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Facebook has a lot to answer for. The internet was supposed to be a new human enlightenment by enabling professionals to remotely connect. We didn't bank on the

Facebook has a lot to answer for. The internet was supposed to be a new human enlightenment by enabling professionals to remotely connect. We didn't bank on the ability of idiots to connect too...

tibbydudeza 8y ago
Well you can't blame them for the sheer stupidity and idiocy that is now celebrated in our culture today.
lotsofpulp 8y ago
Facebook has nothing to answer for, unless you think facilitating communication with others endows them with the responsibility to monitor and police all communications.
- hackerbabz 8y ago
  They created a product that is making the world worse. I want them to answer for that just like I want cigarette and oil companies to answer for their products that make the world worse.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    They created a product which allows people to stay in touch and communicate and organize with others. I can fix things with a screwdriver, or I can hurt someone. I can run over someone with a car, or I can use it to go to work. Things have pros and cons, and when the cons outweigh the pros perhaps action must be taken. But in this case, the people spreading the disinformation are to blame.
    - Broken_Hippo 8y ago
      But this isn't like that. This is like seeing a road hazard that will hurt other people, but instead of doing anything about it - not even calling someone else to take care of it - you just ignore it and drive the other way. Seriously, they will punish an account for a nipple and do it even faster for frontal nudity, and it doesn't matter how tasteful the art is. They refuse adverts if they show "too much skin" (uncovered shoulders hinting at possible nudity). I'm pretty sure they can take these sorts of posts and pages down - or at least work towards taking them down.
      - lotsofpulp 8y ago
        That’s their perogative for doing what’s good for their ad business. The real responsibility is with holding our leaders responsible for promoting the funding, transparency, and credibility of organizations such as the FDA and CDC, and educating people in the scientific method in general. Instead we elect people who demean the very scientists working hard to protect our society.
        Broken_Hippo 8y ago
        Now, I do agree that part of the responsibility is holding our leaders responsible, and it saddens me that we elect in such a way. This doesn't excuse facebook, however. This isn't just their ad business I'm speaking of - I was merely pointing out that suggestive paintings are too much. Pointing out they punish artists that paint tasteful nudes. Historical photos are a grey area, and it has taken heads of states speaking out for those to be reinstated. These are merely normal people's posts. Yet allowing posts that harm others and entire groups that do the same? Yup, allowed. Because they choose to allow such posts, they share responsibility. They choose to turn a blind eye to anti-vax groups and the like.
        _Schizotypy 8y ago
        This is interesting to me, historical semi nude portraits are okay but recent ones are not? So old things are accepting? What does age matter, I don't see it making that much of a difference in reality
        Broken_Hippo 8y ago
        Soemtimes historical semi-nudes are OK, and sometimes new ones are. Sometimes, however, they are not. Folks have a lot of trouble trying to tell what will get them kicked from facebook. As far as photos are concerned, age and "famous" do, indeed, matter. The "napalm girl" picture was banned for nudity - even when a head of state sent it out. Facebook said it would allow "historically important" works, but it still lies in a grey area. I highly doubt a new work of equal cultural importance could be posted today.
- AnthonBerg 8y ago
  I see a moral obligation that they use part of the shit ton of money they made to help solve the problems. Endowing them with policing responsibility is a false dilemma. There are other things to do: It’s a question of education, not policing.
  - lotsofpulp 8y ago
    Educating the public isn’t Facebook’s job, that’s the government’s job (and by proxy, our job as voters and members of society) to ensure we educate our children and neighbors and promote research. Unfortunately, it seems that people aren’t capable properly of wielding the power democracy gives them.
    - AnthonBerg 8y ago
      It’s kind of hard to claim that something is some entity’s job, or not. It is “not their job” as in it is unreasonable to expect Facebook to start educating its users out of the blue. However, it’s easy to argue that it’s better for Facebook’s bottom line in many respects if their user base is more effective at navigating life and surviving. And also, it can be made their job if we so desire.
  - Gatsky 8y ago
    Yes. Society lets corps get away with blue murder. We let them make huge amounts of money, at our expense: Tobacco companies Weapon makers Oil companies And they all sponsor powerful lobbies to screw up things even more, which we also allow. The EU fines google for the order that links appear on a page, but they let tobacco companies kill people at our expense free of charge.
  - raxxorrax 8y ago
