https://www.facebook.com/groups/Normalis.Elethez.Ragaszkodok...
There is not even a category to report them because Facebook only has limited options (nudity, harassment, hate speech, unauthorized sales, violence)
It is the same on Twitter and YouTube, and probably on every other social networking site. There is an unending stream of blatant misinformation spread by accounts ranging from ‘misinformed loudmouth’ to ‘obvious troll’, and no options to report these posts or users. It is frustrating.
If these companies really want to tackle misinformation, the very least they could do is have a mechanism that collects reports for analysis.
They need public-facing mechanisms to report content so it can be removed, just like all the other disallowed content which can be reported. It’s not good enough to plaster “get the facts” banners above the comments section or in users’ feeds, or occasionally take sweeping actions against highly visible groups/accounts. My frustration is that no option exists to report misinformation even though (1) it’s banned content, and (2) the reporting mechanism is already there.
1. The person believes what they are saying strongly enough to say it openly and conspicuously. Attempts to correct them with facts triggers a backfire effect which causes them to believe the false information even more strongly[0].
2. The person is a troll. They don’t actually believe what they are saying. They are only saying it in order to make others (you!) upset because it makes them feel powerful[1].
3. The person is actually a bot or part of a coordinated disinformation campaign. Their goal is to create false division between people to create instability, and engaging only helps them achieve their objective[2].
In all cases, an action which causes people to feel the need to repeat false information may cause more people to believe the false information due to the illusory truth effect[3], which can lead to the sort of spiral we find ourselves in today. My understanding here is that false information existing is not a problem so much as the ubiquity of the false information, and from that perspective it’s more important to make it harder to find than it is to try to correct it.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief_perseverance
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_troll#Psychological_c...
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/28/russia-covid...
Saying outrageous things you don't believe can unfortunately be quite lucrative.
Perhaps it falls under your second category, but I think the profit motive makes them even more motivated & nihilistic than a mere troll.
That's what makes it so difficult to 'package' truth as a conspiracy.
Please embrace the difference between "conspiracy" and "conspiracy theory".
Obviously YouTube comments are generally quite shit, but this was an unending stream of Bill Gates/5G/anti-vaxxer conspiracies. I've also already met a handful of them in my day to day life, and these were not particularly crazy or uneducated people.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/08/05/trump-p...
> Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said, “This video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from COVID-19 which is a violation of our policies around harmful COVID misinformation."
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article
"Although mechanistic studies support the potential effect of hand hygiene or face masks, evidence from 14 randomized controlled trials of these measures did not support a substantial effect on transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza. We similarly found limited evidence on the effectiveness of improved hygiene and environmental cleaning. We identified several major knowledge gaps requiring further research, most fundamentally an improved characterization of the modes of person-to-person transmission."
That study is not the CDC's current stance (and a single study on their site isn't a stance), nor does it reflect more recent research.
Here's July, for example: https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/p0714-americans-to-w...
> In an editorial published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), CDC reviewed the latest science and affirms that cloth face coverings are a critical tool in the fight against COVID-19 that could reduce the spread of the disease, particularly when used universally within communities. There is increasing evidence that cloth face coverings help prevent people who have COVID-19 from spreading the virus to others.
> This review included two case studies out today, one from JAMA, showing that adherence to universal masking policies reduced SARS-CoV-2 transmission within a Boston hospital system, and one from CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), showing that wearing a mask prevented the spread of infection from two hair stylists to their customers in Missouri.
https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/prevention-c...
If you go through the literature, there's genuinely very little concrete useful stuff on mask efficacy pre-COVID. "We're not sure" was a pretty reasonable statement back in March.
"Masks don't work" like the US Surgeon General was tweeting at the time wasn't a very supportable statement, though.
(The lie didn't work, either, and likely harmed trust in public officials on the matter.)
What a world that would be to live in.
Alfred Whitney Griswold
It is not your or Facebook's job to censor people. Btw. Sweden made most of the things work what this particular group is asking for (no masks). Do you want to ban Sweden too?
? In the commons, there is limited ability to discriminate between 'good' and 'bad' ideas.
Among the crowds, the craziest ideas usually win.
Individuals are intelligent, but crowds are dumb.
Most people who push for ultra freedom of expression think of it in intellectual terms, you know, people having reasonable discussion, but it's not that, it's yelling, cursing, death threats, crazy ideas and 'actual racism' (and I mean the bad stuff like 'kill all those XYZ people, they are cockroaches').
Weird how "let's not send the Jews to the gas chambers" didn't catch on in Nazi Germany. Good ideas sometimes get swamped by bad ideas pushed by effective people/propaganda. It's quite clear from human history that good ideas are neither a sure weapon, nor a fast one.