Facebook Chooses To Demote Fake News Instead of Remove It (bbc.co.uk)

Facebook says it will not remove fake news from its platform because it does not violate its community standards. According to the BBC, Facebook said publishers often had "very different points of view" and removing fabricated posts would be "contrary to the basic principles of free speech." Instead, it is choosing to demote posts in the news feed that it deems to be fake news. From the report: Facebook has been scrutinized for its role in spreading fake news after evidence emerged that Russia tried to influence U.S. voters using the social network. On Wednesday, the company held an event in New York where it sought to convince journalists it was tackling the problem. The company said it would not remove fake news that did not break its rules but would down-rank content that had been marked as false. "We allow people to post it as a form of expression, but we're not going to show it at the top of News Feed," a spokeswoman told CNN.

Comments

Are they now?

[Anonymous Coward]

Minds.com is getting a massive influx of Vietnamese citizens. Turns out Facebook is cooperating with the Communist Chinese government to censor them.

They've had enough and are leaving Facebook in droves.

better than removing it

[Anonymous Coward]

it's fucking facebook, they shouldn't have to police content anyway

Free storage

[Anonymous Coward]

This is great. Now we can post files to Facebook, mark it as fake news, and use it for infinite storage with FREE retrieval. "It’s free and always will be."

When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

When did someone saying something they know to be a lie become protected free speech?

I can see if someone is wrong, but thinks they are right...but to knowingly lie should not be protected!

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

but to knowingly lie should not be protected!

Protecting the right of others to speak when you disagree with them, or even lie to you, is the true test of whether you believe in free speech, or just speech you happen to like or agree with.

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is always assumed that people will lie and/or lack complete understanding. Welcome to human nature. Free discourse allows ideas to be kicked around by anyone who wants to participate. The moment referees impose their arbitrary limits the truth they don't agree with is censored out.

Mass law against lying would devolve into massive witchhunts over every contentious subject. Better to let the liars lie. They will be found out eventually.

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Shikaku]

Libel is already a crime. Fraud, libel and defamation are already illegal. The issue is twofold:

Jurisdiction. You can bring someone to court for fraud/libel/defamation already, but what if the defense is American and the prosecution lived in Russia? Or any other myriad of country combinations one can think of.

Spin and effect. You can write a lot of things about someone and even though it's technically true or even proven to be a lie, someone will spin it to avoid the aforementioned crimes. Let's open a can of worms as an example. And it does matter in this case because it is a matter of "fake news" that led to his suicide; if it wasn't fake news, please provide hard evidence that it actually happened, I want to hear nothing else in reply to said can of worms because 1. this is just an example and 2. hearsay is not evidence, look up what hearsay is legally before even bothering to reply, because I won't bother reading if you don't bother researching and finally, 3. USA is based on innocent until proven guilty, and trying to take that away will only hurt everyone in the end, e.g this guy committed suicide in the end because the media wanted him dead and he was most likely innocent, trying to take it away because "the guy is/did X!" is just a good way to lose all your rights immediately based on accusation alone and because someone felt like it. Michael Jackson and his pedophilia case. No evidence, just a lot of hearsay and harassment by media, people and "victims." If you were actually raped, I'm sorry for your pain, and believe me, I would want justice too, but the justice has to stay just. Otherwise people will abuse accusations for profit or just to hurt people. And there's many cases where people have ruined lives solely based on accusations. The reason why I mention this is because you can say something that is untrue, or make another really harmful statement that only sounds true or is unprovable to a person, and those statements still cause harm even if in court you were proven innocent. This is what I mean by spin and effect: twisting the truth or just making lies to hurt people is a real thing, and those people should be punished for doing so, but see previous item, jurisdiction, you can't prosecute because they are in different countries, or even worse, also a corporation. And even if you can bring the accuser to court and win, it is a Pyrrhic victory: the costs to the accuser is a slap on a wrist usually compared to the legal fees and damage caused by the lies; the spinner just changes their name/location and continues to spin if they want.

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Since.. way back when? The first amendment protects the speech of citizens but it does not guarantee a factual speech. For the first 200 years of our country that was a very slim difference.. but more recently I think that Evil Knievel couldn't jump the crevasse between actual, verifiable facts and the random blasting of unproven bias that we've seen since 2016.

Fake news... is fake. It is a new tactic from the socialists.. the liberals and the pseudo-communists. They use our first amendment to defy/decry/desecrate our country and its principles. As already called out.. this unverified/undocumented/fact-less blabber is picked up by the woeful masses and deemed "fact" because they read it on the internet.

Everything on the internet is true.. .right?

Re: When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ummm... wow. Is this the new "woke"?

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know when something is factual? At one point people were certain the earth was the center of the solar system and even the universe. Anyone believing anything else was a heretic and spreading lies. Should people with these crazy ideas have been prevented from spreading their lies?

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Lying is not free speech. That is why there are slander laws.

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

When Trump is caught on many videos (by reputable news organizations and average people alike) saying XYZ and later says "I didn't ever say XYZ", that is a lie and every time he denies saying it, there should be a caption "this is a lie, "

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[DaHat]

False. While there are laws against libel and slander, as well as the ever fun 'falsely yelling fire in a crowded theater'... many forms of lying are protected, example: http://latimesblogs.latimes.co...

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are missing the point but I appreciate your opinion. What we are missing is a fact-check by some third party before it goes all twitter/facebook/et. al. but the angry mongrels that like the tilt from the post go after it and latch onto it like an attack dog. They re-blast the point without any verification and wait for their swarm-identity to bring more that won't research before re-post.

You've identified a problem.. but sadly sided with me for the same issues I've been trying to counter. Congratulations for teaching us the relative and uninformed stupidity that got Nicholas Copernicus and his helio-centric theory ignored.