    In a way, that is still shooting the messenger. Or the messengers car to be more exact. Facebook just mirrors society at large. At least those parts, that would use it in such a way in the first place. Unfortunately, I don't think moral obligations apply to our current economic system.
- nobatron 8y ago
  They allow ads targetted towards people with antivax and other conspiracy beliefs. I think they're looking to change this but they definitely aren't innocent in this. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/15/facebook-anti-vaccination-advertising-targeting-controversy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/15/facebook-...
maze-le 8y ago
Its a structural problem, not necessary facebooks -- if it werent for facebook, the idiots would congregate somewhere else to spread their lies. What is missing is an education in epistemology for a broad audience regardless of education level -- the ability to categorize and weight the value of knowledge and sources.
- unionpivo 8y ago
  More/better education is always good. But there will always be idiots. Look at flat earth believers (although i have hard time believing they are not just trolls). They used to be small groups of them all over the world, and they didn't do too much damage. What social media has done is amplified their voice, giving them look of legitimacy.
  - ben_w 8y ago
    Flat Earthers used to be a joke/insult, now it’s a serious example of how the internet has developed not necessarily to our advantage.
  - maze-le 8y ago
    Not only social media I might add. Traditional media also has a role to play here. They are generally more critical of these types of groups, but they also seek ever more ridiculous stories to tell, in order to get an audience -- so even a story that questions the theories of these groups but reports them as "one view among others" is problematic. It is the structure of our media/advertising landscape that keeps nuanced but true views below the average interest and and amplifies outrageous crap, since it generates clicks and eyeballs.
  - AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
    Flat earthers are trolls, but they are very useful trolls. They give kids great examples of things like falsifiability and scientific method.
    - simonh 8y ago
saagarjha 8y ago
Facebook has certain been a vehicle for the spread of misinformation, but I'm not completely sure that they should answer for it. Having Facebook control what information is "true" sounds awfully dystopian.
- krapp 8y ago
  >Having Facebook control what information is "true" sounds awfully dystopian. But that's exactly what Facebook already does. How would attempting to minimize the spread of disinformation be any more dystopian than optimizing it for maximum utility? For that matter, why, in these threads, is it only ever a slippery slope to attempt to counter misinformation, but never such to let it spread unchecked and be weaponized by any interest capable of doing so? Facebook never was, nor ever claimed to be, a neutral arbiter. Their entire business model depends on distorting the truth, which arguably implies some degree of social responsibility on their part.
- dpq 8y ago
  Choose your poison then. Either we let idiots run loose and we are definitely screwed, or we empower some individuals and companies to control and govern communications etc, and then MAYBE we're screwed if we pick the wrong ones.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    Can we perhaps come up with solutions in which we have fewer idiots, or have barriers against the rapid spread of unverifiable information in general?
    - dpq 8y ago
      > solutions in which we have fewer idiots Not unless you are willing to avadakedavra them all, and this avenue is also wide open for abuse, as you may imagine
      - saagarjha 8y ago
headmelted 8y ago
It astonishes me still how much of a free ride Google gets. The public consciousness of Facebook now is such that they're viewed as a pretty malevolent entity in general, but no-one questions the harm that Google's ranking algorithms have done to society. Most people still believe that when they type a search into Google they're asking for objective results on a topic. (What it actually shows is the results it thinks the person asking the question wants to see, which is wildly different person-to-person, but presented as objective truth to the user). This audience knows that because we're deep in the industry, but Joe Public has no idea that Google works this way. Of course he thinks his own crazy ideas are true and shared by the majority. Google told him so (as he sees it).
- krapp 8y ago
  >The public consciousness of Facebook now is such that they're viewed as a pretty malevolent entity in general The general public doesn't consider Facebook as being even remotely malevolent. I think you're confusing the views within the HN/tech bubble for the mainstream.
  - headmelted 8y ago
    I disagree, but the best evidence I can find falls somewhere in the middle: https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976328/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-pollster-tavis-mcginn-honest-data https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976328/facebook-mark-zuc... Facebook hired a pollster to survey opinion about them. 32% of respondents in one survey said they're harming society, while only 7% said the same of Google. I would suggest this difference is largely because the public doesn't understand how Google works, and believe it is as described above.
