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Facebook, Twitter, and Google Still Aren't Doing Enough About Disinformation, EU Says (theverge.com)
Facebook, Twitter, and Google still aren't doing enough to battle disinformation on their platforms, European Union officials said in a statement released this week. "As part of a plan to fight disinformation on social media, the companies signed on to a voluntary proposal to crack down on the problem last year, which included making plans to increase transparency and fight fake accounts," reports The Verge. "The European Commission is now publicizing monthly progress reports on the topic, and has released the first, covering January." From the report: In the statement, the officials criticized the companies' responses, saying "we need to see more progress." "Platforms have not provided enough details showing that new policies and tools are being deployed in a timely manner and with sufficient resources across all EU Member States," the statement said. "The reports provide too little information on the actual results of the measures already taken."
Facebook, Twitter, and Google were each singled out for not providing enough information in their reports to officials, who said in today's statement that they remain "concerned by the situation." The statement pressed the platforms to move faster ahead of European Parliament elections in May. In an accompanying op-ed in The Guardian this week, EU commissioners said, "if we do not see sufficient long-term progress, we reserve the right to reconsider our policy options -- including possible regulation."
Facebook, Twitter, and Google were each singled out for not providing enough information in their reports to officials, who said in today's statement that they remain "concerned by the situation." The statement pressed the platforms to move faster ahead of European Parliament elections in May. In an accompanying op-ed in The Guardian this week, EU commissioners said, "if we do not see sufficient long-term progress, we reserve the right to reconsider our policy options -- including possible regulation."
Battle disinformation = conduct censorship. No difference.
Disinformation is that which displeases the strongest and most violent.
I am all in favor of suppressing disinformation, but who should decide an information is truth or not?
We all remember Irak's Weapons of Mass Destruction, a government backed information followed up my many medias, which turned to be a huge fake news. It was so fake that US invaders did not even manage to plant fake evidence to support it after they "won" the war.
What do European Union officials want to ban now?
Who is saying what disinformation is?
The user has the ability to publish and link to any information they want. Its their comment.
Why should an NGO, think tank, mil, any nation, European Union official say thats not approved speech?
Spain on a comment about Catalonia?
Germany on history?
Germany on its open migration policy?
China on Taiwan?
Big agriculture wants some Ag-gag laws?
France wants to ban funny comments about politicians and all news about protests?
No comments on DRM?
No comments on political movies not selling well?
No right to talk about repairing brand name products with imported parts?
Weak junk crypto is a banned topic?
No linking to published whistleblower news about the mil and security services?
No funny memes about NATO?
No comments on EU nation arms exports to really bad nations?
No funny memes about EU nation censorship attempts?
A computer company on what needs to be curated and what speech is a sin?
Social media on what politics it will allow?
Will the EU has a blasphemy test for questions of faith? Can any faith, cult, theocracy tell the EU what they think disinformation is?
Can a Communist party demand the removal of information on democracy, faith, history, freedom by nations in the EU?
No saying Taiwan is the real China?
Do European Union officials have books, movies, plays, publications that want to ban due to "disinformation"?
Why stop with reporting and removing content online?
Go full German BfV on all EU publishers and online comments?
The US freedom to publish and the to stay free after publication is looking great after the views of EU nations.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Anyone who uses Twitter or Facebook for "information" in the first place deserves to be the victim of disimformation.
The problem is that these people can vote, so their delusions become everyone's problem.
It's a pretty fine line between "preventing disinformation" and quashing free speech and dissent.
Is UKIP saying "Britain will be better off after Brexit" disinformation? Is Trump saying "some illegal immigrants commit heinous crimes in the USA" disinformation? Are directed wikileaks exposures disinformation? Is truth a defense?
-Styopa
Essentially, the education system has told a generation (or two now) that evidence doesnâ(TM)t matter. You donâ(TM)t have to be correct, rigorous or diligent in working out what the hell is going on; you just have to express yourself, be confident in your conviction and never let anyone tell you youâ(TM)re wrong. And in this pursuit of self affirmation, itâ(TM)s the worldâ(TM)s responsibility to keep you safe, no matter what you choose to do.
So, now we arrive at a position where pseudoscience is running rampant, people arenâ(TM)t equipped with the critical thinking skills to delve deep and discern fact from fiction and relevance from irrelevance, and thereâ(TM)s an overwhelming attitude of opinion being the gold standard, and if thatâ(TM)s dangerously flawed itâ(TM)s someone elseâ(TM)s job to protect them from any consequences so they donâ(TM)t need to change their opinion.
And now, again, itâ(TM)s âoeoutsourcing critical thinkingâ, conditioning people to believe even more that what they read must be true because an app hasnâ(TM)t flagged it as false.
Critical thinking though be core in education, and everyone should be taught to debate. How to build logical progressions (and just as important, how to build false ones, so you can better spot the tricks others use when trying to manipulate you). How to win and lose gracefully. And how to exercise that marvellous tool we have called a brain, rather than switching it off and just using the mouth.
Because clearly bias is binary and not a spectrum. The reality of situation is, yes absolutely the outlets like CNN and MSNBC etc have a liberal bias, but the degree of their bias, their intention to mislead, isn't in the same universe as Breitbart and Fox News (yes, some are, but the cable networks and giant print papers, no). E.g., improperly verifying source info or nitpicking details to call something a lie just isn't equivalent to being deliberately misleading and showing overt, maliciously unbalanced bias.
;)
It's like, CNN gets some specific detail of the 2567614th awful thing Trump said/did wrong and issues a correction a day or two later, meanwhile Fox News is spouting 'Look at how the fake news media smeared the honest, upstanding, genius Donald Trump! Now here's our 10-part series on how the caravan of MS-13 and ISIS is a full-scale invasion and will destroy America!'
CNN: Trump told 18 lies today. Fox News: The Fake News CNN called one of those 18 "lies" a lie because the number was 14,000 and not 15,000! Now here's our piece about how Trump and Huckabee-Sanders were truthful and sending the right message when he said thousands of terrorists were caught trying to cross the Mexico-US border even though the "actual" number was just 6, who were on a watchlist and not confirmed terrorists.'
Yes, it was bad fact-checking bias to call 15k instead of 14k a lie, but then Fox News/Breitbart immediately followup their 'caught the liberal media being biased again!' with overt hostility towards the truth, blind worship of Trump, and bias so severe it makes whatever they were calling out seem like a paragon of neutrality.
Fox News: "MSNBC lied when said the middle class didn't benefit from Trump's tax cuts!" (Because they got a few hundred in pay or tax benefits) "This proves Trump was truthful and correct in saying that the tax cuts hurt the rich and him and his friends personally and was a massive giveaway to the working man!" (Even though 90% of benefits went to the top 1% and Trump&friends substantially benefited.) Then they'll proceed to repeat Trump's lies about how megacorps using all their tax savings on stock buybacks and virtually nothing on wages actually benefits the middle class and not the wealthy too. But those liberal liars can't be trusted because we caught them lying about the middle class actually receiving a pittance instead of nothing! So them lying proves we're not!
That they've convinced 80% of everyone that the false info, deliberate misleading, and overt bias is so pervasive even outside of Fox News/Breitbart that mainstream news in general can't be trusted is the ultimate 'fake news'.
PS: I went on a tear about SJWs and their 'white men are all racist/sexist!' schtick earlier today, so when you conservatives give me a '-1 The Truth Makes Me Angry!' mod on this post, how's about balancing out the '-1 The Truth Makes Me Angry!' mod the liberals will be giving me for that one
Now I'm off to look for a thread talking about "centrists" to see if I can hit the trifecta of pissing off the entire political spectrum in one day.