Then... another astronomer/scientist that furthered his work (aka Galileo) theorized and expanded on Copernicus's work.. but would up being put under house arrest and then subsequently put under house arrest for the rest of his life.

Science backed up both Copernicus and Galileo... but random screaming and yelling and avoidance of facts led to them both being denied the ability to spread the truth.

The same truth that you deny is what i'm trying to present. For every factual opinion there are thousands of skewed viewpoints.

Therefore I re-present my argument. There are too many people blabbering un-substantiated facts calling them truth and presenting no argument to substantiate said facts. They scream from the highest highs and from far and wide on social media without presenting one tiny bit of proof. It's almost like they are interviewing with CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, NBC thinking their blasphemous rhetoric will gain them fame and fortune.. and maybe a job from news (haha) agencies that self-identify with them.

Peace out.

Re: When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

hey look.. its someone who believes in magic JFK bullets!

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Stolen valor being non-prosecuted does not make pretending to be a soldier free speech, in fact. You can be prosecuted if you push it and attempt to use the color of authority where not due, yep. Trump is a traitor - no lie.

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

What a bullshit! Liars should be called out and ostracized, not protected, and traditionally this is how people reacted to lies. Only recently the topic has been politicized in the US and curiously some people from the right wing have gotten the idea that protecting free speech is about protecting liars, too. It's as weird as the sudden shift from "irrational commie hater" to "biggest friend of Russia", but understandable if you look at what the current US president is thinking and doing.

As for disagreeing, fake news has nothing to do with disagreeing. It is defined as purported news that has been deliberately fabricated to spread disinformation. Just like a fake policeman is not a policeman at all, fake news is not news at all and not worth any protection whatsoever. As for "who decides?" - that issue is used more often as a strawman than in sound arguments. It's about as easy to find out that fake is fake as it is to find out that men landed on the moon and that the earth is not flat.

But please go on with your protection of retards and assholes for cheap political reasons and see where it will get you.

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

which you should use, laws that is
Problem is - they act a judge.

captcha@ colander

hail flying spaghetti monster!

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

The people, as in natural and legal persons, are free to call them out and ostracise them in ways that don't not violate their personal rights. For example you don't have to let anyone onto your property for any reason. Depending on your local law you are allowed to remove people you disagree for any reason from your property. In some states you may be allowed to chase them off at gunpoint in others you may have to call the cops first.
The government however is not allowed to do such things for any reason. When it comes to speech as a reason for action they have to make a lot of exceptions.

Re: When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

My favorite is the time he said, "if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor."

I remember that every time I go to my new doctor, because my old insurance was deemed illegal and I had to get a new one that cost 3x as much.

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Same AC as above here. The discussion is about Facebook's plans to demote rather than deleting fake news and the OP was defending the view that Facebook should do nothing. Facebook is not the government, it's a private company, The idea that a private company might demote obviously false reports that disguise as news shouldn't even be controversial to start with.

Of course, the government shouldn't censor social media.

The government however is not allowed to do such things for any reason.

While I generally agree with you, I think the "for any reason" goes a bit overboard. The US government already routinely does that for alleged terrorist propaganda, child pornography, and the promotion of other obviously illegal activities, and I see no problem with that.

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

What does this have to do with the topic? A social media company that curates and ranks the content contributed by their users does not impose any "mass laws." I've never seen more strawmen (like in your post), false dichotomies and slippery slope fallacies than in this debate about free speech, the level of argumentation and reading skills has really fallen down to a new low on Slashdot.

A private company wants to rank obviously falsified news reports lower than those that come from more reputable sources, and this generates total outrage. Previously, a private company had the idea of labelling alleged news that has been copied massively and is likely false as dubious, and it caused the same outrage. Both measures are not just reasonable, they are what any sane person would actively demand from a news aggregator, yet among a certain populace the are falsely equated with censoring. What crazy times we live in!

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

When did someone saying something they know to be a lie become protected free speech?

That's not what "fake news" is, though, at least in the eyes of corporations like Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc.

"Fake news" is whatever the left would prefer people don't report, regardless of accuracy. On the other hand anything mainstream sources like CNN write is automatically not "fake news" regardless of whether it's the most transparent opinion piece or outright proven incorrect.

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you know when something is factual?

How do you know the earth is not flat? Oh gee, you couldn't possibly know! Think about it, thoughts could randomly float through space and if they hit your brain you'd have them! How would you know when something is factual? Oh how? How would that be possible?? How could anyone possibly find out when something is factual?

Listen to yourself, you fucking retarded "post-fact" moron...

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Again, the problem is "who are the fact checkers?" The authority during Copernicus' lifetime would have been the Church or the King. Neither of which would be a good judge of "fact" in our current era, but back then? The Church and the King were the _only_ authority. There were plenty of "facts" backing up the Earth centric view. You didn't question it because you saw it every day. The sun rotated around the sky. If the Earth is spinning why don't we fly off? So science up until Copernicus and Gallileo backed up the Earth centric view.

Now we can have third parties. But are they really any better than religious zealots or self-anointed dictators-for-life? Everyone has an agenda. It is up to _you_ to think instead of having someone do it for _you_.

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[admin7087]

How do you know when something is factual?

Well, there are two possibilities. First, you're indeed kind of lost and don't know at all how to find out when something is factual. Consequently, you should have no beliefs about anything, certainly not about what's going on in the world, since you cannot figure out how to find out when something is factual. Or, second, you are one of those "post-fact" bullshitters who think that facts don't exist and are social constructions.

Both possibilities would rather bad, so I'll be charitable and assume you weren't being serious.

