
Snowden: Stop Relying on Facebook for Your News - spacehacker
http://www.scribblrs.com/snowden-stop-relying-facebook-news/
======
JacobJans
I have interacted with several people on Facebook who rely on fake news
sources.

I pointed out fake news articles several times on one person's Facebook page.
She agreed the articles were not true.

However, she added "I don't have time to figure out if they're true. People
can read your comments."

I asked her what she thought of the fact that this particular article, which
was blatantly false, was shared 16,000 times.

Her response:

"That's comforting."

I was shocked.

And yet, that is the reality we now live in. Many, many people are acting, and
thinking, exactly like her.

~~~
tempestn
Check out the most recent Last Week tonight. Features clips of President Elect
Trump making almost identical comments. In March he claimed a man who rushed
the stage at one of his rallies had ties to ISIS. When confronted with the
fact that the source he'd linked to was a hoax, his response was, "What do I
know about it? All I know is it was on the internet." [1]

Then there was an interview with Bill O'Reilly: Bill: "You tweeted out that
whites killed by blacks - these are statistics you picked up from somewhere -
at a rate of 81%. That's totally wrong; whites killed by blacks at a rate of
15%."

Trump: "Hey Bill. Am I going to check every statistic? I've got millions of
people... you know what? Fine. But this came out of radio shows and everything
else."

Anyway, worth watching the whole show. It's funny, in a painful way.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rSDUsMwakI#t=14m45s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rSDUsMwakI#t=14m45s)
[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rSDUsMwakI#t=15m20s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rSDUsMwakI#t=15m20s)

~~~
lake99
This extreme partisanship is one of the reasons I'm wary of John Oliver. For
example, Politifact, despite its biases or subjectivity, has documented
examples of practically every major politian making untrue statements.
Including the current POTUS.

We need a systemic approach to dealing with lies and untruths of the people
who weild power. If you make it partisan, the liar/politican will just block
you out, and so will their followers.

~~~
deno
Politifact is infamous for their bias. Here’s an example of them rating the
same exact statement very differently, depending on who made it:

[http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2015/jul/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2015/jul/13/bernie-s/bernie-sanders-says-real-unemployment-
rate-african/)

[http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2016/jun/20/do...](http://www.politifact.com/virginia/statements/2016/jun/20/donald-
trump/trump-misleadingly-puts-black-youth-unemployment-r/)

There are numerous studies that also show significant selection bias, that is
they cherry-pick statements they fact-check.

Politifact itself makes no attempt to evaluate and correct for their own bias.
The newspaper that runs it is liberal leaning, and has endorsed Hillary
Clinton.

Because of the fact that Politifact tries to appear unbiased, their apparent
bias is even more disappointing. Truly neutral fact-checking is something that
would be very desirable. Perhaps the only way this will ever happen is by some
sort of aggregation of left- and right-leaning “fact-checking.” Sort of like
metacritic.

~~~
zaphods-towel
Those are different claims. Bernie specifies that he's talking about youths
who _only_ had a high school degree or dropped out. Further, Bernie's campaign
replied to Politifact's questions and pointed them to a specific source. Trump
made a completely different claim (about _all_ African-American youths), and
then ignored Politifact's questions. Trump's claim is wrong, and Bernie's is
coming from a slightly weird source but has reasonable support. Further,
Trump's campaign refuses to provide support...so of course they're not going
to have as favorable a response... they don't even claim to have support for
their statement.

~~~
deno
The quotation in the article is cherry-picked to make Sanders look good. With
little research you can see he’s been repeating this claim non-stop without
any such disclaimers.

The following is a direct quote from The Nation interview linked in the very
same Politifact article:

> ﻿ Do you know what real African-American youth unemployment is? It’s over 50
> percent.

The fact is both Trump and Sanders were factually wrong. Their usage of the
term “unemployment” was at best misleading.

Politifact is however willing to massage Sen. Sander’s statement to make it
only “mostly true,” instead of false, which is a clear example of bias.

There are numerous examples of Politifact asserting editorial control in this
manner, skewing the results on the Mostly-True–Mostly-False range of the
“truthometer.”

------
JayHost
I quit Facebook 1 to 2 years ago. I suppose that's one of the reasons I didn't
understand the hatred during the election towards the other side.

I don't have a feed of "He's evil" "She's evil". I saw two bad candidates and
I understand where people are coming from with their votes.

I'd like to see most independents / democratic people unite under a real
progressive platform next election and stop the extremist cycle of social
issues vs fear mongering.

~~~
duaneb
> I'd like to see most independents / democratic people unite under a real
> progressive platform next election and stop the extremist cycle of social
> issues vs fear mongering.

There's virtually zero chance of this happening without another party
collapsing first.

Hell, even then, independents are harder to herd than cats.

~~~
zanny
Its impossible to happen under the system as it is established, but you just
needed to push for a constitutional amendment and / or state compact like the
one to overturn the electoral college to change the voting system to support
either proportional (doesn't work when you elect a single seat like the
president) or STV (ie runoff voting).

The chance of that happening in the next four years? Really low. About as
unlikely as it has been since the Internet established itself as a place to
talk about how to fix the voting system. But unlikely doesn't mean you don't
try, and don't talk about it where you can.

~~~
fixxer
Changing from electoral college to pop vote also means the nature of
campaigning will change.

California, for example, has a huge population of Republicans and now their
vote would matter. I don't think Trump did any non military focused rallies
there.

I am in Illinois. I didn't vote in 2008 or 2012 because I knew my vote would
have no impact. Give me a popular vote and you might have Romney... Be careful
what you wish for.

~~~
CalChris
Romney lost 51-47 in the popular vote.

~~~
hdctambien
Of those that voted. I think fixxer is saying that there are alot of people
that don't vote (about half of the voting population) because they are an X in
a Y state so they don't think their vote will change that. But if the
electoral college went poof, a lot more of the missing 50% would vote and that
could change the expected value of a popular vote.

~~~
dllthomas
This isn't so much directed at you, but this seems a great place to note that
there are races on the ballot other than president, usually your local
elections will have a bigger impact on your day-to-day life than the national
ones, and your vote carries orders of magnitude more weight. Pay attention
down-ballot!

