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This article misses a crucial point: I do not want fact checked information. I do not want a ministry of Truth telling me what’s an acceptable set of statements

This article misses a crucial point: I do not want fact checked information. I do not want a ministry of Truth telling me what’s an acceptable set of statements to trust. I do not want a third party providing unsolicited opinions on how much I conform with the acceptable statements a ministry of Truth has blessed for public use. I’ll provide three arguments. First, how will Facebook or any other entity that takes on the responsibility to fact check stand up to coordinated misinformation campaigns like “Iraq has WMDs” where an omniscient fact checker could have literally saved thousands of lives. Second, how will Facebook or CNN or Snopes or any other entity fact check disagreeing experts on a subject - for example Sweden’s epidemiologists vs rest of the world taking opposing views on quarantine measures - is anybody at Facebook or any other place qualified to fact check Sweden’s top government advisers? Third, how will Facebook or any single entity fact check unqualified experts on subjects? When Albert Einstein submitted his paper on the Photoelectric effect (which eventually won him a Nobel Prize) he didn’t have a Ph.D nor was he enrolled as a student - he was just an anonymous clerk at a patent office. Today’s reddit would brand him an “armchair physicist” conducting thought experiments. How on earth will Facebook or any Ministry of Truth attempt to fact check anything like this? So, if you rule out Facebook’s ability to fact check coordinated government propaganda, government policy advisors that are literally balancing lives and the economy and fundamental advances in science, what else is there to fact check? A fact checker can only end up becoming a re-enforcement mechanism for popularly held beliefs. Let’s ask Galelio how that worked out for him.

