
It only took 36 hours for these students to solve Facebook's fake news problem - mdni007
http://www.businessinsider.com/students-solve-facebooks-fake-news-problem-in-36-hours-2016-11
======
glook
This article itself felt like fake news being that it states they didn't solve
the fake news problem: "A Chrome plug-in that labels fake news obviously isn't
the total solution for Facebook to police itself."

~~~
yosito
It's a pretty cool plugin, really. But I'm guessing that the people interested
in using it already belong to a demographic that is highly skeptical and good
at spotting fake news.

~~~
inimino
It's a cool hackathon project to play with classification. Presenting it as
even a partial solution, as the article did, is irresponsible.

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fictionalRealty
Gee, the real problem here is that none of the people reading the "fake news"
consider said fictitiousness as a bug.

Indeed, fake aspect of such so-called-news is the feature for them.

Wrap your head around that.

It's news for the world they wished they lived in.

~~~
serge2k
Post fact world. It's all about feelings and baseless opinion now.

~~~
gilleain
Indeed, Newt Gingrich said during the campaign:

> GINGRICH: The current view is that liberals have a whole set of statistics
> that theoretically may be right, but it's not where human beings are.

> CAMEROTA: But what you're saying is, but hold on Mr. Speaker because you're
> saying liberals use these numbers, they use this sort of magic math. These
> are the FBI statistics. They're not a liberal organization. They're a crime-
> fighting organization.

> GINGRICH: As a political candidate, I'll go with how people feel and I'll
> let you go with the theoriticians.

Could not be clearer, I suppose.

[http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/07/25/john-oliver-
theme-r...](http://mediamatters.org/video/2016/07/25/john-oliver-theme-
republican-convention-was-emphasizing-feelings-over-facts/211865)

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dvhh
The binary classifying could be an issue there, additionally I love the
current trend of using artificial intelligence as a black box no one need to
explain.

Nevertheless, "Facebook" and "Fake news" seems very trendy this week.

~~~
loorinm
Yeah that trend is great. AI officially has zero meaning at this point.

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daodedickinson
"But the students show that algorithms can be built to determine within
reasonable certainty which news is true and which isn't" I know this is a puff
piece and not real news (ugh ironic) but this is so overstated...

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daodedickinson
So it gives us the opinion of these students about some websites. Just having
heuristics that essentially appeal to the authority of source prestige was a
big problem of the election and not invented by Facebook although the
invisible isolation it allows can exacerbate it a bit.

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enthdegree
Great solution for the end user, but the problem from Facebook's end is far
more constrained than 'stop showing fake news.' They also have to find a way
to do it without affecting sponsored articles and engagement.

------
yosito
Technical solutions to the problem are relatively cheap, but the root of the
problem is much deeper, involving social media's tendency to function as a
non-fact-checked echo chamber. Facebook is just the most notable platform
plagued by the issue.

In the past, Facebook had a partial solution-- human editors who would curate
news stories and try to eliminate fake news from trending. I recently met one
of these editors while traveling, and we had some long discussions about the
issue. Facebook fired the team of human editors and replaced them with an
automated solution. That decision was motivated based on a combination of
factors related to expenses and liability which is obscured by Facebook's
opaque internal hierarchy.

Really addressing the problem will take significant investment by platforms
like Facebook to research the problem and implement robust technical
solutions. But these platforms have rigid internal hierarchies and internal
feedback loops that prevent that from happening. For platforms to invest in
solving this problem, continued, strategic pressure needs to come from the
outside.

(As it is, there is already pressure from the outside, but Facebook has
responded by basically trying to cover their own ass:
[http://gizmodo.com/facebooks-fight-against-fake-news-was-
und...](http://gizmodo.com/facebooks-fight-against-fake-news-was-undercut-by-
fear-1788808204))

The ex-Facebook curator I spoke with attempted to change Facebook's culture
from the inside and found it impossible. Her recommendation is that credible
journalism organizations from varying ideological backgrounds (everything from
CNN, to Fox News to the New York Times) need to demand that Facebook invest in
a solution, by refusing to syndicate their content through Facebook's platform
unless Facebook does something to prevent credible, fact-checked content from
getting shouted over by sensational fake news.

Journalism organizations are already working on this, but readers can help by
writing letters to the lead editors of these organizations urging them to put
this kind of pressure on Facebook. People with technical skills can help by
investing time and energy improving competing news-syndication platforms
(Twitter, Reddit, RSS, Steemit, etc).

I've got my own elaborate technical solution to Facebook's fact-void-echo-
chamber problem that involves a combination of labels, like these students
created, and algorithms that recommend related stories from sources across
ideological divides. But unless leading social media platforms are ready to
invest in these kinds of solutions, their impact on the problem will be
negligible.

Anyway, these are all just my thoughts after listening to many people talk
about the issue. If anyone reading this is a part of the team that's investing
energy into getting this problem solved, I'd love to help. I'm currently a
JS/React dev and also willing to shift my career to marketing, UI/UX, etc.
Please reach out to me: [http://josiahsprague.com](http://josiahsprague.com)

~~~
inimino
> robust technical solutions.

Why do you believe technical solutions are possible? This is not a technical
problem.

~~~
yosito
Technical solutions alone are not enough, but any solution to the problem will
require changes to the technology that is creating the problem in the first
place.

~~~
inimino
Ad-supported social media are driven by engagement, and critical thinking
skills are unevenly distributed. Those two problems aren't likely going
anywhere.

