Facebook Will Let You Flag Content As 'False'

jfruh writes: If you're tired of seeing fake or misleading news articles posted by your friends to Facebook and then spreading like wildfire, you might be in luck. In a system that's something like Slashdot comment moderation on a grand scale, you'll now be able to flag a story as false. Links that have been flagged this way by many users will appear less frequently in people's newsfeeds, or with a disclaimer attached.

Comments

Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

What could possibly go wrong?

Re:Cool

[thaylin]

Exactly, dont like the political/religious message so flag it false and less people will see it.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Well to be fair, if it is a political message it should at least be flagged "spin" if not "false". False will probably do. If it is a religious message and is theist - then "false" would be correct. No explanation needed there although, "damn, you've got a lot of intrictate details to the rules and regulations imposed by someone you can't even show has ever existed" would be a great flag for that...

Re:Cool

[tiberus]

Hmmm, I think I'd rather be able to add a link to snopes.com.

Re:Cool

[PopeRatzo]

Exactly, dont like the political/religious message so flag it false and less people will see it.

Odds are all political/religious messages are false.

And no, your mileage will NOT vary.

Re:Cool

[BasilBrush]

Same thing happens here.

Re:Cool

[sideslash]

You mean "fewer people", not "less people".

So how about when a bunch of religious people flag a story on evolution as false? Sounds like this semi-curating of stories will turn more on Facebook demographics than on objective facts.

Re:Cool

[ganjadude]

actually my FB feed has been doing exactly that for a while. when an article is posted, "similar stories" are posted right below it. quite often i see snopes in that list

Re:Cool

[ohnocitizen]

Instead you'll get atheist or "the wrong religion(tm)" posts being flagged as false. Plus, not all political messages are such that "false will probably do". Which of the following political statements should be marked false?

"The economy was hit hard by the housing crisis"

"Unchecked human industry is negatively impacting the environment"

"Medical expenses are the number 1 cause of bankruptcy in America"

"The US constitution prohibits establishment of religion by congress"



I think all of them are true, but not everyone will agree.

Re:Cool

[mysidia]

Exactly, dont like the political/religious message so flag it false and less people will see it.

If they want to go Slashdot mod style, they should offer a dropdown with multiple different 'false' tags.

As in, multiple different statements you can apply to a post, and your friends should be able to see how many friends applied different labels:
(1) Awesome content
(2) Interesting
(3) Very Funny
(4) Agree 100%
(5) Disagree with this
(6) Inaccurate Information
(7) Partisan political bullshit
(8) False and Dangerous
(9) Clickbait
(10) Scam/Bogus offer or contest
(11) Broken link, or cannot view content
(12) Page says you have to 'like' before you can see content (13) Links to malicious software, adware, or security attack
(14) Common Misconception
(15) Suspected Hoax
(16) Definite Scam
(17) Fraud or phishing attempt

Re:Cool

[jythie]

Beyond political and religious messages, I suspect it will be a useful tool in getting competing businesses's news buried. In the past all you could do was game things so your stuff got highlighted, but to be able to negatively impact someone else's stuff? Consulting and marketing 'services' will probalby be folding it into their toolbelt as soon as it goes live.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen plenty of atheist articles that were opinion stated as fact. I'm not seeing a whole lot of difference between this definition of "false" and most of the other examples in the comments here.

Re:Cool

[pla]

More importantly, will it let you tag "official" Facebook messages as false?

Like their privacy policy?

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Great list, but I'm not sure about 9-12...those are things you'd want to say about advertisements, which I know FB makes money from, so there is no chance you'd be able to mod those as "clickbait" for example.

Re:Cool

[DNS-and-BIND]

Unchecked human industry? Ever dealt with the EPA? They view their primary goal as STOPPING human industry wherever possible.

Re:Cool

[shaitand]

And you are why this is a dangerous thing. There are no shortage of religious people who think their church documentary claiming something is disputed or open to interpretation actually means that is true. I was raised by a minister, I've seen them all, they are all propaganda videos and filled with fabrications and nutjobs.

Among the videos I saw were a few gems I independently researched and determined to be blatantly bunk and/or with real information deliberately misrepresented on critical points:

- Anti-evolution with the feature point being the claim of the Lucy skeleton being a pig. That feature point, completely false and never believed by anyone credible. Also the nice "missing link" fallacy.
- Intelligent design
- Finding of Noah's ark
- The mark of the beast chip
- That the plagues have been proven in Egypt
- That Jesus having been an actual living person is undisputed fact. The only actual evidence is an entry by a jewish historian documenting the trial. The document that contains it was copied by priests and is full of proven transliterations. Most scholars do think it's authentic but it's really far too short to make that evaluation on such an extraordinary claim. Unfortunately, the scholars in this area are almost entirely theists and highly biased and authentication of a passage like this is highly subjective.
- "Proof" of the parting of the red sea
- Information about the Y2K bug
- The evils of the catholic church and their idol worship

Of all of these, the idea Jesus lived as a human is the only one in any form of dispute. The rest are outright fabrications.

Re:Cool

[shaitand]

"Which of the following political statements should be marked false? "

All of them. If you don't like false toss in a political/religious flag. Nothing political or religious belongs on facebook.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering how original and insightful people usually are, there will no longer be any need to write replies.

Re:Cool

[MightyYar]

To get to "most of the world" you had to lump all of the religions together. I don't see how that stands up logically, unless you are really arguing that if you don't believe in some kind of magic, you are a "self important asshole".

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

True, this is just as brilliant idea as the famous rfc3514.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot:
(18) Dupe
(19) Dupe

Re:Cool

[nospam007]

"Exactly, dont like the political/religious message so flag it false and less people will see it."

People who sell FB accounts just raised their prices.

Re:Cool

[irrational_design]

transliterations? I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Re:Cool

[Morpeth]

As opposed what religious facts? That there's an imaginary, invisible, bearded sky fairy 'up there' somewhere looking out for you who? Don't confuse faith with facts.

Re:Cool

[magarity]

Ah, see, he didn't say where there was unchecked industry. Ever see or visit industrial cities in China? Their EPA equivalent exists to take bribes for its management, not to stop anything.

Re:Cool

[pnutjam]

Ask me how I know your a bad person.

Re:Cool

[ohnocitizen]

Like it or not, Facebook is used to share stories and opinions. So of course the political and religious will factor in. Its a bit ridiculous to say they don't belong on a social network.

Re:Cool

[Morpeth]

But...but... the bible tells me so, therefor it MUST be true! (/sarcasm).

I always liked Stephen Roberts quote "I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

It never fails to baffle me how people of religion A will say how ridiculous the god(s)/stories/tales of religion B are, but completely fail to apply the same analysis and logic to their own religion that brought them to conclude the other one is so absurd or wrong.

Re:Cool

[dcw3]

Agreed, but then don't confuse faith with the word false. I'm not a religious person, but the lack of tolerance I see here is pathetic. People believe, so let them, as long as they're not trying to push their ideas on you, why do you give a fuck? Sure there are fringe religious wackos out there, and I would agree that they should be shunned. But the same could be said about some atheists I know.

If you can't be tolerant, you're part of the problem.

Re:Cool

[quantaman]

Instead you'll get atheist or "the wrong religion(tm)" posts being flagged as false. Plus, not all political messages are such that "false will probably do". Which of the following political statements should be marked false?

"The economy was hit hard by the housing crisis"

"Unchecked human industry is negatively impacting the environment"

"Medical expenses are the number 1 cause of bankruptcy in America"

"The US constitution prohibits establishment of religion by congress"

I think all of them are true, but not everyone will agree.

They can take that into account.

I'll mark them true which means we probably agree on a lot of things, so if I mark other things false you'll probably agree they're false and FB shouldn't give them much weight.

But if someone else thinks they're false you probably disagree on a lot, so if that other person flags other things false it shouldn't carry much weight as to whether it's shown to you.

I don't know if that's the plan but it would be a nice way to create an information bubble.

Re: Cool

[dcw3]

Oh I'm sure it would only be one sided, not.

Re:Cool

[Curunir_wolf]

I think all of them are true, but not everyone will agree.

True. (Not everyone will agree).

"Medical expenses are the number 1 cause of bankruptcy in America"

This is actually false, and if you pay close attention to the details of the study, you'll see it's not even at the top of the #1 reason for filing bankruptcy. FactCheck has some discussion of the issue, citing other studies and how the Hardvard one lumped "medical bills" along with other issues, including job loss.