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[admin7087]

Fake news is alleged news that has intentionally been fabricated in order to spread disinformation. That's how it's defined and that's exactly what it means to companies like Facebooj, Google, and Twitter, despite some ardent attempts of a small minority of people who like to spread fake news to change the narrative and give the term some useless meaning.

You're obviously one of the latter, since otherwise you would at least acknowledge that the useless definition you mention was actually invented by Trump and a few "alt right" idiots in order to discredit people who actually fight against the spreading of disinformation. They've got to try a bit harder, people have much better bullshit detectors than you might think and those cheap "reverse rhetoric" tricks don't work on most of us.

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please. The OP is looking some magical fact checking authority. There is no such animal. You can't always "go to Snopes" to see if something is true. They are people and therefore have a bias. You want to decide if something is factual, read about it from several sources. Get original source material, not sound bytes extracted by the media.

But this whole ask the fact checkers what I should believe is rampant. Just because a paper is reviewed and published in a journal doesn't make the content fact. Do I think they are lying? I don't know. Maybe there are motivations to do so in the academic world. We still aren't 100% sure about cold fusion and that's a relatively easy topic. So what should I believe? It's 99% false?

So science should be easy right because it's just true or false unlike the fuzzy problems of politics or economics and yet we have a hard time with factual answers for simple questions.

Yes, you can get a fact for did Trump say X. What did Trump mean by X? There are plenty of "fact checkers" conflating presenting the information and their interpretation of the data.

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[DaHat]

Stolen valor being non-prosecuted does not make pretending to be a soldier free speech, in fact.

You should perhaps read the rulings in question, as well as the lower court ones as well on the subject... as they actually disagree with your take.

You can be prosecuted if you push it and attempt to use the color of authority where not due

In depends on how you are pushing it, as a number of ways would enter the territory of fraud, things we have existing laws about. Primarily what stolen valor did was criminalize a particular form of cosplay, little different than criminalizing a woman wearing makeup during singles night, or a man lying about his job/income at the same event. Like I said, you should read some of the rulings.

Re:When did Fake news become free speech?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit again, contrary to what you believe fact checking is fairly unproblematic. People do it all the time, including you. Moreover, the OP's post was not about fact-checking but about fake news. Fake news can even be detected automatically with high accuracy. Just look at the network graph of where it originates from. If it goes more than three hops and doesn't end in some actual journalists present at some actual place in the world (like a press conference, disaster site, etc.), then it is definitely worth being demoted. At best, it accidentally correct whisper news.

Controversy Makes Facebook go round!

[Prien715]

The entire point of Facebook is engagement. A bunch of people discussing whether the earth is round or not or whether vaccines cause autism really helps keep users checking Facebook as often as possible. Each button is carefully calibrated to express a reptilian emotion whose purpose is impossible to determine. Are you angered by the person's inflammatory rhetoric in a post, or is someone posting about something that makes you outraged? Who knows! Who cares! You're engaged!
Facebook is like a shitty version of family/friend therapy where your everyone hates each other more but the therapist is happy because she got to show you some Viagra ads.

Re: Controversy Makes Facebook go round!

[datavirtue]

Right. Let the users mod the posts. Instead facebook is addicted to likes. At first it was a way to make everything seem worthy of your engagement since you would only see positive reviews...likes. Now that facebook is literally getting people killed (Myanmar) by spreading fake news they have to do something..as long as it does not negatively affect engagement. They are resisting their responsibility. Expected when the founder and CEO is someone who has never had to deal with anything of substance pertaining to real life. I dont think he has even had a job.

Re:Controversy Makes Facebook go round!

[Iwastheone]

Thanks for this post, I posted asking why FB is such a phenomena. You explain it perfectly.

Re: Controversy Makes Facebook go round!

[rtb61]

Let them Facebook, foolishly, publicly, claim authority on validity of news, what is true and what is false and claim this at a professional level, as a part of it's marketing strategy and to bring in customers of what ever description. Screw that up and you become subject to multiple class action suits across the globe for fraudulent misrepresentation of the truth as in accurate truthful news. Publicly claim yourself as the authority on the accuracy of the news and do so for profit and then you are fully liable for all your errors for pumping corporate propaganda as the truth.

Re:Controversy Makes Facebook go round!

[AHuxley]

Who wants to read a movie review approved by the actor and studio?
Comments on a religion approved by a cult, faith?
News about a nation approved by their junta, monarchy, theocracy?
News from nations state-run media?

Re:Controversy Makes Facebook go round!

[Anonymous Coward]

The earth is not flat and posts that say it is should never be classified as news.

When things like that are allowed, you get a shooting because some Rep clown makes up a story about PizzaGate and the other Rep clowns retweet and FB like it. Real lives are affected.

Re:Controversy Makes Facebook go round!

[Anonymous Coward]

Who knows! Who cares! You're engaged!

That's true. and its a major reason we have arrived at the point we are at. But it is not the only factor in play here.

For roughly 30 years there has been a growing campaign within the american media ecosystem to equate blatant falsehoods that are tied to disinformation operations as merely a political leaning rather than something wholly outside the spectrum of good-faith political disagreement.

Facebook's paralysis in the face of that difference is the intended goal of the campaign. Facebook has been intimidated into specially privileging right-wing disinformation operations likes infowars/breitbart/truepundit/thefederalist/etc that clearly violate facebook's non-partisan Community Standards for fear of being branded as "anti-conservative."

At some point they are going to have to get a backbone and enforce those community standards equally or accept that they are being used to further a dishonest agenda that may well end up consuming them in the long run.

