Slashdot Mirror
Facebook on its Fake News Problem: 'There's So Much More We Need To Do' (theverge.com)
In the aftermath of election, news outlets are counting Facebook as one of the major reasons that drove Trump to victory. NYMag, for instance, had an essay Wednesday titled "Donald Trump Won Because of Facebook", in which it has documented several instances where lies were peddled as fact on Facebook's watch. The social juggernaut, which has over 1.6 billion people checking the website every month, has been spotted running fake stories on its platform numerous times over the past few months, something that President Barack Obama remarked about recently. This is critical because over 60 percent people in the United States consume their news on social media. When asked if Facebook had anything to say about its influence in Trump's victory, the company said:We take misinformation on Facebook very seriously. We value authentic communication, and hear consistently from those who use Facebook that they prefer not to see misinformation. In Newsfeed we use various signals based on community feedback to determine which posts are likely to contain inaccurate information, and reduce their distribution. In Trending we look at a variety of signals to help make sure the topics being shown are reflective of real-world events, and take additional steps to prevent false or misleading content from appearing. Despite these efforts we understand there's so much more we need to do, and that is why it's important that we keep improving our ability to detect misinformation. We're committed to continuing to work on this issue and improve the experiences on our platform.
I have a simple and 100% effective strategy for avoiding fake news on Facebook. I think it's a fairly common strategy for Slashdotters.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Are you aware that saying 'why' something happened isn't the same as blaming someone else for that 'why'?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
If Facebook were to censor these stories, people who fall for them would assume Facebook was controlled by the "liberal media" and go elsewhere for their news. It would not keep the stories from spreading virally.
Also, I like the implication that Trump won due to FUD but the Democratic FUD is of no concern--like the incredibly stupid story posted right here about Trump's server secretly communicating with a Russian bank.
It was so obviously a non-story... but read through the comments here and you'll see how eager people were to lap it up. (I linked Snopes as it contains a variety of credible sources debunking the article).
The Daddy casts sleep on the Baby. The Baby resists!
The real question is who controls that truth meter and who they work with. [1]
Are they going to ban lies like this one from CNN? And yes, it is a clear lie.
Anyhow, it's clear they haven't learned anything whatsoever from this election, so you have 8 years of Trump to look forward to unless they figure it out.
[1] Refer to this old comment if you don't like reading raw HTML and for more context. It's an email thread of the DNC collaborating with Politifact.
Saying "Trump lost because of misinformed voters" "Trump won because EVERYONE who voted for him was misinformed".
Trump actually lost the popular vote; his electoral victory came down to any two of three states where his margin of victory was 1% or less. This means it takes only a small number of people switching their vote because of misinformation to throw an election one way or the other.
As few as 131607 vote switches could have swung the result. -- that was out of 14159807 votes cast in those two states, or about 0.9% of votes cast in those states.
I agree that most people who voted for Trump voted because they liked him, not because of misinformation. But we're talking about a marginal effect with big consequences. Misinformation in close elections can be decisive, which is why people do it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
And what about on the Democratic side? My FaceBook feed is full of crying women who believe America just elected LITERALLY HITLER and that Trump is going to start deporting or murdering anyone who isn't a straight white male. Their level of delusion seems a little worse than your average Trump voter.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
And what about on the Democratic side? ... Their level of delusion seems a little worse than your average Trump voter.
Hammer, meet nail. It wasn't just the Trump side that was "misinformed" by Facebook; Clinton's supporters were equally in a bubble. "Fake" news did not impact only one side; it touched every single candidate. It was near propaganda levels, especially in the final week. Ad hominem was the normal response of the Clinton side; why rebut the argument when it's easier to attack the speaker. Straw man was the normal response of the Trump side; why respond to the actual argument when you can misrepresent it and have a slam-dunk rebuttal.
Maybe it's time for Facebook to realize that all their "algorithms" will be exploitable, and they should just go back to a perfect, unaltered timeline of everything a user is following. At least that way we can say it's the people choosing to be misinformed and not just a side-effect of an algorithmic choice.
