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Comment by DeRock | Hacker News Reader

The problem isn’t necessarily “fake news”, it’s the ability to target it. This targeting subjects each person to a completely personalized information flow. It’s one thing to have propaganda be broadcast to all, where as a society we can discuss, debate and choose to accept or reject it. With hyper targeting that process can’t exist. How am I supposed to talk to my neighbours or colleagues about current events (or “fake news”) that I don’t know exists? Democracy does not exist in isolation. We can reject the lunatic town crier, but it is much harder when he knows you deeply and is whispering in your ear.

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> How am I supposed to talk to my neighbours or colleagues about current events (or “fake news”) that I don’t know exists?

I don't quite understand. This reads really negatively to me, like you want to proactively judge what others privately engage in so you can "re-educate" them in case you disagree, and lack of access to that is a problem? That's a horribly authoritarian view, compared to simply broad exposure to shine light on the multiple sides of issues, to promote more informed judgment (which AI-driven content "optimization" specifically works against, as its own broader problem).

> We can reject the lunatic town crier, but it is much harder when he knows you deeply and is whispering in your ear.

Of course, on the receiving side of info, with somebody with deep knowledge of you trying to convince you of something, again that's vigilance and exposure on your part. We all have family members in this exact role, trying to convince us all of their viewpoint, with intimate knowledge of us. What's the difference if it's a 3rd party? What if it's you promoting your ideas, and how would you want any "safety" mechanisms affecting you?

The responsibility always falls on the person receiving information, not to police other's receipt of information. The latter ends up with people arrested for googling pressure cookers.

I am not getting the same sentiment that you are ceeling from the parent comment.

Healthy discourse cannot occur in the dark. How can I discuss an article that I don't know even exists?

If somebody keeps their own private matters or dealings, it's not your role or your right to pry there to ensure they're "right". Other than that, people freely share both ways about what they believe and discourse continues. The solution to "wrong thinking" is to spread "good" information, not to witch hunt for censorship.

The overarching social problem with social media platforms is the pigeonholing. Freely sharing and discussing is quickly segmented away. The marketing & political money is made on outrage and tribalism, and these amplify differences to the point of segmenting others off if there's any dissonance at all.

Less categorized places of discussion, where members share a broader forum or space, must be more civilized by nature. You have less cherry picking of engagement. You end up exposed to (and exposing others to your) offensive differences, and need to deal with that exposure. We get that outside of social media circles, and it's overall a more healthy environment. Consequently, more and more people are recognizing that social media is not a place to anchor their trust, information, and time, which is a positive change.

I agree with OP:

> Healthy discourse cannot occur in the dark. How can I discuss an article that I don't know even exists?

Hyper targeted informational warfare inflames tribalism. You suggest we "mingle more" about 20 miles away at the park. It might be "healthy", but no one will give a crap if the park is empty.

Blaming individuals for group manipulation is not the answer.

I didn't suggest mingling at the park. I suggest being in online places that aren't the hyper-segmented social media sites. Even here, there's a big sorted bag of articles, each with a big sorted bag of comments. Everybody engages with the same bag of stuff. We don't all have our individual view of the world; we see the entire world of HN together, depending on the time of day we visit. That's healthier for diverse discourse and diverse exposure than a pigeon-holed, AI-enforced separation of only your "targeted interests". Of course, you can argue the mob selection bias of articles here, but it's just 1 mob, not a system which enables an unbounded set of mini-mobs to slice at every discernable difference. We're all in HN together, and that has a striking effect on the style of discourse here in comparison.

(As an aside, I have zero problem with using social media for communication with actual friends, relatives, and activities you're a part of. It's all the extra crap they shovel on to chase that unbounded revenue growth that ultimately feeds the problem.)

Regarding the group manipulation, individuals are always at least legally held to their own actions even under manipulative circumstances (distinguished from coerced ones).

Group manipulation only lasts for so long as people don't recognize what's going on and how it's negatively affecting them, which is much harder to keep under wraps these days. There are movements against using Facebook now, which is the proper response to seeing how manipulative and literally unhealthy its ecosystem has become; whereas I don't consider it a reasonable response to call for wide censorship and scanning of personal information and "private" exchanges that happen there, in a big ol' ball of establishing precedent. If manipulators broke laws by posting or accessing stuff, it's a matter of jurisdiction as to who penalizes them, which is always a problem online, but that legal process seems to be properly progressing against CA.

