7 ms·

Combating Misinformation

22 points by lawrenceyan 6y ago

jtbayly 6y ago
So thankful that FB will protect us from harmful information like the claim that buying and wearing a mask could help save lives. Oh wait. Now that is considered information and the opposite is considered misinformation. This is so great. /s
mnd999 6y ago
This doesn’t actually link to an article for me, more a list of articles. What are we supposed to be reading? If they meant the first article, it should be flagged [2020]
theNJR 6y ago
>For claims that don’t directly result in physical harm, like conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus, we continue to work with our network of over 55 fact-checking partners covering over 45 languages to debunk these claims... Once a post is rated false by a fact-checker, we reduce its distribution so fewer people see it, and we show strong warning labels and notifications to people who still come across it, try to share it or already have. Does this pass the mask test? As we all remember, the WHO said to not wear masks early during the outbreak. Twitter users, in particular, was way ahead on urging people TO wear a mask. Would Facebook now block that or reduce its distribution and potentially risk lives?
- cwkoss 6y ago
  I think it is naive to believe there will be any sort of consistently applied rule. It will be based on the whims of whoever manages this initiative. They are only using fact checkers because it gives them someone to point to and say "Look we didn't make this call, they did". This is like a money laundering scheme but with brand reputation risk instead of money. Facebook will retain absolute control and the people running this initiative will do whatever the brass tells them to, this program is just for deflecting complaints.
- aNoob7000 6y ago
  The problem we have is that the WHO made a mistake early on in the pandemic and then changed course. As humans, we should be allowed to make mistakes, acknowledge the mistake when new information is presented, and then change course. The problem is with individuals and organizations that knowingly continue to promote misinformation like vaccines are bad for you.
- CarelessExpert 6y ago
  > Does this pass the mask test? As we all remember, the WHO said to not wear masks early during the outbreak. Honestly, this strikes me as simply a loaded question bordering on a dog whistle. I can't count the number of times that folks have used early mask recommendations during the pandemic as a way to a) undermine the authority of health institutions, while simultaneously b) positing the idea that there is no objective facts or truth. In short, I don't believe your question is being put forth in good faith. Please, disabuse me of this notion. Why should this one specific example be used as a justification for social networks not engaging in fact checking?
  - clairity 6y ago
    yah, "mask test" as used here is most certainly a dog whistle for people who believe in masks religiously and righteously fight "anti-maskers". in reality both of these opposing factions have fallen for mediopolitical misinformation (i.e., propaganda), including from the CDC. but the passing criteria for a more rigorous mask test would be wearing one around non-household friends and family in tight quarters for prolonged periods of contact, and not wearing them in places where they do no good above and beyond distancing or environmental circumstances (like being outside or in low density/circulation areas indoors). an overwhelming majority of people fail this test, mostly because it defies our social instincts/conditioning promoting trust and closeness among the in-group and distrusting and distancing the out-group, but also because many have also fallen victim to pervasive and oft-repeated propaganda via social (and other) media.
- warkdarrior 6y ago
  What do you suggest Facebook should have done when WHO said to not wear masks? If they cannot rely on WHO for health expertise, whose expertise should they count on?
- fractionalhare 6y ago
  A principled commitment to fact-checking is more important than whether or not any particular fact-check is ultimately correct. Mistakes happen. If the effort results in more good calls than bad calls, it is a good initiative overall. What would you have Facebook do, fact check using Twitter because the CDC made this one bad call? Do you think the modal CDC consensus is worse than that of Twitter?
  - thu2111 6y ago
    Facebook should just not use fact checkers at all. The sites were fine before that and "fact checkers" shoot themselves in the feet so frequently that ever fewer people take them seriously. Most such self-proclaimed checkers are far more interested in what authority figures say than what is true, hence why they're such a mess - the moment authority figures disagree it sends them into a tailspin of confusion and random, arbitrary decisions. Really, Facebook and others need to just give up on this. There is no principled commitment to anything here. "Misinformation" isn't even a meaningful concept. It's arrogant and abusive for randos at FB or other social media firms to believe they are so smart they can sift the entire world for what's true and what's not. Nobody can do that. Nobody.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    I would have them not make a blanket commitment to fact-checking, because I don't agree with the perspective that it's a good initiative if it makes mostly good calls. A "fake news suppressor" that's allowed to make any significant number of bad calls will inevitably be abused by bad actors who have specific topics they'd prefer people not to discuss.
    - fractionalhare 6y ago
      I guess, but even if it's imperfect it still seems better than the status quo.
- zackees 6y ago
