10 ms·

Facebook to Exempt Opinion and Satire from Fact-Checking

119 points by spirosrap 7y ago

cm2187 7y ago
Scott Adams claims that about 30% of people in a society just do not get humour / satire and take things at the first degree, particularly if it reinforces their convictions. If it is true, and I think he may have a point, there would be some value in labelling humour or satire as such. It sounds ridiculous, but like it is ridiculous to have a label “not suitable for your pets” on a microwave!
- jerrre 7y ago
  I'm already looking forward to serious articles that are going to be ironically labeled as satire (obviously again misunderstood by some percentage of the population)
  - MaysonL 7y ago
    As opposed to the Onion articles which are confusingly close to actual news. [or are merely prescient]
    - rjf72 7y ago
      For what it's worth this is new, and intentional. In 2016 Haim Saban, Clinton's top financial supporter, purchased The Onion and immediately transitioned it to an outlet for propaganda under the guise of satire. [1] They rapidly went from running articles like 'Hillary Clinton Tries To Woo Voters By Rescinding Candidacy' [2] to "Why Don't People Like Hillary Clinton?" [3] with reasons such as suggesting in allusion to her being a woman (twice), because she's smart, or verbatim because she "Suffers from unfortunate speech impediment of sounding like a capable, self-possessed woman". [1] - https://theintercept.com/2016/01/26/ha-ha-hillary-clintons-top-financial-supporter-now-controls-the-onion/ https://theintercept.com/2016/01/26/ha-ha-hillary-clintons-t... [2] - https://politics.theonion.com/hillary-clinton-tries-to-woo-voters-by-rescinding-candi-1819569003 https://politics.theonion.com/hillary-clinton-tries-to-woo-v... [3] - https://politics.theonion.com/why-don-t-people-like-hillary-clinton-1819594012 https://politics.theonion.com/why-don-t-people-like-hillary-...
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > Scott Adams claims that about 30% of people in a society just do not get humour / satire Satire, snark, and sarcasm have to be least effective way you could possibly choose to communicate. You are absolutely begging to be misunderstood and misquoted, either genuinely or maliciously, and then it's nigh on impossible to explain yourself as all your excuses just sound like like it-was-a-prank-bro. Another huge problem is that satire is often used as cover for telling not-quite-truths. I listen to satirical radio programmes (we have a lot of those in the UK) and sometimes I think they're really bending the truth quite a bit to get the joke and their criticism isn't really fair. That'd be fine if these people weren't simultaneously actual political activists who the next night are saying they're making genuine political arguments, and if people didn't think it's-funny-because-it's-true. I'm pretty sure some of them do satire just to get away with attacking without having to back any of it up, and so they can absolve themselves from responsibility when challenged. Quite often, I think really I'm just listening to some nasty bullies. All-in-all, I think satire is a bit toxic for everyone involved.
  - andybak 7y ago
    Aren't all the reasons you state, reasons why satire, snark, and sarcasm are actually incredibly effective ways to communicate? Not many people have the fortitude to resist their charms or the self-awareness to police themselves indefinitely. I know I don't.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - INGELRII 7y ago
    Satire is effective influencing method. The additional benefit is avoiding the requirement for reliability and responsibility because it's not real journalism. In the US The Daily Show established satirical ha-ha as effective method to deliver news and discuss politics for younger generations. It started as pure satire but turned into real institution people used to learn about the world. The spinoffs like The Colbert Report and related shows from people who worked in the show is impressive: The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn , Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, The Break with Michelle Wolf and Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj all continue using similar framework. In the right the effective satire seems to come mainly in the form of internet trolls. It's more hostile, less intellectual. It's for people who see hostility as funny. Despite being very crude, this kind of satire can have huge influence.
- ForHackernews 7y ago
  Scott Adams also claimed that women are treated with deference for the same reason children and mentally handicapped people are[0], so you'll have to forgive me for not giving too much credence to his unsourced statistics about the incompetence of a large fraction of humanity. [0] https://jezebel.com/dilbert-creator-deletes-misogynist-rant-5786019 https://jezebel.com/dilbert-creator-deletes-misogynist-rant-...
  - ramblerman 7y ago
    Go after the argument please. This attempted character assassination is petty and weak.
    - ForHackernews 7y ago
      An argument only holds if its premises are true. "Scott Adams claims X" is very weak evidence for X. He's a cartoonist with a history of making flimsy, self-flattering pronouncements. Let's see some actual research supporting the notion that a third of the population reads and interprets satirical content as straight fact.
      - nosianu2 7y ago
        You write > Let's see some actual research which I find ironic given that you present your personal opinion about that person as if it were a fact. Maybe we should all start cleaning up in front of our own doors first whenever we feel an urge to not criticize (which would be okay) to bad-mouth other people. In addition, you also do exactly what the comment you replied to ask you not to, seemingly without having given its content any thought whatsoever. More, Scott Adams didn't say anything here. You merely read a comment from someone making a claim about what he said, in a short sentence. So you don't even have anything from the person you talk about himself. On top of that that claim would not be worth any severe criticism in the given context. Even if it were shown to be wrong, so what? It does not seem to me like anything substantial hinges on it, even if you took it as just a tongue in cheek kind of comment. Anecdotal evidence from reading online forums and discussions seem to indicate that the described phenomenon indeed exists, how many people are involved and if it's always the same ones or not don't seem to me to be of great importance since no quantitative predictions are involved.