"The US constitution prohibits establishment of religion by congress"

This certainly true on its face, but could be construed as false by omission, and implies less restrictions on Federal laws than the Constitution actually provides. The relevant text is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;" - so not only can they not establish a religion, they cannot make law "respecting" any religious establishment, that is, any organized church cannot be given any special dispensation at all, and, further, any religious practice cannot be interfered with. Of course, Congress has violated that one many times, probably most famously by such things as banning peyote from Native American's traditional religious practices. Ironically, the First Amendment's admonition was intended to protect people that designed their own religious practices outside of the established religions - a highly valued right with origins Colonial America's protestant value system. Yet the Native American Church was established in order to petition for protection of the use of peyote by its members. So in practice, recognizing the use of peyote by members of established religion, but not by individuals, is the opposite of the original purpose.

Re:Cool

[thaylin]

But where did they say they had a "true" flag?

Re:Cool

[thaylin]

But you get it in shared articles as well. They tend to include "but he never guessed this would happen"

Re:Cool

[meta-monkey]

And I think it's counterproductive. Less people see "false" things? F that! They should come up with greater frequency. "Look at what this idiot believes! This guy posted this...and it's false!" We need more public shaming.

Re:Cool

[alva_edison]

Instead you'll get atheist or "the wrong religion(tm)" posts being flagged as false. Plus, not all political messages are such that "false will probably do". Which of the following political statements should be marked false?

"The economy was hit hard by the housing crisis"

"Unchecked human industry is negatively impacting the environment"

"Medical expenses are the number 1 cause of bankruptcy in America"

"The US constitution prohibits establishment of religion by congress"

I think all of them are true, but not everyone will agree.

I think as phrased the first statement would not have anyone mark it false. However, people disagree as to the solutions, so once you address those it would be.

The second statement is a widely acknowledged politically decisive issue, so it will be marked false by some.

The third statement is a matter of fact checking, and another response found evidence that it may be false

I don't think people would mark the fourth statement false, but there are always people that want to go into nuances.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not talking about religious facts. I am saying the discussion of free-thinking as the best human philosophy isn't a fact in the same way that gravity is a fact.

Re:Cool

[jmyers]

I would say for popular items FB could have a hidden true/false flag set by their own researchers. They can then score the bias of the users based on who posts and who tags false. This item just gives FB more information about the users to market.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

but the lack of tolerance I see here is pathetic. People believe, so let them, as long as they're not trying to push their ideas on you, why do you give a fuck?

And I think the reason for that is the former so often leads to the latter. I'm a live-and-let-live sort of person, and though an agnostic I was quite comfortable attending a Mennonite service important to my husband's side of the family. Of course, if they'd turned on me and my husband and said we were going to hell for our gay marriage, I would certainly have felt a bit less tolerant in return.

Re:Cool

[Darinbob]

Every single political comment from now on will have so many "false" tags that they never get seen.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

This is simply popularity-based censorship.
99% people don't know what is truly "false"
But... you don't "like" it??? mark it "false".
How about you add a "Dislike" button, but don't censor the information out.
So many love free speech and sharing diverse thoughts and ideas and stories... unless I don't like it... then no one should see it!
LOL

Re:Cool

[Darinbob]

Technically it is a fact that the Bible says those things. The biggest Bible thumpers tend to repeat verses rather than just stating opinions as facts, because it emphasizes the authority of the Bible. Such as, "It says in Genesis that God created the heavens and the earth", which is a provably true statement even though is proposes something that is not provable.

Re:Cool

[Zorpheus]

Can't be worse than the current system, where all kind of crap only gets tons of "likes" if it spreads enough.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

The first two statements are "fact" in the sense that would be very difficult for any reasonable person to disagree.

The second two statements are objectively true facts, and anyone who refuses to agree after being shown the relevant factual text has no place in any rational conversation.

The idea that has been propagated into the media, that everything is an opinon about which there can be multiple valid viewpoints, is one of the most poisonous, evil, and insidious things I've ever seen. If politician A says "Gravity always works" and politician B says "No, you can float off the edge of cliffs", this isn't a political argument, the correct answer is to say "B, you are obviously wrong [and fucking stupid]." But go to any of the corporate "news" networks and you'll have panels of "experts" debating whether Newton and Einstein were really right. Lunatics saying that Einstein was paid off by Big Gravity will be taken as seriously in "interviews" as scientists studying general relativity. Vapid talking heads will claim that only uncompromising extremists insist that gravity always works, and that "some people say...". CNN and Fox will probably conduct polls asking people whether they think gravity always works.

In all honesty, the seeds that made this possible probably originated with new-age schooling and the "Oh, you can get credit if you can explain how you reasoned that 2+3=6"-type subjectivist horseshit; The kids grow up without knowing what objective facts are or how to identify them, and as a result their bullshit detectors are poorly calibrated or entirely nonfunctional. But it was the GOP that really took it to Broadway and honed the creation of "some people are saying..." fauxtraversies to an art... and then the Democrats, being in large part so many spineless fucking milquetoasts, let them get away with it. And of course if the average person were smarter than a box of fucking rocks, none of this would have ever flown in the first place.

Yeah, I'm cranky and being blunt. deal_with_it.gif

Re:Cool

[fxsoap]

all I want now is my DISLIKE button to dislike the stories posted that are twaddle, "Raged HARD last night, so drunk still! LOOL"---------I've been looking for that since it facebook came out.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

> Hmmm, I think I'd rather be able to add a link to snopes.com.

But that won't help facebook profile you, other than as someone who knows about snopes.com.

The guy who flags a global warming post as false gives facebook a lot more information about himself than just linking to a snopes.com article that may or may not confirm or debunk the original post. Everything facebook does is about improving their ability to press your buttons for their advertiser's benefit, if it also helps you out in your life that's just gravy.

Re:Cool

[LessThanObvious]

Certainly not their privacy policy.

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

Old age leads to death: FALSE.
Sex w/o birth control can lead to pregnancy: FALSE
The US dropped nuclear weapons on Japan in WWII: FALSE

Any other things I can rate for you? What, you think I'm wrong? Well, tough - they didn't say there's a way to rate them "true", or that there will be any review of how people rate things...

Re:Cool

[Anonymous Coward]

People believe, so let them, as long as they're not trying to push their ideas on you, why do you give a fuck?.

Primarily because beliefs will inform their voting decisions and how they act within society. If your religion requires you to believe that women are inferior to men, you're probably not going to vote for a female candidate at an election. You might even give less credit to a woman in a job interview. If a candidate isn't following your religion, you might vote for one who does instead – even if the former candidate's policies align with your other views more closely. If a candidate is "pro-life" or pro-gay rights and your religion requires you to disagree, you aren't going to vote for them.

One interesting one at the moment: some religions require you to believe that God gave the earth to humans to do with as they wish, therefore climate change isn't a problem (or some variation thereof). Or they believe god will fix it before it becomes a problem.

The idea of 'tolerance' towards everything is naive at best. Tolerance implies you've assessed the viewpoint and are willing to tolerate the negative outcomes in order to preserve your relationship with the individual who holds those views. If you aren't prepared to suffer those viewpoints, why should you tolerate them?

Re:Cool

[xSander]

Well, in theory, any story would get flagged false. Religious stories get flagged false by atheists, atheist stories get flagged false by religious people, science-debunked stories get flagged false by science-savvy people, science stories get flagged false by religious people, etc.

The only thing remaining may be about cats and dogs. I get my news somewhere else anyway ;-)

Re:Cool

[butalearner]

Exactly, dont like the political/religious message so flag it false and less people will see it.

Odds are all political/religious messages are false.

And no, your mileage will NOT vary.

And even if they're not totally false, they are all designed to make people angry, which we already get enough of otherwise. A recent, mostly harmless story was one about EPA's "ban on wood-burning stoves" about to take effect, which, if you take two seconds to read through the vitriol, you'd find that they are regulating newly manufactured stoves, not making existing stoves illegal. But all the article's author had to do was carefully choose his words: "80% of you have stoves that would be illegal to purchase after this rule goes into effect."

This is what the most effective (these days) political messages do: make one large group of people angry and demand change, and make another large group angry because of the half-truths involved.

Re:Cool

[shaitand]

When discussing biblical texts it is the word typically used to describe catholic priests translating and "correcting" texts while copying them.