- tuxxy 8y ago
  I would put money on the outcome of some research (with "harm" being well defined) that Facebook has caused more harm than Google's ranking algorithms. Facebook has constructed a business model on captivating people to spend _as much time as possible_ on their site. Google's search engine does no such thing.
ckastner 8y ago
> We didn't bank on the ability of idiots to connect too... The downside of this connecting is not "just" idiots, it's the creation of echo chambers in general. Pre-Facebook social circles only had the capability to form echo chambers when they reached a certain size, something that was greatly inhibited by the reality of the physical world. Today, even the most irrational minds can meet and reinforce each other's beliefs without any effort at all, beyond a few mouseclicks. Idiots are just a subset of the problem. The actual problem is people in general just having their misconceived notions reinforced, rather than having them challenged. It's the opposite of intellectual growth. IMO, Twitter is even worse in this regard.
- dmos62 8y ago
  Chomsky argued that the medium of television (this was in the pre-internet era) frames any discussion held within it on the outset, because, on it, noone can present an argument longer than 5 minutes, due to logistic reasons, which is insufficient for someone to form an adequate opinion about, and certainly insufficient to change someone's mind. In effect, he was saying that television was an echo chamber, because you'll just end up hearing what you like, all the debates being castrated of the ability to change your mind. 5 minutes. What is the twitter message character limit again?
  - asdff 8y ago
    This is on the nose. Even a 5 minute article is too much work, people would rather read a viral twitter screenshot or watch a talking head on youtube read that screenshot back to them.
  - tomjen3 8y ago
    Irrelevant. Most posts on blogs are much longer, and some of the most listened to podcasts are hours long.
    - dmos62 8y ago
      This is a critique of "short-form" mediums, like TV, Twitter, Facebook, etc. This is, of course, not a critique of blogs or podcasts (or books, or essays, etc.)
sarcasmOrTears 8y ago
Why people should trust pharma companies considering all the scandals and dick moves? I think we just lost patience and antivaxxers are kinda over-reacting. This is not a problem with misinformation, it's a problem with trust. Patients are always disinformed and act when disinformed wheter they choose to vaccinate or not. Creating and mantaining trust therefore is the main issue. Edit: gonna specify that I'm in favor of vaccines otherwise some won't read the message and think this is an anti-vaxx post
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > Why people should trust pharma companies considering all the scandals and dick moves? We shouldn’t! We should trust a medicine once they’ve published peer-reviewed papers, cleared multiple national efficiency and safety clinical trial standards, been universally recognised by medical professionals as a prudent personal and publish health measure and can look back on decades of evidence that pretty much points one way. When parents can’t weigh that evidence against some hocus pocus sense of unease, they should be liable for the costs of their decisions.
  - sarcasmOrTears 8y ago
    People don't have the tools or the time to understand all this stuff. It's all about trust, good reputation. The only way governments and pharmas have been able to deal with loss of reputation is by trying to ridicule worried people, or persecuting them for a choice. Of course this is only making things worse.
    - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
      > People don't have the tools or the time to understand all this stuff Which is why we delegate that trust to experts. There are many such experts. Take your pick among your government, other governments, pharmaceutical companies, your doctor, anyone else’s doctor, immunologists, or any scientist with domain expertise. They all come to the same consensus. What doesn’t make sense is distrusting all of them while trusting Internet numpties peddling supplements.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
chopin 8y ago
I had a chuckle and generally I agree with you. However I see as part of the problem that trust in experts has eroded caused by... those experts themselves. There are many accounts of matter experts turning out to be shills for a certain industry which did harm to public up to upright killing people. Look at the opioid crisis or the latest development with Boeing. How would a layperson distinguish between honest and dishonest statements?
- geggam 8y ago
  Like to upvote this infinity+ Trust is gone and fear is dispensed as a culture.
azernik 8y ago
This is the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where people aren't on the internet so much. Lots of this same misinformation is instead being distributed by print: http://gothamist.com/2019/03/26/orthodox_jewish_nurses_vaccines.php http://gothamist.com/2019/03/26/orthodox_jewish_nurses_vacci... The publications are funded by these bozos: https://www.nvic.org https://www.nvic.org
intended 8y ago