~~~
jsight
In my district, the margins on those were even larger than the presidential
margins. I still voted, but the outcomes were all very predictable here.

~~~
dllthomas
Are you actually saying the difference - in number of votes - for President
for your _state_ was smaller than the difference - in number of votes - for
every local judge, school board member, etc?

I mean, not impossible, but surprising. Where are you located?

~~~
jsight
The number of votes was only wider in one or two of them (statewide races).
The local races were mostly uncontested (or lightly contested).

~~~
dllthomas
Gotcha.

------
gcatalfamo
Does Snowden really think that the canonical _man on the street_ is here
waiting to be advised on this topic?

The people who were influenced the most by fake news are those who probably
don't even feel there _exists_ a fake news issue.

~~~
ng-user
That last line is the kicker. People are ignorant to the truth and|or simply
refuse to believe it for whatever reason.

~~~
krastanov
Saying "for whatever reason" is giving up on trying to understand what is
happening. The reason might be anger, might be disenfranchisement, might even
be that "they are stupid". But those things have solutions. Instead of just
calling people ignorant and giving up it is much more fruitful to try to find
why they disagree and talk to them. I know how frustrating it can be to talk
to an "ignorant zealot" (anywhere on the political spectrum), but it is just
cheap and sad to give up.

leppr's comment above shows how this really matters:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12972521](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12972521)

------
icanhackit
Facebook reminds me of a Dave Chappelle sketch, _If The Internet Was A Real
Place_ [1]. But instead of a world filled with porn stores and free CDs,
Facebook World is where you have used car salesmen peddling ideology and
breaking news, libraries filled with mirrors but no books, where humans lack
filters for their compulsion to say something – like a Tourette's syndrome for
half formed thoughts. Where they’ll yell shit at you like “Your dog’s ears are
wow!” and then finish with a racist tirade.

If you want anything positive: happiness, a sense of contentedness,
intellectual enlightenment, more time - ditch it. The odd gem shows up there,
but even garbage tips and sewers are home to a few wedding rings and gold
wristwatches.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91YpZe1SmNg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91YpZe1SmNg)

------
gnuvince
Back in late August when I started my new job, my first purchase with my first
paycheck was to get a subscription to Le Devoir, Montreal's independent
newspaper. It's amazing how much more informed I feel now: because the content
only changes every 24 hours, I have the opportunity to get to the less sexy
stories, stories that would be buried on a fast moving website because they
don't generate clicks, but which still deal with important local issues.

I highly encourage people to research their local newspapers and support one:
you get so much out of something that costs the equivalent of a couple
Starbucks coffee pet month.

~~~
ochoseis
The economist is another good option. They have decent digital versions,
including a daily edition that's just enough news for me.

~~~
thebooktocome
The Economist carries just as much propaganda as any other political magazine.
They're better at hiding it, perhaps.

~~~
supergarfield
Your definition of propaganda probably is a little to inclusive. In my
experience, the Economist very rarely gets the facts wrong (including by
omission of major elements). The "letters to the editor" at the beginning of
every issue are also almost always critical of previous issues of the
magazine, and they don't have a problem with publishing them.

What the Economist constantly does is give its opinion on the facts, and that
opinion usually sums up to how good free-trade and libertarian policies are. I
definitely wouldn't count that as propaganda. You could, but then any
newspaper with opinion pieces would be propaganda, which is not what is
normally meant by "propaganda".

~~~
ramblerman
Idd that's called bias, and it would be naive to assume any article ever
written doesn't contain some.

------
fdsak
The real problem did not start with Facebook and other social media being
fake. It was the main stream media that started to generate fake news with the
support of their local governments. No one can explain better than [
[https://chomsky.info/](https://chomsky.info/) ].

The other issues is international, before this year US elections, US used
these so called social media to "export its kind" of democracy to other part
of the world, call it Arab Spring and rest of the events in middle east and
recently in Turkey. It was perfectly legitimate to use them as under cover
agents of democracy.

History has taught a lesson to American( sensible ones) who were closing their
eyes/or unawre of world events specially and how they affected the people
around the glob using "Democracy" "Freedom of speech" "human values" while
violating the exact same thing at the same time.

Their bigotry has revealed in a strange way, but its too late for lots of
people, for Americans and for the rest of the World.

What are the alternatives:

a). Free media the ways it should be, main stream media is polarized itself
already and dictated by high in the Govt. offices.

b). Accept that democracy does not work sometimes if its helping hands are
already chopped off e.g participation of civil society, feed media etc ..

c). Do not spread democracy for the sake of democracy if its more evil than
dictatorship.

------
joshmn
The last 12 months I have visited Snopes more times than not in order to
disprove some of the articles my Facebook friends choose to share.

It's slightly alarming that people don't think they need to fact check. You
know it's bad when the President-elect opens up about his internet fact
checking[0].

It sets a dangerous precedent. There are less intelligent people in this world
who read deeply into these "articles" and act on them. They choose to take it
as fact because it's a website. It's scary.

What can we do? Upvotes/downvotes? Won't work at scale, because likes/shares
have a connotation of legitimacy.

Can we educate the public? We can try, but some people are so far from being
able to (or willing to) learn. They'll discard any help, citing propaganda,
claiming "xyz source" is trying to influence their thinking; how dare they.

Can you tell this exhausts me?

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9IEIP3k_8c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9IEIP3k_8c)

~~~
cm127
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the
American public believes is false."

~ William Casey, CIA Director

~~~
crdb
The discussion by the source of the quote is worth a read (in the comment
thread): [https://www.quora.com/Did-William-Casey-CIA-Director-
really-...](https://www.quora.com/Did-William-Casey-CIA-Director-really-say-
Well-know-our-disinformation-program-is-complete-when-everything-the-American-
public-believes-is-false)

> Though not explicitly said at that time, it was made clear in other contexts
> during my two years in the West Wing in the highest level meetings that the
> pretext for this mentality was the claim that in a Cold War era when
> communications were essentially instantaneous, the vast majority of "the
> enemy's" \- then the Soviet Union's - "intelligence" was also based on open
> press and media sources, so _the most efficient way to lie to the Soviets
> was to lie in the U.S. and allied media_ , which meant the American public
> believing the lies was considered a kind of 'collateral damage.' (Barbara
> Honegger)

~~~
grzm
All Cretans are liars.