- probably_wrong 7y ago
  I'm glad you brought this specific quote from this specific author, because to me it presents some very interesting questions. On one hand, I used to follow Scott Adams' blog when he made that assertion and a couple other ones. His point, if I remember correctly, boiled down to "I'm going to present an obviously wrong idea, argue in favor of it, and see where it takes us". In this context, his assertion about people not "getting" humor referred to people taking his hypotheticals for a fact even though he clearly labeled them as "but what if...?". The example that comes to mind is when he argued "What if we assumed that men are rapists by nature, and modeled society around this fact?" and people attacked him for "affirming" that all men are rapists. On the other hand, he has become one of the stronger Trump supporters I've ever seen (which is not necessarily bad), pointing out how everything he does is a great calculated move to what I consider a delusional extent (which is kind of bad - his POV currently seems to be "by asking Ukraine to investigate his opponent, Trump was doing the country a service"). By reading his blog, I got more and more the feeling that his "what if" questions were not an academic thought exercise, but rather a way to push some toxic beliefs he holds while having the plausible deniability of "it's just a hypotetical". So my point being: this quote by Scott Adams can go both ways. Maybe he's right and humans are very bad at understanding humor and/or satire, and my two points are in no way related. But I wouldn't rule out the other possibility: that humans are actually very good at spotting what's behind the mask, and that those 30% of people are those who didn't fall for his trick and rightfully called him out for it.
  - richardwhiuk 7y ago
    If you want to hold an opinion which is viewed by society as dangerous, presenting as just a hypothetical, might allow you to reduce your criticism, while still openly stating it. Given all opinions are based around what you would do in a hypothetical circumstance, the limits should be pretty low. Also, there's a strong difference between satire and hypothetically asserting that rape is innate.
    - MaysonL 7y ago
      Or as Lord Buckley always said "If you must tell the truth, be sure to leave them laughing!".
paxys 7y ago
Most of the misinformation and propaganda out there is presented as "opinion" on all networks. The very little actual news on Fox, for example, is always accurate (and actually pretty good), so not being able to call them out on that takes away from the entire effort.
- AmericanChopper 7y ago
  Most reporting is based on opinions, or is at least misleading in the sense that it tends to be reported from well defined perspective. The editorial decisions about what to report, what to not report, what to report as important or credible, and what to report as irrelevant or non-credible, can all be used to mislead the audience and misrepresent events. I can’t think of one mainstream news outlet that doesn’t do this, and I think all of them do it quite excessively. The problem with trying to moderate this is that you can only do so from what your idea of which is the orthodox truth, and “propaganda” simply becomes any political speech that you disagree with. We’ve seen plenty of attempts to regulate the truth throughout history. It was one of the most corrupt elements of the soviet system, and it quite literally Orwellian. The only person who can discern the truth is the individual, and any attempt to take that responsibility away from them can only ever end disastrously. This isn’t something we should be happy with Facebook doing.
  - pfisch 7y ago
    There is a pretty big difference between a lie by omission and just spreading false information. By your definition any news would always be false because they didn't include the entire history of the world in their story. You aren't being realistic. There are people and organizations that are just spreading completely false information with the intent of deceiving people.
    - AmericanChopper 7y ago
      By my definition it is generally not possible for an entity to be an effective authority on what is or is not false or misleading. You could think of contrived examples which you could get nearly everybody to agree to as false, like claiming the sun revolved around the earth. But that’s not what’s being discussed. What’s being discussed is establishing Facebook (or other entities) as the ministry of truth. > There is a pretty big difference between a lie by omission and just spreading false information. I don’t see how there is, and I don’t see how you’d be able to prove one over the other in many cases. Pick any mainstream media outlet, and you’ll find a significant group of people who claim they’re “just spreading false information”. Pick any truth that you personally hold to be unassailable, and chances are you’ll find a significant group of people who will describe it as “just false information”. Trying to regulate the truth is an incredibly dangerous rabbit hole, which if done effectively, can only possibly end up with a central authority (or group of authorities) imposing their own views on others. The only reason anybody could think this was a good idea, is if you think that people should not have the right to think for themselves, form their own views, and come to their own conclusions about the truth.
gadders 7y ago
I can't help wondering if this was triggered by the whole Babylon Bee vs Snopes situation: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/us/snopes-babylon-bee.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/us/snopes-babylon-bee.htm... https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-fact-checker-declares-war-on-satire-11566428259 https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-fact-checker-declares-war-on-...
- croon 7y ago
  Speaking of opinion pieces, that second one could really use some scrutiny.
  - gadders 7y ago
