
Facebook is 1-2% responsible for the election? - jakewins
https://shift.newco.co/im-sorry-mr-zuckerberg-but-you-are-wrong-65dbf8513424#.sg9c81jue
======
avivo
If you want to decrease the spread of misinformation, or if you are at
Facebook, Google, etc. and want your org to support this but it isn't doing
enough — we are actively working on this (and have been since _before the
election_ ) and would love to get in touch. We believe an impartial 3rd party
can help with a few core problems in this domain.

One way to think about this is that some forms of communication amplify
confirmation bias (and other cognitive biases). As we develop new forms of
communication, we may need to compensate for these biases in new ways. Our
motivation is to incentivize better public discourse.

You can reach us here (feel free to just put in your preferred encrypted
communication channel...)
[https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSclhq7zrUKI3nxJFiYw...](https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSclhq7zrUKI3nxJFiYwJ-
NvyW4xAeLbSF7cWxst6GKBON9Y7Q/viewform)

~~~
problems
> decrease the spread of misinformation

This rings very "Ministry of Truth" to me. Scary stuff that companies even
consider policing this when it's completely not their job. Our social networks
should not be deciding what's true and what isn't for us.

~~~
fisherjeff
Just out of curiosity - who do you think should be deciding that? Certainly
not the individual, given the immense resource advantage of the organizations
putting out false information.

~~~
problems
Certainly the individual, assisted by the extreme ease of finding fairly
accurate information from reputable organizations.

It's extremely worrying that anyone would propose anything else - how some
refuse to think for themselves or vet information properly in this day and age
I'll never understand.

~~~
captain_crabs
When the ideal is more work than the default, most people won't behave
ideally. So while I agree with you in spirit, who defines the reputable
organizations? Individuals have an asymmetric losing fight here since the
effort it takes to put out crap is far less than to deal with it. How can we
make the process of finding & consuming news humane in that it works ideally
for the average/below-average user?

That's the hard question, and I think it still remains.

~~~
problems
It's not a hard question, it's an easy one - We can't fix it. If you want
accurate news you have to think, you have to be willing to know a site's
history, who pays for it, what their usual bias is, how they compare with
scientific research papers and compare with other news sources to see who's
reporting. You have to do that foot work, if you can't do it, you'll never get
accurate news. Once you know a few news sources that are generally trustworthy
this gets a lot easier of course, with some exceptions. You only really have
to do this once per source to get a basic feeling.

We can't just go out and do that for people either without introducing similar
biases. It has to be done by every individual who wants an accurate depiction
of the truth. Call it idealistic, but anything less is unacceptable in one way
or another, so it's the way it has to be.

At best we could build vetting tools into social networks or perhaps better as
browser extensions to allow you to filter and see general details about
sources, it might be difficult to not introduce issues into these sorts of
tools though.

Voting systems and public commenting offer a decent alternative in many ways,
but often produce one set of biases that dominate completely. They're no
replacement for proper research.

~~~
captain_crabs
Ah, I see your point about outsourced thinking.

If you take a bunch of informed, critical thinkers who do their research and
point them at the same group of sources, I wager you'd end up with a largely
consistent set of questions being asked, and relatively "factual"(from the pov
of an average American) group of answers (who owns them, how was this article
paid for, etc). Through this, you could make whatever bias exists in a piece
really explicit (loosely defined as relations & incentives).

So the "vetting" toolsets that make this easy and available are what make
consuming news more humane.

I think the "ministry of truth" thought is valid, because an organization
started off of good will and good intent might be that way for a while, but
after it is cemented in and the people who run it filter out, the power
structure it leaves is ripe for abuse. But this is what the hard question is:
how might we tackle this, beyond just telling people to think better?

If you had to create a new "article" primitive, meaning, you had to have these
things to be considered an article, what would you put in it to aid explicit
bias and relieve the burden on informed thinkers? (Title, Author, Contents,
...)

