Facebook has detailed its plan to deal with fake news appearing on the platform. It involves labeling false information with a link to a fact-checking site, as well as warning users when they attempt to repost these flagged items and giving them a worse position in the news feed:
Facebook has struggled for months over whether it should crack down on false news stories and hoaxes that are being spread on its site. Now, it has finally come to a decision. The social network is going to partner with the Poynter International Fact-Checking Network, which includes groups such as Snopes and the Associated Press, to evaluate articles flagged by Facebook users. If those articles do not pass the smell test for the fact-checkers, Facebook will label that evaluation whenever they are posted or shared, along with a link to the organization that debunked the story. Many of the organizations said that they're not getting paid for this.
"We have a responsibility to reduce the spread of fake news on our platform," Adam Mosseri, Facebook vice president of product development, told The Washington Post. Mosseri said the social network still wants to be a place where people with all kinds of opinions can express themselves but has no interest in being the arbiter of what's true and what's not for its 1 billion users.
The new system will work like this: If a story on Facebook is patently false — saying that a celebrity is dead when they are still alive, for example — then users will see a notice that the story has been disputed or debunked. People who try to share stories that have been found false will also see an alert before they post. Flagged stories will appear lower in the news feed than unflagged stories. Users will also be able to report potentially false stories to Facebook or send messages directly to the person posting a questionable article.
The Pew Research Center also released a survey about fake news, finding that a majority of Americans believe that fake news has caused confusion about the basic facts of current events.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 18 2016, @10:32PM
Its a good first pass. But its going to get gamed by trolls and hyper partisans. Sooner or later they are going to need a meta-moderation function.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 18 2016, @10:40PM
Who meta-moderates the meta-moderators?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 18 2016, @10:50PM
No need. Since meta-moderation would be handed out randomly, rather than self-selecting the way moderation is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @06:47AM
And that's definitely the case.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by i286NiNJA on Monday December 19 2016, @05:32PM
That works here and on slashdot because the average user here is much more intelligent than on facebook.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 18 2016, @10:34PM
Since Facebook is being acquired by the Chinese Internet giant Baidu, according to reliable sources.
(Score: 5, Informative) by BsAtHome on Sunday December 18 2016, @10:38PM
The gullibility of people eating up stories is simply amazing. Like there is no reality show like farcebooks reality. It is a propaganda tool of large scale. And, with all propaganda, you need to assume it to be utterly false to begin with and then filter the small true parts while discarding the bulk.
But then, junk news, propaganda and other failures can only be recognized by those competent in recognizing it. The incompetent will overestimate their abilities and fail miserably (see Unskilled and Unaware of It [psu.edu] for a nice stydy).
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 18 2016, @10:53PM
> Wouldn't it be simply a lot easier to assume that any and all story on that media is false?
Easier? Yes.
More useful? No.
With so many people on facebook the idea that everybody should just ignore anything on facebook is tech-hermit elitism at best and nonsensical at worst.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 18 2016, @11:38PM
The real problem is that anyone is on Facebook [stallman.org] to begin with. It's not just a personal decision, because Facebook even collects information on people who don't even have accounts. People should not be promoting such an unethical service.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @02:05AM
Like I said, techno-hermit elitism.
It really doesn't matter what platform people use, these problems will happen with all of them because the problem is people. Traditional journalism had a process for dealing with it - editorial discretion, multiple sources, fact-checkers, retractions, etc. The new p2p communication system on the net lack an equivalent. So now we are back to a complete free-for-all. And if we are all omniscient experts that would be fine. But we aren't so it isn't. Instead we get an object lesson in the fact that opinions are like assholes because everybody's got one and most of them stink.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @02:24AM
As another AC has pointed out: easier, yes; more useful, no. Perhaps you meant that people should assume that all stories on that media should be viewed as suspect until confirmed with more reliable sources? The real solution, of course, is for people to be a lot less gullible. But that is going to be a lot harder (and much more time-consuming) to fix. Also, my sense is that this has much more to do with emotion, rather than intellect. People believe these "fake news" stories because they conform to their warped world view; and I don't think you can rationally argue someone out of a position that they did not enter into rationally. So, what to do? First, we will need to educate the general population to be their own fact checkers. But that is going to take a lot of time. In fact, for most people it will take a lifetime of practice. Unfortunately, I think that for most adults who have gotten swallowed up by the fake news beast, they are (most of them) all but a lost cause; they believe what they want to believe and no amount of fact checking (or "fact shaming") is going to persuade them. In fact, my sense is that fact shaming these people will just cause them to dig in their heels even more. My best hope is for the next generation to be trained up to be less gullible than their elders; I just hope that we can do this before the older generation manages to tear the planet apart. However, with the dumbing down of the school curriculum I think even that may be a vain hope. Sorry to be pessimistic but, yeah, I think we are screwed.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @03:00AM
> In fact, my sense is that fact shaming these people will just cause them to dig in their heels even more.
