5 ms·

I suggest reading the articles before writing in the comments: > Facebook did not completely ban sharing of the article, but instead limited how much its algor

by epgui 4y ago

I suggest reading the articles before writing in the comments: > Facebook did not completely ban sharing of the article, but instead limited how much its algorithm automatically shared it to other people for a week, while third-party fact-checkers tried to verify the reporting. So while people could post the article and discuss it, it was less likely to spread organically to new users.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
mgraczyk 4y ago
"The algorithm" here refers to Facebook's backend. They are using that word carelessly. I know how it works, I worked on the actual "algorithms" at Facebook. This censorship wasn't done by an "algorithm" in any meaningful sense of the word. Somebody at Facebook coded a rule that showed this content to fewer people.
- Phlarp 4y ago
  >Facebook coded a rule that All algorithms are coded rules, the idea of using an algorithm to somehow launder responsibility in tech companies is ridiculous. Before companies had algorithms they had heuristics, nobody would (successfully) deflect blame for the actions of the organization by saying "the heuristic did this!"
  - mgraczyk 4y ago
    What I'm saying is that this is a heuristic, not an algorithm, and that you should blame Facebook, not "the algorithm"
    - pegasus 4y ago
      The heuristic/algorithm is Facebook's creation, so they (including possibly you?) are to blame either way. I think GP is pointing out the fact that there being no clear rules or accountability on what gets surfaced on our timelines allows much more subtle and virtually undetectable ways to suppress information than previously. It all can be easily hidden behind the magic/complexity of the all-knowing "algorithm". I do find this to be a novel and very concerning vulnerability in our collective sense-making.
      - mgraczyk 4y ago
        What is the difference between this and a moderator on Reddit manually deleting a post?
        im3w1l 4y ago
        If a moderator deletes a post someone else can post it again. If you create an automatic rule to prevent that then it's algorithmic.
        cubancigar11 4y ago
        And the you will get banned. The only difference is that facebook has real people as requirement while reddit allows sock puppetry. All this talk is very funny to me because it shows that most people here are too young. The algorithm exists because the establishment demanded it. I say establishment because I remember what the old geek culture was and the demand didn't come from it. It came from outside of technical libertarian circle. Once social media companies said it is possible the demand became even more shrill and it culminated in 2016 when Trump won. The algorithm was created specifically to do what Zuckerberg made it do in 2020.
        mgraczyk 4y ago
        Sure I agree with that if we want to define "algorithm" in such a way that "if (url.contains('sex')) ban()" is "censorship by the algorithm" I just don't think that's a useful definition. You should just say "Facebook is censoring the content".
        pegasus 4y ago
        This would be more like shadow banning but in a way that can never be proven, or even detected in the first place. The post would just be surfaced less. Since there's no visibility on what gets surfaced when, it's a way to nudge public opinion on different issues without any accountability.
        mgraczyk 4y ago
    - arinlen 4y ago
      > What I'm saying is that this is a heuristic, not an algorithm, and that you should blame Facebook, not "the algorithm" Anyone who ever had any direct contact with implementing heuristics would call bullshit on this take. Some heuristics don't even return the same result twice. Now the guy that presses the button is supposed to be held responsible for what comes out of that crapshoot?
      - rndgermandude 4y ago
        Yes, that guy pressed the button even though he should have known there are consequences to that. If you implement heuristics, it's your damn job to test your implementation and monitor it for adverse effects. In the context of this article, somebody made the decision to specifically change the thing (no matter if you want to call it a heuristic or an algorithm or whatever) to bury a certain story. This is not even an unintended outcome, it's an entirely intended outcome.
        arinlen 4y ago
        > Yes, that guy pressed the button even though he should have known there are consequences to that. You are only complaining that an heuristic outputted a result you don't like. That's not a bug nor a problem. It's just that you feel you're entitled to an outcome that suits your fancy, regardless of the process involved. Heuristics don't even ensure they'll output the same result twice, either because their input changes with time or because they already integrate a stochastic component. Demanding that an operator polices the output of said heuristics especifically to suit your personal taste makes no sense at all, let alone demanding people be "held responsible" for disappointing you.
      - mgraczyk 4y ago
        I implemented heuristics like this one at Facebook. It's not bullshit, I even know how this particular one was implemented. In this case there is some non-determinism but the false positive rate is very low and the false negative rate also very low.
    - sharemywin 4y ago
      No the algorithm prefers to push unverified clickbait.
      - Phlarp 4y ago
        Unverified clickbait gets more engagement. Almost by definition you get engagement from the people who identify with the unverified clickbait because it reinforces their world-view, and engagement from the people who recognize it as unverified clickbait because it challenges their world-view.
