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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.
Just with different rules about what needs to be banned?
https://yro.slashdot.org/story...
They are threatening to censor half of their customers. I don't think this will end well for them.
If Facebook labels some small time news site as "fake news" would there be a case to be made for defamation if the stories in question were actually factual? For example What about "facts" that are in dispute? Did the Russians hack the DNC or was it an internal leaker who handed the stuff to Wikileaks? One could write an article siting very reputable sources on both sides of that story so which side of that story would be "fake news"
Are these the same "fact checkers" who told us that Iraq had nuclear weapons?
Fake news or, in other words, a narrative not supported by the State.
In the USA a rather significant chunk of their users are pretty hard core Republican Party supporters. And a large number of these people live for false news. Fact checking means nothing to them. One of the ways the right has been able to get false news to spread is by rebuking fact checkers. For example, one person I know simply refuses to believe anything Snopes posts. Why?
1) Snopes got fooled on something that was a parody which it didn't understand and labeled a hoax. I don't remember exactly what it was. But it was a really bad miss on their part because it was pretty obvious to everybody not at Snopes that it wasn't serious. This made Snopes look untrustworthy or possibly dishonest themselves.
2) Certain right wing groups have labeled Snopes as an agent of the Democratic Party. Since they are debunking a lot more nonsense attacking Democrats than Republicans, those who don't look beyond the surface can be rather easily convinced that this is the case.
3) Some people have figured out that by saying that Snopes is lying that there's basically no other well known reputable source to fact check anything, so people don't bother to check stuff because they don't think they can trust anybody.
4) The right also has an excuse, used recently by one of Trump's cabinet nominees, of "I'm not an official news source, so it's not my job to fact check what I pass on."
I have come to the sad conclusion that in the USA at least we're living in a "post-fact, post-truth" world where it no longer matters if anything is truthful or accurate if enough people believe it. Too many people I know just don't care anymore about whether anything is accurate if it matches up with their political beliefs or attacks those they disagree with. This is going to have disastrous consequences for the world in general. Russia has been living in this kind of world for a very long time and China is well on its way to it too. China is whipping up nationalistic sentiments to support the Communist Party dictatorship that it won't be able to control. My biggest fear is that a war with China is going to start because some Chinese general took it on himself to start an attack based on some kind of lie he believed after years of being whipped into a frenzy that the USA is out to get China. You guys think it was bad when the whole Iraq War was started by the USA on lies about WMD? Wait until a war gets started on a tweet that is a lie. We're not that far off.
This is bad news as these fact checkers have proven to be just as biased as any other news souce such sa MSNBC or Fox News. They are fake authorities to decide what is true and what is not. This will lead to ever more tighter group think in the left leaning segments of the society while the right leaning segments will get alienated even further by what they call "mainstream media" institutions. It only takes one false positive identification of "fake news" to discredit this as cencorship by any right leaning person. (And trust me, the bias is there, so the false positive is something that will annoy right leaning people, not left leaning.)
In short: Don't do it. Please. Instead try to work it so that people get exposed to other points of views.
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.
And once again, Facebook is a private organization, and has the right to remove any content they want to. Don't like it, go use some other social networking platform.
Of course, that does mean the fake news purveyors are likely to start losing the large audience they had relied on, but is that such a bad thing? There's always Breitbart and Stormfront!
On that note, a Twitter replacement called Gab.ai has sprung up that claims to enforce free speech.
It's currently in beta so signups are put on a waiting list, but I managed to get in pretty quick (the wait was less than a week). It's not as sophisticated as Twitter is *currently*, but I really like the free speech aspect of it.
Speech they don't tolerate are things that are patently illegal in the US, plus doxing: Illegal pornography, threats and terrorism, and private information.
If you're bothered by someone, you can set a personal filter to remove their posts from your feed. If you're bothered by certain words, you can set another filter to remove posts with those words.
Beyond that, they claim that they will make no restrictions on free speech.
