Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Begins Asking Users To Rate Articles' Use of 'Misleading Language' (techcrunch.com)
Facebook is finally cracking down on the fake news stories that run rampant on its site and many other social media sites across the web. The company is rolling out a new feature in the form of a survey that asks users to rate articles' use of "misleading language." The feedback received will likely help Facebook train its algorithms to better detect misleading headlines. TechCrunch reports: The "Facebook Survey," noticed by Chris Krewson of Philadelphia's Billy Penn, accompanied (for him) a Philadelphia Inquirer article about the firing of a well-known nut vendor for publicly espousing white nationalist views. "To what extent do you think that this link's title uses misleading language?" asks the "survey," which appears directly below the article. Response choices range from "Not at all" to "Completely," though users can also choose to dismiss it or just scroll past. Facebook confirmed to TechCrunch that this is an official effort, though it did not answer several probing questions about how it works, how the data is used and retained, and so on. The company uses surveys somewhat like this to test the general quality of the news feed, and it has used other metrics to attempt to define rules for finding clickbait and fake stories. This appears to be the first direct coupling of those two practices: old parts doing a new job.
How many days we can go without a Facebook story.
And... they're off!
Hillary campaign bus involved in deadly crash.
And of course, CNN falsly admits it aired pornography for 30 minutes on thanksgiving.
Synopsis of previous link:
1) A Twitter user in the Boston area reported that CNN was airing hardcore pornography for 30 minutes through local provider RCN.
2) Picked up by The Independent, a leading left-of-center newspaper based in the United Kingdom.
3) Subsequently many other media outlets including Variety magazine, the U.K. Daily Mail, the New York Post, Esquire magazine and Mashable, &c.
4) Eventually, CNN actually confirmed that it did air “inappropriate content” and was seeking an “explanation” from RCN.
Of course, nothing of the sort happened.
Mainstream media has a bit of a credibility problem, yah?
What strikes me is that Facebook is asking the very people that believe the fake news to point out it's fake news.
Doesn't seem very prone to accuracy to me.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
The following Party-approved Fake News stories need not be flagged — indeed, tagging them as anything other than deeply concerning may cause your account to be suspended:
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
This exactly. The majority can still be wrong, and a voting system will be rife with partisan BS. There is no substitute for a good BS detector and a healthy dose of skepticism. The problem is there is no foolproof way to automate what honest journalists used to do. It will be interesting to see how many NYT or other MSM articles get flagged as mostly false.
What FB needs to do is develop an apolitical pipeline where they don't vet the articles, they vet the sources, and then put down strict sourcing and veracity rules straight out of classical journalism 101 for those sources in the pipeline. Sources that violate these rules get flagged as satire or fiction and banned from the news pipeline and lose visibility for a period of weeks or months. A small team of investigators could check into random or flagged stories and then ban as appropriate. There are tens of thousands of stories written up every day, but probably curating 1000 pipelines would satisfy 95% of the important news.
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
To all media goodthinkers:
We need the sheep to stop deviating from the orthodoxy. Repeat "fake news" until the citizens cry for non-conforming news to be censored.
Sincerely, the Inner Party.
Alternative Right.
It'll work just like all online vote systems work, including the slashdot scoring right here. People will down-vote not because they think the story is false or misleading, but because they don't like what it says. Or because they don't like someone it features. Or because they disagree with an opinion given.
And the reverse for things they like what is said, or they'd like to think was true.
Unless you have the time to do your own research on every news story, the best source of news is a source that you trust to be true and accurate. A source that depends on its reputation and cannot afford to lose its readers' trust. Anonymous voting systems involve neither trust or reputation.