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Days after President Donald Trump's surprise victory, Zuckerberg brushed off assertions that the outcome had been influenced by fictional news stories on Facebook, calling the idea "pretty crazy ."
But Facebook's blase attitude shifted as criticism of the company mounted in Congress and elsewhere. Later that year, it acknowledged having run thousands of ads promoting false information placed by Russian agents. Zuckerberg eventually made fixing Facebook his personal challenge for 2018.
[...] The war room is a major part of Facebook's ongoing repairs. Its technology draws upon the artificial-intelligence system Facebook has been using to help identify "inauthentic" posts and user behavior. Facebook provided a tightly controlled glimpse at its war room to The Associated Press and other media ahead of the second round of presidential elections in Brazil on Oct. 28 and the U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 6.
"There is no substitute for physical, real-world interaction," said Samidh Chakrabarti, Facebook's director of elections and civic engagement. "The primary thing we have learned is just how effective it is to have people in the same room all together."
More than 20 different teams now coordinate the efforts of more than 20,000 people—mostly contractors—devoted to blocking fake accounts and fictional news and stopping other abuses on Facebook and its other services. As part of the crackdown, Facebook also has hired fact checkers, including The Associated Press, to vet new stories posted on its social network.
To assess the factual content of news stories published by agencies like the Associated Press, Facebook is hiring the Associated Press.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday October 19 2018, @05:31PM (3 children)
No they don't, unless you think Sinclair Broadcast Group, InfoWars, and quite a few other organizations don't exist.
In the world of cable news, there are basically 3 big players: Fox, NBC, and CNN. Fox is basically Republican propaganda. NBC is basically Democratic propaganda. CNN alternates between saying nothing of substance at all (Wolf Blitzer in particular has made a career of this) and toadying to whoever happens to be in charge at the moment.
As for local TV, I happened to be watching the local news broadcast in an auto shop waiting room and noticed something very peculiar: Except for the attack ads, you would have had no idea that an election was going on.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by jmorris on Friday October 19 2018, @09:29PM (1 child)
You are of course lying by spin and false equivalence. It isn't three cable channels with FNC dominating the other two in viewers. The left has the Universities, the government schools, Hollywood, all of the broadcast networks (including PBS) and all of cable with the exception of primetime on FNC, every large circulation newspaper, it has all of the major social media, the entire Silicon Valley tech monolith, the venture capitalists, the Fortune 500, the banks. Paypal, Stripe, Visa / MC, shall I continue?
Yes. The propaganda in the programming rolls on, election or no election.
But that doesn't make any of what they push factual, true or even Truthy. A lie does not become the slightest bit true by repetition. And that is why, despite those massive advantages, your side is losing, is in fact bound for the ash heap of History.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 20 2018, @12:53AM
the matrix has you
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday October 19 2018, @11:48PM
ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, each of which is as influential as FOX, plus PBS. That doesn't look the least bit lopsided to you? As jmorris said, that is outright dishonest on your part. Infowars, for instance, is a niche thing, that fails to reach the markets that the others reach.