Facebook is keeping up with the fakestream media hype to tackle the "growing problem" of false information. This can also be a way for Fakebook and a mainstream indoctrinated public to battle counter-information from alternative information sources.
Facebook is developing measures to fight "fake" stories in people's news feeds. Users will soon be able to flag a story they believe is a hoax, which is then sent to 3rd party "fact" checking organizations for review. If the groups determine "concern" for the information's validity, then a message appears underneath your news feed post when you view it:
What this will do is make "falser" stories become less and less visible.
Imagine there is a report about vaccine's being harmful. Well, if enough people don't like it, they flag it, the 3rd part organization blacklists it for everyone else who tries to share it, being shown a message about how "fake" this might be.
Then more people agree it's fake, more people flag it. Each time it gets flagged, it dropped from visibility from other people's feeds, going lower and lower.
So if there is something I want to know about, something popular to judge myself, well I can't. Fakebook has decided to drive down popularity and essentially create fakenews for anything just by warning someone it's fake. All it takes is a warning. People will take that as authentic authorized fakery.
Do many people go to a site after google warns that it might be dangerous? Not most. This will have the same effect. People will believe the "fakenews" flag, before they will bother to judge for themselves.
Also, these "fakenews" flags will prevent those posts that are flagged, from being promoted through advertising. Sharing is still possible, but with that warning that most people will take seriously, since they buy into the whole "fakenews" hype. Facebook already limits what gets more attention, now promoting family and friends posts to the top of people's news feeds. Posts people read but don't share, are also ranked lower on a feed.
The NY TImes even admits why the whole hype about "fakenews" and "post-truth" is even a thing right now, and that's because of Donald Trump winning:
"The company has been under that spotlight since Nov. 8, when Donald J. Trump was elected the 45th president."
If Trump didn't win, apparently Facebook wouldn't be under any spotlight... Zuckerberg at first said it a "pretty crazy idea", but Facebook has since developed internal divisions pushing Zuckerberg to address the issue.
The fakestream media is commenting about how dire these important changes to Facebook are:
“But the fake cat is already out of the imaginary bag,” Ms. Bell added. “If they didn’t try and do something about it, next time around it could have far worse consequences.
OMG! Next time... it could be far worse! LOL.
And who are the 3rd party "fact checkers"? Snopes, PolitiFact, The Associated Press, FactCheck.org and ABC News.
I feel safer already, don't you?
Concerns for Facebook are now about how this flagging will affect their revenue from advertising, since flagging popular content will reduce engagement from that content. Facebook executives say they recognize that they have to override their focus on engagement. Zuckerberg has said similarly:
"I think of Facebook as a technology company, but I recognize we have a greater responsibility than just building technology that information flows through... We have a responsibility to make sure Facebook has the greatest positive impact on the world."
Facebook itself, along with the mainstream media, are not the only ones who lay responsibility at Facebook's feet. Others agree, but also recognize the problem with this system: “They will get so many things false-flagged as fake news by people with an axe to grind, so it’s going to make it more challenging to moderate... But it’s a step in the right direction", said Daniel Sieradski, an activist and journalist who developed a plugin called BS Detector to flag questionable news sources. There are issues with this system but people still want it. What about helping people discern knowledge themselves? Nah... we wouldn't want people to think better...
The mainstream "fakenews" induced worry is not going away any time soon. They are desperately trying to quash any independent information and thinking outside of the establishment. After all, Facebook is a bastion of truth right?
"It’s important to us that the stories you see on Facebook are authentic and meaningful." - Facebook Press Release
All of the "truther" and alternative information being put out on Facebook is going to take a serious hit when this rolls out. Facebook, through it's mainstream establishment-accepting userbase, will decide what is "authentic" and "meaningful" information for you to see more or less of on your feed.
On Steemit, ideas about flagging councils have been around for a while. Facebook is going ahead with a similar model through 3rd party outsourcing of flagged content, but also focused specifically on "fakenews".
Some users on Steemit have raised concerns about flagging abuses. A council of users would be one method to address such abuses and possibly correct damage that was undeserved by malicious intent from people abusing the flagging feature.
Is a similar model worth implementing here? Are people against an organization for flagging review?
References:
- Facebook now flags and down-ranks fake news with help from outside fact checkers
- Facebook to begin flagging fake news in response to mounting criticism
- Facebook Mounts Effort to Limit Tide of Fake News
Thank you for your time and attention! I appreciate the knowledge reaching more people. Take care. Peace.
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@krnel
2016-12-17, 8:18am
The problem is not that the news is fake...it always has been.
The problem is money.
The problem is that there is now competition faking the news.
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I watched a good video about that on Y-Tube today. How the MSM is trying to outdo each other creating a whirlwind of bullcrap!
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doesn't facebook own u-toob?
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Google owns youtube
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Not sure...I heard they were both run by the NSA
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Yep, they make big bucks creating these fake news stories, because people swallow it hook, line, and sinker.
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Not only money. We are witnessing an attempt of corporative media to grab monopoly over informative brainwashing at the largest social network. I have sent yesterday first news of it — Ministry of Truth — in hope it will never happen to Steemit, but in fact, Steemit has flag option from the start. Still I hope in future censorship will be a criteria for a massive rejection of the platform.
