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Facebook's 'Downvote' System Begins Rolling Out Wider In US (arstechnica.com)
Facebook is reportedly rolling out its "downvote" button to a wider group of users in the United States. "The feature began appearing on the service's mobile app without a formal company announcement -- and we only found out about it by browsing on our phones," reports Ars Technica. From the report: The feature appears to currently be limited to "public" posts. Should your account be flagged for this week's test, every comment in a thread will include a numeric value and small up- and down-arrows connected to that number. Upon the first display of this Reddit-like change, the Facebook app will offer guidance: "Support comments that are thoughtful, and demote ones that are uncivil or irrelevant."
This is in addition to the site's long-running "emotion" interface, which lets users tap "like" or emoji-styled buttons. These icons and numbers still attach to posts as they've done for years. Now an additional value based on up- and down-votes, appears as well, and these values are separate. Meaning, if you tap the "like" button and down-vote on the same comment, those actions don't cancel each other out. As of press time, these up- and down-vote numbers are not visible if your account is not flagged for the test. We have not yet seen this feature go live on any versions of the Facebook Android app.
This is in addition to the site's long-running "emotion" interface, which lets users tap "like" or emoji-styled buttons. These icons and numbers still attach to posts as they've done for years. Now an additional value based on up- and down-votes, appears as well, and these values are separate. Meaning, if you tap the "like" button and down-vote on the same comment, those actions don't cancel each other out. As of press time, these up- and down-vote numbers are not visible if your account is not flagged for the test. We have not yet seen this feature go live on any versions of the Facebook Android app.
Do people still use Facebook?
What could possibly go wrong... https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/115/732/343.gif Hopefully this will further damage the value of FB.
Slashdot's moderating system is still, IMHO, the best example of a way for a community to not only moderate discussion, but use tags to clarify why a person voted for a post... I love the Funny and Troll mod options, but Under/Overrated are hugely important, too.
No sig for you! Come back one year!
where the truth gets down voted all the time by the mobs
...about this useless shit? Seriously. Has there ever been a FB post, a like, a tweet, any of these things, that people go back years to read later to enjoy like a good song, book, film, etc? No? Then why are people so engrossed with this utter stupidity?
-1 * 100000000000000 imo
Trying to turn Facebook into another steaming pile of shit like Slashdot. Way to go assholes. Hey Malda, bite by clank.
For * on Facebook -R activate downvote drive engage.
I wonder if areas of the country that have more of a "politeness" culture use down votes less.
to look like their own failed nations internet?
The internet was fun as it protected and expected US freedoms. Freedom of the press. Freedom of speech. Freedom after speech.
Remove that and social media becomes any other failed nations "internet". With extra censorship, reporting, bans.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
So, I'm sitting here wondering what kind of commentary will be engendered by posts with 1000 likes and -1000 downvotes. Each social network design choice tends to compel different types of conversation.
That'd be interesting to know. I'd also be curious to see how downvote usage correlates with things like feelings of hopelessness or age. A lot of my friends and acquaintances in their 20s feel like reacting to things on Facebook is pointless, so I won't be surprised if they continue that behavior. But some might return to the platform and use the feature if a high number/percentage of downvotes negatively affects visibility. For the same reason, it seems like the biggest predictor of usage across age groups will be whether someone has extreme views or not.
Here comes your friendly neighborhood bury-brigade...
It's been too long, too long I tell ya! All those stupid baby pictures you love to share? DOWNVOTE! You wanna show me that awesome meal that you had? DOWNVOTE! You have that 89023rd picture of your dog that I just have to see? Upvote. I mean, he is a really good dog: 14/10. You need to tell everyone about how your boyfriend doesn't hold the door for you and you think he's a monster for it? DOWNVOTE!
Facebook: UNLEASH THE FURY! ;)
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
When it becomes an echo chamber of the largest group of "downvoters" and people get tired of it..
The issue fb has with the current system (or at least until Dec 2016 when I got off it), is that smiles and frowns capture the userâ(TM)s emotional reaction but not the value of the post. That is, I wouldnâ(TM)t respond to a typical NYT article about the midterms with an happy/angry emoji, but Iâ(TM)d upvote it if the content was good. So the NYT article would get promoted. Likewise when some political group posts some clickbait bs, only having the options of smile or frown, both of which raise it in the newsfeed, doesnâ(TM)t allow me to downvote it because itâ(TM)s bs. So I could just downvote it and see less of it on the feed. This is purely hypothetical, of course, as I only use fb when Itâ(TM)s the only way to access a particular community. Not a fan, but they have a lot of power to direct the discourse, so I hope this works out for everyone.
Yes, creimer uses it to hook up with black bulls while he jacks off his micropeen with tweezers.
"Support comments that are thoughtful, and demote ones that are uncivil or irrelevant."
Yeah, right. Like people have ever behaved like that. We will, like everywhere else with similar systems, downvote as a sign of disagreement with the content. Or worse, downvote all comments of a person we do not like regardless of the content.
The great dream of the internet was that we would be free of the centralized information control systems. A break from the centralized newspapers and centralized television networks.
And we got it for a time but as the internet became more mainstream in its use and appeal so to did many people flock to reincarnations of the very same systems in meatspace.
