Facebook Fights Fake News With Links To Other Angles (techcrunch.com)

Facebook is rolling out "Related Articles" that appear below news links to stories lots of people are posting about on Facebook, or that are suspected to be false news and have been externally fact checked by Facebook's partners. "Appearing before someone reads, Related Articles will surface links to additional reporting on the same topic to provide different view points, and to truthiness reports from the fact checkers," reports TechCrunch. From the report: If users see drastically different angles when they compare a story to its Related Articles, they might deem it suspicious and skip it, be less likely to believe or share it, or could click through the Related Articles and make up their own mind. That could reduce the spread and impact of false news without Facebook itself having to be the honesty police. Related Articles could also balance out some of the radical invective that can subtly polarize the populace. Pre-click Related Articles are rolling out in the U.S., Germany, France, and Nederlands today. These countries were chosen to get the roll out first because Facebook has established fact checking partnerships there. "We don't want to be and are not the arbiters of the truth. The fact checkers can give the signal of whether a story is true or false" says Facebook News Feed integrity product manager Tessa Lyons. Meanwhile, Facebook's machine learning algorithm has improved its accuracy and speed, so the social network will now have it send more potential hoaxes to fact checkers.

Comments

Fighting the facts with FB's narrative.

[sethstorm]

Given that the fact-checkers are not exactly neutral themselves, I'd take an entire geologic basin's worth of NaCl before believing their "arbiters".

Re:Fighting the facts with FB's narrative.

[Anonymous Coward]

Given that the fact-checkers are not exactly neutral themselves...

Said everyone who ever tried to rationalize not vaccinating kids.

Yes. It is possible to level criticisms against almost anything. That's both the foundation of legitimate academic debate and a part of how almost every misinformation campaign in the world works.

It's still better to try to provide some moderating influence on blatantly untrue stories than it is to avoid any responsibility for people who use your platform to spread lies, hoaxes, and untruths. Because those things actually cause harm. In the case of anti-vax beliefs, that harm can extend to death.

Re:Fighting the facts with FB's narrative.

[interkin3tic]

Who is exactly neutral?

Give me a neutral source.

On anything.

Seriously, set a baseline for "neutral" and show us what you mean. Someone completely free of any bias.

If you can't find any, then maybe we should admit that it's not inherently bad when news has bias. We should stop looking for that unicorn and instead admit that it's a degree of bias, not the existence of bias, that matters. CNN's bias and Fox news' bias are not equally bad just because they both exist.

Re:Fighting the facts with FB's narrative.

[werepants]

Actually, third parties have reviewed the fact checkers, and overall found that their bias is minimal. What's more, decent fact-checking organizations document supporting evidence directly in their reports - so you can see things for yourselves.

This kind of insistent denial of honest journalism is exactly why fake news is the problem it is. You should set a reasonable and equivalent standard for all information sources - are you as skeptical of conservative publications as your are of these supposedly biased fact-checkers? Don't just give a free pass to people that agree with you - lies that confirm your preconceived notions are the easiest ones to believe.

Re:Fighting the facts with FB's narrative.

[sethstorm]

Actually, third parties have reviewed the fact checkers, and overall found that their bias is minimal

If you're talking about the Poynter Institute or the International Fact-Checking Network, no such luck. They're effectively self-audited (by a friendly organization), and receive funding from an organization invested in opposing Trump.

Re:Fighting the facts with FB's narrative.

[Whibla]

I think the only way for a baseline neutral is opposing views. I don't think CNN's or Fox's bias are bad. I think they are both equally biased in opposite directions. By regularly paying attention to both of them, you can get a fairly neutral view.

Sounds fine in principle, but this is exactly how we ended up with "teach the controversy" the "global warming debate" and the "vaccination scare".

Opposing views do not always have the same weight or basis in fact. Presenting them as if they do does not make the presentation baseline neutral, it biases it towards the lunatic fringe.

Politicisation of science is just about the worst thing that could have happened both for politics and for science!

Who fact checks the fact checkers?

[El Cubano]

The fact checkers can give the signal of whether a story is true or false"

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

memes?

[roc97007]

Others have already mentioned that Facebook could (and probably will to a certain extent) use this device to push their own agenda, but leave that for now. The interesting thing to me is that downright hoaxes are still ignored, which seems to argue in favor of the "push their own agenda" argument.

As just one example, a repeat offender is the "Don't use 911!!!" hoax that tells the (demonstrably false) story about how an innocent young lady was saved from a horrible fate by remembering how her parents told her to dial 112 instead of 911 from her car when someone was following her. All went well and the perp was arrested and the girl escaped unharmed all because she did what her parents told her and dialed 112.

This is in the US, where 112 may work in some metropolitan areas as a courtesy to visitors from Europe, but isn't an official emergency number. It may happen to get you to emergency services in New York or Miami, but won't get you anywhere in Perrysburg, Ohio. The article is a dangerous hoax, but it keeps getting propagated, because people want to believe that they are privy to some bit of important knowledge that nobody else knows.

The point being, if Facebook was so concerned about their site being used to propagate false news, where the hell are the "alternate articles" calling this a hoax? If you google "call 112 instead of 911" the first 20 or so hits are articles pleading with you to not fall for this.

I mean WTF, Facebook? Is debunking some story about Ivanka's charities more important than calling the wrong emergency services number in an emergency?

Re:memes?

[_merlin]

Emergency numbers are actually recognised by the phone itself, and it initiates a different call establishment sequence for emergency calls. This allows the network to give emergency calls priority, and allow emergency calls without a SIM card, etc. All GSM-compliant phones (anything with WCDMA 3G or LTE) will recognise 112 as well as any additional emergency numbers programmed in the firmware or the SIM card. Phones sold in the US will recognise at least 112 and 911, phones sold in Australia recognise 112, 000 and usually 911 as well, phones sold in Hong Kong and UK recognise 112 and 999 and possibly other emergency numbers.

So while the story is wrong, you're wrong too. Unless you're using a Sprint-style CDMA phone, 112 will always work as an emergency number, and the other numbers that work depend on your phone and SIM card. If it's a US phone and/or SIM card, 911 will definitely work, but if you're using a phone and SIM card from overseas, that may not be the case. It has nothing to do with a courtesy to European visitors in cities.

The story probably got started early in US GSM rollout before the carriers thought to program 911 as an alternate emergency number in phones and SIM cards. If the phone/SIM card don't recognise 911 as an emergency number, it will be established as a normal call, and routed by the network. It will still go to the same destination US but it won't get priority the way an emergency call establishment sequence will. The same was true in Australia before 2000 - most phones/SIM cards didn't recognise 000 as an emergency number.

Re:Other angles: Right, Acute

[93 Escort Wagon]

If they are going to link to Other Angles, common sense and fairness would dictate that they also include links to at least a few Saxons.