There have been dozens of articles about how Trump is just like Hitler from the media. When Trump won New Hampshire and HuffPo's front page was all caps screaming "NEW HAMPSHIRE GOES RACIST SEXIST XENOPHOBIC!!!!" I wondered what would happen if Trump wins. Will the people who believe this kind of shit snap out of it and realize the media is lying to them? People voting Trump in New Hampshire want the drugs coming from Mexico stopped because they can't treat their people's addiction problems when you can get $10 heroin on any street corner, not because they're RACIST SEXIST XENOPHOBIC. Or, will they continue to believe that America just elected Hitler, and that half of their friends and neighbors are secret Nazis who are going to hang all the gays and rape the women now? It appears to be the latter. You may not be this delusional, but holy shit a lot of people are. It's psychological abuse what the media did to these people.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Wait, there's stories on slashdot saying Trump 'bought' the election? Did I miss something, or did you just post false tin foil hat bullshit in an article about false fucking news stories.
Here are some facts.
1. Trump received about the same number of votes as Romney did in 2012.
2. Hillary received about 10M fewer votes than Obama did in 2012.
Neither was a remotely good candidate.
But only one was 'great' at exposing every little flaw of the other candidate. Meanwhile, the other one stuck to the traditional politician script in a decidedly non-traditional election.
They both won their primaries because they were the best politicians, not the best options.
Trump won the election because he was the best politician, not the best option.
Both the DNC & the RNC need to go back to square one and start promoting their best candidates, not the best politicians. The best candidates will serve more of the whole of America than either one of these candidates ever would.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
How about people stop being fucking morons and look a little closer at "the news". We used to absolutely LOVE disgracing our media when they spread bad info. Now we have opinion news, click-bait, and citizen journalists.
You won't believe how Batboy's all grown up love affair with Janet Jackson ended....
Orange clown runs for office and has THIS to say......
See HRC's hot new underwear...
Pointing out bad stories on social media gets you involved in whatever TOXIC topic it relates to, earns you name-calling, and general ass-hole-ry on response for all your "friends" to see. Those of us that know better just left. People really seem enjoy the dumb-shit-echo-chamber we left behind.
(the irony of post right?)
And now what, we are somehow surprised or something? This is exactly what we wanted. It's not on fb to censor bad news, its on us to not be fucking morons.
Is this REALLY not obvious?
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
Well one thing we learned about the election.
We were seeing all the polls showing Clinton had a near certain victory. And we assumed trump was lying when he said that his polls are showing something different. Unfortunately that raises the question how good are the sources to figure out truthfulness.
Now Trump could had been lying about his sources, and gotten lucky. However the fact that he was saying that he was winning and the media is lying about that and actually won. Does bring up questions, on the fact checkers and truthfulness.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
He won because Hillary ignored the flyover states that Obama had swept previously. Enough with the silly theories.
love is just extroverted narcissism
This just in: "Trump bought the election".
Here, now there is.
No it doesn't. It says that the polls are using flawed means that don't end up being accurate. People have complained about the way polls are conducted being skewed for a long time now. Polls only measure people who agree to be measured. They only measure what people say, rather than what they do in privacy.
There was a pretty decent interview on NPR last weekend where the interviewer sat down the heads of a view polling agencies to discuss how polling works and the challenges involved in getting accurate polling. The fact of the matter is that each year it has been more difficult getting an accurate cross-sample of people. 30 years ago, it was far easier -- everyone had a public land-line. Everyone picked it up on a ring. No one had caller id. Now it's far more self-selected, and it's easier to get penned in to one demographic.
The last time I checked they still only polled people who had land lines.
No, they use cell phones now. I received a poll call on my cell phone this election, the first time in 15 years I had been randomly polled about anything.
And you're even leaving out the probably largest reason why polls divert from actual results. For the sake of the argument, assume all your assumptions and correction factors would be spot on and you could predict the outcome perfectly.
Now publish your prediction:
What happens? People who were bound to vote for the leading candidate stay at home because they think their candidate won't need their votes anymore, but people who want to support the second place candidate (by polls) are activated to actually vote.
Publishing a poll has a huge effect on election results.
bickerdyke