Fake News Is Still Fooling Facebook’s Fact-Checking Systems | Hacker News Reader

Fake News Is Still Fooling Facebook’s Fact-Checking Systems

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82 pointspslattery80 comments

The news has become so bad today so every news source is basically fake news. In my country for example, the national television is so obviously biased it's ridicolous.

They are spreading more fake news than most of their alternative media competitors. Basically everyone I know trust these alternative media way more than the mainstream media. I don't know about the US but in Sweden the mainstream media is the one responsible for the overwhelming majority of fake news.

There is a difference though. When these "troll sites" or alternative media sites spreads fake news it's often outright lies but when mainstream media spreads fake news it's mostly about leaving important details out and not disclosing events and information that is relevant. They are experts in taking things out of context and paint the picture they want to paint. They seldom lie but they are still not telling the truth.

I'll even give you an example, Dagens Nyheter (https://dn.se) is one of the biggest media outlets in Sweden. They had an ad bought by China that spread fake news about the Hong Kong protests and pro-China content.

Like, how are people supposed to believe anything they say about such things as foreign affairs (for example) when they are funded partly by fucking China?

> The news has become so bad today so every news source is basically fake news. In my country for example, the national television is so obviously biased it's ridicolous.

Bias and fake news are two separate things. Every news source will be biased and it is impossible to separate the bias from the reporters, editors, or any humans involved in presenting the news. Bias is favoring one side over another, leaving out facts that hurt your case etc.

Fake News is an entirely different thing. Fake News is making up real-looking websites that claim Elon Musk is running as a Libertarian candidate for 2020.

BBC has had a few incidents lately which screamed 'fake news!' to me too. So I totally get where you're coming from. But conflating bias with fake news has hurt trust in the media more than the actual fake news itself. And that's the actual reason for spreading fake news. Because I'm fairly certain you wouldn't believe in outright conspiracy theories. But if you start to treat actual news sources like AP or Reuters just like fake random-city-ledger.com websites, then the fake news sites are succeeding.

Personally, I look for motivations regardless of the source of media - who benefits from this story if it was true vs. false? Is Bernie really going to charge 95% tax to everyone making 100k or above? If it's remotely true, then obviously it would hurt everyone who works hard. However, if that story is false, which it most likely is, who does that benefit?

> Every news source will be biased

Can I just rant for a moment here about how sick and tired I am of news outlets being expected to be completely without bias? Bias is human. As long as people are writing the news, it's going to be fucking biased. In days of Yore, in the golden age of television and written news, the people presenting said news almost always had biases, but despite that, they presented all the facts of a given story, and then usually would editorialize a little towards the end of whatever piece.

I have ZERO issue with this, and in fact, would strongly prefer it to the current norm in most (at least US) news outlets, where they bend over backwards to present both sides of any given story as having legitimate points in the name of "balanced" coverage. Fuck that. In plenty of scenarios, yes, there are points to both sides. In certain scenarios, one side is just wrong. WRONG. Outright, completely, and irrefutably incorrect. And I get so tired of watching news anchors entertaining these nitwits as though they're to be taken seriously. They are not. They are worthy of derision, mockery, and laughter.

And I don't think I'm alone, either. The surge forward of support for various comedians who do news-esque broadcasts I think is a strong indicator people do not want and are sick to death of news presenters pandering to this both sides shit. Again, in those situations where it's merited, where you have two or more groups all with legitimate points to be made and nuance to be communicated, absolutely. Get that out there. We have a lot of issues especially socially where that applies. There are other ones, however, where it's bluntly obvious to those reading it that one side is actual people with an actual thing to say, and the other side is one of a few or possibly more than one things: Corporate astroturfing, political think tanks, lobbyists, or random assholes on twitter. These things are not equal and presenting them as equal is harmful for everyone who consumes that piece of news.

Rant over.

I agree with you completely. I almost wrote the same thing about bias is human. I also don’t mind innate biases - those just define where the author comes from. Not sure why I was downvoted but we are on the same page.

