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Facebook Is Clamping Down On Fake News, Partners With Fact Checkers To Flag Stories (slate.com)
After weeks of criticism over its role in spreading fake news during and after the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, Facebook said today it is taking concrete steps to halt the sharing of hoaxes on its platform. From a report on Slate: The company announced on Thursday several new features designed to identify, flag, and slow the spread of false news stories on its platform, including a partnership with third-party fact-checkers such as Snopes and PolitiFact. It is also taking steps to prevent spammers and publishers from profiting from fake news. The new features are relatively cautious and somewhat experimental, which means they may not immediately have the intended effects. But they signal a new direction for a company that has been extremely reticent to take on any editorial oversight of the content posted on its platform. And they are likely to evolve over time as the company tests and refines them. First, it's trying to make it easier for users to report fake news stories. The drop-down menu at the top right of each post in your feed will now include an explicit option to report it as a "fake news story," after which you'll be prompted to choose among multiple options, which include notifying Facebook and messaging the person who shared it.
No I don't think Donald Rumsfeld works for Snopes.
While it is acknowledge they do tend to have a liberal slant, this is not fully correct:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
FactCheck noted that Barbara Mikkelson was a Canadian citizen (and thus unable to vote in US elections) and David Mikkelson was an independent who was once registered as a Republican.
How does your, so-called, fact checking make what he said incorrect?
Being registered a Republican doesn't make one automatically conservative. He may have registered Republican for a local election to block a candidate he felt was too conservative. Likewise there were plenty of "blue dog" Democrats that were considered too conservative by others in the Democrat party that got expunged.
Barbara Mikkelson's eligibility to vote in the US is irrelevant to her political leanings as well.
More to the point - this is ultimately the problem with "Fact checking". Check slashdot's recent post on the recent unemployment numbers and whether or not those numbers were good or bad and actual acts were thrown out aplenty from both sides to support or counter arguments. In the end it came out to "which facts" were important to those making the argument as to how "factual" the ultimate statement was.
And so it will be with this. "Fact checking" doesn't resolve bias... it increases it. Because if they were truly facts.. .they wouldn't need checking.
Did you even read the article? They're not blocking anything. They're making a "disputed" icon that appears next to the story, and a confirmation popup if you want to share it. You can still post and see whatever nonsense you want. Moon landing fake? Earth flat? Pearl Harbor false flag? Share your heart out.
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Look up Brandenburg v. Ohio. Twitter's rules match US law.
All your comment about openly conservative people on Twitter does is discredit you.
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Facts have a liberal bias.
At least AOL wasn't trying to pass Snopes and Polifact off as being unbiased.
In my experience, they are not biased.
I used Snopes primarily to defend Bush Jr during most of his two terms. And I've used it again to defend Obama during his.
IMO that makes them unbiased sources. Take some time to look at them. They both have archives so you can look back at both Republicans and Democrats. More recently you'll find they defend Trump on several claims. If someone is spreading something about him that is inaccurate, I want to know. I strive to be as objective in my assessment as possible and both of these sources have served me well.
The fact that you make the claim these sources are biased without making any reference to any examples puts your claim in doubt. Therefore, I have to assume that you are biased. I've come across others who have made the same claim and, for some reason, they are always Trump supporters. And in light of what I just pointed out above, that's puzzling. When Trump is being defended by each of those sources, why would a Trump supporter claim they are biased. If anything one might assume they are biased in favor of Trump.
An effective "democracy" creates the illusion the people have a say in their government.