------
afsina
Wow. This was almost a non issue like two weeks ago. It is pathetic that the
very media who tried so hard to distort perceptions is trying to blame fake
news.

~~~
JBReefer
I don't think the issue is fake news. I think the issue is that there is
nearly 0 crossover between the two political spheres. I haven't seen any posts
about violence against Trump voters on election day (there was a surprising
amount) on Facebook, and I haven't seen any posts about the uptick in hate
crime on /pol/.

The problem is that social media has created 2 different countries that live
next to each other.

~~~
taurath
Its not social media. My parents barely use the internet but they live in the
same bubble /w fox news and conservative talk radio. Its existed for a long
time, but now there are so many sources and outlets you can stay completely
and entirely within the bubble.

One could argue about how much a bubble there is on the left... think for
example the difference between CNN US and CNN international - one is
relatively vapid lowest common denominator infotainment, and the other is hard
news. I feel like infotainment/tabloidization and an uneducated populace is
the biggest contributor to ignorance. Granted, its hard to know how much of a
factor that's always been.

I'd love to actually see tags on facebook posts. "Extremely conservative",
"Mostly Neutral", "Mostly liked by liberals" etc etc. At least make people
think about why they're seeing these sources.

~~~
iamthepieman
"I'd love to actually see tags on facebook posts. "Extremely conservative",
"Mostly Neutral", "Mostly liked by liberals" etc etc. At least make people
think about why they're seeing these sources"

I'd love to see that and a lot more. "Read by your neighbor twenty minutes
ago.", "Shared by 40 people within 1 mile of you", "Most liked by self-
identified christian conservatives between 42-59 that make 70-90K in combined
household income"

But really, your suggestion will just allow people to self-filter even more.
BreitBart readers aren't avoiding articles from Daily Kos because they think
they are just copies of each other.

~~~
taurath
Its the hidden nature of the self filtering that allows people to not be aware
they are in a bubble. Just simply the awareness that this is an inherently
biased source can make you think about other perspectives. You may go to
brietbart because you agree with them, but if half the links are for infowars
or other sites that you may not know the biases of it would be extremely
helpful to know.

Hell, even a browser extension giving you a bias bar with a sliding scale for
each source would be super neat.

~~~
iamthepieman
Is it? That's not a question I know the answer to. I might agree with you but
I don't take your point of view as a given.

I try to read and listen to content from multiple perspectives but I avoid
things that I "know" are wrong and/or ridiculous. It's not so much a judgment
call on the validity of their viewpoint as it is the fact that I have limited
time to read and ... oh wait, it is totally a judgement call on my part.

My thoughts have just turned way too philosophical for a comment to a comment
on HN but why the heck do I read anything. I don't know. I need to think now.

------
bjt2n3904
This is the third time I've seen something on this today.

So what's the plan then? Start a Facebook "Ministry of Truth"?

~~~
nathancahill
A lot of subreddits (r/politics for example) have tags like "Misleading
title". Maybe something like that?

Many of my friends _sincerely_ believe the fake news they have read on these
sites, because nothing suggests that it might be fake. It's so sad. When I ask
them for sources for "facts" like "Obama is a Muslim", they send me a list of
news articles that "proves it". Fact checking sites are "the corrupt media"
and "liberal bias".

btw, these aren't uninformed people. They watch the news, debate with friends
and vote. It's the sincerity that they believe the news with that's so
depressing.

~~~
narrator
/r/politics is a really bad example because it was completely taken over by
pro-Hillary sentiment during the campaign. Then it all flipped back to neutral
after the campaign.

~~~
belltaco
It didn't really flip back to neutral. Go read the recent top poss.

------
itp
Disclaimer: I'm an unabashed fan of Neal Stephenson's writing, to the point
where I have read everything he's written more than once. That said...

Unsurprisingly, Neal Stephenson was ahead of the curve here yet again. From
The Diamond Age, published in 1995:

> “One of the insights of the Victorian Revival was that it was not
> necessarily a good thing for everyone to read a completely different
> newspaper in the morning; so the higher one rose in the society, the more
> similar one's Times became to one's peers'.”