    Well, it's written by the boss of the Babylon Bee so it's not likely to be impartial...
kelnos 7y ago
Welp, that's a shame. That will make their fact-checking stuff completely useless, as the majority of "news" shared that tends to get people riled up seem to be opinion pieces.
ehutch79 7y ago
yeeeaaaaahhhh. 'its just a joke' is already a thing...
timeimp 7y ago
Not gonna lie, I read the title as Facebook to Exempt The Onion and Satire from Fact-Checking
duxup 7y ago
I see a lot of misinformation and disturbing amount of bigoted content posted as humor, presumably to sort of normalize that bigotry by slipping it into various online communities as humor.
stareatgoats 7y ago
Interesting times, and a slippery slope. These fairly square rules will surely cause other uproars as it invites back the alt-right with their tongue-in-cheek fascism. And the Facebook algorithms seem embarrassingly incapable of nuance, like this Tommy Robinson debacle: the mere mention of the name "Tommy Robinson" in a post (in Sweden) renders your profile inactive for several days or indefinitely. In other countries the post is simply deleted. In other words, any other person called Tommy Robinson would not be able to have a FB presence. I'm no fan of Tommy Robinson but this is worrying as FB has become more of a utility for online discussion and publishing. The problem is partly technical, but ultimately it is caused by the fact that Facebook doesn't have a value system of it's own. They need to follow the bidding of the powers that squeeze them the most.
- ravenstine 7y ago
  We wouldn't allow the American government to behave this way, but somehow it's okay if a big corporation takes control of a large portion of communication and enacts these draconian rules. But it's a private totalitarian state. /s
  - kazagistar 7y ago
    At least when the government does it, you have a presumed outlet of voting for one that doesn't. When a corporation does something you have no outlet if it has an effective monopoly or they all do it or you just have negative net worth and cannot possibly vote with your dollars.
    - dhhdhdsbdb 7y ago
      Otoh, governments can detain, arrest, or kill you and your family. Regardless of whether you can vote. Both corporations and governments have a history of bad behavior. But I warrant the government ledger has much worse capacity to do me harm, as well as a few orders of magnitude more deaths caused by their decisions.
- richrichardsson 7y ago
vijaybritto 7y ago
In India lots of fascist facebook groups post under the cover of satire to escape scrutiny. They'll be like "kill all muslims :D" - the smiley at the end supposedly means its 'satire'. This is gonna be a godsend for them!
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
consumer451 7y ago
I wonder if a huge downside of achieving a monopoly position is the ability of politicians to extort you with threat of anti-trust action?
raxxorrax 7y ago
Fact checkers would have me believe that we are constantly victims of Russian disinformation campaigns. I think the worth of fact checkers has already been concluded. The truth is that you should be aware of the general bias a publication has. Also how they can be linked together via parent companies. If you have multiple sources with different bias, you should be fine. The WSJ for example belongs to the Murdoch conglomerate. There are a lot more of those. Of course it is unknown how much influence there is on their editorial board. But still important to keep that in mind.
- pjc50 7y ago
  This is the thing - while there does appear to be a foreign covert disinformation campaign, it's dwarfed by the domestic "legitimate" disinformation put out by Murdoch and other press outlets. Or people like Alex Jones.
  - raxxorrax 7y ago
    True. I am not disputing there aren't any efforts to manipulate voters. I would be surprised if there were not. But the relevancy that the media tried to transport just wasn't adequate. I genuinely believe that many just have been played, but that could have been mitigated by providing at least a somewhat believable perspective.
- kypro 7y ago
  I agree. The concept of a fact checker seems extremely flawed to me. Beyond just reporting the news the media is suppose to also fact check it. And to be fair they claim to do just that, but it turns out they have biases... So the solution to that problem is add another layer? What do we do when it turns out they also have biases? Add another layer? A fact fact checker? I rather have no fact checkers at all personally. I'd prefer to live in a world where everyone distrusts the media than a world in which everyone trusts a few bias reports claim to be the arbiters of reality.
program_whiz 7y ago
Add this to the disclaimers: I'm not a doctor, this is not medical advice, just my opinion. Now onto how to heal cancer with a crystal. I'm not a financial advisor, this is not investment advice, just my opinion. Now onto how to make millions with this one simple chart pattern.
Communitivity 7y ago
And here we go.. Funfortunately, most of the misinformation I hear is presented as entertainment. I am fine with it, if like SNL it is clearly labelled as satire, and not done as if it was news (as one network it seems to me often does). Sadly, there are many who watch that network, and shows like its shows, who believe what they are hearing to be the gospel truth. This is to the point of a man arming himself with an assault rifle (another problem, but I won't digress more than that) and shooting up an innocent pizza parlor that the entertainment show in question accused of some of the most heinous crimes in our judicial system. We put labels at the bottom of cigarettes to warn people. Why can't we put a header at the bottom of such programs: "Satire, Not News, Not Factual". Btw, I would love to see that banner on the bottom of The Daily Show as much as I would on The Rush Limbaugh Show, as both sides of the Red/Blue divide are guilty of this to some extent.
