
Fake News Is Still Fooling Facebook’s Fact-Checking Systems - pslattery
https://onezero.medium.com/how-fake-news-is-still-fooling-facebooks-fact-checking-systems-fa8b0e0255b8
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mscasts
The news has become so bad today so every news source is basically fake news.
In my country for example, the national television is so obviously biased it's
ridicolous.

They are spreading more fake news than most of their alternative media
competitors. Basically everyone I know trust these alternative media way more
than the mainstream media. I don't know about the US but in Sweden the
mainstream media is the one responsible for the overwhelming majority of fake
news.

There is a difference though. When these "troll sites" or alternative media
sites spreads fake news it's often outright lies but when mainstream media
spreads fake news it's mostly about leaving important details out and not
disclosing events and information that is relevant. They are experts in taking
things out of context and paint the picture they want to paint. They seldom
lie but they are still not telling the truth.

I'll even give you an example, Dagens Nyheter ([https://dn.se](https://dn.se))
is one of the biggest media outlets in Sweden. They had an ad bought by China
that spread fake news about the Hong Kong protests and pro-China content.

Like, how are people supposed to believe anything they say about such things
as foreign affairs (for example) when they are funded partly by fucking China?

~~~
davidw
> The news has become so bad today so every news source is basically fake
> news. In my country for example, the national television is so obviously
> biased it's ridicolous.

"It's all fake news" is cover for propaganda outlets, and while mainstream
news gets things wrong occasionally, they get a lot right, and also they
course correct and offer corrections when they get things wrong.

There's a huge difference.

~~~
malvosenior
The MSM in the US is almost entirely corrupt. It's proven time and time again
that it will push agendas, hide facts, kill stories, make things up...

If you doubt what I say I suggest you spend some time looking into MSM
coverage of Epstein and Weinstein. Just recently it was leaked that ABC news
killed an Epstein story for political reasons _then_ tracked the whistleblower
down at their new job at CBS and got CBS to fire them.

I suggest reading Ronan Farrow's Catch and Kill to get an accurate take on the
current state of journalism:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_and_Kill](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_and_Kill)

~~~
chime
Yes to all of that but that is still 100x better than a completely fabricated
story about Politician X dying when they are in fact living published on
houston-star-ledger-journal.com. That's fake news. The examples you stated are
not fake, but examples of yellow journalism and other fourth-estate power
grabs.

~~~
taborj
Completely fabricated, eh? The big outlets don't do that, eh?

[https://twitter.com/JessicaGKwong/status/1200208471599321089](https://twitter.com/JessicaGKwong/status/1200208471599321089)

~~~
davidw
She got fired. What happens to "reporters" at propaganda outlets that post
"news" that they know is fake?

~~~
mc32
And what happened to Dan Rather after “rathergate”?

They could “afford” to fire a little known reporter.

And then there is the phenomenon of entertainment disguised as news which many
people take for news which infuse enormous amounts of opinion and bias in
their reporting.

The only ones which make a decent attempt at impartiality is PBS with their
national news. Their local news tends to have intrusions where news is colored
with opinion and bias, unfortunately.

~~~
davidw
No one on this thread is saying news is perfect. But what some people seem to
be saying is that propaganda outlets are just the same as people who at least
try and do real news, which is pretty horrible. That's how the propaganda
wins.

~~~
mc32
The news is bipolar. On occasion they “want to seek the truth”. At other times
they “want to do what’s right”.

Those two things often diverge. The “what’s right” has a lot of latitude and
is open to the interpretation of the reporter and editor it also may hide the
truth.

And also there is “agency”. Some reporters want to be “agents of change”.
That’s not their job. It’s not their job to make nuclear uncool and put Jane
Fonda front and center. If they had looked at the issue critically and
scientifically we might not be in the pickle we’re in with regard to energy
production.

------
faitswulff
Facebook profits from fake news by allowing politicians to publish outright
lies, so I'm not surprised that fake news is "fooling" Facebook's fact-
checking.

Sources:

\-
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/27/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/27/facebook-
only-dutch-factchecker-quits-over-political-ad-exemption)

\- [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/technology/elizabeth-
warr...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/technology/elizabeth-warren-
facebook-ad.html)

Deactivated my Facebook account today. Hope to delete someday.

~~~
monocasa
I mean, it sort of has to be. Ultimately Facebook is only allowed to operate
because politicians allow it to. Pissing off too many politicians is an
existential threat to Facebook.

That's not to totally absolve Facebook btw; a major part of what needs to
happen is a huge amount of transparency so that constituents can pressure
politicians correctly.

~~~
faitswulff
I don't see how it's a requirement to allow politicians to lie. For instance,
both Twitter and Google now prohibit political advertisement entirely.
Facebook could follow suit. They'd just make less money.

~~~
bananabreakfast
Political ad spend is a tiny amount of facebook's revenue. It has nothing to
do with money and everything to do with Zuck's politics

~~~
monocasa
It's not about overt advertisements, but standard viral communications that
the platforms live and die on.

