Saturday, October 14, 2017

Nobody Stops Fake News Like Facebook's Filters, No Sir


Facebook


A news story that's been labeled false by Facebook's third-party fact-checking partners sees its future impressions on the platform drop by 80%, according to new data contained in an email sent by a Facebook executive and obtained by BuzzFeed News.

The message also said it typically takes "over three days" for the label to be applied to a false story, and that Facebook wants to work with its partners to speed the process.

Buzzfeed:  Facebook Says Its Fake News Label Helps Reduce The Spread Of A Fake Story By 80%


It's noted in the article that three days gives plenty of time for the article to gain most of the impressions it ever will.  Facebook insists the problem is their fact checkers need to step up the pace.  The fact checkers are credible with Politifact and Snopes but it's not clear what they consider to fake news.

For example, almost any kind of satire will, on the surface, look like fake news when perhaps it declares the Trump family is descended from turkeys.  That's probably not true but maybe the satirist has some point to make.  Regardless, it looks like fake news so throw it out.

A common technique is when news channels present real news while they also omit real news which doesn't serve the channel's purpose.  Using that technique makes the entire news presentation suspect but there's almost no way to detect it.


So far, the initiative doesn't look at all impressive since it doesn't appear to be more than a low end form of censorship in which they don't seem clear on what they're trying to censor.

Zen Yogi:  they should have just stuck to filtering boobs

No, they shouldn't, Yogi, since that effort was just as juvenile as this one.

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