For example, if the Church says Jesus was tried that is a fact and it is an error on the part of this Jewish historian who forgot to include it in this historical record. Therefore the priest will do his best to correct the error while preserving the integrity of the work. He'll integrate it in his best approximation of where it goes with minimal adjustment to the original and to preserve the original tone. This way it can be the best and most accurate history.

Not "like Slashdot"

[bondsbw]

Slashdot doesn't have a "False" moderation... and it could use one.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[sribe]

Exactly my 1st thought. Maybe not "false" exactly, but I've long wanted to be able to mod comments "-1 incorrect". Of course I also want a "+1 funny AND insightful".

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[XxtraLarGe]

Slashdot doesn't have a "False" moderation... and it could use one.

Wait, you don't have that option when you moderate? I use it all the time. It works just like overrated & underrated.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[wisnoskij]

That is truly horrible idea.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[Richard_at_work]

+1 underrated.
-1 overrated.

Job done.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[Lussarn]

You should not get bad karma because you are wrong, the post can still contribute, and the poster get the chance to be corrected. A lot of "facts" really are opinions anyway.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[drinkypoo]

It's not job done, because there's no indication as to why a comment is bad (or good) when those moderations are used. They simply should not exist at all. There are only two or three good reasons why a comment should be moderated down, and "I didn't like it" is not one of them — but that's precisely what you're saying when you moderate "overrated".

If overrated is good enough for comments which are wrong, then underrated is good enough for comments which are informative or insightful, and we might as well just eliminate the comment adjective system entirely and implement a thumbs model like so many other websites.

When I see overrated applied to a post, I know beyond any reasonable doubt that it was moderated in spite, and not for any valid reason.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[jellomizer]

Now nearly any story posting an opinion will get voted false. As there will be people disagreeing with each others facts.

Any articles about religion. Will be marked false from the atheists.
Any articles against religion. Will be marked false from all the religious.
The Right will mark false everything that is left leaning.
The Left will mark false everything that is right leaning.

Now granted it will be much more peaceful without a lot of this stupid bickering as most peoples opinions are worthless in the grand scheme of things. However once in a while a truly new piece of information may come out to inspire further investigation, and shouldn't be shut down so quickly because it doesn't immediately fit our world view.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[Archangel Michael]

A lot of "facts" really are opinions anyway.

That's your opinion. Mine is different. /toungeincheek

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[XxtraLarGe]

Any articles about religion. Will be marked false from the atheists.
Any articles against religion. Will be marked false from all the religious.
The Right will mark false everything that is left leaning.
The Left will mark false everything that is right leaning.

This gives a new meaning to "false flag" operations! :-D

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[MMC Monster]

I'm not a fan of the false moderation because it's so obvious that it will be rampantly misused. (ie: Jennifer changed her status to "In a committed relationship". Flag: FALSE!)

I like the moderations /. uses. Would be interesting if a similar system could be made for a social site, with moderation points, etc.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[Kierthos]

As an atheist, I typically just ignore the religion posts on FB, unless they're by certain friends, who tend to post interesting stuff (i.e. not dogmatic "DIE UNBELIEVER") on the topic. I mean, just because I'm an atheist doesn't mean I don't occasionally want to read more on what, for example, the Pope is saying on a topic.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[93 Escort Wagon]

Slashdot doesn't have a "False" moderation... and it could use one.

Not to mention that we don't get to mod stories... and we should.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[houghi]

Of course I also want a "+1 funny AND insightful".

Do you want to give Karma: Insightful. Don't you want to give Karma: Funny.
To me insightful always wins over funny.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[Anonymous Coward]

My empire of lipsum for mod points!

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[sribe]

A lot of "facts" really are opinions anyway.

And that's why it cannot be done. Too many people would apply it to opinions they did not agree with.

Which is unfortunate, because many of the discussions here do deal in cold hard facts. And I disagree about karma, when the discussion is truly fact based, posting a falsehood as fact should absolutely damage one's karma.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[sribe]

When I see overrated applied to a post, I know beyond any reasonable doubt that it was moderated in spite, and not for any valid reason.

??? I use it for "incorrect" because there is no option that fits better. (Yes, it is often used inappropriately.)

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[sribe]

Do you want to give Karma: Insightful. Don't you want to give Karma: Funny.

I did not realize that.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[bondsbw]

Talk about hyperbole.

I'd say that most of my Facebook friends are religious, but I have not once seen someone post "DIE UNBELIEVER".

I've never seen Fox News or other right-wing news sites post "DIE UNBELIEVER".

With the exception of some very extremist (i.e. terrorist) sects, most religious people don't say things like "DIE UNBELIEVER". You may not like everything they say and believe, but there is a stark contrast between believing people morally shouldn't do certain things and telling them to die.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[shaitand]

overrated has a purpose. Yes this thing is informative, it's just not +5 informative.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[Anonymous Coward]

The moderation system doesn't work. It should be abandoned, so people can learn to think for themselves, and formulate their own opinion. Do we really need another mod for the sheep to follow?

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[Anonymous Coward]

You shouldn't be ignored, or blindly modded down, simply because you post A/C, either, but nothing ever stopped that mentality from running rampant around here.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[shaitand]

"However once in a while a truly new piece of information may come out to inspire further investigation, and shouldn't be shut down so quickly because it doesn't immediately fit our world view."

While true, consider the forum. FB is a place for keeping in touch with friends and family not a news outlet.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[shaitand]

If people are rampantly marking Jennifer's in a committed relationship status as false I'd think that should indicate something significant to the other party in that supposed committed relationship.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[dcw3]

Damnit Drinky, I mark your posts overrated at every opportunity! Don't ruin it for me!

In all honesty, while we do frequently disagree, I prefer the debate of issues vs. the sliminess of moderating someone down with an opposing viewpoint. I even occasionally learn that my position isn't as well thought out as I originally believed.

Cheers,

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[Morpeth]

Perhaps not, but I've had several religious friends 'unfriend' me when they realized I don't believe in magical invisible sky fairies.

Which I find funny, as I don't unfriend someone who believes in invisible special friends, otherwise I'd have a hard time hanging with my adorable 5 yr old.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[dcw3]

Wolves don't post as AC.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[Anonymous Coward]

"tounge"
False.
Reason: Grammar Nazi

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[hcs_$reboot]

Well you can click on "Score" and get a fair distribution of what's the comment actual score. Yours for instance is (currently) 50% Interesting 30% Underrated 20% Funny. So you're quite interesting, with some funny moments as well.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[orgelspieler]

Just ask yourself: WWJU? Who Would Jesus Unfriend? Evangelical Christians who unfriend non-believers certainly haven't read the gospel they claim to want to preach. Matthew 9:13 / Mark 2:17 / Luke 5:32. I don't think John has that exact story, but there are several other examples.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[SydShamino]

Giving up mods to reply...

When something has been previously moderated "+1 Informative" but it is factually incorrect, then the previous moderation was wrong and the post is overrated. "-1 Overrated" corrects for the previous moderation in this case. This represents by far most of my use of the moderation.

When something has been previously moderated "+1 Insightful" but it is trite or inaccurate, then the previous moderation was wrong and the post is overrated. "-1 Overrated" corrects for the previous moderation in this case. This is pretty rare as I try to read deep meaning into even the shortest of "Insightful" posts.

I never use "-1 Overrated" for something that was previously rated as "+1 Interesting", as interesting is completely subjective. Nor do I ever use "-1 Overrated" for something that was previously rated as "+1 Funny", though if it's racist or sexist then "-1 Flamebait" might apply.

I rarely if ever use "+1 Underrated" at all, and never use "-1 Overrated" on something that has not previously been moderated up incorrectly.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[bkr1_2k]

Your definition of "beyond reasonable doubt" and mine are different. the few times I've moderated something overrated it has ALWAYS been because it was at least a majority, if not entirely, incorrect. I agree, there are very few reasons to mod down but incorrect information is definitely one of them.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[Carewolf]

Exactly my 1st thought. Maybe not "false" exactly, but I've long wanted to be able to mod comments "-1 incorrect". Of course I also want a "+1 funny AND insightful".

Yeah I have often missed it too, but I guess the point is that if the post is incorrect you should reply to it and correct it, and moderators should look for replies that correct it to upvote.

The real problem is that you are not allowed to comment after voting on a story.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[Darinbob]

Possibly. But remember that the "false" is still an opinion. Thus it will be misused tremendously. Better to just flag as "overrated" if too many people found it "informative", or add a comment directly.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[JackieBrown]

Isn't that what the firehouse is for?

