Facebook Ditches 'Fake News' Flag -- Was Making Stories MORE Believable

[GURPS]

A year ago, Facebook began added "disputed" warnings alongside articles that third party "fact-checking" websites deemed untrustworthy Now, instead of the arbitrary ruling, Facebook will simply include a list of “related articles” next to story -- allowing the user to decide what's real and what's fake.

"Academic research on correcting misinformation has shown that putting a strong image, like a red flag, next to an article may actually entrench deeply held beliefs – the opposite effect to what we intended," Facebook product manager Tessa Lyons wrote in a blog-post.

At first, Facebook decided to hand over the responsibility of deciding what was "fake news" to so-called fact-checkers. "We don't want to be and are not the arbiters of truth. The fact checkers can give the signal of whether a story is true or false," Lyons said.

That move was “part of Facebook’s strategy to limit the damage of false news without censoring those posts,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

Of course, those fact-checkers, including Snopes and Politifact, have come under scrutiny before. Some charged the sites are actually left-leaning and deemed some true stories fake and vice versa.




Facebook Ditches 'Fake News' Flag -- Was Making Stories MORE Believable

 

[vraiblonde]

Wouldn't it be lovely if We the People were more discerning and could determine for ourselves, by the language used and the sources cited, what was real and what was fake? In my mind, it's usually pretty obvious. And when it isn't obvious, I can run it down and check sources myself. Yes! Internet! Woot!

Even reading "fact checkers" - Snopes, I'm talking to you; you too, Politi"fact" - there's usually a giveaway as to whether they're really doing a fact check or just engaging in partisan rhetoric. What I don't understand is how people get sucked into an ideology and want desperately to believe in something that's not true, and will surf endlessly for confirmation and cite some anonymous blogger as "proof".

 

[SamSpade]

Even reading "fact checkers" - Snopes, I'm talking to you; you too, Politi"fact" - there's usually a giveaway as to whether they're really doing a fact check or just engaging in partisan rhetoric.

Snopes is a bit of a disappointment, because while their other stuff is usually good, their political fact checking is political apologetics - that if Pelosi or Schumer gunned down a bunch of people, they'd carefully explain that it wasn't bad because a lot of the bullets MISSED.

Almost as annoying as fact-checkers are newspaper articles that answer "myths" about political issues, which almost without fail are just partisan pieces portraying opposing opinions as "myths". Ever read a FAQ - a list of "Frequently Asked Questions" - that consists of questions NO ONE would ever ask? Same kind of thing. It's an opinion piece masquerading as an information piece.

 

[vraiblonde]

if Pelosi or Schumer gunned down a bunch of people

The ones I love best go something like this:

CLAIM: Pelosi and Schumer drowned puppies in a sack.
RATING: False
The puppies were drowned in a plastic bag, not a sack.

As in, they hone in on some insignificant detail to declare the whole thing FALSE.

 

[MiddleGround]

Wouldn't it be even more lovely if we could depend on people who were being paid to report the news accurately to actually do their job and report factual news? Oh, what a world it would be.

 

[GURPS]

Wouldn't it be even more lovely if we could depend on people who were being paid to report the news accurately to actually do their job and report factual news? Oh, what a world it would be.

you would have to go back in time prior to the Spanish - American War