Well, it's not me that claims alternative media as fake news. It is mainstream media so that is why I am on the defense of them.

I am not talking about obviously fake sites that is just up to spread one idea or lie. I am talking about regular news sites that operates as smaller teams.

Where I am from, at least, these are considered by mainstream media to be fake news. The government has pressured companies like Facebook to stop their content etc etc.

I think the main issue is that "fake news" is not really a clear definition for anyone and is currently used to surpress opinion rather than anything else.

> The news has become so bad today so every news source is basically fake news. In my country for example, the national television is so obviously biased it's ridicolous.

"It's all fake news" is cover for propaganda outlets, and while mainstream news gets things wrong occasionally, they get a lot right, and also they course correct and offer corrections when they get things wrong.

There's a huge difference.

The MSM in the US is almost entirely corrupt. It's proven time and time again that it will push agendas, hide facts, kill stories, make things up...

If you doubt what I say I suggest you spend some time looking into MSM coverage of Epstein and Weinstein. Just recently it was leaked that ABC news killed an Epstein story for political reasons then tracked the whistleblower down at their new job at CBS and got CBS to fire them.

I suggest reading Ronan Farrow's Catch and Kill to get an accurate take on the current state of journalism:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_and_Kill

No one doubts there are serious problems here and there, but "almost entirely corrupt" is hyperbole. Everything is imperfect and can be improved, but that doesn't mean you need to throw the whole thing out and start from scratch, in most cases.

Can you point to something that actually functions better?

Well when the press works in coordination to hide a pedophile ring involving two presidents, a prince, Bill Gates and tons of media and business leaders, then yes I don't think "almost entirely corrupt" is an inaccurate statement.

> Can you point to something that actually functions better?

I think Wikileaks is a good model. Get raw information out there. We don't need filters and narrative in the way of figuring out what's going on. Social media helps too, especially when the long form of highly edited videos becomes available. The whole thing with the Covington teens is a great example.

Raw info dumps are a horrible alternative.

City council meetings where I live regularly run on for 2/3/4 hours. Trying to process the video of that myself, rather than have a reporter there who can synthesize would be a colossal waste of my time. And that's just one source of information. County, state, national, and international news are also important to some degree.

And that's without even going into Wikileaks' connection with Russian intelligence agencies, or whatever the heck went on.

I don't think you should do it yourself. The community will do it and the original source material will be there to reference.

"The community"... is not going to sit through mostly boring evening meetings for free every few weeks and sum things up for you, all for free.

> I think Wikileaks is a good model. Get raw information out there. We don't need filters and narrative in the way of figuring out what's going on.

I don't see how anyone can conflate Wikileaks with "raw information", given their history of timing info dumps to inflict maximum damage in political campaigns.

What’s the difference between that and “swift-boats” and many other critical “explosive” news that have sunk many candidates? The news orgs which have produced those items don’t release the expose of whatever as soon as confirmed —or not in Dan Rather’s case. They release them when they feel they’ll have impact.

Yes to all of that but that is still 100x better than a completely fabricated story about Politician X dying when they are in fact living published on houston-star-ledger-journal.com. That's fake news. The examples you stated are not fake, but examples of yellow journalism and other fourth-estate power grabs.

I'm not sure it is 100X better. The tabloids have always published clear fictions. I think the danger is that people take ABC and the New York Times way more seriously than houston-star-ledger-journal.com.

They're both problems but I think the mainstream media version is much more dangerous and powerful.

Completely fabricated, eh? The big outlets don't do that, eh?

https://twitter.com/JessicaGKwong/status/1200208471599321089

She got fired. What happens to "reporters" at propaganda outlets that post "news" that they know is fake?

And what happened to Dan Rather after “rathergate”?

They could “afford” to fire a little known reporter.

And then there is the phenomenon of entertainment disguised as news which many people take for news which infuse enormous amounts of opinion and bias in their reporting.

The only ones which make a decent attempt at impartiality is PBS with their national news. Their local news tends to have intrusions where news is colored with opinion and bias, unfortunately.

