Facebook VP Says Company Won't Use Experts To Fix Fake News Because It is Worried About Criticism (theoutline.com)

Joshua Topolsky, writing for The Outline: According to Axios reporter Ina Fried, the vice president of global communications, marketing, and public policy (phew!) at Facebook shook off suggestions that the network should use outside media literacy watch dogs as opposed to outsourcing its "fake news" problem to a "statistically representative" group of its own users. While speaking at the tech conference DLD (Digital Life Design) in Munich, he revealed that the real motivation behind the company's decision was one based almost entirely on optics. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise, as the company has been totally ignorant and outrageously slow in accepting responsibility for what has been a disaster for its users. While Twitter is turning to media literacy groups such as Common Sense Media and the National Association for Media Literacy for solutions to its own troll and fake news epidemic, Facebook continues to cower behind a broken concept that the company is a neutral platform where all of its participants are equally weighted.

Comments

How about no news at all?

[gatkinso]

I just want to look at my friends kids and pet pics. Is that so much to ask?

Totally unbiased opinion by TFA's 'journalist'

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should Facebook take any responsibility for content that is posted by their users? Why should they suddenly become a media curator, instead of a social network? Why is TFA written as though it was completely obvious and indisputable truth?

Don't get me wrong, I hate Facebook as much as the next guy, but I hate the tone of this article even more and the righteous anger radiating from it is just revolting. It's like the author is begging for even more corporate censorship and is extremely pissed off that it's not being dished out in a timely manner.

Re:Totally unbiased opinion by TFA's 'journalist'

[tsqr]

your utopia sounds nice, but here in the real world there is much more going on. theres a reason its illegal for foriegn governments to influence US elections.

Except for a few well-defined cases, it's not illegal for foreign governments to attempt to influence US elections. For example, In a decision that was later affirmed by the Supreme Court, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the foreign national ban “does not restrain foreign nationals from speaking out about issues or spending money to advocate their views about issues. It restrains them only from a certain form of expressive activity closely tied to the voting process—providing money for a candidate or political party or spending money in order to expressly advocate for or against the election of a candidate.” Bluman v. FEC, 2012.

Note the word "expressly". If an ad paid for by a foreign entity speaks against the policy or behavior of a candidate (whether true or false), but does not explicitly say "Do not vote for " or "Vote for " , it's legal.

Educate yourself..

Facebook can't win

[MobyDisk]

Facebook can't win here. If they spread fake news people blame them directly. And if they use a panel of experts than the experts are controlling the news people see. That's not good either. The article attacks them for the decision, saying it is marketing, but I think Facebook is right here. It isn't their job to be the news police.

This simply isn't Facebook's problem. The users are to blame, and this isn't a new problem. Just like Slashdot or Reddit or any other internet forum, the content is provided by the users and it is not the responsibility of Facebook to tell people that they are idiots. Studies show that people click like on things, and then repost them, without even reading the articles. And most people don't seem to be able to distinguish political fact from reality even if they do read the articles.

This problem happened before the internet. In the US, go to a grocery store and look at what news is available for purchase. It is 40% tabloids (AKA "fake news"), 40% celebrity gossup, 40% real news. Facebook is no different.

This is why come to Slashdot: there are educated people here, and debunkers here. I go straight to the discussion first because half the stories are garbage.