  My mom is a flight attendant. I warned her in January that this virus was going to hit. In March 2020, her company, I won’t say which major one it was, banned her from wearing a mask, per guidelines of the WHO. This was about the same time that Amazon and Ebay purged large supplies of masks from their market places to protect consumers from “price gauging” right as the pandemic hit.
- goalieca 6y ago
  The mask test is an interesting one. Please don’t fry me for this, but the WHO has a report on mask usage from December that notes some inconclusiveness in community settings. It can be very hard to prove something with a rather small effect compared to real-world complexity. This is in contrast to vaccines that have a rather strong signal. Please read the whole section because I cherry picked just one paragraph without full context. I just wanted to demonstrate that nothing is actually all that obvious when it comes to the pandemic. > Evidence on the protective effect of mask use in community settings > At present there is only limited and inconsistent scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2 (75). A large randomized community-based trial in which 4862 healthy participants were divided into a group wearing medical/surgical masks and a control group found no difference in infection with SARS-CoV-2 (76). A recent systematic review found nine trials (of which eight were cluster-randomized controlled trials in which clusters of people, versus individuals, were randomized) comparing medical/surgical masks versus no masks to prevent the spread of viral respiratory illness. Two trials were with healthcare workers and seven in the community. The review concluded that wearing a mask may make little or no difference to the prevention of influenza-like illness (ILI) (RR 0.99, 95%CI 0.82 to 1.18) or laboratory confirmed illness (LCI) (RR 0.91, 95%CI 0.66-1.26) (44); the certainty of the evidence was low for ILI, moderate for LCI. https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1319378/retrieve https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1319378/retrieve
cowabungabruce 6y ago
They can remove the entire newsfeed and remove the ability for users to share links? Oh wait, nevermind, this is "Combating Misinformation WHILE STAYING a multibillion rev business who makes money from users' attention"
- warkdarrior 6y ago
  You might as well ask to shut down the whole Internet. Even if Facebook disappears tomorrow, there are plenty of other social platforms to allow the spread of disinformation.
  - cowabungabruce 6y ago
    Gotta starve the beast somehow. Then worry about the other minnows.
    - minsc__and__boo 6y ago
      There are plenty of other beasts, with different revenue streams and incentives, that are ready to fill the power/market vacuum.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cwkoss 6y ago
Now do Facebook's public facing comments about section 230. (context https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1374785753629163521 https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1374785753629163521)
heavyset_go 6y ago
This is the same company that proliferated a genocide[1], profited from it, and did nothing to stop it. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...
dna_polymerase 6y ago
Maybe this should link to [0] instead. It talks about a change in their newsfeed algorithm resulting in a 5% decrease in usage time. Think about that. Their algorithms are so good, they influence how billions of people spend a lot of time. And they know how to increase that time as they wish. They have no incentive to decrease usage further and even if they commit to something like that now, as soon as their revenues decline Wall Street will force them to ramp up usage. [0]: https://about.fb.com/news/2021/03/how-were-tackling-misinformation-across-our-apps/ https://about.fb.com/news/2021/03/how-were-tackling-misinfor...
andred14 6y ago
Ya sure. Keep suspending me for posting real science and facts see if I care. We are not stupid, we know you are working for a side and it is not the good guys.
j4yav 6y ago
Whatever the solution is for misinformation, if there is one, I am quite certain that it will not be invented by Facebook.
- ISL 6y ago
  I originally upvoted, but with further reflection, I'm not certain. There is real enduring value in being a source for information that is true and trusted. It is possible that Facebook might choose that path. The harder question is understanding what is true. "Galileo's head was on the block; the crime was looking up the truth."
- fractionalhare 6y ago
  But Facebook can at least work towards it, even if you're pessimistic they'll solve it. That's what this blog post is about.
  - j4yav 6y ago
    The very first sentence on the page is how they are stopping it. If their ambition is to work towards something vaguely better, then sure, seems reasonable.
    - fractionalhare 6y ago
      I think focusing on the literal semantics of the first sentence rather than taking the blog post holistically is too harsh. Obviously it's still a problem; they are communicating that they're working on it.
      - j4yav 6y ago
        I did look at the whole thing and assumed that they meant that doing those things added up to stopping it. However I can see your point of view as well.
- nillium 6y ago
