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> When a Utah county accidentally sent out 13,000 absentee ballots without a signature line, the NewsGuard Red-rated site LawEnforcementToday.com called this a

> When a Utah county accidentally sent out 13,000 absentee ballots without a signature line, the NewsGuard Red-rated site LawEnforcementToday.com called this a "cheat-by-mail scheme." This isn't a Facebook problem as such. It's just sensationalistic journalism. Just that Facebook as a platform helps amplfiy it. Just my 2 cents.

arkitaip 6y ago
The algorithm is designed to propagate misinformation like crazy because that's what drives engagement and improves Facebook's metrics.
- im3w1l 6y ago
  Come on, you know it's not true that it's designed to propagate misinformation. The algorithm can't even tell whether it's misinformation or not.
  - unmdplyr 6y ago
    I think it's possible. I know for certain there are techniques to identify "click-baity" text snippets. My partner is currently working on a data model now and she has already had some reasonable success. Imagine what a company that hires several 10s or even 100s of data scientists can achieve? From there on, it's just a matter of highlighting these successful matches constantly in your feeds. I wouldn't put it past that.
    - rendall 6y ago
      Interesting idea. I see 2 potential problems. If the approach would be content-neutral - i.e. simply relying on the form of the information (eg misspellings in the title, many exclamation points, and such) to distinguish that which is more likely to be fake - then there could be a race condition where the misinformation purveyors learn and subvert the algorithm followed by the misinformation identifier incorporating the new forms of misinformation, and so on. In the meantime, true information purveyors would also need to be aware of this algorithm so as not to be falsely labeled. Think of the race in SEO for an example If the misinformation identifier uses the content of the information to label misinformation, then the identifier itself is as open to bias and opinion as anyone else
      - daniellarusso 6y ago
        You compared to SEO, but I was thinking about email spam filtering. Some of the best spammers have better practices than the legitimate companies sending email.
  - JumpCrisscross 6y ago
    > it's not true that it's designed to propagate misinformation That was hyperbole on OP’s part. The algorithm is designed to incentivise the creation and dissemination of attention-grabbing content without considering truthfulness. That simply and directly incentivises misinformation propagation. The fact that politically-disinterested troll groups routinely get incentivised to produce misinformation for clicks is Exhibit A to how deeply Facebook promotes these mechanisms. Facebook and its employees turn a blind eye to these second-order effects because they are massively profitable. That’s as close to “designed to” as one can get without literally coding for it.
  - wh1t3n01s3 6y ago
    The algoritthm is driven by engagement, wich is driven by misinformation, because that’s what people click more. So then a lot of more misinformation is written to feed this need. Clearly a lot of money is involved
  - russholmes 6y ago
    What Facebook's system does by design is to propagate and amplify simplistic, emotionally potent narratives. These tend to be fictional i.e. misinformation because reality is nuanced and boring. Further, this has been used by bad actors to seed social discontent and affect democratic elections. Facebook know exactly what is happening on their system and by whom.
  - carschno 6y ago
    The above statement only needs a minor correction: > The algorithm is designed to propagate misinformation like crazy because that's what drives engagement and improves Facebook's metrics. I would put it like this: The algorithm design causes the propagation of misinformation like crazy because it optimizes for engagement (which is Facebook's core metric).
- ElectronShak 6y ago
  More accurately, algorithm simply responds to initial user engagement on the article. It is not designed to "propagate misinformation".
ricardo81 6y ago
It's symptomatic of all platforms who rely on UGC at scale, and the business model goes on the assumption that it can't be moderated. I mean, it goes without saying how much copyrighted content sits on YouTube, Facebook et al. The fact the platform(s) generates revenue from this situation doesn't sit well with me. I'd agree it's not a problem exclusive to Facebook, but a handful of platforms.
CommieDetector 6y ago
You are assuming that they did it by accident...
mrkeen 6y ago
Yeah, it was just sensationalistic journalism, or "election misinformation". And Facebook just helped amplify or "spread" it.
- D0nMalte 6y ago
  They could be more open to solutions like the optical highlighting that twitter has implemented, even if it just says "caution" it could be a big game changer
eloisius 6y ago
And Facebook has changed the landscape of journalism to favor drive-by clickbait journalism. Does the riverbed guide the river or did the river carve out the riverbed?
- op03 6y ago
  The EPA has something called a Dose-Response Curve. Depending on what's being dumped in the river the polluter can be thrown in jail, the govt can be sued, the river can be closed off etc etc But what helps in determining damage is the curve. On all kinds of chemicals. Right now when Facebook allows ppl to swim in info sewage no one knows what the dose - response is. There is no EPA.