didibus 4y ago
Also seems reasonable to me to want to do some due diligence before it reaches number 1 and gets pushed to everyone by your own algorithms. Traditional journalism used to require some level of due diligence. They waited to know if it could be real before allowing it to spread. At least as I understood, the algorithm tweak only lasted 1 week and then was reversed once the story sounded more probable.
- tekknik 4y ago
  The different here is FB is not a publisher. If they were, then they’d have many more laws to follow with user generated content. FB is a distributor of user generated content. That’s all. There should be no decision making at all on their part.
  - didibus 4y ago
    That seems like a technicality, like the laws and the categorization of FB by the law doesn't change my argument. No matter what you want to call it, I think a little bit of due diligence seems sensible. On that tengent, you did get me curious though, why isn't FB considered a publisher by law? And why would publishers be upholhded to more strict rules? I mean, Facebook hosts the content, delivers it to people, makes money of it, and it even markets the content through recommendations and tool assisted sharing.
    - tekknik 4y ago
      Because facebook doesn’t generate the content. You must generate content in order to be a publisher. And once labeled as a publisher, you become liable for your speech. Generally those platforms allowing the posting of user generated content do not want to be liable for the speech, so they try their hardest to not be labeled as a publisher. This article explains in more detail the differences: https://reason.com/volokh/2020/05/28/47-u-s-c-§-230-and-the-publisher-distributor-platform-distinction/ https://reason.com/volokh/2020/05/28/47-u-s-c-§-230-and-the-...
colordrops 4y ago
In the interview Zuckerberg has all the facts down until Rogan asks him to what degree they limited the article, for which Zuckerberg developed a sudden case of amnesia, indicating that they probably limited it a lot.
- myko 4y ago
  > indicating that they probably limited it a lot. That's not the case. The FBI spoke to Zuckerberg prior to the phony laptop story dropping! Facebook thought the story looked suspicious (because it is) which is why they chose not to amplify it. Please read the article, specifically this comment is illuminating: `He said the FBI did not warn Facebook about the Biden story in particular - only that Facebook thought it "fit that pattern".` Rogan asking the question at all was silly, and Zuck's answer non-committal, because the FBI didn't even bring this story up. Keep in mind, even after all of this–knowing that the story is most likely a political hack job–Facebook didn't ban the article, they just did not amplify it's spread for 1 week.
  - tekknik 4y ago
    > the phony laptop story > the story looked suspicious (because it is) I’d love to hear this side of it. > they chose not to amplify it do you see a problem with this?
    - myko 4y ago
      > I’d love to hear this side of it. RudyG finds a laptop of unknown provenance, riddled with likely to be stolen data, claiming to be owned by his boss' chief political rival's failson? The claim Rudy and co make is that the laptop proves Joe Biden corruptly forced Ukraine to fire someone to protect Hunter Biden's interests. It seems phony as hell because we know: 1. That prosecutor Biden lobbied Ukraine to fire was known to be corrupt 2. Biden was executing Obama's foreign policy with respect to pushing Ukraine here, not his own 3. Other members of the international community had a stated policy of removing the same corrupt prosecutor Given all that, Rudy's claims just don't hold up. That's ignoring other things we know, like some emails and other data on the device in question were modified after it came into the possession of the store owner. And the fact that the store owner says that things that have reportedly been found on the laptop don't match things he found on it. > do you see a problem with this? No–I think not promoting a story that is likely to be false should be the default. Why should Facebook promote any story? Especially ones that follow the fake news pattern of disinformation that has become so pervasive in the era of trumpism.
raverbashing 4y ago
So, the "tweak" was to make it spread as much as a regular post on FB Funny...
- mattgreenrocks 4y ago
  Maybe Hunter Biden should have boosted that article /s
based69 4y ago
Bs.. i remember sending the link for the nypost article to a friend via facebook measenger and the link would simply be deleted as soon as I sent it. That isn’t tweaking algos.
- degrees57 4y ago
  Right. I remember a friend trying to share the link, and the app on the phone said "No - this link cannot be shared." My friend took a screenshot on his phone and then posted it to a Discord server I'm on. I forget if it was Twitter or Facebook; but both were complicit. I've also seen posts by people defending this censorship with the lie that "you could still get to the NY Post article, so it wasn't censorship." This is bullshit. How am I supposed to even know there _was_ a NY Post article if your platform shuts down the attempts to share that link? That Discord screenshot was the only way I learned that there even was a story.

by epgui 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

mgraczyk 4y ago

"The algorithm" here refers to Facebook's backend. They are using that word carelessly. I know how it works, I worked on the actual "algorithms" at Facebook. This censorship wasn't done by an "algorithm" in any meaningful sense of the word. Somebody at Facebook coded a rule that showed this content to fewer people.