BBC is fake news

[Anonymous Coward]

They reported Building 7 collapsed before it actuallybdid. Search YouTube for the video. WTC7 is in the background as the "reporter" is talking. ae911truth.org

Re: BBC is fake news

[datavirtue]

The owner of WTC 7 was interviewed. He stated in the interview that he gave the ok to bring it down. I dont think this is a secret.

Re: BBC is fake news

[Anonymous Coward]

The secret is "who" brought it down and why.

As much as I want to say that is useless.......

[Puls4r]

That's really all they can do. Let's face facts - people who get their actual news from Facebook are idiots. People who can't be bothered to fact check or even do the slightest amount of verification are idiots. And the vast vast majority of internet users are.... idiots. They'll grab the first thing they see that they agree with and use it as their evidence to support to their argument. Whether it's from politifact, snopes, or stormfront.

Facebook is an online chat. That's it. People who use it to gather factual data... there's not much we can do about it. *shrug*.

Re:As much as I want to say that is useless.......

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook is an online chat. That's it. People who use it to gather factual data... there's not much we can do about it. *shrug*.

Yah, not buying it. It is certainly possible to beyond a reasonable doubt correctly mark some stories as fake, if they truly are fake. You would then move then to a section of the site that can only be accessed by going directly to the home page for it, where you can search for the stories and see why it was marked as it was.

They can't do it for all stories and some might just be probably fake, i could see leaving a mark like that and burying them, but maybe not removing them to the fake area since you haven't yet gathered enough proof.

We could also have a nationwide campaign to inform users about how to spot and identify likely fake stories. We really should be doing that right now. Take it seriously. Teach people. Sure some are just hopeless, but you will reach some.

Re:As much as I want to say that is useless.......

[Anonymous Coward]

Facts are easy to spin.

Just look at the recent story about Mueller indicting 12 Russians for "hacking Democrats during the election." First off, "hacking Democrats during the election" is very misleading, because it's actually referring to the email leak that made it to Wikileaks. (Which most cyber security experts agree was an inside job, and not "hacked" in any case.)

Second of all, while it's true he indicted them, indictments mean practically nothing. Pretty much everything that's been coming out of the Mueller investigation has been meaningless, but you can post some pretty neat "facts" about it that sure sound impressive, like the fact that there have been 32 indictments and 5 guilty pleas.

The problem is that these figures are more signals of how broken our justice system are than anything else. Prosecutors frequently throw indictments around as a way to intimidate people into testifying against others. Pleas are frequently the result of "plea deals" and in the case of the Mueller investigation, none of the guilty pleas has anything to do with Trump or Russian meddling. They're all for random charges that came up during the investigation and are all pretty clearly pressure tactics, intended to squeeze people into providing testimony for the prosecutor.

This is the problem with fake news. Fake news is a set of true facts, presented in a misleading way. American media is an expert at presenting just enough real facts that it's hard to spot the point where they stop presenting objective reality and start providing made up spin. Facebook can be better for that than most news sources because at the very least you have comments (like on Slashdot) that can point out the spin and help place facts in proper context.

Fake news is a tough thing to solve, and it's not surprising Facebook can't really come up with a solution. Fake news is very good at looking like real news.

Re:As much as I want to say that is useless.......

[AmiMoJo]

It's more subtle than that. They might be skeptical, but the fake stories prime them to think about facts in a certain way. The language, the framing of current events.

Re:As much as I want to say that is useless.......

[Anonymous Coward]

The real fact, apart facebook users ARE idiots, is that eliminating fake news would mean there would be 0 content left. So demoting it instead saves their brand of loyalty while still vying to be the good guy.

Face News!

[charliemerritt03]

Facebook is *not* the New York Times. People that get their news from Facebook will go around saying "Everybody says that....." or "Nobody really thinks...." so when somebody says that just say "Face News"!

Re:Face News!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, there isn't much difference between them these days, other than style and syntax.

Re: Face News!

[Anonymous Coward]

People who have worked at NYT know they do intense news shaping. Every organization has a culture and theirs is agenda, not journalism.

Someone who gets a lot of shares from diverse (conservative, liberal, etc) "friends" on Facebook is surely better informed than is the NYT subscriber, despite the occasional fake news floating on Facebook.

Re:Face News!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the agenda that some people who don't read newspapers would like to push.

Streisand effect

[Noishkel]

The absolute failure of the MSM and various governments to control the narrative of any one issue has already proven the futility of trying to censor dissenting opinions and narratives. The more you try to shape opinion by forcing the more people will chose to find other sources of information. And sadly if often drives people into falling into the trap of buying into narratives that may or may not be accurate at all. See just about any news story from Buzzfeed.

And that's before we actually get into talking about when the media actively and provably lies to the public. I'm looking at you CNN. 'It's illegal to read Wikileaks' my ass...

Re:Streisand effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Is claiming to know that the DNC is responsible for the assassination of Seth Rich simply a matter of differing opinions? What about stating as fact that a pizza joint is running a child sex ring out of a basement that it doesn't have?

Re:Streisand effect

[unimacs]

...

And that's before we actually get into talking about when the media actively and provably lies to the public. I'm looking at you CNN. 'It's illegal to read Wikileaks' my ass...

Are you referring to what Chris Cuomo said about the Clinton emails? Because that's not what he said. What he said was "It's illegal to possess these uh, stolen documents".

Now, you can argue about whether or not he was deliberately trying to discourage people from reading them on their own because CNN wanted to protect Clinton. And I'm sure depending on your political persuasion, you might be inclined to believe that. But your quote is not a quote at all and a distortion of what he actually said.

Was this deliberate on your part or were you just repeating what you've read on your more favored sources of "news" without verifying that it was true? Unfortunately both have become far too common.

