distrust your friends. > How do you protect the people who can't use critical thinking to get answers? It's a scary world when you want the government to tell you what you are allowed to read and believe.
- stochastic_monk 9y ago
  1. You're not the problem. (And I wasn't either until I stopped using it years ago.) But many of the rest of people who use facebook are. And that's what makes manipulating them through faux grassroots methods so effective. 2. I didn't say I wanted the government to tell me or other people what they were allowed to read and believe. I'm saying I somehow want something to be done to help people realize that they can't trust everything they read online for unverified sources. You're right that the government can't tell us whether to trust or distrust our friends. But can people be taught to think for themselves? Maybe a better option is adding training to the curriculum specifically designed to teach students how to classify sources by bias and by probable authenticity.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]

s0rce 9y ago

Looks like people aren't smart enough to do this on their own (sadly). Either they need education (difficult, expensive and some people don't want to be "educated") or just regulate what they see and read.

ProAm 9y ago
It's a scary world when you want the government to tell you what you are allowed to read and believe.

xena 9y ago

That assumes people have the ability for critical thought, which is usually developed in school. Schools in the US have not been doing well due to lack of funding, so it makes sense that the populace at large is a bunch of idiots.

whatyoucantsay 9y ago
> Schools in the US have not been doing well due to lack of funding Lack of funding isn't the cause. Schools in the US receive more funding per pupil than schools in the EU or top performing Asian countries. More directly, the US spends more than Canada and gets far worse results. It's difficult to find the root of problem, but I would blame religiosity and widespread violent crime. Young earth creationists are still doing their best to hamstring the sciences no amount of money spent on a child can make up for a father who is dead or imprisoned.
- Splatter 9y ago
  Your reply started out good then sort of went off the rails. Care to cite supporting data that shows where "religiosity" and Young earth creationists are having a material impact on the overall US education system in the 21st century?
  - whatyoucantsay 9y ago
    As of 2014, well within the 21st century, 73% of Americans believe that God intervened in designing humans. 31% believe that evolution occurred but God guided the process, 42% of Americans believe that God created humans directly in their present form and only 19% believe that humans evolved without divine participation in the process. http://news.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx http://news.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-... How could the educational system possibly be unaffected by most of the country still denying a foundational part of modern science? Upon further investigation, we can see that it's not unaffected. Pitched battles are still being waged on intellectual ground settled generations ago in nearly every other developed country. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_and_evolution_in_public_education_in_the_United_States#Recent_developments_in_state_education_programs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_and_evolution_in_publ...

rtkwe 9y ago

What happened is that in a quest for more use and engagement sites and networks tuned their feed generation algorigthms to things that you’re more likely to like which isn’t stuff that goes against your world view/current conception of things. And there’s plenty of people out there more than happy to spin out tons of content for every niche so if you’re just looking and not critical of what sources you’re finding there’s a supporting source out there for every BS facebook/reddit/twitter post.

Spivak 9y ago
Right, but this same argument could be equally applied to any search engine or any popular 'content-neutral' platform.
- rtkwe 9y ago
  Facebook is in somewhat of a special position at this time because it is a really major source for a lot of people to get their news.

intended 9y ago

Yeah its always been the YMMV scenario - even when it was only the old coders on the web. With everyone on the web, it turns out that now large meta processes - like elections, are being affected. At this point, things are no longer the same, and new meta systems are required. The world changed, and the internet is no longer just for us.