Phlarp 4y ago
>Facebook coded a rule that All algorithms are coded rules, the idea of using an algorithm to somehow launder responsibility in tech companies is ridiculous. Before companies had algorithms they had heuristics, nobody would (successfully) deflect blame for the actions of the organization by saying "the heuristic did this!"
- mgraczyk 4y ago
  What I'm saying is that this is a heuristic, not an algorithm, and that you should blame Facebook, not "the algorithm"
  - pegasus 4y ago
    The heuristic/algorithm is Facebook's creation, so they (including possibly you?) are to blame either way. I think GP is pointing out the fact that there being no clear rules or accountability on what gets surfaced on our timelines allows much more subtle and virtually undetectable ways to suppress information than previously. It all can be easily hidden behind the magic/complexity of the all-knowing "algorithm". I do find this to be a novel and very concerning vulnerability in our collective sense-making.
    - mgraczyk 4y ago
      What is the difference between this and a moderator on Reddit manually deleting a post?
      - im3w1l 4y ago
        If a moderator deletes a post someone else can post it again. If you create an automatic rule to prevent that then it's algorithmic.
        cubancigar11 4y ago
        And the you will get banned. The only difference is that facebook has real people as requirement while reddit allows sock puppetry. All this talk is very funny to me because it shows that most people here are too young. The algorithm exists because the establishment demanded it. I say establishment because I remember what the old geek culture was and the demand didn't come from it. It came from outside of technical libertarian circle. Once social media companies said it is possible the demand became even more shrill and it culminated in 2016 when Trump won. The algorithm was created specifically to do what Zuckerberg made it do in 2020.
        mgraczyk 4y ago
        Sure I agree with that if we want to define "algorithm" in such a way that "if (url.contains('sex')) ban()" is "censorship by the algorithm" I just don't think that's a useful definition. You should just say "Facebook is censoring the content".
      - pegasus 4y ago
        This would be more like shadow banning but in a way that can never be proven, or even detected in the first place. The post would just be surfaced less. Since there's no visibility on what gets surfaced when, it's a way to nudge public opinion on different issues without any accountability.
        mgraczyk 4y ago
  - arinlen 4y ago
    > What I'm saying is that this is a heuristic, not an algorithm, and that you should blame Facebook, not "the algorithm" Anyone who ever had any direct contact with implementing heuristics would call bullshit on this take. Some heuristics don't even return the same result twice. Now the guy that presses the button is supposed to be held responsible for what comes out of that crapshoot?
    - rndgermandude 4y ago
      Yes, that guy pressed the button even though he should have known there are consequences to that. If you implement heuristics, it's your damn job to test your implementation and monitor it for adverse effects. In the context of this article, somebody made the decision to specifically change the thing (no matter if you want to call it a heuristic or an algorithm or whatever) to bury a certain story. This is not even an unintended outcome, it's an entirely intended outcome.
      - arinlen 4y ago
        > Yes, that guy pressed the button even though he should have known there are consequences to that. You are only complaining that an heuristic outputted a result you don't like. That's not a bug nor a problem. It's just that you feel you're entitled to an outcome that suits your fancy, regardless of the process involved. Heuristics don't even ensure they'll output the same result twice, either because their input changes with time or because they already integrate a stochastic component. Demanding that an operator polices the output of said heuristics especifically to suit your personal taste makes no sense at all, let alone demanding people be "held responsible" for disappointing you.
    - mgraczyk 4y ago
      I implemented heuristics like this one at Facebook. It's not bullshit, I even know how this particular one was implemented. In this case there is some non-determinism but the false positive rate is very low and the false negative rate also very low.
  - sharemywin 4y ago
    No the algorithm prefers to push unverified clickbait.
    - Phlarp 4y ago
      Unverified clickbait gets more engagement. Almost by definition you get engagement from the people who identify with the unverified clickbait because it reinforces their world-view, and engagement from the people who recognize it as unverified clickbait because it challenges their world-view.

