Facebook no longer stops the spread of a theory that Covid-19 was manufactured | Hacker News Reader

Facebook no longer stops the spread of a theory that Covid-19 was manufactured

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29 pointsthrowawaysea14 comments

I always thought the social media companies' effort to censor fake news was a mistake. I just assumed it would take some time to catch up to them. Instead, as soon as they started censoring things they thought were false they immediately got a huge consequential issue of global importance completely wrong.

I was once in a meeting where we were being told about a product that was basically going to be a clone of Teachers Pay Teachers (but they'd be paying us instead). In Teachers Pay Teachers teachers upload lesson plans and what not and other teachers buy those plans. The idea was now teachers could upload to our service and teachers could buy from us.

I asked how we could tell the quality of the content that was uploaded. How could we tell people weren't uploading bad materials? It was clear the people designing the project had never thought about this problem for a second and they had no solution.

To me, it seems similar to what's happening here. Facebook et al naively assumes they can differentiate fake news from real despite having no capacity to do so. "We'll just remove stuff that's false" is the same kind of mistake as "We'll just post stuff that's true." Do you know what's true?

2020 reaffirmed to me that people are only interested in "their truth".

News in the U.S. became entertainment. Facts take a back seat to a strong opinion. If eyes and ears were on real news nobody would have ever cared about what is being shared on Facebook.

Long gone is the standard bar set by the Journalist's Creed [1] in 1914. To quote parts:

"I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of a lesser service than the public service is betrayal of this trust."

"I believe that suppression of the news, for any consideration other than the welfare of society, is indefensible."

"I believe that advertising, news and editorial columns should alike serve the best interests of readers; that a single standard of helpful truth and cleanness should prevail for all; that the supreme test of good journalism is the measure of its public service."

We have a number of news outlets just this week going back in time and quietly adjusting/censoring their own stories because they got some covid-19 "facts" wrong.

Truth embraces truth. Intelligence clings to intelligence.

We needed the scientific method last year. Many intellectuals were forced to hide in a figurative hole.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalist%27s_Creed

TBH I have my doubts about how effective "facts" are at actually changing peoples minds and influencing behavior (as opposed to just being something people share on Facebook to validate their preconceived notions)

If the fact givers go away then you're not giving them much of an option, right?

People are predictable. If you can manipulate facts then you can control output. Hence the societal importace of getting real fact-givers again.

The whole "we feel justified lying about the benefits of X and Y because it gets a desired result" only works if you can keep it a secret. Which they won't be able to regarding 2020.

Although I don't use or enjoy Facebook, I actually give them a bit of a pass here. Because the concept that the lab leak theory was debunked garbage was extremely well proclaimed, repeatedly, by a strong cabal of "independent" media conglomerates such as NYTimes, MSNBC, NPR, The Atlantic, etc. In 2020 the only people willing to give the theory any credence were people whom those media companies would describe as "right-wing lunatics." Despite doing none of their own investigating, or having any credible science to back up their version of the "truth," these media outlets successfully squashed the theory and made their readers/viewers dismiss anyone who might think it was true was either a Trump-lover, a racist, a conspiracy theorist, a science-denier, or a combination of the above.

So what news organization, that its wide, diverse audience would generally respect, could Facebook have turned to that would NOT fact-check lab-leak stories as being false?

I actually give them a bit of a pass here.

Let’s be honest here, they said it was fake for no other reason than Trump said it. There was literally no more thought that went into it than that. And they’ve stopped for the exact same reason, their preferred candidate said it so ergo it must be true.

You're entirely correct -- I am not denying Facebook the company has strong political leanings, or that it doesn't, shall we say, "influence" its fact checkers. But in this particular case, the lab-leak theory, traditional media was so aggressive in shutting it down and "confirming" its falsehood (despite not having any actual facts or evidence), that Facebook really had no choice.

traditional media was so aggressive in shutting it down and "confirming" its falsehood

Agreed, all of them did it for the same reason and mutually reinforced each other, an extraordinary example of groupthink.

Let's assume for a moment that is their strategy, consider things about Covid true if Biden says them, and false if Trump says them, and accept their joint decision if they happen to agree.

That would be basically 100% record of getting things right, so well done Facebook I guess the algorithm is working.

Can anyone name specific instances when Trump and Biden disagreed on a factual statement regarding Covid where this rule of thumb didn't pan out? I'm coming up pretty blank, but surely the law of averages suggests there must have been a handful?

What you say is correct, I don't think Facebook could have done differently.

The young progressive people who work at and own Facebook couldn't have seen it any other way.

This is exactly why censorship is dangerous and that's why name calling people who disagree with you is dangerous. This politicisation and polarisation is extremely dangerous to the scientific method.

The end result is that when I see a conspiracy theory, a news article or a "fact-check" I have no clue whether that's true or not. Reading the original source is the best you can do but it's more time consuming and it still has a chance to miss on other original sources which could paint a different picture.

In this specific instance, I can't make any excuses. I think just reading the sources would have been enough to think the lab leak stories could have been true. There were reports of researchers sick in Autumn 2019 and the epicentre just happened to be incredibly close to a research lab studying coronaviruses.

I am really disappointed with how Facebook may have helped the CCP avoid transparency and accountability. An entire year has gone by with posts about various origin hypotheses being censored or limited in some way. I’m not sure what the extent of Facebook’s actions were, but given the recent leaks from Project Veritas (https://www.projectveritas.com/news/breaking-facebook-whistl...), it seems the company regularly practices incredibly broad and purposeful manipulation of public opinion. Let’s call this practice what it is: propaganda.

Imagine what could have happened if people could more freely discuss theories like the lab leak hypothesis. Perhaps international pressure would have mounted and a more meaningful independent investigation could have been held quickly, by mid 2020. Now it is too late for a real investigation since any evidence could’ve been removed or just lost. Millions of people died. Thanks to Facebook and other tech platforms normalizing censorship, we may never get the truth here and all those who were harmed will be denied justice. Shame on Facebook.

Who's going to check the fact checkers?

Read in the same way as "who's going to watch the watchmen?"

Anyone can check the fact checkers, the same as the fact checkers didn't ask for permission from others to do fact checkers. Most people are too lazy to do simple fact checking, that's why fact checker exists. In fact, fact checkers would also check other fact checkers since there are multiple of them. All I can say is let's have everyone to be a fact checker.

But if you fact-check the fact-checkers theyll remove your post for being fake news because the fact-checkers said it is

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