My brain hurts.

------
jbverschoor
I don't want ANY news on my facebook.

I wish I could just filter all externally linked posts, posts with > 200
shares or likes.

Facebook is pretty useless for me. I use messenger, because it's ubiquitous,
but other than that, it's a hybrid of twitter and 9gag.

~~~
zdkl
No promoted stories, no algorithmic timeline... Just plain old chronology from
the people I actually want to follow. Seems like the facebook we want to use
is gone, but good luck migrating your social circle.

------
amasad
Fake news, hoaxes and scams existed long before Facebook. People just use
Facebook more, things can spread faster, and all in all it amplifies an
existing problem.

Email forwards (and in their newer reincarnation, at least in the Middle East,
Whatsapp forwards) spread false news for as long as I remember using the
internet. A part time job for me was to respond and debunk these emails when
they landed in my inbox. I even put in the time to explain to people how to
spot false information (e.g. if the email ends with "forward this to x number
of people or else" is 100% a hoax or a scam).

Maybe Facebook -- as our times' Master Switch -- can fix this, and for the
first time we'll be happy with centralization.

~~~
CaptSpify
I used to subconsciously judge email based on the amount of "fw:re:fw:fw:fw"
on it. The more fwd:/re: the less I trusted the data. I wonder if this was
ever valid signaling, but I also wonder if people trust articles more on FB
because, AFAIR, it's hard to tell how many times an article has been re-
shared, or "forwarded".

------
notadoc
This article is on a "How to make money blogging" website, not exactly a
source I'd turn to for trustworthy anything let alone news about not relying
on other news...

Anyway, here are some more legitimate sources for the same topic for anyone
interested:

[https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/15/snowden-discusses-
facebook...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/15/snowden-discusses-facebooks-
fake-news-controversy/)

[https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/15/snowden-we-rely-too-
much...](https://www.engadget.com/2016/11/15/snowden-we-rely-too-much-on-
facebook-for-news/)

~~~
makomk
This is the problem with any solution that relies on people checking the
reliability of news sources: they don't. Even on here.

~~~
notadoc
I'm at the point where if it claims to be "news" and it's not on an
immediately identifiable brand domain, I would assume it's fake or some
variation of content spam.

Things in the realm of opinion, insight, tutorial, reviews, etc, can get more
leeway.

------
s_q_b
I have a lot of mixed feelings on this one. Of course one shouldn't rely upon
Facebook for the news, just as one shouldn't rely upon Fox News. But people
are going to _anyway._

The problem in this election was that Facebook did exactly what it was
designed to do: show people more of what they wanted to see. Unfortunately
that creates extreme echo chambers, where blatantly false news ricochets
around the site, blindly liked by partisans on each side.

So that leaves open the question of what to do.

On the one hand, Facebook is a massive media company, and I am not comfortable
handing them carte blanche to police and control the speech of their users. On
the other, Facebook's current policy of "neutrality" creates an environment
that favors political isolation and the spread of outright falsehoods.

At the very least, it seems Facebook could do something about purveyors of
those falsehoods algorithmically. But even then I have my misgivings about a
private corporation, or really anyone, determining the acceptable range of
public discourse.

~~~
drvdevd
> algorithmically

Perhaps in the near future, the only "journalists" anyone will trust will _be_
algorithms. Of course, any system can be manipulated. But I think we are
dealing with such an unprecedented deluge of information, an increase in
population (and therefore motives) and connectedness, that it may be time to
consider this.

But your comment begs the question: who will be the gatekeepers of these
algorithms?

------
electic
This might not be possible. People who actually swapped feeds with someone who
had a different viewpoint decided they did "not like the news" because it
didn't validate their very own viewpoint. So the problem isn't how fact
checked the news is but more on the voter's views. That might be something
very hard to change. [1]

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/16/facebook-
bia...](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/16/facebook-bias-bubble-
us-election-conservative-liberal-news-feed)

~~~
r00fus
The correct answer isn't to "switch feeds". It's to just turn it off.

I'm happier, more productive and a better dad when I'm not being a feed-
junkie. Maybe I'm an outlier.

~~~
anigbrowl
Yes, but ignoring the news and political changes is kind of a luxury, it means
your life is secure enough that you can afford not to pay much attention to
any of that stuff because you feel confident it won't affect you personally.

~~~
r00fus
Are you sure this is the case? Is your livelihood or security really dependent
on daily churn of news?

Here's a thought: what if most news is misinformation?

~~~
anigbrowl
Yes, and yes. I already assume that to be the case.

------
snksnk
The problem is not the first mover advantage of Facebook, but that people do
not understand logical fallacies, that they erroneously believe that most
media is impartial, and that they are unaware of confirmation bias.

Logical fallacies should be taught in school: we also start with simple
arithmetic before we move to more complex topics. (A course in formal logic
seems overkill, it should be an applied course.)

------
wallace_f
The power Google and Facebook hold to censor and selectively control what
people see and hear is terrifying: [https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/15/google-
and-facebook-ban-fa...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/15/google-and-facebook-
ban-fake-news-sites-from-their-advertising-networks/)

In an important aspect, this is not any different han a library deciding to
censor what information they make available. In the past this war has been
waged before--As Google will ban news over quality of the information,
librarians have banned books over the quality of the information. Once Tom
Sawyer is banned, that sets a precedent to ban Catcher in the Rye, then
Fahrenheit 451, then Animal Farm.

It's a very slippery slope, and it's absolutely terrifying to me.

I don't want to live in a world where few have absolute power over the many.
If someone can control what you hear and see, they can control what you think.

Is Trump's election just a convenient excuse to seize this opportunity?

Thank you Snowden, I also am terrified by this.