No one on this thread is saying news is perfect. But what some people seem to be saying is that propaganda outlets are just the same as people who at least try and do real news, which is pretty horrible. That's how the propaganda wins.

The news is bipolar. On occasion they “want to seek the truth”. At other times they “want to do what’s right”.

Those two things often diverge. The “what’s right” has a lot of latitude and is open to the interpretation of the reporter and editor it also may hide the truth.

And also there is “agency”. Some reporters want to be “agents of change”. That’s not their job. It’s not their job to make nuclear uncool and put Jane Fonda front and center. If they had looked at the issue critically and scientifically we might not be in the pickle we’re in with regard to energy production.

Well they don't though. They don't correct themselves. At least not in Sweden.

I have seen alternative news sources correct themselves way more often than mainstream media. That could be because I mainly read those news sources but still, it is a fairly new thing.

In the US, they correct themselves in small letters at the end without changing the text, or they equivocate that it essentially doesn't matter that much, or try to memory-hole the article. The original claims supercede the reach of the correction by several orders of magnitude.

In the US, they correct themselves in small letters at the end without changing the text

There is no such thing as "In the US..." as if there is an established standard, or a requirement that you describe. It sounds like you're just gushing hyperbole.

For example, in print, the New York Times publishes its corrections on page two in the same type as the regular stories.

Online, it changes the actual text of the story and then explains at the end what was changed and why. There is no difference in font size.

Online, people do not go back and re-read the article to see it changed. The misinformation sticks by anchor bias and lack of ability to correct. This is, I believe, a critical failing in the electronic vs. physical distribution method as it stands, though I'm certain models could be developed for distribution of corrections as first-order material if these organizations truly wished.

Lots of silent downvotes. Can anyone tell me where I'm mistaken? Let me know if I'm spreading misinformation myself.

That is mostly correct. However, the alternative is...?

Headline. Massive block letters at the top of the article. Front-page notice. Put retractions and changes front and center. Make it clear that that's part and parcel of the process of reporting and journalism - that not all mistakes, intentional or otherwise, can be prevented, but that they can at least be corrected transparently. Without that, there is even less reason to trust that their intentions will lead to accurate reporting.

And do you think you're more likely to get that from, say, the Washington Post, or Breitbart?

Neither, from what I've seen. Big retractions made quietly is the pattern across the board, from mainstream outlets to 'alternative media'.

The latter is a propaganda outlet. Places like WP may not print retractions quite like you'd like, but they do print them, people do get fired for ginning up stories, and there is a sense of accountability.

Only for the egregious, easily-checked lies.

> they course correct and offer corrections when they get things wrong.

I have yet to see this actually happen with any topic of international relevance. To this day most US media consider themselves completely innocent in peddling Iraq WMDs and "Saddam involved with 9/11!" lies.

They just repeat what "anonymous government sources" supposedly "leak" to them and then act like it must be truth manifest.

This is also in their own interest: Being too critical of these "anonymous government sources" can result in being locked out of this special access, which is something no journalist or news agency can afford.

For a more concrete, and relevant, example just take a look at the Bloomberg "The Big Hack" story [0].

One year later and still nobody could produce an actual sample of such a chip, and even national security agencies, like the DHS, could not confirm the story and had no reason to doubt the involved companies' statements [1].

Yet to this day Bloomberg stands by that story [2], no correction, no admission of having gotten anything wrong.

But it did a good enough job of further spreading the "China spying on everybody even worse than FiveEyes!" FUD.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-10-04/the-big-h...

[1] https://www.dhs.gov/news/2018/10/06/statement-dhs-press-secr...

[2] https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/10/04/editorial-a-year-...

Actually the (egregiously aweful) WMD stories were retracted

For example:

> Daniel Okrent, then-public editor of the The New York Times, went further in his column on the paper's mea culpa. His summary could have applied to many other media outlets: "Some of the Times coverage in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq was credulous; much of it was inappropriately italicized by lavish front-page display and heavy-breathing headlines; and several fine articles ... that challenged information in the faulty stories were played as quietly as a lullaby."