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[Anonymous Coward]

They're still modded by sheep

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[Rakarra]

It's not job done, because there's no indication as to why a comment is bad (or good) when those moderations are used. They simply should not exist at all. There are only two or three good reasons why a comment should be moderated down, and "I didn't like it" is not one of them — but that's precisely what you're saying when you moderate "overrated".

I use Overrated when something factually incorrect is posted, and a well-intentioned moderator mods it up without checking to see if it was true or not. I tend to only use Overrated on posts modded up as informative but they were not factually informative.

I never use it as "I don't like this guy's opinion."

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[Rakarra]

Evangelical Christians who unfriend non-believers certainly haven't read the gospel they claim to want to preach

You should meat the Landover Baptists** then! They're good times: "We have a permanent injunction against all unsaved persons. If you are unsaved, you are not allowed within a 10-mile radius of our church, nor are you allowed on this website. Kindly leave, and be about the Devil's business, for you are not welcome here. Glory!

If you are interested in getting saved, and you are not joking around about it just to upset us, we ask you kindly to click on this link..."

I like Betty Bowers's "God told me to hate you" column.

** (Obvious parody website)

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[bondsbw]

You sure they didn't unfriend you because you were being obnoxious or they don't see you any more or some other much more likely reason?

Otherwise why did they friend you in the first place?

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[drinkypoo]

overrated has a purpose. Yes this thing is informative, it's just not +5 informative.

I'm too lazy to look to see if there's a faq entry which says you should focus on positive moderation, but there used to be, and you should do that. This is one of the reasons why moderation on Slashdot is broken by design, and I have thus marked myself unwilling to moderate: Slashdot would benefit far more from your insightful comment than it would from your accurate moderation.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[complete loony]

I'd perhaps use "+1 Underrated" for an on topic / insightful Troll....

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[Anonymous Coward]

You have clearly never visited the Bible Belt. Make some Facebook friends there, you'll hear all sorts of this bunk 24/7.

Re:Not "like Slashdot"

[sound vision]

If the post is at +1 or 0 and it deserves a -1 due to being false, it is "overrated".

Subject to the whims of the masses...

[robinsonne]

So if enough people don't believe something and flag it false, it becomes "false." Something else for paid shills and opinionated people to do I suppose.

Re:Subject to the whims of the masses...

[Anonymous Coward]

They can already spread their false stories, so how are we to fight that practice?

Call out McDonald's for paying people to show up at your local county commission meeting? Reveal Comcast's lobbying of the state legislature? Take on Microsoft for buying the Seattle Seahawks??

Re:Subject to the whims of the masses...

[KermodeBear]

That was my immediate reaction as well.

"I don't agree with the political / religious / philosophical point of the article, so I am going to flag it as false, even if I know that it is true."

Just what we needed, yet another tool to promote drama and division among people.

Re:Subject to the whims of the masses...

[Anonymous Coward]

For facebook I am everyday reminded why I no longer hang out with these people. However they are such train wrecks it is mesmerizing to watch.

The really interesting ones are the ones coming off military rotation. Civilian life is cray cray to what they have been doing for 20 years. It usually takes them 2-3 years to decompress. It is interesting to watch.

Re:Subject to the whims of the masses...

[GIL_Dude]

Well, that just calls for a reputation service so that the flagging gets the appropriate weight. Perhaps that is where meta-modding comes in (to give it a slashdot spin). But at some point, a pattern emerges that can be seen, analyzed, and corrected for when someone mods every story they see about a certain topic as false. I'm betting a company with the kind of data a Facebook or Google has can probably come up with a reputation engine for weighting the flags too that will work - not perfectly - but probably "good enough".

Re:Subject to the whims of the masses...

[internerdj]

Motivation for Facebook or Google: maximum time on website. The most profitable reputation engine is one that feeds the user his or her own preferences back to them (Judging by my news feed Yahoo is doing this). This is exactly how Fox News or Huff Post works except that instead of self-selecting news that supports my worldview it is being done without any internal processing. You might could get away with expert truthfulness on some issues. However, the scariest thing for me is that things that are opposing opinions will have an assigned truth value and the best metric would be popular opinion.

Re:Subject to the whims of the masses...

[gmack]

Your plan falls apart when you have large groups of people who are willing to believe literally anything about some group they don't like and refuse to accept any evidence that they are wrong.

The number of people who believe Obama will bring in Sharia law or has the national guard preparing internment camps is outright staggering.

Re:Subject to the whims of the masses...

[Beerdood]

I imagine these flags wouldn't apply to the links themselves; we wouldn't see any sort of count based on the total number of false flags for the link or article itself. This would probably be something relative to the context or area where it's being posted. Something posted on someone's wall for instance, would only be flaggable by those that could see the wall post (friends only). A link posted in a FB group would only be flaggable by members of the groups.

To get around shills, they'd probably have to identify the users disagreeing with a link or article (if you think that's false, well then don't be afraid to stand behind your decision!). If some shill keeps flagging opinionated or factual articles as false - then users would get some sort of option to ignore all of their false flags (similar to the way you can ignore game invite requests from specific people). Maybe user accounts that continually flag articles as false would be banned from making flags; this would deal with trolls as well

Not good enough

[jandrese]

There should be a requirement that if you flag a story as false, you have to provide a link to a reputable source refuting it.

I already do this on Facebook, but I always provide a link to Politifacts or Factcheck or even Snopes. If you don't, you'll just be that guy who says "no" because he's to naive to believe that Obama already has secret death panels that kill millions of Americans each year.

Re:Not good enough

[Pope Hagbard]

Snopes are liberal shills, don't you know, and the stories they say are false make a good point.

I know people who believe those things.

Re:Not good enough

[sribe]

I already do this on Facebook, but I always provide a link to Politifacts or Factcheck or even Snopes. If you don't, you'll just be that guy who says "no" because he's to naive to believe that Obama already has secret death panels that kill millions of Americans each year.

Wait, you mean that picture of Obama shaking hands with Hitler was fake? Gosh, sure could have fooled me. (Tea Partiers, the pathetic trolls of conservative politics...)

Re:Not good enough

[ledow]

Obligatory XKCD:

http://xkcd.com/250/

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Citation? jk

Just get your news and political analysis from inforwars.com. There's a lotmore truth there, not just reporters reading white house press releases and asking easy questions.

Re:Not good enough

[Pope Hagbard]

Funnily enough, the people who are dumb enough to say those things will also post links to infowars and prisonplanet now and again. Those sites are just *chock full* of "good points".

Re:Not good enough

[OzPeter]

There should be a requirement that if you flag a story as false, you have to provide a link to a reputable source refuting it.

Years ago I did this at work when some administrative staff person sent around the chain email warning you not to press a certain sequence of buttons when on your home phone as that would let the bad guys do all sorts of nefarious things. (#90 scam I was nice about it, only replied to the person who originated the email and pointed them to the Snopes article showing the said information was a hoax.

In return, instead of thanks, I got a blistering email about who I was wasting company time by looking at things on the internet. From that, and other attempts to point out wrong things, I have come to the conclusion that some people would rather be in denial to the truth than admit that they were taken in by a hoax, and get very angry when confronted with their own stupidity.

Re:Not good enough

[dywolf]

Reality has a well known liberal bias after all.

Re:Not good enough

[OzPeter]

Wait, you mean that picture of Obama shaking hands with Hitler was fake? Gosh, sure could have fooled me.

It's pretty obvious to spot the fakes. If Obama is not wearing his Islamic clothing, or does't have a connection to Kenya and/or Sharia law, then obviously the picture is a fake.

Jeebus Weeps - don't you people have any common sense??????????

Re:Not good enough

[internerdj]

I'm so sorry that you've been mislead. That really is a picture of Hitler passing Obama a fake birth certificate.

Re:Not good enough

[meta-monkey]

Wait, if that's fake...then you're telling me no one has ever seen Obama and Hitler in the same room at the same time?! That can only mean one thing! To FaceBook!

Re:Not good enough

[meta-monkey]

My wife's grandmother sends those things out in mass email forwards. And in all caps.

A few months back her computer running Vista was so horribly bogged down with viruses and malware that I formatted it and installed Mint. When she asked what she could do to thank me I said "never, ever, ever, ever, forward me an email." Haven't gotten one since, so well worth the effort I'd say.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

I already do this on Facebook, but I always provide a link to Politifacts or Factcheck or even Snopes.