~~~
lincar
Watch Fox News if you want to actually know what is going on in the world.
Yes, seriously.

------
balthamael
I don't see this as a new problem tbh. It's a function of human nature. We
like to think that we are smarter and better than our primitive ancestors but
the fact is that we are exactly as dumb or as smart as they were. Only thing
that separates us is our knowledge. But we are just as prone to bias,
intellectual weakness, selfish dishonesty and irrationality than our dumb
ancestors. Most people are followers, we want to be in a group, we want to
belong, we want to be led and above else we want to feel good about ourselves.
People believe what they want to believe because that is safe, comfortable and
easy. The psychology is the same as religion, minus the supernatural. This
election showed as much. We are perfectly willing to disregard facts and
reason if it suits our narrow benefits or correlates with what we think we
know already. It takes great strength of character to put principles and
reason above personal comfort and safety and frankly most people lack it. Add
to this modern identity politics and you have a recipe for disaster.

Our lives are easy. We think that we are advanced but this can all turn to
shit in no time because our base natures are still very much intact. Consider
the Nazis and the power of group think and in group bias. Completely normal
people can be made quite easily to do savage things. Even in this post WW2
world, the Stanford prison experiment showed as much. We really are fragile
beings and we have to be vigilant, now more than ever, because we are under
the mistaken belief that we today are somehow better, more evolved or new.
When it comes down to it then we are nothing but animals, driven by our
instincts and all the science, culture and philosophy flies out the window. I
think the Jedi and the Sith are a great metaphor for this. We need self
control and vigilance to not fall to the dark side, which is often tempting
and the path of least resistance and no matter hour high you have risen, you
can always fall.

------
cconcepts
I can't remember where I saw this quote last year but it rang terrifyingly
true to me:

"The people who used to tell me that Wikipedia is unreliable now get their
news from viral facebook posts"

------
inostia
Simple answer: don't use social media.

I don't understand why this is controversial. If you don't approve of the way
they do business, don't use their products. I use no social media accounts and
my life is plenty-full of engaging, useful discussion.

~~~
pg314
I don't use social media either, but that doesn't change the fact that a
majority of the other voters do. They will not all of a sudden stop using
Facebook.

------
Fiahil
> _[..] many people are criticizing social media outlets – namely Facebook –
> for not doing enough to weed out obviously fake news articles that could
> have potentially impacted people’s votes. This is a claim that Facebook
> founder Mark Zuckerberg has been quick to dismiss, [..]_

I wish Facebook would remove their "trending news" feature. Their algorithm is
basically selecting and promoting all the junk it can find, without the
slightest vetting. How is it possible that a feature botched like this would:
1) pass the "testing" stage, 2) be ever considered a good idea in the first
place.

And on top of that, they claim no responsibilities ? Lol.

------
jaronheard
The article says this: Snowden’s comments echoed those of Facebook founder
Mark Zuckerberg, who said that it’s “extremely unlikely hoaxes changed the
outcome of this election in one direction or the other.”

But he's NOT echoing Zuckerberg's comments - either in spirit or intent. He's
pointing out a bigger problem inherent in relying on Facebook as a single
source for news.

------
charred_toast
I can't believe so many people actually use facebook. It's a time suck, a
voyeuristic and narcissistic view into people's lives, a government database,
etc...

------
partycoder
Some time ago, Facebook was all about FarmVille. A fictional cow was sad and
you had to help. Over and over again... in your profile, in your news feed,
everywhere.

Facebook fixed that problem by moving all game activity to a specialized area.

So that's the solution. Facebook needs to split links from user photos and
updates. And move the trending pane to that area as well.

------
TheSpiceIsLife
Well all this political talk gives me some ideas.

Is it possible, at this stage, for geographically large countries with very
large populations to move forward in a coherent way?

All of the better places to live, as rated by purchasing power, health,
education, what have you, are either geographically small and or have a small
population.

China, India, Russia, Brazil, USA - all these big places with big pipulations
rank poorly in some number of quality of life indicators.

Australia, Canada, New Zealand aren't without their problems but seem to
suffer a less severe case of the issues. And then there's those Scandinavian
countries which rate highly.

Why this pattern?

~~~
emmfr
The smaller the population, the higher the variance. Large countries are not
bad, they are average. The worst countries, like the best, tend to be small.

~~~
amelius
It might still be useful to copy governance structures from these countries, I
suppose.

------
sien
So, some actual data on how many US adults get news from various sources:

[http://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-
social-...](http://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-
platforms-2016/)

38% Never, 18% hardly ever, 26% sometimes, 18% often.

Note that none of this excludes people getting news from non-social sources
such as going directly to whatever news sites they like.

It's not clear that this is really much more of an issue than hearing what Bob
in marketing thinks of issue X, Y or Z.

------
cdubzzz
> Facebook itself is addressing the controversy by announcing they plan to ban
> fake news outlets from their ad network, cutting off the revenue source for
> these sites.

It's funny that the linked article[0], presumably from a "real" news source,
very clearly says that Facebook's action will have basically no effect on the
issue.

[0] [http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-facebook-fake-
news-201...](http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-facebook-fake-
news-20161115-story.html)

------
Spooky23
Minus regulation or financial disincentive, Facebook is incentivized to push
crap at you that you like.

They clearly make a mint off of this stuff, so good luck affecting change.

------
woodchuck64
One thing's for certain: Facebook AI research is running deep-layered natural-
language ANNs right now on a year of election comments and likes. I think well
before four years they'll know exactly how to detect bubbles of alternate
political reality and also how to break them up. There will be some
interesting decisions facing them before the next election.

~~~
mzw_mzw
Do you trust them to break up all the alternate reality bubbles, or just the
ones they don't like?

What's truly dangerous here is that one organization has so much control over
what news people see.

~~~
fokov
Is this really different than TV news? Most people stick to one network (Fox
news, NBC, CNN, etc) and not only do they not watch the others but believe
they are corrupt, fixed, and lying.

The problem is we don't have multiple major news organizations per major area
like we used to. Back then there was bias, but it was easier to be called out
on it. Now I think many people are fine living in the bubble.