------
dang
Despite its baity title, this looks like a relatively substantive article, so
we won't penalize it unless the thread goes haywire.

As for the title, we've attempted to replace it with representative language
from the article (see third paragraph). If someone can find a more accurate
and neutral phrase from the article to serve as the title, we can change it
again.

Edit: and since the claim is obviously contentious, we've appended a question
mark to it. That is standard moderation practice btw.

~~~
maxerickson
I think a synthesized title like "Facebook, Fake News and Elections" is better
than language from the article that includes numbers that are an opinion.

Or just "Facebook and Fake News".

~~~
dang
We do that in rare cases but I think the discipline of sticking to an
article's own language is valuable for HN. If an article doesn't contain a
substantive enough phrase to serve as its own title, it usually shouldn't be
here to begin with.

------
cmdrfred
Is this backlash related to the "Correct the Record" group or did the
Republican campaign also mount a similar offensive that I'm unaware of?

[http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/21/hillary-
pac...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/04/21/hillary-pac-
spends-1-million-to-correct-commenters-on-reddit-and-facebook.html)

~~~
SRSposter
IIRC Palmer Lucky, the guy behind Oculus Rift setup his own CTR like company,
without any connection to Donald Trump.

~~~
cmdrfred
Do you have any articles about it? A quick search only found that he attempted
to start one and Trump supporters rejected the idea. I'm curious how much he
spent compared to CTR's 4.5 million.

[https://www.engadget.com/amp/2016/09/22/oculus-founder-
palme...](https://www.engadget.com/amp/2016/09/22/oculus-founder-palmer-
luckey-secretly-funds-pro-trump-meme-magi/)

------
sdegutis
There's absolutely no doubt that my wife's Facebook feed was filled with
misinformation on both sides of the election for weeks/months, and that many
of her friends and family were using those images to prove their points or to
publicly proclaim that it had strengthened their sentiments about this or that
person or party or situation.

~~~
SilasX
Stupid question: Isn't that benign as long as there's no systematic trend in
the direction of the bias? For all (X, N), if N% of pro-X stories and N% of
anti-X stories are false then ...?

~~~
jimbokun
No, absolutely not benign.

Our democracy will function better if our populace is well informed about
basic facts.

It's very possible both political parties propagate some of the same lies, or
suppress the same inconvenient truths, because those facts don't reflect well
on either party's policies.

------
gcatalfamo
_" Facebook is now in the awkward position of having to explain why they think
they drive purchase decisions but not voting decisions"_ Casey Newton

[https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/796909159174127616](https://twitter.com/CaseyNewton/status/796909159174127616)

------
mtgx
I'm curious, if a bigger publication like say CNN or Washington Post publishes
a "false" article, would it be punished/banned, just like a random blog post
would? Or would they receive "more weight" because they are "reputable
publications"?

If so, then this solution would not work either (if we actually care about the
_truth_ ). Most of the big publications have become propaganda machines for
one party or the other, so the "reputable" thing has gone out of the window a
long time ago. They should be treated the same way a random blog post would be
when it comes to facts.