  - eloisius 6y ago
    I like your analogy. Maybe it's because I'm older than last time I cared about something this much, but this time I really don't have a solution that's consistent with any ideology that I have. For most of my adult life, I've leaned towards libertarian. I don't see the free market solving this one very well. I'm also skeptical of a government-sponsored ministry of truth, though. I'm at a loss for how to "fix" the effects of social media without causing far more damage with censorship. The closest stop-gap sort of damage control I can think of is to do everything possible to remove any barriers in the way of enabling private citizens to sue for damages when social media companies publish harmful material.
    - 542354234235 6y ago
      It sometimes really scares me to think about. The power of algorithms combined with big data is showing itself to be scarily good at influencing behavior. It is basically exploiting quirks of our brains to get us to do certain things more (namely stay on a particular platform and engage with it). It is like those optical illusions that are made so that even if you are told what you are really seeing, you are incapable of getting your brain to “fix” the illusion. But what if almost everything around was an AI designed optical illusion that is constantly tweaked and improved until you are incapable of having an accurate visual understanding of the world around you. That is what our digital spaces are starting to feel like. But instead of just our visual centers, where we can just say “I know my eyes are playing trips on me”, it is a much deeper level of the brain, like our reward center, our values, our information processing. And in the big scheme of things, algorithms aren’t even all that good yet. They are only going to get better at manipulating us and making us want and need it. Like the study with the mice that would compulsively push a lever to deliver drugs until they starved to death. Using digital stimulus to illicit the addictive biochemical reaction in our brain instead of a drug’s more direct chemical delivery method. Or maybe I’m just paranoid.
bbrree66 6y ago
It's all about incentives! They make money on ads, the more the better.
smaryjerry 6y ago
This is the perfect description. Facebook amplifies your communication and I find that a perfect purpose for Facebook. No one should blame Facebook for what someone posts there for “allowing” it to be said. Facebook has had live streamed murders, that actually helps catch a killer. When Google bans a website doing illegal things, all it does it keep that website from being noticed but the activity continues. Maybe you think it limits the spread of something bad but no it just hides it. People who want to do bad things still do them. The only people who need to be protected from content are children, adults have the ability to critically think about a topic. Amplification of a message is only good. It is an argument about transparency.The phase the best disinfectant is sunlight is great because once it reaches a wide enough audience the people who can dispute the claim will appear rather than just an echo chamber.
- eloisius 6y ago
  I agree about sunlight being the best disinfectant, but I think social media like Facebook is a little more insidious than just "increased exposure." Facebook is designed for targeted messaging to people who are likely to engage with it. We've known about filter bubbles for at least a decade now. Amplifying disinformation specifically to an audience that is vulnerable to it is different than airing it on TV and increasing awareness. That's exactly what algorithmically curated content feeds like Facebook and YouTube recommendations do. They amplify messages to certain people who are susceptible, and there's little awareness until somebody shoots up a mosque and then suddenly we realize there's a whole subculture of people that have semi-willingly brainwashed themselves with conspiracies floating around about white people being "replaced" and think Shariah law is being implemented in Western countries. I don't think censorship of the content is the right answer. Short of calling for violence, people should obviously be free to propagate conspiracies, alternative history, whatever. The component that I am wary of is the algorithmic curation. It seems to tend towards "you like that? How about this slightly more extreme piece of related content?"
  - smaryjerry 6y ago
    I disagree that people are vulnerable to it. I honestly can’t think of a single Facebook ad that has ever changed my mind in a topic. Adults are not vulnerable. The point is is so identify and catch the people who are posting conspiracies and getting radicalized before they do something. You can do that if you don’t see it. I doubt some random reader gets radicalized simply from reading things and never engaging in conversations. With those conversations you are now to identify people and actually prevent more radicalization. For example Facebook knows if you make a death threat, via their algorithms as well as flagging by users. Not only that but their algorithms can identify them in private messages sent, and report them to law enforcement. This may shock people but if these people don’t post on Facebook they then create heir own websites, post in chat rooms, recruit their friends. Then you are left with a completely uncontrolled website or app where these people get stuck in an echo chamber.