~~~
adventured
It's different because Facebook has captured nearly every American adult and
they have a Google-like (in search) dominance over social. There's no news
platform in US history that has ever come even remotely close to being able to
claim that. They're just about worth more than every US media company
combined, their reach and financial power are already incredible; four years
from now they'll be as profitable as Google is today and their reach will
likely have expanded further.

I can't see a scenario where Facebook manages to avoid anti-trust action
against it in the next four to six years, both in Europe and the US.

------
huangc10
I know it might be an unpopular comment, but I feel like we should just rely
less on Facebook in general.

------
droopybuns
I 'quit' Facebook two years ago. I occasionally log back in to see what people
are getting out of it- and my outsider observation is that Facebook
unintentionally feeds people with borderline personality disorder.

([http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/borderline-
per...](http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/borderline-personality-
disorder/basics/symptoms/con-20023204) )

I find it amusing that so many facebook users are identifying Facebook's
"fake" news feeds as the source of the election's problems.

If Facebook were to honestly tackle that problem, there won't be much Facebook
left.

------
norea-armozel
This is why I just don't bother reading most news articles because even when
the news isn't from a fake site you still have many factual errors or context
being removed from specific events/quotes/reports/etc that are discussed in
any given article. This is an issue larger than just some kid putting up fake
news on a site to generate clicks for ad revenue. It's an issue that includes
what I would consider established news outlets like the major newspapers and
magazines. It's just weird to see how often the news is so bad in terms of
fact checking that often I just skip news altogether.

------
draw_down
Indeed, instead get your news from the paper of record. You know, the one that
joined the administration in selling us all a war that cost trillions of
dollars and killed a million people.

(And ABC, CBS, the list goes on of course. Not just NYT.)

------
usaphp
Wasn't there the simpsons episode when Homer started spreading fake news on
the internet to become famous?

~~~
CaptSpify
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Computer_Wore_Menace_Shoes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Computer_Wore_Menace_Shoes)

I believe

------
Spellman
Right. People just need to leave their bubbles, read from a variety of
sources, and not rely on their friends for news.

Obviously easier said than done. But personally that's what RSS feeds are
great for.

Long ago in 2011, there was a lovely TED talk about the possible bubbles
forming.
[https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_b...](https://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles#t-525514)

~~~
leeleelee
People don't want to leave their bubbles, for the fear of uncovering
uncomfortable truths. For example, I have friends who flat out refused to read
any of the WikiLeaks e-mails that could potentially reveal something bad about
Hillary, her campaign, the DNC, or any entity on the left.

That's just how some (probably a lot of) people are. When some people
encounter something that challenges your pre-existing beliefs, it's easier to
just ignore it and stay in your bubble of comfort.

And that mindset, IMO, is not an easy thing to fix.

~~~
empath75
I'm a liberal who voted for Hillary Clinton, despite basically loathing
everything the Clintons stand for, and I read all the wikileaks emails.

That said, the torrent of pure bullshit based on those emails that was
floating around _on both sides_ was unbelievable. Either she was as pure as
the driven snow or a she-demon, with nothing in between.

After a certain point, it wasn't even worth the effort to argue about it and I
just started unfollowing half of my friends and family.

~~~
mxfh
The mail dump was basically a free for all corpus to plug any preconceived
narrative up to hamfistedly made up conspiracy you could grep out of this.

The rest is more of the normal mode of operation of any human organization:
"Laws, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how
they are made."
[https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Godfrey_Saxe](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Godfrey_Saxe)

------
canistr
If the problem is that Facebook provides an echo-chamber that exacerbates the
influence of one particular viewpoint, wouldn't the solution be for Facebook
to begin injecting opposing content directly into the newsfeed?

You can kind of see this with trending topics. If you don't follow a
particular topic but suddenly see it trending in your feed, there's a chance
you may random walk into clicking it. If Facebook opens up a
global/regional/local newsfeed that isn't highly targeted, then you could
potentially start seeing more original content.

~~~
havetocharge
It's not the Facebook that provides echo chamber, it's the individuals
themselves who create it via their friend selections.

~~~
lbenes
It's not just your circle that determines what show up in your feed. The
algorithms re-enforce peoples views by putting stories in your feed it thinks
you will 'like'. If it thinks you're pro-Trump, you will have more pro-Trump
stories even if you have an even mix of Trump/Hillary supporters in your
circle. Many times the sensational stories that are most likely to be 'liked'
are also the fake ones. There no warning that the story came from an
unreliable source.

------
blablabla123
How much media incompetence is needed to rely on Facebook as serious news
source? It's very difficult for me to understand this. And no, I'll gonna
continue reading all sorts of stuff posted on Facebook, no matter if Edward
Snowden or Hillary Clinton call them "News" or not.

By the way, don't forget to stop relying on Whatsapp, Snapchat and
Chatroulette for your News.

Sorry for being so sarcastic but this is just so incredibly stupid. Please
make Media (Competence) a subject in all schools world-wide!

------
konart
>Facebook >news

Well, this is news to me. I never ever realizes some people use facebook for
this, lol. Sharing some articles? Yeah. Some funny or family pictures? Sure.
News source? Really?

------
throwaway98237
The bigger issue is, many of these same folks are not gonna stop buying into
"echo chamber" news and gossip just because FB stops publishing it. Sad as it
is, this is what Fox News is to a super lesser extent. This is what shooting
the sh-t at the bar with your buddies is.

We don't need less fake news. We need a more educated and engaged public. Now
that we have a president-elect that campaigned on gutting public funding,
including Dept. of Education, well, we'll see how that goes.

~~~
starik36
"We need a more educated and engaged public". Well said.

However, the issue here is that pretty much every news outlet straight up
shilled for a candidate. CNN, MSNBC, NYT, HuffPo, ABC, CBS for Clinton and Fox
News for Trump.

How is a non-computer savvy person (your parents, aunts and uncles) that
doesn't know how to research things online supposed to form an independent
opinion if these news organizations are their only window into the world?

------
throwaway101416
Alright, but who should people rely on?

From an article posted earlier today on HN: almost all the media is colluding
with Clinton/Dems:
[https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ook1v2...](https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Ook1v2WQc-
gJ:https://sharylattkisson.com/newsgate-2016/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk)

Site is down so giving google cache.

