9 ms·

This is the opposite of what they should have done. Shows just how much of an echo-chamber Facebook has become. This is just adding another metric by which garb

This is the opposite of what they should have done. Shows just how much of an echo-chamber Facebook has become. This is just adding another metric by which garbage can be made legitimate and vice versa. Facebook would be a much better platform if they removed the like and comment count from every post. It’s those numbers that lead people to believe that garbage is legitimate in the first place. By hiding these numbers it would force people to think for themselves. Same thing with YouTube. Fake News becomes real news when it had enough views, likes, upvotes, comments, etc.. These counts don’t really need to be shown to the end user.

emodendroket 9y ago
I can't see why that would help.
- themagician 9y ago
  Those counts are the rating by which people determine legitimacy of content. Popular content must be correct by virtue of that fact that so many people can’t be wrong. And when you only show people content that they all ready agree with it further reinforces its legitimacy. Remove the counts and people have no external validation for the legitimacy of a piece of content. They actually have to read it. What we have now is a system where someone sees a headline, “Proof Obama birth certificate fake!” With 100k like and 10k comments and they don’t even read it and just comment, “I knew it!” When you pick up a newspaper you have to actually read it. You can’t just look at the headline and see how many people agree with it before you can form any kind of opinion.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    What seems likely to me is that people share obviously fake news not because they see it has a lot of likes but because it confirms things they already believe.
    - themagician 9y ago
      What they see is often determined by those counts in the first place, and what people decide to read/comment/share is more often than not because a post has a lot of likes/comments. Then they share it to get likes for them self. If the only incentive to read/share/comment was a genuine understanding or willingness to share and participate the entire space would be different.
ppbutt 9y ago
So nix free speech (and rely on unknown propietary algorithms)? I don't think that's a good idea either. Much of the time, there's more value in the comments than you could gain from an article, video, etc - as is the case here.
- MaxBarraclough 9y ago
  > So nix free speech 1. It's Facebook, not the government 2. They aren't banning anything How is this a free speech issue?
  - colejohnson66 9y ago
    No OP, but free speech is an ideal, unlike the first amendment which applies to the government.
    - MaxBarraclough 9y ago
      It's still not a free speech issue. The question is how Facebook should order news sources/articles. They're suggesting changing their strategy. This isn't anything like censorship.
- themagician 9y ago
  Nothing to do with limiting free speech. Quite the opposite. Instead of showing people only content that they agree with, with counts that reinforce the legitimacy of that content, you would show people everything that is popular and let them determine for themselves what they think about it. I’m not talking about removing the comments. I’m saying don’t show the count. If people want to read the comments they can.
  - yAnonymous 9y ago
    Limiting free speech may not be your intention, but it's exactly what's going to happen when you remove transparency. We have a similar this situation in Germany right now. A private corporation designated by the government can delete Facebook posts as they see fit under the guise of hate speech. Facebook had to agree, because they'll be hit with fines if they don't. What should be controlled by law is now in the hands of a corporation and they are quietly removing content that is clearly not illegal. Removing transparency is a dream come true for corrupt institutions.
jakecopp 9y ago
I agree with you, but I'm sure they will never remove those metrics. You might like the extension Facebook Demetricator: http://bengrosser.com/projects/facebook-demetricator/ http://bengrosser.com/projects/facebook-demetricator/ Personally I block the entire news feed with uBlock Origin which has made my experience of Facebook tolerable.
- themagician 9y ago
  They will never do it because it’s those little numbers that give you your dopamine fix, and thus central to their revenue. Social media is a game and the score is whatever metric is shown. You want to most points for yourself and you only want to participate in popular content in the hopes it will earn you more points.