I did the same before ultimately leaving Facebook. I created a problem, though. After being debunked by Snopes a couple of times, people in my feed started changing their posts from:

      "OBAMA IS GONNA MAKE VETERAN HEROS LIVE IN FEMA TRAILERS AND GIVE THEIR HOMES TO WELFARE PEEOPLES!!!!!!111!!!!!1!!!" ...to...

    "OBAMA IS GONNA MAKE VETERAN HEROS LIVE IN FEMA TRAILERS AND GIVE THEIR HOMES TO WELFARE PEEOPLES!!!!!!111!!!!!1!!! AND THERE'S NOTHING ON SNOPES SO ITS TRUE!!!!!111!!!!1!!!"

Re:Not good enough

[UnknowingFool]

For some of my acquaintances, labeling something as "Faux News" is enough especially the latest "no-go zones" fiasco.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

It is the weirdest thing, most of the time conservatives are idiots who can't take two steps without destroying the country by their bumbling, until the moment they are correct about something and then they are able to construct a grand conspiracy altering complex and difficult to manipulate things without a single shred of solid evidence to force one of their talking points to be true.

Re:Not good enough

[drinkypoo]

I know people who believe those things.

Shills? No. In love with their own opinions? Yes. Presenting opinion as fact? Occasionally, they definitely do this. It's not hard to find examples even in the non-political material. Snopes has a reputation as a bastion of fact, but that's not what it is. It's just got more fact than most sites.

Re:Not good enough

[Archangel Michael]

I've noticed several of the "Political" style facts often don't actually represent the truth on Snopes, and definitively have a left leaning bent. In one case, the "Claim" was correct (it happened), but the refutation by snopes used other things to "false" the claim. To me, taking one claim, and refuting another and never addressing the "facts" of the original is slick politics.

For most things, Snopes is okay, but anything "political" is suspect out of the gate.

Re:Not good enough

[Bruinwar]

Remember ElfBowling.exe?! It was one of those .exe's that all IT people just love their users executing. Yes this was a really long time ago & we were all having fun with it until that email came that said it was a VIRUS & would CRASH YOUR HARD DRIVE on XMAS DAY! I replied, with links & even the number to the software dev that made the game. Of course they had a message right off about the hoax when you called.

Even after all the proof that the game was harmless I overheard someone warning someone else to that it was a virus. I confronted him & he said "you don't know for sure it's not a virus". My point is, the people that post, send, promote these stupid hoaxes don't care if they are true or not. They believe & that is all that matters to them.

Side note, sanity prevailed & we removed all those cool little games. They were fun while they lasted. Snowcraft.exe! I've played that one (at home) not all that long ago. We had to stop playing Quake 2 during lunch around that same time.

Re:Not good enough

[reikae]

What was this "one case" and how did you figure out it really happened? I'm not saying Snopes can't be wrong, but you don't make it easy to check whether you're correct here.

Re: Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing that you're talking about the video where no one shakes obama's hand.

Re:Not good enough

[sribe]

Wait, if that's fake...then you're telling me no one has ever seen Obama and Hitler in the same room at the same time?!

Of course not you dumbass. That picture was clearly taken outside ;-)

Re:Not good enough

[sribe]

I'm so sorry that you've been mislead. That really is a picture of Hitler passing Obama a fake birth certificate.

Brilliant! Here's hoping you get the mod'ing you deserve: +6 funny (& insightful)!

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

It's bullshit. He felt in his gut that the story wasn't right and that was good enough for him.

Re:Not good enough

[jandrese]

That's progress. Think of all of the bullshit they were about to post before they found it on Snopes. At least they're checking now.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

There should be a requirement that if you flag a story as false, you have to provide a link to a reputable source refuting it.

Who is verifying these links are reputable, and not just somebody pushing their own agenda, or that they're not just a bunch of goatse trolls? Or should we install a flag system for that, too?

Re:Not good enough

[dywolf]

No, now they just say snopes is lying and part of the conspiracy.

Even right now, mere days after Fox issued an apology and admitted it was wrong about the Muslim "no go" zones in France, Breitbart is still insisting they exist, and that CNN is lying by not admitting they exist and talking to actual French people in those areas who also say its silly BS.

Re:Not good enough

[Pope Hagbard]

If it's not hard to find such examples, you should provide one.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

> Reality has a well known liberal bias after all.

How permissive (liberal) is it for reality to be ruled by iron-fisted laws, like the absoluteness speed of light* which is the same in all reference frames?

* To anyone who finds links to the stories about "changing" this, be sure you know exactly what phase and group velocity are first.

Re:Not good enough

[Archangel Michael]

I don't recall at the moment. I do remember seeing the "debate" about the quote, and then the refutation by Snopes, which changed some of the verbiage to make it look like they "proved" the (mis)quote was not true, by referring to some other quote. But they never really addressed the real quote that was in fact, factual.

It was subtle, enough to trick stupid liberals using SNOPES to prove their point, got caught making wrong statements about the actual quote. Snopes was technically correct about the "facts" it was reporting on, it just wasn't reporting on the other politically damaging quotes (ignoring them).

To be honest, Snopes is a valuable tool for most "wrong" internet MEMES and hoaxes. But on the Political crap, not useful at all, simply because there is a bias that comes out.

As I say, bias isn't always what is in what is being reported, sometimes it is in what is NOT being reported.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Very convenient that you can't remember any particulars at all.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

My mother, who's 81, is the same way, and has been for 20 years. Several times a year I hear from her about how Google broke her computer, or doesn't work anymore, etc. What she really means is that something she denies clicking on caused her to download malware which broke icons on her desktop, wiped out major portions of her hard drive, spammed all her friends about viagra, or various other actions. She clicks on *anything* anyone sends her. Unless I send her something important, in which case she doesn't have time to do it. /sigh

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

The only times I've known Snopes to be wrong, they self-corrected very quickly. And they erred on the margin of safety rather than paranoia. Now, I've seen LOTS of ignorant people claiming Snopes is wrong, yet 100% of the time every link they provide reinforces the point made by Snopes, and I unfortunately have to tell them their reading comprehension needs some work.

I'm not saying Snopes is never wrong, but their self-correction mechanism puts most news sources to shame. At least they didn't go to court to defend their right to lie on air and call it news.

Re:Not good enough

[Anonymous Coward]

Not just some, most. They live on both sides of the political line, but the right is far more susceptible to this influence. Source: See Congress.

Re:Not good enough

[sound vision]

And who is going to check these reputable links? Who is going to check the sources these "reputable links" cite?

Re:Not good enough

[sound vision]

ElfBlowing.jpg.exe? I have that archived somewhere, you want a copy?

Not going to work

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't see how this could work for the purpose described in the summary. It will be abused by those with less ethics. It would be better for people to just in general mark everything as false to give deniability for any thing.

Well, it would drive up page views for people going through more information to search and mark things. Is this just a ploy to generate more revenue hidden behind a weak "privacy" initiative?

ahh good for dictatorships

[Kkloe]

well now goverments can have the option to make that the links of beating by a policeofficer is false or some other crap they want to hide and make fb mark it as false

Easier fix

[Anonymous Coward]

How about us normals just keep ignoring shit from Natural News and Breitbart, and Facebook just focus on not adding more shit before they're done polish the rest of the turd?

Yay. Quicker than Snopes links all the dang time.

[raymorris]

I like this. I've been known to post links to Snopes in the comments of a lot of the stuff my friends re-post. Come to think of it, I hardly ever post to Facebook at all, so the Snopes.com links may make up the majority of my posts.

Now for a "dislike" button. :)

The Cutest Thing Ever?

[Jim Buzbee]

"Isn't my new baby the cutest thing ever?" - FALSE

Re:The Cutest Thing Ever?

[paintballer1087]

I have never wanted mod points as badly as I do right now! +1 Insightful

False

[Blaskowicz]

I want to report that story as false, there's no way a single company with perhaps final decisions taken by a very small amount of people can change a policy on a whim or at random and that this will affect the content of every damn newspaper, radio station and TV news.

Why

[ledow]

The people on my Facebook who post anything I consider junk, we either have a reasoned discussion about, or I couldn't care less about their updates.

The people who post the "It's such-and-such a day because of this number and this number and it only happens once in a lifetime" (which are almost invariably wrong anyway)... I can't stand that sort of junk anyway.

The religious nuts? I block, or set to ignore so they don't get offended by my blocking and cause me more of a nuisance than they already are.