~~~
pg314
I'm sure there was some back and forth between the media and both campaigns.
That's what reporters do, they cultivate their sources. A lot of the
allegations in the article seem pretty weak. E.g., the campaign 'planted'
stories in the NYT. Could it mean they just had info, and gave it to the NYT?

All this "collusion" also didn't stop e.g. the NYT and WaPo to thoroughly
report on Clinton's email server.

~~~
throwaway101416
NYT started reported on wikileaks emails very late in the revelation process.
This already shows dishonesty on some level.

It also coincided with release of emails that didn't actually matter, thus the
narrative was - hey she is just human and yes there is some bad, but nothing
that terrible.

For example, they didn't report on leaking questions to debate organizers
until Donna Brazile got fired. I think people lied on both sides, but I always
assumed democrats were better than that. And I used to take my news from New
York Times. Now I can't because I know they'll try to present just one side of
every issue.

Finally, an example of bias is I am yet to see a single positive news story on
Trump from NYT. Like they did a story about him hiring lobbyists. All
commenters on the site and the story itself tried to say that he is being
hypocritical since he promised that he would get rid of lobbyists. They didn't
cite his reasons for that decision that he talked about on the 60-minutes
interview.

The story about him firing all lobbyists was instead merged into the "campaign
is in disarray" story.

But biggest problem for me is that any tech site I go to, I am constantly
bombarded with "Trump is evil" and I never hear his side of the story.

I mean half the time the bias is so bad, I actually think I'm reading the
onion ([http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-steak-
well-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-steak-well-done-
disqualified_us_56e8267be4b065e2e3d747ce))

If you go to Wired, they currently have an article on the front page that
starts with:

"Mark Zuckerberg is trying hard to convince voters that Facebook had no
nefarious role in this election. But according to President-elect Donald
Trump’s digital director Brad Parscale, the social media giant was massively
influential—not because it was tipping the scales with fake news, but because
it helped generate the bulk of the campaign’s $250 million in online
fundraising."

This is a) bias as they're not being impartial and b) it is saying that
allowing people to post whatever they want is "nefarious".

Basically, this one-sided approach is what I think drove people to
twitter/facebook for news in the first place.

~~~
pg314
> For example, they didn't report on leaking questions to debate organizers
> until Donna Brazile got fired.

I imagine this is the email you're referring to:
[https://wikileaks.org/podesta-
emails/emailid/38478](https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/38478)

Some of the other Wikileaks emails have a cryptographic signature that can be
verified. This one doesn't. If they cannot verify the authenticity of that
email, I have no problem with them not reporting on it. The source leaking the
emails to Wikileaks could have easily doctored some of them.

I think the media that were breathlessly reporting on every single bit of info
that could be misconstrued in these mails were the ones that were biased. E.g.
the (complete fabricated) satanic cooking rituals in the White House made it
to Fox News.

> Finally, an example of bias is I am yet to see a single positive news story
> on Trump from NYT.

From today's front page, here's a positive story on Trump:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/17/us/politics/aides-to-
donal...](http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/17/us/politics/aides-to-donald-trump-
announce-curbs-on-
lobbyists.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-
heading&module=b-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0)

It's a move from Trump I applaud.

You have to distinguish between the opinion pages and factual reporting. As
the name itself says, opinion pages are somebody's opinion. I don't have a
problem with them saying that they think Trump is not fit to be president. If
somebody can make the argument that he would be a good president, I'd be
interested to hear it.

> ... and I never hear his side of the story.

Trump and his campaign have been refusing to comment on numerous stories. It's
hard to present his side of the story when he does that.