No one knew what they are doing - remember “wisdom of the crowds”? Cynics and other cultures thought this was a pipe dream. But man, did it work at the start. We all had hopes for the future. And for that bright moment, we do have the Silicon Valley of yore to thank. However, what’s not forgiveable is staying in the dark and not adapting. Especially if you land up on HN, Where pivot is a verb, mantra and well respected course of action. ———— Here’s what i postulate - Any sufficiently large network is a proxy for the underlying state of the population. At humanity scale this means that commerce is optimized, but then this (through attention farming) exacerbates human fault lines. It means that anonymity will always be misused by criminals and revolutionaries. As a result, there will always be a centralizing tendency that begins to apply on large networks. Only small inconsequential networks can avoid this. (Central tendency as in - government oversight and force to order chaotic activity online,) Any tool built must always play on this divide - increasing transparency and central control vs increasing anonymity and increasing the are of illegal behavior. —————- Most of this would be solved if print media were still a viable business. We generate tons of data, and content, sifting through it is impossible. But teams of editors and reliable news papers could once upon a time, do that. However it seems the information industry is suited for centralized, agenda dominated firms.
- imglorp 8y ago
  There's very much an individual aspect here--identifying with and following the various tribes. We are literally witnessing a self-selecting Darwin event here. The vaccinated tribes will live longer than the unvaccinated ones.
  - gowld 8y ago
    That faux science helps no one. As bad as communicable diseases are, anti vax segments won't wipe out the whole population. And these "tribes" are flexible since they are based in psychology not firm genetics. They aren't fish who die when the lake dries up.
    - imglorp 8y ago
burgerboy 8y ago
Just like murder is the fault of the sword right?
jquery 8y ago
This is occurring mainly because of an offline distribution in the Orthodox Jewish community[1], if this source is correct. Facebook has nothing to answer for when people are hand-distributing a pamphlet, and overworked doctors refuse to talk to mothers concerned about vaccines. Coming down hard on communities (via laws about what can be discussed online) can backfire, the cure is sometimes worse than the disease, and yes, people will die if you don’t crack down, but that’s the price of freedom of speech and association. Why are you blaming Facebook instead of Orthodox Judaism? Because they are an easier or bigger target? And what happens when the “do-gooders” get a taste of power and start cracking down on other talk they don’t like? Be careful wishing for the secular equivalent of blasphemy laws! The slippery slope may be a logical fallacy but it’s often a good rule of thumb for reasoning about hard topics. Proceed with caution. http://gothamist.com/2019/03/26/orthodox_jewish_nurses_vaccines.php http://gothamist.com/2019/03/26/orthodox_jewish_nurses_vacci...
threatofrain 8y ago
If people think I can destroy citizens' voting power and their ability to think and make them endanger kids because of things people voluntarily share over Facebook, what do we say about how much we respect that vote and voter? And what are we saying about what we think Facebook's role should be in this, potentially as a guardian against our destructive and irresistible instincts? People, both as individuals and communities, also need to have some responsibility over their own willpower, their own souls, their own minds, their own clarity, their own grasp, their own sense of reality. Or else how do we believe in the true heart of democracy -- the citizen and their worthy mind, a mind of ideas worthy of community negotiation and leadership? Somewhere else people are condemning Google for not showing people the objective truth, and instead giving you what you want to search. Like it's Google's responsibility to regulate you against your own risk for delusion. If people think citizens are that weak then how do you trust the value of their intellect? Are voters one Facebook network away from losing their trustworthiness as citizens in a democracy?
Spooky23 8y ago
It does, but not in this case. Rockland county is home to a large ultra-conservative religious community that is extremely insular and uses local scale to control the civil institutions of their local government. (Village, school district, etc) Members of the community have limited access to outside media and certainly not Facebook. In this case, the leaders of the communita took a stance for reasons I do not know. Sheep do what the shepards want.
baybal2 8y ago
> Facebook has a lot to answer for. The internet was supposed to be a new human enlightenment by enabling professionals to remotely connect. We didn't bank on the ability of idiots to connect too... Cheap printing presses were a wonderful idea, but just one of first major application happened was printing books about the "jew/catholic/arab burning."
cpr 8y ago
...where "idiots" here means "people who aren't as enlightened as we are." C'mon, if you go with an open mind into the serious problems with vaccination safety, you come away with serious questions. As least I do, and I'm part of the usual Ivy-educated CS crowd around here...