  The problem with misinformation, ultimately, is that it is given a platform. We've reached an inflection point where people can truly believe these mistruths so deeply, that any fact checking is received as a personal attack -- and they get even more defensive. Facebook (or YouTube, or Twitter, or whoever) can try to come up with even more infoboxes or disclaimers, but it will continue to exist as long as it is given a platform. The original sin of social media comes down to the idea that anyone can post, and that virality begets virality. Shocking content is presented on the same level as traditional media -- and in many cases, can exceed those traditional news sources' reach. FWIW, and disclosure -- we're building a platform that aims to combat misinfo by making it only for news. (https://blog.nillium.com/were-not-an-aggregator/ https://blog.nillium.com/were-not-an-aggregator/). Our reporters follow an Editorial Policy, that comes with consequences if they break the guidelines. Virtually every respectable news org has something like this -- we're just making ours public. https://www.forthapp.com/docs/policy.html https://www.forthapp.com/docs/policy.html Until we hold the reporting produced by professional reporters -- reviewed by editors, fact checked, and held in check by an editorial process -- at a higher esteem than what Firstname Bunchanumbers says, misinformation will continue.
reubenswartz 6y ago
Stepping away from the specifics of Facebook's history, does anyone have solid ideas for how globe-spanning communities should function? It seems next to impossible to both allow individuals to share things and make sure that you only see "true" things in that community. And it seems that given the numbers involved, there will always be some amount of "accidental" misinformation that has a real impact, and deliberate misinformation from bad actors looking to exploit the system...
- CarelessExpert 6y ago
  > does anyone have solid ideas for how globe-spanning communities should function? Your mistake is thinking the problem is in the communities, as opposed to the technology platforms themselves. Personally, as a starting point I'd want them to: 1. Kill algorithmic curation that is based on "engagement". These digital skinner boxes are a cancer on society. 2. Introduce much stronger privacy laws that discourage or prevent data collection used to drive targeted advertising. Reduce or eliminate the financial incentives driving #1. 3. Provide complete and open transparency around how these platforms engage in their moderation decisions. Reporting leads one to suspect Zuck stepped into to help out right-wing agitators. Twitter is making their own arbitrary decisions. We all need to know if these decisions are happening and how they're being made.
  - reubenswartz 6y ago
    1. I agree, but they are also the business model. If one platform doesn't use them, another that does will come to predominate. 2. This has some merit and would be a great start (we can dream, right?), but I don't think it would solve misinformation. 3. That sounds nice, but how would it work in practice. What if moderators get death threats from bad actors?
    - CarelessExpert 6y ago
      1. That's one of the reasons we have governments: to regulate industry so capitalism doesn't run amok. 2. Nothing I listed would "solve" it. There is no one "solution". 3. We already have laws to deal with harassment. Frankly, I feel like you're falling for the nirvana fallacy, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy
quijoteuniv 6y ago
I lost my faith in Facebook moderation the day I reported a Coke ad as scam (water with color and sugar, is the greatest scam of the century) . After they review it, they did not consider it was a scam. I do not trust this guys anymore.
- readflaggedcomm 6y ago
  Was their ad fraudulent? Just because Coca-Cola doesn't share your values doesn't mean it's misinformation or a scam.
  - quijoteuniv 6y ago
    No,but that is exactly the point.How can you trust a company that make their money by advertising to users. They will always respond to the interest of the poeple with money. And the fact their are attempting to «be better» it has more to do with backslash and the fact that they will lose more money if they do not do something. The truth is pennyless cannot pay for ads! I was just adding a bit of humor to the conversation with the Coke story. Coke is definetely better than Pepsi.
goalieca 6y ago
Who decides the truth? I don’t want to muddy the waters too much but i am concerned with current trend to appeal to science as an authority of truth to justify whatever public policy is in play. Scientific publishing can be a chaotic process where a healthy skepticism should be maintained. The truth is never easy to ascertain. In fact, one of the highest cited papers from an epidemiologist is titled « Why Most Published Research Findings Are False ». I found it to be a good meta-analysis that could easily challenge my previous field of computer vision where often fantastical results were obtained on a data set but could not be reproduced elsewhere. https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...
- fractionalhare 6y ago
  Online discourse would be vastly improved if everyone meticulously cited peer reviewed papers and used no other substantiation. It still wouldn't be perfect, but at least there'd be a commitment to rigor. The current status quo is telling people they're wrong, citing nothing, and telling them they "just haven't done enough research."
  - readflaggedcomm 6y ago
    Maybe it wouldn't improve because people mostly argue over differing values, not differing research.
- agumonkey 6y ago
  I'm no PhD but the more I read pubmed the more I realize that science truth is often a time vetted average. The recent decade has been obsessed with truth as an road to ideal life. I believe in local first reality now, relativistically so.
- jaredwiener 6y ago
  There's a major difference between coming to different conclusions from a set of data, with completely fabricating nonsense. @BadMedicalTakes (https://twitter.com/badmedicaltakes https://twitter.com/badmedicaltakes) is just one quick way to see some of the stuff thats out there. Can we at least all agree that germs cause disease, there are no nanobots in any of the COVID vaccines, and that masks are not dangerous?
minsc__and__boo 6y ago
Seems like a hard tach from their stance before on election misinformation. I wonder what changed to prompt this.
teddyh 6y ago
When you can confidently label someone else’s words “misinformation”, you have already won.