kick 6y ago
...and you go to Facebook for your scientific and world news? Facebook is a toy. Relying on a platform with a built-in way to reply to posts with nothing more than a laugh-cry-smiley to deliver you accurate news in the first place is ridiculous. They could never be a Ministry of Truth or whatever you're implying, because it's a toy. If they want to fact-check posts on their site, it changes literally nothing of importance. They don't, which is fine, but even assuming they did they'd never be capable of anything resembling anything in Orwell's novels.
- oarabbus_ 6y ago
  >Facebook is a toy. A toy, is that so? I know quite a number of people (engineers, marketers, companies) that exist solely due to Facebook advertising. You should let them know their livelihood rests on a toy. >...and you go to Facebook for your scientific and world news? Why do you frame it as some ludicrous idea? Is this more preposterous than getting your science and world news from an email chain, or from Fox/CNN, or your wonky neighbor next door? I happen to have some intelligent friends who share thoughtful, measured news articles on Facebook. Perhaps these complaints of junk science and tabloids being passed around is actually a problem of an individual's circle and who they actively follow. This post seems more about personal dislike of Facebook rather than the parent commenter's point about the dangers of appointing Facebook as a Ministry of Truth.
  - dingaling 6y ago
    > You should let them know their livelihood rests on a toy. There is an entire global industry of physical toys. Many targeted at adults. Facebook is only different in that it exists in the non-physical domain. It's still a pass-time toy.
    - oarabbus_ 6y ago
      You're right that many people's livelihoods depend on toys, but it's a social network, not a toy. Are netflix twitter and google time pass toys? Hacker News must be a toy/social media site too, then. All social media sites are toys, then? You know as well as I do that the commenter I responded to attempted to use "Facebook is a toy" as a disparaging remark; this is an unnecessary semantics debate I won't continue further.
  - kick 6y ago
    A toy, is that so? I know quite a number of people (engineers, marketers, companies) that exist solely due to Facebook advertising. You should let them know their livelihood rests on a toy. There are physical shops for LEGO, too. Even third-party ones! Ooh, and King & Supercell are billion-dollar companies! I love toys, I think they're great. I don't think you should be getting news from them. Why do you frame it as some ludicrous idea? Is this more preposterous than getting your science and world news from an email chain, or from Fox/CNN, or your wonky neighbor next door? It's just as ludicrous as the idea of people getting their news from Candy Crush, MySpace or a tabloid. Getting news from an e-mail chain is ridiculous if you don't know anybody on it, or who runs it. I happen to have some intelligent friends who share thoughtful, measured news articles on Facebook. Perhaps these complaints of junk science and tabloids being passed around is actually a problem of an individual's circle and who they actively follow. Then surely you'd get the same information say, in person. Or using e-mail. As such, Facebook censoring them would just mean you'd move somewhere else. No possibility of a Ministry of Truth there. There are people in Second Life that act as newscasters, too. Still a toy. This post seems more about personal dislike of Facebook rather than the parent commenter's point about the dangers of appointing Facebook as a Ministry of Truth. I actually love Facebook. It's a neat toy. I love the research that comes out of it. If you search my HN profile you can see a lot of sentiment to this end.
new2628 6y ago
This is an excellent summary, and I fully agree with it. As a modest addition: - In many important cases, there is no fact, just differing viewpoints and opinions. One man's terrorist is another one's freedom fighter. Violent insurgency for one, legitimate fight for liberty and justice for the other. In fact, reasonable people will even disagree on whether in some topic there are facts or only opinions, let alone about their truth value.
- olivermarks 6y ago
  I think a better analogy is 'one man's investigative journalist is another man's conspiracy theorist'. We don't need #bigTech telling us which is which. Most of us can figure out who is dealing with real facts, events which have happened etc. The current crackdown on free speech is the equivalent to digital book burning. Free choice and free speech was ultimately reinstated after the european events during the 1930's.
- protonfish 6y ago
  If you honestly believe there is no objective truth, then there is no value in anything you say. Please stop posting anything ever again.
  - new2628 6y ago
    Apart from the aggressive nature of your comment, indeed, in most areas of interests to humans there is no objective truth or it is not as interesting as the motivations and interests of the involved parties.
    - protonfish 6y ago
      According to your own beliefs, your statement above can't be true. But one thing about it is certain: It is not objective interesting to me in the slightest.
- evan_ 6y ago
  This is absurd. There is an objective reality and things actually do happen. You can observe, record, and measure these things. Whether or not we say someone is a terrorist or a freedom fighter doesn't change the fact that they e.g. drove a truck bomb into a government building.
guscost 6y ago
