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Facebook Begins 'Fact-Checking' Photos, Videos (reuters.com)
Facebook said today that it had begun "fact-checking" photos and videos to reduce the hoaxes and false news stories that have plagued the world's largest social media network. Reuters reports: The fact-checking began on Wednesday in France with assistance from the news organization AFP and will soon expand to more countries and partners, Tessa Lyons, a product manager at Facebook, said in a briefing with reporters. Lyons did not say what criteria Facebook or AFP would use to evaluate photos and videos, or how much a photo could be edited or doctored before it is ruled fake. The project is part of "efforts to fight false news around elections," she said. Facebook has tried other ways to stem the spread of fake news. It has used third-party fact-checkers to identify them, and then given such stories less prominence in the Facebook News Feed when people share links to them.
I like that better. There are conservative and liberal opinions, and even conservative/liberal news stories, but facts is facts. I'd like to see evidence of Facebook playing favorites with the facts before I'm going to start hurling accusations. If somebody has that kind of evidence, I'm all ears; I genuinely haven't seen any questionable fact corrections from FB.
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
So, that means Conservative news will be eliminated & Liberal lies will be emphasized. Got it!
This is an excellent example of why it's not going to work. Not in the present political climate of the US, anyway.
Suppose for the sake of argument, that Facebook's fact checking were like nothing ever seen in history. Relentless pursuit of absolute, unbiased truth. We'd still see comments like the above... and worse, we'd see people who begin watching for the Facebook "not a fact" ruling in order to proudly believe and promote those articles more.
The problem is that for too many people, the tribal conflict has overtaken truth in importance, because absurd beliefs are actually more useful as an in-group signalling mechanism than reasonable beliefs. If I tell you I believe that water is wet, you're left uncertain... you can't know whether I'm for the red tribe or the blue tribe. But if I tell you that I believe something that no one could seriously believe (but is a touchstone of one of the camps), then you know if I'm with you or against you.
In the case of Facebook, those on the right (and especially the alt-right) will conclude that FB is a pack of socialist liberal commies and so anything they mark as false must be true. The AC above is clearly in this camp.
Sigh.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
"FB is a pack of socialist liberal commies and so anything they mark as false must be true."
No - FB is a pack of capitalist stooges and running dogs. But yes, when FB declares a story to be fake, that's a strong indicator the story may be true.