3 ms·

I expect it was an easy bone to throw the incoming administration, which the tech world learned from v1 is placatable by giving them PR / sound bite wins. To t

by ethbr1 2y ago

I expect it was an easy bone to throw the incoming administration, which the tech world learned from v1 is placatable by giving them PR / sound bite wins. To the broader concern, this feels like Facebook making their original sin again. Namely defunding and destroying revenue for a task that takes money (fact checking) and then expecting a free, community-driven approach to replace it. Turns out, hot takes for clicks are a lot cheaper than journalism. In this case, where is the funding to support nuanced, accurate fact checking at scale from? Because it sure seems like Facebook isn't going to pay. > I've never seen a wrong Facebook fact-check Did you mean to say Note here?

tptacek 2y ago
No, I meant to say Facebook fact-check.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  > Facebook's fact-checkers have been that much of a product disaster. > I've never seen a wrong Facebook fact-check Confused between these two statements, then.
  - tptacek 2y ago
    Do you believe the success or failure of these moderating features comes down to how accurate they are? People actually like Community Notes; they're part of the discourse on Twitter (even if most of them are pretty bad, some of them are timely and sharp). Meanwhile: Facebook's fact-checking features really do work sort of like PSA's for trolls. All the while, fact-checks barely scratch the surface of the conversations happening on the platform. Facebook and Twitter are also unalike in their social dynamics. It makes sense to think of individual major trending stories on Twitter, which can be "Noted", in a way it doesn't make sense on Meta, which is atomized; people spreading bullshit on Meta are carpet bombing the site with individual hits each hoping to get just a couple eyeballs, rather than a single monster thread everyone sees. (This may be different on Threads, I don't use Threads or know anybody who does).
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      Success in what definition? PR/political success is certainly not correlated with accuracy, given the very act of telling a group they're wrong tends to piss them off. In terms of encouraging discourse that maximizes user enjoyment of the platform? That's a difficult one. Accuracy probably doesn't do a whole lot there either: HN knows the people love someone being confidently wrong. Success in terms of society? Probably more yes, albeit with the caveat that only a correction that someone feels good about actually wins hearts and minds. Otherwise they spiral off into conspiracies about "the man" keeping them down. (Read: conservative reality) It's also important to remember that Zuckerberg only tacked into moderation in the first place due to prevailing political winds -- he openly espoused absolutist views about free speech originally, before some PR black eyes made that untenable. To me, both approaches to moderation at scale (admins moderating or users moderating) are band-aids. The underlying problem is algorithmic promotion. The platforms need to be more curious about the type of content their algorithms are selecting for promotion, the characteristics incentivized, and the net experience result. Rage-driven virality shouldn't be an organizational end unto itself to juice engagement KPIs and revenue. User enjoyment of the platform should be.
      - tsimionescu 2y ago
        > he openly espoused absolutist views about free speech originally, before some PR black eyes made that untenable. Note that openly espousing absolutist views about free speech means less than nothing. Elon Musk and Donald Trump openly profess such views, while constantly shouting down, blocking, or even suing anyone who dares speak against them with any amount of popularity.
    - FireBeyond 2y ago
      > Do you believe the success or failure of these moderating features comes down to how accurate they are? People actually like Community Notes; they're part of the discourse on Twitter (even if most of them are pretty bad, some of them are timely and sharp). Meanwhile: Facebook's fact-checking features really do work sort of like PSA's for trolls. All the while, fact-checks barely scratch the surface of the conversations happening on the platform. You're making a whole host of assumptions and opinions about this, with little in the way of data (I get it, you don't work at FB, how much data could you have?), just making blanket statements: "People hate Fact Checks", "People actually like Community Notes" and accepting them as accurate.
  - curtisblaine 2y ago
    It's not that they're inaccurate, it's just that they cherry-pick the topics to fact-check and their choice (in my limited experience) is always biased leftwards. You can be absolutely correct and absolutely malicious at the same time.
energy123 2y ago
Obeying in advance, especially the Dana White appointment. Not that this move to community notes wasn't also a good product decision.

by ethbr1 2y ago

tptacek 2y ago

No, I meant to say Facebook fact-check.

ethbr1 2y ago
> Facebook's fact-checkers have been that much of a product disaster. > I've never seen a wrong Facebook fact-check Confused between these two statements, then.
- tptacek 2y ago
  Do you believe the success or failure of these moderating features comes down to how accurate they are? People actually like Community Notes; they're part of the discourse on Twitter (even if most of them are pretty bad, some of them are timely and sharp). Meanwhile: Facebook's fact-checking features really do work sort of like PSA's for trolls. All the while, fact-checks barely scratch the surface of the conversations happening on the platform. Facebook and Twitter are also unalike in their social dynamics. It makes sense to think of individual major trending stories on Twitter, which can be "Noted", in a way it doesn't make sense on Meta, which is atomized; people spreading bullshit on Meta are carpet bombing the site with individual hits each hoping to get just a couple eyeballs, rather than a single monster thread everyone sees. (This may be different on Threads, I don't use Threads or know anybody who does).
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Success in what definition? PR/political success is certainly not correlated with accuracy, given the very act of telling a group they're wrong tends to piss them off. In terms of encouraging discourse that maximizes user enjoyment of the platform? That's a difficult one. Accuracy probably doesn't do a whole lot there either: HN knows the people love someone being confidently wrong. Success in terms of society? Probably more yes, albeit with the caveat that only a correction that someone feels good about actually wins hearts and minds. Otherwise they spiral off into conspiracies about "the man" keeping them down. (Read: conservative reality) It's also important to remember that Zuckerberg only tacked into moderation in the first place due to prevailing political winds -- he openly espoused absolutist views about free speech originally, before some PR black eyes made that untenable. To me, both approaches to moderation at scale (admins moderating or users moderating) are band-aids. The underlying problem is algorithmic promotion. The platforms need to be more curious about the type of content their algorithms are selecting for promotion, the characteristics incentivized, and the net experience result. Rage-driven virality shouldn't be an organizational end unto itself to juice engagement KPIs and revenue. User enjoyment of the platform should be.
    - tsimionescu 2y ago
      > he openly espoused absolutist views about free speech originally, before some PR black eyes made that untenable. Note that openly espousing absolutist views about free speech means less than nothing. Elon Musk and Donald Trump openly profess such views, while constantly shouting down, blocking, or even suing anyone who dares speak against them with any amount of popularity.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    > Do you believe the success or failure of these moderating features comes down to how accurate they are? People actually like Community Notes; they're part of the discourse on Twitter (even if most of them are pretty bad, some of them are timely and sharp). Meanwhile: Facebook's fact-checking features really do work sort of like PSA's for trolls. All the while, fact-checks barely scratch the surface of the conversations happening on the platform. You're making a whole host of assumptions and opinions about this, with little in the way of data (I get it, you don't work at FB, how much data could you have?), just making blanket statements: "People hate Fact Checks", "People actually like Community Notes" and accepting them as accurate.
- curtisblaine 2y ago
  It's not that they're inaccurate, it's just that they cherry-pick the topics to fact-check and their choice (in my limited experience) is always biased leftwards. You can be absolutely correct and absolutely malicious at the same time.

energy123 2y ago

Obeying in advance, especially the Dana White appointment. Not that this move to community notes wasn't also a good product decision.