------
insickness
I actually don't want Facebook removing 'fake news.' There are, of course,
some obvious examples of fake things spreading around. But what about the less
obvious examples? Where do we draw the line?

Social media companies should not be the arbiters of truth. I don't want
Facebook or Google deciding for us what truth is. If the speech is illegal,
like defamation or direct calls to violence, it should be taken down. Other
than that, falsehood should be countered with truth rather than removal.

If you look at Fox News vs CNN, you'll see completely different versions of
'truth'. Any 'fact' these days can be labeled as fake news or a conspiracy
theory. Both sides are doing it. But it would be far worse if there were only
one version rather than two.

~~~
zionic
This is the only viable way forward. They need go back to being a dumb
platform, just like ISPs are dumb pipes.

~~~
root_axis
Why? What if a technology company wants to build a website that caters to a
certain value system? Why should they not be allowed to do that?

~~~
CaptainZapp
Because they insist of having it both ways. Whenever it's convenient to them
they claim to be dump pipes.

But this is only valid until it comes to maximize profits. Then suddenly they
are (heavy handed) editors.

~~~
root_axis
> _Whenever it 's convenient to them they claim to be dump pipes_

Can you provide an example of Facebook ever claiming they are just "dumb
pipes" and how that claim had any material impact on their business? Are you
suggesting Facebook is potentially guilty of false advertising?

~~~
insickness
Is Facebook a publisher? In public it says no, but in court it says yes
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/02/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/02/facebook-
mark-zuckerberg-platform-publisher-lawsuit)

~~~
root_axis
So what? "Publisher" has no legal meaning in the context of a website, so who
cares what they say they are?

------
TomMckenny
There's no financial incentive to do fact checking and there is enormous
political pressure not to. Ironically, from parties that will thoroughly
censor Facebook when they can.

But more interesting, given much of the thread has somehow become an anti-
press tirade, is how easy it has been for the new style autocrats to reuse the
cry "Lügenpress!" just by translating it.

And while it is becoming increasingly unfashionable to say so; there is such a
thing as truth, it is knowable and, there are conscientious people who follow
facts wherever they lead and report them.

~~~
organsnyder
> And while it is becoming increasingly unfashionable to say so; there is such
> a thing as truth, it is knowable and, there are conscientious people who
> follow facts wherever they lead and report them.

And most of mainstream journalism (as well as many alternative outlets) still
strives to do this. Yes, they make mistakes and have their own biases (they
are human, after all), and they often have conflicting incentives (they'd like
to feed their families) but they really are trying to find the truth.

I recently got into in argument with my conservative Christian in-laws about
this. It was surreal for me to need to be arguing the position that there is
absolute truth out there—even if we can never know for sure in this lifetime.
As a progressive millenial, I thought the postmodern post-truth perspective
was supposed to be mine!

~~~
brlewis
> there is absolute truth out there—even if we can never know for sure in this
> lifetime

Yes, it does seem strange that they would be opposed. Are you sure they
understood your main statement the way I quoted it above?

~~~
organsnyder
> Yes, it does seem strange that they would be opposed. Are you sure they
> understood your main statement the way I quoted it above?

It was in the context of discussing the Trump administration, especially the
impeachment process (how we got there is a long story...). They kept falling
back on "there's two sides to every story..." as if that precludes us from
attempting to seek truth.

I'm sure if pressed, they would agree that objective truth exists (it's hard
to be an evangelical Christian and not hold this view). But they seem
bewildered at the prospect of actually trying to seek it out. Gaslighting has
truly taken its toll.

~~~
brlewis
I too find it bewildering to uncover the truth when there's evidence on both
sides; that's why I made
[https://en.howtruthful.com/](https://en.howtruthful.com/)

~~~
TomMckenny
We should also distinguish between statements of fact which do have truth
value vs statements of opinion which don't.

"Is Hillary a bad person?" asks an opinion and has no objectively wrong
answer.

"Did Hillary run a child abuse ring from a pizza parlor?" is objectively
either true or false regardless of how many people believe it.

Relativism may have started with the intent of pointing out this distinction
(eg the 19th century firm belief that "Primitive societies are bad") before
being over generalized.

------
Barrin92
the problem of fake news is fundamental to the way Facebook operates. It's a
noise-generating machine by design. Instead of trying to play whack-a-mole
with fake news the saner alternative would be to architect communication
systems in ways that don't allow this bottom-up virality. Associate some cost
with the proliferation of posts, say limit the number of contacts users can
have and how many people see their posts, bring it down to communal or human
scale. Everything else is just trying to fight a hurricane with a hairdryer.

Should be obvious that it directly interferes with the business model of the
company so it's probably never going to happen.

~~~
OedipusRex
>Should be obvious that it directly interferes with the business model of the
company so it's probably never going to happen.

Bingo.