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/part1/wmd.h...

Mainstream news is still far from accurate enough to gain a real understanding of the topic. At best it's a way of seeing what powerful people or groups are talking about but that's still far from actually being informative which is what the general public assumes the media to be. It's hard to see how useless news is more helpful than fake news.

All ad supported journalism is by definition propaganda, as is state run news like the BBC or RT.

Being 'mainstream' has little to do with it.

Edit: Taking ad dollars constrains your ability to say things that your advetisers don't like. You can claim 'separation of church and state' and say that the ad department isn't telling the journalists what they can and can't say, but journalists don't work in a vacuum and editors and executives won't run pieces that they know will cause them to lose sponsors.

State run media is obviously not going to report on embarassments to the country in an open an honest manner. Look how hard the BBC tried to kill off the Jimmy Savile and Prince Andrew/Epstein angles.

You can claim 'separation of church and state' and say that the ad department isn't telling the journalists what they can and can't say, but journalists don't work in a vacuum and editors and executives won't run pieces that they know will cause them to lose sponsors.

Citation needed.

Primarily because I've worked in a number of newsrooms, and there was most certainly a separation between editorial and advertising. Sales people weren't even allowed in the same wing or on the same floors as the reporters.

Contrary to your tinfoil hat suppositions, the reporting and advertising departments aren't all buddy-buddy. In all the years I worked in newsrooms with 15-200 people, I never once knew, spoke to, or could even name someone in the advertising department.

I will admit that's not true for very small outlets under 15 reporters, but that simply happens because you share a bathroom, lunchroom, hallway, parking lot, etc... with everyone on staff.

I don't really agree with the parent poster, but you don't really need someone to tell journalists what they can and can't write to get them to push your agenda. What you can do instead is to hire people who share the ideas you want to push. This way they'll write what you want them to write without you having to tell them.

This is true, and further it has ALWAYS been true. Media is always unwilling to publish things that will upset the cohorts their advertisers are trying to reach. We frame this discussion entirely wrong in this way: for-profit media platforms exist to give advertisers access to consumer attention, and they get mad when the media platforms burn the groups they're trying to sell to.

Facebook profits from fake news by allowing politicians to publish outright lies, so I'm not surprised that fake news is "fooling" Facebook's fact-checking.

Sources:

- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/27/facebook-...

- https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/technology/elizabeth-warr...

Deactivated my Facebook account today. Hope to delete someday.

I mean, it sort of has to be. Ultimately Facebook is only allowed to operate because politicians allow it to. Pissing off too many politicians is an existential threat to Facebook.

That's not to totally absolve Facebook btw; a major part of what needs to happen is a huge amount of transparency so that constituents can pressure politicians correctly.

I don't see how it's a requirement to allow politicians to lie. For instance, both Twitter and Google now prohibit political advertisement entirely. Facebook could follow suit. They'd just make less money.

Political ad spend is a tiny amount of facebook's revenue. It has nothing to do with money and everything to do with Zuck's politics

It's not about overt advertisements, but standard viral communications that the platforms live and die on.

Political ad spend is a tiny amount of facebook's revenue

Then there's no reason not to discontinue political ads.

Implicit in that statement is that you are allowing Facebook to lie. You cannot stop people from lying; what you can do is silence the ability to counter lies spread through other mediums.

Because politicians can find ways to shut down companies. I've heard rumors that Microsoft's antitrust woes in the 90s were as much a reflection of their unwillingness to play ball with some political goals as much as any legitimate antitrust concerns.

And Twitter special cases politicians in their system last time I checked. That's how Trump doesn't get his account banned for stuff that would get you and I banned.

I actually don't want Facebook removing 'fake news.' There are, of course, some obvious examples of fake things spreading around. But what about the less obvious examples? Where do we draw the line?

Social media companies should not be the arbiters of truth. I don't want Facebook or Google deciding for us what truth is. If the speech is illegal, like defamation or direct calls to violence, it should be taken down. Other than that, falsehood should be countered with truth rather than removal.