22 points by lawrenceyan 6y ago

So thankful that FB will protect us from harmful information like the claim that buying and wearing a mask could help save lives. Oh wait. Now that is considered information and the opposite is considered misinformation. This is so great. /s

mnd999 6y ago

This doesn’t actually link to an article for me, more a list of articles. What are we supposed to be reading? If they meant the first article, it should be flagged [2020]

theNJR 6y ago

>For claims that don’t directly result in physical harm, like conspiracy theories about the origin of the virus, we continue to work with our network of over 55 fact-checking partners covering over 45 languages to debunk these claims... Once a post is rated false by a fact-checker, we reduce its distribution so fewer people see it, and we show strong warning labels and notifications to people who still come across it, try to share it or already have. Does this pass the mask test? As we all remember, the WHO said to not wear masks early during the outbreak. Twitter users, in particular, was way ahead on urging people TO wear a mask. Would Facebook now block that or reduce its distribution and potentially risk lives?

cwkoss 6y ago
I think it is naive to believe there will be any sort of consistently applied rule. It will be based on the whims of whoever manages this initiative. They are only using fact checkers because it gives them someone to point to and say "Look we didn't make this call, they did". This is like a money laundering scheme but with brand reputation risk instead of money. Facebook will retain absolute control and the people running this initiative will do whatever the brass tells them to, this program is just for deflecting complaints.
aNoob7000 6y ago
The problem we have is that the WHO made a mistake early on in the pandemic and then changed course. As humans, we should be allowed to make mistakes, acknowledge the mistake when new information is presented, and then change course. The problem is with individuals and organizations that knowingly continue to promote misinformation like vaccines are bad for you.
CarelessExpert 6y ago
> Does this pass the mask test? As we all remember, the WHO said to not wear masks early during the outbreak. Honestly, this strikes me as simply a loaded question bordering on a dog whistle. I can't count the number of times that folks have used early mask recommendations during the pandemic as a way to a) undermine the authority of health institutions, while simultaneously b) positing the idea that there is no objective facts or truth. In short, I don't believe your question is being put forth in good faith. Please, disabuse me of this notion. Why should this one specific example be used as a justification for social networks not engaging in fact checking?
- clairity 6y ago
  yah, "mask test" as used here is most certainly a dog whistle for people who believe in masks religiously and righteously fight "anti-maskers". in reality both of these opposing factions have fallen for mediopolitical misinformation (i.e., propaganda), including from the CDC. but the passing criteria for a more rigorous mask test would be wearing one around non-household friends and family in tight quarters for prolonged periods of contact, and not wearing them in places where they do no good above and beyond distancing or environmental circumstances (like being outside or in low density/circulation areas indoors). an overwhelming majority of people fail this test, mostly because it defies our social instincts/conditioning promoting trust and closeness among the in-group and distrusting and distancing the out-group, but also because many have also fallen victim to pervasive and oft-repeated propaganda via social (and other) media.
warkdarrior 6y ago
What do you suggest Facebook should have done when WHO said to not wear masks? If they cannot rely on WHO for health expertise, whose expertise should they count on?