I've sent a message to my district representative, encouraging a change to the law: > In Green v. AOL (2003), the court established: > There is no real dispute that Green's fundamental tort claim is that AOL was negligent in promulgating harmful content and in failing to address certain harmful content on its network. Green thus attempts to hold AOL liable for decisions relating to the monitoring, screening, and deletion of content from its network — actions quintessentially related to a publisher's role. Section 230 "specifically proscribes liability" in such circumstances. Zeran, 129 F.3d at 332-33. > There is immediately a question why this "quintessential relation" only works in one direction, i.e. why even when "monitoring, screening, and [deleting content]", a provider should not be considered a publisher, and thus ineligible for immunity under Section 230. The courts may not agree with that argument, but I would say that it highlights a serious deficiency, and the law needs to be changed in a similar manner as Josh Hawley's bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1914 https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/191... > In fact I would argue that his bill does not go far enough. Getting an FTC rubber-stamp certifying "no political bias" seems like a vague and squishy system that will be easy to game. Perhaps the law should state that any provider above a certain size which takes action to "monitor, screen, or delete content" that is not illegal, and does not respond to an appropriate claim by reversing this decision, should forfeit immunity under Section 230. This would be very controversial, because it effectively bans e.g. YouTube from having their own "code of conduct" independent of US law. But I think that is exactly what needs to happen - YouTube is far too big for a "community standard" to make sense, and any attempt to do this will be abused for censorship. These companies should be forced to engage with all of us in the making of laws about free speech, they should not effectively be able to declare what free speech is by fiat.
- lr4444lr 6y ago
  I have no idea why you're being downvoted. The legal background on this problem is useful, and highlights the real problem with platforms like Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook engaging in content moderation in any capacity beyond preexisting legal mandates (e.g. removing illegal content). The key to judgment in favor of AOL was their "hands off" approach. (https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/cases/green-v-america-online https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/cases/green-v-america-onli...) As soon as today's social media platforms give even the implicit guarantee to their end users that they've vetted content to some "standard", they're just asking for liability. Once they get into the politics game as per Hawley's bill seeks to prevent, they're gonna face FEC regulations and a host of state and local election law issues as well. Is this really the road they want to go down? I don't think the execs smug in the certitude of their vision of what their communities "should" be seeing and not seeing are thinking this through.
TomMckenny 6y ago
So the enormously popular post telling parents to make their kids drink Lysol should not have even the slightest warning next to it because the poster could be like Galileo or Einstein?
- Traster 6y ago
  On the internet it's your god given right to shout fire in a theatre.
- new2628 6y ago
  You are not arguing in good faith. You are making a caricature of the opposing argument, presenting in the worst light possible.
  - TomMckenny 6y ago
    I'm pointing out a problem with a real post that actually exists right at this very moment.
    - new2628 6y ago
      It is easy to pick one clear-cut case that supports one's viewpoint. The question is how to handle the more murky cases.
      - crooked-v 6y ago
        Sure, but by answering the clear-cut cases you've at least defined boundaries for your problem space.
        AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        But the clear-cut cases aren't actually the problem. You don't need to censor things that are so obviously stupid. The bottle of Lysol says things like "Hazard to Humans and Domestic Animals" and "call a poison control center" etc. To the point that it's incredible that the few people who actually do it are even telling the truth about why, instead of being cases of insane parents looking for a cover story when they want to murder their kids, or Munchausen by proxy or something like that. Meanwhile the same principle gets you absolutely nothing in all of the non-obvious cases, because when the answer is non-obvious (and therefore much more problematic if wrong) then Facebook doesn't have it either.
protonfish 6y ago
I agree that I don't trust anyone to tell me what is true, but there is a base level of fact-checking that is beneficial: Remove anything that is completely fabricated and makes claims without a single shred of evidence. There is absolutely no need for this type of "news." No organization can definitely curate the truth, but almost any can sweep out the garbage.
- xienze 6y ago
  The problem is that many of the things shared on Facebook et al are subject to debate on what the actual truth of the matter is, subject to one’s political biases. We’re not necessarily talking about content stating that the sky is green but say, the accusations Tara Reade made against Joe Biden.
  - protonfish 6y ago
    That is ridiculous. Nobody is asking FB to takes sides on the Reade vs Biden issue. We are asking them to remove QAnon level insanity.
    - mansion7 6y ago
      As you have no proof "Q" is not real, you would be censoring people's speculations based on your own speculations. And since there is no objective proof of God, the supernatural, witchcraft, numerology, astrology, aliens, or the efficacy of communism, you'd better be ready to censor a lot of folks.
Consultant32452 6y ago