If you look at Fox News vs CNN, you'll see completely different versions of 'truth'. Any 'fact' these days can be labeled as fake news or a conspiracy theory. Both sides are doing it. But it would be far worse if there were only one version rather than two.

This is the only viable way forward. They need go back to being a dumb platform, just like ISPs are dumb pipes.

Why? What if a technology company wants to build a website that caters to a certain value system? Why should they not be allowed to do that?

Because they insist of having it both ways. Whenever it's convenient to them they claim to be dump pipes.

But this is only valid until it comes to maximize profits. Then suddenly they are (heavy handed) editors.

> Whenever it's convenient to them they claim to be dump pipes

Can you provide an example of Facebook ever claiming they are just "dumb pipes" and how that claim had any material impact on their business? Are you suggesting Facebook is potentially guilty of false advertising?

Is Facebook a publisher? In public it says no, but in court it says yes https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/02/facebook-...

So what? "Publisher" has no legal meaning in the context of a website, so who cares what they say they are?

>> There are, of course, some obvious examples of fake things spreading around. But what about the less obvious examples? Where do we draw the line?

Broadcast Television dealt with this issue for decades. You can say they made mistakes, but they did a pretty good job for a long time.

Someone will say, but there is too much material on Facebook (or Youtube or etc) to exert that kind of editorial control. Fine. Only check (and take responsibility for) things you promote into my feed. If someone I know wants to send me a crazy video or message, that is free speech. If Twitter, Youtube, Facebook puts information into my feed I didn't ask for, they should take responsibility for it.

Social media companies should not be the arbiters of truth. I don't want Facebook or Google deciding for us what truth is.

OK, fine. But then they need to completely stop editorializing and remove all algorithmic treatment and active censorship of posts, news and ads.

As long they're not doing that they are editorializing and are not a dumb pipe. Something they very much like to claim, when it's convenient to them.

I see this huge hypocracy with tech companies in general and deem it completely unacceptable.

You just can't have it both ways and being logically conistent with your arguments at the same time. And that's exactly what they're trying to do.

I don't think Facebook removes fake news, they just post a little disclaimer next to it saying that the article has been shown to be incorrect by a fact checker.

From the article, "its policy is to alert users that the story has been debunked and to limit its spread via the News Feed algorithm"

Unfortunately "debunked" is typically untrue. The fast and easy way to suppress inconvenient facts is to claim that they have been debunked.

It's just more information warfare.

There's no financial incentive to do fact checking and there is enormous political pressure not to. Ironically, from parties that will thoroughly censor Facebook when they can.

But more interesting, given much of the thread has somehow become an anti-press tirade, is how easy it has been for the new style autocrats to reuse the cry "Lügenpress!" just by translating it.

And while it is becoming increasingly unfashionable to say so; there is such a thing as truth, it is knowable and, there are conscientious people who follow facts wherever they lead and report them.

> And while it is becoming increasingly unfashionable to say so; there is such a thing as truth, it is knowable and, there are conscientious people who follow facts wherever they lead and report them.

And most of mainstream journalism (as well as many alternative outlets) still strives to do this. Yes, they make mistakes and have their own biases (they are human, after all), and they often have conflicting incentives (they'd like to feed their families) but they really are trying to find the truth.

I recently got into in argument with my conservative Christian in-laws about this. It was surreal for me to need to be arguing the position that there is absolute truth out there—even if we can never know for sure in this lifetime. As a progressive millenial, I thought the postmodern post-truth perspective was supposed to be mine!

> there is absolute truth out there—even if we can never know for sure in this lifetime

Yes, it does seem strange that they would be opposed. Are you sure they understood your main statement the way I quoted it above?

> Yes, it does seem strange that they would be opposed. Are you sure they understood your main statement the way I quoted it above?

It was in the context of discussing the Trump administration, especially the impeachment process (how we got there is a long story...). They kept falling back on "there's two sides to every story..." as if that precludes us from attempting to seek truth.

