Facebook Fights Fake News With Links To Other Angles (techcrunch.com) 157
Facebook is rolling out "Related Articles" that appear below news links to stories lots of people are posting about on Facebook, or that are suspected to be false news and have been externally fact checked by Facebook's partners. "Appearing before someone reads, Related Articles will surface links to additional reporting on the same topic to provide different view points, and to truthiness reports from the fact checkers," reports TechCrunch. From the report: If users see drastically different angles when they compare a story to its Related Articles, they might deem it suspicious and skip it, be less likely to believe or share it, or could click through the Related Articles and make up their own mind. That could reduce the spread and impact of false news without Facebook itself having to be the honesty police. Related Articles could also balance out some of the radical invective that can subtly polarize the populace. Pre-click Related Articles are rolling out in the U.S., Germany, France, and Nederlands today. These countries were chosen to get the roll out first because Facebook has established fact checking partnerships there. "We don't want to be and are not the arbiters of the truth. The fact checkers can give the signal of whether a story is true or false" says Facebook News Feed integrity product manager Tessa Lyons. Meanwhile, Facebook's machine learning algorithm has improved its accuracy and speed, so the social network will now have it send more potential hoaxes to fact checkers.
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Exactly right. Liberal Facebook's definition of "fake news" is anything that differs from the official liberal media position on some issue.
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That this describes everything alt-right is not Facebook's problem
It is OUR problem as a nation, for a nation of liars does not prosper
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It only requires that the alt-right be sanctioned with expulsion for their repeatedly false claims, something Facebook has every right to do.
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Are you drunk?
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" The evidence is very questionable. I want to see that birth certificate original"
now THAT was an asylum full of crazy, and you are running it.
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If you think the mainstream US media doesn't have an obvious left/liberal/Democrat bias, you have not been paying attention since the late 70s. Before that, from the mid 60s on, you can be excused for not seeing the anti-Vietnam War movement as merely a *part* of the leftist agenda.
Watergate was an incredibly useful scandal, for it gave the Left cover to dominate media and turn public opinion in their direction. The Republicans and Conservatives basically ran and hid until Reagan stepped up and energized t
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Looks like Zuckerberg has learned a lot from the Chinese and their 50 Cent Army.
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Fighting the facts with FB's narrative. (Score:4, Insightful)
Given that the fact-checkers are not exactly neutral themselves, I'd take an entire geologic basin's worth of NaCl before believing their "arbiters".
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Basically, I have a viewpoint and I only read, like, and share artricles that help me rationalize that.
What's sad is that I can't tell if this is biting satire or someone's actual approach to life.
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Clearly it's both, funny because it's true.
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The Facebook version of getting it right, the advertisers don't sue to keep their lies alive and they pay more for more lies 'er' marketing to be spread, like manure on the public conciousness. Fake news as far as corporations are concerned, news that does not generate a profit but does expose them to major losses even custodial sentences. In our modern society fake news, it does not matter whether it is true or lies, all that matters is the impact on the bottom line and that bottom line does not include pa
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You got it. Facebook could easily eliminate one of the worst sources of fake news - and one of the things that makes FB a miserable experience. 'Articles' with headlines like "you've got to hear what so-and-so said", and then link you to a 'news' site with 1 paragraph of useless stuff - or a screenshot of a twitter post, followed by a littany of the worst ads for fake cures, etc. I suppose FB makes a lot of money off of that crap, but they should at least label it as advertising and not treat it as if it
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Given that the fact-checkers are not exactly neutral themselves...
Said everyone who ever tried to rationalize not vaccinating kids.
Yes. It is possible to level criticisms against almost anything. That's both the foundation of legitimate academic debate and a part of how almost every misinformation campaign in the world works.
It's still better to try to provide some moderating influence on blatantly untrue stories than it is to avoid any responsibility for people who use your platform to spread lies, hoaxes, and untruths. Because those things actually cause harm. In the ca
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"blatantly untrue"
And there you have it. This becomes opinion. We have lost sight of what is fact and what is merely opinion, so that we argue about opinions, and the facts are intentionally obscured to make opinion viable.
Re: Fighting the facts with FB's narrative. (Score:1)
Fake news isn't that much of an issue, it's all the people posting links to fake news. There's still no option to report a post for containing bullshit news or abusive clickbait ad sites.
Re:Fighting the facts with FB's narrative. (Score:4, Insightful)
Give me a neutral source.
On anything.
Seriously, set a baseline for "neutral" and show us what you mean. Someone completely free of any bias.