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  There has been an explosion in "the onion"-like fake news sources that say they're satire somewhere on the site, yet by reading the article without that context one would have no way of knowing unless they fact-check. The articles have very little, if any, of the kind of humor that defines satire. They usually publish fictional pro-GOP headlines that are often shared on social media with strong reactions from uninformed commenters. Not flagging these articles with an appropriate label pretty much ensures that this whole facebook-based fact checking feature is nothing more than a vaporware PR campaign.
- tru3_power 7y ago
  Doesn’t the responsibility ultimately lay on consumer of said entertainment to ascertain this? Seems like the bigger problem we’re facing here is a mental health problem.
  - rabidrat 7y ago
    What's your solution to that "mental health" problem? More education? Smart pills? Inpatient counseling? I'm all for personal responsibility, but particularly when unwitting consumption can have society-wide negative effects, the responsibility lays on society to take steps to mitigate the consumption and damage.
zarro 7y ago
Facebooks innocent mistake was the presupposition that its capable of defining truth.
nradov 7y ago
I like Snopes for fact checking but they lost a lot of credibility when they tried to "fact check" a Babylon Bee article that was obviously satire. (Babylon Bee is clearly labeled as satire and humor, sort of like The Onion or Duffel Blog.) Later Snopes tried to partially walk it back, but unfortunately the whole incident gave justification to those who claim that fact checkers are biased and pushing a left-wing agenda on Facebook. https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/08/16/readers-think-satire-is-real/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/08/16/readers-think-satire-...
jmkni 7y ago
Aticle is paywalled (for me anyway)
2sk21 7y ago
User created content is a toxic asset - this is a mess that has no resolution
papito 7y ago
My opinion is that the Earth is flat. Prove me wrong.
- tathougies 7y ago
  > Prove me wrong Well, there's really nothing to prove. You didn't make the claim that 'the earth is flat'. Instead you made the claim that 'My [papito's] opinion is that the Earth is flat'. There is no reason to disbelieve the latter. It is clear from your own statement that your opinion is that the Earth is flat. There is no reason to counter that statement. This is why facebook has no obligation to do anything. Facebook's entire platform is to allow various entities to self-publish their opinions. If it is clear that this is your opinion on hacker news (where the anonymous username is actually relatively obscured compared to facebook's real name policy and name placement), then it is extremely clear on Facebook.
colorincorrect 7y ago
Labeling satire as satire defeats the intention though. The critique lies in its ambiguity, and the greater the ambiguity the stronger the critique. And that's a fact! ;)
rpmisms 7y ago
As long as Snopes keeps fact-checking the Babylon Bee, I will be content.
tracker1 7y ago
What happens when I make a post with satirical content? (guessing: ban-hammer)
the_watcher 7y ago
An exemption for satire makes sense. There's even an existing legal framework for it, as it's an exception to defamation. Opinion, however, seems much more difficult. How do you handle an opinion that relies substantially on a provably false assertion? The example in the article seems like it could be handled: > That op-ed argued that global-warming climate models have been inaccurate and that the risks of climate change is overblown. Included in that sentence are an assertion of fact (yes, climate models have been inaccurate. This is not controversial, and it's also not really as useful to the argument as the author thinks it is) and an opinion that, while I disagree with it, is still an opinion. For purposes of discussion, assume the article contains no other information. There shouldn't be any kind of "false" designation assigned to it, because nothing in it is provably false. However, imagine the article said something like "Atmospheric CO2 has declined since 1978, global-warming climate models have been inaccurate, and the risks of climate change is overblown." The first statement in that sentence is provably false, yet the article would still constitute an opinion piece. Is there a framework for handling that?
- the_watcher 7y ago
  The way things have been trending, I'd anticipate something like a label for satire and a label for "opinion, was not not fact checked" (which would apply to any piece that could be considered an op-ed), and fact checks applying to anything purporting to be news. To be honest, setting a rule that anything that purports to be "BREAKING" will be fact checked at least to the extent of "the contents of this article cannot be proven entirely factually correct" would be a pretty big step forward and potentially reduce the virality of outright disinformation.
- tathougies 7y ago
  Why should there be a framework for handling this? Facebook, perhaps better than any other publisher or newspaper or public utility, puts the actual name of the guy writing this dribble front and center. Before you can even read the title of the article, you are exposed to the source. Facebook only warrants that the source that published this article indeed did so. It should be up to the reader, not facebook, whether or not to trust them. Facebook engages in no moral hazard by making it clear who wrote what.
tracker1 7y ago
I have a domain "madeup.world" that I was thinking on putting up a fake news site called "Real World News Today" given the domain, I was wanting to try to make it obvious. However, there are times where even the Onion feels a bit real, and I don't think I have any faith in actual media. Maybe I'll put up genuine commentary, I just don't have the time or inclination to deal with it.
alwaysanagenda 7y ago
If you think Facebook fact-checking anything for you is a good idea, you belong on Facebook. This is big tech authoritarian borderline-fascist bubble-producing social media illness run amok. People who clamor for "tools" and "accountability" on social media to combat "fake news" and "misinformation" are people who do not belong on the internet. They want to be coddled and protected, when they should be researching on their own or having an independent thought. The answer to bad speech is always more speech. The answer to bad information is more information. Anything else is censorship in the name of [insert your god here].