The virus / hack hoaxes? I work in IT. These people either respect my opinion in that area (and thus stop posting that junk after I've explained that it's junk), or don't (in which case their posts are ignored / blocked). Once had one try to tell all their friends that iPhones tag every photo with your GPS location and how this was dangerous for your baby photos because "paedophiles might get hold of them". (First, if a paedophile has your baby photos, that's problematic from the start. Second, if knowing the location of where your baby once had a photo taken is enough for a paedophile to do something other than their intention anyway - that's quite hard to imagine. Third, you can turn the option off - though only Apple seems to have it on by default. Fourth - it affects ALL devices with GPS and camera where you haven't turned it off. Fifth - posting those photos on Facebook etc. isn't a risk anyway as they strip the EXIF information anyway). The discussion that resulted was a lot more useful, a lot less hyperbolic, and a lot more accurate and informative anyway. And nobody on my friends list has cared or bothered to propagate that nonsense since.

The other stuff, I'm happy to discuss and FRIENDS (you know, those people who like you and you like them) won't be offended by such discussions or even a disagreement anyway so I'm unlikely to block in preference to making some sarcastic comment anyway.

Just don't tag everyone you've ever met in your life on Facebook - you do not treat or consider the majority of them as friends anyway, so stop it. And if they're going to spread that junk, they either need it explained why they shouldn't until they stop, or to be ignored anyway. Problem solved, without need for a special "button".

Re:Why

[Quirkz]

"It's such-and-such a day because of this number and this number and it only happens once in a lifetime"

The most frustrating part about those posts is usually the entire analysis is correct, up until that last throwaway line "it will never happen again." Why do the authors feel the need to include it? In some cases the real answer is it won't occur for another thousand or ten thousand years, but that's not good enough? Of course some of the others (December has five Tuesdays this year) happen about half of all years and are complete junk articles, but I actually find the rarer ones kind of neat, with the exception of the completely erroneous disclaimer.

I doubt that...

[rnturn]

... will stop my tin-foil-hat-wearing friends from going overboard whenever one of their conspiracy-obsessed friends posts a comment about chemtrails or whatever government-is-out-to-get-you theory of the day is making the rounds.

Just mark it all false..

[Anonymous Coward]

Then maybe people will stop using cause they don't see anything and get real lives.

Uhmmm...

[blackbeak]

Fox News has a Facebook page, right? Just thinkin'....

Re:Uhmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

So does CNN. What's good for the goose....

Re:Uhmmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

I did a numbercrunch of various news sources with a large sample size back in September in regards to their accuracy. Rather simply, using a large sample size of stories that each reported on, each's statements were evaluated.

It showed that CNN has the best overall aggregate accuracy of the major media sources, ~68%, though it doesn't really try to separate factual stories from editorializing. Now, imho, this is mostly due to CNN never really stating much, but instead asking vapid questions like "was it a black hole" or "is that good or bad" (ie, Lemon and Blitzer).

But the point is, in contrast, Fox's accuracy was only 31%, the lowest of the major media.

Law of unintended consequences.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the news: French defence satellite photos shown to BBC confirm the 73th russian guards tank battalion has rolled across the border into Ukraine guns blazing and started to curb away the industrial and coal-mining regions.

On Facebook: some 27 million online Putin-minions of the world click "False" on the link

In Easterrn Europe: 33 million poles and 7 million baltic people do the facepalm...

Re:Law of unintended consequences.

[3.5 stripes]

If you use facebook to get your news, you deserve all the consequences you get, unintended or not.

So what?

[GrumpySteen]

This changes nothing.

Facebook isn't a reliable news source. It was never meant to be a reliable news source and will never be a reliable news source.

Nobody should ever rely on Facebook to provide reliable news in the first place, so making it less reliable and more biased should have no effect on anyone who isn't a complete fucking idiot.

Re:So what?

[CanadianMacFan]

Fox News isn't a reliable news source either but it hasn't stopped people from going there from getting their conspiracy theory of the day.

Re:So what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly!

Mod TFA as -1 dubionsource

[Anonymous Coward]

because -1 pictsoritdidnthappen is too long.

false ads?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen lots of misleading ads on Facebook - sometimes, even outright lies. Can I flag the ads as "false"?

tag, but don't hide!

[Unordained]

I'd rather that people who would normally see such a hoax article in their feed, always go ahead and see it -- with the disclaimer attached. They're likely to see it elsewhere anyway, why not use the opportunity to inform them that it's likely false? Instead, they get to see a story on Fox, then open their Facebook feed, and see nothing about it ... now not only are they not told it's false, it even looks like a liberal conspiracy to cover-up the truth! So very helpful.

Re:tag, but don't hide!

[Anonymous Coward]

See how this will work: I'd rather that people who would normally see such a hoax article in their feed, always go ahead and see it -- with the disclaimer attached. They're likely to see it elsewhere anyway, why not use the opportunity to inform them that it's likely false? Instead, they get to see a story on Huffington Post, then open their Facebook feed, and see nothing about it ... now not only are they not told it's false, it even looks like a NRA conspiracy to cover-up the truth! So very helpful.

Re:tag, but don't hide!

[wvmarle]

Adding the note that it may be false will likely make many people believe it's false, whether that's the case or not. People generally follow other people's opinions, or are at least strongly influenced by them.

Even if you're sure something is true but it's tagged as "potentially false" then at the very least it will seed doubts.

Re:tag, but don't hide!

[Unordained]

You'd be wrong to think I disagree with you. It cuts both ways, and that's okay!

Going further, I'd like to know what hoaxes other people are being exposed to, so I have some clue before they start spouting fecal matter at the watercooler. Rather than suppress the hoax, I'd rather publicize it (preferably alongside proof.)

All posts? Or just shared stories?

[meta-monkey]

All posts? Or just shared articles?

"Little Bobby was great in the school play!"

Tagged as FALSE: "Little Bobby sucked!"

Re:All posts? Or just shared stories?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not rude, I'm honest. I just speak what's on my mind, even if most can't handle the truth.

Re:All posts? Or just shared stories?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bobby forgot our anniversary again. Flagged: false. I didn't forget our anniversary; I just didn't get you anything.

Obvious consequences...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here a short list of the news stories that will be flagged as "false" by hundreds of fake facebook accounts set up by western authorities:

1) the nazi-style crimes of the Nato-backed ukrainian army in Donbass ("No, it's Putin's fault, bro! ")

2) the nazi-style crimes of israel in Palestine ("you're anti-semitic!")

3) any crime by american soldiers, anywhere they are ("they destroyed a kindergarten 'cause they are patriots! ")

4) any news about bankers or big companies bribing politicians and journalists, even in semi-legal ways, such as revolving doors, etc... ("So what, are you a communist?")

5) any news about bilderberg meetings, et similia ("it's just a conspiracy theory, bro")

False Flag

[pipingguy]

What about false flagging 'False' flags? I can't see any kind of coordinated abuse of this system at all, especially on political issues (which of course, don't exist on Facebook).

Re:False Flag

[CanadianMacFan]

I can see this now:

IPCC releases latest report saying climate change is happening due to human causes
- Republican Party flagged this as false
- Greenpeace has flagged Republican Party's flag as false
- Koch Brothers has flagged Greenpeace's flag as false
- WWF has flagged Koch Brothers' flag as false ...

Great

[Anonymous Coward]

The first thing I'll flag is Facebook's privacy policy.

stupid idea

[beefoot]

Not that I am a facebook user. The better idea is to introduce vote up and down. Those with highest vote has better chance to show up on the stupid feeds.

Re:stupid idea

[PReDiToR]

This already happens according to some Farcebook algorithm.

MANY users[who?] detest this and opt for "Most Recent" instead of "Top Stories". It's one of the reasons extensions such as FB Purity and Social Fixer exist.

Right now I do most of my Farcebook interactions through Tinfoil for Facebook. There's also a version for Twitter. Having "social" media in its own browser cut off from the rest of your system means you don't have to install "Messenger" to use chat and more importantly, it can't be written to by any pissant program that fancies using your normally logged in account.

Re:stupid idea

[CanadianMacFan]

We do that in elections and see how well that works out.

Re:stupid idea

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean, The Like or Do Not Like button should be renamed to Vote Up and Vote Down? because you are basically suggesting the same thing.

-1, Pointless

[argStyopa]

Yeah, I'm sure these will be used with at least the same intellectual rigor and restraint of any internet discussion, and not applied willy nilly to everything people disagree with emotionally or politically.

hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess it could be abused, but it's no worse than the constant flood of bullshit on FB.