In the 2 months since it started it's become reasonably popular. According to Alexa rankings, it's currently about the same as Slashdot (after 2 months!).
ATM gab seems to be under-represented by the left. People are mostly civil, and...
wonder of wonders... the humour channel is actually funny.
that our issues with factual discourse have little to do with the quality of the news and everything to do with the ability to synthesize information into emotional & cognitive context.
That is to say, it doesn't matter if you tell someone who is pro-war that their country is murdering children. This hypothetical individual is effectively immune from this fact through a combination of propaganda and cognitive biases. It doesn't matter that in all other circumstances this hypothetical individual screams, "Won't someone think about the children", you will not be able to break through to them. At least not directly.
What we are seeing in the US. What we have been experiencing for about 30 years now, is a confluence of certain philosophical positions coming together. In the last couple of days I had it pointed out to me something that should have been far more obvious. There are a lot of my fellow citizens that live by the Just World Hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis/. Combine this with our friend the Prosperity Gospel, and I think you can contextualize so much of the past year.
Given this, we cannot attack the problem directly. Because the problem isn't fake news. The problem is an inability to connect one's actions to the world at large. And I feel that this disconnection is due to a massive amount of wishful thinking. The wishful thought that everything will work itself out. The wishful thought that you get what you deserve. The wishful thought that your one vote doesn't make a difference.
To get around this, we need people to understand that the world doesn't just exist in their household, their neighborhood, or just their town. That we are acting and operating on a global level these days. The world is simultaneously larger and smaller than it has been ever before. It does matter if you choose to get a fuel-efficient three or four cylinder car vs the monstrous SUV because within your lifetime people will be displaced because of that choice. How fast that happens depends on what you choose. You are a part of that chain, whether or not you want to be. And it is up to you to stay current with how you impact things. Even in the smallest, out of the way place in the middle of no-where. This choice makes a difference. And each day, going forward has to be a learn-unlearn-relearn process.
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.
Finally maybe we will start to see the decline of Facebook.
I see no way how this could be abused.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
1.) Dailycaller (lmao)
I'd be much more interested if it was an article about how snopes did a poor job of fact checking. Instead it's a big ol cry fest about how she's a liberal. Read: I don't give a shit if the job is getting done correctly.
Snopes? Politifact? Facebook? .... REALLY? ..... these are all Democrat-aligned entities staffed primarily by Democrats/Socialists whose political contributions and editorials are all favorable to Democrats, so much so that about a year ago Facebook realized that they, as a corporation, were having trouble even communicating with conservatives. Even now, Google is trying to hire people who know some Republicans/Conserrvatives/Libertarians because they have few contacts with such people and need to figure out how to relate to them with Democrats out of power in DC starting in late January.
The people who were all cuddly with Team Hillary, and eagerly parroted all the fake news her campaign and supporters shoveled..... the people who spent the past year providing fake polls showing Trump could not win, and fake news about how "open" Hillary was while she never held a single actual press conference through an entire presidential cycle, and fake news about the greatness of the economy and employment (as Obama became the first US President in history to never manage to create a single quarter of growth of at least 3% and pushed the labor participation rate down to levels only matched by Jimmy Carter in the 1970s) .... THOSE HYPER-DISHONEST and HYPER-PARTISAN freaks are going to censor your news?????????
They are just doubling-down n their Democrat activism. They are going to become unabashed propagandists who will make the communications of the 3rd Reich look amateurish. Anything that is critical of Democrats or of these Democrat-aligned internet entities will be labelled "fake news" and their users will be encouraged to ignore any of this contrary communication. This is a continuation of the 8-year long Obama rants against Fox News and the left-wing meme that the only news outlet not kissing Obama's posterior was "Faux News" and is unprecedented in our history (previous presidents complained about their coverage, but they did not label particular news outlets as "fake" from the white house podium).