119 points by spirosrap 7y ago

Scott Adams claims that about 30% of people in a society just do not get humour / satire and take things at the first degree, particularly if it reinforces their convictions. If it is true, and I think he may have a point, there would be some value in labelling humour or satire as such. It sounds ridiculous, but like it is ridiculous to have a label “not suitable for your pets” on a microwave!

jerrre 7y ago
I'm already looking forward to serious articles that are going to be ironically labeled as satire (obviously again misunderstood by some percentage of the population)
- MaysonL 7y ago
  As opposed to the Onion articles which are confusingly close to actual news. [or are merely prescient]
  - rjf72 7y ago
    For what it's worth this is new, and intentional. In 2016 Haim Saban, Clinton's top financial supporter, purchased The Onion and immediately transitioned it to an outlet for propaganda under the guise of satire. [1] They rapidly went from running articles like 'Hillary Clinton Tries To Woo Voters By Rescinding Candidacy' [2] to "Why Don't People Like Hillary Clinton?" [3] with reasons such as suggesting in allusion to her being a woman (twice), because she's smart, or verbatim because she "Suffers from unfortunate speech impediment of sounding like a capable, self-possessed woman". [1] - https://theintercept.com/2016/01/26/ha-ha-hillary-clintons-top-financial-supporter-now-controls-the-onion/ https://theintercept.com/2016/01/26/ha-ha-hillary-clintons-t... [2] - https://politics.theonion.com/hillary-clinton-tries-to-woo-voters-by-rescinding-candi-1819569003 https://politics.theonion.com/hillary-clinton-tries-to-woo-v... [3] - https://politics.theonion.com/why-don-t-people-like-hillary-clinton-1819594012 https://politics.theonion.com/why-don-t-people-like-hillary-...
chrisseaton 7y ago
> Scott Adams claims that about 30% of people in a society just do not get humour / satire Satire, snark, and sarcasm have to be least effective way you could possibly choose to communicate. You are absolutely begging to be misunderstood and misquoted, either genuinely or maliciously, and then it's nigh on impossible to explain yourself as all your excuses just sound like like it-was-a-prank-bro. Another huge problem is that satire is often used as cover for telling not-quite-truths. I listen to satirical radio programmes (we have a lot of those in the UK) and sometimes I think they're really bending the truth quite a bit to get the joke and their criticism isn't really fair. That'd be fine if these people weren't simultaneously actual political activists who the next night are saying they're making genuine political arguments, and if people didn't think it's-funny-because-it's-true. I'm pretty sure some of them do satire just to get away with attacking without having to back any of it up, and so they can absolve themselves from responsibility when challenged. Quite often, I think really I'm just listening to some nasty bullies. All-in-all, I think satire is a bit toxic for everyone involved.
- andybak 7y ago
  Aren't all the reasons you state, reasons why satire, snark, and sarcasm are actually incredibly effective ways to communicate? Not many people have the fortitude to resist their charms or the self-awareness to police themselves indefinitely. I know I don't.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- INGELRII 7y ago
  Satire is effective influencing method. The additional benefit is avoiding the requirement for reliability and responsibility because it's not real journalism. In the US The Daily Show established satirical ha-ha as effective method to deliver news and discuss politics for younger generations. It started as pure satire but turned into real institution people used to learn about the world. The spinoffs like The Colbert Report and related shows from people who worked in the show is impressive: The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn , Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, The Break with Michelle Wolf and Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj all continue using similar framework. In the right the effective satire seems to come mainly in the form of internet trolls. It's more hostile, less intellectual. It's for people who see hostility as funny. Despite being very crude, this kind of satire can have huge influence.
ForHackernews 7y ago
Scott Adams also claimed that women are treated with deference for the same reason children and mentally handicapped people are[0], so you'll have to forgive me for not giving too much credence to his unsourced statistics about the incompetence of a large fraction of humanity. [0] https://jezebel.com/dilbert-creator-deletes-misogynist-rant-5786019 https://jezebel.com/dilbert-creator-deletes-misogynist-rant-...
- ramblerman 7y ago
  Go after the argument please. This attempted character assassination is petty and weak.
  - ForHackernews 7y ago
    An argument only holds if its premises are true. "Scott Adams claims X" is very weak evidence for X. He's a cartoonist with a history of making flimsy, self-flattering pronouncements. Let's see some actual research supporting the notion that a third of the population reads and interprets satirical content as straight fact.
    - nosianu2 7y ago
      You write > Let's see some actual research which I find ironic given that you present your personal opinion about that person as if it were a fact. Maybe we should all start cleaning up in front of our own doors first whenever we feel an urge to not criticize (which would be okay) to bad-mouth other people. In addition, you also do exactly what the comment you replied to ask you not to, seemingly without having given its content any thought whatsoever. More, Scott Adams didn't say anything here. You merely read a comment from someone making a claim about what he said, in a short sentence. So you don't even have anything from the person you talk about himself. On top of that that claim would not be worth any severe criticism in the given context. Even if it were shown to be wrong, so what? It does not seem to me like anything substantial hinges on it, even if you took it as just a tongue in cheek kind of comment. Anecdotal evidence from reading online forums and discussions seem to indicate that the described phenomenon indeed exists, how many people are involved and if it's always the same ones or not don't seem to me to be of great importance since no quantitative predictions are involved.
probably_wrong 7y ago
I'm glad you brought this specific quote from this specific author, because to me it presents some very interesting questions. On one hand, I used to follow Scott Adams' blog when he made that assertion and a couple other ones. His point, if I remember correctly, boiled down to "I'm going to present an obviously wrong idea, argue in favor of it, and see where it takes us". In this context, his assertion about people not "getting" humor referred to people taking his hypotheticals for a fact even though he clearly labeled them as "but what if...?". The example that comes to mind is when he argued "What if we assumed that men are rapists by nature, and modeled society around this fact?" and people attacked him for "affirming" that all men are rapists. On the other hand, he has become one of the stronger Trump supporters I've ever seen (which is not necessarily bad), pointing out how everything he does is a great calculated move to what I consider a delusional extent (which is kind of bad - his POV currently seems to be "by asking Ukraine to investigate his opponent, Trump was doing the country a service"). By reading his blog, I got more and more the feeling that his "what if" questions were not an academic thought exercise, but rather a way to push some toxic beliefs he holds while having the plausible deniability of "it's just a hypotetical". So my point being: this quote by Scott Adams can go both ways. Maybe he's right and humans are very bad at understanding humor and/or satire, and my two points are in no way related. But I wouldn't rule out the other possibility: that humans are actually very good at spotting what's behind the mask, and that those 30% of people are those who didn't fall for his trick and rightfully called him out for it.
- richardwhiuk 7y ago
  If you want to hold an opinion which is viewed by society as dangerous, presenting as just a hypothetical, might allow you to reduce your criticism, while still openly stating it. Given all opinions are based around what you would do in a hypothetical circumstance, the limits should be pretty low. Also, there's a strong difference between satire and hypothetically asserting that rape is innate.
  - MaysonL 7y ago
    Or as Lord Buckley always said "If you must tell the truth, be sure to leave them laughing!".