My political lea\nings

[Anonymous Coward]

My political leanings are conservative for some areas and liberal for others and centrist for yet others.

My opinions have been changed by reading books, newspapers (like the Economist) and listening to people who have well reasoned opinions; which means no one on radio or TV and most of the web.

BUT, by being respectful, honest, and having a true desire to understand the truth as best we can, I listen and many times, the "other side" is successful in changing my opinion. That is how we, the electorate, can keep the folks in power in line - ALL of them.

On the other hand ....

To quote the parent's posts:

Snopes are liberal shills, don't you know,...

Funnily enough, the people who are dumb enough to say those things will also post links to infowars and prisonplanet now and again

Insults, hyperbole, and complete lack of desire for information sharing shows me that you have nothing of value to offer and not worth listening to. YOU sir are part of the problem as to why we are so uninformed and polarized and why the political elite has been screwing us over.

Re:My political lea\nings

[Pope Hagbard]

You're laboring under the misapprehension that people who believe Alex Jones, paranoid conspiracy theorist, have anything of value to share. You could not be more wrong, and your focus on my tone is nothing more than concern trolling because you have nothing of substance to say.

Re:My political lea\nings

[dywolf]

Remember the quote that anything Fox News says is a lie, even things that were once true automatically become lies if Fox says them?

The same goes double for Alex Jones.
He is the man who after a tornado wrecked a city, blamed it on Obama's weather weapon, saying he sent the tornado in retribution for the state completely (all counties) voting against him.

And that's one of his saner statements.
If he says the sky is blue, you should still check first before believing him.

Re:My political lea\nings

[shaitand]

The government has admitted they were in fact behind the UFO sightings, area 51 is real, the NSA really is illegally reading all your communications without warrants, they really are backdooring all your software, the FBI really is intercepting cell communications in mass and says it doesn't need a warrant if the interception device is on public property, and the US really did have death squads killing civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan...

I didn't realize we still tied conspiracy theorist with paranoid anymore. For the most part, it's people who do so as a knee jerk reaction who have proven to be wrong.

Re:My political lea\nings

[Pope Hagbard]

The fact that some conspiracies are real does not imply that all posited conspiracy theories are. Have you ever read the drivel from infowars and prisonplanet?

Your logical fallacy is: false dilemma.

Re:My political lea\nings

[boris111]

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

Re:My political lea\nings

[shaitand]

"Have you ever read the drivel from infowars and prisonplanet?"

No. And my comment shouldn't be taken as advocating anything from those sources.

"The fact that some conspiracies are real does not imply that all posited conspiracy theories are."

The fact that some conspiracies are not real does not imply that all posited conspiracy theories are not.

I'm not defending the particular flavor of nut job you are referencing. It is the phrase "paranoid conspiracy theorist" that triggers me. Pre-CIA disclosures, snowden, and wikileaks barrage educated individuals generally came from a number of assumptions about government conspiracies that resulted in immediately labeling anyone who speculated overt deception and/or conspiracy on the part of government/state/police sources as a paranoid conspiracy theorist. As a consequence, the only people who could safely advocate such opinions publicly WERE nut jobs. I've argued against this providing sane and rational skepticism prior to the aforementioned disclosures and leaks and advocate the same now.

When it comes to government and the global banking system an incredibly healthy portion of what was posited by nut jobs turned out to be true. Frankly, most of what has come out was actually probable if you were viewing those sources with appropriate skepticism in the first place.

Here is a conspiracy for you. I find it highly suspect that nut jobs are the only ones who posit overt deception on the part of government that are given significant media and television coverage. A great way to divert suspicion is to throw out a few foaming at the mouth lunatics and bury obvious suspicious elements within their drivel. Then associate anyone who repeats those suspicious elements with those lunatics. See any history channel show that eventually devolves into the ancient aliens guy. See opera episodes that put militia extremists on stage along side KKK members and neo-nazi's after waco.

Re:My political lea\nings

[shaitand]

If you jump to a knee jerk assumption that clock is wrong without checking another source you'll be wrong twice a day as well.

View the source with the skepticism it deserves but do not assume the message is automatically false because of the messenger.

Re:My political lea\nings

[david_thornley]

Experimental aircraft flying from Area 51 are certainly responsible for some UFO sightings. That doesn't mean all UFO sightings, or "the UFO sightings". The NSA has been trying to backdoor crypto software to be weak in ways that theoretically only they know, but they haven't been backdooring all my software. Whether the NSA has been illegally reading all my communications is a matter of definition (have they actually read it when they've just stashed it away in case a warrant comes along?). I haven't seen good evidence that the US had death squads in Iraq and Afghanistan, although some organizations linked with death squads have been trained by the US, but mostly in Central America rather than Asia.

ah and now with "plausible deniability"

[Anonymous Coward]

now when stories that oppose Zuckberg's favorite politicians come out, his "experimenters" can simply flag them all as "false" but claim it was not Facebook who did it. All the low information idiots who think emotionally clever 5 word comments on a tricky photo are "truth" will keep things that way.

Just like their little "negative enhancement" experiment, control the opinion, use the opinion to do your dirty work.

the million or so fake accounts run by a few thousand "fellow travellers" won't possibly be misused. *coughbollockscough*

Posters do not case if they are false

[jmyers]

Many people that share political/religious items do not care if they are false. They agree with the premise of the item, the facts are just a nuisance. Please will always think something is false if they disagree with it and accept as fact anything they agree with. This goes across all ideologies and can be seen rampantly everywhere.

When I first got on the internet, early 90s Usenet, I thought this is great and will dispel all of the nut cases with crazy ideas and conspiracy theories. Most Usenet groups that I visited had some very smart people who were quick to point out fact when superstitious idea came up. In a very short period of time groups started to pop up that offered every crazy idea known to man and the major participants were the people with crazy ideas. Now the internet offers a support system for any crazy thing you want to believe. Even if everyone around you in real life tried to convince you it is a crazy idea, there's a support system waiting for you on the internet.

What makes it even worse is the impersonal nature of on-line communication. People will say all kinds of stuff on social sites and email they would never say in person. This is making us less civilized. When you live in a community and interface with your neighbors you learn to live with and accept the views of others. Even if you don't believe the same way or maybe think they are crazy you learn through life to live and let live. Now with the internet you have the choice to be a fanatic about anything and only interface with people with the exact same outlook as yourself.

Re:Posters do not case if they are false

[ic3m4n1]

Many people that share political/religious items do not care if they are false.

People dont care but Facebook seemingly cares and wants to get rid of them from news feed.
Maybe its their idea of improving site, may be it is to collect more personal data.
Or may be all those spam posts are making their spy algorithms go nuts.

Re:Posters do not case if they are false

[jmyers]

I am sure this change helps them to understand underlying bias of individuals who post and who flag as false. I would say helps the spy algorithms or at least presents the opportunity to learn more about the product (users). It gives them easy to evaluate statistics without having to analyze the comments. You can pretty much guess the position of the person who tagged false. They could even have their own fact checkers researching popular items so from the FB perspective you could know the position of the person that posted/shared, the position of people who tag false and then the unseen true/false flag sent by Facebook to gauge the user's bias.

Some don't believe Snopes

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

A guy I went to high school with is one of my Facebook friends. He and I worked in the same organization years ago on a job and I have no problems being Facebook friends with him as we live in different cities now and work at different jobs. He's pretty much become what they call a "wing nut" on the right wing side of American politics. A few years ago he posted an article that was complete baloney and I posted a link to a Snopes article refuting his article. He in turn posted a link to an article claiming that the Snopes article was a lie and that everything on the Snopes site was suspect and promoting a "liberal agenda". So now the US political right is ready when you try to rebuke them to claim that your rebuke is in fact the lie and turn it into a "he said, she said" kind of debate where people just believe whatever closest fits their preconceived notions. So no, while you hope that a reasonable person might look at the Snopes article you link to, in reality the liars are already ready to claim that Snopes is the real liar and only they are telling the truth.

Re:Some don't believe Snopes

[pnutjam]

It's true:
http://starshipearththebigpicture.com/2012/09/21/snopes-busted/

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2412865/posts

Re:Some don't believe Snopes

[pnutjam]

responding to myself here, but I particularly like how that starshipearth... link points to a factcheck article to slap a veneer of truth on their accusations.
http://www.factcheck.org/2009/...
You might note that this article does nothing but praise how reliable snopes appears to be.

