
Facebook is going to use Snopes and other fact checkers to combat fake news - spking
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-will-fact-check-label-fake-news-in-news-feed-2016-12
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liamcardenas
This is terrible. The world is too complicated to fact check.

For example, "thousands lose their jobs due to minimum wage increase". Is this
true or not? Well, some schools of economic thought will think its true, and
some will not. Some might say the jobs were lost because there was an increase
in automation and some might think the increase in automation was caused by
the minimum wage. I truly hope that facebook doesn't try to fact check
statements like this.

There is inherent bias in the way we look at the world.

i.e. "Assad bombs his own people" vs "Assad continues the fight against ISIS
and Al Qaeda" Although an argument could be made that these two statements are
not mutually exclusive, they are saying different things. It is quite possible
that one will pass through the fact checker and one will not.

Facebook is such a huge source of information, it makes me very concerned when
a select few organizations have the ability to discredit information across
the entire site.

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toor2
> it makes me very concerned when a select few organizations have the ability
> to discredit information across the entire site

One could look at this conversely and say it is concerning when people and
oragnizations are able to use Facebook to successfully disseminate
misinformation unchecked.

I personally find both sides concerning and see no clear solution.

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jwtadvice
Looking at the list of fack checkers includes a bunch of political
organizations (NGOs) supported by the US government abroad.

An example is a group in Kosovo that supports Serbian separation. Similarly,
the group from Serbia is politically attached to a Eurocentrist worldview.

The list includes, for example, an NGO supported by American investors and
German and American academics in places like Ukraine.

The promise that these are non-partisan sources is a nice garuntee that it is
neither Democrat nor Republican. Unfortunately in many controversial political
situations, there are far more opinions and perspectives than those shared by
Republicans and Democrats.

Given that Facebook has been accused of being a front for American political
imperialism, I don't think this list of "truth deciders" filled with American
investors and groups that have American intelligence and State Department
support is going to improve things. At the very least it looks bad.

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jwtadvice
The current list of fact checkers:

1\. ABC News (USA) Added Dec. 13th

2\. Africa Check (South Africa, Senegal and Kenya)

3\. Agência Lupa (Brazil)

4\. Agência Pública - Truco (Brazil) Added Sept. 16th

5\. Aos Fatos (Brazil)

6\. AP (USA) Added Dec. 15th

7\. Balkan Investigative Reporting Network Kosovo (Kosovo)

8\. Climate Feedback (USA) Added Dec. 5th

9\. Colombiacheck (Colombia) Added Nov. 11th

10\. Chequeado (Argentina)

11\. Demagog CZ (Czech Republic)

12\. Demagog PL (Poland)

13\. Doğruluk Payı (Turkey)

14\. El Deber Data (Bolivia)

15\. El Mercurio El Poligrafo (Chile)

16\. El Objetivo La Sexta (Spain)

17\. Factcheck.org (USA)

18\. FactCheck Georgia (Georgia)

19\. FactCheck Northern Ireland (UK)

20\. FactCheck-Ukraine (Ukraine)

21\. FactChecker.in (India)

22\. FactsCan (Canada)

23\. Faktabaari (Finland)

24\. Full Fact (UK)

25\. GKillCity.com (Ecuador)

26\. Internews Kosova (Kosovo)

27\. Istinomer (Serbia)

28\. Melu Detektors (Latvia) Added Sept. 26th

29\. Metamorphosis Foundation (Macedonia)

30\. Observador (Portugal)

31\. Ojo Publico (Peru)

32\. Pagella Politica (Italy)

33\. Pesa Check (Kenya)

34\. PolitiFact (USA)

35\. Snopes (USA)

36\. South Asia Check (Nepal)

37\. TheJournal.ie (Ireland)

38\. UY Check (Uruguay)

39\. Valheenpaljastaja (Finland)

40\. VERA Files Fact Check (Philippines) Added Sept. 19th

41\. VoxUkraine (Ukraine)

42\. The Washington Post Fact Checker (USA)

43\. Zašto ne Istinomjer (Bosnia & Herzegovina)

~~~
Mao_Zedang
Nice to see a good mix of bipartisan sources. /s

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ideonexus
No fact-checking system will be perfect, but the perfect should not be the
enemy of the good. Is there a gray area of what constitutes fake news and what
a valid fact-checking body is? Of course, but flags don't stop the discussion,
they enable discussion. If someone wants to go ahead and post something
knowing it will be flagged, they can also post their argument for why they
think it is being wrongly flagged.

I am all for this. I've given up on posting snopes links to posts from friends
who either tell me snopes is wrong or outright delete my comment. I live near
DC, where a man recently opened fire in a restaurant because he read a fake
news story that Hillary Clinton was running a child prostitution ring there.
I'm sick of this. We are entitled to our own opinions, but we are not entitled
to our own facts.

The people in my feed who post fake news tend to be obnoxious and not very
bright. It's a good customer service move to make the social network more
pleasant. I know that the majority of my thoughtful friends on Facebook will
greatly appreciate this.

~~~
jwtadvice
During the Snowden Disclosures Facebook prevented me from posting direct links
to the leaked documents and articles detailing their technical content.

I do not trust Facebook as an information steward, and feel that the solution
is much more dangerous than the problem. I personally do not face many
problems with fake news, but have suffered a great deal from propaganda,
surveillance and censorship.

These solutions seem to double down on the costs, without offering a real
benefit.

~~~
ideonexus
If FB outright banned your post and it did not contain graphic content, then
that was wrong and an abuse on their part. But this modification isn't taking
content down, they are adding a flag to posts identifying the source as
suspect and, more importantly, why it is considered suspect. This is a much
more transparent solution because we can see what FB is flagging, why it is
being flagged, and openly discuss whether the flag is fair or not.

~~~
jwtadvice
Right, now they may possibly allow me to post the Snowden documents or let's
say a report from SANA about a successful campaign to save people from
terrorist captors.

But it could be marked by a stamp basically telling people: "Don't look at
this. Don't take it seriously." People will be trained not to click on the
reason for why, and they won't have the context to - as it was the case when
the Snowden Documents were first coming out - differentiate "This post was
marked fake news because the government engages in 'bulk collection' NOT 'mass
surveillance'" from an legitimate reason to pariah the post and poster.

The type of influence this gives Facebook as a provider is one of scale, not
one of instance. If large numbers of people are discouraged from engaging with
certain ideas while each individual case has to be litigated individually and
during a time later when the news and narrative making is already completed
and people have moved on, it's a serious problem.

I would criticize China if they intended to put branding marks on reporting,
analysis and posts that they don't consider trustworthy or factual.

It is this same criticality that I aim at Facebook and the United States.
There are other, better solutions. I looked at the list of 'fact-checkers'.
They don't pass the sniff test.

Finally, there's no way Facebook is going to mark its advertising, partnered
content and purchased 'likes' as fake. It's just not in the calculation.

I will agree with you however that the abuse of taking down posts or ranking
them so that nobody sees them (another issue I've encountered) is 'worse' in
its immediate affect. Though I think it's more explicit. I can talk to other
people who have had their posts censored and it isn't deniable.

This solution, on the other hand, is extremely deniable.

I don't like having to pick between two poisons. I've had quite enough of
that.

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chmln
This would only work if news were a mere presentation of facts.

I'm afraid this will be used not the way its intended, but to silence and
discredit any opposition to e.g. government's agenda.

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DrScump
Meanwhile, they will continue to saturate your feed with ads for fake
_products_... especially counterfeits.

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acchow
Would business insider pass?

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throw7
So the onion will be marked fake correct?

