4 ms·
I presume the Facebook perspective is that they feel they have no responsibility except for the lightest touch. You can see that depending on the country they
by Jonnax 5y ago
I presume the Facebook perspective is that they feel they have no responsibility except for the lightest touch.
You can see that depending on the country they either are quick to remove or very slow(100+ days plus) or not at all when it comes to users creating fake engagement.
They might be motivated by a fear of losing access to a country.
If you remove lies or fake engagement of the political party in power, then they can retaliate.
Of course. They're an American company, a country that elected Trump.
Whose campaign pioneered the usage of fake news and targetting advertising to groups susceptible to it.
And successfully took ownership of the term "fake news" by redefining it as any negative news about themselves.
It does highlight how an American company trying to prevent fake engagement could be considered hypocrisy by other countries.
Those in power don't want opposition and they have the power to change people perceptions of reality. Facebook not acquiescing to them is a liability.
2 years ago this was reported by the New York Times:
"A Genocide Incited on Facebook, With Posts From Myanmar’s Military" [0]
It highlights how "manufacturing consent" has shifted from traditional government news media to the decentralisation of social media.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebook-genocide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo...
- varispeed 5y agoBut is this a new problem though? I think this exists with traditional media too. Good example are fake opinion letters. The newspapers also didn't shy from making deals with parties participating in elections - e.g. we will print favourable articles about you if you do X, Y and Z once you win.
- ecnerwala 5y agoYes, it is a new problem when you take into account scale, cost and targeting. Traditional media couldn't target audiences at the granularity Facebook can. And running propaganda via newspapers or TV channels was limited to national boundaries which is not the case with Facebook. One more aspect is cost - I don't have any data, but its possibly very cheap to distribute fake news or propaganda pieces with social media.