Facebook has a lot to answer for. The internet was supposed to be a new human enlightenment by enabling professionals to remotely connect. We didn't bank on the ability of idiots to connect too...

tibbydudeza 8y ago

Well you can't blame them for the sheer stupidity and idiocy that is now celebrated in our culture today.

lotsofpulp 8y ago

Facebook has nothing to answer for, unless you think facilitating communication with others endows them with the responsibility to monitor and police all communications.

hackerbabz 8y ago
They created a product that is making the world worse. I want them to answer for that just like I want cigarette and oil companies to answer for their products that make the world worse.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  They created a product which allows people to stay in touch and communicate and organize with others. I can fix things with a screwdriver, or I can hurt someone. I can run over someone with a car, or I can use it to go to work. Things have pros and cons, and when the cons outweigh the pros perhaps action must be taken. But in this case, the people spreading the disinformation are to blame.
  - Broken_Hippo 8y ago
    But this isn't like that. This is like seeing a road hazard that will hurt other people, but instead of doing anything about it - not even calling someone else to take care of it - you just ignore it and drive the other way. Seriously, they will punish an account for a nipple and do it even faster for frontal nudity, and it doesn't matter how tasteful the art is. They refuse adverts if they show "too much skin" (uncovered shoulders hinting at possible nudity). I'm pretty sure they can take these sorts of posts and pages down - or at least work towards taking them down.
    - lotsofpulp 8y ago
      That’s their perogative for doing what’s good for their ad business. The real responsibility is with holding our leaders responsible for promoting the funding, transparency, and credibility of organizations such as the FDA and CDC, and educating people in the scientific method in general. Instead we elect people who demean the very scientists working hard to protect our society.
      - Broken_Hippo 8y ago
        Now, I do agree that part of the responsibility is holding our leaders responsible, and it saddens me that we elect in such a way. This doesn't excuse facebook, however. This isn't just their ad business I'm speaking of - I was merely pointing out that suggestive paintings are too much. Pointing out they punish artists that paint tasteful nudes. Historical photos are a grey area, and it has taken heads of states speaking out for those to be reinstated. These are merely normal people's posts. Yet allowing posts that harm others and entire groups that do the same? Yup, allowed. Because they choose to allow such posts, they share responsibility. They choose to turn a blind eye to anti-vax groups and the like.
        _Schizotypy 8y ago
        This is interesting to me, historical semi nude portraits are okay but recent ones are not? So old things are accepting? What does age matter, I don't see it making that much of a difference in reality
        Broken_Hippo 8y ago
        Soemtimes historical semi-nudes are OK, and sometimes new ones are. Sometimes, however, they are not. Folks have a lot of trouble trying to tell what will get them kicked from facebook. As far as photos are concerned, age and "famous" do, indeed, matter. The "napalm girl" picture was banned for nudity - even when a head of state sent it out. Facebook said it would allow "historically important" works, but it still lies in a grey area. I highly doubt a new work of equal cultural importance could be posted today.
AnthonBerg 8y ago
I see a moral obligation that they use part of the shit ton of money they made to help solve the problems. Endowing them with policing responsibility is a false dilemma. There are other things to do: It’s a question of education, not policing.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  Educating the public isn’t Facebook’s job, that’s the government’s job (and by proxy, our job as voters and members of society) to ensure we educate our children and neighbors and promote research. Unfortunately, it seems that people aren’t capable properly of wielding the power democracy gives them.
  - AnthonBerg 8y ago
    It’s kind of hard to claim that something is some entity’s job, or not. It is “not their job” as in it is unreasonable to expect Facebook to start educating its users out of the blue. However, it’s easy to argue that it’s better for Facebook’s bottom line in many respects if their user base is more effective at navigating life and surviving. And also, it can be made their job if we so desire.
- Gatsky 8y ago
  Yes. Society lets corps get away with blue murder. We let them make huge amounts of money, at our expense: Tobacco companies Weapon makers Oil companies And they all sponsor powerful lobbies to screw up things even more, which we also allow. The EU fines google for the order that links appear on a page, but they let tobacco companies kill people at our expense free of charge.
- raxxorrax 8y ago
  In a way, that is still shooting the messenger. Or the messengers car to be more exact. Facebook just mirrors society at large. At least those parts, that would use it in such a way in the first place. Unfortunately, I don't think moral obligations apply to our current economic system.
nobatron 8y ago
They allow ads targetted towards people with antivax and other conspiracy beliefs. I think they're looking to change this but they definitely aren't innocent in this. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/15/facebook-anti-vaccination-advertising-targeting-controversy https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/15/facebook-...