Re:Streisand effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it illegal to possess those documents?

Re:Streisand effect

[Anonymous Coward]

Why interpret the facts when you can post it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRBppdC1h_Y

Clearly he wanted people to only be informed by "us" instead of simply letting people know the facts and decide for themselves.

Both of you have that in common.

Re:Streisand effect

[phantomfive]

The absolute failure of the MSM and various governments to control the narrative of any one issue has already proven the futility of trying to censor dissenting opinions and narratives. The more you try to shape opinion by forcing the more people will chose to find other sources of information

This is a very good thing.

And sadly if often drives people into falling into the trap of buying into narratives that may or may not be accurate at all. See just about any news story from Buzzfeed.

This is a bad thing.

Re:Streisand effect

[serviscope_minor]

The absolute failure of the MSM and various governments to control the narrative of any one issue has already proven the futility of trying to censor dissenting opinions and narratives.

That's because the mainstream media don't even have a coherent "narrative". The most mainstream of mainstream media, i.e. Fox news (it's the #1 TV news channel) is completely at odds with the second most mainstream of mainstream media, CNN.

See just about any news story from Buzzfeed.

Oddly enough, buzzfeed appears to be using dubious clickbait to fund real hard hitting investigative journalism. I was quite surprised first time I saw one of those on the BBC, "in association with buzzfeed".

I was all like "5 REASONS YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE BUZZFEED DOES INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM".

On the other hand the other news sources aren't much different. Good journalism doesn't pay, clickbait (and the older print equivalents) does.

Re:Streisand effect

[Hognoxious]

That's because the mainstream media don't even have a coherent "narrative". The most mainstream of mainstream media, i.e. Fox news (it's the #1 TV news channel) is completely at odds with the second most mainstream of mainstream media, CNN.

This is a good thing, isn't it?

If they start agreeing on anything on anything other than the weather it's time to get seriously worried.

Re:Streisand effect

[Rockoon]

They always agree in more war.

Re:Streisand effect

[serviscope_minor]

This is a good thing, isn't it?

Sure, but it still means most of the claims about the "MSM" are utter bullshit because I'd say about 99% of people saying such things are ignoring the huge chunk of the mainstream media they happen to agree with.

Re:Streisand effect

[Anonymous Coward]

And here we have the REAL problem.

CNN obviously lied, everyone knows they lied. Yet instead of calling them out like everyone else unimacs is DEFENDING the lie. Its this kind of obvious defense of lies that causes more problems. If everyone just acknowledged the lie and we ALL bashed CNN for doing it, it would stop pretty quickly. Since CNN has people who are so dumb still supporting them and encouraging these kind of lies, they are more than willing to supply more.

Re:Streisand effect

[strikethree]

The absolute failure of the MSM and various governments to control the narrative of any one issue has already proven the futility of trying to censor dissenting opinions and narratives.

Call me crazy or whatever, since I am... but... How about this: MSM gives us facts and each individual controls their own narrative?

Control is an illusion. Influence is as close to control as you can get. If the MSM is trying to influence me, I immediately reject the attempt, which is why I have not watched television since the early 1980s. Every time I have gone back to that cesspool, I grow disgusted at how stupid they are and how stupid they think we must be. You can't get any useful information from the MSM. It is all twisted and contorted to try and make narrative for you to follow and they are not very good at it.

Very Fake News

[Anonymous Coward]

CNN is last in the ratings so they have demoted themselves.

FB: What's the point?

[Iwastheone]

Besides promoting your business and the details of your rather shallow life, what is the point of having it? Coming from a 57 year old guy who knew life before having an online presence was the way to be 'social' (we met with real life people back then), I don't get it. Real life keeps me busy enough. I've seen people get home and go straight to their FB, stare seemingly mindlessly for the next hour at their screens as if it were so damn important. I had FB for a year over 10 years ago and completely deleted my account, since I do enjoy my privacy. Admittedly I am grateful to be clueless as to the appeal of it.

Not a news feed.

[Gravis Zero]

If you aren't removing things that aren't news from the "news feed" then it's not actually a news feed, it's just stories with a chance of truth.

Re:Not a news feed.

[jrumney]

More importantly for Facebook, it's stories with a chance of profit.

Quickly! Write 15 aricles calling Minds racist!

[Noishkel]

One thing that's really started to be a problem is how often big money news organizations are willing to cite one on other to slander their competition. Case in point Gab.AI controversy when it was discovered that a few high profile right wing activist and actual racist were driven off of Twitter. This was used as an excuse for Google to pull their app from the app store, irregardless that at the time nothing that was being done there directly violated Googles TOS on that platform.

Re: As much as I want to say that is useless......

[datavirtue]

Except what you describe has literally spawned massive riots where hordes of people armed themselves and set about burning, pillaging, killing, and raping people because of fake news on facebook. State actors are going to use it to influence and destabalize countrues so that they can enact coups and other bullshit during the chaos. I consider myself an information libertarian but seeing what can happen from a single fake news post chills me to the bone and leaves me at an impass considering how to handle it. The Prime Minister of Myanmar had to cut off facebook to save lives and preserve peace throughout his entire country. What. The. Fuck.

What is wrong with these guys?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Declaration of Independence is "hate speech", and "fake news" won't be removed.

Those guys need to cut back on the Brawndo.

translation

[Anonymous Coward]

we make a fucktons of advertising revenue off of morons who believe that crap, so we're keeping it on the platform so they can still spread the lies and hate around while keeping them engaged for hours on end looking at our ads..

Re:Aw, poor Juden shekelboy, lol... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Roaches, ticks and fleas. So you're just like them. I agree.

I guess we can make up stories abut Zuck...