Youtube, facebook, twitter, Google Search, etc need to be deemphaized. We need to use a plethora of services that are so widely distributed that nothing can really be controlled in any kind of organized way across the systems.
My main problem with facebook is that it is too big. Same issue with Twitter etc. Second issue is that for its size it is under one corporation's dictatorial and arbitrary control. Any platform that is that popular should be an OPEN platform. Something where anyone can set up their space on it to do whatever and it is literally impossible to silence them... outside of court orders etc. But when its all hosted by some company that owns all the IP... there's no freedom. The instant that company feels it wants to nuke someone for any reason they they do it. Which is why such services are bad if they become primary means of information distribution. Its the same problem we had with newspapers and news networks. Bias. Agendas. Prejudice. If the local paper hates politician X and the paper is the primary news source of the region then that is a huge disadvantage to that politician. He could have good ideas or bad ideas... it doesn't matter. He's not going to get a fair try at office.
You see this all over the place in a million different ways.
Facebook and Twitter are "fine"... if small. The problem is that they're too prominent to wield the power over collective information that they do. And they've demonstrated repeatedly to be bad shepherds of what little trust has been put in them.
Solutions? Its already happening. The networks are already tearing themselves apart. They had an ability earlier to save themselves and they arrogantly refused to see the genius of it. What they had to do was democratize their platforms. Give up some control to the user base whilst also permitting healthy balkenization of social groups that don't interact productively with each other.
They demanded total control and demanded that the population be kept together. A million angry rats in one bag... held by a single hand.
What could possibly go wrong? :)
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
You're right. And Hillary Clinton is still an elitist liar with ugly cankles who will never win the presidency, no matter what ever happens with FB.
And predictably, everyone will use this feature to upvote things they agree with and downvote anything they don't like, civility and truth be damned.
Thank god there aren't a zillion Russian trolls drooling over the opportunity to game this system while Facebook's board of corporate scumbags nearly dislocate their necks looking the other way.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Bit like your mum then
with this is just like on Slashdot people are going to use moderation as a 'I disagree with this opinion' button.
IMHO, the problem isn't size but money.
They get so big that there isn't enough advertising the fuel growth. They get so big that they start to sell APIs to game their own systems.
That's how we got Cambridge Analytics, and the St Petersberg troll factories. Instead of "what can we sell to these people", it became "how much damage can we do using their private information against them".
You'll see layered attacks with Facebook providing the false 'independent' confirmation. Except its not independent, its' carefully layered and planned based on analysis of their FB data.
And that's all possible because Facebook started to let advertisiers get access to the raw data of their users, using APIs. Removing any wall between their private data and the marketers own computers.
Do you think for a second, that Cambridge Analytics customer, Russia, has deleted all the FB data it received as required by the FB contract? Of course not.
My mom is dead, just like Hillary's presidential career.
Nope. Sorry. Fail. You can't wait for the share value to plummet, panic, and then introduce something that everyone has been crying out for, and, in reality, should have been there from the start.
SAD.
would be a shame if something where to happen to it http://oi42.tinypic.com/2q2dzs4.jpg
I swear I remember facebook a few years back saying they wouldn't put in an official down vote system.... because it might HURT FEELINGS! :(
Have gnu, will travel.
People already have a general problem with confusing familiarity with validity. When people sit around agreeing with each, Uganda nobody is creating new ways of thinking or challenging the existing ones. People will just down vote things they don't already agree with. that way I ever going to get people to realize that what they believe is a crapshoot, therefore for no better than any contrasting view, is if they're able to just Yesman all day? when people think they're right ,that's when other people get hurt
Slashdot's moderating system awful, but it is the least awful solution to the problem of managing user generated content I have seen to date. (It is a tough problem, to be fair). There is still plenty of room for improvement though. 'Anon' posting for example, should probably just go away at this point, as the number of insightful posts by whistle-blowers and people who need discretion to be able to participate in a conversation are truly insignificant compared to the number of trolls and spammers.
The Internet is full of awful people with terrible ideas, and they all want to share them with you. Good luck moderating that....
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
As for this vote-up/vote-down feature, I've seen it on a few threads, and it's about fucking time FB got it. Welcome to two decades ago, guys. :-P
We do have the technology to do much better now, but it really is sad to watch Facebook in inaction. Kind of a humpbacked version of the Chinese idea. I think the underlying problem is the sick financial model beloved of corporate cancers, but...
A REAL solution approach would involve multiple dimensions. My label is EPR for Earned Public Reputation. Obviously the dimensions should mostly be orthogonal, though there can be some hierarchical grouping of traits. I think the best dimensions would be polar, with clear and natural distinctions in the positive and negative directions. Perhaps more contentious, but I think each dimension should be biased in the positive direction. For example, if you want to call someone a liar (AKA negative on the accurate dimension), you should have to provide some evidence. Less debatable, the data needs to be linked and available to allow for easy detection of trolls and even herds of sock puppets.
Oh well. Time's up, but ADSAuPR, atAJG.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
I actually agree with you that Slashdot has some goodness, but it has NOT evolved and improved significantly over the years. Many of the features of EPR (see my half-assed and humpbacked comment above) are actually based on the problems of Slashdot and the obvious (AKA IOttMCO) solutions. In other words, EPR would be a kind of symmetrical karma on multidimensional steroids.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.