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.

Comments

basically doing the same as china?

[NotInHere]

Just with different rules about what needs to be banned?

https://yro.slashdot.org/story...

Re:basically doing the same as china?

[MightyMartian]

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!

Re:basically doing the same as china?

[admin7087]

Nice trolling. China doesn't do fact checking, they censor. Checking news stories for facts is not censoring but responsible journalism. Whether FB should act as such an editorial filter is another question, but the two things have nothing in common.

Re:basically doing the same as china?

[Bartles]

Maybe we should just have the FCC classify them as a common carrier, and then not allow them to favor any particular communication over another that happens to be transmitted across their network.

Re: basically doing the same as china?

[tripleevenfall]

At least AOL wasn't trying to pass Snopes and Polifact off as being unbiased.

Re:basically doing the same as china?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just with different rules

Rules are very simple.

I, Big Media, pay you, Big Internet, to flag stories from my competitors in small/indy media as "fake news". You happily oblige, and now your massive audience is automatically redirected via algorithms to my content, and most importantly ads. In effect, Facebook, etc in addition to hosting ads, is now selling wholesaling user eyeballs.

The fact that I, Big Media, may also be pushing agenda about PedoPizzas or Russian super-hackers on behalf of Big Business or Big Government is entirely secondary the the basic economics underlying this "partnership".

The mainstream media has had a terrible year. The dialed propaganda up to eleven and went full on hysterical in an effort to get Hillary Clinton elected, and regardless of your opinion on that candidacy, most of us at least recognize that the MSM should probably not have gone to such lengths as sacrificing its own reputation and credibility for Clinton, or Trump, or indeed anything. That's because most of us, on an abstract level, value the concept of an independent Fourth Estate, speaking truth to power and hopefully the rest of us as well. So we're naturally not too pleased to see traditional public institutions very publicly melting down into wide-eyed tin-foil wearers at the first mention of Russian mind controller, or that disgusting frog, or whatever other absurdest nonsense they've focused on today instead of, oh, public policy, or the deficit, or the economy, or well anything that we used to affectionately refer to as news.

So we turn away. We stop watching. We go somewhere else.

And they Panic.

I thought I had seen it all from the Media this year, really. I genuinely felt that after the election, they'd finally learn a lesson, dial it back, and get back to reporting. Or move in that direction. I couldn't have been more wrong. "Fake news". CNN and the NYT want to talk about "Fake News" now? Is this another Russian plot? Or a Trump fascist takeover? A gambit to get Hillary into the White House? No dear reader, no. This is simply far more base, and simple economics.

Before their (paying) audience implodes -- and it is imploding; the NYT didn't send a mass non-mea-culpa mea-cupla to its entire subscribership without seeing those numbers plummet into the red -- before the readers and viewers migrate on mass to RT, or Info-wars, or (god help us) PBS, Something Must Be Done. A clean up? Better reporting? More, how to put it dignity into the profession? No, too much effort. Just schmooze and/or bribe Google, Facebook, Amazon et al to Lock, Cauterize, Stabilize by any technological means necessary. And all with the blessing of a nervous government and its ever growing, ever more expensive public-private state surveillance partnerships.

This could be worrying of course. But based on past results, future performance is less likely to resemble Orwell' 1984 as it is Gilliam's Brazil, and of course bankruptcy and government bailout long before that. And there will be a Bailout, mark my words on that. Incompetent as they perform, scorned as they are, laughable as they have become, no modern Government yet dares to step into the Undiscovered Country of a Media-less public landscape. So they will bailout, they will refinance, they will shovel yet more millions from the public Exchequer into the pension funds and golden parachutes of their latest Palace Courtier, down on his luck. I mean it's either that, either that or..... use the Rulebook!.

Re:basically doing the same as china?

[MightyMartian]

There is no difference. Facebook is a soapbox owner, and as a soapbox owner, it has the right to determine who gets to stand on the soapbox. Your right, as it were, is to use some other soapbox. The First Amendment protects Facebook as much as it protects you.

Re:basically doing the same as china?

[Rei]

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.

Re: basically doing the same as china?

[skids]

I'm sure they'd be amenable to mixing in conservatiive-leaning fact-checking operations as well. Know of any?

Re: basically doing the same as china?

[emaname]

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.

Libel law?

[anthony_greer]

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"

Re:Facebook committing corporate suicide

[Attila Dimedici]

There is nothing in this that says that they are getting rid of all fake news, just the fake news (and not so fake news) that Politifact and Snopes do not like.

Re:Facebook committing corporate suicide

[bfpierce]

Warning labels aren't censorship.

If you don't want a warning label don't create fake made up shit.

One more step towards 1984

[Anonymous Coward]

Fake news or, in other words, a narrative not supported by the State.

Re:"Fact Checkers"

[bfpierce]

No I don't think Donald Rumsfeld works for Snopes.

Re:Facebook committing corporate suicide

[bfpierce]

Yes.

Did you actually think I was a liberal and would be triggered by that?

Gab.ai is looking good

[Okian Warrior]

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.

Re:Gab.ai is looking good

[AmiMoJo]

Look up Brandenburg v. Ohio. Twitter's rules match US law.

All your comment about openly conservative people on Twitter does is discredit you.

If I may point out

[H3lldr0p]

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.

Re:Probably too little, too late

[swb]

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.

I think somewhere along the line sociopolitical positions (which, IMHO, in the broad center are neither good nor bad, true nor false) began to get pushed using selectively chosen "facts" to make the advocated policy seem as if it, too, was factual in nature. It was a kind of rhetorical persuasion, almost like sales techniques -- "Everybody knows that that less housework makes a wife happy, and the Vacuum2000 really reduces housework. If you won't buy one, ask yourself why you want an unhappy wife."

Anyway, I think this began to highlight a conceptual difference between truth and facts. I would argue that nearly every thing that is *true* is made up of a constellation of related facts. Cherry-picking facts allows you to manufacture a truth, but when that truth diverges significantly from reality it causes a cognitive dissonance, and people generally tend to side with the truth most closely aligned with their perceived reality.

I think this has led us to the point where people ignore facts -- too often they're not used to try to accurately describe a perceived truth, but to create a truth.

I think globalism is probably a great example. Lots of people using facts to advocate for it as embodying the ideal outcome, yet for millions of people, despite the facts that seem to support it, see their life undermined by globalism -- jobs moved away, problems with immigrants, and so on. Do you believe the facts or the truth around you?

(And I'm not meaning to take a position on globalism. I'm sure the benefits of trade are great, but they're poorly distributed. Cultural diversity is nice, in a Disney Epcot way, but I think humans generally do poorly when they hold divergent views on many topics, and the results are usually ugly at best or grinding warfare at worst).

Re:It is The Fatal Flaw of The Left

[MightyMartian]

Concocting stories of pizzeria pedophile rings is not "other serious opinions". It's deliberately fabricated fake news.

Re:Conservatives and Fact Checking

[MightyMartian]

I think there are a great many conservatives who are not fact-free lunatics and morons, but the tribalism that is taking over politics in the Westerns world means that they, like their counterparts on the left who might hold some fiscally conservative views, have to sublimate that to retain their membership in the club.

What could you possibly have against them?

[UpnAtom]

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?