Right now, Google, at least, gives way more ranking power to these "reputable"
publications in Google News than it gives random blog posts. So I hope they
don't just slightly update the existing algorithm to add the fact-checking
thing.

~~~
masonic
They suffer no consequences at all.

For example[0]: "The measure that's sure to evoke the most debate — and which
has already done so — is his plan to extend the use of background checks to
cover more sales at gun shows. In 2013, after a strong push from the
president, the Senate blocked an effort to expand background checks at gun
shows."

In fact, _existing_ Federal laws for gun shows are _exactly the same_ as for
retail stores. What the claim attacks is gun shows themselves, as an event and
meeting place ("nurseries of sedition and rebellion," as Charles II referred
to coffeehouses).

It goes on to seek exactly one legal opinion -- from a prominent gun ownership
opponent: "Here's where we are now: A guy who owns a gun store is a dealer and
runs a background check. A guy who wants to sell his one rifle to his neighbor
isn't a dealer and doesn't have to conduct one." In _fact_ a dealer wouldn't
have to do a background check on a rifle anyway, and it's not the individual
owner who does a chack anyway when it _is_ necessary (e.g. handgun transfers)
-- it's a licensed dealer, accessing the DOJ system.

Later: "Gun shows are the embodiment of that loophole. He imitated a carnival
barker. "'Minors! People with felony records! Step right up!'" Again, a flat
lie decorated with a _deliberately inflammatory_ example -- laws are the same
inside or outside of gun shows.

[0] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
fix/wp/2016/01/05/is...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
fix/wp/2016/01/05/is-obamas-executive-action-on-guns-legal-lets-break-it-down)

------
narrator
Isn't there a role for a non-political disributor of information? Can't
Facebook shrug their shoulders and just say they want to be the dumb pipe? Do
we really want a huge bureau of censors like China, because that's where we're
going.

~~~
losteric
Sure, as long as they are clearly just that... a dumb spam pipeline.

Facebook likes pretending to be more, they want to be an unbiased automated
news site. And they're failing miserably at that. They need to stop
pretending, and either fix or embrace the problem.

~~~
narrator
I think Google News is more of what you're talking about. Everything they
reported was from all the highly reputable mainstream. I tried to use them,
but I gave up after I could not find a way to remove "top headlines" from my
news feed. It's as if my payment for using their service was they could tell
me what to think about. As Orwell said: "News is publishing someone doesn't
want published. All else is public relations".

------
iamthepieman
The article is reasonably written but I believe the author makes his main
points through false claims. Don't take my word for it; see for yourself.

    
    
        The upshot of all this is to say that a 1–2% 
        difference in election results based on the assault of 
        the <1% of fake news articles on Facebook is an entirely
        plausible outcome. We can’t know for sure, of course, 
        but there is real, hard science to back up this theory.
    

There isn't real hard science to back up that Facebook had a 1-2% difference
in election results. There's real, hard science that long-running general
marketing campaigns can sway consumers of popular brands (at least that's what
he says in the previous paragraph)

    
    
        Moving to news, then, let’s state the obvious. Saying
        you’re 99% accurate in the news is a complete failure. 
        Can you imagine the New York Times, Wall Street Journal,
        CNN or, hell, even Breitbart saying “hey, only 1% or so
        of our stories are wrong.” Even one incorrect news story
        is a terrible tragedy
    

Does the author read news? Reporters and news organizations are not injection
molders. They don't churn out the same story over and over where the inputs
are all clearly defined and subject to their own quality control. Actually,
that's more true of the type of fake news the author is criticizing here. A 1%
error rate would be amazing in a news organization.

And the real kicker of the whole thing

    
    
         Thus far, all of your proposed solutions to these
         very real problems are predicated upon a still-unproven
         hypothesis: That communities at scale can police 
        themselves ... This is not true, and has never been true.
    

Well, I guess every democratic nation on earth is well and truly fucked. Get
out the big black markers, fire up the government presses, turn back the clock
300 years[0].

[0][http://www.nycourts.gov/history/legal-history-new-
york/legal...](http://www.nycourts.gov/history/legal-history-new-york/legal-
history-eras-01/history-new-york-legal-eras-crown-zenger.html)

EDIT: Less derogatory initial sentence.