didibus 4y ago

Also seems reasonable to me to want to do some due diligence before it reaches number 1 and gets pushed to everyone by your own algorithms. Traditional journalism used to require some level of due diligence. They waited to know if it could be real before allowing it to spread. At least as I understood, the algorithm tweak only lasted 1 week and then was reversed once the story sounded more probable.

tekknik 4y ago
The different here is FB is not a publisher. If they were, then they’d have many more laws to follow with user generated content. FB is a distributor of user generated content. That’s all. There should be no decision making at all on their part.
- didibus 4y ago
  That seems like a technicality, like the laws and the categorization of FB by the law doesn't change my argument. No matter what you want to call it, I think a little bit of due diligence seems sensible. On that tengent, you did get me curious though, why isn't FB considered a publisher by law? And why would publishers be upholhded to more strict rules? I mean, Facebook hosts the content, delivers it to people, makes money of it, and it even markets the content through recommendations and tool assisted sharing.
  - tekknik 4y ago
    Because facebook doesn’t generate the content. You must generate content in order to be a publisher. And once labeled as a publisher, you become liable for your speech. Generally those platforms allowing the posting of user generated content do not want to be liable for the speech, so they try their hardest to not be labeled as a publisher. This article explains in more detail the differences: https://reason.com/volokh/2020/05/28/47-u-s-c-§-230-and-the-publisher-distributor-platform-distinction/ https://reason.com/volokh/2020/05/28/47-u-s-c-§-230-and-the-...

colordrops 4y ago

In the interview Zuckerberg has all the facts down until Rogan asks him to what degree they limited the article, for which Zuckerberg developed a sudden case of amnesia, indicating that they probably limited it a lot.

myko 4y ago
> indicating that they probably limited it a lot. That's not the case. The FBI spoke to Zuckerberg prior to the phony laptop story dropping! Facebook thought the story looked suspicious (because it is) which is why they chose not to amplify it. Please read the article, specifically this comment is illuminating: `He said the FBI did not warn Facebook about the Biden story in particular - only that Facebook thought it "fit that pattern".` Rogan asking the question at all was silly, and Zuck's answer non-committal, because the FBI didn't even bring this story up. Keep in mind, even after all of this–knowing that the story is most likely a political hack job–Facebook didn't ban the article, they just did not amplify it's spread for 1 week.
- tekknik 4y ago
  > the phony laptop story > the story looked suspicious (because it is) I’d love to hear this side of it. > they chose not to amplify it do you see a problem with this?
  - myko 4y ago
    > I’d love to hear this side of it. RudyG finds a laptop of unknown provenance, riddled with likely to be stolen data, claiming to be owned by his boss' chief political rival's failson? The claim Rudy and co make is that the laptop proves Joe Biden corruptly forced Ukraine to fire someone to protect Hunter Biden's interests. It seems phony as hell because we know: 1. That prosecutor Biden lobbied Ukraine to fire was known to be corrupt 2. Biden was executing Obama's foreign policy with respect to pushing Ukraine here, not his own 3. Other members of the international community had a stated policy of removing the same corrupt prosecutor Given all that, Rudy's claims just don't hold up. That's ignoring other things we know, like some emails and other data on the device in question were modified after it came into the possession of the store owner. And the fact that the store owner says that things that have reportedly been found on the laptop don't match things he found on it. > do you see a problem with this? No–I think not promoting a story that is likely to be false should be the default. Why should Facebook promote any story? Especially ones that follow the fake news pattern of disinformation that has become so pervasive in the era of trumpism.

raverbashing 4y ago

So, the "tweak" was to make it spread as much as a regular post on FB Funny...

mattgreenrocks 4y ago
Maybe Hunter Biden should have boosted that article /s

based69 4y ago

Bs.. i remember sending the link for the nypost article to a friend via facebook measenger and the link would simply be deleted as soon as I sent it. That isn’t tweaking algos.

degrees57 4y ago
Right. I remember a friend trying to share the link, and the app on the phone said "No - this link cannot be shared." My friend took a screenshot on his phone and then posted it to a Discord server I'm on. I forget if it was Twitter or Facebook; but both were complicit. I've also seen posts by people defending this censorship with the lie that "you could still get to the NY Post article, so it wasn't censorship." This is bullshit. How am I supposed to even know there _was_ a NY Post article if your platform shuts down the attempts to share that link? That Discord screenshot was the only way I learned that there even was a story.