arkitaip 6y ago

The algorithm is designed to propagate misinformation like crazy because that's what drives engagement and improves Facebook's metrics.

im3w1l 6y ago
Come on, you know it's not true that it's designed to propagate misinformation. The algorithm can't even tell whether it's misinformation or not.
- unmdplyr 6y ago
  I think it's possible. I know for certain there are techniques to identify "click-baity" text snippets. My partner is currently working on a data model now and she has already had some reasonable success. Imagine what a company that hires several 10s or even 100s of data scientists can achieve? From there on, it's just a matter of highlighting these successful matches constantly in your feeds. I wouldn't put it past that.
  - rendall 6y ago
    Interesting idea. I see 2 potential problems. If the approach would be content-neutral - i.e. simply relying on the form of the information (eg misspellings in the title, many exclamation points, and such) to distinguish that which is more likely to be fake - then there could be a race condition where the misinformation purveyors learn and subvert the algorithm followed by the misinformation identifier incorporating the new forms of misinformation, and so on. In the meantime, true information purveyors would also need to be aware of this algorithm so as not to be falsely labeled. Think of the race in SEO for an example If the misinformation identifier uses the content of the information to label misinformation, then the identifier itself is as open to bias and opinion as anyone else
    - daniellarusso 6y ago
      You compared to SEO, but I was thinking about email spam filtering. Some of the best spammers have better practices than the legitimate companies sending email.
- JumpCrisscross 6y ago
  > it's not true that it's designed to propagate misinformation That was hyperbole on OP’s part. The algorithm is designed to incentivise the creation and dissemination of attention-grabbing content without considering truthfulness. That simply and directly incentivises misinformation propagation. The fact that politically-disinterested troll groups routinely get incentivised to produce misinformation for clicks is Exhibit A to how deeply Facebook promotes these mechanisms. Facebook and its employees turn a blind eye to these second-order effects because they are massively profitable. That’s as close to “designed to” as one can get without literally coding for it.
- wh1t3n01s3 6y ago
  The algoritthm is driven by engagement, wich is driven by misinformation, because that’s what people click more. So then a lot of more misinformation is written to feed this need. Clearly a lot of money is involved
- russholmes 6y ago
  What Facebook's system does by design is to propagate and amplify simplistic, emotionally potent narratives. These tend to be fictional i.e. misinformation because reality is nuanced and boring. Further, this has been used by bad actors to seed social discontent and affect democratic elections. Facebook know exactly what is happening on their system and by whom.
- carschno 6y ago
  The above statement only needs a minor correction: > The algorithm is designed to propagate misinformation like crazy because that's what drives engagement and improves Facebook's metrics. I would put it like this: The algorithm design causes the propagation of misinformation like crazy because it optimizes for engagement (which is Facebook's core metric).
ElectronShak 6y ago
More accurately, algorithm simply responds to initial user engagement on the article. It is not designed to "propagate misinformation".

ricardo81 6y ago

It's symptomatic of all platforms who rely on UGC at scale, and the business model goes on the assumption that it can't be moderated. I mean, it goes without saying how much copyrighted content sits on YouTube, Facebook et al. The fact the platform(s) generates revenue from this situation doesn't sit well with me. I'd agree it's not a problem exclusive to Facebook, but a handful of platforms.

CommieDetector 6y ago

You are assuming that they did it by accident...

mrkeen 6y ago

Yeah, it was just sensationalistic journalism, or "election misinformation". And Facebook just helped amplify or "spread" it.

