4 ms·

The trouble lies in two places: "When there is false information but the the poster is not trying to mislead anyone, that's just someone on the internet being

The trouble lies in two places: "When there is false information but the the poster is not trying to mislead anyone, that's just someone on the internet being wrong, and there is no Facebook policy against it." In and of itself, being wrong is not a problem. You can be thwarted by debate and evidence. However, it's much easier to spread a lie than to effectively repute one, so this gets out of hand very quickly. "This is why Facebook concentrates most of its efforts on the last category, when someone spreads lies with the explicit intention to mislead." The trouble is that most of the second category is actually the third category. Just because the lies are coming from random people, your uncle Joe, or some innocent organization sowing dissent in the US and secretly run by a Russian, and just because they don't say, "This is what you should believe so that the world can be run by neofascist forces", doesn't mean that the intent isn't to mislead. Any attempt to spread lies and falsehoods via the common viral video or meme styles IS an attempt to willfully spread lies. To assume that much of this isn't willful is naive. Leaving it to Facebook to decide what's intended to mislead has not been working. The solution is not to trust anything you see on Facebook or to leave the platform entirely.

macintux 8y ago
> The solution is not to trust anything you see on Facebook or to leave the platform entirely. Unfortunately neither does much good individually, because the real harm comes from the widespread acceptance of the lies.
- Someguywhatever 8y ago
  Who gets to decide what are lies? Makes me think of this saying: "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."
  - JacobJans 8y ago
    > "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." And yet, there are so many instances where their is no ambiguity about the lies. They are simply bald-faced lies, and there is no doubt that they are indeed lies. And Facebook is quite aware that they are lies. And those lies get very widespread distribution on their platform. And those lies have real political consequences. In the land of the deceived, Facebook is king. (And those who are good at spreading lies on their platform.)
    - roenxi 8y ago
      > And yet, there are so many instances where their is no ambiguity about the lies. I suspect everyone can agree there are instances where there is no ambiguity about what is a lie and what is truth. But it seems unlikely that there is any consensus on which instances these are, or what the truth is. If there is consensus, then almost by definition censorship is not needed, because all the though leaders can identify the lie easily. The argument in favour of moderation is to build a specific type of community, not to establish truth. The hope is that people will vote with their feet and move to communities that favour the truth.
      - macintux 8y ago
        > The hope is that people will vote with their feet and move to communities that favour the truth. People will move to communities that favor their truth, I suspect. Same reason they typically watch the news stations that reflect their biases.
    - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
      I'd be careful in immediately dismissing a new user. It's convenient to make a statement into a boolean true|false. However, as we have learned many statements, especially in the political arena, are truths mixed with false premises, out-of-context quotes, partial quotes, and much more. Snopes and Politifact try to provide accurate in-between answers.. But yet, the damage was done. And whom plays "truthmaker", Someguywhatever asked? Facebook? Google? Apple? Or the lord of some other fiefdom? Do we trust them? Do we have any other choice? Or what happens when LGBT supporters say that lifestyle is perfectly normal; and Christians and Moslems have significant issue with that. Is that a lie? Truth? Fake News? What should social media orgs do about this? All I can suggest, is wait and see before making rash horrible laws that will harm us worse than this crisis. There may be a clearer law that can be applied later on, with more research. (I've found that rash laws are almost never amended - DMCA, CFAA, et cetera)
  - SiempreViernes 8y ago
    Oh man, if only this argument worked on segfaults! "Shut up kernel, who are you to decide if that memory has been free'd? Just run the code as I meant it damn it!"
  - firemancoder 8y ago
    Yep and also, who gets to decide which opinion is correct?
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
  Herd immunity?
  - pas 8y ago
    I'd say it's a tad too late for that.

macintux 8y ago

> The solution is not to trust anything you see on Facebook or to leave the platform entirely. Unfortunately neither does much good individually, because the real harm comes from the widespread acceptance of the lies.

Someguywhatever 8y ago
Who gets to decide what are lies? Makes me think of this saying: "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."
- JacobJans 8y ago
  > "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." And yet, there are so many instances where their is no ambiguity about the lies. They are simply bald-faced lies, and there is no doubt that they are indeed lies. And Facebook is quite aware that they are lies. And those lies get very widespread distribution on their platform. And those lies have real political consequences. In the land of the deceived, Facebook is king. (And those who are good at spreading lies on their platform.)
  - roenxi 8y ago
    > And yet, there are so many instances where their is no ambiguity about the lies. I suspect everyone can agree there are instances where there is no ambiguity about what is a lie and what is truth. But it seems unlikely that there is any consensus on which instances these are, or what the truth is. If there is consensus, then almost by definition censorship is not needed, because all the though leaders can identify the lie easily. The argument in favour of moderation is to build a specific type of community, not to establish truth. The hope is that people will vote with their feet and move to communities that favour the truth.
    - macintux 8y ago
      > The hope is that people will vote with their feet and move to communities that favour the truth. People will move to communities that favor their truth, I suspect. Same reason they typically watch the news stations that reflect their biases.
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    I'd be careful in immediately dismissing a new user. It's convenient to make a statement into a boolean true|false. However, as we have learned many statements, especially in the political arena, are truths mixed with false premises, out-of-context quotes, partial quotes, and much more. Snopes and Politifact try to provide accurate in-between answers.. But yet, the damage was done. And whom plays "truthmaker", Someguywhatever asked? Facebook? Google? Apple? Or the lord of some other fiefdom? Do we trust them? Do we have any other choice? Or what happens when LGBT supporters say that lifestyle is perfectly normal; and Christians and Moslems have significant issue with that. Is that a lie? Truth? Fake News? What should social media orgs do about this? All I can suggest, is wait and see before making rash horrible laws that will harm us worse than this crisis. There may be a clearer law that can be applied later on, with more research. (I've found that rash laws are almost never amended - DMCA, CFAA, et cetera)
- SiempreViernes 8y ago
  Oh man, if only this argument worked on segfaults! "Shut up kernel, who are you to decide if that memory has been free'd? Just run the code as I meant it damn it!"
- firemancoder 8y ago
  Yep and also, who gets to decide which opinion is correct?
yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
Herd immunity?
- pas 8y ago
  I'd say it's a tad too late for that.