Facebook Removed References To Russia From Fake-News Report (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Back in April, Facebook published a report called "Information Operations and Facebook" that detailed the company's efforts to combat fake news and other misinformation campaigns on the site. The report was released in the midst of an uproar over potential Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. But the report doesn't mention Russia by name, saying only that Facebook's data "does not contradict" a January report by the Obama administration detailing Russian meddling in the election. On Friday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the decision not to mention Russia was hotly debated inside Facebook. An earlier draft of the report discussed what Facebook knew at that time about Russian meddling, but that material was ultimately removed from the report before publication. "Some at Facebook pushed to not include a mention of Russia in the report because the company's understanding of Russian activity was too speculative, according to one of the people," according to the Journal.

Comments

If you get most of your news from Facebook

[Snotnose]

You are the problem. You are not part of the problem, your demographic is the problem.

If you get most of your news from Facebook you need to shut the fuck up, because you are the uninformed idiot the rest of us laugh at.

Re: If you get most of your news from Facebook

[mSparks43]

high quality propaganda by any other name is still just proaganda. choose your poison and stop complaining.

Re: If you get most of your news from Facebook

[Zontar The Mindless]

There is no real APK.

Re:If you get most of your news from Facebook

[Zontar The Mindless]

I've seriously started to wonder whether the Chinese don't have the right idea--keep social media on a tight leash, or just ban it outright.

Re:If you get most of your news from Facebook

[Zontar The Mindless]

I have many Russian colleagues who are smart, well-educated, and speak nearly perfect English. You are obviously not one of them.

Re:If you get most of your news from Facebook

[drinkypoo]

If you get most of your news from Facebook you need to shut the fuck up, because you are the uninformed idiot the rest of us laugh at.

I get most of my news from Slashdot, you insensitive clod!

Re:If you get most of your news from Facebook

[drinkypoo]

I have many Russian colleagues who are smart, well-educated, and speak nearly perfect English.

But enough about your job at the spy bureau, comrade.

Re:If you get most of your news from Facebook

[rtb61]

This latest round of crap is all about universal health care, which started gaining real traction so, mass censorship and an idiots distraction.

It smells very much like the US government wants to ban foreign comments on it's corrupt politics, they are so threatened because their corrupt scam has been so exposed. All there actions do is make them look worse and worse as they desperately try to corruptly cling to power.

They are making a real push to silence all opposition to the establishment prior to the next primary season and they will fail miserable, the more the try tighten their grip on comments the more comments will slip through their fingers, heh, heh.

My God, they are just totally making themselves look really stupid now to any kind of educated audience, the crazy crap they are up to is just laughable and only profound arrogance stops them seeing what fools they are making of themselves. The world is starting to laugh at you USA because of the stupid shenanigans of your corrupt politicians.

Re:If you get most of your news from Facebook

[Zontar The Mindless]

If I really worked as a spy, surely I'd be living in a much nicer flat.

Re:If you get most of your news from Facebook

[Maxo-Texas]

You can bump a semi-automatic rifle with a wide variety of items. Making a bump stock is probably at most a trivial 2 hour craft project.

The basic problem is the weapon can fire as fast as an automatic weapon. There are people (you can see them on youtube) who can fire as fast as a bump stock- and more accurately.
--
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.

Re:If you get most of your news from Facebook

[Maxo-Texas]

PolygamousRanchKid said...

----
If you get most of your news from Facebook

. . . you'll be voting for Zuck for President in a few years. Zuck will pay Russia to force Kaspersky to pay Facebook to support him.

. . . and no, Anonymous Coward, we shouldn't be talking about banning bump stocks. That will happen anyway. And you can bump a semi-automatic weapon with a rubber band anyway. And banned bump stocks will still be available anyway from your local crack dealer. The damn things are probably flying off the shelves of gun dealers now. There is nothing like the threat of a ban to increase consumer demand into a frenzy.

----

Amazingly high downmods today, eh PRK?

(you were zeroed and I was zeroed almost immediately after).

Re:If you get most of your news from Facebook

[PJ6]

You are the problem. You are not part of the problem, your demographic is the problem. If you get most of your news from Facebook you need to shut the fuck up, because you are the uninformed idiot the rest of us laugh at.

Oh for christ's sake get a grip. Facebook doesn't make news, it shows it from other sources. Back when I used it, I subscribed to a few news organizations like NPR. Seeing summaries of their stuff in my news feed, and browsing their stories on their Facebook page, didn't change the content of what I read at all. It's no different than now, only I don't see all the retarded trollolololo comments any more so I'm not provoked into yelling at people... like I'm doing right now.

Fake News Book

[Templer421]

NT

sorry, couldn't help myself

[PopeRatzo]

In Soviet Russia, references remove you.

Re:Strange that FakeBook wouldn't buy the lie

[Anonymous Coward]

> An earlier draft of the report discussed what Facebook knew at that time about Russian meddling, but that material was ultimately removed from the report before publication. "Some at Facebook pushed to not include a mention of Russia in the report because the company's understanding of Russian activity was too speculative, according to one of the people," according to the Journal.

How dare they refuse to report speculation!

As for the political dynamic, my take on that is that Zuck wants to run for president, but the insiders aren't exactly happy with him so they want to pressure him in various ways. Also, Google isn't too happy to see a rival gain political clout. Ask Bernie what happens if the "Democratic" party doesn't want you to win the primary.

Re:MODERATORS ARE CENSORING POSTS

[Zontar The Mindless]

I AM APK!!

Re:Strange that FakeBook wouldn't buy the lie

[Zontar The Mindless]

Ask Bernie what happens if the "Democratic" party doesn't want you to win the primary.

Bernie wasn't a Democrat until it proved politically expedient for him to identify as one.

Not unlike how The Donald was not a Republican until... well, I think you can fill in the rest.

At least someone at facebook is rationnal

[RedK]

because the company's understanding of Russian activity was too speculative

Good on them to value fact based reporting! Those people should be congratulated and promoted.

We need less narrative pushing and more fact based analysis. The whole "Russia!" scare the MSM and Democrats are pushing is really embarassing at this point and is only serving to distract officials from conducting actual government and intelligence work, while they continue on this wild goose chase, or witch hunt, or whatever you want to call it.

Re:At least someone at facebook is rationnal

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, now we know Facebook helped trump win the election by social engineering at the Russians request. It's OK, Americans have been doing it for since the beginning of time and will continue to influence elections of our allies and enemies in the future.

We have learned that Facebook and all social media platforms need to follow the same laws in campaign promotion that newspaper, magazine and TV have had for decades. The people have a right to know who paid for all campaign adverts whether is is a foreign power, allied power, the ACLU, NRA or simply your neighbor Joe Blow.

Re:At least someone at facebook is rationnal

[Citizen of Earth]

Not to worry; the MSM and Democrats have moved on from the Russia witch hunt and are now putting all of their efforts into igniting a race war.

Re:MODERATORS ARE CENSORING POSTS

[drinkypoo]

We are all APK. #apklivesmatter

Re:Strange that FakeBook wouldn't buy the lie

[HiThere]

Is he currently calling himself a Democrat? If so, that's one mark against him. But he was a candidate that was acceptable to the Democratic voters. I've never met anyone who actually supported Hillary, except because "she's a woman", which I find an extremely poor argument. So was Thatcher. So was Countess Elizabeth.