That's true and its been visibly played out over the last month or so of public hand-wringing about fake news. Trumpkins have taken to labeling any reporting they dislike, no matter how accurate, as #fakenews. They kind of give the impression that they are doing it willfully, that at some level they are aware that their reality is only marginally connected to the real world and that they revel in it. In a way they like that their god emperror is a fountain of fact-free bullshit and constantly gets away with just making up his own reality as it suits him. They want to emulate him. After all if it works for a billionaire born with a silver spoon in his mouth, why shouldn't it work for them too?
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Monday December 19 2016, @12:27PM
No. They are not expecting to turn into billionaire overnight. They are doing politics. They are "playing the game" just the way the game is played. The only reason you realize 'Trumpkins' doing that is because of your personal confirmation bias. Fake news is not new nor it is going to go away with next generation. It was there when people said 99% of men are rapists, it was there when reefer madness became a thing, it was there when dark skinned men had trouble controlling their libido, it was there when Asians lacked that part of brain which allows europeans to drink like an ass yet be civilized or that part of stomach which processes alcohol.
And it is present right now when liberals invent a new word to describe an age old phenomenon but with added twist of creating division. That age old phenomenon is called PROPAGANDA and the new word is FAKE NEWS, but with added twist of creating division.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday December 19 2016, @03:51PM
it was there when Asians lacked that part of brain which allows europeans to drink like an ass yet be civilized or that part of stomach which processes alcohol.
I'm reading this list as "things that don't really exist," so thought I should dig up some links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_flush_reaction#Genetics [wikipedia.org]
https://www.bustle.com/articles/101998-is-the-asian-glow-real-5-facts-about-the-drinking-phenomenon-explained [bustle.com]
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2010/10October/Pages/genes-affect-alcohol-tolerance.aspx [www.nhs.uk]
http://www.wisegeek.org/do-people-of-asian-descent-have-difficulty-metabolizing-alcohol.htm#didyouknowout [wisegeek.org]
1. It's Officially Known As Alcohol Flush Syndrome (And Not Only Asians Have It)
My sister may have this, too (although we aren't Asians). My drinking days might be numbered D:
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Monday December 19 2016, @08:55PM
Yeah you read that list correctly. Thanks for that info, always enjoy learning a new thing.
Original point remains same, though :)
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday December 19 2016, @09:45PM
If we were looking for another Asian-themed "thing that isn't a real thing" there's always fan death [wikipedia.org], heh.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ayn Anonymous on Sunday December 18 2016, @10:39PM
Fake news ? You mean Fox news ?
Generation stupid.
(Score: 3, Informative) by SomeGuy on Monday December 19 2016, @12:54AM
I'm not sure why this was modded flamebait, it is a serious issue. Modern large-media news sources may be able to claim that the words they say are factually true, but the pictures they paint with those words are usually so slanted, out of context, sensationalized, and incomplete, they often might as well be "fake".
So where does one draw the line?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by BK on Monday December 19 2016, @01:40AM
Right there with that mindset.
Every story that does not include a full and utterly unbiased history of the world including the full and complete history of every person (including pets if you think they're people too) to have ever lived, even those who lived before recorded history, even those that a writer could not POSSIBLY be aware of, is by DEFINITION incomplete and out of context and sensationalized and therefore slanted. At the point you mark a particular news outlet because of the pictures they paint with true stories and news, you've crossed that line. Every news source that I'm aware of paints a picture when they decide, based on their own worldview, what is newsworthy.
If we're going to judge news by whether we like the picture it paints, we might as well ban all 'news' and be done with it. Your comment is a reduction to absurdity and you know it or should.
Name them all, or at least name peer groups, as anything else reeks of intentional bias or blatant trolling (not flamebait though).
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @03:35AM
Surely, you must recognize that there are sins of commission as well as sins of omission? Suppose, for example, that you hear on the news that there has been a plane crash; for weeks, your favourite news outlet reports this as an unfortunate plane crash. Now suppose, by chance, you hear from another news outlet that there is some evidence the plane was brought down by a bomb planted by terrorists. You seriously wouldn't think that your favourite news source hadn't misled you by slanted reporting?