- paulie_a 9y ago
  How do you disable or block the "suggested" crap I am seriously considering a year without adblock and going out of my way to click as many ads as possible. Blocking is ineffective, it's time to fuck over the metrics
  - jakecopp 9y ago
    Most ad blockers will let you select an ad to block, and depending on how specific the selector is it might block other occurrences. What you are thinking of exists: AdNauseam. It clicks on every single ad you see to disrupt the metrics. https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/
threeseed 9y ago
This makes absolutely no sense to me. For almost all stories you can work out its popularity just by the number of comments. And you can determine the comment count (-/+ an order of magnitude) just by scrolling through the comments. The accurate number isn't important for most people. None of this will prevent the dissemination of fake news. What will do is (a) not prioritising it and (b) detecting whether it's fake. Facebook just added solutions to do both.
- themagician 9y ago
  Remove the number of comments. People comment on stories with the most comments and usually reply to the first set of posts because they want their post to be seen, accelerating commenting in that thread. If you want to count comments fine. Most people won’t. FB actually makes this hard to do. Would be fascinating to even try it here on HN. If you hit all the integer counters it would dramatically change the way people use the site.
  - threeseed 9y ago
    I just went to a popular article by the New York Times on Facebook. Just by scrolling down through the pages of comments I could determine that it was likely to be a popular article. Go ahead remove the number of comments. It won't solve the problem Facebook is trying to solve.
    - themagician 9y ago
      Yeah, but you actually had to do that. You didn’t get to just look at the headline and see how many people agreed with it before you even read it. You would, of course, have to combine this with not just showing it to people who already hold those opinions.
- DrScump 9y ago
  you can work out its popularity just by the number of comments Popularity, yes. Accuracy, no.
yAnonymous 9y ago
If you really want to fight the root of the problem, it's not likes and comments, but education. Should we censor social media, because people are too stupid to deal with it? I don't think so and if you do, you're playing in the hands of corporations who want a cheap work force. Your "solution" isn't a solution, but a hot fix that will cause more damage in the future. It's exactly the shortsighted crap politics are trying to do right now to get immediate results.
- y0ghur7_xxx 9y ago
  > If you really want to fight the root of the problem, it's not likes and comments, but education. I agree, but it's impossible to educate everyone on any subject. I think in this case, people who are experts in the matter, should give a reputation rating on the article. That would be really great. For example, I am no expert in theoretical physics, but I may enjoy an article about it, but how do I know it's not a bunch of bullshit I am reading? If I see that Stephen Hawking gave it a 5 star reputable source rating, I "know" I can believe it.
  - pizza234 9y ago
    > I agree, but it's impossible to educate everyone on any subject. Critical thinking is universal though. It's not a necessity to have a solid judgment of a piece. "Critical abstention" is a possibility, and primarily formal analysis is another (eg. search for common communication red flags). I don't think that the parent idea of removing likes and counts is realistic (in any imaginary scenario I can think of).
    - SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
      > Critical thinking is universal I'm assuming you don't spend a lot of time on Facebook?
      - yAnonymous 9y ago
        I'm assuming you do. Otherwise you would have understood the comment.
RealGeek 9y ago
There is no likes and views count on Whatsapp, but the fake news problem is much worse on Whatsapp than Facebook and YouTube.
- lawlessone 9y ago
  Can you explain this? maybe it's because of the filter bubble i live in but i almost never see this on whatsapp (then again, maybe i wouldn't know if i had.)
  - sanmon3186 9y ago
    The fact that Facebook walls are visible to everyone, any controversial topic usually gets reaction from both sides. Whatsapp groups are formed based on likemindedness (I am excluding core family and friends). I call these groups echo-pipes which silently form a larger echo chamber.
    - walterbell 9y ago
      Are these public groups? How are they discovered?
