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Facebook is Rating Users Based On Their 'Trustworthiness' (engadget.com)

Posted by msmash on from the going-back-to-rating-people dept.

Facebook has begun to assign its users a reputation score, predicting their trustworthiness on a scale from zero to 1. From a report: Facebook hasn't been shy about rating the trustworthiness of news outlets, but it's now applying that thinking to users as well. The company's Tessa Lyons has revealed to the Washington Post that it's starting to assign users reputation scores on a zero-to-one scale. The system is meant to help Facebook's fight against fake news by flagging people who routinely make false claims against news outlets, whether it's due to an ideological disagreement or a personal grudge. This isn't the only way Facebook gauges credibility, according to Lyons -- it's just one of thousands of behavior markers Facebook is using. The problem: much of how this works is a mystery. Facebook wouldn't say exactly how it calculates scores, who gets these scores and how other factors contributed to a person's trustworthiness.

9 of 320 comments (clear)

  1. Truth is not truth... by The+Original+CDR · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Trustworthiness is the new truthiness?

    1. Re:Truth is not truth... by fish_in_the_c · · Score: 4, Insightful

      sure, but how many of those facts are 'interesting'.

      For instance. Let's just suppose one could prove beyond any reasonable doubt that withing 500 years the greenhouse effect would destroy the earth and make in uninhabitable by mankind.

      ( let's ignore the difficulty of proving that for the sake of the demonstration.)

      You will notice what has NOT been proved.
      a) that there is anything we SHOULD do about
      b) that there is anything we CAN do about

      why, because material science can't prove or disprove a moral proposition.

      So while science can prove useful facts like. IF you do this ,you have a high likelihood of accomplishing that.
      It is entirely useless when it comes to the first part of the preposition. That is to say 'should you do the IF'.

      --
      âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
  2. Zuckerbook == China? by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Gee whiz Zuckerbook, you're starting to sound an awful lot like living under the communist Chinese government, aren't you?

    1. Re:Zuckerbook == China? by Rick+Schumann · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Not so specifically as you're stating it, no, but I do remember the vast majority of people having been 'indoctrinated' that way by social media, to believe that anyone who wanted to preserve their privacy 'must have something to hide' and therefore must be criminals, terrorists, and/or pedophiles. I never fell for any of that, and as the pressure to be brainwashed by social media increased, my aversion to social media increased proportionately, and I don't use ANY social media anymore, and haven't for a long, long time now, and encourage everyone I can to dump Facebook, Twitter, and any other so-called 'social media' and (shocking!) actually be social with live people away from the Internet.

    2. Re:Zuckerbook == China? by swillden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Facebook is an opt-in service not mandated by anyone or anything. Don't want to use it, then don't. The only time you "need" Facebook is if you're dealing with public relations, and even then, you're not using Facebook for socialising but for promoting.

      A Chinese citizen does not have the same freedoms. Facebook and China are not comparable in any way.

      I think the idea that this is going to happen is laughable, but it's worth pointing out that if the Facebook trustworthiness score were to be used like the Chinese "Social Credit" score, it wouldn't be necessary to force people to use it. All that would be required is for various entities to begin relying on the score to make decisions about whether or not to trust someone. In such a world, someone who refuses to use Facebook would be distrusted by anyone who relies on the trust score. If you wanted to be trusted, you'd need to participate, much the way that if you want to be able to borrow money to buy a house you generally need to build a history of borrowing and repayment on smaller loans first.

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  3. Yay, we're getting Sesame Credits in America! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Now I can be secretly tracked and blacklisted by glorious capitalists instead of dirty communists.

    I feel so much better.

  4. Facebook by beep54 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who is going to rate Facebook's 'trustworthiness'? Anyone....anyone??

    1. Re:Facebook by PopeRatzo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Who is going to rate Facebook's 'trustworthiness'? Anyone....anyone??

      Their customers. The same people who rate the trustworthiness of any company. And since you may not know this, Facebook's customers are the people who buy targeted advertising and pay for your data, like Cambridge Analytica.

      Facebook's users are not their customers. They are just voluntary donors of their personal information and eyeballs. They have no business relationship with Facebook.

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  5. No it's not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Facebook is an opt-in service

    No it's not. We've known for years that Spybook has profiles on individuals who have never signed up.