> I actually think I'm reading the onion

You are not alone. But for me that has more to do with his actions, than any
reporting. Like
[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/79690018395509555...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/796900183955095552)
and
[https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/79703472107522867...](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/797034721075228672)
only hours apart.

~~~
throwaway101416
You are right about this story. But honestly this is the first story I've seen
there that presents him in a positive light in the past 6 months or so.

In fact, I assumed they wouldn't report on it at all since it broke yesterday
morning or early afternoon and they mentioned firings in the disarray story.

Sure, I know about opinion pages, but sometimes the opinions can cloud
people's judgement.

Regarding Fox news - they've been going back and forth. Fox news already
ruined their reputation in the past with biased pro establishment republican
reporting. I view them as an alternative news source at this point. They don't
outright lie, but they bend the truth in such a way that the message becomes
whatever their narrative is at the time.

Edit: Regarding professional protesters:
[http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-15/whos-behind-
portlan...](http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-11-15/whos-behind-portland-
riots-60-arrested-anti-trump-protesters-were-out-state-didnt-vo)

This is not a great source, but you can check that indeed they are from out of
state. Some of the protesters who are organizing with megaphones were
previously on Dem payrolls. There were also pictures of some of the same
protesters in multiple cities all over the country.

Moveon organizes some of the protests:
[http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/13/moveonorg-
ra...](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/mar/13/moveonorg-raising-
funds-from-trump-protests-warns-/)

craigslist ads advertising pay for protesters (this one is not very good
source, but I can't find a better one right now and can't find any archive
links): [http://truthfeed.com/breaking-bitter-soros-hiring-team-of-
fu...](http://truthfeed.com/breaking-bitter-soros-hiring-team-of-full-time-
anti-trump-rioters-to-wreak-havok-in-america/35093/)

Snopes article on the protesters claims that it's unproven:
[http://www.snopes.com/craigslist-ad-trump-
rally/](http://www.snopes.com/craigslist-ad-trump-rally/)

Wikileaks previously showed that DNC campaign posted craigslist ads (not for
protests but for fake story): [https://wikileaks.org/dnc-
emails/emailid/12803](https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/12803)

Regarding arguments pro-trump, Peter Thiel gave a fairly convincing speech:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob-
LJqPQEJ4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob-LJqPQEJ4)

I am still suspicious but at the same time hopeful of Trump. I think he is the
only one who can change certain things. Otherwise, economic condition for many
people would get worse partly because of outsourcing and partly because of
tech advances. UBI is not ready yet. When the economy is poor, this has
historically led to radicalization of various groups. We already see traces of
it in US. I think it makes sense to appeal to these groups and fix some of
their problems.

------
Pica_soO
Maybe there should be something like the hacker-news reputation, only derived
by the validated truth of the sources you quote and forward. And it should be
mandatory on all things you post. And people should have the option to hide
"unreliable" narrators - and gain the loss of a falsifieer, by disproving
somebody else s story.

------
hockley
Man, I'm going to miss Gwen Ifill.

------
thewhitetulip
Do people really rely on facebook for news? I mean, I do not use any FB app
other than the webapp that too in a private window with a different user
agent. FB spooked me once by suggesting to me a person with whom I interacted
totally via github (and probably gmail)

------
sumoboy
So basically not much different than reading the national enquirer while
standing in line at the grocery store, garbage in garbage out. All about greed
and ads. People should be marching the streets, setting cars on fire, "not my
facebook" over this.. )

------
NumberCruncher
I have to point out again that the media is making money by manipulating the
masses. If you not pay for it, you are the product. Your time, attention,
data, money and also your vote. FB is not better or worse than any other media
company. Only more efficient.

------
kuhidarwin
Fake news exist before the emerge of social media such as Facebook and
Twitter. It's like spam but harder to locate. I don't think Facebook can
attach this issue properly since they have the ability to stop this from the
very beginning.

------
cdevs
Here we are again, take every top tech article and put the word Snowden in
front of it.

------
xanderjanz
Seems like most commenters here didn't read the article. Snowden isn't
suggesting you leave facebook because of free flow of fake news.

Quite the opposite, he's saying facebook controls the flow of news too much.

------
paradite
I hope now people see the rationale for this:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11403730](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11403730)

The first comment nailed it.

------
ceejay
I have a different take on this (sort of). I think it's enormously empowering
that anyone in the world can be a "publisher" and reach millions of people
with stories through the internet.

The next phase of this evolution, I think, will be to ensure that we train
humanity how to deal with this. I think it could be as simple as working hard
to improve everyone's ability to (a) build an argument about something, and
(b) to critique someone else's argument about something.

Once we (the majority of the general public) know how arguments are
constructed and what is required to "prove" or "disprove" them, we'll be a far
healthier world.

------
nanospeck
And that's why I visit hackernews more than facebook.

------
colordrops
Why is social media getting all the flak? What about all the fake news on
Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, CNN, Fox News, et al?

~~~
yosito
All of the organizations you listed employ fact checkers who are responsible
for checking articles for accuracy and facts. Sure, they make mistakes from
time to time, they're human. Disagreeing with the slant of an article doesn't
mean it's fake news.

~~~
colordrops
How far can "slant" go before the news is "fake"? "Fake" isn't exactly a
scientific definition. It's not like paragraphs of text have a binary value of
"true" or "false".

Have you seen this?

[http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/03/08/washington-
post...](http://www.commondreams.org/views/2016/03/08/washington-post-
ran-16-negative-stories-bernie-sanders-16-hours)

In fact, "fake" news from these big outlets is even more insidious, because
they have agendas from their powerful owners (Bezos in this case), a huge
audience, and they have people's (like you) trust, because they supposedly
employee fact checkers.

~~~
yosito
In my mind fake news and biased news are two different concepts. All news
should be taken with skepticism, because every bit of it from every news
outlet is subject to potential bias. I'm aware that many news outlets
published biased news against Sanders (and Trump and Clinton), and I'm aware
that Bezos owns media outlets that may be biased. But organizations that
employ fact checkers don't make up news stories out of thin air.

~~~
colordrops
So making a political candidate seem like he said and meant things that he
didn't isn't "fake"? I'm afraid your definition of what is fake and what is
not is arbitrary and vague. And no, you don't get an "A" for effort with
supposed fact checkers - all that matters is the final product.

------
aaron695
Is anyone on HN relying on Facebook for news?

Do people outside of typical HN users know who is/take advice from Snowden?

This seems a bubble of pointlessness.

------
jayess
I miss the myspace days when we just modified our profiles and chatted with
each other. There was no "news feed." Facebook was unbearable before the
election, I stopped logging in more than once a week just to check on family.
I don't care what anyone's opinion of the day is on the political issue of the
day.

------
collyw
After Brexit and Trump, I realize how much of an echo chamber my Facebook
account is.

------
matiasow
I'm posting this on Facebook

------
owly
Newspeak, Thoughtcrime, Facebook, Saveyourself, Createtime, Deleteaccount.

------
Ace17
More generally, stop reyling on any single platform for your news.

------
SeanDav
This is a similar warning to "Don't eat the yellow snow". It makes very good
sense but probably many will not pay attention until they actually get burned.

------
alextooter
Snowden comment too much about what people doing or thinking,does he has
nothing to do in he's own life?

------
alextooter
Do not blame Facebook because you lose in election.The MSM is far more worse
than FB.Use your brain.

------
tkyjonathan
ignorance is power, apparently.

------
sambe
I know it's off-topic to comment on the quality of a submission, but this is
the first time I've been truly shocked by a #1 HN story. Normally when there
is some discussion about relevance to HN, I can at least say "this is not
really for me, but there's no problem with it being here". This is so mundane
and obvious that I suspect non-normal voting. If you found this story
interesting - why?

"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

~~~
untog
Like it or not, tech now has a huge, huge place in society. A tweak in
Facebook's algorithm could easily decide an election (I'm not saying it _has_
, but it definitely _could_ ).