      - knight17 9y ago
        WhatsApp groups are not discoverable (or publicly listed) unless someone invites you or provides you with a specific invite link with which you can join the group.
- gt_ 9y ago
  As someone who hasn’t used WhatsApp, I am surprised and curious about this. Any other experiences or information would be much appreciated.
7granddad 9y ago
I think an interesting way Facebook could approach determining credibility would be by having users bet (betting with some made up points instead of real money). Since this forces readers to speculate, it would encourage critically reading the articles. I think a betting system would push Facebook less in the direction of an echo-chamber. The difficulty with applying a betting system is that it still doesn't tell you whether the information is true, thus bets can't be evaluated.
- 0x445442 9y ago
  I like the idea in principle but betting, real money or not, relies on agreed upon, objective results/outcomes. There in lies the problem; who's going to be the arbiter of truth? However, it seems possible to get further along than we are now by creating betting pools/markets where the participants do agree on a set of sources for information. Actually, I've thought along these lines before rather indirectly by theorizing that the WSJ was probably the most non-partisan source of "news" because most of it's clientele demanded such due to their participation in the markets. But I realize that's highly speculative.
paulsutter 9y ago
Are you talking about yourself or other people? My Facebook feed is mostly personal updates about hundreds of people I have met, and it feels like the most democratic media I’ve ever seen. It improved a lot when I unfollowed the handful of people who post junk like sportsball. Are you assuming the faceless masses are exposed to some unimaginable horror that you aren’t seeing? Or tell us more about the horrors you do see.
- tbirrell 9y ago
  It's more like, letting users "legitimize" news is how you get bots screwing with everything. It may not be a problem for some, including myself since my feed is similar to how you describe yours, but network waide, it will pose an issue.
  - paulsutter 9y ago
    So, your feed seems fine, my feed seems fine, but somehow the electorate at large is subject to mass mind manipulations by bots?
    - tbirrell 9y ago
      As a technologically literate individual who takes pains to protect myself online, yes, my feed is inherently more "fine" then the general population.
- wu-ikkyu 9y ago
  >feels like the most democratic media I’ve ever seen. The Democrats thought the same thing too, before Trump won the election. Perhaps you are falling victim to a filter bubble confirmation bias? A democracy implies independent national sovereignty. When anyone (govt, corp, or rogue hackers) across the world can effectively manipulate your elections at scale, sovereign democracy is no longer a thing.
  - paulsutter 9y ago
    A $100,000 ad campaign overpowered the dems $1.4B budget? The DNC should hire those guys! They're political geniuses!
kristiandupont 9y ago
They already stopped the first "fake news" label experiment because it simply caused people to click on it more. I think that's the core problem: people don't really want to know if something is legitimate or not, they want controversial stuff and if it's labeled as fake, they simply want to see it and decide for themselves anyway. And, I'm sure, when something goes against your beliefs, you will take that fake label as proof that people don't want to believe/the system is trying to brainwash you.
deadfish 9y ago
Surely the problem is the lack of a dislike button? I wonder if Reddit has as much fake news as Facebook?
- Erik816 9y ago
  Probably less completely ridiculous stories, but it does tend towards groupthink. Popularity is not a great gauge for truth.
- zeveb 9y ago
  > I wonder if Reddit has as much fake news as Facebook? I think that /r/politics, /r/shitredditsays & /r/The_Donald might count.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
CandidlyFake 9y ago
> This is the opposite of what they should have done. Shows just how much of an echo-chamber Facebook has become. News itself is an echo chamber. Don't see how that is facebook's fault. The reason news is toxic isn't facebook. It's foxnews, nytimes, wapo and the entire media industry. Not sure why you think "like" buttons would change that. The news echo chamber existed before facebook. It existed for zuckerburg was born. It'll exist long after facebook is gone. The only solution is for facebook to ban news entirely from facebook. But then the news industry would get very upset.

