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Comment by alkonaut | Hacker News Reader

What they should do isn’t show me news that I’m likely to agree with, but news that nearly noone disagrees with. It should be very easy to notice what has both large numbers of people disagreeing and agreeing with, and people within the same social networks agree with eachother. That type of news could just be supressed. If all that’s left is news with kittens then that’s a glorious success. I can get actual news elsewhere, and Facebook can select a few publications of good quality and replace anyone that shares a breitbart article with a corresponding one from the guardian.

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> news that nearly noone disagrees with

Well, in a country where 30 states voted for Trump, 20 states voted for Hillary, and 100 million people chose not to vote (and that's 42% of the eligible electorate[0]), who shall be arbiter of what news, at least U.S. political news, "nearly noone disagrees with"? I mean, given that a majority of politically active people in a large majority of states voted for Trump, I expect that you'll agree with me that Alex Jones' endlessly pro-Trump daily videos should be featured right at the top of everyone's News Feed. I know I'd love that.

[0] http://archive.is/NDUkb

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheAlexJonesChannel/videos

Not all news is political news.

I don't use my Facebook much except to occasionally share vacation photos these days. Checking recently seems to show no news of any sort. Just some silly memes, weather phenomenon (supermoons!), pop-geek-culture stuff, and daily status updates. Since it's the season, there's some American football discussion, which people obviously have disagreements on, of course, but in that "sport" sort of way. :) I'm sure major news (like major weather events) will still make my feed, but there seems to be a noticeable decrease in political stuff.

My cynical take on this announcement is that, for those that post and share a lot of news, there is a high probability that your news bubble will be more heavily reinforced. Not all Trump voters are Alex Jones heads, of course, but if you are one, maybe Alex Jones will still be at the top of your news feed, and you will get all of the Alex Jones-y shares you want. It just won't be on the feed of the friend who prefers is apolitical merely sharing silly cat videos, or the person who is sharing Rachel Maddow clips. Facebook, in other words, will strive to bring you the best news feed that you will never disagree with, all the better for dopamine-inducing clicks and likes.

(I don't really know, of course, if my cynicism is off the mark, but these sort of opaque-algorithm news feed games Facebook plays are a large reason why I rarely use my Facebook feed. :) )

I believe Facebook has a responsibility to not show Alex Jones videos even to those that would agree with them.

Well, on the one hand, sure. I think Alex Jones is a conspiracy-theory charlatan, a good representative of "fake news" as a matter of a fact (see: Pizzagate). The fact that his site also pushes dubious supplements (like "super advanced vitamin B-12" and "survival shield", which is a "proprietary nascent iodine" formula) says it all to me.

On the other hand, no. I'm not comfortable with a social media network that determine your news feed "appropriateness", via an opaque Brazil-esque (the movie, not the country) bureaucratic process that says "yay" or "nay". And while Alex Jones may be an easier business case here due to the "fake news" elements, I'm not seeing much transparency about what their post blocking process really is. Other than it seems real messy and haphazard, and a lot of people complain about it for various reasons, whether you are a black person posting police brutality videos, or are activists documenting the Rohingya genocide, or have conservative opinions, or are Palestinian, or post breasts no matter the purpose, or post iconic Vietnam war photos, or various other reasons that come up in articles.

If Facebook made their guidelines clear, and the process was transparent, I'd be more comfortable. When the Wikipedia community decides a source is no longer reliable, you can at least read the debate on the reliable source noticeboard. They have guidelines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability#Reliab...) and an ID guide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable...). It's possible to disagree with the decision still, but at least you have better context.

> On the other hand, no. I'm not comfortable with a social media network that determine your news feed "appropriateness", via an opaque Brazil-esque (the movie, not the country) bureaucratic process that says "yay" or "nay"

Completely agree. But I'm actually less comfortable with the status quo of state controlled botnets spreading a goo of fake news, and people living in those fake media bubbles it creates. Wikipedia is definitely a role model here. Unsure if twitter and facebook could achieve the same level of control, if they could it would be great.

A lot of people would strongly disagree with Jones’ videos, while some would share and like them. So they are clearly controversial and “bubbly” (as those liking them and those disliking them will belong to connected groups, socially and locally) - so Facebook should simply try to limit their spread as they are likely not objective and certainly divisive. That was exactly my point.

But I still believe that Facebook could whitelist news sources too - but obviously if they do there will be a massive cry from those that thought breitbart or drudge was going to pass that cut.

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