paxys 7y ago

Most of the misinformation and propaganda out there is presented as "opinion" on all networks. The very little actual news on Fox, for example, is always accurate (and actually pretty good), so not being able to call them out on that takes away from the entire effort.

AmericanChopper 7y ago
Most reporting is based on opinions, or is at least misleading in the sense that it tends to be reported from well defined perspective. The editorial decisions about what to report, what to not report, what to report as important or credible, and what to report as irrelevant or non-credible, can all be used to mislead the audience and misrepresent events. I can’t think of one mainstream news outlet that doesn’t do this, and I think all of them do it quite excessively. The problem with trying to moderate this is that you can only do so from what your idea of which is the orthodox truth, and “propaganda” simply becomes any political speech that you disagree with. We’ve seen plenty of attempts to regulate the truth throughout history. It was one of the most corrupt elements of the soviet system, and it quite literally Orwellian. The only person who can discern the truth is the individual, and any attempt to take that responsibility away from them can only ever end disastrously. This isn’t something we should be happy with Facebook doing.
- pfisch 7y ago
  There is a pretty big difference between a lie by omission and just spreading false information. By your definition any news would always be false because they didn't include the entire history of the world in their story. You aren't being realistic. There are people and organizations that are just spreading completely false information with the intent of deceiving people.
  - AmericanChopper 7y ago
    By my definition it is generally not possible for an entity to be an effective authority on what is or is not false or misleading. You could think of contrived examples which you could get nearly everybody to agree to as false, like claiming the sun revolved around the earth. But that’s not what’s being discussed. What’s being discussed is establishing Facebook (or other entities) as the ministry of truth. > There is a pretty big difference between a lie by omission and just spreading false information. I don’t see how there is, and I don’t see how you’d be able to prove one over the other in many cases. Pick any mainstream media outlet, and you’ll find a significant group of people who claim they’re “just spreading false information”. Pick any truth that you personally hold to be unassailable, and chances are you’ll find a significant group of people who will describe it as “just false information”. Trying to regulate the truth is an incredibly dangerous rabbit hole, which if done effectively, can only possibly end up with a central authority (or group of authorities) imposing their own views on others. The only reason anybody could think this was a good idea, is if you think that people should not have the right to think for themselves, form their own views, and come to their own conclusions about the truth.

gadders 7y ago

I can't help wondering if this was triggered by the whole Babylon Bee vs Snopes situation: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/us/snopes-babylon-bee.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/03/us/snopes-babylon-bee.htm... https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-fact-checker-declares-war-on-satire-11566428259 https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-fact-checker-declares-war-on-...

croon 7y ago
Speaking of opinion pieces, that second one could really use some scrutiny.
- gadders 7y ago
  Well, it's written by the boss of the Babylon Bee so it's not likely to be impartial...

kelnos 7y ago

Welp, that's a shame. That will make their fact-checking stuff completely useless, as the majority of "news" shared that tends to get people riled up seem to be opinion pieces.