~~~
CodeMage
Sorry, I don't get it: which democratic nation has the community that polices
itself in the same sense FB (or HN) community is expected to?

~~~
iamthepieman
All of the ones that haven't sunk to civil war yet.

------
dictum
This is a needed debate, but as I suspected, it's a bit of an orchestrated
talking point: [http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/clinton-facebook-
fake-...](http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/clinton-facebook-fake-
news-231365)

------
dominotw
where are all the articles calling out king of fake news, nytimes.

proof: [https://wikileaks.org/podesta-
emails/emailid/4213](https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/4213)

~~~
fudgie
How is asking for permission to use off the record statements in an article
creating fake news?

~~~
dominotw
They didn't extend that courtesy to Trump with their hit locker room piece or
some of their own hit pieces made up of 'off record' interviews

[http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-
draft/2016/01/07/donal...](http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-
draft/2016/01/07/donald-trump-says-he-favors-big-tariffs-on-chinese-exports/)

"Mr. Rosenthal sent a digital copy of the recording to a newsroom editor whom
he declined to name, with the reminder that there had been an agreement to
treat portions of it as off the record."

~~~
fudgie
Sorry? That article doesn't contain your quote and has no information that was
given off the record as far as I can see?

Claiming that an interview done by NYT vs something leaked to the media
requires the same protocol is also quite a stretch.

Anyways, the quote you include is from something completely different and not
about the 'locker room' talk :
[http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/trumps-
off-...](http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/trumps-off-the-
record-remarks-new-york-times-went-public/)

------
CoryG89
Perhaps there is opportunity for someone to provide a service which fact
checks news stories and provides an API that returns a simple score for a
given article based on objective checkable facts.

------
_RPM
Could someone like Zuck ever run for president or be elected?

~~~
user5994461
Considering his social skills, that would be a great achievement ^^

------
Alex3917
They just moved fast and broke things, what's the big deal? /s

------
chinese_donald
What if it's not the news that's false, but memes and public opinion?

A friend's opinion is many more times effective than a random, fake, news
article.

Are we going to start silencing opinion, because it's not factual? Almost
nothing comes down to just True and False.

It feels like we are stating to go into dangerous territory, where we allow
sites like Facebook to determine the truth for us.

~~~
gcatalfamo

      A friend's opinion is many more times effective than a random, fake, news article.
    

But chances are, in all honesty, that the friend's opinion came from reading
one of those fake news articles.

~~~
acbabis
I would guess that most image macros containing rhetorical arguments _don 't_
come from people who've based their beliefs on bad journalism. They come from
people who've already made up their mind and want to reach as many people as
possible

~~~
gcatalfamo
True, and they could've also come from fake news site that leveraged rage-
induced clickbaits to earn massively from ads. (which is what happened during
this election)

------
camperman
"This election was extraordinarily close. Within half a point."

No it wasn't and you're extraordinarily ill-informed about the US's political
system to even make that claim. The US is a constitutional republic, not a
direct democracy. The Electoral College is part of a carefully drawn up system
by the Founding Fathers to prevent power from concentrating. For those who
didn't learn and understand this at age 10 or so, check out Steve Farrell's
series here:

[https://ldsmag.com/article-1-4510/](https://ldsmag.com/article-1-4510/)

~~~
bunderbunder
Originally, it was more meant to concentrate power. The Electoral College was
the Founding Fathers' solution to the "problem" that slave states would have
been at a huge disadvantage in a popular vote, by virtue of a much smaller
percentage of their populations being allowed to vote in the first place. "One
person, one vote" didn't work for them. So instead, they came up with a system
where a few people got to effectively vote as if they spoke for everyone else
in their state, including the swaths of the population who were
disenfranchised.

The way in which it functions has indeed changed a bit in the wake of a few
constitutional amendments. But make no mistake: It was intended to work the
way it worked 200-odd years ago, not the way it works now. The popular
explanation, which tries to justify how it works now and projects that
justification onto its original designers, is a retcon.

~~~
Amezarak
Fortunately, we live in a time where any of us can look over the notes people
made at the Constitutional Convention itself.

