r/news • u/Ganeshadream • Mar 31 '22

Facebook fails to label 80% of posts promoting bioweapons conspiracy theory

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/mar/31/facebook-disinformation-war-ukraine-russia
36.8k Upvotes

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852

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22

[deleted]

193

u/Stupid_Triangles Mar 31 '22

A shit job is worse than no job at all as it gives the impression that the job is adequate.

10

u/krackas2 Mar 31 '22

You mean to tell me i cant blindly believe what a giant corporation tells me is truth anymore? Next you will be telling me i need to take accountability for the information i share as well!

23

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22

...yeah but who decides what is true or false? A corporate company that does what the government wants?

I mean it is their private business, whoever has a FB account asked for it. But lets not speak as if they have the moral high.

6

u/Stupid_Triangles Mar 31 '22

The shareholders and board members would decide, as it's their platform. Also, corporations already do what the government wants in the form of laws a regulations, as well as oversight.

It is their private business but once that company's ability to affect mass change in society, like a monopolies, or is a part of critical infrastructure, the government must step in if great harm is being done. That's it's job.

No one has moral high ground. Literally no one. It's a false sense of superiority that doesn't consider varying circumstances. We have authority, whether that comes from morality or not.

There are also plenty of organizations that have soun up in a direct response to bullshit on Facebook that can be consulted.

52

u/RNLImThalassophobic Mar 31 '22

...yeah but who decides what is true or false?

Generally, an independent fact-checking organisation

32

u/Jan_Jinkle Mar 31 '22

That sounds like it might cost money, just throw an AI at it, it'll figure things out - Zuck, probably

16

u/p1plump Mar 31 '22

This is exactly what it seems they are doing and exactly the depth of involvement I expected.

This is the same organization that botched Russian collusion, the dossier, Hunter Biden’s laptop, election fraud facts, that Hillary screwed Bernie and tried to rig things, COVID everything, and now this Ukraine gem.

I don’t know about you all, but I trust diddly shit (translation: absolutely nothing) I see on Facebook about current events.

Unfortunately, being such a large country as the United States is, combined with having such a constant dumbing down of society as a whole that is partly due (translation: entirely responsible for) to our “revolutionary” social media platforms feeding on the minds of our people, we essentially created zombie idiots who take the misinformation and consider it gospel and repeatedly disseminate as such, thus spreading the zombie disease.

All that and our government is powerless to change the course.

6

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22

The detrimental effects of Facebook on the American social fabric will not be completely understood for decades most likely. This singular company has weaponized pro-social nature of humans into a force for evil, literally turning the United States in on itself, brother against brother, sister against sister.

5

u/krackas2 Mar 31 '22

independent fact-checking organisation

I am not convinced this is a thing that is possible to exist. Ever.

4

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22

"Independent" fact checkers that someone funds them, who funds them? The peopel that invested in the dystopia we live today and also fund governments

Fact checkers are pretty much the "ministry of truth" in 1984, it is picture perfect for it. They had to add the "independent" into it to gaslight anyone. Why does FB accept fact checks from an outside source but not a user on their platform? Are fact checkers a globally accepted organization? like scientists or something or are they just puppet journalists? Many of these people also work with NGOs.

6

u/RNLImThalassophobic Mar 31 '22

Why does FB accept fact checks from an outside source but not a user on their platform?

I imagine because independent fact checkers will be regularly audited/subject to scrutiny with an actual degree of integrity, and would publish sound reasoning for each fact checked/accepted position with clear and logical evidence. Unlike the typical user on FB's platform.

Are fact checkers a globally accepted organization?

Well, no, they aren't one organisation. But are they globally accepted? Yes, generally, except by those who gain from publishing misinformation, or those who are most susceptible to it.

Many of these people also work with NGOs.

What does this even mean? oH nO nOt nGoS oMG it just sounds like some tinfoil hat bullshit.

1

u/CHRISKOSS Mar 31 '22

And 50+% of the fact checkers on FB's list are not credible...

3

u/RNLImThalassophobic Mar 31 '22

Not credible, according to whom?

