Facebook could stop 10B impressions from “repeat misinformers”, but doesn't | Hacker News Reader

Facebook could stop 10B impressions from “repeat misinformers”, but doesn't

salon.com

Of course they don't. Just like they don't keep showing me things from "WOW app" and "OMG app" and "WTF app" or "BBQ app" (you get the point) that I have blocked/hidden/filtered repeatedly.

Facebook just wants to show you sensationalist trash and call it "engagement."

Thanks but I’d rather decide what’s misinformation for myself.

My thoughts exactly. I can't believe anyone is advocating for censorship regardless of the accuracy of the content.

Me too, but most people can't be trusted to decide for themselves and are lead to believe crazy shit only because it brings ad revenue in the best case, because of interests of bad actors in the worst.

Where to draw the line is the point of the discussion, because the democracy of the viral nonsense is causing more damage than a straight up dictatorship, IMO.

It's supremely arrogant to believe that you can decide for yourself, but "most people can't be trusted to decide for themselves".

Let people make their own decisions.

Sure, but they didn’t say they were any better.

I mean, it’s not like I know much about civil engineering, or trade policy, or diplomacy, or law, or policing, or military and defence issues, or agriculture and food stability, or economics, or education policy, other than that most of these are things you can get degrees (or equivalent) in, and if I spend three years studying each of them I’d still be a much of a noob in those topics as someone who thinks “lines of code is a good measure of productivity” is in the world of software.

I still believe democracy is better than any known alternative; it just isn’t, y’know, flawless.

It might be arrogant, but not supremely. Maybe the line leaves me out of deciding the content I can consume. I'm pretty stupid out of my fields of interest anyway.

Joking aside, it's taken me lots of effort, but if anything is important to me, my life, or my loved ones, I double check it, even if I agree with it or I'm naturally inclined to believe it. I've also learnt to love to stand corrected, and to say that I'm wrong.

But that's unfortunately above what most people I deal with on a daily basis are able or willing to do, supremely so when you bring religion or politics in the mix. And that's normal, and thoroughly studied[0]. That also means that, in many subjects, people already made up their minds and aren't actually taking decisions, as you suggest they are, but having psychological knee-jerk reactions.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belief_perseverance

This view, though probably correct, is incompatible with democracy. We can't have rule by the people if the people aren't capable of ruling themselves. I still believe democracy is the best way forward, but it depends on critical thinking and there seems to be a decline in that area recently.

> This view, though probably correct, is incompatible with democracy.

Which is fine, because (at least in the US) we don't live in a democracy. These views are very compatible with a plutocracy, which is what we currently have.

> it depends on critical thinking and there seems to be a decline in that area recently.

Respectfully, I call bullshit. There has always been a lack of critical thinking, we just didn't have the internet to bear witness. I think people are complaining about a lack of critical thinking more now because there are more educated people around to think critically.

So I agree that we need critical thinking, but let's not be alarmists about it just because some people are dumb or voted dumb people in.

Yeah I don't think critical thinking is worse than before, it's just being amplified by the feedback loop that social media has become.

Some time ago, here on HN, user api described social media as a "hate laser". I thought that was a brilliant term - stimulated emissions of hate. But maybe social media is a "stupid laser" as well.

This is how they steal free speech from you. Make you believe that adults aren’t capable of managing their lives or beliefs.

How do you explain QAnon, then?

QAnon may prove that (at least some) adults aren't capable of managing their lives or beliefs. Even if that is true, though, free speech is still worth preserving, because the alternative is worse.

And who determines what is “misinformation”?

Who will guard the guards?

Well, in the West we came up with these nice concepts of the separation of power, checks and balances, democracy.

But as neither nationalization of a large tech company such as Facebook nor giving it a monopoly over information seems desirable, why don’t we just agree that it should stay out of this completely.

For content displayed on the facebook.com website, Facebook makes this determination.

Where nobody is willing to stand in on the editorial side, the decision is being made, effectively, by the submitter pool with the largest content creation capacity, and its interaction with algorithmic and promoted content dissemination. That is, the decision is already being made, the only question is whether or not the results have strong truth valance.