Concocting stories of pizzeria pedophile rings is not "other serious opinions". It's deliberately fabricated fake news.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
This is a huge problem. "Fact Checkers" often can pick apart a statement in many ways to get the "correct" determination.
When "Fact Checking":
They can attack something that is generically truthful by using "literal" definitions of words. "Like what, with a cloth?"
Out of a large statement they can ignore the untrue parts and "fact check" a correct part and put a "True" stamp on the entire statement.
Similarly, they can take a largely true statement and fact check a small part of a statement and put a "False" stamp on it.
They can omit parts of large statements from the fact checking process i.e. only fact check statements that are "True" from a particular person while only fact checking statements that are "False" from a different person.
They can use different standards of "fact". Or typical "lying with statistics". For instance - Fact: blacks commit more crime than whites. The fact checker might use "absolute" terms to fact check this statement to conclude it is false. Then they might use "per capita" statistics to fact check other statements.
They can add a narrative for why something is "false" or "true" that is highly biased to undermine a conclusion or to justify a factually false conclusion.
Ultimately, "fact checking" is complete and utter bullshit. There is not really a "truth". Even simple, one sentence, statements can be picked apart and be determined false when every common man would agree the statement is true or be determined technically true when every common man knows it is false. If someone writes and article titled "Why Trump will be a terrible president" and presents a case can you "fact check" that? No. It's impossible. Same with an article "Why Trump will be the best president". You simply can't "fact check" anything reliably enough to remove content.
Then what about original research or breaking news? How do you fact check the initial report? Who is the ultimate arbiter of "facts"? If Trump is shot dead do we have to wait for a death certificate to be issued and submit a public records request to the County he died in to be sure it is a "fact" that he was shot dead?
I smell a "No True Scotsman" fallacy bubbling to the surface here...
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I've been around a while, voted in several elections and have been an avid consumer of news, current events and history since I was in grammar school.
If there is one thing I've noticed down through the years, it is that Conservatives(and especially alt-right/tea party types) really don't like fact checking.
They will use any number of rhetorical ploys, misdirection, hyperbole, etc to "blur" and obfuscate the facts.
In my experience I have noticed that as soon as the word "fact" gets brought up in a conversation, whether on or offline, conservatives start to squirm and almost universally have an instant gut reaction of disdain. They equate "facts" as something that those liberal elite scientist/academia types use to rationally take apart their ill conceived FB memes. This is strange to me, because I would assume that someone with a very passionate opinion about something would want things fact checked and corroborated.
Now this behavior is not universal with conservatives, as I know a guy who is a conservative, is very bright, and we are actually friends, though we disagree on politics. When we are around each other we calmly discuss our differences regarding politics, but it never gets heated or personal. He is all about facts and following an empirical method, etc;
Another Example:
I have a co-worker who has a degree in meteorology, and worked at a climate center at a major university. He is also a conservative Republican that would agree with most statements and opinions put out by Republicans, especially on social issues. One day at work we were discussing the weather as we always do, how it is warmer now than it was 10 or 20 years ago(the discussion was purely anecdotal, we weren't pulling up NOAA data). Someone then asked "what do you think about climate change? Is it real? Is it caused by people?" His answer didn't surprise me, because I know how smart this guy is. He said "climate change is completely backed up by the facts and the scientific evidence, and yes, it is very likely that the carbon put into the atmosphere is the cause". Then he went on to couch all that he had said in apolitical back-peddling sort of self-editing, so as not to offend those in earshot who are of the anti-fact mindset(which I found very humorous!)
Keep in mind this is just an example, but one that shows that not all conservatives are anti-fact, or anti-empirical-method or anti-corroboration.
Just most of them.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Wasted effort.
I recently stumbled on this article from 2014 that really nails the source of our recent issues and explains why even if all of our news perfectly matched the facts we'd still have the same disagreements. Just get past your reactions to the title and read the contents.