Not only do experts disagree, but the prevailing wind of expert advice can change dramatically. In less than a month we went from being told coronavirus wasn't spread from human contact and masks kill you, to now it's highly infectious, you should wear a mask everywhere and the ventilators we'd been putting you on might be killing you faster. If FB thinks they can figure out how to censor counterfactual posts in that kind of climate, they are fools.
rwmj 6y ago
You are missing the whole point. Facebook (and Youtube etc) do not simply show you all opinions in the world at the same time with equal weight. They select things for you to view based on your prior interactions with the website. So they can emphasize and deemphasize articles and videos to show you next. Across their entire userbase selecting articles that are based in reality will have a large effect.
- creaghpatr 6y ago
  >So they can emphasize and deemphasize articles and videos to show you next. Maybe they should stop doing that then.
  - rwmj 6y ago
    I mean, that's their vastly lucrative model to engage the attention of people on their websites, but sure we could ask them to stop I suppose.
- ojnabieoot 6y ago
  This is the real point: Facebook's "Ministry of Truth" is currently a "Ministry of Clicks and Ad Engagement" and Facebook is happy to interfere in the free flow of information if they can make a quick buck off it. Likewise with Google searches, Twitter feeds, and so on. There is no such thing as a for-profit internet content platform which truly engages in some competitive free market. Reddit is sort of close, at least in principle - Google and Facebook aren't even on paper. I would agree that this is gross and I don't personally use Facebook. But the idea that profit-motived filtering and selection is OK, yet additionally filtering out clear and dangerous misinformation is somehow 1984-level authoritarianism, is just dumb. Considering Facebook has been complicit in stolen elections and genocide, it's dangerously dumb.
kauffj 6y ago
Yes yes yes. I am saving this comment I can quote it again in the future. The development of any number of now widely accepted truths went through periods where they were viewed incredibly skeptically. It's inconceivable to me that anyone could even want to _have_ the argument of wanting a central censor again. Haven't we already had this battle enough times? Is the evidence not incontrovertible that societies where people are free to speak and exchange ideas are better than societies that are not? It's rational, I think, to want our software to offer warnings and controls that let us, _as individuals_, choose to hide, filter, or shrink-wrap certain information. Completely surrendering that trust to someone else is utterly insane. P.S. I'm the CEO of LBRY, and this stance is pretty core to what we do. Email me at jeremy@lbry.com if you want to say hi.
asdff 6y ago
The difference between Einstein working in the patent office and the 'armchair physicist' isn't that we live in a more cynical era. The difference is that Einstein submitted his work to be published in a reputable journal. If you have some ideas and don't want to be called an 'armchair scientist,' you are free to publish in a preprint journal and it will probably get accepted if the work is good. It has never been easier in history for an individual to share their scientific ideas with the world. Personally, I could do away with all the armchair epidemiologists that have come out from the woodwork during this pandemic, and would much rather people and politicians be getting their information from experts who publish their thoughts for the scientific community. If facebook could offer at least as much moderation as the newspaper stand of yore, the world would be a much less polarized place imo.
olivermarks 6y ago
Free Speech is the foundation of western democracies. Having #BigTech censoring and grading free speech is antithetical to this. If I want to verify the veracity of ideas and opinions I am currently free to browse the internet and do my own research. I don't need to be policed by a commercial website with highly dubious surveillance capitalism goals and have them tell me what to think.
onepointsixC 6y ago
>First, how will Facebook or any other entity that takes on the responsibility to fact check stand up to coordinated misinformation campaigns like “Iraq has WMDs” where an omniscient fact checker could have literally saved thousands of lives. It gets worse. We did find WMD's in Iraq [1]. But those were Chemical weapons and obviously not the WMD's we were looking for in the first place. So even your omniscient fact-checker would be implicitly lying, as while the statement “Iraq has WMDs” is objectively true, it isn't precisely true that they have the WMD's which there was a coordinated misinformation campaign about. Even with objective truth, a fact-checker could be selectively used and misused for nefarious purposes. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/03/world/middleeast/chemical-weapons-iraq-pentagon-secrets.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/03/world/middlee...
neogodless 6y ago
I've made this point a bit in my other comments, but largely I would say this: As much as possible, you and others should consider their options. If Facebook is as it is now, where individuals are free to spread misinformation (that is clearly convincing enough that it is spread), do you want to use Facebook? If Facebook fact checks your information, which you do not want, do you want to use Facebook? I know that depending on your use case, it may be difficult to find an alternative to Facebook. (I use it out of boredom!) But I think the ideal is that you continue to seek out better tools for interacting with people you care about, with finding and sharing information, etc.