[Assmasher]

...and post them all over FaceBook now that they're "free speech"

No, neither situation has any evidence.

[Noishkel]

No, that would definitely be 'fake news' as it is now. While there is seriously suspicious shit going on with Seth Rich's murder and that Pizza place is freakin' weird there's nothing we can point at that passes scrutiny.

wait a sec...

[Orgasmatron]

Wasn't there a report recently that said that the fake news was less fake than the nominally real news?

Re:wait a sec...

[Ol Olsoc]

Wasn't there a report recently that said that the fake news was less fake than the nominally real news?

True. Alex Jones will verify this.

Re:wait a sec...

[Anonymous Coward]

Then he'll sell you on the efficacy his nutritional bone marrow protein shake.

Re: wait a sec...

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard your mom has three titties, not making it up.

Re:wait a sec...

[Ol Olsoc]

Then he'll sell you on the efficacy his nutritional bone marrow protein shake.

It hasn't stopped him from playing with his poop yet.

bizarre

[cascadingstylesheet]

The notion hat a sort of glorified blog platform gets to decide what is real news or not is ... just weird. That's all.

Cop out

[SpaceDave]

If fake news is not against the rules, then the rules are flawed. There's no way the deliberate spreading of misinformation should be a permitted activity.

Re:Cop out

[ScentCone]

Have you ever actually read the Bill of Rights?

Re:Cop out

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook and my front porch aren't the government, genius.

Re:Cop out

[Anonymous Coward]

That's right. Facebook and your front porch have free speech.

Re:Cop out

[ScentCone]

Facebook and my front porch aren't the government, genius.

Right. Which is why they can do what they want with their platform, and you can do what you want on your front porch. Thanks for confirming that you're one of those who doesn't understand the Bill of Rights and what it does and doesn't cover. "There's no way ... should be a permitted activity" in the context of the GP to whom I responded is pure nonsense. You seem to not understand that. Please don't do anything dangerous to other people, like voting.

Re:Cop out

[Anonymous Coward]

You're saying Facebook having rules against posting conspiracy theory nonsense would run afoul of the Bill of Rights. Parent never mentioned government intervention. Thanks for proving your illiteracy, you fucking sped.

Re:Cop out

[jrumney]

It's permitted because it makes money for Facebook. Would you expect any other criteria to play a part?

Re:Cop out

[pauljlucas]

What does the addendum to the Constitution, the document that both enumerates and limits the powers of the federal government, have to do with Facebook, a non-government company?

Easy Explanation

[Ol Olsoc]

This is Facebook's equivalent of those T-Shirts that read "I'm not Gay, but 20 Bucks is 20 Bucks!"

Re:Trump will be demoted to Federal Prisoner

[Anonymous Coward]

What crime did he commit?

Pfht. Classy.

[Noishkel]

Wow. That's a real classy response you made there. Just rain more shit on an entire user base of a website for the opinions of really annoying extreme minority of the user base.

And people wonder why social alienation is getting so bad in western society.

#DELETEFAKEBOOK !!! Fake news is NOT news

[Anonymous Coward]

This just goes to show that FakeBook likes Russia, or actually likes the money coming from these accounts.

In a week or two they will change this, but now we know what really drives them even when the tell us differently later.

#DELETEFAKEBOOK

Re:Everyone can learn about you then

[Anonymous Coward]

Didn't bother to read. I don't care what side he is on. Somebody vote this shit off the board for copy pasting the whole internet into a single post.

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you want to defend racist trash because you ideologically just happen to line up with its political equivalence? Fuck you. Go die on a cross, I have no time for martyrs for failed inhumane ideologies like your Republicanism.

Go find some actual victimstance in the world and apply it where your balls should be until you've got something that matters there, fuck you meanwhile Fox News victims.

demoted = shadow ban

[Anonymous Coward]

We didn't delete it, we didn't suspend anyone, just nobody else can see it.
  Move along nothing to see here.

200 dead bodies returned?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think cognative dissonance is the problem.

e.g. Trump said North Korea has already sent back 200 soldiers remains.
This is a lie (see testimony from Pompeo to Congress). I ask a Trumpette about this lie, I ask why they didn't show the bodies returning on TV. He says they did, he saw the US soldiers ramains being returned from North Korean on Fox News.

What happens is people become detached from reality and they cannot rejoin without admitting to themselves they were fooled. The more detached they become, the more difficult it is to admit the reality.

And bad actors, in this case the Fox News/RT/Sputnik group, constantly seek to divide people to fracture off groups they can then take down a rabbit hole of bullshit.

Re:200 dead bodies returned?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true, Fox is a piece of shit and has nothing to do with journalism. Just look at their insulting and demagogic interviews, Fox moderators really have no decency.

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Noishkel]

'EVERYONE THAT DOESN'T AGREE WITH ME IS RACIST!!!1' -The cry of those with out an argument.

I tell you want, you want to see some 'actual victimization'? How about you go talk about woman in Britain with their faces burned off with acid in sectarian violence? How about RAMPANT sexual assault in multiple cities in the UK, some of which got NO media OR police attention. How about literally thousands of documented cases of female genital mutilation in Canada? Too spicy for you? Well how about just the constant cartel violence across the nation of Mexico? You aver even SEEN some photos of fucking bad that is getting? They keep finding open pits with dismembered torsos. Just torsos, because the cartels like to dissolve the heads and hands in acid so they can't really tell who the victims are. Oh, and this one is my 'favorite'... the literally tens of THOUSANDS of drone strikes that one former President Obama's administration OKed. Most of which hit civilians. up to about 60 FUCKING percent of the time they were used! That's about 6 times as many drone strikes that Bush did!