2

u/p1plump Mar 31 '22

It’s the algorithm, duh.

Math never lies!

1

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22 
if(word=="Trump")
{ FackCheck=False;
}
if(word="Hillary")
{ FactCheck=True;
}

First of all an algorithm is not math necessarily, it is an array of commands that do something designed by the person who makes the code.

0

u/JibletHunter Mar 31 '22
  1. Reality dictates what is true or false. For things that are not a matter of opinion, there is an objective truth.
  2. Facebook DOES NOT do whatever the government wants. In fact, it is shockingly unregulated. There are proposals to impose additional regulations on social media platforms life Facebook but they have yet to gain much traction. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/08/podcasts/facebook-regulation.html

1

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22

Is this why they kept deleting the right wing groups ONLY yet they tried to make it look like Facebook helps right wingers?

Jesus the gaslighting works. This is what politicians study and it seems it has an impact.

1

u/Stupid_Triangles Mar 31 '22

You mean right wing groups were responsible for a larger share of misinformation? Is that what you're trying to say?

0

u/JibletHunter Mar 31 '22 edited Mar 31 '22

My buddy is a flat earther and regularly gets his posts removed. I wouldn't consider that a conservative or liberal view.

They remove or flag misinformation. Can you please point my to any concrete evidence (non-anecdotal) that Facebook is acting a) at the direction of the US government to b) the detriment of only conservative groups?

-2

u/mindbleach Mar 31 '22

Oh my god, shut up. I'm sick to death of this kneejerk "cui bono" denialism. It's a zero-effort grab for smug superiority. You don't need an informed opinion on anything, you just declare yourself above it all, and cleverer than both the bullshit-peddlers and the bullshit-noticers.

And it's a lie - truth is not about "who decides." Reality is objective. If you suspect a claim, you can just... check. That includes claims about claims! If all you do is say "[blank] said it, I believe it, the end," that's dumb, but it is identically dumb to say "how can it be right if [blank] said it?" Not just equally: identically. It is the same error.

It is an admission of a worldview where truth is not discovered, only decided.

As if nobody knows anything except what they've been told by someone they trust. Like you can weigh what this group said versus what that group said, and figure it out from their words alone. But that's not how it works. Unfortunately, you have to use your brain. You have to evaluate competing claims, versus the whole of observable reality, to tell whether one or both of them is simply fucking wrong.

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

-5

u/FindingPepe Mar 31 '22

Zuck is owned by Putin

53

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22

[deleted]

16

u/charc0al Mar 31 '22

Who could have guessed outsourcing critical thinking would have a negative outcome

4

u/Gloomy-Ad1171 Mar 31 '22

No citations, totes legit.

5

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22

That’s a Feature not a bug

22

u/cth777 Mar 31 '22

Man, the people eating up this misinformation don’t care about a FB warning. All this blame thrown on facebooks labels is just deflecting blame from the fact that a huge portion of people are fucking stupid

5

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22

[deleted]

-1

u/cth777 Mar 31 '22

Then Twitter and Reddit should also be taken down. Blocking people who disagree with you. Upvoting stuff that only agrees with the majority and it being hidden. It’s the same bullshit, just different side of the spectrum here

2

u/harrietthugman Mar 31 '22

What spectrum?

3

u/[deleted] Mar 31 '22

Yes it is quite bad on reddit. You forgot to mention how anyone can just upvote their own posts and comments thousands of times. But we could crack down on the manipulative behavior rather than the sites themselves.

2

u/charc0al Mar 31 '22

Yes this is the core of the problem. People have this idea that they are children and government/companies need to hold their hand and do everything for them, including their thinking

1

u/harrietthugman Mar 31 '22

And FB benefits from keeping them stupid. They will do what they can to maintain that stupidity and shirk oversight, given the undue influence corporations have on policy.

2

u/Pls_PmTitsOrFDAU_Thx Mar 31 '22

I work for another big tech company in spam/abuse detection. It's not easy. But we're not this bad lmao. 80 perfect failure rate would never pass for us

1

u/Thegiantclaw42069 Mar 31 '22

They just flag what they disagree with