For many people on HN, their work has the potential to have social
implications in a way that was never the case twenty years ago. I for one am
glad to see stories like this posted to HN, as I think engineers that make
things like the algorithms that decide news feeds have very valuable input.

~~~
sambe
Right, sure. I'm absolutely not surprised that people want to talk about the
role of Facebook in society, or fake news, or the algorithms used. And much of
that has been covered recently in other front-page articles. Some of them have
been interesting to me, some haven't, I definitely won't complain if there are
more of them.

However, this particular article doesn't provide any interesting commentary on
Facebook algorithms, its role in society or fake news. It's borderline
content-free and I find that puzzling. Snowden says we should be wary of
getting our news from a single source. Did this add something to any of the
subjects you mention?

------
randyrand
I really think this problem is way overblown. Most people follow many
different news sources. I personally don't even rely on Facebook for news at
all.

~~~
j2bax
I think you vastly overestimate the general populations ability to actively
inform themselves.

~~~
randyrand
I think you underestimate it. There's a really common bias where people assume
everyone else is an idiot/bad driver/etc except themselves.

~~~
j2bax
The amount of baseless unfactchecked political/social memes that are posted on
my wall on a daily basis say otherwise.

------
krapp
Fair enough.

I mean it was Wikileaks that more or less decided this election, but sure...
let's all be worried about Facebook's unchecked power, unaccountable methods
and unknown motives.

After all, it's not as if one of the Presidential candidates, now President,
implied that the entirety of American media was controlled directly by the
DNC, and thus not to be trusted, while praising and legitimizing Wikileaks by
name. There's no possibility of a dangerous political or cultural precedent
having been set by having half the country believe in nothing other than what
Wikileaks publishes.

Facebook is evil, but I don't believe it's the elephant in the room.

------
dmfdmf
I am more than a little disappointed in Snowden for falling for this gambit.
Blaming the "fake news on the internet" for the loss to Trump is just the
Left's way to divert attention to their own failures to report fairly or even
try to understand his popularity without dismissing or smearing everyone as
racists, homo-phobes and misogynists. This latest post-election narrative is a
ploy, and if it gains any traction, it will allow the Left to avoid the mea
culpa's and soul-searching that they need in order reclaim their shredded
credibility.

Far more importantly, especially for the denizens of HN, is that this call to
regulate and control the news on the internet cannot be used to institute
government controls, licensing, "pressure" or threats, etc. as a solution.
Private companies cannot practice censorship so Google, Facebook, Yahoo,
Breitbart, etc. are all free to establish their own policies on what to carry
on their properties. This is far far different from the government becoming
the arbiter of what is "fake" or not or what is politically or socially
acceptable or not and then using the power of the state to silence you with
threats, fines, jail or even death (in some countries) if you anger the gang
in power. Keep a close eye on any FCC proposals because now that they have
regulatory control over the internet[1] the legal authority is already in
place to censor the internet. If they start floating regulations or even
"suggestions" that claim we have to vet the "news" for the "public-good" look
out[2]. You have been warned.

[1] [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/technology/net-
neutrality-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/27/technology/net-neutrality-
fcc-vote-internet-utility.html?_r=0)

[2] "The Property Status of Airwaves" by Ayn Rand "Now observe the practical
demonstration of the fact that without property rights, no other rights are
possible. If censorship and the suppression of free speech ever get
established in this country, they will have originated in radio and
television" [i.e. via the FCC]. In "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal"
[http://www.criminalgovernment.com/docs/aynrand.html](http://www.criminalgovernment.com/docs/aynrand.html)

~~~
norea-armozel
"Blaming the "fake news on the internet" for the loss to Trump is just the
Left's way to divert attention to their own failures to report fairly or even
try to understand his popularity without dismissing or smearing everyone as
racists, homo-phobes and misogynists."

Uh as for Trump being misogynist, the fact he's okay with groping women
without consent that's pretty much a classic case of it if I ever heard it. As
for racism, you'll have to admit him declining to rent his properties to
African Americans comes with racial bias either or not you like it (this
doesn't make him literally KKK/Hitler/Red-Skull but it still makes him a
jerk). And as for homophobia, it's misdirected at the man himself but his VP
is clearly a homophobe that should've been ejected from the ticket if he was
serious about supporting LGBT rights (and he would oppose FADA and support the
Equal Rights Amendment). So, he has much to answer for on that front.

As for the rest of your statement, Snowden pointing out the issue of the lack
of veracity in online news is a huge problem. Overtly fake news is just the
tip of the iceberg since many "factual" news outlets have sloppy or no fact
checking of articles and often depend on clickbaity headlines to generate
views for ad revenue. Oddly enough, this comes part and parcel with the
business model these outlets have chosen to operate under rather finding one
which could alleviate the need to become Fox News on steroids.

"Private companies cannot practice censorship so Google, Facebook, Yahoo,
Breitbart, etc. are all free to establish their own policies on what to carry
on their properties."

This is patently false. Private censorship by definition is still censorship.
It just legal censorship.

"Keep a close eye on any FCC proposals because now that they have regulatory
control over the internet[1] the legal authority is already in place to censor
the internet. If they start floating regulations or even "suggestions" that
claim we have to vet the "news" for the "public-good" look out[2]. You have
been warned."

I doubt anyone is going to propose such a system on the FCC board since
they're busy with the open set box and zero rating regulations at this moment.
Plus, SCOTUS already nuked that option decades ago in a series of cases
related to the Fairness Doctrine, so there's no going back even with the most
liberal of justices. They'd have to make a good argument for it to stick
beyond "cause I said so."

~~~
dmfdmf
The First Amendment limits the _government 's_ power to control speech. Its
not "legal censorship" for Google, Yahoo, et. al. to control what is on the
websites/property, it is their RIGHT to do it that the constitution respects
(not ALLOW but RESPECTS). Your concepts are too sloppy for rational thought.

~~~
norea-armozel
No, it's entirely legal to censor. That's why you can have gag orders on cases
civil and criminal. I suggest you do more studying of legal procedure and
definitions and less reading of Ayn Rand. BTW, my rational thought is probably
sharper than yours any day.

------
losteverything
What I wonder is how many humans he actually stands or sits next to each day
and talks. Not online. Not camera to camera. But human to human / human to HIS
mother-father - child