Is THAT enough fucking victimization? Or does it only count when you can blame it on a Republican?

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where you try to make your bullshit RU-bot horror stories the "narrative" related to most immigrants, that's where you become just another retarded lying Ivan chatot faggot who needs his bitch neck stretched, traitor.

You're NOT the victim FAGGOT NAZI APOLOGIST PROPAGANDIST - But truly, you should be someday, God willing! THEN YOU'LL KNOW HARDSHIP, PSEUDOVICTIM NAZI FAGGOT.

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit, what an incel lunatic. Look in the fucking mirror, you're describing yourself perfectly and don't even realize it.

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Noishkel]

Fucking CLASSIC. Get blown out in the comment sections; 'YOUR A RUSSIAN-BOT NAZI PROPAGANDIST!' I'm literally laughing out loud over here listing to you melt down.

And you know, the funniest thing about your complete failure to make a point.. well have you actually even bothered to READ any WW2 history? The Soviets and the Nazi's HATED each other. Jesus, people talk about what the US did in WW2, but the fighting in Russia was wwaayy wwwwaaaayyyy worse on the eastern front. People obsess about the 11 million Jews and other 'undesirables', but the Axis themselves lost about 9 to 11 million military soldiers. But the Soviets lost about 26 million! And that's just the eastern front!

Hey, here's a thought. Instead of just CALLING everyone you don't like a Russian/Nazi/Robot how about you go and actually READ some fucking history. You just might learn something.

They would lose revenue, that's all.

[Tyr07]

It's really simple. They did the math, and it's counter productive to their business model to stop fake news, they get too much money from people trying to manipulate the truth.

Re:They would lose revenue, that's all.

[Anonymous Coward]

.. and the MSM did their homework and figured out their owners would fire them if they said anything they didn't like, so they now only reveal truths that are sanctioned by their owners.

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Killing nazis is God's work, history repeats you dumb red state brownshirt faggots! GET READY! Trump will hang from his bitch traitor neck and there's nothing you can do about it, Republican faggot traitors! :D

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Noishkel]

Oh, what's that? A moron talking about killing a sitting US president? Well, I'm sure that can't possible end poorly for you.

Re:You rotten bastards like & use my work... a

[BeauHD (Super Mod)]

APK, why do you not instead of going on tirades instead like maybe for once possibly and like JUST THINK ABOUT IT at the very least, go on a tirade against TRUMP.
Let that resound.

TRUMP

Instead of talking abouit useless things instead you could be doing Humanity a Favor (TM) and ranting against old orange hands.

-beau

Trump dies in Federal Prison, a traitor.

[Anonymous Coward]

These Ivan chatbots sadly can't read English very well. Trump dies hanging from his bitch traitor neck, serving a life term in Federal prison and never even making it to his multiple state prison terms. Enjoy yourself meanwhile as it happens. I will. Killing Nazis is God's work. Jesus hates feckless Trump cunts, that's why he's bringing the fire sword. (You should have actually read the book, traitors. Enjoy Hell!)

Re: Trump dies in Federal Prison, a traitor.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can not be a Christian and speak that way.

I really wish the mods could premaban those who derail every single post with political rhetoric. It makes the forum unbearable and people are visiting less frequently. We come here for technology news, if we wanted to listen to off topic politics we'd be somewhere else, and now likely will have to find other tech sources.

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn English, Ivan. We hang traitors here, that's called Justice.

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, but Trump is history in the making - that's why his ACTUAL unraveling, politically and legally, is the REAL LIFE ENTERTAINMENT! :D You can fakedick it, but I have to grin about as Roger Stone is grilled,
Cohen's tapes become public, and Trump is slowly raked over the coals only to be hung from his bitch neck - a traitor - along with his bitch beta sons and feckless cunt daughter, imported spywhore wife, the whole klan. Enjoy! :D

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Noishkel]

You talk a big game son, but I fucking guarantee your mouth is writing checks your ass can't cash. I'm not affiliated with any actual group, but I've see how fucking pathetic you ANTIFA wanna-bes are when you start a fight. You see what happened in Portland recently? Some little fuck nut start hitting hitting people with a metal baton only to get one punched so bad that he's still in the fucking ICU with a bleeding in his brain. Another one walked away with a cracked orbital socket.

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Noishkel]

Keep right on running that mouth son. See what it gets you.

Doing exactly the expected

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you think that theyvwill remove fake news and lose $$$$. Because most users want to believe that what they believe is true and the reality can't ve accepted.

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Anonymous Coward]

You can run your mouth all over Putin's cock if you want, traitor faggot, but you're not shit to me. Never will be, traitor faggot. Get back on Putin's cock, traitor faggot. Did I stutter?

(All over your mom's face, traitor faggot.)

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Noishkel]

You know for a left wing moron you sure are homophobic as hell with all your talk of Putin's cock and act of homosexual fellatio. I'll save my mouth for my boyfreind thank you. #LGBT4Trump BTW.

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a mouthy faggot, we know already traitor - You back Drumpftard, it rubs off. Keep going, God I love jewish nazis. Cracks me up, the fucking morons lol. So ironic it hurts! Self hating immigrants.

Concentrate! Imagine camping. Stretch your neck out, get comfy traitor. Get ready. We're going to feed your faggot traitor hero to Mueller like a milk bone. Gone.

Don't say I didn't warn ya, traitor faggots. Oh yes, America will be great again... just not for Nazi faggots with their stretched out bitch necks, their hero languishing in prison silently like an inbred fart. Enjoy.

Mazeltov.

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, Trump doesn't complain about the taste of Putin's cock at all! Why should you care if he washes it, traitor faggot? GET ON IT!