emodendroket 9y ago

I can't see why that would help.

themagician 9y ago
Those counts are the rating by which people determine legitimacy of content. Popular content must be correct by virtue of that fact that so many people can’t be wrong. And when you only show people content that they all ready agree with it further reinforces its legitimacy. Remove the counts and people have no external validation for the legitimacy of a piece of content. They actually have to read it. What we have now is a system where someone sees a headline, “Proof Obama birth certificate fake!” With 100k like and 10k comments and they don’t even read it and just comment, “I knew it!” When you pick up a newspaper you have to actually read it. You can’t just look at the headline and see how many people agree with it before you can form any kind of opinion.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  What seems likely to me is that people share obviously fake news not because they see it has a lot of likes but because it confirms things they already believe.
  - themagician 9y ago
    What they see is often determined by those counts in the first place, and what people decide to read/comment/share is more often than not because a post has a lot of likes/comments. Then they share it to get likes for them self. If the only incentive to read/share/comment was a genuine understanding or willingness to share and participate the entire space would be different.

ppbutt 9y ago

So nix free speech (and rely on unknown propietary algorithms)? I don't think that's a good idea either. Much of the time, there's more value in the comments than you could gain from an article, video, etc - as is the case here.

MaxBarraclough 9y ago
> So nix free speech 1. It's Facebook, not the government 2. They aren't banning anything How is this a free speech issue?
- colejohnson66 9y ago
  No OP, but free speech is an ideal, unlike the first amendment which applies to the government.
  - MaxBarraclough 9y ago
    It's still not a free speech issue. The question is how Facebook should order news sources/articles. They're suggesting changing their strategy. This isn't anything like censorship.
themagician 9y ago
Nothing to do with limiting free speech. Quite the opposite. Instead of showing people only content that they agree with, with counts that reinforce the legitimacy of that content, you would show people everything that is popular and let them determine for themselves what they think about it. I’m not talking about removing the comments. I’m saying don’t show the count. If people want to read the comments they can.
- yAnonymous 9y ago
  Limiting free speech may not be your intention, but it's exactly what's going to happen when you remove transparency. We have a similar this situation in Germany right now. A private corporation designated by the government can delete Facebook posts as they see fit under the guise of hate speech. Facebook had to agree, because they'll be hit with fines if they don't. What should be controlled by law is now in the hands of a corporation and they are quietly removing content that is clearly not illegal. Removing transparency is a dream come true for corrupt institutions.

jakecopp 9y ago

I agree with you, but I'm sure they will never remove those metrics. You might like the extension Facebook Demetricator: http://bengrosser.com/projects/facebook-demetricator/ http://bengrosser.com/projects/facebook-demetricator/ Personally I block the entire news feed with uBlock Origin which has made my experience of Facebook tolerable.

themagician 9y ago
They will never do it because it’s those little numbers that give you your dopamine fix, and thus central to their revenue. Social media is a game and the score is whatever metric is shown. You want to most points for yourself and you only want to participate in popular content in the hopes it will earn you more points.
paulie_a 9y ago
How do you disable or block the "suggested" crap I am seriously considering a year without adblock and going out of my way to click as many ads as possible. Blocking is ineffective, it's time to fuck over the metrics
- jakecopp 9y ago
  Most ad blockers will let you select an ad to block, and depending on how specific the selector is it might block other occurrences. What you are thinking of exists: AdNauseam. It clicks on every single ad you see to disrupt the metrics. https://adnauseam.io/ https://adnauseam.io/

threeseed 9y ago

This makes absolutely no sense to me. For almost all stories you can work out its popularity just by the number of comments. And you can determine the comment count (-/+ an order of magnitude) just by scrolling through the comments. The accurate number isn't important for most people. None of this will prevent the dissemination of fake news. What will do is (a) not prioritising it and (b) detecting whether it's fake. Facebook just added solutions to do both.

themagician 9y ago
Remove the number of comments. People comment on stories with the most comments and usually reply to the first set of posts because they want their post to be seen, accelerating commenting in that thread. If you want to count comments fine. Most people won’t. FB actually makes this hard to do. Would be fascinating to even try it here on HN. If you hit all the integer counters it would dramatically change the way people use the site.
- threeseed 9y ago
  I just went to a popular article by the New York Times on Facebook. Just by scrolling down through the pages of comments I could determine that it was likely to be a popular article. Go ahead remove the number of comments. It won't solve the problem Facebook is trying to solve.
  - themagician 9y ago
    Yeah, but you actually had to do that. You didn’t get to just look at the headline and see how many people agreed with it before you even read it. You would, of course, have to combine this with not just showing it to people who already hold those opinions.
DrScump 9y ago
you can work out its popularity just by the number of comments Popularity, yes. Accuracy, no.

yAnonymous 9y ago

If you really want to fight the root of the problem, it's not likes and comments, but education. Should we censor social media, because people are too stupid to deal with it? I don't think so and if you do, you're playing in the hands of corporations who want a cheap work force. Your "solution" isn't a solution, but a hot fix that will cause more damage in the future. It's exactly the shortsighted crap politics are trying to do right now to get immediate results.

y0ghur7_xxx 9y ago
> If you really want to fight the root of the problem, it's not likes and comments, but education. I agree, but it's impossible to educate everyone on any subject. I think in this case, people who are experts in the matter, should give a reputation rating on the article. That would be really great. For example, I am no expert in theoretical physics, but I may enjoy an article about it, but how do I know it's not a bunch of bullshit I am reading? If I see that Stephen Hawking gave it a 5 star reputable source rating, I "know" I can believe it.
- pizza234 9y ago
  > I agree, but it's impossible to educate everyone on any subject. Critical thinking is universal though. It's not a necessity to have a solid judgment of a piece. "Critical abstention" is a possibility, and primarily formal analysis is another (eg. search for common communication red flags). I don't think that the parent idea of removing likes and counts is realistic (in any imaginary scenario I can think of).
  - SmellyGeekBoy 9y ago
    > Critical thinking is universal I'm assuming you don't spend a lot of time on Facebook?
    - yAnonymous 9y ago
      I'm assuming you do. Otherwise you would have understood the comment.

