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Meta scrapped factcheckers because systems were 'too complex'
- SilverBirch 2y agoI imagine they'll be shutting down their advertising systems too, since those are so complex as well.
- draw_down 2y ago[dead]
- xvector 2y agoAds actually provide value to hundreds of thousands of small businesses. I personally know multiple business owners that almost exclusively rely on Meta ads to survive. Fact checkers provide no value over Community Notes and often just misinterpret things through their own politicized lens Edit: Convinced that HN is mad about this change because it means that the common political leaning of HN will no longer be amplified. Community Notes is objectively the more democratic and fair solution here, and a technically sound one as well.
- SilverBirch 2y agoI’m not mad about the change because of whose politics it amplifies. Mark Zuckerberg will do absolutely whatever it takes to line his pockets. He doesn’t a moral bone in his body. I just find it funny that he’s even attempting to pretend this is anything other than choosing the most politically expedient option.
- ragebol 2y agoAnd community notes won't?
- xvector 2y agoIf they'll both misinterpret things, might as well go with the free, decentralized, and democratic option.
- amanaplanacanal 2y agoFacts are now whatever most people think is true.
- xvector 2y agoFor the kind of statements typically getting fact checked, unironically yes.
- ragebol 2y agoFacts aren't democratic. One scientist can't possibly democratically verify facts if there are a hundred crazy family uncles and aunts not liking/denying their facts or simply feeling different.
- xvector 2y agoFacts are a lot more nuanced than you seem to think they are, especially for the political statements typically being fact checked It's absolutely trivial to creatively interpret statistics in a way that pushes your agenda and say "hey look the FACTS agree with me!"
- criddell 2y agoDo they think nobody would believe them if they said they ended the program because of the changing political environment they operate in?
- immibis 2y agoThey think it would cast a bad impression if they said that out loud.
- willvarfar 2y agoInvading Greenland just seems a silly distraction. But if you are Meta, which picked the non-Trump stance at the end of his prior termp, and are also a direct competitor to the Musk-owned Twitter, you really have to fall in line and get rid of any semblance of being anti-Trump and hire key Trump supporters to very senior well paid positions etc. Else you will be the big bad enemy the new administration can focus all popular anger at.
- Certhas 2y agoAs someone noted in the thread on OpenAI restructuring: Maybe these messages are not meant to convince outsiders but to reassure insiders/true believers. It provides them with a ready made narrative to counter the cognitive dissonance.
- bluescrn 2y agoIt seems inevitable the people attracted to 'fact checking' and content moderation roles (whether paid or free) are likely to be activists with agendas to push. It's a position that gives them power over their political opponents. Without that, it's probably a pretty miserable job.
- andybak 2y agoThe difference between "activists with agendas to push" and "everyone else" is surely one of degree.
- immibis 2y agoThe difference is that if you check 'facts' about good things Trump or Musk did, you're an activist with an agenda to push, but if you check 'facts' about bad things Trump or Musk did, you're doing the lord's work.
- willvarfar 2y agoAnd I would have guessed that its a low pay job with high stress and turnover that attracts the desperate-for-a-jobs, not the crusaders? Add: there have been lots of whistleblowers about working conditions on Facebook moderation. A couple of accounts are https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57088382 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57088382 and https://www.ft.com/content/afeb56f2-9ba5-4103-890d-91291aea4caa https://www.ft.com/content/afeb56f2-9ba5-4103-890d-91291aea4...
- bluescrn 2y agoSome people will seemingly spend every waking hour moderating multiple large subreddits for free. They get something out of it, and it obviously isn't money.
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoThat would imply moving to a volunteer, public system of moderation would be, if anything, more activist and biased in nature than less.
- karles 2y agoMeta and factchecking - everyone outside US would see this as an impossible combination. Meta is a business, and only does what benefits the business. That is why no one should rely on fact-checking done by Meta. Not that facts matter much anymore anyway...
- xvector 2y agoFact checking is totally thankless work, because you'll get comments like this pretending it doesn't happen, and comments from both sides of the political aisle accusing you of prioritizing the other side. Doing fact checking in a way that satisfies everyone is an intractable problem. I'd abandon it too. As a shareholder, this is just good business sense and I'm glad they did this. If y'all care so much about the facts you can contribute to Community Notes yourself.
- sim7c00 2y agoall people shuld factcheck themselves rather than having some third party do this shit for them :S wtf happened to dont beleive everything everyone tells u? i wonder how such ppl go through their daily lives. do they need a fact checker when they are at the barber making conversation? or in the pub? or are factchecks only needed on the internet because it someone is some kind of source of ultimate truth for ppl? i find this shit confusing as hell.
- anonzzzies 2y agoA lot of facts you cannot check. I am going to fly to the westbank to see who is lying or not? How do I factcheck stuff like that?
- krapp 2y agoIt's impossible for anyone to verify every claim they come across, people just don't have the relevant domain knowledge, resources or time to do the work necessary to evaluate everything from first principles. People who think they factcheck themselves more often than not just default to believing whatever confirms their biases. Which, nine times out of ten, just means blind cynicism towards whatever the mainstream or status quo says.
- andybak 2y ago> Nick Clegg, had agreed “Meta systems have been too complex”, adding that there had been “over-enforcement”. And on the other hand: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-faceb...