Humans are poor reasoners. We can talk ourselves into any position, often looking at the same facts as those with an opposite position and especially when identifying with a group that holds positions.
The only way past the bias is education directed toward how to think as opposed to what are the facts. That will never happen because all sides of the system thrive on this human vulnerability.
You mean like the Associated Press saying Hillary Clinton won the Democratic Nomination, when she didn't and on the eve the California Primary? You mean fake news like that...
By "black supremacist" you mean an African-American who is concerned they are far more likely to be unarmed and yet still shot to death by a police officer than a white American.
I'd give him the benefit of the doubt and say he means the actual black supremacists, and not whatever strawman you're thinking of. Or are you under the impression that only white people are capable of being racists?
Forbes has a pretty good article covering Politifact's issues related to their truthiness judging.
In 2008, Politifact rated as True Obama's claim that if you like your plan you can keep it. The Forbes article notes that the author of that truth-o-meter article didn't check with any health-care skeptics.
In 2009, Politifact changed their rating for the claim to 1/2 true.
In 2013, Politifact labeled it the "lie of the year."
Politifact's 2008 rating was "widely repeated by pro-Obama reporters and pundits, and had a meaningful impact on the outcome of the election."
So, was Politifact's wrong analysis of Obama's 2008 claims "fake news?"
Were they lying or just being too lazy.
When they judge Trump's claim that Obama was the founder of ISIS in the literal sense but don't rate Hillary's comment that Trump is a recruiting sergeant for ISIS at all, either literally or metaphorically, then yes, I'll claim that Politifact is lying or at least intentionally distorting the truth.
Facebook absolutely has the right to determine what gets posted on their site and people have the right to use their product or not. The government on the other hand has no business promoting censorship of anything, including fake news. Fake news isn't new and people have a personal responsibility to explore the "truthiness" of what they read, hear and see.
I've found most of the "alt-right" fake news sites all seem to have the same click-bait adds, so I click the adds and if the throw a pop-up I report them to my anti-virus as mallware sites; most of the are listed on Facebook with the "Sponsored Site" tag so I'm suspicious that reporting them to Facebook would be futile.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Facebook has no news. Just BS and trivia posted by members to keep themselves amused and acquire some sort of brownie points from their friends who keep themselves amused by posting BS and trivia.
Facebook needs to realize that they have no role in disseminating news. Their users are not reporters, not even "iReporters" or whatnot. They are just you and me (well, not ME, smart enough not to have Facebook...) giving our opinions and our filtered, inaccurate interpretation of whatever real new sources we may still pay attention to, along with made-up BS and links to made-up BS.
And the occasional accidental link to real news. I suppose for the benefit of those that refuse to pay any attention to real news any more, and prefer to have it filtered and summarized by their so-called friends (all thousands of them!)
Whilst no fact-checking service is perfect. ... why is having them annotate what is 99.9% likely to be fake news worse than freely allowing bullshit to pervert democracy?
I don't think "Dewey Defeats Truman" is in quite the same league as "Comet Ping Pong Pizza Democrat Child-trafficking HQ".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I dunno. Like so many other things in politics, it looks like the used statistical probability. I was curious and found:
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
Basically you have superdelegates. If 51% of them said they'd vote 100% without a doubt that they're voting for HamSandwich, then we all basically know its going to happen, but its still not safe to call the race, since 1% is a very tiny margin of error. A few delegates for HamSandwich could have a heart-attack and now you're only at 49% of 100% voters. So let me push my magic margin to 70% of the 100% confident voters. If that's MY (yes editorial control and all that) bar to measure a sure win, then I can call the race even if not everyone reports, or has even voted yet. When was the last election people waited for Hawaii to cast their votes before predicting a winner? Oh yeah: Never.
Bye!
So, essentially arms of the Democratic news machine are being used to determine "fake news".
Never mind that BOTH organizations have been cause in their OWN fake news scandals, and in alarming displays of partisanship.
Yeah. Fuck that noise.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!