If you can't find any, then maybe we should admit that it's not inherently bad when news has bias. We should stop looking for that unicorn and instead admit that it's a degree of bias, not the existence of bias, that matters. CNN's bias and Fox news' bias are not equally bad just because they both exist.
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Who is exactly neutral?
Give me a neutral source.
On anything.
Seriously, set a baseline for "neutral" and show us what you mean. Someone completely free of any bias.
If you can't find any, then maybe we should admit that it's not inherently bad when news has bias. We should stop looking for that unicorn and instead admit that it's a degree of bias, not the existence of bias, that matters. CNN's bias and Fox news' bias are not equally bad just because they both exist.
I think the only way for a baseline neutral is opposing views. I don't think CNN's or Fox's bias are bad. I think they are both equally biased in opposite directions. By regularly paying attention to both of them, you can get a fairly neutral view. The founding fathers originally tried a more neutral system with the person with the most votes becoming president and the person with the second most votes becoming vice president. It's too bad that this didn't last. The problem then which is even worse to
Re:Fighting the facts with FB's narrative. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the only way for a baseline neutral is opposing views. I don't think CNN's or Fox's bias are bad. I think they are both equally biased in opposite directions. By regularly paying attention to both of them, you can get a fairly neutral view.
Sounds fine in principle, but this is exactly how we ended up with "teach the controversy" the "global warming debate" and the "vaccination scare".
Opposing views do not always have the same weight or basis in fact. Presenting them as if they do does not make the presentation baseline neutral, it biases it towards the lunatic fringe.
Politicisation of science is just about the worst thing that could have happened both for politics and for science!
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This was exactly my reaction to this post.
And it isn't simply political hot-button science issues such as evolution or global warming.... the same is true for "balanced coverage" of things like alternative medicine. There is no way to be "balanced and neutral" when covering things like homeopathy or reiki. You can be neutral (just the facts, ma'm), or you can be balanced, but you can't be both. Because any "balance" will be false.
Unfortunately, this is often the status quo for these topics. The writers
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I think the only way for a baseline neutral is opposing views. I don't think CNN's or Fox's bias are bad. I think they are both equally biased in opposite directions. By regularly paying attention to both of them, you can get a fairly neutral view.
Sounds fine in principle, but this is exactly how we ended up with "teach the controversy" the "global warming debate" and the "vaccination scare".
Opposing views do not always have the same weight or basis in fact. Presenting them as if they do does not make the presentation baseline neutral, it biases it towards the lunatic fringe.
This, refusing to accept some uneducated idiots opinion as legitimate opposition to fact is not bias.
The saddest part of modern society is that people think that their ignorance is worth as much as scientific knowledge.
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"I think the only way for a baseline neutral is opposing views."
The difference between the median, the mean, and the average.
Opposing views do not constitute 'neutral' anything. They are merely extremes.
Substitute 'true' for 'neutral' and see if it makes sense to you then.
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I think the only way for a baseline neutral is opposing views. I don't think CNN's or Fox's bias are bad.
I do. I'm not familiar with CNN as I stopped going to them for new a long time ago and pretty much only go there when testing browsers because it's easy to type. FOX News, however, I am forced to watch when at my parent's house. They are horrible for lying through omission and seriously trying to generate false drama through their "two sides of the issue". They will bring up outrageous sounding issues and exclaim 'how can this go on?!?!' while giving crappy defenses of same issues. Usually the smell test do
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I don't think CNN's or Fox's bias are bad. I think they are both equally biased in opposite directions.
Bullshit False Equivalency. CNN and Fox are not equally biased. Fox, along with right wing radio that started in the 90s, has been extremely biased and fake-newsy for a lonnnnnng time.
Your assertions are ridiculous.
I'm a libertarian leaning independent. I know dozens of people who voted for Bernie in the primaries and Trump in the general. I also have tons of friends on both the far right and the far left. The right thinks that CNN is just as bad as the left thinks Fox is and vice/versa. Most of the independents like myself tend to see them as equally biased in opposite directions. If your on the left, you have a hard time believing this but people on the right think that CNN is a joke and is also full of fake ne
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Who is exactly neutral?
Give me a neutral source.
On anything.
Regarding political standpoint?
The laws of physics.
Now, getting humans to report on the laws of physics without bias? There you might have a breakdown.
Re:Fighting the facts with FB's narrative. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, third parties have reviewed the fact checkers, and overall found that their bias is minimal. What's more, decent fact-checking organizations document supporting evidence directly in their reports - so you can see things for yourselves.
This kind of insistent denial of honest journalism is exactly why fake news is the problem it is. You should set a reasonable and equivalent standard for all information sources - are you as skeptical of conservative publications as your are of these supposedly biased fact-checkers? Don't just give a free pass to people that agree with you - lies that confirm your preconceived notions are the easiest ones to believe.