maze-le 8y ago

Its a structural problem, not necessary facebooks -- if it werent for facebook, the idiots would congregate somewhere else to spread their lies. What is missing is an education in epistemology for a broad audience regardless of education level -- the ability to categorize and weight the value of knowledge and sources.

unionpivo 8y ago
More/better education is always good. But there will always be idiots. Look at flat earth believers (although i have hard time believing they are not just trolls). They used to be small groups of them all over the world, and they didn't do too much damage. What social media has done is amplified their voice, giving them look of legitimacy.
- ben_w 8y ago
  Flat Earthers used to be a joke/insult, now it’s a serious example of how the internet has developed not necessarily to our advantage.
- maze-le 8y ago
  Not only social media I might add. Traditional media also has a role to play here. They are generally more critical of these types of groups, but they also seek ever more ridiculous stories to tell, in order to get an audience -- so even a story that questions the theories of these groups but reports them as "one view among others" is problematic. It is the structure of our media/advertising landscape that keeps nuanced but true views below the average interest and and amplifies outrageous crap, since it generates clicks and eyeballs.
- AlexTWithBeard 8y ago
  Flat earthers are trolls, but they are very useful trolls. They give kids great examples of things like falsifiability and scientific method.
  - simonh 8y ago

saagarjha 8y ago

Facebook has certain been a vehicle for the spread of misinformation, but I'm not completely sure that they should answer for it. Having Facebook control what information is "true" sounds awfully dystopian.

krapp 8y ago
>Having Facebook control what information is "true" sounds awfully dystopian. But that's exactly what Facebook already does. How would attempting to minimize the spread of disinformation be any more dystopian than optimizing it for maximum utility? For that matter, why, in these threads, is it only ever a slippery slope to attempt to counter misinformation, but never such to let it spread unchecked and be weaponized by any interest capable of doing so? Facebook never was, nor ever claimed to be, a neutral arbiter. Their entire business model depends on distorting the truth, which arguably implies some degree of social responsibility on their part.
dpq 8y ago
Choose your poison then. Either we let idiots run loose and we are definitely screwed, or we empower some individuals and companies to control and govern communications etc, and then MAYBE we're screwed if we pick the wrong ones.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Can we perhaps come up with solutions in which we have fewer idiots, or have barriers against the rapid spread of unverifiable information in general?
  - dpq 8y ago
    > solutions in which we have fewer idiots Not unless you are willing to avadakedavra them all, and this avenue is also wide open for abuse, as you may imagine
    - saagarjha 8y ago

headmelted 8y ago

It astonishes me still how much of a free ride Google gets. The public consciousness of Facebook now is such that they're viewed as a pretty malevolent entity in general, but no-one questions the harm that Google's ranking algorithms have done to society. Most people still believe that when they type a search into Google they're asking for objective results on a topic. (What it actually shows is the results it thinks the person asking the question wants to see, which is wildly different person-to-person, but presented as objective truth to the user). This audience knows that because we're deep in the industry, but Joe Public has no idea that Google works this way. Of course he thinks his own crazy ideas are true and shared by the majority. Google told him so (as he sees it).

krapp 8y ago
>The public consciousness of Facebook now is such that they're viewed as a pretty malevolent entity in general The general public doesn't consider Facebook as being even remotely malevolent. I think you're confusing the views within the HN/tech bubble for the mainstream.
- headmelted 8y ago
  I disagree, but the best evidence I can find falls somewhere in the middle: https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976328/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-pollster-tavis-mcginn-honest-data https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/6/16976328/facebook-mark-zuc... Facebook hired a pollster to survey opinion about them. 32% of respondents in one survey said they're harming society, while only 7% said the same of Google. I would suggest this difference is largely because the public doesn't understand how Google works, and believe it is as described above.
tuxxy 8y ago
I would put money on the outcome of some research (with "harm" being well defined) that Facebook has caused more harm than Google's ranking algorithms. Facebook has constructed a business model on captivating people to spend _as much time as possible_ on their site. Google's search engine does no such thing.