kick 6y ago

...and you go to Facebook for your scientific and world news? Facebook is a toy. Relying on a platform with a built-in way to reply to posts with nothing more than a laugh-cry-smiley to deliver you accurate news in the first place is ridiculous. They could never be a Ministry of Truth or whatever you're implying, because it's a toy. If they want to fact-check posts on their site, it changes literally nothing of importance. They don't, which is fine, but even assuming they did they'd never be capable of anything resembling anything in Orwell's novels.

oarabbus_ 6y ago
>Facebook is a toy. A toy, is that so? I know quite a number of people (engineers, marketers, companies) that exist solely due to Facebook advertising. You should let them know their livelihood rests on a toy. >...and you go to Facebook for your scientific and world news? Why do you frame it as some ludicrous idea? Is this more preposterous than getting your science and world news from an email chain, or from Fox/CNN, or your wonky neighbor next door? I happen to have some intelligent friends who share thoughtful, measured news articles on Facebook. Perhaps these complaints of junk science and tabloids being passed around is actually a problem of an individual's circle and who they actively follow. This post seems more about personal dislike of Facebook rather than the parent commenter's point about the dangers of appointing Facebook as a Ministry of Truth.
- dingaling 6y ago
  > You should let them know their livelihood rests on a toy. There is an entire global industry of physical toys. Many targeted at adults. Facebook is only different in that it exists in the non-physical domain. It's still a pass-time toy.
  - oarabbus_ 6y ago
    You're right that many people's livelihoods depend on toys, but it's a social network, not a toy. Are netflix twitter and google time pass toys? Hacker News must be a toy/social media site too, then. All social media sites are toys, then? You know as well as I do that the commenter I responded to attempted to use "Facebook is a toy" as a disparaging remark; this is an unnecessary semantics debate I won't continue further.
- kick 6y ago
  A toy, is that so? I know quite a number of people (engineers, marketers, companies) that exist solely due to Facebook advertising. You should let them know their livelihood rests on a toy. There are physical shops for LEGO, too. Even third-party ones! Ooh, and King & Supercell are billion-dollar companies! I love toys, I think they're great. I don't think you should be getting news from them. Why do you frame it as some ludicrous idea? Is this more preposterous than getting your science and world news from an email chain, or from Fox/CNN, or your wonky neighbor next door? It's just as ludicrous as the idea of people getting their news from Candy Crush, MySpace or a tabloid. Getting news from an e-mail chain is ridiculous if you don't know anybody on it, or who runs it. I happen to have some intelligent friends who share thoughtful, measured news articles on Facebook. Perhaps these complaints of junk science and tabloids being passed around is actually a problem of an individual's circle and who they actively follow. Then surely you'd get the same information say, in person. Or using e-mail. As such, Facebook censoring them would just mean you'd move somewhere else. No possibility of a Ministry of Truth there. There are people in Second Life that act as newscasters, too. Still a toy. This post seems more about personal dislike of Facebook rather than the parent commenter's point about the dangers of appointing Facebook as a Ministry of Truth. I actually love Facebook. It's a neat toy. I love the research that comes out of it. If you search my HN profile you can see a lot of sentiment to this end.

new2628 6y ago

This is an excellent summary, and I fully agree with it. As a modest addition: - In many important cases, there is no fact, just differing viewpoints and opinions. One man's terrorist is another one's freedom fighter. Violent insurgency for one, legitimate fight for liberty and justice for the other. In fact, reasonable people will even disagree on whether in some topic there are facts or only opinions, let alone about their truth value.

olivermarks 6y ago
I think a better analogy is 'one man's investigative journalist is another man's conspiracy theorist'. We don't need #bigTech telling us which is which. Most of us can figure out who is dealing with real facts, events which have happened etc. The current crackdown on free speech is the equivalent to digital book burning. Free choice and free speech was ultimately reinstated after the european events during the 1930's.
protonfish 6y ago
If you honestly believe there is no objective truth, then there is no value in anything you say. Please stop posting anything ever again.
- new2628 6y ago
  Apart from the aggressive nature of your comment, indeed, in most areas of interests to humans there is no objective truth or it is not as interesting as the motivations and interests of the involved parties.
  - protonfish 6y ago
    According to your own beliefs, your statement above can't be true. But one thing about it is certain: It is not objective interesting to me in the slightest.
evan_ 6y ago
This is absurd. There is an objective reality and things actually do happen. You can observe, record, and measure these things. Whether or not we say someone is a terrorist or a freedom fighter doesn't change the fact that they e.g. drove a truck bomb into a government building.

guscost 6y ago

I've sent a message to my district representative, encouraging a change to the law: > In Green v. AOL (2003), the court established: > There is no real dispute that Green's fundamental tort claim is that AOL was negligent in promulgating harmful content and in failing to address certain harmful content on its network. Green thus attempts to hold AOL liable for decisions relating to the monitoring, screening, and deletion of content from its network — actions quintessentially related to a publisher's role. Section 230 "specifically proscribes liability" in such circumstances. Zeran, 129 F.3d at 332-33. > There is immediately a question why this "quintessential relation" only works in one direction, i.e. why even when "monitoring, screening, and [deleting content]", a provider should not be considered a publisher, and thus ineligible for immunity under Section 230. The courts may not agree with that argument, but I would say that it highlights a serious deficiency, and the law needs to be changed in a similar manner as Josh Hawley's bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1914 https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/191... > In fact I would argue that his bill does not go far enough. Getting an FTC rubber-stamp certifying "no political bias" seems like a vague and squishy system that will be easy to game. Perhaps the law should state that any provider above a certain size which takes action to "monitor, screen, or delete content" that is not illegal, and does not respond to an appropriate claim by reversing this decision, should forfeit immunity under Section 230. This would be very controversial, because it effectively bans e.g. YouTube from having their own "code of conduct" independent of US law. But I think that is exactly what needs to happen - YouTube is far too big for a "community standard" to make sense, and any attempt to do this will be abused for censorship. These companies should be forced to engage with all of us in the making of laws about free speech, they should not effectively be able to declare what free speech is by fiat.