Re:Fighting the facts with FB's narrative. (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, third parties have reviewed the fact checkers, and overall found that their bias is minimal
If you're talking about the Poynter Institute or the International Fact-Checking Network, no such luck. They're effectively self-audited (by a friendly organization), and receive funding from an organization invested in opposing Trump.
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You are basically coming from the "my lies are as valid as your facts" camp, and your signature confirms that.
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You are basically coming from the "my lies are as valid as your facts" camp, and your signature confirms that.
This,
I should also point out that his signature makes absolutely no logical sense. He needs a better thought terminating cliche.
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How do you know that the Poynter Institute and International Fact-Checking Network are self-audited, bro? And funded by an organization invested in opposing Trump? Please tell me about the infallible news source that delivered this pristine information to your door. Who has fact-checked this doozie?
Your Trumpist echo chamber relies on a bankrupt and totally unworkable worldview. We have to trust some information sources, as a matter of practicality - no individual person has the time or resources to verify
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The fake news paddlers have created an entire network of fake news sites that they can point to as "alternative sources" to provide "balance".
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Actually, third parties have reviewed the fact checkers, and overall found that their bias is minimal. What's more, decent fact-checking organizations document supporting evidence directly in their reports - so you can see things for yourselves.
The problem the parent poster has is that the minimal bias of the fact checkers does not match his own bias.
He's worried his echo chamber is going to be violated by something he doesn't want to hear.
Facebook's problem is two fold.
1. They want to be taken seriously.
2. They've built their success on making echo chambers.
Facebook, whether we like it or not has become a source for news, much the same as any other aggregator of news. They don't produce it, but they distribute it. In order to be taken
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Honestly, I think their suggested approach is a pretty fair one, and actually useful to boot - I wouldn't mind seeing at a glance how different news organizations slant each headline. The only people who are going to object are those like the OP, who, as you point out, don't want to be confronted with alternative perspectives that might threaten their personal ideologies.
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Trust no one, truth doesn't exist then.
That's a bankrupt and totally unworkable worldview. We have to trust some information sources, as a matter of practicality - no individual person has the time or resources to verify every scientific experiment or news story or health recommendation. So what you should do is develop heuristics that will rapidly give you a good estimate for the credibility of a source. Does it agree with other sources? Does it agree with the fact-checkers? Is there a paper trail? Is it b
Display the EARNED public reputation of the linker (Score:2)
Facebook should have a system to accumulate and display the public reputation of the person offering the link. This should be based on how other people react to their comments and prior links. The solution would allow you to pre-filter worthless sources so you don't have to waste time seeing the garbage.
Just look how well the moderation works on Slashdot! On second thought. Forget the whole thing.
Actually, I think that Slashdot and even Slashdot or Google+ could be fixed. Sort of the way Nomad thought it co
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"This should be based on how other people react to their comments and prior links."
So make it a popularity contest.
This works for selecting the Prom Queen. Not for real life politics. Please.
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Not a polite request for details.^1
Re: Display the EARNED public reputation of the li (Score:2)
It was not a request for details, but was a comment.
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If you have a better idea, great. If you have nothing to say, then say nothing.
Not a polite request for details.^3
Re: Display the EARNED public reputation of the l (Score:2)
Ah. So slashdot has gone from a commentary site to an advisory site.
When did this happen? Oh, wait. It didn't.
Really.
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Z^4
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-1 Overrated
Get it? :D
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Not a polite request for details.^2
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Very few people can truly be neutral about the truth. I find myself sitting and waiting to see if our President will be deposed by the outright coup in operation, of if he can wield the power of the Executive sufficiently to defeat those who wish to turn him out merely to enforce their policies.
If indeed they can muster enough charges to oust him, what can we expect for the future? More.
For all my Libertarian/Anarchist friends out there, you kept challenging me to imagine what a Libertarian Presidency would
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Acute (Score:2)
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You do know fox is being sued over that right? or are you being sarcastic
http://www.npr.org/2017/08/01/540783715/lawsuit-alleges-fox-news-and-trump-supporter-created-fake-news-story
We'll see how that lawsuit plays out..
Re: How about fact-checking Seth Rich's murder (Score:2)
Because the kangaroo court system has NEVER rendered blatantly unjust verdicts before...
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Prior to publishing the trio of Clinton-related fabrications, the same site and blogger held that President Obama had ordered the military to nuke the city of Charleston (which didn’t happen)
I'm not sure if this is funny or a sad sign of the time we live in.