RealGeek 9y ago

There is no likes and views count on Whatsapp, but the fake news problem is much worse on Whatsapp than Facebook and YouTube.

lawlessone 9y ago
Can you explain this? maybe it's because of the filter bubble i live in but i almost never see this on whatsapp (then again, maybe i wouldn't know if i had.)
- sanmon3186 9y ago
  The fact that Facebook walls are visible to everyone, any controversial topic usually gets reaction from both sides. Whatsapp groups are formed based on likemindedness (I am excluding core family and friends). I call these groups echo-pipes which silently form a larger echo chamber.
  - walterbell 9y ago
    Are these public groups? How are they discovered?
    - knight17 9y ago
      WhatsApp groups are not discoverable (or publicly listed) unless someone invites you or provides you with a specific invite link with which you can join the group.
gt_ 9y ago
As someone who hasn’t used WhatsApp, I am surprised and curious about this. Any other experiences or information would be much appreciated.

7granddad 9y ago

I think an interesting way Facebook could approach determining credibility would be by having users bet (betting with some made up points instead of real money). Since this forces readers to speculate, it would encourage critically reading the articles. I think a betting system would push Facebook less in the direction of an echo-chamber. The difficulty with applying a betting system is that it still doesn't tell you whether the information is true, thus bets can't be evaluated.

0x445442 9y ago
I like the idea in principle but betting, real money or not, relies on agreed upon, objective results/outcomes. There in lies the problem; who's going to be the arbiter of truth? However, it seems possible to get further along than we are now by creating betting pools/markets where the participants do agree on a set of sources for information. Actually, I've thought along these lines before rather indirectly by theorizing that the WSJ was probably the most non-partisan source of "news" because most of it's clientele demanded such due to their participation in the markets. But I realize that's highly speculative.

paulsutter 9y ago

Are you talking about yourself or other people? My Facebook feed is mostly personal updates about hundreds of people I have met, and it feels like the most democratic media I’ve ever seen. It improved a lot when I unfollowed the handful of people who post junk like sportsball. Are you assuming the faceless masses are exposed to some unimaginable horror that you aren’t seeing? Or tell us more about the horrors you do see.

tbirrell 9y ago
It's more like, letting users "legitimize" news is how you get bots screwing with everything. It may not be a problem for some, including myself since my feed is similar to how you describe yours, but network waide, it will pose an issue.
- paulsutter 9y ago
  So, your feed seems fine, my feed seems fine, but somehow the electorate at large is subject to mass mind manipulations by bots?
  - tbirrell 9y ago
    As a technologically literate individual who takes pains to protect myself online, yes, my feed is inherently more "fine" then the general population.
wu-ikkyu 9y ago
>feels like the most democratic media I’ve ever seen. The Democrats thought the same thing too, before Trump won the election. Perhaps you are falling victim to a filter bubble confirmation bias? A democracy implies independent national sovereignty. When anyone (govt, corp, or rogue hackers) across the world can effectively manipulate your elections at scale, sovereign democracy is no longer a thing.
- paulsutter 9y ago
  A $100,000 ad campaign overpowered the dems $1.4B budget? The DNC should hire those guys! They're political geniuses!

kristiandupont 9y ago

They already stopped the first "fake news" label experiment because it simply caused people to click on it more. I think that's the core problem: people don't really want to know if something is legitimate or not, they want controversial stuff and if it's labeled as fake, they simply want to see it and decide for themselves anyway. And, I'm sure, when something goes against your beliefs, you will take that fake label as proof that people don't want to believe/the system is trying to brainwash you.

deadfish 9y ago

Surely the problem is the lack of a dislike button? I wonder if Reddit has as much fake news as Facebook?

Erik816 9y ago
Probably less completely ridiculous stories, but it does tend towards groupthink. Popularity is not a great gauge for truth.
zeveb 9y ago
> I wonder if Reddit has as much fake news as Facebook? I think that /r/politics, /r/shitredditsays & /r/The_Donald might count.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

CandidlyFake 9y ago

> This is the opposite of what they should have done. Shows just how much of an echo-chamber Facebook has become. News itself is an echo chamber. Don't see how that is facebook's fault. The reason news is toxic isn't facebook. It's foxnews, nytimes, wapo and the entire media industry. Not sure why you think "like" buttons would change that. The news echo chamber existed before facebook. It existed for zuckerburg was born. It'll exist long after facebook is gone. The only solution is for facebook to ban news entirely from facebook. But then the news industry would get very upset.