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from the threw-the-facebook-out-with-the-vax-water dept.
Facebook cracks down on vaccine misinformation
In a blog post, the Menlo Park, Calif. company said it will reject any ads containing misinformation about vaccines, remove any targeted advertising options like 'vaccine controversies,' and will no longer show or recommend content containing this type of misinformation on Instagram Explore or hashtag pages."
Submitted via IRC for FatPhil
Combatting Vaccine Misinformation
We are working to tackle vaccine misinformation on Facebook by reducing its distribution and providing people with authoritative information on the topic.
[...] Leading global health organizations, such as the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have publicly identified verifiable vaccine hoaxes. If these vaccine hoaxes appear on Facebook, we will take action against them.
For example, if a group or Page admin posts this vaccine misinformation, we will exclude the entire group or Page from recommendations, reduce these groups and Pages’ distribution in News Feed and Search, and reject ads with this misinformation.
We also believe in providing people with additional context so they can decide whether to read, share, or engage in conversations about information they see on Facebook. We are exploring ways to give people more accurate information from expert organizations about vaccines at the top of results for related searches, on Pages discussing the topic, and on invitations to join groups about the topic. We will have an update on this soon.
We are fully committed to the safety of our community and will continue to expand on this work.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 23 2019, @01:51AM (6 children)
Not feeling the need to care. It's still the SPLC with the imaginary groups.
And? These aren't the people I want policing my meme space for obvious lies.
You should have started with that rather than go with some broken society-level mechanism. As I noted, critical thinking works better than hoping people stay rational enough that your opinions don't become thoughtcrimes.
Because it wouldn't be relevant to any point anyone was making. That's why.
Hope you actually thought about it when you draw that line.
I guess my point was that shunning ideas routinely slides into shunning the people holding those ideas for a variety of unrelated human activities. For example, SN covered several cases where this happened. Two are particularly ridiculous. Brendan Eich was fired [soylentnews.org] from Mozilla within a couple of weeks of being made CEO because he had donated to a political campaign against same sex marriage - despite this firing being illegal discrimination in the state of California where Mozilla is incorporated.
Second, Larry "Crell" Garfield was expelled [soylentnews.org] from the "Drupal Community" for practicing Gorean and BDSM beliefs (the former comes from a fantasy series of pulp fiction books). No actual reason for concern was ever given. It was a bunch of babble about his off duty behaviors, none which were shown to be relevant to his work or interactions with other developers.
The point here is that we see numerous times what happens when people can shun for your supposedly good reasons. They shun for all sorts of spurious reasons instead and this boils over on a regular basis to areas where the shunning has no business being.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Saturday March 23 2019, @03:52AM (5 children)
And I apparently agree with you if you understood me. I do not want holocaust deniers (who blithely suggest that those Jews are just liars) to have an equal voice on saying what truth is. "It" in my sentence was the existence of the holocaust and it was deniers I was speaking of who will overturn all the evidence you want to present to them with a flick of the wrist. If that makes no difference to you, very well. But if you do truly believe the mob cannot think, then why do you believe that the mob will respect critical thinking in acknowledging a preponderance of evidence when it comes time to decide whether we landed on the moon (to change my metaphor, but it applies either to either circumstance)?
For the following items: holocaust denial, flat earth, moon landing hoax? Not likely. There are certainly others one can add that do not take much thought, but we handle most of those as criminal matters (and ought to, for whatever values you would define 'crime' to truly be) and I've already hyperbolized enough. And surely there are much much tougher ones where the lines aren't clear at all.
I'm not really sure the examples you cited are ringing endorsements for your position. Eich's case becomes a lot more tenuous if you are a gay Mozilla employee. And his departure was certainly not over that alone. Garfield's is a whole lot murkier, yes. He wasn't a CxO. But on the other hand, he wasn't shunned by a society as a whole. He was fired by an individual for reasons that Buytaert says are not public, despite Garfield's self-outing. If Garfield is to be believed, he is a victim of doxxing, and if Buytaert is to be believed there's more under the surface than what has been revealed to date.
I'd like to get past that, though, because I do believe I understand your point or at least part of it. And because I sought your opinion out, I want to affirm that allowing a society to set anything is indeed a risky thing to do. Nevertheless communities and societies do indeed set expectations. Are they good? What is a good reason might be up for debate, but neither of your examples match the "good" criteria I was proposing at all as far as I can see. ("My" good reasons as you put it.) At least, I see no case where either "shunned" individual you listed was purporting beliefs that are objectively demonstrable as false, unless you can clarify where they were or where such beliefs are incorrectly false.) It's a core ethical question: What is a "good" and how does one prioritize "good" over "less good." Maybe the better question is what "good" do you think I'm aiming for? And I'll think about that too as I do have it but can't phrase it succinctly yet.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 23 2019, @04:43AM (4 children)
Instead, you're proposing a mechanism by which they can have a more than equal voice. They just need enough to dominate. I don't think Holocaust deniers will. But there's plenty of bad ideas where those came from.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Saturday March 23 2019, @05:42AM (3 children)
I'm proposing a mechanism by which if they can dominate they may have earned the right to control, yes. Because that seems like reality to me. Which is why I'm damned sure that in this instance they should never earn that ability, unlikely as that may be. And surely there are plenty of bad ideas, and the vast majority of them are not clear cut - I think that we agree on. For me, that's why I'm not saying throw critical thinking or logic out the window (far from it) and trust all to the might of the majority every time. It reminds me just a tad of the Heinlein bit about democracy and autocracy. Neither make a lot of sense on their own. But one thing that does seem clear is that societies do exist and it will exert themselves. However society exerts itself there are groups which should not or must not gain control. And it would surprise me if most of us don't have some list of who those groups are. I don't think I believe any single method will or should direct that process. Not logic. Not emotion. Not unlimited freedom nor absolute autocracy. Not that either you or I can control that.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday March 23 2019, @01:25PM (2 children)
Or even if they haven't earned the right, but just took over the mechanism.
Perception != reality.
If such a tendency existed in the first place, we wouldn't have had things like the Nazi takeover of Germany.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday March 25 2019, @03:01PM
Which might be prima facie evidence that they have earned the right, in the sense of survival of the fittest - if they gain a majority they have the control.
Perception ∧ reality for most values of both.
Or the Nazi takeover of Germany and the memory of the holocaust is what feeds the desire to ensure that they cannot earn the ability again. And what makes such mechanisms sadly necessary, dangerous as they are.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday March 25 2019, @03:16PM
On the other other hand, I may be wrong. [soylentnews.org]
This sig for rent.