The ship has, in a word, sailed.

If you create a vast, global, instant, high-fidelity, interactive content dissemination system with a strongly aspirational and appealing audience, then parasitic opportunists who seek only to serve their own rather than others' interests will flock to it. And have, in spades.

And I've seen this game play out repeatedly: in print, on radio, television, Usenet, email, and since approximately 1997, on the Web and mobile Internet.

There are parties already making truth determinations, and their doing a demonstrably horrible job at it from a common weal perspective. And that is the problem.

"Just don't use Facebook" doesn't work for two principle reasons:

1. Facebook is increasingly central to, or required for, numerous real-world interactions.

2. Even if, as I do, you don't use the service, you live in the world it creates. Facebook has massive negative externalities. Like, oh, say, civil war and genocide in Myanmar, to mention only one aspect.

(There are others closer to home for most readers here. I'm hoping HN won't lose its collective mind if I don't mention these.)

Another element that factors in is that Big Lie propaganda is reliant on disseminating the Big Lie. Scale is directly the problem, and offering unrestricted access to, choose the amplification metaphor of your choice, the printing press, microphone, camera, TV/Radio station, etc., has risks. Especially for those who would see the tools themselves burned down along with all else.

In which case, drastically curtailing the spread of any content from identified actors and their associated networks responsible for spreading obvious and notable disinformation ... is highly defensible.

I'm well aware of numerous arguments, predicated on or observing exceptions to free speech, which typically follow such statements. I find both the free-speech absolutist and the private property / private actor restriction privilege arguments tired and uninspired. The reality is complex, and I don't have either simple solutions or any which are conformant simultaneously with "free speech" or "property rights" positions.

Both, to my mind, exist in a nexus and network of overlapping interests and rights. I've suggested "information autonomy" as an alternative to "free speech", though the expansion of that notion quickly points out internal conflicts. Common weal might offer one path out.

The problem with articles like this (and advocacy groups like Avaaz) is that their definition of "hateful" and "inaccurate" content casts a rather large net of which their definition is rather nebulous.

Their claims are dubious at best.

From reading the article, I'm reasonably certain that Avaaz is using Facebook's own definitions.

just freaking leave facebook already, you don't need it

Just because you won't take an interest in Politics, doesn't mean that Politics won't take an interest in you.

*(s/Politics/Facebook/g)

Euh yeah that somewhat works for politics but it doesn't apply at all for facebook

I disagree. You can read about the reasons why in this facebook article I wrote where I call you out by name.

hmmm gotcha

I’m so tired of Facebook’s irresponsible behavior. I sold my FB stock even though I still believe it’ll go up, I just can’t participate in their bullshit.

I’m not spending time reading a salon article, but I’m willing to bet money that their definition of “repeat misinformer” is total bullshit.

Ok, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to HN.

Edit: you've unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines so often that I think we need to ban this account. If you don't want to be banned on HN, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you've read the guidelines and genuinely want to use the site as intended.

Name one time in history when the group burning books and censoring people were the good guys.

Name one other time in history when memes could be spread and amplified at the same rate and level as through social media.

Europe survived the invention of the printing press just fine.

The parallels between the internet and the printing press are many.

The owner of a particular press made their own determination about what was worthy of printing.

Wasn't aware that the printing press could instantaneously distribute material to a majority of the people on Earth within seconds, at virtually no cost.

The parallels between the Internet and the printing press may be many, but the differences are IMO vastly greater.

And because of this you now think the ones burning the books and censoring people are the good guys?

This political group wants something, so they are just trying to make readers mad until they get it.

What happened to the wisdom of "don't believe what you read on the internet"? There used to be a general skepticism that existed alongside the internet when I was a kid. I think people still remember this for the most part and the war on 'misinformation' is essentially a battle of opinions and ideas, no facts.

> I think people still remember this for the most part.

I don't. I think that memory is from small subset of the general public who were early adopters and developers of the Internet.

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