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Facebook Shows Related Articles and Fact Checkers Before You Open Links (techcrunch.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Facebook wants you to think about whether a headline is true and see other perspectives on the topic before you even read the article. In its next step against fake news, Facebook today begins testing a different version of its Related Articles widget that normally appears when you return to the News Feed after opening a link. Now Facebook will also show Related Articles including third-party fact checkers before you read an article about a topic that many people are discussing. If you saw a link saying "Chocolate cures cancer!" from a little-known blog, the Related Article box might appear before you click to show links from the New York Times or a medical journal noting that while chocolate has antioxidants that can lower your risk for cancer, it's not a cure. If an outside fact checker like Snopes had debunked the original post, that could appear in Related Articles too. Facebook says this is just a test, so it won't necessarily roll out to everyone unless it proves useful. It notes that Facebook Pages should not see a significant change in the reach of their News Feed posts. There will be no ads surfaced in Related Articles.
Also eagerly supported by the WaPo, WSJ and other verified news sources.
Could they just kill clickbait articles while they're at it? Click here to find out.
These aren't so called citizen journalists. You are making up an alternative meaning for the phrase fake news. In reality this phrase refers to collections of websites constructed for the purpose of attracting links with inflammatory headlines, regardless of the veracity of the headline or story content. Most are run out of southeastern Europe, primarily the Balkans, due to the poor economies but availability of some for of communication network with Internet access. It is the easiest way to make money there. Efforts to identify and remove fake news have no political intent but a business motive in ensuring the utility of the Facebook network for its users.
You are making up an alternative meaning for the phrase fake news.
Nah. It's well understood at this point to mean, "People using widely consumed platforms to spread information they know is incorrect, and doing so while presenting those lies as facts." So, when someone on CNN says there is a "Muslim ban," they know they're lying and that they're producing and spreading fake news. You know they are, their informed audience knows it's fake, and some small number of non-critical-thinking dolts take it as fact. But it's fake news. Click-bait factories in Eastern Europe are NOT the only or even a predominant source of this. Most of it comes right out of mainstream media habitats right in the US.
It is the easiest way to make money there.
It's true. When an operation like MSNBC spends an entire news cycle hyping the fact that their head fake-news-talking-head is going to "release Trump's taxes," when they know perfectly well they have no such thing and will do no such thing (except a readily available snipped that - even by itself - undermines their own narrative) ... when that happens, and they get a big ratings boost from that lie, yeah - easy money if they don't care about the fact they have to lie to do it.
Efforts to identify and remove fake news have no political intent
Hilarious.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I'll do my OWN fact checking thank you very much.
I don't need some partisan jackass deigning to shovel their "right-think" at me.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Yep, the people who kept telling you there was no way Trump could get elected are now telling you what news is fake.
So you are unable to actually understand that a temporary immigration halt that impacts under 10% of Muslims in the world (only a tiny, tiny fraction of which would be looking to immigrate anyway) is ... something that it's not? Please explain how the current Muslim ban works. Details, please.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I'll do my OWN fact checking thank you very much.
I don't need some partisan jackass deigning to shovel their "right-think" at me.
Donald Trump winning the election surprised me, not on election day, I knew the polls were close enough, but I expected him to implode fairly early on.
I note that because I don't get surprised a lot when it comes to politics.
I wasn't surprised when the ACA didn't destroy the healthcare system and result in some sort of NAZI or Socialist dystopia. Nor was I surprised when the proposed GOP alternative failed spectacularly because they'd been making contradictory promised for years.
I wasn't surprised when Obama's birth certificate was legit, or the ground zero mosque didn't turn into some terrorist plot, or the US military didn't invade Texas, 9/11 wasn't shown to be an inside job, or dozens of right wing personalities weren't murdered or imprisoned, or half a dozen other bone-headed "controversies" that didn't pan out.
That doesn't mean I know what's going to happen, it just means that I can differentiate between the real areas of uncertainty and groundless conspiracy theories.
That what I get with the "fact checker" world view, it's not 100% accuracy, it's the ability to avoid big surprises, and if you're reading sources that contradict these fact checkers I think you'd spend a lot of your life being shocked how none of their stories ever seem to pan out.
I stole this Sig
Now bias journalism gets checker by bias fact checkers. We'll need fact checkers to fact check the fact checkers and fact checkers to fact check those fact checkers and round and round it goes.
The scientific enterprise has been doing this pretty well for over 100 years.
You're not going to build an algorithm that says X is a true story and Y is false. But as humans we have the ability to build institutions and use our judgment to figure out which ones are reliable. Does the NYTimes have a liberal bias? Sure. But it also has very reliable facts. The HuffPo generally agrees with my bias, but it also spent years peddling medical nonsense and it still hasn't reestablished its credibility for me.
If FB starts using nonsense fact checkers I'll call them on their BS and be a lot more likely to drop them, and I suspect many others would do the same.
I'm sure some conservative groups are trying to build fact checking websites, but I suspect they'll have a lot of trouble due to the extent to which mainstream American conservatism has embraced a lot of nonsense. They're either going to end up taking a lot of shots at their own side and get called liberal, or they'll descend into self-satire like conservapedia.
I stole this Sig
Science is self evident through experimentation. Anyone can duplicate an experiment to find the truth. When it comes to news, history, and statistics there is very little you can do to lend credibility and not allow them to be manipulated. The problem is like you said when the fact checkers start being wrong you'll stop listening to them, the people who have a different viewpoint than you have the same idea which means everyone will only use these fact checkers with confirmation bias and having fact checkers is utterly useless.
Hi Mark, welcome to Slashdot!
Worst. Signature. Ever.
I just want Facebook to show me stuff, not tell me what they think is true.
I already fight the FB Android app:
- Most Recent is always, ALWAYS populated with hundreds of items, despite my reading every damned one of them 2 hours ago.
- I can Like item after item, and 15 minutes later scroll back through the list and MOST are actually NOT marked 'Like' by me. Huh?
- I can read Most Recent and refresh, and the order changes. Every damned time.
- I can delete all the app data, reinstall, and get the same crap. Hundreds of items unread, when I did in fact read them.
- Recommended For Me includes crap I've been rejecting for a few years now.
The Facebook Android app royally stinks. Facebook has been manipulating my feed for years. I should trust them to fact-check? No, on several counts. Never.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.