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Comment by kneel | Hacker News Reader

Facebook didn't doctor the video, out of all the content they could be blasted on this is pretty trivial.

This is part of a larger trend in MSM to pry eyeballs away from social media and back to traditional one way media.

Facebook knew the video was doctored- it was a mainstream news story for days. They chose not to content ID it, but instead to continue spreading it. That seems deliberate.

Why is Facebook obligated to play the role of referee in games of political fact?

Because that is the role they have chosen by becoming a non neutral information distributor.

Kind of true. The only way I see it is to remove content moderation. Yes, you will find something you don't like. Maybe your kids too, but they are probably more fluent in online spaces anyway.

The medium is the message, study the medium and it's effects on how information is distributed.

The genie is out of the bottle. Unless you want a 1984 style propaganda you have to accept that media is different from 10 years ago and it'll never be the same.

You are right, it will never be the same. However I reject that the only alternative is 1984. The medium (facebook, social media) is malleable, the current choices are turned up to "engage 10" but this is only one of a range of options. Manufacturing can be run to pollute rivers, the air, kill folks, but with some short term costs manufacturing can be cleaned up. Social media is the same. Just as Shell and BP should be loaded with the cost of carbon hitting the atmosphere Facebook should be loaded with the cost of destroying civil society.

It was also a mainstream news story for days that the White House spread a doctored video which was sped up to make it look like a CNN reporter attacked a White House intern. Thing is, it was trivial to verify that wasn't at all true: if you actually compare the speed with the original frame by frame it's not sped up anywhere. The artifacts some reporters claimed were from it being sped up are actually frame rate upconversion from the exact, specific 15 FPS GIF its original poster claimed as his source.[1]

On the other hand, there was a super-viral video about this on Twitter that was really obviously doctored. It "proved" that parts had been sped up by overlaying the video on a 7-frame-behind version of the original. Unless you paused the video this desync was only noticable in faster-moving sections, creating the illusion those sections were sped up. Not one news reporter spotted this. People like Captain Disillusionment happily spread it as fact.

If we based our decisions about what's doctored and should be blocked from spreading and what isn't on the media reporting, it'd mean treating truth as lies and lies as truth.

[1] Seriously. You can replicate the incredibly simple frame rate conversion (just blending the frames on either side) in a few lines of Python and get every single one of those artifacts out: https://www.makomk.com/2018/11/16/recreating-that-white-hous... From what I can tell this is the default setting in Sony Vegas, which is what the guy used.

How he made it appear does not matter though. The reporter still did not attack anyone.

Yeah, I really have noticed an increase in "Facebook is bad" content from mainstream media, usually blasting them because people use the platform to spread fake news as people have used any other platform to spread fake news since time memorial. Where were these hand-wringing articles when Facebook was pioneering the degradation of privacy standards or pushing invasive tracking across the web? I guess those don't threaten the old media business model as much.

>Where were these hand-wringing articles when Facebook was pioneering the degradation of privacy standards or pushing invasive tracking across the web?

Indifference to privacy becoming vogue often doesn't have immediate and noticeable consequences. Many on HN have the experience and technical knowledge to see the consequences, but they're an exception among the general population. But it's easy to notice when a friend or family member repeats a lie they saw on Facebook.

I'll assume people are reacting to immediate and "obviously bad" consequences. A little more evidence is needed before I go with "hypocritical ulterior motive."

What MSM media?

Why is Fb not investigating the original sources and propagators of that video?

Meanwhile the president can appear on any video saying whatever doctored or not and it won't matter one bit

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