fractionalhare 6y ago
A principled commitment to fact-checking is more important than whether or not any particular fact-check is ultimately correct. Mistakes happen. If the effort results in more good calls than bad calls, it is a good initiative overall. What would you have Facebook do, fact check using Twitter because the CDC made this one bad call? Do you think the modal CDC consensus is worse than that of Twitter?
- thu2111 6y ago
  Facebook should just not use fact checkers at all. The sites were fine before that and "fact checkers" shoot themselves in the feet so frequently that ever fewer people take them seriously. Most such self-proclaimed checkers are far more interested in what authority figures say than what is true, hence why they're such a mess - the moment authority figures disagree it sends them into a tailspin of confusion and random, arbitrary decisions. Really, Facebook and others need to just give up on this. There is no principled commitment to anything here. "Misinformation" isn't even a meaningful concept. It's arrogant and abusive for randos at FB or other social media firms to believe they are so smart they can sift the entire world for what's true and what's not. Nobody can do that. Nobody.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I would have them not make a blanket commitment to fact-checking, because I don't agree with the perspective that it's a good initiative if it makes mostly good calls. A "fake news suppressor" that's allowed to make any significant number of bad calls will inevitably be abused by bad actors who have specific topics they'd prefer people not to discuss.
  - fractionalhare 6y ago
    I guess, but even if it's imperfect it still seems better than the status quo.
zackees 6y ago
My mom is a flight attendant. I warned her in January that this virus was going to hit. In March 2020, her company, I won’t say which major one it was, banned her from wearing a mask, per guidelines of the WHO. This was about the same time that Amazon and Ebay purged large supplies of masks from their market places to protect consumers from “price gauging” right as the pandemic hit.
goalieca 6y ago
The mask test is an interesting one. Please don’t fry me for this, but the WHO has a report on mask usage from December that notes some inconclusiveness in community settings. It can be very hard to prove something with a rather small effect compared to real-world complexity. This is in contrast to vaccines that have a rather strong signal. Please read the whole section because I cherry picked just one paragraph without full context. I just wanted to demonstrate that nothing is actually all that obvious when it comes to the pandemic. > Evidence on the protective effect of mask use in community settings > At present there is only limited and inconsistent scientific evidence to support the effectiveness of masking of healthy people in the community to prevent infection with respiratory viruses, including SARS-CoV-2 (75). A large randomized community-based trial in which 4862 healthy participants were divided into a group wearing medical/surgical masks and a control group found no difference in infection with SARS-CoV-2 (76). A recent systematic review found nine trials (of which eight were cluster-randomized controlled trials in which clusters of people, versus individuals, were randomized) comparing medical/surgical masks versus no masks to prevent the spread of viral respiratory illness. Two trials were with healthcare workers and seven in the community. The review concluded that wearing a mask may make little or no difference to the prevention of influenza-like illness (ILI) (RR 0.99, 95%CI 0.82 to 1.18) or laboratory confirmed illness (LCI) (RR 0.91, 95%CI 0.66-1.26) (44); the certainty of the evidence was low for ILI, moderate for LCI. https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1319378/retrieve https://apps.who.int/iris/rest/bitstreams/1319378/retrieve

