10 ms·

This is exactly what countless people on Hacker News ("why can't Facebook have some sense of the trustworthiness of a news source") have been demanding for year

This is exactly what countless people on Hacker News ("why can't Facebook have some sense of the trustworthiness of a news source") have been demanding for years. I'm sure we will now hear complaints that Facebook shouldn't be choosing which sources are trustworthy.

mtgx 8y ago
Was that really the consensus? I got the impression it was the opposite. "Fake news" can be used as an excuse to censor certain stories or publications. The problem was created in the first place by Facebook deciding which stories to rank higher, instead of giving people the stories and posts in chronological order. But it did that very poorly and in a way that could be easily manipulated. Now they're trying to "fix" that by exerting even more control over the stories - in other words, doubling down on the thing that hasn't worked. The article already makes me worried about their plans. I've seen some stories recently say that many Trump supporters, for instance, have a tendency to "trust" fake news sources. So according to Facebook's plans, those fake news sources may actually become "trusted" on the platform now, because many people trust them. Alternatively, just like YouTube, Facebook may "curate" the landscape so much, that only "non-offensive" stories will ever be shown on the platform.
na85 8y ago
My complaint is that Facebook itself is untrustworthy.
- mesozoic 8y ago
  Bingo!
creaghpatr 8y ago
Close, we’ll hear complaints that untrustworthy users are skewing the scores of trustworthy organizations. Naturally, this will lead to rating user trustworthiness, and filtering untrustworthy people and their untrustworthy views out of your newsfeed.
thaumaturgy 8y ago
That might be because there is more than one person the internet, and people sometimes disagree. And Facebook doesn't need to do the choosing; they could use a mix of independent, non-partisan rankings of news sources (example: http://www.allgeneralizationsarefalse.com/the-chart-version-3-0-what-exactly-are-we-reading/ http://www.allgeneralizationsarefalse.com/the-chart-version-...). To be clear, I don't think they'll do that, but they could.
forgottenpass 8y ago
> This is exactly what countless people on Hacker News [...] have been demanding for years. And plenty of us thought it was stupid back then, too.
scj 8y ago
I want a feature on Facebook that says "avoid putting anything on my feed that has been seen by 10k+ people." That would likely include all news.
rightbyte 8y ago
Well, opaque algorithmic censorship might be the worst one. The algorithm will probably "nerf" small papers with insufficient data and boost big ones. Papers that are controversial in some political camp will get flags and instead people will get food articles and CNN/ABC/Fox etc. I liked Facebook's old "show stuff in order" (pre 2011?) way more.

mtgx 8y ago

Was that really the consensus? I got the impression it was the opposite. "Fake news" can be used as an excuse to censor certain stories or publications. The problem was created in the first place by Facebook deciding which stories to rank higher, instead of giving people the stories and posts in chronological order. But it did that very poorly and in a way that could be easily manipulated. Now they're trying to "fix" that by exerting even more control over the stories - in other words, doubling down on the thing that hasn't worked. The article already makes me worried about their plans. I've seen some stories recently say that many Trump supporters, for instance, have a tendency to "trust" fake news sources. So according to Facebook's plans, those fake news sources may actually become "trusted" on the platform now, because many people trust them. Alternatively, just like YouTube, Facebook may "curate" the landscape so much, that only "non-offensive" stories will ever be shown on the platform.

na85 8y ago

My complaint is that Facebook itself is untrustworthy.

mesozoic 8y ago
Bingo!

creaghpatr 8y ago

Close, we’ll hear complaints that untrustworthy users are skewing the scores of trustworthy organizations. Naturally, this will lead to rating user trustworthiness, and filtering untrustworthy people and their untrustworthy views out of your newsfeed.

thaumaturgy 8y ago

That might be because there is more than one person the internet, and people sometimes disagree. And Facebook doesn't need to do the choosing; they could use a mix of independent, non-partisan rankings of news sources (example: http://www.allgeneralizationsarefalse.com/the-chart-version-3-0-what-exactly-are-we-reading/ http://www.allgeneralizationsarefalse.com/the-chart-version-...). To be clear, I don't think they'll do that, but they could.

forgottenpass 8y ago

> This is exactly what countless people on Hacker News [...] have been demanding for years. And plenty of us thought it was stupid back then, too.

scj 8y ago

I want a feature on Facebook that says "avoid putting anything on my feed that has been seen by 10k+ people." That would likely include all news.

rightbyte 8y ago

Well, opaque algorithmic censorship might be the worst one. The algorithm will probably "nerf" small papers with insufficient data and boost big ones. Papers that are controversial in some political camp will get flags and instead people will get food articles and CNN/ABC/Fox etc. I liked Facebook's old "show stuff in order" (pre 2011?) way more.