D0nMalte 6y ago
They could be more open to solutions like the optical highlighting that twitter has implemented, even if it just says "caution" it could be a big game changer

eloisius 6y ago

And Facebook has changed the landscape of journalism to favor drive-by clickbait journalism. Does the riverbed guide the river or did the river carve out the riverbed?

op03 6y ago
The EPA has something called a Dose-Response Curve. Depending on what's being dumped in the river the polluter can be thrown in jail, the govt can be sued, the river can be closed off etc etc But what helps in determining damage is the curve. On all kinds of chemicals. Right now when Facebook allows ppl to swim in info sewage no one knows what the dose - response is. There is no EPA.
- eloisius 6y ago
  I like your analogy. Maybe it's because I'm older than last time I cared about something this much, but this time I really don't have a solution that's consistent with any ideology that I have. For most of my adult life, I've leaned towards libertarian. I don't see the free market solving this one very well. I'm also skeptical of a government-sponsored ministry of truth, though. I'm at a loss for how to "fix" the effects of social media without causing far more damage with censorship. The closest stop-gap sort of damage control I can think of is to do everything possible to remove any barriers in the way of enabling private citizens to sue for damages when social media companies publish harmful material.
  - 542354234235 6y ago
    It sometimes really scares me to think about. The power of algorithms combined with big data is showing itself to be scarily good at influencing behavior. It is basically exploiting quirks of our brains to get us to do certain things more (namely stay on a particular platform and engage with it). It is like those optical illusions that are made so that even if you are told what you are really seeing, you are incapable of getting your brain to “fix” the illusion. But what if almost everything around was an AI designed optical illusion that is constantly tweaked and improved until you are incapable of having an accurate visual understanding of the world around you. That is what our digital spaces are starting to feel like. But instead of just our visual centers, where we can just say “I know my eyes are playing trips on me”, it is a much deeper level of the brain, like our reward center, our values, our information processing. And in the big scheme of things, algorithms aren’t even all that good yet. They are only going to get better at manipulating us and making us want and need it. Like the study with the mice that would compulsively push a lever to deliver drugs until they starved to death. Using digital stimulus to illicit the addictive biochemical reaction in our brain instead of a drug’s more direct chemical delivery method. Or maybe I’m just paranoid.

bbrree66 6y ago

It's all about incentives! They make money on ads, the more the better.

smaryjerry 6y ago

This is the perfect description. Facebook amplifies your communication and I find that a perfect purpose for Facebook. No one should blame Facebook for what someone posts there for “allowing” it to be said. Facebook has had live streamed murders, that actually helps catch a killer. When Google bans a website doing illegal things, all it does it keep that website from being noticed but the activity continues. Maybe you think it limits the spread of something bad but no it just hides it. People who want to do bad things still do them. The only people who need to be protected from content are children, adults have the ability to critically think about a topic. Amplification of a message is only good. It is an argument about transparency.The phase the best disinfectant is sunlight is great because once it reaches a wide enough audience the people who can dispute the claim will appear rather than just an echo chamber.

eloisius 6y ago
I agree about sunlight being the best disinfectant, but I think social media like Facebook is a little more insidious than just "increased exposure." Facebook is designed for targeted messaging to people who are likely to engage with it. We've known about filter bubbles for at least a decade now. Amplifying disinformation specifically to an audience that is vulnerable to it is different than airing it on TV and increasing awareness. That's exactly what algorithmically curated content feeds like Facebook and YouTube recommendations do. They amplify messages to certain people who are susceptible, and there's little awareness until somebody shoots up a mosque and then suddenly we realize there's a whole subculture of people that have semi-willingly brainwashed themselves with conspiracies floating around about white people being "replaced" and think Shariah law is being implemented in Western countries. I don't think censorship of the content is the right answer. Short of calling for violence, people should obviously be free to propagate conspiracies, alternative history, whatever. The component that I am wary of is the algorithmic curation. It seems to tend towards "you like that? How about this slightly more extreme piece of related content?"
- smaryjerry 6y ago
  I disagree that people are vulnerable to it. I honestly can’t think of a single Facebook ad that has ever changed my mind in a topic. Adults are not vulnerable. The point is is so identify and catch the people who are posting conspiracies and getting radicalized before they do something. You can do that if you don’t see it. I doubt some random reader gets radicalized simply from reading things and never engaging in conversations. With those conversations you are now to identify people and actually prevent more radicalization. For example Facebook knows if you make a death threat, via their algorithms as well as flagging by users. Not only that but their algorithms can identify them in private messages sent, and report them to law enforcement. This may shock people but if these people don’t post on Facebook they then create heir own websites, post in chat rooms, recruit their friends. Then you are left with a completely uncontrolled website or app where these people get stuck in an echo chamber.