cowabungabruce 6y ago

They can remove the entire newsfeed and remove the ability for users to share links? Oh wait, nevermind, this is "Combating Misinformation WHILE STAYING a multibillion rev business who makes money from users' attention"

warkdarrior 6y ago
You might as well ask to shut down the whole Internet. Even if Facebook disappears tomorrow, there are plenty of other social platforms to allow the spread of disinformation.
- cowabungabruce 6y ago
  Gotta starve the beast somehow. Then worry about the other minnows.
  - minsc__and__boo 6y ago
    There are plenty of other beasts, with different revenue streams and incentives, that are ready to fill the power/market vacuum.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

cwkoss 6y ago

Now do Facebook's public facing comments about section 230. (context https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1374785753629163521 https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1374785753629163521)

heavyset_go 6y ago

This is the same company that proliferated a genocide[1], profited from it, and did nothing to stop it. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...

dna_polymerase 6y ago

Maybe this should link to [0] instead. It talks about a change in their newsfeed algorithm resulting in a 5% decrease in usage time. Think about that. Their algorithms are so good, they influence how billions of people spend a lot of time. And they know how to increase that time as they wish. They have no incentive to decrease usage further and even if they commit to something like that now, as soon as their revenues decline Wall Street will force them to ramp up usage. [0]: https://about.fb.com/news/2021/03/how-were-tackling-misinformation-across-our-apps/ https://about.fb.com/news/2021/03/how-were-tackling-misinfor...

andred14 6y ago

Ya sure. Keep suspending me for posting real science and facts see if I care. We are not stupid, we know you are working for a side and it is not the good guys.

j4yav 6y ago

Whatever the solution is for misinformation, if there is one, I am quite certain that it will not be invented by Facebook.

ISL 6y ago
I originally upvoted, but with further reflection, I'm not certain. There is real enduring value in being a source for information that is true and trusted. It is possible that Facebook might choose that path. The harder question is understanding what is true. "Galileo's head was on the block; the crime was looking up the truth."
fractionalhare 6y ago
But Facebook can at least work towards it, even if you're pessimistic they'll solve it. That's what this blog post is about.
- j4yav 6y ago
  The very first sentence on the page is how they are stopping it. If their ambition is to work towards something vaguely better, then sure, seems reasonable.
  - fractionalhare 6y ago
    I think focusing on the literal semantics of the first sentence rather than taking the blog post holistically is too harsh. Obviously it's still a problem; they are communicating that they're working on it.
    - j4yav 6y ago
      I did look at the whole thing and assumed that they meant that doing those things added up to stopping it. However I can see your point of view as well.
nillium 6y ago
The problem with misinformation, ultimately, is that it is given a platform. We've reached an inflection point where people can truly believe these mistruths so deeply, that any fact checking is received as a personal attack -- and they get even more defensive. Facebook (or YouTube, or Twitter, or whoever) can try to come up with even more infoboxes or disclaimers, but it will continue to exist as long as it is given a platform. The original sin of social media comes down to the idea that anyone can post, and that virality begets virality. Shocking content is presented on the same level as traditional media -- and in many cases, can exceed those traditional news sources' reach. FWIW, and disclosure -- we're building a platform that aims to combat misinfo by making it only for news. (https://blog.nillium.com/were-not-an-aggregator/ https://blog.nillium.com/were-not-an-aggregator/). Our reporters follow an Editorial Policy, that comes with consequences if they break the guidelines. Virtually every respectable news org has something like this -- we're just making ours public. https://www.forthapp.com/docs/policy.html https://www.forthapp.com/docs/policy.html Until we hold the reporting produced by professional reporters -- reviewed by editors, fact checked, and held in check by an editorial process -- at a higher esteem than what Firstname Bunchanumbers says, misinformation will continue.

reubenswartz 6y ago

Stepping away from the specifics of Facebook's history, does anyone have solid ideas for how globe-spanning communities should function? It seems next to impossible to both allow individuals to share things and make sure that you only see "true" things in that community. And it seems that given the numbers involved, there will always be some amount of "accidental" misinformation that has a real impact, and deliberate misinformation from bad actors looking to exploit the system...

