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posted by martyb on Monday January 22 2018, @06:26AM   Printer-friendly
from the quis-custodiet-ipsos-custodes dept.

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).


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @10:05AM (7 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 22 2018, @10:05AM (#626018)

    when government can't tell the difference between their methods and content of propaganda and 'fake news' they worry that their 'message' will be undermined when everyone else spots the similarities.

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 22 2018, @11:41AM (6 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday January 22 2018, @11:41AM (#626032) Homepage Journal

    You're close to correct but it's not so much the government as "the establishment". The Internet giving everyone a voice really has their knickers in a massive twist because it means they simply do not have enough of a voice to shout down, ignore, or assassinate the character of anyone who speaks outside the narrative anymore.

    Witness: Bernie almost got the nomination and Trump did get the presidency. No matter which one you like or if you hate both of them, they sure as fuck weren't either backed by "the establishment".

    Their power structure is starting to come apart at the seams and this is simply a last grasp at straws to go back to being able to utterly control the narrative.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday January 22 2018, @05:31PM (5 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Monday January 22 2018, @05:31PM (#626144)

      Kinda.

      Trump is the bad boy of the establishment, but he's part of the establishment, for the simple reason that he's always at least appeared to be rich, and that's all it takes for politicians to be fawning all over you. Also, when you look at what he's actually doing policy-wise, it's exactly the same things as the business-focused Republicans have been advocating for decades, like big tax cuts for the rich and (as of last weekend) almost completely shutting down the civilian agencies of the federal government. About the only thing he's done that wasn't something the establishment wanted all along was scrapping the TPP, which while certainly not what the establishment wanted also did not undo the basic paradigm of how they're in charge of everything.

      I've always been amazed at how some people successfully portray themselves as "outsiders" when they're anything but. For example, George W Bush managed to convince a lot of people that he was the outsider candidate, despite being the son of the guy who had been president just 8 years earlier with wide support from Wall Street. And Hillary Clinton even tried to make the case that compared to Bernie Sanders, she, the wife of a former president and former senator and cabinet secretary, trunning with the full backing of Wall Street and many media organizations, was the outsider, solely because she was female. And in the case of Trump, he was a major Clinton backer throughout the 1990's and 2000's, and was happy to glad-hand Democrats and Republicans alike until it became clear Obama might become president.

      If you really wanted to back an anti-establishment candidate, then you should have gotten behind Vermin Supreme - he had no Wall Street support whatsoever, no political experience, no political party backing, radical proposals (free ponies for everybody!), and by all accounts is a genuinely good guy. Next-best would have been to back candidates from one of the political parties that don't have establishment approval and backing, like the Greens or Libertarians.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 22 2018, @08:12PM (4 children)

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday January 22 2018, @08:12PM (#626208) Homepage Journal

        You're misunderstanding what all makes up "the establishment". It's not remotely just Republicans. It's not even mostly Republicans; they're a very small part. Here're the major players that go into "the establishment":

        • The Republican political machine
        • The Democratic political machine
        • The entire professional media
        • The entire entertainment industry
        • The entire educational industry
        • Every government bureaucrat
        • Every lobbying firm

         

        With minor league appearances by every other company or industry that pays a lobbying firm.

        This is why I laugh so hard at the regressive shitheads who think they're fighting the establishment. They're not fighting the establishment, they're its tools. They're just too fucking stupid to see it.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Monday January 22 2018, @08:42PM (3 children)

          by Thexalon (636) on Monday January 22 2018, @08:42PM (#626229)
          • The entire professional media
          • The entire entertainment industry
          • The entire educational industry
          • Every government bureaucrat

          Really? Your use of universal statements seems a bit overly sweeping, assuming your definition of "establishment" means something along the lines of "an entrenched group of rich and/or powerful people who control the rest of society".

          For example, "random blogger who manages to make enough money from it to survive" is part of the "professional media". You really think that person's part of the establishment?
          How about the people in your local bar band? They're part of the entertainment industry.
          How about all the teachers you had, the adjunct faculty and community college instructors, and the grad students living on a generous $10K a year. They're all part of the educational industry, but I'd be hard-pressed to consider them part of the "establishment".
          Not even the government bureaucrats necessarily qualify. For example, I'm acquainted with a guy whose civil service job was testing gold shipments to the US mint for impurities - he certainly wasn't getting rich or powerful from that. Same for the people at the FAA whose job it is to issue aircraft repair directives on a daily basis.

          Also, a lot of the players you put in the "minor league" don't seem minor to me. The financial industry, who can commit crimes with impunity and crash the world economy and get rewarded for it isn't part of the establishment? The oil industry, who can and frequently does decide whether the US or its allies are going to war? Military contractors, who go absurdly over budget on the taxpayer dime for boondoggle projects like the F-35 and are never penalized for it in any way?

          --
          The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 23 2018, @05:12PM (2 children)

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday January 23 2018, @05:12PM (#626634) Homepage Journal

            Really?

            Yes, really. The ability to kill or inconvenience a lot of people is inconsequential compared to the ability to control what people believe.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
            • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 23 2018, @05:31PM (1 child)

              by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday January 23 2018, @05:31PM (#626649)

              The ability to kill or inconvenience a lot of people is inconsequential compared to the ability to control what people believe.

              Wow. That's odd logic. "If you're dead, but can believe whatever you like, that's freedom!" Got it.

              Plus you're casually ignoring the many entities that I mentioned that rob people to such a degree that a 5% tax hike would be pleasant by comparison.

              --
              The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
              • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday January 23 2018, @05:53PM

                by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Tuesday January 23 2018, @05:53PM (#626666) Homepage Journal

                What part of "give me liberty or give me death" is it that really escapes you? Is it honestly your opinion that it's better to live as a slave than die as a free man?

                Yes, they weren't worth mentioning. Material possessions are of less consequence than life and life of less consequence than liberty.

                --
                My rights don't end where your fear begins.