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Facebook to Prioritize 'Trustworthy' News Sources
Facebook Inc will begin to prioritize "trustworthy" news outlets on its stream of social media posts as it works to combat "sensationalism" and "misinformation," Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Friday.
The company, which has more than 2 billion monthly users, said it will use surveys to determine rankings on how trustworthy news outlets are.
Zuckerberg outlined the shakeup in a post on Facebook, saying that starting next week the News Feed, the company's centerpiece product, would prioritize "high quality news" over less trusted sources.
"There's too much sensationalism, misinformation and polarization in the world today," Zuckerberg wrote.
"Social media enables people to spread information faster than ever before, and if we don't specifically tackle these problems, then we end up amplifying them," he wrote.
At the same time, Zuckerberg said the amount of news overall on Facebook would shrink to roughly 4 percent of the content on the News Feed from 5 percent currently.
Source: Reuters
The new Facebook echochamber where users decide what is trustworthy
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/2018/01/trusted-sources/
Facebook is going to let its user rate what is a trustworthy news source. Could be great (One would think they assume the pure number of people will try and do a good and honest job), or it will undoubtedly enforce the echo chamber / bubble mentality (where people think that their news source are all trustworthy and the opposing sources are all fake news) or it will end hilariously (like when Microsoft let the public train its AI chatbot Tay and it went all Hitler on them in record time).
(Score: 2) by canopic jug on Monday January 22 2018, @07:22AM (5 children)
Facebook is deliberately choosing the wrong focus in this question. If they were in any way serious they would concentrate on how to find accurate sources. Trust has nothing to do with accuracy. That is most of the reason we have the mess we have. By deliberately avoiding pursuit of accuracy they appear to intentionally making the disinformation problem worse and worse.
Money is not free speech. Elections should not be auctions.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @07:40AM (2 children)
Rigggght! Trust has to do with being Fair and Balanced, and entering the No-spin Zone! Pro-tip, if the sources you trust to be accurate, turn out to not be accurate? Stop trusting them? But the ones that are accurate? Trust them, unless they are playing the long con on you.
(Score: 5, Informative) by hemocyanin on Monday January 22 2018, @08:04AM (1 child)
It isn't like the NYT refrained from cheerleading for the Iraq war either.
https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2014/07/01/how-the-iraq-war-still-haunts-new-york-times/199946 [mediamatters.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday January 22 2018, @01:29PM
NPR did, too. That was the day I knew we were in deep trouble as a country.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday January 22 2018, @04:07PM (1 child)
Here's what's really going on:
When you hear the phrase "fake news", what you probably think, and what you're meant to think, is "stories that are inaccurate, leave out critical information, or are outright lies." However, the anti-fake news efforts aren't about this at all, because the only thing that actually solves this problem is the widespread distribution of skepticism and critical thinking among the masses, which is both difficult and something the Powers That Be definitely don't want.
When people with real power hear the phrase "fake news", what they mean is "stories that come from a propaganda outlet not aligned with my goals." And while there are some propaganda outlets in the US who are "fake" or not by this definition depending on one's political party affiliation (e.g. MSNBC and Fox News), there are some reporting organizations that are seen as "fake" by this definition by both major political parties who they would love to censor completely. Some examples of what they're trying to get rid of:
Wikileaks [wikileaks.org] There's been a bipartisan effort trying to cut this off for over a decade now.
The Intercept [theintercept.com] This outlet founded by Glen Greenwald has made no friends among politicians for routinely writing about their stupidity and corruption.
The Independent Media Center [indymedia.org] This one is interesting for its detailed reporting of police suppression of protests which rarely make it into the "mainstream" news, even in cases where such protests are completely legal and the police efforts are not.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @11:17PM
Here's a brief list of sites that are being demonetized: [wsws.org] World Socialist Web Site, Truthdig, Common Dreams, Alternet... basically any leftist website that is not owned by the rich and powerful Democratic Party backers.