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Facebook Pledges To Crack Down on Government-led Misinformation Campaigns (theverge.com)
Facebook is pressing its enforcement against what it calls "information operations" -- bad actors who use the platform to spread fake news and false propaganda. From a report: The company, which published a report on the subject today, defines these operations as government-led campaigns -- or those from organized "non-state actors" -- to promote lies, sow confusion and chaos among opposing political groups, and destabilize movements in other countries. The goal of these operations, the report says, is to manipulate public opinion and serve geopolitical ends. The actions go beyond the posting of fake news stories. The 13-page report specifies that fake news can be motivated by a number of incentives, but that it becomes part of a larger information operation when its coupled with other tactics and end goals. Facebook says these include friend requests sent under false names to glean more information about the personal networks of spying targets and hacking targets, the boosting of false or misleading stories through mass "liking" campaigns, and the creation propaganda groups. The company defines these actions as "targeted data collection," "false amplification," and "content creation." Facebook plans to target these accounts by monitoring for suspicious activity, like bursts of automated actions on the site, to enact mass banning of accounts.
So what exactly will they do to prevent misinformation spread by the 50 US governments (federal and all 50 states)?
Those are by far the worst spreaders world wide by a wide margin. Past highlights which have been all proven to be false are especially all war related news from 120 years ago up to today. Every single one of them, from "Remember the Maine!", to Gulf of Tonkin, to babies in incubators, responsibility to protect, WMDs, sarin, etc.
Lies, more lies, US government.
The company, which published a report on the subject today, defines these operations as government-led campaigns -- or those from organized "non-state actors" -- to promote lies, sow confusion and chaos among opposing political groups, and destabilize movements in other countries. The goal of these operations, the report says, is to manipulate public opinion and serve geopolitical ends.
I will never forget the then Secretary of State saying IRAQ had WMDs, leading to a war that has killed thousands and sown seeds of mayhem in Iraq.
They were not done. They then attacked one of the most prosperous Arab countries (read Libya).
They now have Syria in their sight...again to destabilize.
Whether this would have stopped the meaningless carnage I what I do not know.
I have not been a friend of FB, but they have my full support in this effort.
Yeah. One thing I was wondering - does this mean that they'll become an online arm of the 'RESIST' movement, or does it mean that they'll stand up to actual international thuggish regimes, like North Korea, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pali Authority, et al?
How much more evidence do you need to see before you leave social media, especially Facebook, behind for good? You do not need Facebook. You do not need any social media at all. Go be social with people the right way, in person, face-to-face, or at least call them on the phone (Remember that? Talking to people? It is still a Thing, go do more of it!).
Or the worst of both worlds. I think I'd rather sift through the crap myself than have the likes of Facebook and Google deciding what I can see.
I was. It is. The parent poster proves my case by his frothing reply "YOU SO PARTISAN - MY SIDE IS PURE!"
We just had 8 years where fake news, propaganda and anything released from the Obama Administration was treated as unabashed facts. Now, suddenly the tables have turned and we have to have watchdogs and monitoring for propaganda so facebook can tell us TEH TRUUFF!
Yeah, that's a load of BS. Facebook is just continuing to carry the DNC's water as they always have.
No mention of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
No upsetting Communist Party leaders.
No negative comments on past Communist leaders.
No comments on cults, faiths, monarchies, theocracies.
No news about war crimes and weapons sales.
Banning of all faith related cartoons.
No blasphemy.
Dont mention the policy of allowing illegal migrants to wonder around.
No negative reviews of movies.
No comments on the role of SJW reporting comments to governments.
No comments on herbicides.
No comments on genetic engineering.
No quoting, linking to any whistleblower material. No comments about or links to terms like Birdwatcher or Blackpearl.
No comments about engineers.
No links about circumventing access-control measures or comments on anti-circumvention laws.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Trouble is, you're alone on that. Most people (possibly including yourself) not only don't want to sift through stuff, they don't know how and worse, they don't recognize that they don't know how. Its not even (entirely) a Dunning-Kruger effect either -- simple confirmation bias will ensure that you disproportionately trust things you already believe. And there's nothing you can do about it. Our brains are just wired to work that way.
So you need a way to sift through the crud that counteracts those effects and biases. Our AI technology can get us partway there these days, but its not sufficiently good to be relied on entirely. So you've got to have people in the mix. But those people will suffer the same effects you do and the only way to balance that is to throw enough (independent) people at the problem with differing viewpoints in order to average out the biases and hopefully come up with a reasonable consensus.
Now whether Facebook and Google are the best organizations to do that is up for grabs. But at this point, I'd say they're actually among our best bets. In particular, they're not beholden to anyone but themselves. News organizations used to be the people we trusted but they've kind of dropped the ball as news has transitioned from informing us toward trying to entertain us, with a good sprinkling of partisan politics and corporate sponsorship thrown in to spice things up.
So FB and Google. They've certainly got their fair share of issues. But what they don't really have (at least not yet) is a strong leaning toward any political spectrum, or any strong pressure from sponsors to avoid or promote specific stories. They're about as unbiased as you can find these days, outside of the few topics that directly affect their bottom line (I wouldn't necessarily trust Google to be fairly reporting on net neutrality rules for example, as they stand much to lose if net neutrality is weakened or goes away. In that particular case, Google's needs somewhat align with well.. basically anyone who isn't a major ISP.. so that works out for us but there will be other stories where Google is firmly on the opposing side.)
Why you blame Hitler for your entire country's fuck up. I got news dip shit MOST of your country was in on it. You tried to be the worlds biggest ass holes and you failed. Now live with it and stop blaming Hitler because in the end you're all fuck ups.