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A few comments; - firstly, just because you can’t eradicate all fake news and misinformation does not make the effort “doomed” - you can’t get rid of all crime

A few comments; - firstly, just because you can’t eradicate all fake news and misinformation does not make the effort “doomed” - you can’t get rid of all crime in the world either, or all disease, but you can still try and reduce it and it’s a worthy effort. - the writer conflates a bunch of things - they wants the algorithms to be open, transparent and opt-in. While that would be nice, I don’t think that’s required to eliminate misinformation (nor will it solve it) - what makes the article less credible is the author ends it with complaining about revenue sharing and saying Facebook must pay writers and publications. While potentially that could be nice it does not seem to have anything to do with the issue at hand and makes it read just like any other “let’s crap on Facebook” article

amelius 5y ago
> I don’t think that’s required to eliminate misinformation (nor will it solve it) It might reduce it (see your first point).
throwaway510921 5y ago
When you consider fakes just as the symptom of cognitive deficiencies and all you do is label these stories as why and where they are wrong, your impression of a doomed attempt seems quite understandable to me. It would be much more helpful to explain and teach by example the underlying cognitive mechanism that tricked you in the first place. An example. Alot of climate change "sceptics" repeat over and over again, that CO2 is just ~2% of earth atmosphere (doesn't matter if the number is correct or not) and they conclude that therefore CO2's effect on the climate is neglectable. This is wrong reasoning, you got tricked by a small number, but it appears right for a superficial look. (Following this logic, cyanide would be harmless too.) The over and over (and over and over and over) repetition of that aspect is like a chain reaction you can only effectively stop by halting the underlying process. Otherwise some else fake news get spread next iteration.
netcan 5y ago
> the writer conflates a bunch of things - they wants the algorithms to be open, transparent and opt-in. While that would be nice, I don’t think that’s required to eliminate misinformation (nor will it solve it) "Required" might be a strong word, but "would be nice" is too weak, IMO. I suppose it depends on what you see as the goals and purpose of moderation. I've seen a lot of agreement about SM requiring moderation, while totally disagreeing about what, why and to what end. If fairness s concern, nevermind freedom, openness is a factor. Also, while he doesn't state it... the author is concerned about moderating facebook, not just facebook users. That makes some sense, from where he's sat. The job is to "prevent the spread of misinformation" on FB, especially headline stuff: political/electoral misinformation, covid related, etc.^ He sees this stuff repeatedly go viral... and that logically leads to the platform and recommendation algorithm itself. Applying moderation after may not (in his view) be enough to do the job. Opaqueness probably makes it as hard for moderation teams to understand the nuances as it does for us. Maybe openness and free software adjacent principles are not the only way to approach an actual solution, but most of the best ideas are not unrelated. If you think of bullshit propaganda going viral as a bug, transparency is definitely relevant. Opt-in & respecting user wishes generally, are also part of a lot of hypothetical solutions. One of the ways pre-FB social media dynamics was various "bad behaviour" rooms. HN works as an example. You can choose to view dead comments. Most choose not to. Still, that tiny piece of transparency and user choice moderates some of the moderation's weaknesses. I don't think you can say anything definitively, but there are logical links between FB's control oriented model and the problems moderators are tasked with fixing. ^He cites Myanmar as an example. This is in a language & culture that FB don't speak. They really don't know what is going on, and I think it's likely they heard about FB's role in causing major violence against a minority from a third party. COmpare that to the level of

amelius 5y ago

> I don’t think that’s required to eliminate misinformation (nor will it solve it) It might reduce it (see your first point).

throwaway510921 5y ago

When you consider fakes just as the symptom of cognitive deficiencies and all you do is label these stories as why and where they are wrong, your impression of a doomed attempt seems quite understandable to me. It would be much more helpful to explain and teach by example the underlying cognitive mechanism that tricked you in the first place. An example. Alot of climate change "sceptics" repeat over and over again, that CO2 is just ~2% of earth atmosphere (doesn't matter if the number is correct or not) and they conclude that therefore CO2's effect on the climate is neglectable. This is wrong reasoning, you got tricked by a small number, but it appears right for a superficial look. (Following this logic, cyanide would be harmless too.) The over and over (and over and over and over) repetition of that aspect is like a chain reaction you can only effectively stop by halting the underlying process. Otherwise some else fake news get spread next iteration.

netcan 5y ago

> the writer conflates a bunch of things - they wants the algorithms to be open, transparent and opt-in. While that would be nice, I don’t think that’s required to eliminate misinformation (nor will it solve it) "Required" might be a strong word, but "would be nice" is too weak, IMO. I suppose it depends on what you see as the goals and purpose of moderation. I've seen a lot of agreement about SM requiring moderation, while totally disagreeing about what, why and to what end. If fairness s concern, nevermind freedom, openness is a factor. Also, while he doesn't state it... the author is concerned about moderating facebook, not just facebook users. That makes some sense, from where he's sat. The job is to "prevent the spread of misinformation" on FB, especially headline stuff: political/electoral misinformation, covid related, etc.^ He sees this stuff repeatedly go viral... and that logically leads to the platform and recommendation algorithm itself. Applying moderation after may not (in his view) be enough to do the job. Opaqueness probably makes it as hard for moderation teams to understand the nuances as it does for us. Maybe openness and free software adjacent principles are not the only way to approach an actual solution, but most of the best ideas are not unrelated. If you think of bullshit propaganda going viral as a bug, transparency is definitely relevant. Opt-in & respecting user wishes generally, are also part of a lot of hypothetical solutions. One of the ways pre-FB social media dynamics was various "bad behaviour" rooms. HN works as an example. You can choose to view dead comments. Most choose not to. Still, that tiny piece of transparency and user choice moderates some of the moderation's weaknesses. I don't think you can say anything definitively, but there are logical links between FB's control oriented model and the problems moderators are tasked with fixing. ^He cites Myanmar as an example. This is in a language & culture that FB don't speak. They really don't know what is going on, and I think it's likely they heard about FB's role in causing major violence against a minority from a third party. COmpare that to the level of