lr4444lr 6y ago
I have no idea why you're being downvoted. The legal background on this problem is useful, and highlights the real problem with platforms like Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook engaging in content moderation in any capacity beyond preexisting legal mandates (e.g. removing illegal content). The key to judgment in favor of AOL was their "hands off" approach. (https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/cases/green-v-america-online https://www.eff.org/issues/cda230/cases/green-v-america-onli...) As soon as today's social media platforms give even the implicit guarantee to their end users that they've vetted content to some "standard", they're just asking for liability. Once they get into the politics game as per Hawley's bill seeks to prevent, they're gonna face FEC regulations and a host of state and local election law issues as well. Is this really the road they want to go down? I don't think the execs smug in the certitude of their vision of what their communities "should" be seeing and not seeing are thinking this through.

TomMckenny 6y ago

So the enormously popular post telling parents to make their kids drink Lysol should not have even the slightest warning next to it because the poster could be like Galileo or Einstein?

Traster 6y ago
On the internet it's your god given right to shout fire in a theatre.
new2628 6y ago
You are not arguing in good faith. You are making a caricature of the opposing argument, presenting in the worst light possible.
- TomMckenny 6y ago
  I'm pointing out a problem with a real post that actually exists right at this very moment.
  - new2628 6y ago
    It is easy to pick one clear-cut case that supports one's viewpoint. The question is how to handle the more murky cases.
    - crooked-v 6y ago
      Sure, but by answering the clear-cut cases you've at least defined boundaries for your problem space.
      - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
        But the clear-cut cases aren't actually the problem. You don't need to censor things that are so obviously stupid. The bottle of Lysol says things like "Hazard to Humans and Domestic Animals" and "call a poison control center" etc. To the point that it's incredible that the few people who actually do it are even telling the truth about why, instead of being cases of insane parents looking for a cover story when they want to murder their kids, or Munchausen by proxy or something like that. Meanwhile the same principle gets you absolutely nothing in all of the non-obvious cases, because when the answer is non-obvious (and therefore much more problematic if wrong) then Facebook doesn't have it either.

protonfish 6y ago

I agree that I don't trust anyone to tell me what is true, but there is a base level of fact-checking that is beneficial: Remove anything that is completely fabricated and makes claims without a single shred of evidence. There is absolutely no need for this type of "news." No organization can definitely curate the truth, but almost any can sweep out the garbage.

xienze 6y ago
The problem is that many of the things shared on Facebook et al are subject to debate on what the actual truth of the matter is, subject to one’s political biases. We’re not necessarily talking about content stating that the sky is green but say, the accusations Tara Reade made against Joe Biden.
- protonfish 6y ago
  That is ridiculous. Nobody is asking FB to takes sides on the Reade vs Biden issue. We are asking them to remove QAnon level insanity.
  - mansion7 6y ago
    As you have no proof "Q" is not real, you would be censoring people's speculations based on your own speculations. And since there is no objective proof of God, the supernatural, witchcraft, numerology, astrology, aliens, or the efficacy of communism, you'd better be ready to censor a lot of folks.