Some of the various ideas and justifications follow:

 _Mr. SHERMAN was for the appointment by the Legislature, and for making him
absolutely dependent on that body, as it was the will of that which was to be
executed. An independence of the Executive on the supreme Legislature, was in
his opinion the very essence of tyranny if there was any such thing._

 _Mr. WILSON renewed his declarations in favor of an appointment by the
people. He wished to derive not only both branches of the Legislature from the
people, without the intervention of the State Legislatures but the Executive
also; in order to make them as independent as possible of each other, as well
as of the States;_

 _Mr. WILSON made the following motion, to be substituted for the mode
proposed by Mr. Randolph 's resolution, "that the Executive Magistracy shall
be elected in the following manner: That the States be divided into ______
districts: & that the persons qualified to vote in each district for members
of the first branch of the national Legislature elect ______ members for their
respective districts to be electors of the Executive magistracy, that the said
Electors of the Executive magistracy meet at ______ and they or any ______ of
them so met shall proceed to elect by ballot, but not out of their own body
______ person in whom the Executive authority of the national Government shall
be vested."_

 _Mr. WILSON repeated his arguments in favor of an election without the
intervention of the States. He supposed too that this mode would produce more
confidence among the people in the first magistrate, than an election by the
national Legislature._

 _Mr. GERRY, opposed the election by the national legislature. There would be
a constant intrigue kept up for the appointment. The Legislature & the
candidates wd. bargain & play into one another's hands, votes would be given
by the former under promises or expectations from the latter, of recompensing
them by services to members of the Legislature or to [4] their friends. He
liked the principle of Mr. Wilson's motion, but fears it would alarm & give a
handle to the State partisans, as tending to supersede altogether the State
authorities. He thought the Community not yet ripe for stripping the States of
their powers, even such as might not be requisite for local purposes. He was
for waiting till people should feel more the necessity of it. He seemed to
prefer the taking the suffrages of the States instead of Electors, or letting
the Legislatures nominate, and the electors appoint. He was not clear that the
people ought to act directly even in the choice of electors, being too little
informed of personal characters in large districts, and liable to deceptions._

 _Mr. WILLIAMSON could see no advantage in the introduction of Electors chosen
by the people who would stand in the same relation to them as the State
Legislatures, whilst the expedient would be attended with great trouble and
expence_

 _Mr. GERRY, according to previous notice given by him, moved "that the
National Executive should be elected by the Executives of the States whose
proportion of votes should be the same with that allowed to the States in the
election of the Senate." If the appointmt. should be made by the Natl.
Legislature, it would lessen that independence of the Executive which ought to
prevail, would give birth to intrigue and corruption between the Executive &
Legislature previous to the election, and to partiality in the Executive
afterwards to the friends who promoted him. Some other mode therefore appeared
to him necessary._

I cannot find any debate over suffrage until after these discussions.

The antidemocratic sentiment is the Convention was very strong - there was
debate on whether even the House should be popularly elected, on the grounds
that:

 _Mr. SHERMAN opposed the election by the people, insisting that it ought to
be by the State Legislatures. The people he said, immediately should have as
little to do as may be about the Government. They want information and are
constantly liable to be misled._

 _Mr. GERRY. The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The
people do not want virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots. In Massts.
it had been fully confirmed by experience that they are daily misled into the
most baneful measures and opinions by the false reports circulated by
designing men, and which no one on the spot can refute. One principal evil
arises from the want of due provision for those employed in the administration
of Governmt. It would seem to be a maxim of democracy to starve the public
servants. He mentioned the popular clamour in Massts. for the reduction of
salaries and the attack made on that of the Govr. though secured by the spirit
of the Constitution itself. He had he said been too republican heretofore: he
was still however republican, but had been taught by experience the danger of
the levilling spirit._

[http://www.nhccs.org/Mnotes.html](http://www.nhccs.org/Mnotes.html)

~~~
dictum
> In Massts. it had been fully confirmed by experience that they are daily
> misled into the most baneful measures and opinions by the false reports
> circulated by designing men

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is
nothing new under the sun."

------
setum
facebook? why not go all the way and blame internet itself.

note: I have not read the article.