- amarcheschi 2y agothey can say whatever they want, it doesn't mean they really believe in what they say
- BurnGpuBurn 2y agoMarc Zuckerberg: "I notice Elon has become much more popular than I am. Elon also owns an internet social platform. Elon has removed most of the censorship from his platform. Maybe if I do the same I will be popular again too?"
- benterix 2y agoThere was a time when Zucerkberg was popular? His platform once was, but not its founder. There even was a movie on how he cheated others.
- mvdtnz 2y agoHis platform which has over 3 billion monthly active users "once was" popular?
- anshumankmr 2y agoFacebook is for the let's just say older folks but Instagram and Whatsapp are wildly popular. Threads is meh. Began promising but has become a place for bots. Only account I check in once in a while is James gunn who seems devoted to that platform.
- mvdtnz 2y agoOk? So his platform, which encompasses all of the things you mentioned and more, is still popular across a wide variety of audiences. Got it.
- anshumankmr 2y agoYeah I wasn't trying to contradict what you were saying.
- BlackFingolfin 2y agoMarc Zuckerberg being popular is not the same as his platform being popular.
- ChiMan 2y agoIn four years, they’ll revisit the complexity. Facts may become simpler then.
- riiii 2y agoThings aren't going back normal after four years. There won't be normal elections in four years. I hope I'm wrong.
- oriettaxx 2y agothis is good news: I've always been scared of the so called "sources of truth", which think people are idiots. The system is complex, and better educate people to face it: at 360°
- K0balt 2y agoThis is a BS piece of PR fluff. They aren’t scrapping factchecking in Europe, where it is a legal requirement. It’s not like they are pulling out of Europe.
- ourmandave 2y ago^^^ These are the kind of Community Notes we need.
- mrbigbob 2y agoFrom the article linked: "The 40-year-old billionaire said that, starting in the US, Meta would “get rid of factcheckers and replace them with community notes similar to X” " You are right this does not apply to Europe where you guys have strict laws that you actually enforce. But here in the US heaven forbid that the "Free" market has any sort of regulation that might make multi billion/trillion dollar companies have to work a little harder to not destroy the lives, health, or environment of our countrymen. This is just the beginning and i sadly dont see it getting any better for several years. Large companies will have more free reign to do what they please in the US even more so than the current status quo
- xvector 2y agoHopefully Trump strongarms Europe into getting rid of those laws and restoring free speech. IIUC Trump explicitly mentioned he'd do this as part of this work with Zuck.
- K0balt 2y agoThere is a difference between free supporting free speech and being an amplifier for malicious propaganda and engineered falsehoods. It seems to be a hard line to define, but that line exists.
- Neil44 2y agoThe more direct reason that Zuck gave previously was because they couldn't rely on the political neutrality of the fact checkers. There's a fine line between opinion and fact I guess.
- Y-bar 2y agoAnd community note participation will be guaranteed to be politically neutral, right, Zuck? And I want to re-iterate that not everything should be politically neutral: Stance A: "A certain group of people should be gassed with Zyklon-B." Stance B: "No group of people should ever be gassed, you not should be saying that!" Political neutral stance: "Maybe we could agree that some subset of that group could be gassed? I can't take a firm stance on this sensitive political matter."
- ForHackernews 2y agoIMHO the problem is these platforms playacting as governments, pretending like they have some impartial process-driven content moderation system. The terms of service should just say, "This is our sandbox, you're welcome to play in it but we will remove whatever we feel like removing if and when we feel like removing it. Don't like it? Go someplace else." This is actually the truth of the matter already, and all the dancing around third-party fact checkers and Acceptable Use Policies has always been a farce.
- toldyouso2022 2y agoI see a lot of memes on Facebook that would have been a sure ban last year now being promoted by the fb algorithm. Rulers are changing, companies will change. And maybe people like Zuckerberg are really changing their opinions too. Who knows
- rob74 2y ago> Her comments came as Linda Yaccarino, the head of X, welcomed Meta’s decision, saying: “welcome to the party” during an appearance at the CES technology show in Las Vegas, hours after Zuckerberg announced the policy shift. That's not ominous at all... Reducing moderation and prioritizing "free speech" have been a great success for X, right? Ok, in a sense it was a success, after all it helped get Trump back into the White House and Musk become one of his (currently) closest advisers, but for X as a company the prospects are not so rosy...
- Sharlin 2y agoI’m sure Meta now also starts permitting nipples on its platforms. No? Oh right, that’s totally different.
- ChrisArchitect 2y ago[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42621627 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42621627
- heisenbit 2y agoFacebook is a platform business connecting click-worthy content with advertisers thriving on engagement. The FSB is a content generator with decades experience in producing click-worthy persuasive content. Providing the latter with open access to the former is good business for both parties. The no censorship idealists ignore that on these „open“ social platforms individual people ideas compete with highly leveraged players effectively being drowned out and being de-facto censored by a firehose of propaganda. Platforms have no business incentive to fix as true, balanced, long form and moderate content is simply less engaging. The reality is what is good business for the propaganda generators and the amplifying platforms has real externalized costs. At the scale this impacts all of us we should seek regulation protecting the power of the voice of one.
- pupppet 2y agoHow is any of this even up for discussion. With only days away from Trump's inauguration Zuck is clearly bending the knee.
- onewheeltom 2y agoMore like bending over