Consultant32452 6y ago

Not only do experts disagree, but the prevailing wind of expert advice can change dramatically. In less than a month we went from being told coronavirus wasn't spread from human contact and masks kill you, to now it's highly infectious, you should wear a mask everywhere and the ventilators we'd been putting you on might be killing you faster. If FB thinks they can figure out how to censor counterfactual posts in that kind of climate, they are fools.

rwmj 6y ago

You are missing the whole point. Facebook (and Youtube etc) do not simply show you all opinions in the world at the same time with equal weight. They select things for you to view based on your prior interactions with the website. So they can emphasize and deemphasize articles and videos to show you next. Across their entire userbase selecting articles that are based in reality will have a large effect.

creaghpatr 6y ago
>So they can emphasize and deemphasize articles and videos to show you next. Maybe they should stop doing that then.
- rwmj 6y ago
  I mean, that's their vastly lucrative model to engage the attention of people on their websites, but sure we could ask them to stop I suppose.
ojnabieoot 6y ago
This is the real point: Facebook's "Ministry of Truth" is currently a "Ministry of Clicks and Ad Engagement" and Facebook is happy to interfere in the free flow of information if they can make a quick buck off it. Likewise with Google searches, Twitter feeds, and so on. There is no such thing as a for-profit internet content platform which truly engages in some competitive free market. Reddit is sort of close, at least in principle - Google and Facebook aren't even on paper. I would agree that this is gross and I don't personally use Facebook. But the idea that profit-motived filtering and selection is OK, yet additionally filtering out clear and dangerous misinformation is somehow 1984-level authoritarianism, is just dumb. Considering Facebook has been complicit in stolen elections and genocide, it's dangerously dumb.

kauffj 6y ago

Yes yes yes. I am saving this comment I can quote it again in the future. The development of any number of now widely accepted truths went through periods where they were viewed incredibly skeptically. It's inconceivable to me that anyone could even want to _have_ the argument of wanting a central censor again. Haven't we already had this battle enough times? Is the evidence not incontrovertible that societies where people are free to speak and exchange ideas are better than societies that are not? It's rational, I think, to want our software to offer warnings and controls that let us, _as individuals_, choose to hide, filter, or shrink-wrap certain information. Completely surrendering that trust to someone else is utterly insane. P.S. I'm the CEO of LBRY, and this stance is pretty core to what we do. Email me at jeremy@lbry.com if you want to say hi.

asdff 6y ago

The difference between Einstein working in the patent office and the 'armchair physicist' isn't that we live in a more cynical era. The difference is that Einstein submitted his work to be published in a reputable journal. If you have some ideas and don't want to be called an 'armchair scientist,' you are free to publish in a preprint journal and it will probably get accepted if the work is good. It has never been easier in history for an individual to share their scientific ideas with the world. Personally, I could do away with all the armchair epidemiologists that have come out from the woodwork during this pandemic, and would much rather people and politicians be getting their information from experts who publish their thoughts for the scientific community. If facebook could offer at least as much moderation as the newspaper stand of yore, the world would be a much less polarized place imo.

olivermarks 6y ago

Free Speech is the foundation of western democracies. Having #BigTech censoring and grading free speech is antithetical to this. If I want to verify the veracity of ideas and opinions I am currently free to browse the internet and do my own research. I don't need to be policed by a commercial website with highly dubious surveillance capitalism goals and have them tell me what to think.

onepointsixC 6y ago

>First, how will Facebook or any other entity that takes on the responsibility to fact check stand up to coordinated misinformation campaigns like “Iraq has WMDs” where an omniscient fact checker could have literally saved thousands of lives. It gets worse. We did find WMD's in Iraq [1]. But those were Chemical weapons and obviously not the WMD's we were looking for in the first place. So even your omniscient fact-checker would be implicitly lying, as while the statement “Iraq has WMDs” is objectively true, it isn't precisely true that they have the WMD's which there was a coordinated misinformation campaign about. Even with objective truth, a fact-checker could be selectively used and misused for nefarious purposes. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/03/world/middleeast/chemical-weapons-iraq-pentagon-secrets.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/03/world/middlee...

neogodless 6y ago

I've made this point a bit in my other comments, but largely I would say this: As much as possible, you and others should consider their options. If Facebook is as it is now, where individuals are free to spread misinformation (that is clearly convincing enough that it is spread), do you want to use Facebook? If Facebook fact checks your information, which you do not want, do you want to use Facebook? I know that depending on your use case, it may be difficult to find an alternative to Facebook. (I use it out of boredom!) But I think the ideal is that you continue to seek out better tools for interacting with people you care about, with finding and sharing information, etc.