I'm sure if pressed, they would agree that objective truth exists (it's hard to be an evangelical Christian and not hold this view). But they seem bewildered at the prospect of actually trying to seek it out. Gaslighting has truly taken its toll.

I too find it bewildering to uncover the truth when there's evidence on both sides; that's why I made https://en.howtruthful.com/

We should also distinguish between statements of fact which do have truth value vs statements of opinion which don't.

"Is Hillary a bad person?" asks an opinion and has no objectively wrong answer.

"Did Hillary run a child abuse ring from a pizza parlor?" is objectively either true or false regardless of how many people believe it.

Relativism may have started with the intent of pointing out this distinction (eg the 19th century firm belief that "Primitive societies are bad") before being over generalized.

the problem of fake news is fundamental to the way Facebook operates. It's a noise-generating machine by design. Instead of trying to play whack-a-mole with fake news the saner alternative would be to architect communication systems in ways that don't allow this bottom-up virality. Associate some cost with the proliferation of posts, say limit the number of contacts users can have and how many people see their posts, bring it down to communal or human scale. Everything else is just trying to fight a hurricane with a hairdryer.

Should be obvious that it directly interferes with the business model of the company so it's probably never going to happen.

>Should be obvious that it directly interferes with the business model of the company so it's probably never going to happen.

Bingo.

Facebook started out as social media platform for humans, now every local news station, your favorite burger joint, and any "news" website on the web can have a Facebook profile convincing enough to look legit.

Instead of fixing the news on Facebook lets take the news out of Facebook.

Which is almost as impossible as "directly interferes with the business model of the company so it's probably never going to happen."

I don't think that corporate presence on Facebook is really the problem. Facebook is designed to maximize user engagement. That doesn't conflate with truthfulness of content (user- or corporate-posted)—in fact, often times it's the opposite. Of course, this isn't new—yellow journalism was a big problem in the early 20th century. But Facebook's algorithm—and the ease of starting new media outlets—makes it orders of magnitude worse.

Something that I imagine could even be good for Facebook's bottom line, would help mitigate this issue and would improve the user experience immensely: Rebalance how often friends/groups/pages show up in the feed.

Right now, I have some friends who never post, some who post "regularly" (I'll leave that intentionally vague) and others who post 5-10x as much. As a result, my feed is dominated by about half a dozen people and groups. The "mega-posters" are often people who:

- I know only tangentially (they aren't my best friends)

- post generally good/thought-provoking/funny stuff (otherwise I'd just unfollow)

- some (but not all) of them post political stuff

Again, I don't want to unfollow these people, but Facebook gives me no options besides "see it all" or "see none of it" (they took out the "See less of this" button at some point).

If Facebook were to rebalance my feed so that I saw at most 1 post per person per day (or some similar metric), that would have a couple effects:

- I'd scroll through Facebook for longer at a time before getting the "I'm done with this" feeling.

- I'd probably be more likely to see stuff from friends who don't post often

- The political content of my feed would no longer be dominated by news junkies or other outliers (like the person who posts every article from every publication about the impeachment proceedings)

If I didn't have many friends, I could see how this model would cause me to "run out" of content in my feed, and maybe then Facebook could revert to showing everything. But I've accumulated hundreds of friends over more than 10 years on Facebook, so I don't think that would be an issue.

> Should be obvious that it directly interferes with the business model of the company so it's probably never going to happen.

That same bottom-up virality is being used with great effect to increase consumerism across the board. Tamping down this fire would hurt not just facebook but every business selling more products and services in sustaining this raging dumpster fire of peer-to-peer propaganda/advertising.

It's not limited to the business model of facebook, it interferes with business in general.

Exactly. All these problems are caused by Facebook's competitive advantage: network scale and reach. Any solution they propose is almost certainly doomed to failure until they acknowledge "hey, you know what, maybe this 'making the world more open and connected' thing is actually really dangerous."