Oh, Bullshit! News stories do not have to give a recap of the entirety of human history, just enough of the prior history of this particular story to give it proper context. And most proper news outlets will give you that context in their reporting; you will often recognize this as a two to three sentence summary of the prior reporting. Hint: you may find yourself quickly skimming over that context-giving summary as you think to yourself "yeah, I know that already".
Yeah, that's called editorial discretion. News outlets do not have the luxury of reporting everything; they have to make decisions about what will make the cut given finite time and resources. I don't see any way around that other than to get your news from a variety of sources. But that is a somewhat different issue from attempting to slant viewer (reader) opinion by leaving salient facts out of their news coverage. Those with clues should (hopefully) be able to discern the difference.
It's not a question of whether we like the picture it paints but, rather whether the picture is incomplete to the point of slanting the story in a not so subtle attempt to lead their readers to what they see as the "proper" conclusion.
Right back at ya, BK. Your comment is a reduction to absurdity and you know it or should.
(Score: 2) by BK on Monday December 19 2016, @12:29PM
So it's a question of the picture it paints and whether it is acceptable.
...but you HAVE heard of me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @06:08PM
FTFY
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 18 2016, @10:48PM
Poynter is financed by George Soros' baby the Open Society Foundation, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, and the National Endowment for Democracy.
I can't wait for the news to come out about this when it is implemented.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @05:20AM
> Poynter is financed by George Soros
I'm pretty sure you are financed by George Soros. After all, you are an obvious plant by the globalists to discredit the anti-immigration crowd.
(Score: 2, Troll) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday December 18 2016, @11:13PM
Marginalize TwitFace.
Friends have been moving to Discord because of SJWs on TwitFace banning their accounts. TwitFace doesn't even look at the pictures before banning. Most of these are women and some are even “real” women. SJWs don't care. All assigned males who like the looks of a cosplayer are rapists and if a womyn-born-womyn likes the looks of a cosplayer, she's a traitor to her own gender and has internalized misogyny.
It's a clusterfuck. Just walk away. There are other ways on the internet to communicate. As an added bonus, most other ways also don't create a permanent record for the perusal of prospective employers.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by FlatPepsi on Sunday December 18 2016, @11:17PM
"if you ask amateurs to act as front-line security personnel, you shouldn't be surprised when you get amateur security." (1)
You're asking the masses to screen news articles, I would expect low-quality, inconsistent results. Depending on the day of the week, you may see CNN (correctly) marked as a fake news site, or the next day "The Onion" as reliable - if it's a funny article.
I have low expectations.
(1): https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/05/if_you_see_some_1.html [schneier.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 18 2016, @11:22PM
You're asking the masses to screen news articles, I would expect low-quality, inconsistent results
One could argue the same about Wikipedia, and sometimes they do let through a whopper. However, many people agree that Wikipedia is a very useful service.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @01:30AM
Well, yes and no. There is a lot of useful information on Wiki; in fact, I often do use it in my work as a research scientist. But...I would be rather sceptical of anything that cites Wiki as a reference on some hot-button social or political issue. (I'm sure everyone who reads SN is well aware of the editor wars that frequently erupt over pages with such contentious content.) At the very least, I would want to see one or two additional independent references for anything on Wiki that is contentious in nature before I would even begin to take it seriously. As with much of the rest of life, Caveat Emptor applies to Wikipedia.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday December 18 2016, @11:27PM
Most of the plan does not involve using the masses.
I assume that Facebook wants to match a steady stream of fact checking from Snopes, Poytner, or whatever makes the whitelist, with the incoming articles. Using machine learning to figure out which news feed items should have an appended link to a related fact checking article.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by stormwyrm on Sunday December 18 2016, @11:58PM
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @02:08AM
> How far can we really trust these professional fact checkers?
Make your decision based on how they handle their mistakes.
Do they double-down and pretend everything is fine?
Or do they make a public retraction?
If the later, then that's about as good as you can reasonably expect.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by jmorris on Sunday December 18 2016, @11:50PM
So the major purveyors of Fake News, in a project to be underwritten by a Nazi collaborator, is going to be given the power to banish BadThink on FakeBook. And people still wonder why we got Trump. Every day we see another confirmation that America made the correct choice as the Left continues to demonstrate that they are tired of hiding their inner Fascist and just letting it out with fashionable jackboots.