ckastner 8y ago

> We didn't bank on the ability of idiots to connect too... The downside of this connecting is not "just" idiots, it's the creation of echo chambers in general. Pre-Facebook social circles only had the capability to form echo chambers when they reached a certain size, something that was greatly inhibited by the reality of the physical world. Today, even the most irrational minds can meet and reinforce each other's beliefs without any effort at all, beyond a few mouseclicks. Idiots are just a subset of the problem. The actual problem is people in general just having their misconceived notions reinforced, rather than having them challenged. It's the opposite of intellectual growth. IMO, Twitter is even worse in this regard.

dmos62 8y ago
Chomsky argued that the medium of television (this was in the pre-internet era) frames any discussion held within it on the outset, because, on it, noone can present an argument longer than 5 minutes, due to logistic reasons, which is insufficient for someone to form an adequate opinion about, and certainly insufficient to change someone's mind. In effect, he was saying that television was an echo chamber, because you'll just end up hearing what you like, all the debates being castrated of the ability to change your mind. 5 minutes. What is the twitter message character limit again?
- asdff 8y ago
  This is on the nose. Even a 5 minute article is too much work, people would rather read a viral twitter screenshot or watch a talking head on youtube read that screenshot back to them.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  Irrelevant. Most posts on blogs are much longer, and some of the most listened to podcasts are hours long.
  - dmos62 8y ago
    This is a critique of "short-form" mediums, like TV, Twitter, Facebook, etc. This is, of course, not a critique of blogs or podcasts (or books, or essays, etc.)

sarcasmOrTears 8y ago

Why people should trust pharma companies considering all the scandals and dick moves? I think we just lost patience and antivaxxers are kinda over-reacting. This is not a problem with misinformation, it's a problem with trust. Patients are always disinformed and act when disinformed wheter they choose to vaccinate or not. Creating and mantaining trust therefore is the main issue. Edit: gonna specify that I'm in favor of vaccines otherwise some won't read the message and think this is an anti-vaxx post

JumpCrisscross 8y ago
> Why people should trust pharma companies considering all the scandals and dick moves? We shouldn’t! We should trust a medicine once they’ve published peer-reviewed papers, cleared multiple national efficiency and safety clinical trial standards, been universally recognised by medical professionals as a prudent personal and publish health measure and can look back on decades of evidence that pretty much points one way. When parents can’t weigh that evidence against some hocus pocus sense of unease, they should be liable for the costs of their decisions.
- sarcasmOrTears 8y ago
  People don't have the tools or the time to understand all this stuff. It's all about trust, good reputation. The only way governments and pharmas have been able to deal with loss of reputation is by trying to ridicule worried people, or persecuting them for a choice. Of course this is only making things worse.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > People don't have the tools or the time to understand all this stuff Which is why we delegate that trust to experts. There are many such experts. Take your pick among your government, other governments, pharmaceutical companies, your doctor, anyone else’s doctor, immunologists, or any scientist with domain expertise. They all come to the same consensus. What doesn’t make sense is distrusting all of them while trusting Internet numpties peddling supplements.

deleted 8y ago

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chopin 8y ago

I had a chuckle and generally I agree with you. However I see as part of the problem that trust in experts has eroded caused by... those experts themselves. There are many accounts of matter experts turning out to be shills for a certain industry which did harm to public up to upright killing people. Look at the opioid crisis or the latest development with Boeing. How would a layperson distinguish between honest and dishonest statements?

geggam 8y ago
Like to upvote this infinity+ Trust is gone and fear is dispensed as a culture.

