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Facebook Communications Social Networks The Internet United Kingdom News Technology

Facebook Chooses To Demote Fake News Instead of Remove It (bbc.co.uk) 154

Facebook says it will not remove fake news from its platform because it does not violate its community standards. According to the BBC, Facebook said publishers often had "very different points of view" and removing fabricated posts would be "contrary to the basic principles of free speech." Instead, it is choosing to demote posts in the news feed that it deems to be fake news. From the report: Facebook has been scrutinized for its role in spreading fake news after evidence emerged that Russia tried to influence U.S. voters using the social network. On Wednesday, the company held an event in New York where it sought to convince journalists it was tackling the problem. The company said it would not remove fake news that did not break its rules but would down-rank content that had been marked as false. "We allow people to post it as a form of expression, but we're not going to show it at the top of News Feed," a spokeswoman told CNN.
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Facebook Chooses To Demote Fake News Instead of Remove It

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  • by Anonymous Coward

    When did someone saying something they know to be a lie become protected free speech?

    I can see if someone is wrong, but thinks they are right...but to knowingly lie should not be protected!

    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 13, 2018 @09:11PM (#56944850)

      but to knowingly lie should not be protected!

      Protecting the right of others to speak when you disagree with them, or even lie to you, is the true test of whether you believe in free speech, or just speech you happen to like or agree with.

    • Libel is already a crime. Fraud, libel and defamation are already illegal. The issue is twofold:

      Jurisdiction. You can bring someone to court for fraud/libel/defamation already, but what if the defense is American and the prosecution lived in Russia? Or any other myriad of country combinations one can think of.

      Spin and effect. You can write a lot of things about someone and even though it's technically true or even proven to be a lie, someone will spin it to avoid the aforementioned crimes. Let's open

    • FB needs to not start deleting, because once they start it's like the proverbial kitten who starts swallowing a long string. When the deleting gets started, now ALL the fake news has to be deleted. That means a big chunk of MSNBC, CNN, The Huffington Post, etc. gets whisked off to nowhere. Would any references to Rachel Maddog even remain after the broom started sweeping?

      No, Facebook just needs to step back and let the cesspit reek, and the left and right monkeys sling their 'facts' at one another.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      When did someone saying something they know to be a lie become protected free speech?

      That's not what "fake news" is, though, at least in the eyes of corporations like Facebook, Google, Twitter, etc.

      "Fake news" is whatever the left would prefer people don't report, regardless of accuracy. On the other hand anything mainstream sources like CNN write is automatically not "fake news" regardless of whether it's the most transparent opinion piece or outright proven incorrect.

      • Fake news is alleged news that has intentionally been fabricated in order to spread disinformation. That's how it's defined and that's exactly what it means to companies like Facebooj, Google, and Twitter, despite some ardent attempts of a small minority of people who like to spread fake news to change the narrative and give the term some useless meaning.

        You're obviously one of the latter, since otherwise you would at least acknowledge that the useless definition you mention was actually invented by Trump

  • by Prien715 ( 251944 ) <agnosticpope@@@gmail...com> on Friday July 13, 2018 @08:59PM (#56944804) Journal

    The entire point of Facebook is engagement. A bunch of people discussing whether the earth is round or not or whether vaccines cause autism really helps keep users checking Facebook as often as possible. Each button is carefully calibrated to express a reptilian emotion whose purpose is impossible to determine. Are you angered by the person's inflammatory rhetoric in a post, or is someone posting about something that makes you outraged? Who knows! Who cares! You're engaged!
    Facebook is like a shitty version of family/friend therapy where your everyone hates each other more but the therapist is happy because she got to show you some Viagra ads.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        Let them Facebook, foolishly, publicly, claim authority on validity of news, what is true and what is false and claim this at a professional level, as a part of it's marketing strategy and to bring in customers of what ever description. Screw that up and you become subject to multiple class action suits across the globe for fraudulent misrepresentation of the truth as in accurate truthful news. Publicly claim yourself as the authority on the accuracy of the news and do so for profit and then you are fully l

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by AHuxley ( 892839 )
      Who wants to read a movie review approved by the actor and studio?
      Comments on a religion approved by a cult, faith?
      News about a nation approved by their junta, monarchy, theocracy?
      News from nations state-run media?
  • by Puls4r ( 724907 ) on Friday July 13, 2018 @09:01PM (#56944818)
    That's really all they can do. Let's face facts - people who get their actual news from Facebook are idiots. People who can't be bothered to fact check or even do the slightest amount of verification are idiots. And the vast vast majority of internet users are.... idiots. They'll grab the first thing they see that they agree with and use it as their evidence to support to their argument. Whether it's from politifact, snopes, or stormfront.

    Facebook is an online chat. That's it. People who use it to gather factual data... there's not much we can do about it. *shrug*.
    • Facebook is *not* the New York Times. People that get their news from Facebook will go around saying "Everybody says that....." or "Nobody really thinks...." so when somebody says that just say "Face News"!

      • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Actually, there isn't much difference between them these days, other than style and syntax.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      It's more subtle than that. They might be skeptical, but the fake stories prime them to think about facts in a certain way. The language, the framing of current events.

  • Streisand effect (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Noishkel ( 3464121 ) on Friday July 13, 2018 @09:16PM (#56944866)

    The absolute failure of the MSM and various governments to control the narrative of any one issue has already proven the futility of trying to censor dissenting opinions and narratives. The more you try to shape opinion by forcing the more people will chose to find other sources of information. And sadly if often drives people into falling into the trap of buying into narratives that may or may not be accurate at all. See just about any news story from Buzzfeed.

    And that's before we actually get into talking about when the media actively and provably lies to the public. I'm looking at you CNN. 'It's illegal to read Wikileaks' my ass...

    • by unimacs ( 597299 )

      ...

      And that's before we actually get into talking about when the media actively and provably lies to the public. I'm looking at you CNN. 'It's illegal to read Wikileaks' my ass...

      Are you referring to what Chris Cuomo said about the Clinton emails? Because that's not what he said. What he said was "It's illegal to possess these uh, stolen documents".

      Now, you can argue about whether or not he was deliberately trying to discourage people from reading them on their own because CNN wanted to protect Clinton. And I'm sure depending on your political persuasion, you might be inclined to believe that. But your quote is not a quote at all and a distortion of what he actually said.

      Was

    • The absolute failure of the MSM and various governments to control the narrative of any one issue has already proven the futility of trying to censor dissenting opinions and narratives. The more you try to shape opinion by forcing the more people will chose to find other sources of information

      This is a very good thing.

      And sadly if often drives people into falling into the trap of buying into narratives that may or may not be accurate at all. See just about any news story from Buzzfeed.

      This is a bad thing.

    • The absolute failure of the MSM and various governments to control the narrative of any one issue has already proven the futility of trying to censor dissenting opinions and narratives.

      That's because the mainstream media don't even have a coherent "narrative". The most mainstream of mainstream media, i.e. Fox news (it's the #1 TV news channel) is completely at odds with the second most mainstream of mainstream media, CNN.

      See just about any news story from Buzzfeed.

      Oddly enough, buzzfeed appears to be using

      • That's because the mainstream media don't even have a coherent "narrative". The most mainstream of mainstream media, i.e. Fox news (it's the #1 TV news channel) is completely at odds with the second most mainstream of mainstream media, CNN.

        This is a good thing, isn't it?

        If they start agreeing on anything on anything other than the weather it's time to get seriously worried.

        • They always agree in more war.
        • This is a good thing, isn't it?

          Sure, but it still means most of the claims about the "MSM" are utter bullshit because I'd say about 99% of people saying such things are ignoring the huge chunk of the mainstream media they happen to agree with.

    • The absolute failure of the MSM and various governments to control the narrative of any one issue has already proven the futility of trying to censor dissenting opinions and narratives.

      Call me crazy or whatever, since I am... but... How about this: MSM gives us facts and each individual controls their own narrative?

      Control is an illusion. Influence is as close to control as you can get. If the MSM is trying to influence me, I immediately reject the attempt, which is why I have not watched television since the early 1980s. Every time I have gone back to that cesspool, I grow disgusted at how stupid they are and how stupid they think we must be. You can't get any useful information from the

  • by Anonymous Coward

    CNN is last in the ratings so they have demoted themselves.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by Gravis Zero ( 934156 ) on Friday July 13, 2018 @09:21PM (#56944890)

    If you aren't removing things that aren't news from the "news feed" then it's not actually a news feed, it's just stories with a chance of truth.

  • ...and post them all over FaceBook now that they're "free speech"

  • by Orgasmatron ( 8103 ) on Friday July 13, 2018 @10:07PM (#56945114)

    Wasn't there a report recently that said that the fake news was less fake than the nominally real news?

    • Wasn't there a report recently that said that the fake news was less fake than the nominally real news?

      True. Alex Jones will verify this.

  • The notion hat a sort of glorified blog platform gets to decide what is real news or not is ... just weird. That's all.
  • If fake news is not against the rules, then the rules are flawed. There's no way the deliberate spreading of misinformation should be a permitted activity.

    • Have you ever actually read the Bill of Rights?
      • What does the addendum to the Constitution, the document that both enumerates and limits the powers of the federal government, have to do with Facebook, a non-government company?
    • by jrumney ( 197329 )
      It's permitted because it makes money for Facebook. Would you expect any other criteria to play a part?
  • This is Facebook's equivalent of those T-Shirts that read "I'm not Gay, but 20 Bucks is 20 Bucks!"
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • "The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back...." - Barack Obama sneering at Mitt Romney, October 22, 2012, Third Presidential Debate https://www.npr.org/2012/10/22... [npr.org]

  • ... super duper happy again, now they can lie trump into second term.

  • Sure, FB removed part of the Declaration of Independence. But it put it back later.

    But they'd never do that with news, deliberately or accidentally or algorithmically. Right?

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