Facebook started out as social media platform for humans, now every local news
station, your favorite burger joint, and any "news" website on the web can
have a Facebook profile convincing enough to look legit.

Instead of fixing the news on Facebook lets take the news out of Facebook.

Which is almost as impossible as "directly interferes with the business model
of the company so it's probably never going to happen."

~~~
organsnyder
I don't think that corporate presence on Facebook is really the problem.
Facebook is designed to maximize user engagement. That doesn't conflate with
truthfulness of content (user- or corporate-posted)—in fact, often times it's
the opposite. Of course, this isn't new—yellow journalism was a big problem in
the early 20th century. But Facebook's algorithm—and the ease of starting new
media outlets—makes it orders of magnitude worse.

------
root_axis
Fake news is a cultural problem that can't be solved algorithmically. A large
portion of the people sharing and consuming fake news don't care that it's
fake. We have to train the next generation to mistrust social media platforms
as a general rule and work to encourage the concept of meaningful discourse
and communication outside of these platforms.

------
ajoy
You would think users are savvy enough not to trust non-mainstream websites.
We have found the best way to avoid fake news, is to read the "good" stuff.
Instead of trying to determine if an article is bad, we try to see how good an
article is. It is an important difference in how we approach the news.

The only way to truly understand a topic is to read many viewpoints and make
an independent decision. But who really has time for all that?

A plug for what we are working on :
[https://www.thefactual.com/static/extfaq.html](https://www.thefactual.com/static/extfaq.html)

I linked to the FAQ on purpose, since it might answer some of the questions
you might have.

We analyze articles everyday from tons of news sources, score them for bias,
reputation of the author, reputation of the site and how opinionated the
writing is. Our software then clusters articles based on what story its
covering and then rank and sort them. It's all available for free.

We even have a daily newsletter :
[https://www.thefactual.com](https://www.thefactual.com)

Sorry if this comes across as too promotional. But we see the problem being
mentioned in a lot of places and it's exactly what we have been trying to
solve and would love to get more people to use it and give feedback.

------
Hernanpm
At my country (Bolivia) during the coup we noticed real news being reported as
fake news and take down, fb tools don't really work in either side real or
fake.

------
mschuster91
You can either have limitless "free speech" or get rid of fake news, or to use
the correct term: lies and propaganda.

Either you take down the propaganda spreaders, no matter if by legal measures
such as netblocks or jail (for domestic propaganda), by war (in case of
Russian state propaganda) or by a team of elite soldiers (for those operating
in unwilling-to-cooperate third states) or you lose the liberal society we
enjoy.

The earlier societies realize they are at a new form of war, the better. But
as long as people excuse Russian or Chinese propaganda with free speech,
nothing will be done and eventually free speech itself will be lost. Hongkong
shows what China wants - Europe and the US should _not_ think they are immune
from CCP demands. Hell, we _provide_ China and Russia with the weapons against
us - and no, nothing Facebook does is anywhere close to enough to _not_ be a
weapon in itself! Their moderation rules are intransparent to outright crazy,
the teams understaffed and overworked.

------
jdkee
"Seen from the viewpoint of politics, truth has a despotic character. It is
thereforehated by tyrants, who rightly fear the competition of a coercive
force they cannotmonopolize, and it enjoys a rather precarious status in the
eyes of governments thatrest on consent and abhor coercion. Facts are beyond
agreement and consent, and alltalk about them – all exchanges of opinion based
on correct information – will contributenothing to their establishment.
Unwelcome opinion can be argued with,rejected, or compromised upon, but
unwelcome facts possess an infuriating stubbornnessthat nothing can move
except plain lies. The trouble is that factual truth,like all other truth,
peremptorily claims to be acknowledged and precludes debate,and debate
constitutes the very essence of political life."

Excerpt from Truth and Politics by Hannah Arendt in the Feb. 25, 1967 issue of
The New Yorker magazine. Highly recommended.

------
newnewpdro
Never in my life would I have imagined a population expecting the advertising
companies to police the truth.

------
kerkeslager
I haven't had a Facebook account for a long time. Few decisions I've made have
improved my life so drastically.

Just get off Facebook. They're a terrible company, people shouldn't be
supporting them, and your life will be better without it.

------
droithomme
> even though its executives had evidence that Russian agents were behind some
> of it

Oh this dude is against "fake news" and then starts pushing the whole Russian
bullshit again? This article is fake news. Lame.

Russian ad farm scammers buying a few thousand ad impressions for ads
featuring BLM, Jill Stein, Jesus' advice on masturbation, and other such
topics designed to attract curious clicks, all as documented in the government
report, is not Russian election manipulation and it's dishonest to continue
maintaining that it was. Also Russia's not the only hotbed for ad farm scams
nor even a particular hotbed. Ad farms are grown globally in countless net
nooks and crannies.

Why not refuse to accept ads promoting clickthrough to bogus ad farms filled
with stolen content instead? That would actually do some good. Oh but might
eat slightly into ad profits, so no can do.

