Hacker News Reader

Comment by arthurcolle | Hacker News Reader

Social graphs are really useful for detecting idea contagion though. Facebook obviously has the tools to fight propaganda, they have one of the most granular datasets of people data ever assembled in human history. They are just addicted to the ad dollars. It is a shame they killed their delightful API.

Good riddance to them.

View on HN

Seeing sharing in a social graph is easy. Defining what is "propaganda" is all but impossible.

Idk, I really don't think so. shrugs

It is. It's possible to have two completely valid, objective, and opposed positions in an argument where multiple different groups have a vested interest in one position being more popular than the other.

Which one is propaganda? The one you disagree with? The one that doesn't fit with your preconceived notions? The one that doesn't fit with your personality profile? Both positions? Neither position? Do we just shut down all thinking on the internet? Who watches the watchers?

Objective is a precondition that don't exist when most people call something propaganda. In fact, many definitions of the word call this out, specifically.

Small nitpick, whether or not something is propaganda has nothing to do with whether or not it's correct. These are completely orthogonal. "Loose lips sink ships" is basically true, and is also a textbook example of propaganda. Propaganda is media that intents to influence an audience to further an agenda.

By definition that is almost every communication that a human makes, whether through art, technical books, education, news, opinion pieces etc. They are all attempts to influence an audience and there’s always some kind of agenda behind it.

> Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence an audience and further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts in order to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded language in order to produce an emotional rather than a rational response to the information that is being presented.[1] Propaganda is often associated with material which is prepared by governments, but activist groups, companies, religious organizations, the media, and individuals also produce propaganda.

> In the 20th century, the term propaganda was often associated with a manipulative approach, but historically, propaganda has been a neutral descriptive term.[1][2]

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

This is about as rigorous as the questions by those wondering how Facebook could possibly be a monopoly when other websites exist (exaggerating only slightly). Do you know what "discourse" is? It's "how people talk about something," which is what propaganda is designed and intended to manipulate. "Pie tastes good" is not that.

How about a simpler principle: harm reduction.

Letting people be mislead about vaccines harms people, letting people get brainwashed into mistrusting the legitimacy of their institutions harms people, letting people use their platform to incite genocide harms people.

They actually have metric to measure those things, it’s just that they prefer to dial down the heat, not kill it. It’s just too good for engagement.

Don’t “both sides” death and misery. It’s not a philosophy debate.

> They actually have metric to measure those things, it’s just that they prefer to dial down the heat, not kill it. It’s just too good for engagement.

To be fair they are clearly fighting a delicate balance of censorship and community moderation. It's different from say a forum of yesteryear, because a forum can have a clear set of community values that should work for everyone.

Facebook and all social media is a single platform for many communities, and so given the new role of moderator they are in the impossible position of making a set of community values that apply to all communities.

I think the reason a lot of material isn't outright banned where you or I would see obvious misinformation or hate is because of this.

But This IS a philosophy debate. Fundamentally what is at stake here is how western society decides free speech is to be handled, and if it can be handled at all with social media.

I urge anyone here to define metrics for harm reduction that are operationable.

If you get any far with that, then tell me how you feel if the tools that will achieve these operational metrics were inverted in their purpose.

You're confusing Constitutional rights with business models and editorial policies.

Also in the case of Covid vaccines, the heavy handed censorship being imposed seems to make people I know more nervous about the vaccine, as it is perceived to be "pushed" by those in power.

It’s advertising Facebook isn’t getting paid for.

I’m surprised they don’t go after it as a violation of their terms of service.

It drives engagement which likely leads to overall more add views and clicks? "Doom scrolling" and such is something that keeps people on the site for longer which is probably one of their most important metrics

The actually have metrics for things such as dividedness and unrest. I wouldn’t be surprised they could do an analysis on propaganda.

Also, not asking right wing “news” orgs to be fact checkers or having GOP operatives override content policy team decisions regarding misleading stories that were reported by users would be another great way to reduce “propaganda”.

It’s not a technically unsolvable problem, it’s just one Facebook doesn’t want to solve. Don’t give them a free pass.

They are a multi billion dollar company, they have the all the ressources they need if they cared.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com