I'd suggest our frames of reference are too far apart.

Your statements indicate that you place the entire onus of responsibility on end users. I hold some fault toward users, but include fault in the providers.

Generally, the world isn't black and white.

Why do you believe users deserve all of the responsibility? What about in countries where the entirety of information in and out is filtered?

This style of propoganda may be a type of coerced information.

These are also private entities. They can legally and morally censor without recourse.

All in all, I find the triviliation of those possibilities distrubing.

As I said before, propaganda always has and will exist. Certainly measures can be taken to combat it, but some nonzero amount will be there and people first and foremost should expect to face it.

You're injecting an opposite extreme, implying that I don't think propaganda should be combated at all. But the first line of combat is broader communication, so usurpation for propaganda isn't the only content that flows, and multiple points of view are freely shared. With respect to free speech, legal action against propagandists should generally be reserved for origination of falsehoods and incitement to violence, which tends to already exist in our legal frameworks.

Not quite. No one is asking for personal content to be judged.

But if there is a one-to-many pattern of information sharing (e.g. an organized attempt to share content) to unrelated parties, then that content should be vetted for veracity. Either FB does it, or they surface it for others to flag it.

> But if there is a one-to-many pattern of information sharing (e.g. an organized attempt to share content) to unrelated parties, then that content should be vetted for veracity. Either FB does it, or they surface it for others to flag it.

This is extremely toxic for freedom of speech and information sharing and is a veiled gateway to censorship. It subjects veracity to the approval of an unknown group with unknown motives than you're assuming are righteous.

There are notably verifiable "fake news" stories that we can all logically assume are fake, but the matter of veracity is ultimately defined in opinion. Even if that opinion is your opinion on what news source to trust.

The only people that can truly verify information are those that are present when it's generated and we rely on those people to be truthful. You trust your source of news when you determine something is fact. Bob's Blog reporting "Obama sends troops to Texas to ensure 3rd term" will receive a notably different reception than NPR reporting the same thing. But ultimately that difference in perception is your opinion of what constitutes valid information. Unless you're in Texas, do you really know for sure?

If an article is 90% correct, but 10% unknown or possibly speculative, who makes the call on the validity of the news and story? What if that 10% of the information dramatically affects the context of the other 90%?

If a police investigation determines that a police officer lawfully killed someone in the line of duty, but someone disputes that with another story, who do we trust? Should one of the stories be suppressed because it can't be validated? Personally, I prefer to reserve the decision for what I consider valid for myself, not the overlords of the platform I use to consume the content.

Why? Why do you buy into this meme of tyranny of censorship and dictated truthiness?

Progress cannot happen in society without good & bad ideas freely propagating, and individual decisions to buy into them or not. Every significant cultural movement stems from a counter-cultural uprising, and these sorts of things would be swept up in the "vetting".

Certainly. If it's an opinion, then that's fine. This issue is different - it's about manipulation, the willful presentation of known fake information as real news. That is not allowed in the print media by law (libel/slander) - so why should it be allowed on digital platforms?

Because Facebook is theoretically not a news media channel, with hired content creation promoting something as factual reporting. Certainly if an individual posts libelous content, they should be legally responsible for that content. But it's ostensibly not Facebook's content, as a social media provider, and international users make legal enforcement near impossible. Propaganda has always existed in opinion pieces, reporting on "rumors" to disclaim themselves, flyers outside official media channels, etc. Facebook doesn't affect any of that whether it's social media or becomes news media.

Again, it's 4chan with more rules. Anybody can post anything. It's not a place of fact or truth. It's of people sharing their lives, thoughts, hobbies, opinions, notices, likes & dislikes, etc. Some extremist $SIDE-wing Facebook channel is simply posting such things. It's not an official channel for trustworthy news, it's users being social, whether that user is Aunt Flo or CNN.

The core problem is that people think it's a "trustworthy" information platform (and Zuckerberg wants that trust for more customer buy-in). It's not. And it won't be, unless you remove the core personal family & friends social aspect of it.

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