So do keep it up guys. We can't destroy the Left utterly unless they give the American People a stark reminder of why they should be driven out of the public square with horsewhips.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @12:29AM
I tell you it's those jackbooted Federal agents, on order from the libs reading the New York Times while sipping Chardonnay while accepting cash from George Soros, breaking down our doors to confiscate our guns!
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @01:38AM
Who the hell modded this drivel by jmorris up as "Insightful", of all things? I think someone really should step forward to explain this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @02:41AM
Oh fuck! An anonymous twat says so, therefore it must be true!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @03:03AM
Meta!
Very, very meta!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @03:57AM
Note that I didn't say it must be true. I said that I wanted someone to step forward to explain why they modded jmorris up as "Insightful". So, since you have stepped forward, maybe you could enlighten the assembled audience as to what you find insightful in jmorris' comment? Come on, don't be shy! Make your case before a candid world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @10:38AM
Who the hell modded this drivel by jmorris up as "Insightful", of all things? I think someone really should step forward to explain this.
"Always two there are, no more, no less. A master and an apprentice." -- Yoda
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @06:05PM
Nice try, but jmorris' sock puppet counts as neither an apprentice nor even a second individual.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @12:54AM
David Icke: The 'Fake News' Hoax - The System is Desperate [youtube.com]
It is a war on alternative views and alternative media. Another tool for suppression. Just say no to it. Say no to MSM and Facebook.
System's take: "It is not approved by the Ministry of Truth, so it must be fake and must be suppressed, its author banned and murdered along with their family."
(Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Monday December 19 2016, @02:13AM
David Icke AND jmorris, all on SoylentNews in the same thread? Truly, these are the signs of the apocalypse. Either that, or kurenai has gone straight and hell has frozen over and Donald Trump got elected President of the United States. You see, it is actually lizard people all the way down! jmorris is one. You can tell when he sticks his tongue out to "taste" the air: it's forked, definitive sign of a lizard-person. And of course there are other lizard types here to mod the original lizard "insightful", because Krull forbid that the wrong lizard get into power!
(Score: 3, Funny) by dyingtolive on Monday December 19 2016, @08:27PM
Something I briefly worry about from time to time is if we already actually killed all the humans long ago and if it's nothing but us lizard people left.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 20 2016, @02:27AM
The thought has crossed my mind.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @03:07AM
> It is a war on alternative views and alternative media.
Sorry, but conspiracy theorists are not "alternative media" they are bullshit media.
Alternative media is stuff like DemocracyNow and Pacifica Radio. They have an alternative viewpoint but they still have journalist standards. Conspiracy theorists have no standards beyond back-fitting contradictory facts into their narrative so they can still come to the same predetermined conclusions.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @03:33AM
Fake news has been screwing shit up in the 3rd world for years. It has messed with elections in the phillipines and indonesia, it might even have played a part of scuppering the peace deal with the fark in colombia. Facebook needs to partner with fact-checkers all around the world, not just the english speaking parts. If anything, the 3rd world needs it even more because they have weaker civic institutions to buffer the blows of viral disinformation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/18/technology/fake-news-on-facebook-in-foreign-elections-thats-not-new.html [nytimes.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @07:54AM
You need to stop trusting (((facebook))). Here is a link to get you started:
https://www.rt.com/op-edge/370678-democracy-fake-news-facebook/ [rt.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Monday December 19 2016, @12:15PM
The mainstream media are pushing this fake news meme to cover their ass for the election results. They all pulled for Hillary. They skewed every prediction and analysis to prove she was going to win by big margins. And they were wrong. So now they're jumping up and down saying, "It wasn't OUR fault! The fake news did it. HONEST."
Instead of differentiating "real" news like theirs from "fake" news like others, it is further destroying any shreds of credibility the media might have retained after they shattered their reputation, because where do you draw the line between "real" and "fake?" Can anyone really say that CNN and Fox are "real" with a straight face? The more they invite the public to think critically about what the media is telling them, the more people realize how fake all of it is and switch off.
There are some smart people in the media business, but collectively they have become profoundly stupid.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Monday December 19 2016, @05:40PM
I think many of us have been hesitant to recommend our favorite filtering tools to our friends because if everyone uses them they won't work that well anymore. Plus the technical know how to get such things working was like 3x more than turning on a computer so many of us didn't bother.
Adblock is easier to use and it's time we remove the financial incentive to publish bullshit crap to the masses. Make a post about adblock and how to use easylist in your facebook feed. Explain why you're doing it. Maybe even tag a few news sites so they know they're being punished.
Of course they'll eventually work around it but no matter what your political leaning is I'm sure you're pissed off at the press.. let's fuck them.