Re:Some don't believe Snopes

[Rakarra]

He in turn posted a link to an article claiming that the Snopes article was a lie and that everything on the Snopes site was suspect and promoting a "liberal agenda".

This is pretty much the mindset that led to Conservapedia. There's a lot of cultural value to rewriting history to benefit your side.

Re:Some don't believe Snopes

[dywolf]

Hell, they're even trying to rewrite the Bible over at Conservapedia, because they are certain the current translations have been tainted by the liberal bias of the people doing the translating....

No I'm not making that up.

http://www.conservapedia.com/C...

Re:Some don't believe Snopes

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for the perfect summary of American right wing politics.

Beware Ukraine

[Anonymous Coward]

Now you may actually have to start providing proof of the "Russian invasion" or stick to mainstream western media which will take your word for it.

Bennett Haselton

[tommeke100]

OMG, they stole Bennett's idea for moderating Twitter !!!!

This could have legal implications...

[Anonymous Coward]

"HELP MY HOUSE IS ON FIRE AND I CAN'T GET TO MY PHONE" -Tagged as FALSE by XYZ users

Then your family dies in the fire, and you would go after facebook for the name of every single user who tagged it false.

Experience

[Tablizer]

Based on my experience with political forums, conservatives will flag all progressive viewpoints false and vice versa. Anything controversial will simply have a bunch of flags associated with it. If you only allow "false" flags, then controversy itself would generate tons of "false" flags. If you also allow "true" flags, then you'll get basically an opinion poll, often based on emotion rather than careful research and analysis.

finally a way to block Fox News

[jsepeta]

or all that Tea Party Libertarian crap

The far-right-wing propagandists hate this

[jeffmflanagan]

If people that lie for a living are upset about their lies being flagged, that suggests that this is a good idea.

another failure

[sdinfoserv]

Let me flag those add's rolling in the news feeds as false then you've got something.

Re:Cool features coming

[rwa2]

Excellent! Next up: ranking everyone on Facebook from best to worst!

Obligatory XKCD panel #3: http://xkcd.com/451/

Bah...

[Stormy Dragon]

This is just another False flag story!

I want my weird tricks and shocking videos!

[spaceyhackerlady]

I want to get rid of my belly fat and I want to learn French.

...laura

One more tool to the ...

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

... purveyors of SEO tools.

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Hurry! Act Now!

Wait! There is more. First three months Free!!!

Sincerely,

Imac Onman,

CEO, Conman International, an internet based conjob company that will take you to the cleaners!

Just Give People A "Hate" Button.

[BarbaraHudson]

Just give people a "Hate" button ... or if hate is too strong a word, "Not!"

Anything people don't like is untrue

[Karmashock]

If one person stands up and says something that the rest don't want to hear they'll just say "liar" and shut him down even if he's completely legit. That is the problem with down voting etc. It is really just a popularity contest.

I get up voted and downvoted on this site pretty much at random. I'll say something that seems like a reach and everyone loves it. I'll say something else that makes some little faction unhappy but is completely f'ing obvious and get downvoted.

Up or down votes have nothing to do with truth. Just popularity.

Re:Anything people don't like is untrue

[LaurenCates]

Well, yeah. If there's one thing I've had repeatedly beaten into my head having been a corporate monster at least for a couple of years, it's: "He who has the gold makes the rules", or, complimentary-wise: "The victor writes the history books."

So, if you want to "win" at the popularity game, you always have to stay ahead of what's popular at the time.

Or, do what I did and stop giving a shit. That worked wonders for my stress levels.

Re:Anything people don't like is untrue

[Karmashock]

True enough. Though capitalism, much to the frustration of socialists and communists and politicians, is not a popularity contest.

Hated people do well all the time because while someone might not like a person, they'd rather pay that person 2.05 then pay someone they do like 4.22.

It is why so many of these silly slacktivist campaigns collapse. At the end of the day, the people complaining are going to get into their cars, start up their fossil fuel burning engines, lean back into their leather seats, listen to music brought to them from some publisher or other, possibly stop off to get food at a fast food place, and then pull into their home where they'll engage the central heating which is ultimaely either provided by natural gas or electrical power from a coal power plant.

Logistics in other words. And unless you're prepared to deal with all of that and provide all of those services better at a lower cost... OR convince everyone to pay more for less... who is popular doesn't really matter.

And I don't really mind. Who wants life to just be a repeat of junior high school... forever... where everything is about the popular kid... forever. When does the kid that is smart and works really hard matter? If popularity is everything, that kid will always be the nerd that no one cares about.

Capitalism is great because every type of person can succeed in it. Even the nerd has a chance if he's good at something or has a good idea. the popular kids can be movie stars and politicians. The nerds can make things and design things. The creative types can create art and sell that and have their art judged by whether anyone anywhere is willing to pay anything for it. I've seen people painting in human waste make an impressive living. So... clearly there is something out there for everyone.

It is better this way. It would be a poorer world if it were all about politics and nothing else.

Reminds me of Amazon

[Morpeth]

"Was this review helpful to you?" flag.

Sometimes things get flagged appropriately (it's spam, a tangential rant, etc) but often it's just someone disagreeing with someone over a comment about a book or music cd; especially books, if it there are any socio-political or religious aspects to it.

posting to void mod points

[nnappe]

typo :S

Reinforcing people's opinions

[Anonymous Coward]

How likely do you think it is that Facebook will filter the effects of the "false" flags by user history? That is, if a liberal (conservative) user has flagged conservative (liberal) articles as false, then only the "false" flags of similar users will matter for that user's feed.

Let the Comedy Ensue...

[LaurenCates]

I have pro-vax people that I'm friends with on Facebook.

Same with anti-vax.

They've been passive-aggressively cross-posting articles on vaccination against each other for quite some time (they know each other as well in addition to knowing me).

I think I'd find it funny if they started slamming each other with "false" flags. It's merely one more bitchy move in the Facebook meta-narrative.

"Flag false if you disagree!" will be the new "Like and share if you agree!"

Re:Let the Comedy Ensue...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. I'm in the same situation.

With all the:
Pro/Anti Vaccination
Left/Right politics
Pro/Anti SSM/Abortion/Science/Religion/circumcision/etc

If they end up removing most of eachother's stuff it will remove a great deal of unwanted fluff from my facebook feed.

Yeah but

[g0bshiTe]

Will it let me flag Facebook as False?

I wish we could do this on /.

[Anonymous Coward]

but then the whole site would disappear.

What people have been wanting for a long time

[Trogre]

Folks on Facebook have been wanting this for some time now. Only they used to call it a "Dislike" button.

When will they take reported comments seriously?

[aristotle-dude]

When will they start taking reports of anti-semetic hate speech seriously? It seems that if you call someone a "wuss" for using a community page to troll and make anti-christian and anti-jewish statements instead of their personal account, you will get banned from posting and liking for 3 days if the person in question identifies as gay as well as deleting your relatively inoffensive remark/challenge to use a personal account instead so that we can block them. However, if you report one of those same people for hate speech against a religious or ethnic group, nothing will happen to them and the comment will not be deleted regardless of how many times people report their hate speech.

Equality means equal responsibility and equal application of punishments as well as privileges. Why is hate speech against christians and jews tolerated by facebook reviewers and why is calling someone a "wuss" grounds for a temp ban?

Or a way to falsify the falseness?

[hawkingradiation]

How about "True" or "Controversial" for "hot topics" for which have been voted on many times, both false and true?

Chinese Censorship

[fatp]

I guess this is for satisfying censorship requirement of China (or other dictatorships).

They can always hire enough 50 cent gangs to flag message they don't want

Friends that spam.. Solution

[danknight48]

If you're tired of seeing fake or misleading news articles posted by your friends to Facebook and then spreading like wildfire, you might be in luck.

No luck needed, i have the magic ability to remove that spamming "friend" from my friends list.
If i want to read the news, i'll choose someone who went to school, got a degree and is highly regarded in the news sector on a daily basis (eg:their job at BBC news).

So if enough people don't believe something and flag it false, it becomes "false." Something else for paid shills and opinionated people to do I suppose.

Facebook will never be a true opinionated platform unless they add a "DISLIKE" button. Until then, i fail to see the point of creating an artificial "fake" world for people to waste their life with. Facebook works by allowing its users to believe on the assumption that everyone loves them and everything they say is gold dust.