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It should be noted that the Snopes article's conclusion that Seth Rich was not assassinated is based solely on the argument that Seth Rich was conscious when found by police and didn't tell them he was the victim of a political assassination. Even if Rich knew his attacker, and knew the motives for the shooting, both of which are unlikely, Snope's conclusion is based on the assumption that the victim of a fatal gunshot wound would not be in shock and instead would be in a position to evaluate the chain of c
Re: How about fact-checking Seth Rich's murder (Score:1)
Bingo. Snopes used to be a great place to check up on rumors and urban legends, but once anything political ends up in the mix their entries turn to trash.
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It's wasn't the Russians. It was Seth Rich who leaked DNC's info to Assange.
Actually it was Vincent Foster, who faked his own death and is now working against the Clinton Machine in secret.
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He's a confirmed lizard person too, interestingly enough
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It's wasn't the Russians. It was Seth Rich who leaked DNC's info to Assange.
Why is this marked as "Troll?"
Assange stated that the DNC emails were not leaked to Wikileaks by "The Russians."
Assange did comment on Seth Rich's murder while coyly mentioning the dangers that "leakers" are under.
It's quite understandable that someone could easily interpret Assange's statements on the matter to imply that Seth Rich was murdered as punishment for leaking DNC emails to Wikileaks.
Who fact checks the fact checkers? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact checkers can give the signal of whether a story is true or false"
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? [wikipedia.org]
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SJW who don't want authors, art, reviews and ideas to spread.
Any nations Communist party.
A religion that does not want any cartoons showing its teachings.
Movie makers and actors that don't like negative reviews.
NGO's and faith groups that have political policy to sell.
Big pharma and states pushing ag-gag. No video clips showing food production. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Clandestine services who don't want the public to read the next Pentagon Papers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Gove
Might Just Work (Score:1)
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The fair-and-balanced argument is broken, though. People give equal time and portray equal validity to the speaker claiming vaccines are safe and the speaker claiming vaccines cause autism.
Other angles: Right, Acute (Score:2)
'Cause Fake News is obtuse.
Re:Other angles: Right, Acute (Score:5, Funny)
If they are going to link to Other Angles, common sense and fairness would dictate that they also include links to at least a few Saxons.
memes? (Score:5, Insightful)
Others have already mentioned that Facebook could (and probably will to a certain extent) use this device to push their own agenda, but leave that for now. The interesting thing to me is that downright hoaxes are still ignored, which seems to argue in favor of the "push their own agenda" argument.
As just one example, a repeat offender is the "Don't use 911!!!" hoax that tells the (demonstrably false) story about how an innocent young lady was saved from a horrible fate by remembering how her parents told her to dial 112 instead of 911 from her car when someone was following her. All went well and the perp was arrested and the girl escaped unharmed all because she did what her parents told her and dialed 112.
This is in the US, where 112 may work in some metropolitan areas as a courtesy to visitors from Europe, but isn't an official emergency number. It may happen to get you to emergency services in New York or Miami, but won't get you anywhere in Perrysburg, Ohio. The article is a dangerous hoax, but it keeps getting propagated, because people want to believe that they are privy to some bit of important knowledge that nobody else knows.
The point being, if Facebook was so concerned about their site being used to propagate false news, where the hell are the "alternate articles" calling this a hoax? If you google "call 112 instead of 911" the first 20 or so hits are articles pleading with you to not fall for this.
I mean WTF, Facebook? Is debunking some story about Ivanka's charities more important than calling the wrong emergency services number in an emergency?
Re:memes? (Score:4, Informative)
Emergency numbers are actually recognised by the phone itself, and it initiates a different call establishment sequence for emergency calls. This allows the network to give emergency calls priority, and allow emergency calls without a SIM card, etc. All GSM-compliant phones (anything with WCDMA 3G or LTE) will recognise 112 as well as any additional emergency numbers programmed in the firmware or the SIM card. Phones sold in the US will recognise at least 112 and 911, phones sold in Australia recognise 112, 000 and usually 911 as well, phones sold in Hong Kong and UK recognise 112 and 999 and possibly other emergency numbers.
So while the story is wrong, you're wrong too. Unless you're using a Sprint-style CDMA phone, 112 will always work as an emergency number, and the other numbers that work depend on your phone and SIM card. If it's a US phone and/or SIM card, 911 will definitely work, but if you're using a phone and SIM card from overseas, that may not be the case. It has nothing to do with a courtesy to European visitors in cities.