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steemit is to an extent the same. the people with the most money can flag you into obscurity if they don't agree with you, regardless of facts.
up with the Classical Trivium! grammar, logic, and rhetoric.
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how did Snopes, PolitiFact, The Associated Press, FactCheck.org and ABC News, get to be the authority on truth? how can the community go about flagging these obvious and repeated purveyors of fake news? would it even be possible to build a grammar, logic, and rhetoric bot that would rely on facts, rather than appeal to authority?
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Not sure about any of that lol
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Sounds like a great time to market and promote SteemIt to those internet users looking for an alternative.
Steem on,
Mike
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Wow! I'm so glad I'm building my connections and friends and news in an auditable open source distributed social media database! Something I can count on for years to come.
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I enjoyed your article. I am brand new to steemit and checked it out as an alternative to Facebook because of the very issue you are noting above. And I shared your post to face book as well. Not quite sure how all this works yet, but I definitely need and want an alternative where freedom of speech and thought is still permitted, for however long it lasts before Orwell's vision of the Ministry of Truth becomes a dismal reality for the whole world.
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Welcome aboard! Thank you for the support and feedback.
You can signup for https://steemit.chat
And join channels like:
https://steemit.chat/channel/steemprentice
For some starter help.
Also here is a facebook group to help:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1102272693226374/
And here is a site:
https://www.steemithelp.net/
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Something Steemit already has.
However, I see this feature being abused worse on Facebok than the flagging system here.
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Plain and simple, they are justifying another level of censorship. Before long there will be absolutely no point to facebook.
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snopes of all services haha, why not beforeit'snews or 3rdphaseofthemoon?
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LOL
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RS and UV for you.
I think all these anti Liberty companies who are paid off really should just admit they are lobbyists sucking at the teat of #BigGov and register as such.
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... and posted to Facebook, of course.
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Yes, I smeared it all over some groups LOL
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This whole flagging of fake news is a real buzz kill to my fun! How am I supposed to confuse the mortals if people keep stopping my posts!!
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I wonder if this knife cuts both ways??? Fakebook's news feed is typically so full of bullpucky it makes me gag to look at it. Wonder if I can report it as fake news...I'll tell ya in a bit!
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It worked...There was a story about Podesta's email problems due to a typo rather than what it actually was, so I flagged it as fake news...Watch me get suspended again!
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In my opinion, this will cause many FB users to leave, I hate these new changes. Thanks for sharing your post, followed and upvoted!
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I'm so glad I'm not on Farcebook anymore... it's been in freefall for years and things just keep getting worse.
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Just goes to show we made the correct switch before the masses figure it out, position is key.
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I suspect this will force many people off Facebook, you can bet this is going to be abused way worse than the flagging system here. On the bright side, the anti-capitalist SJWs are going to lose a hell of a lot of influence by digging their own graves like this.
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Indeed. Thanks for the feedback.
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I believe the average facebook user won't care, as they aren't following real news in the first place.
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Good observation and sadly, probably true.
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Whats going to happen to posts here and shared to facebook? It is advising its' users to not click steemit or something.
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It's possible that could happen. At least drive us down even without flags.
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Yes it can..they are even doing it some accts.
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Firstly, great article, really enjoyed the way you put it together. I would agree broadly with you, Facebook are against subversives in general, but only as far as it makes business sense to do.
I've got to say though, contrary to what some other folks here think, it's not that strange that Snopes, PolitiFact, The Associated Press, FactCheck.org and ABC News are the fact checkers. Basically you can think of this as an enlargement of their editorial purview to include Facebook. It's a pretty big contract for them all to get and is exactly what their businesses already do for their writers. Not weird at all, it's as mainstream as it gets.
Now, you may disagree with these companies having this elevated position as Facebook fact checker, especially if you don't like the kind of news these media companies produce. But they will not be providing a badge of truth per se, it is a badge of journalistic standards, one which they are certainly in a position to give. If you challenge that, you're throwing the baby and the rest of the children out with the bathwater. Which is fine, but that's what is it, and most people don't want to do that. So I see this as a move to repair the growing distrust of media and for the traditional news media to gain some credibility again, as trust is very low and trending down.
I think Facebook are giving us a bit of red herring here and not stating their true intention. This is a business move, and what it really shows is that they are taking another step towards becoming a media company while hybridising with social media, though Mark Zuckerburg has denied this as recently as August 2016.
If Facebook aren't a media company then AirBnb aren't a letting company, and Uber aren't a cab company. They all claim not to be, but functionally they are. Just the same way that Uber don't own any (many?) cars, Facebook does not own the news and media companies providing a service on their site; they just make lots of money providing the platform.
TLDR; Facebook are now officially in partnership with the established media companies as the Uber of news.
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Yes, market hubs. I've seen that for years. eBay, Amazon, even Paypal is a hub for payment. Centralized markets do well as a one-stop service. Facebook and Twitter are each hubs for news, Twitter evolving towards the news ticker side since thats what its designed for.
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Great report.. People will surprise you.
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Bye bye freedom of speech, hello tyrannical dystopia.
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