>limit the number of contacts users can have

Just look at Path. It was a social network that was arguably much better than facebook and it did exactly this by limiting the number of friends you had to 150. Wasn't able to grow fast enough to dominate and collapsed.

Fake news is a cultural problem that can't be solved algorithmically. A large portion of the people sharing and consuming fake news don't care that it's fake. We have to train the next generation to mistrust social media platforms as a general rule and work to encourage the concept of meaningful discourse and communication outside of these platforms.

You would think users are savvy enough not to trust non-mainstream websites. We have found the best way to avoid fake news, is to read the "good" stuff. Instead of trying to determine if an article is bad, we try to see how good an article is. It is an important difference in how we approach the news.

The only way to truly understand a topic is to read many viewpoints and make an independent decision. But who really has time for all that?

A plug for what we are working on : https://www.thefactual.com/static/extfaq.html

I linked to the FAQ on purpose, since it might answer some of the questions you might have.

We analyze articles everyday from tons of news sources, score them for bias, reputation of the author, reputation of the site and how opinionated the writing is. Our software then clusters articles based on what story its covering and then rank and sort them. It's all available for free.

We even have a daily newsletter : https://www.thefactual.com

Sorry if this comes across as too promotional. But we see the problem being mentioned in a lot of places and it's exactly what we have been trying to solve and would love to get more people to use it and give feedback.

At my country (Bolivia) during the coup we noticed real news being reported as fake news and take down, fb tools don't really work in either side real or fake.

You can either have limitless "free speech" or get rid of fake news, or to use the correct term: lies and propaganda.

Either you take down the propaganda spreaders, no matter if by legal measures such as netblocks or jail (for domestic propaganda), by war (in case of Russian state propaganda) or by a team of elite soldiers (for those operating in unwilling-to-cooperate third states) or you lose the liberal society we enjoy.

The earlier societies realize they are at a new form of war, the better. But as long as people excuse Russian or Chinese propaganda with free speech, nothing will be done and eventually free speech itself will be lost. Hongkong shows what China wants - Europe and the US should not think they are immune from CCP demands. Hell, we provide China and Russia with the weapons against us - and no, nothing Facebook does is anywhere close to enough to not be a weapon in itself! Their moderation rules are intransparent to outright crazy, the teams understaffed and overworked.

"Seen from the viewpoint of politics, truth has a despotic character. It is thereforehated by tyrants, who rightly fear the competition of a coercive force they cannotmonopolize, and it enjoys a rather precarious status in the eyes of governments thatrest on consent and abhor coercion. Facts are beyond agreement and consent, and alltalk about them – all exchanges of opinion based on correct information – will contributenothing to their establishment. Unwelcome opinion can be argued with,rejected, or compromised upon, but unwelcome facts possess an infuriating stubbornnessthat nothing can move except plain lies. The trouble is that factual truth,like all other truth, peremptorily claims to be acknowledged and precludes debate,and debate constitutes the very essence of political life."

Excerpt from Truth and Politics by Hannah Arendt in the Feb. 25, 1967 issue of The New Yorker magazine. Highly recommended.

Never in my life would I have imagined a population expecting the advertising companies to police the truth.

I haven't had a Facebook account for a long time. Few decisions I've made have improved my life so drastically.

Just get off Facebook. They're a terrible company, people shouldn't be supporting them, and your life will be better without it.

> even though its executives had evidence that Russian agents were behind some of it

Oh this dude is against "fake news" and then starts pushing the whole Russian bullshit again? This article is fake news. Lame.

Russian ad farm scammers buying a few thousand ad impressions for ads featuring BLM, Jill Stein, Jesus' advice on masturbation, and other such topics designed to attract curious clicks, all as documented in the government report, is not Russian election manipulation and it's dishonest to continue maintaining that it was. Also Russia's not the only hotbed for ad farm scams nor even a particular hotbed. Ad farms are grown globally in countless net nooks and crannies.

Why not refuse to accept ads promoting clickthrough to bogus ad farms filled with stolen content instead? That would actually do some good. Oh but might eat slightly into ad profits, so no can do.

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