The story probably got started early in US GSM rollout before the carriers thought to program 911 as an alternate emergency number in phones and SIM cards. If the phone/SIM card don't recognise 911 as an emergency number, it will be established as a normal call, and routed by the network. It will still go to the same destination US but it won't get priority the way an emergency call establishment sequence will. The same was true in Australia before 2000 - most phones/SIM cards didn't recognise 000 as an emergency number.
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Is this verified at the tower, or is the phone essentially an arbiter such that a custom SIM can let you make free calls?
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The emergency call establishment doesn't have a number in in. You dial 112, 911 or whatever and the phone just says "get me emergency". It can't specify any more than that. The network decides how to route the emergency call. So yes, you can make a custom SIM that allows you to dial an arbitrary number for free, as long as you're happy for that number to just connect to emergency services rather than being routed as it usually would be.
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Good.
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The point being, if Facebook was so concerned about their site being used to propagate false news, where the hell are the "alternate articles" calling this a hoax? If you google "call 112 instead of 911" the first 20 or so hits are articles pleading with you to not fall for this.
I mean WTF, Facebook? Is debunking some story about Ivanka's charities more important than calling the wrong emergency services number in an emergency?
Yes, it is more important to Facebook ... which is why I don't trust them on this.
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but it keeps getting propagated, because people want to believe that they are privy to some bit of important knowledge that nobody else knows.
Dude, I've been saying for years that this is the reason behind almost every stupid conspiracy theory ever.
It's good to see that others might feel the same way.
I agree. But it's more than just conspiracy theories. Every article of the type "My teeth were falling out until I found this amazing trick! Dentists don't want you to know this! Don't use toothpaste to brush your teeth! Make this recipe at home for healthy teeth! Watch your cavities disappear overnight!" Where the formula is one part Windex to two parts possum fat. Most of them are relatively harmless (although possum fat tastes terrible) but they all have one thing in common: (a) they are general
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Yes, you need new friends. Also, I think my IQ went up significantly when I ditched facebook years ago. It's a firehose of stupid, even if you have decent friends. Unless you somehow have the same sense of humor and interests as your friends and family, you get a lot of stupid crap to wade through that they think is hilarious or fascinating. I'm much happier spending that time and brainpower curating my RSS feeds. While I don't get anywhere near the variety of content, any site that queues up stupid for me
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I think "a firehose of stupid" is my new favorite phrase. I'd like to borrow that.
True story: A friend of mine had been trash talking Facebook practically since it came out, with (admittedly legitimate) criticisms "how much thought does it take to click like? Or forward a meme?" and "people haven't even met most of their 'friends', and everyone is pretending to be something they're not" and other things. My counter is that if you're doing all that, you're using Facebook wrong. I use my account as a blo
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I get what you're saying, but like your friend, most people can't resist the lure of the clicky firehose. I definitely had some decent family members who posted insightful, interesting things. A friend who is an astronomer posting amazing pictures and research findings. But the sheer amount of effort to curate the good stuff and aim the firehose elsewhere was exhausting. Combined with facebook's love of changing the interface and underlying functionality regularly and randomly, I just found that the effort
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Nah! I'd rather put my vagina hat back on and go around whining that I only get paid 70% of what men do.
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Nah! I'd rather put my vagina hat back on and go around whining that I only get paid 70% of what men do.
I tried that, but people kept asking about the beard.
Just stop.... (Score:1)
Stop with the related articles bullshit, ban the cunts posting the fake shit, and move on already...
Facebook does real news (Score:2)
Just my 2 cents
Yes I have my flame suit on lol
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A vast portion of people aged 30-60, unfortunately. That's why this is a problem.
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Nederland (Score:2)
Pre-click Related Articles are rolling out in the U.S., Germany, France, and Nederlands (sic) today.
The Nederland? Come on, don't you have a spell checker?
Truthiness reports??? (Score:2)
Test ;-) (Score:1)
I typed in "What is the diameter of Earth?" and got this. [alaska.net]
Infowars will hate this (Score:2)
China Is Perfecting a New Method For Suppressing.. (Score:1)
"Fact Checkers" (Score:1)
Trustworthiness (Score:2)
This is the same corporation who was (and likely still is) running secret social experiments on the people using their network, correct?
I'm certain we can trust them to not use this as another experiment...
I'm confused. Surely this is good? (Score:2)
I don't understand why so many people seem to feel this is a bad thing.
"There are other opinions available - here they are" seems an exceedingly mature response, especially if it includes less subjective viewpoints.
Even the 'equal weight to anti-vaxxers' argument can be negated somewhat if the preponderance of evidence (as expressed through related articles) offers a counterpoint.
This approach actually lets Facebook avoid having to determine what is, or isn't, fake news. Thing posted has controversy around