ehutch79 7y ago

yeeeaaaaahhhh. 'its just a joke' is already a thing...

timeimp 7y ago

Not gonna lie, I read the title as Facebook to Exempt The Onion and Satire from Fact-Checking

duxup 7y ago

I see a lot of misinformation and disturbing amount of bigoted content posted as humor, presumably to sort of normalize that bigotry by slipping it into various online communities as humor.

stareatgoats 7y ago

Interesting times, and a slippery slope. These fairly square rules will surely cause other uproars as it invites back the alt-right with their tongue-in-cheek fascism. And the Facebook algorithms seem embarrassingly incapable of nuance, like this Tommy Robinson debacle: the mere mention of the name "Tommy Robinson" in a post (in Sweden) renders your profile inactive for several days or indefinitely. In other countries the post is simply deleted. In other words, any other person called Tommy Robinson would not be able to have a FB presence. I'm no fan of Tommy Robinson but this is worrying as FB has become more of a utility for online discussion and publishing. The problem is partly technical, but ultimately it is caused by the fact that Facebook doesn't have a value system of it's own. They need to follow the bidding of the powers that squeeze them the most.

ravenstine 7y ago
We wouldn't allow the American government to behave this way, but somehow it's okay if a big corporation takes control of a large portion of communication and enacts these draconian rules. But it's a private totalitarian state. /s
- kazagistar 7y ago
  At least when the government does it, you have a presumed outlet of voting for one that doesn't. When a corporation does something you have no outlet if it has an effective monopoly or they all do it or you just have negative net worth and cannot possibly vote with your dollars.
  - dhhdhdsbdb 7y ago
    Otoh, governments can detain, arrest, or kill you and your family. Regardless of whether you can vote. Both corporations and governments have a history of bad behavior. But I warrant the government ledger has much worse capacity to do me harm, as well as a few orders of magnitude more deaths caused by their decisions.
richrichardsson 7y ago

vijaybritto 7y ago

In India lots of fascist facebook groups post under the cover of satire to escape scrutiny. They'll be like "kill all muslims :D" - the smiley at the end supposedly means its 'satire'. This is gonna be a godsend for them!

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

consumer451 7y ago

I wonder if a huge downside of achieving a monopoly position is the ability of politicians to extort you with threat of anti-trust action?

raxxorrax 7y ago

Fact checkers would have me believe that we are constantly victims of Russian disinformation campaigns. I think the worth of fact checkers has already been concluded. The truth is that you should be aware of the general bias a publication has. Also how they can be linked together via parent companies. If you have multiple sources with different bias, you should be fine. The WSJ for example belongs to the Murdoch conglomerate. There are a lot more of those. Of course it is unknown how much influence there is on their editorial board. But still important to keep that in mind.

pjc50 7y ago
This is the thing - while there does appear to be a foreign covert disinformation campaign, it's dwarfed by the domestic "legitimate" disinformation put out by Murdoch and other press outlets. Or people like Alex Jones.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  True. I am not disputing there aren't any efforts to manipulate voters. I would be surprised if there were not. But the relevancy that the media tried to transport just wasn't adequate. I genuinely believe that many just have been played, but that could have been mitigated by providing at least a somewhat believable perspective.
kypro 7y ago
I agree. The concept of a fact checker seems extremely flawed to me. Beyond just reporting the news the media is suppose to also fact check it. And to be fair they claim to do just that, but it turns out they have biases... So the solution to that problem is add another layer? What do we do when it turns out they also have biases? Add another layer? A fact fact checker? I rather have no fact checkers at all personally. I'd prefer to live in a world where everyone distrusts the media than a world in which everyone trusts a few bias reports claim to be the arbiters of reality.

program_whiz 7y ago

Add this to the disclaimers: I'm not a doctor, this is not medical advice, just my opinion. Now onto how to heal cancer with a crystal. I'm not a financial advisor, this is not investment advice, just my opinion. Now onto how to make millions with this one simple chart pattern.

Communitivity 7y ago

And here we go.. Funfortunately, most of the misinformation I hear is presented as entertainment. I am fine with it, if like SNL it is clearly labelled as satire, and not done as if it was news (as one network it seems to me often does). Sadly, there are many who watch that network, and shows like its shows, who believe what they are hearing to be the gospel truth. This is to the point of a man arming himself with an assault rifle (another problem, but I won't digress more than that) and shooting up an innocent pizza parlor that the entertainment show in question accused of some of the most heinous crimes in our judicial system. We put labels at the bottom of cigarettes to warn people. Why can't we put a header at the bottom of such programs: "Satire, Not News, Not Factual". Btw, I would love to see that banner on the bottom of The Daily Show as much as I would on The Rush Limbaugh Show, as both sides of the Red/Blue divide are guilty of this to some extent.