azernik 8y ago

This is the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, where people aren't on the internet so much. Lots of this same misinformation is instead being distributed by print: http://gothamist.com/2019/03/26/orthodox_jewish_nurses_vaccines.php http://gothamist.com/2019/03/26/orthodox_jewish_nurses_vacci... The publications are funded by these bozos: https://www.nvic.org https://www.nvic.org

intended 8y ago

No one knew what they are doing - remember “wisdom of the crowds”? Cynics and other cultures thought this was a pipe dream. But man, did it work at the start. We all had hopes for the future. And for that bright moment, we do have the Silicon Valley of yore to thank. However, what’s not forgiveable is staying in the dark and not adapting. Especially if you land up on HN, Where pivot is a verb, mantra and well respected course of action. ———— Here’s what i postulate - Any sufficiently large network is a proxy for the underlying state of the population. At humanity scale this means that commerce is optimized, but then this (through attention farming) exacerbates human fault lines. It means that anonymity will always be misused by criminals and revolutionaries. As a result, there will always be a centralizing tendency that begins to apply on large networks. Only small inconsequential networks can avoid this. (Central tendency as in - government oversight and force to order chaotic activity online,) Any tool built must always play on this divide - increasing transparency and central control vs increasing anonymity and increasing the are of illegal behavior. —————- Most of this would be solved if print media were still a viable business. We generate tons of data, and content, sifting through it is impossible. But teams of editors and reliable news papers could once upon a time, do that. However it seems the information industry is suited for centralized, agenda dominated firms.

imglorp 8y ago
There's very much an individual aspect here--identifying with and following the various tribes. We are literally witnessing a self-selecting Darwin event here. The vaccinated tribes will live longer than the unvaccinated ones.
- gowld 8y ago
  That faux science helps no one. As bad as communicable diseases are, anti vax segments won't wipe out the whole population. And these "tribes" are flexible since they are based in psychology not firm genetics. They aren't fish who die when the lake dries up.
  - imglorp 8y ago

burgerboy 8y ago

Just like murder is the fault of the sword right?

jquery 8y ago

This is occurring mainly because of an offline distribution in the Orthodox Jewish community[1], if this source is correct. Facebook has nothing to answer for when people are hand-distributing a pamphlet, and overworked doctors refuse to talk to mothers concerned about vaccines. Coming down hard on communities (via laws about what can be discussed online) can backfire, the cure is sometimes worse than the disease, and yes, people will die if you don’t crack down, but that’s the price of freedom of speech and association. Why are you blaming Facebook instead of Orthodox Judaism? Because they are an easier or bigger target? And what happens when the “do-gooders” get a taste of power and start cracking down on other talk they don’t like? Be careful wishing for the secular equivalent of blasphemy laws! The slippery slope may be a logical fallacy but it’s often a good rule of thumb for reasoning about hard topics. Proceed with caution. http://gothamist.com/2019/03/26/orthodox_jewish_nurses_vaccines.php http://gothamist.com/2019/03/26/orthodox_jewish_nurses_vacci...

threatofrain 8y ago

If people think I can destroy citizens' voting power and their ability to think and make them endanger kids because of things people voluntarily share over Facebook, what do we say about how much we respect that vote and voter? And what are we saying about what we think Facebook's role should be in this, potentially as a guardian against our destructive and irresistible instincts? People, both as individuals and communities, also need to have some responsibility over their own willpower, their own souls, their own minds, their own clarity, their own grasp, their own sense of reality. Or else how do we believe in the true heart of democracy -- the citizen and their worthy mind, a mind of ideas worthy of community negotiation and leadership? Somewhere else people are condemning Google for not showing people the objective truth, and instead giving you what you want to search. Like it's Google's responsibility to regulate you against your own risk for delusion. If people think citizens are that weak then how do you trust the value of their intellect? Are voters one Facebook network away from losing their trustworthiness as citizens in a democracy?

Spooky23 8y ago

It does, but not in this case. Rockland county is home to a large ultra-conservative religious community that is extremely insular and uses local scale to control the civil institutions of their local government. (Village, school district, etc) Members of the community have limited access to outside media and certainly not Facebook. In this case, the leaders of the communita took a stance for reasons I do not know. Sheep do what the shepards want.

baybal2 8y ago

> Facebook has a lot to answer for. The internet was supposed to be a new human enlightenment by enabling professionals to remotely connect. We didn't bank on the ability of idiots to connect too... Cheap printing presses were a wonderful idea, but just one of first major application happened was printing books about the "jew/catholic/arab burning."

cpr 8y ago

...where "idiots" here means "people who aren't as enlightened as we are." C'mon, if you go with an open mind into the serious problems with vaccination safety, you come away with serious questions. As least I do, and I'm part of the usual Ivy-educated CS crowd around here...