CarelessExpert 6y ago
> does anyone have solid ideas for how globe-spanning communities should function? Your mistake is thinking the problem is in the communities, as opposed to the technology platforms themselves. Personally, as a starting point I'd want them to: 1. Kill algorithmic curation that is based on "engagement". These digital skinner boxes are a cancer on society. 2. Introduce much stronger privacy laws that discourage or prevent data collection used to drive targeted advertising. Reduce or eliminate the financial incentives driving #1. 3. Provide complete and open transparency around how these platforms engage in their moderation decisions. Reporting leads one to suspect Zuck stepped into to help out right-wing agitators. Twitter is making their own arbitrary decisions. We all need to know if these decisions are happening and how they're being made.
- reubenswartz 6y ago
  1. I agree, but they are also the business model. If one platform doesn't use them, another that does will come to predominate. 2. This has some merit and would be a great start (we can dream, right?), but I don't think it would solve misinformation. 3. That sounds nice, but how would it work in practice. What if moderators get death threats from bad actors?
  - CarelessExpert 6y ago
    1. That's one of the reasons we have governments: to regulate industry so capitalism doesn't run amok. 2. Nothing I listed would "solve" it. There is no one "solution". 3. We already have laws to deal with harassment. Frankly, I feel like you're falling for the nirvana fallacy, here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

quijoteuniv 6y ago

I lost my faith in Facebook moderation the day I reported a Coke ad as scam (water with color and sugar, is the greatest scam of the century) . After they review it, they did not consider it was a scam. I do not trust this guys anymore.

readflaggedcomm 6y ago
Was their ad fraudulent? Just because Coca-Cola doesn't share your values doesn't mean it's misinformation or a scam.
- quijoteuniv 6y ago
  No,but that is exactly the point.How can you trust a company that make their money by advertising to users. They will always respond to the interest of the poeple with money. And the fact their are attempting to «be better» it has more to do with backslash and the fact that they will lose more money if they do not do something. The truth is pennyless cannot pay for ads! I was just adding a bit of humor to the conversation with the Coke story. Coke is definetely better than Pepsi.

goalieca 6y ago

Who decides the truth? I don’t want to muddy the waters too much but i am concerned with current trend to appeal to science as an authority of truth to justify whatever public policy is in play. Scientific publishing can be a chaotic process where a healthy skepticism should be maintained. The truth is never easy to ascertain. In fact, one of the highest cited papers from an epidemiologist is titled « Why Most Published Research Findings Are False ». I found it to be a good meta-analysis that could easily challenge my previous field of computer vision where often fantastical results were obtained on a data set but could not be reproduced elsewhere. https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124 https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/jo...

fractionalhare 6y ago
Online discourse would be vastly improved if everyone meticulously cited peer reviewed papers and used no other substantiation. It still wouldn't be perfect, but at least there'd be a commitment to rigor. The current status quo is telling people they're wrong, citing nothing, and telling them they "just haven't done enough research."
- readflaggedcomm 6y ago
  Maybe it wouldn't improve because people mostly argue over differing values, not differing research.
agumonkey 6y ago
I'm no PhD but the more I read pubmed the more I realize that science truth is often a time vetted average. The recent decade has been obsessed with truth as an road to ideal life. I believe in local first reality now, relativistically so.
jaredwiener 6y ago
There's a major difference between coming to different conclusions from a set of data, with completely fabricating nonsense. @BadMedicalTakes (https://twitter.com/badmedicaltakes https://twitter.com/badmedicaltakes) is just one quick way to see some of the stuff thats out there. Can we at least all agree that germs cause disease, there are no nanobots in any of the COVID vaccines, and that masks are not dangerous?

minsc__and__boo 6y ago

Seems like a hard tach from their stance before on election misinformation. I wonder what changed to prompt this.

teddyh 6y ago

When you can confidently label someone else’s words “misinformation”, you have already won.