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Facebook Says It Can't Guarantee Social Media is Good For Democracy (reuters.com)
Facebook said on Monday that it could offer no assurance that social media was on balance good for democracy, but noted that it was trying what it could to stop alleged meddling in elections by Russia or anyone else. From a report: The sharing of false or misleading headlines on social media has become a global issue, after accusations that Russia tried to influence votes in the United States, Britain and France. Moscow denies the allegations.
Facebook, the largest social network with more than 2 billion users, addressed social media's role in democracy in blog posts from a Harvard University professor, Cass Sunstein, and from an employee working on the subject. "I wish I could guarantee that the positives are destined to outweigh the negatives, but I can't," Samidh Chakrabarti, a Facebook product manager, wrote in his post. Facebook, he added, has a "moral duty to understand how these technologies are being used and what can be done to make communities like Facebook as representative, civil and trustworthy as possible."
Facebook, the largest social network with more than 2 billion users, addressed social media's role in democracy in blog posts from a Harvard University professor, Cass Sunstein, and from an employee working on the subject. "I wish I could guarantee that the positives are destined to outweigh the negatives, but I can't," Samidh Chakrabarti, a Facebook product manager, wrote in his post. Facebook, he added, has a "moral duty to understand how these technologies are being used and what can be done to make communities like Facebook as representative, civil and trustworthy as possible."
One wallows in Mediocrity.
People have the capacity and agency to double check sources for sensational claims, including "fake news." While it might set certain censorship standards based on market demand, we don't need an authoritarian government demanding censorship because things that offend their sensibilities were said. This goes for both liberal groups that want "fake news" censored, and for the "there are only 2 gender" social conservatives that get mad whenever some teenager makes up pronouns.
What is this? It looks like news, and it comes from a business that has reported on news in the past... Can slashdot guarantee this is actually news, please?
Aiding and abetting the enemy is treason.
Settle down, Gen. Ripper; we haven't declared war yet. This is called "statecraft," and it's what countries do to each other every single day.
Empirical evidence suggests it is bad for a lot more than just that. But the unfortunate takeaway is that this is only the case because of deficiencies of character in the participants.
So who all of a sudden gets to decide of FB, et al are "good for democracy". As an informed, educated and interested citizenry, that is OUR job.
How about you require everyone to pass a basic intelligence evaluation before you can get on social media.
You know, like the little sign at the roller coast measuring height before riding?
"You much be this smart and capable of critical thinking before you can use Facebook."
Hell, let's just extrapolate this to the greater internet, sure would make things nice again, more like the early days.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
concerted campaign to discredit non-Trump candidates and promote Trump.
No, this shit started with the entire media (both wings, Fox, MSNBC, et al) working together to smear, minimize, and discredit all non-Trump candidates in the GOP primary. Fox, because, well, they're Fox; the rest because they thought Trump would be an easy win for Hillary in the general. Next time, don't "help" pick the GOP front-runner if you really don't want that person to win.
Maybe having the unwashed masses be involved in every single decision the gov makes turns it into a popularity contest and strips actual merit from ideas anyway, and facebook is just the latest doing exactly that?
But you only think this is true because the public discourse you were privy to was itself manipulated by people entirely focused on amplifying exactly the right half-truths that would manipulate people like you into making the wrong choice.
How about you require everyone to pass a basic intelligence evaluation before you can vote.
FTFY?
The problem isn't social media. Or even most of the people.
The real problem are people like you who don't know how elitist you sound, or worse, don't really care. Oh, I am sure you don't want a basic intelligence test to vote, because that would eliminate a few voting blocks that the Democrats actually depend upon.
Fake News isn't a new problem, it is just one that the Elites used for a long time, and now that anyone can "publish" anything the effect by the elite media is being nullified by other forms of fake news and a few sources of legitimate news.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Who is the enemy? Is it the people who vote for the wrong candidates? (i.e. the people who disagree with me)
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Oh, I am sure you don't want a basic intelligence test to vote, because that would eliminate a few voting blocks that the Democrats actually depend upon.
Funny, I was thinking that about Republicans.
Frankly I fail to see the intelligence of anyone who commits themselves to one party or the other. They are directly claiming that party allegiance is more important than critical thinking during elections.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Hmmm....