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Noishkel]

Heh, your just getting more entertaining the longer I watch you melt down. You've devolved into some incoherent rant about Jewish Nazis, self-hating immigrants, and repeated homophobic slurs. Let's see here, so far you've used the term 'faggot' no less than 14 times in this thread. I'm not psychologist but that really sounds like you're projecting something your ashamed of.

Why not just calm down and accept it son. There's no reason to be upset, it's 2018 and it's perfectly okay to be gay. it could be worse, you could have had my life. So far I've had to commit not one but two legally justified self dense shootings. Hell, once against an actual literal swastika on the chest white supremacist. This is also why I find it so damn amusing that you keep autiscally screeching about Nazis. I've actually had to deal with ACTUAL Nazi's And you know what, they bleed just like anyone else.

But you know this will be the last time I even bother to reponst to your dumb ass, I've got shit to do.

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Noishkel]

Whoa! That's number 15! 15 homophobic slurs! Ah-ah-ah-ah!

Nostalgia

[Vinegar Joe]

"The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back...." - Barack Obama sneering at Mitt Romney, October 22, 2012, Third Presidential Debate https://www.npr.org/2012/10/22...

Trump dies in Federal prison a traitor, enjoy

[Anonymous Coward]

I do hope Don Junior enjoys being ass raped by criminals as much as you do, good point. Prison can be fun, you just have to work the system, you treasonous faggot bitch. Lol. Don't choke up! :D Enjoy! By the way, they do call you twink traitor bitches faggots sometimes in prison, it's truly deplorable - and there's no time outs either. Mazeltov, traitor!

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/13/politics/takeaways-indictment-russians-dnc-hacking/index.html We got you faggots this time, lol. How many years is that, traitor? :D ITS LIFE BITCH LOL

Good things are coming to your punk ass. With extreme prejudice, you treasonous faggot bitch. #MAGA, just not how you thought, nazi faggots who are also jews lol the trifecta, drink!

You're upset by homophobia, but a Trumpie?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump doesn't have much of a homosexual backing, except for Mike Pence... are you sure you're not just confused? You're not a nazi are you Milo?

At least certain politic campaign leaders will be

[MxMatrix]

... super duper happy again, now they can lie trump into second term.

But it doesn't demote CNN

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook just digging their grave.

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[serviscope_minor]

'EVERYONE THAT DOESN'T AGREE WITH ME IS RACIST!!!1' -The cry of those with out an argument.

No, it's a quote invented by right wingers to attempt to discredit left wingers.

peep! peep! hear the dog whistle?

I tell you want, you want to see some 'actual victimization'? How about you go talk about woman in Britain ...

You need to listen to less infowars.

Re: Pfht. Classy.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't even know why I read these comments, I just cringe. It makes me feel shame by just reading this crap, I don't understand how you manage to not be ashamed of yourself, even if you are just trolling it's just so bad. Bitch this, traitor that, faggot like 10 times. Ugh.

They Have To Retain It

[Bing Tsher E]

FB needs to not start deleting, because once they start it's like the proverbial kitten who starts swallowing a long string. When the deleting gets started, now ALL the fake news has to be deleted. That means a big chunk of MSNBC, CNN, The Huffington Post, etc. gets whisked off to nowhere. Would any references to Rachel Maddog even remain after the broom started sweeping?

No, Facebook just needs to step back and let the cesspit reek, and the left and right monkeys sling their 'facts' at one another.

Some news not all fake

[Anonymous Coward]

I think its hard to flag what is fake and what is not. Is Facebook going to start editing news articles that have some facts and some fictional parts to them? Is redacting the fictional part even legal? News is not so much fictional or fake as it is more a filtered or opinionated piece with a skew towards the writers political or ideological beliefs. For a journalist this should be muted as much as possible for the sake of proper and accurate reporting. Unfortunately many feel reporting news is a platform to express how they feel and not what is happening.

That's OK

[Anonymous Coward]

I've decided to remove Facebook rather than demote it.

Demoting fake news

[Anonymous Coward]

Fakebook demotes fake news ... how do you demote yourself?

Re: Pfht. Classy.

[Anonymous Coward]

You have about 6.5 more years of MAGA then 8 more of POTUS Pence.

The winning is sooooo delicious!

Re: Pfht. Classy.

[Anonymous Coward]

You are right. I just listen to real Brits who talk about how horrible the Muslim crimes have become both on British women and their own wives and daughters but you go ahead and keep supporting the religion of peace right up until the moment before they kill you with a knife, plane, gun, truck or anything else handy. Infidel.

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh man. It called them "racist faggots". I'm pretty sure YHBT.

Re:Pfht. Classy.

[Anonymous Coward]

And let's not forget the hundreds of people murder by Brits every year, Brits are truly the worst of all!

Slashdot 3 the Politburo

[Anonymous Coward]

The commie tyrants who "edit" this site want to control the societal narrative by censoring information they deem undesirable.

Slashdot hates free speech.

Slashdot loves Stalin.

Si they're actively keeping false advertisements.

[Anonymous Coward]

If an article is false, it has to include a rectification note, that's the minimum required to any publisher.

Impersonating me? Please... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

You impersonating me proves you wish you were me & imitation is the sincerest form of flattery - but you = poor imitation.

* You "threaten"you'd impersonate me as you STALKED ME via UNIDENTIFIABLE anonymous trollings of me too https://yro.slashdot.org/comme...

APK

P.S.=> Grow up & do something useful w/ yourself loser... apk

So "curating" the news won't cause any problems

[eric_harris_76]

Sure, FB removed part of the Declaration of Independence. But it put it back later.

But they'd never do that with news, deliberately or accidentally or algorithmically. Right?