ilikehurdles 7y ago
There has been an explosion in "the onion"-like fake news sources that say they're satire somewhere on the site, yet by reading the article without that context one would have no way of knowing unless they fact-check. The articles have very little, if any, of the kind of humor that defines satire. They usually publish fictional pro-GOP headlines that are often shared on social media with strong reactions from uninformed commenters. Not flagging these articles with an appropriate label pretty much ensures that this whole facebook-based fact checking feature is nothing more than a vaporware PR campaign.
tru3_power 7y ago
Doesn’t the responsibility ultimately lay on consumer of said entertainment to ascertain this? Seems like the bigger problem we’re facing here is a mental health problem.
- rabidrat 7y ago
  What's your solution to that "mental health" problem? More education? Smart pills? Inpatient counseling? I'm all for personal responsibility, but particularly when unwitting consumption can have society-wide negative effects, the responsibility lays on society to take steps to mitigate the consumption and damage.

zarro 7y ago

Facebooks innocent mistake was the presupposition that its capable of defining truth.

nradov 7y ago

I like Snopes for fact checking but they lost a lot of credibility when they tried to "fact check" a Babylon Bee article that was obviously satire. (Babylon Bee is clearly labeled as satire and humor, sort of like The Onion or Duffel Blog.) Later Snopes tried to partially walk it back, but unfortunately the whole incident gave justification to those who claim that fact checkers are biased and pushing a left-wing agenda on Facebook. https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/08/16/readers-think-satire-is-real/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2019/08/16/readers-think-satire-...

jmkni 7y ago

Aticle is paywalled (for me anyway)

2sk21 7y ago

User created content is a toxic asset - this is a mess that has no resolution

papito 7y ago

My opinion is that the Earth is flat. Prove me wrong.

tathougies 7y ago
> Prove me wrong Well, there's really nothing to prove. You didn't make the claim that 'the earth is flat'. Instead you made the claim that 'My [papito's] opinion is that the Earth is flat'. There is no reason to disbelieve the latter. It is clear from your own statement that your opinion is that the Earth is flat. There is no reason to counter that statement. This is why facebook has no obligation to do anything. Facebook's entire platform is to allow various entities to self-publish their opinions. If it is clear that this is your opinion on hacker news (where the anonymous username is actually relatively obscured compared to facebook's real name policy and name placement), then it is extremely clear on Facebook.

colorincorrect 7y ago

Labeling satire as satire defeats the intention though. The critique lies in its ambiguity, and the greater the ambiguity the stronger the critique. And that's a fact! ;)

rpmisms 7y ago

As long as Snopes keeps fact-checking the Babylon Bee, I will be content.

tracker1 7y ago

What happens when I make a post with satirical content? (guessing: ban-hammer)

the_watcher 7y ago

An exemption for satire makes sense. There's even an existing legal framework for it, as it's an exception to defamation. Opinion, however, seems much more difficult. How do you handle an opinion that relies substantially on a provably false assertion? The example in the article seems like it could be handled: > That op-ed argued that global-warming climate models have been inaccurate and that the risks of climate change is overblown. Included in that sentence are an assertion of fact (yes, climate models have been inaccurate. This is not controversial, and it's also not really as useful to the argument as the author thinks it is) and an opinion that, while I disagree with it, is still an opinion. For purposes of discussion, assume the article contains no other information. There shouldn't be any kind of "false" designation assigned to it, because nothing in it is provably false. However, imagine the article said something like "Atmospheric CO2 has declined since 1978, global-warming climate models have been inaccurate, and the risks of climate change is overblown." The first statement in that sentence is provably false, yet the article would still constitute an opinion piece. Is there a framework for handling that?

the_watcher 7y ago
The way things have been trending, I'd anticipate something like a label for satire and a label for "opinion, was not not fact checked" (which would apply to any piece that could be considered an op-ed), and fact checks applying to anything purporting to be news. To be honest, setting a rule that anything that purports to be "BREAKING" will be fact checked at least to the extent of "the contents of this article cannot be proven entirely factually correct" would be a pretty big step forward and potentially reduce the virality of outright disinformation.
tathougies 7y ago
Why should there be a framework for handling this? Facebook, perhaps better than any other publisher or newspaper or public utility, puts the actual name of the guy writing this dribble front and center. Before you can even read the title of the article, you are exposed to the source. Facebook only warrants that the source that published this article indeed did so. It should be up to the reader, not facebook, whether or not to trust them. Facebook engages in no moral hazard by making it clear who wrote what.

tracker1 7y ago

I have a domain "madeup.world" that I was thinking on putting up a fake news site called "Real World News Today" given the domain, I was wanting to try to make it obvious. However, there are times where even the Onion feels a bit real, and I don't think I have any faith in actual media. Maybe I'll put up genuine commentary, I just don't have the time or inclination to deal with it.

alwaysanagenda 7y ago

If you think Facebook fact-checking anything for you is a good idea, you belong on Facebook. This is big tech authoritarian borderline-fascist bubble-producing social media illness run amok. People who clamor for "tools" and "accountability" on social media to combat "fake news" and "misinformation" are people who do not belong on the internet. They want to be coddled and protected, when they should be researching on their own or having an independent thought. The answer to bad speech is always more speech. The answer to bad information is more information. Anything else is censorship in the name of [insert your god here].