So, who, exactly, is "the enemy"? Are we at war with someone? Did I miss the declaration of war while I was in the shower?
That aside, no, exercising one's First Amendment rights is NOT "aiding and abetting the enemy". Rather the opposite - suppressing one's First Amendment rights makes the suppressor the enemy....
Or are you one of those people who believe that democracy really only works if the Right People are allowed to control the rest of us?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Not meaning to sound elitist, but if you've ever spent ANY amount of time working directly with the general public, you quickly come to realize that 95% of them are fucked in the head, and you wonder if they are actually worth all the oxygen they are processing.
I'm more concerned with the amount of CO2 they're expelling.
Sure, FB can't guarantee it or other social media is good for democracy, but it would be a great start if they and other players like Google/Youtube were to curtail curating your feed for the sole purpose of keeping your eyes on the screen as long as possible.
It has already been proven the FB feeds posts, news, etc. that align with the political ideology it "thinks" you hold. This creates a hyper-echo chamber where people no longer are exposed to dissenting ideas and become inured with their beliefs being endlessly reinforced instead of challenged.
Facebook's behavior actively discourages civil discourse all in the name of advertising revenue.
~Any apparent grammatical or typographic errors are caused by defects in your display device.
I really don't think the media is liberal or conservative. They just want conflict and Trump generates conflict so they cover it non-stop. Even with what they know now about how much of a problem they created they still can't stop themselves from doing it.
If Fox loses too many of its viewers because they have died of old age they will switch to something else in order to keep making money. They don't really care about being conservative.
At the core I see the media companies as thriving on conflict. If aliens invaded Earth and we were kicking their asses then the media companies would give the aliens weapons and teach them how to use the weapons in order to make covering the conflict more interesting.
That is also why one presidential candidate never really get very far ahead of the other one. The media companies will bring up all the negative things they can find on whoever is ahead so they can make the race close and then disclaim any responsibility for it.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
No, but accepting money to air foreign propaganda secretly is.
No, it is not treason. Treason is explicitly defined in the Constitution, and publishing foreign viewpoints in peacetime is not even close to qualifying.
1. Oh no, anonymous trolls!
2. Ok, require real names.
3. Many don't like that, especially in an era of zero tolerance social get you fired lemming ostracism.
4. Many move to anonymous fora.
5. State-sponsored trolls flood said fora convincing people of misleading ideas or outright lies.
It isn't an issue of free speech so much as not knowing who is manipulating you.
Hence "Hillary wants to literally start a war with Russia!" gets pushed by Russian state actors over and over, to cause the failure of a candidate who will continue to apply sanctions to their leadership because of lack of democracy and a free press there, and a disturbingly Nazi Germany-like invasion of a sovereign country to "protect" the Russians living there.
This continued pressure would be favored by most Americans, especially those who lived through the Cold War or earlier.
We don't need to ease sanctions on such a country's leaders so they will open up development to the West in a tit for tat.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Not really. If you care about one of the "litmus test" issues, then you are likely to vote along party lines. If one of your most important issues involves either side of the "gun control" or "abortion" debate then you will likely vote along party lines. The thinking is that you are better off with a fool that will vote the way that you want rather than an intelligent person who will vote against the issues that you care about.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
they have to be EDUCATED enough to vote!
so then you gut the public school system, make sure blacks and the poor get a shit education, they don't pass the 'test' required to qualify to vote, and rich whites get to dictate their will to everyone else. Racist, elitist, bigoted. Fuck that. I'd rather have the mess we have now than live in a world where people are intentionally marginalized.
I don't think education or status are perfect vaccines against mob thinking, either. In every historical instance of a society driving off the cliff into folly has plenty of people who should have known better egging it on.
Facebook is to bullshit as crack is to cocaine. Crack is cocaine, but packaged to provide a cheap, short-lived high. Facebook is a means of consuming a lot of bullshit by repeatedly deciding to consume just little bit more.
Just look at the basic Facebook mechanic: the like. What the easiest way to get that sweet hit of external validation? Find a group of like-minded people and express a completely conventional thought in an outrageously provocative way. And how long does that hit last? Days? Hours? Minutes?
Facebook didn't invent getting yourself lost in an epistemic bubble; it just made it accessible to people who don't have the time to invest in joining a cult. That makes a difference.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.