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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

The timing of this makes it seem politically motivated. I've seen plenty of fake news on my liberal feed. Things like 9/11 conspiracy theories, anti-vaccination stories, stories about the dangers of genetically modified foods, etc.

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If there's an obvious partisan slant to the 'fact-checking' then people will eventually discredit the warnings at best and at worst they will become the butt of many censorship jokes.

The SNL skits are probably writing themselves as we speak...Girl posts on her friends wall "I'm so happy for you!!!!" [WARNING: 3rd party fact checker determined this to be false]

If that happens, the brand damage to facebook will be real

The warnings may be discredited but the disputed stories will appear lower on the news feed according to FB. "Appear lower" is the least controversial way for FB to dip its toe in this water, so we'll see how the censorship actually plays out.

I know. This almost feels even bigger than politically motivated. This seems to me like a full on attack on the open internet. How quick before Edward Snowden is producing fake news and a new generation doesn't trust him?

Does it matter what the motivations are if they are using the same criteria for filtering all kinds of fake news?

Humans in the loop means the criteria will not be the same.

What is the alternative? Right now the alternative is to add another layer of bias in between.

The alternative is to allow free and open communication that is unmediated, unannotated, and unmoderated by any authority, and to allow information consumers to decide what they should and should not read and believe themselves.

It's the difference between the web and a walled garden.

I get that FB is interested in mediating, annotating, and moderating content, since they are a walled garden.

That's why I choose not to use FB, which is my right as a web user.

Since you're not a Facebook user, why do you care?

They have the right to do whatever they damn well please on their website. This isn't breaking the "open internet." Nothing about the design of the internet allows you to dictate how people run their websites.

No. That causes Pizzagate to happen.

I am all for free and open communication as long as it is unrestricted in all respects.

But facebook has been filtering content to show you what they think is relevant. In such a scenario, I'd prefer if they added moderation to weed out fake news or at the very least mark it as such.

That's a pipedream. There will always be human interference, whether it be direct, or a consequence of some humans' decisions regarding algorithm design.

As it is, Facebook's current (pre-fact-checking) algorithm prioritizes shallow engagement over other metrics. That leads to sensationalist clickbait receiving preferential treatment. Human decisions led to this outcome.

Fake news was a massive problem this election cycle, and it really highlighted Facebook's large influence and their inability to actually do anything about it. So yes, Facebook dealing with fake news here is a reaction to what happened during the election, but that's not a bad thing. Fake news turns out to be a serious problem and it needs to be fixed, regardless of your political leanings.

Edit: Why am I being downvoted for this? If you disagree with me, please explain why.

> Edit: Why am I being downvoted for this? If you disagree with me, please explain why.

Truth has become a partisan issue. This thread is overrun with alt-right trolls.

You're probably right. I notice you also got downvoted, as did a sibling comment. It's pretty frustrating to see this kind of behavior on HN.

There's no evidence that "fake news" is actually a serious problem, other than getting a lot of likes on Facebook. Seems to me "fake news" is an agenda-driven narrative by the mainstream media to salvage their waning reputation and discredit alternative media. For instance: https://theintercept.com/2016/11/26/washington-post-disgrace...

Yeah maybe, even the pope said fake news isn't real.

Issues are often only addressed when they become important enough to have major consequences. That doesn't make reaction inherently political.

The amount of conservative gaslighting out there today is really troubling. Any source which doesn't agree with their biased version of reality is "liberal."

It's amazing to me how effectively the alt-right has taken over Hacker News to the point where fact-checking is considered harmful.

That last bit isn't an accurate description. What's going on is that the societies from which HN users come are deeply divided, and those divisions are inevitably showing up here, as they would in any large enough sample.

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