
How is news marked as disputed on Facebook? - dplgk
https://www.facebook.com/help/733019746855448
======
artursapek
It's impossible to assign a "true"/"fake" value to all news stories...
especially with our increasingly biased and divided media.

Here's an example of what happens when we try: Politifact, a consistently
liberal-biased source, didn't like that Trump took credit for a hard and
proven fact. So they called it "mostly false" even though nothing he said was
false.

[http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2017/feb/...](http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
meter/statements/2017/feb/25/donald-trump/why-donald-trumps-tweet-about-
decline-national-deb/)

This thing Facebook is doing is bound to just end up becoming crowd-sourced
echo-chamber censorship. And they probably know that.

~~~
tehwebguy
Seems like there should be a new category for statements which can hold up to
"technically true" but are intended to mislead.

~~~
noobermin
The heading on that article says: "Why Donald Trump's tweet about national
debt decrease in his first month is highly misleading"

------
nodesocket
Won't people just mark disputed to stories and articles they don't agree with?
There should be a penalty for doing this. Perhaps remove their ability to
dispute stories after two or three confirmed offenses.

Even on Hacker News where the average user is much more responsible and
thoughtful, I've gotten downvoted and flagged to death for
opinions/comments/links that don't fall within the echo chamber.

~~~
ythn
So who gets to be the ultimate keeper of truth? If CNN spins a story to be
police brutality, but you happen to be an eyewitness who saw that it was
actually self-defense, can you mark the CNN story as disputed? Who decides if
you are right or wrong?

~~~
dredmorbius
Truth is the ultimate judge of truth -- world-views are tested against the
world, and those which don't correspond, sufficiently, to reality, are shown
wrong. It's an evolutionary process (in several deep senses).

There is a philosophical discipline devoted to establishing Truth:
epistemology. "Criteria of Truth" describe how people can, and do, _make
judgements on the truth of propositions_ , in the face of information which is
incomplete, confusing, and out-of-date. Correspondence, coherence, and
pragmatic theories are the strongest, though other fallbacks, including
authority, tradition or custom, and majority opinion are used, _despite the
fact that they are unreliable_.

The _ultimate_ keeper of truth isn't quite the right question, but in general,
_those who are trusted with distinguishing truths are those who have shown the
capacity, ability, and integrity to serve in that role_. That is: who judges
truth? _Someone who is very good at doing just that._

Authorities aren't absolute, they're not perfect, and they're not immune to
bias or corruption. But, over time, they should show themselves to be _sincere
in their efforts to uncover the truth, inclusive of admitting their errors and
changing their judgements in the face of new evidence_.

The problem is a complex one, but not a greenfield.

~~~
RileyKyeden
This is why I consider places like Politifact/Factcheck useful. I don't always
agree with their assessment, but they detail their reasoning and are generally
fair. I can follow the logic, figure out where we diverge, and form my own
opinion.

It's the same with SCOTUS rulings. They give a detailed account of their
reasoning. Even conservative justices who I think routinely use backwards
reasoning to make idiotic decisions at least tend to follow a logic absent in
rulings from their conservative peers in lower courts (who tend more toward
non-reasoning like "gay is bad" and "why do you hate capitalism").

I can at least follow a bizarre logic and understand how they came to the
decision because there _is_ a logic, even if the logic comes from a mindset
that conflicts with my own.

~~~
dredmorbius
Politifact / Factcheck _are_ useful. But they're not the end of the story.

Getting the answer to the question right isn't particularly useful if the
question itself is wrong.

------
0x0
This page shows, for me, simply:

    
    
      How is news marked as disputed on Facebook?
      This feature isn't available to everyone yet.
      How helpful did you find this answer?
      :< :( :| :) :D
    

Of course, I clicked the saddest-face feedback button.

~~~
DaUR
That may be your adblock/noscript, but:

> This feature isn't available to everyone yet.

Really refers to the fact that Facebook is partnering with mainstream media in
each individual country, and so they need time to roll this out
internationally. Most countries don't even have a developed fact-checking
infrastructure.

~~~
rebuilder
Now I'm curious - what countries _do_ have a developed fact-checking
infrastructure? For the public, I mean, so intelligence services don't qualify
if they don't publish their findings ;)

~~~
DaUR
The US has (Politifact, Snopes, etc). Many countries just don't have well-
known companies doing this.

------
alexilliamson
What happens when I dispute The Onion? What happens when FAKENEWS_OUTLET gets
disputed and claims it's The Onion? It feels like Facebook is taking us for a
ride here...

~~~
throwaway5752
1) When you dispute the Onion, Facebook should take no action because it's
legitimate satire (well known, founded 30 years ago)

2) When you dispute FAKENEWS_OUTLET, Facebook should decide against the fake
news outlet, because it's not The Onion. FAKENEWS_OUTLET should have a means
of being notified and disputing the decision.

Further, Facebook should not allow anonymous disputes, track what individuals
dispute, and should use something that looks a bit like PageRank to determine
complainant credibility (credible complainant are ones that report many fake
sites, fake sites are ones reported by good complainants) supplemented by
social graph metrics (eg, lots of credible friends, or follower of sites known
to be uncredible).

Or was that rhetorical? I'm glad Facebook is doing this.

~~~
pharrington
Surely you can't be suggesting that an entity can only be considered a
"legitimate" satirist if it's been around for a long time and there's a high
amount of consensus regarding it?

Also, you _cannot_ use network effects as an accurate proxy for critical
thinking. Humans inherently defer a ton of thought to crowd consensus; this
crowd consensus becomes less reliable as the subjects involved become more
complex. The increasing complexity of modern society only further necessitates
the need to train our critical thinking skills. Codifying network effects as a
proxy for critical thinking, as FB is doing here, only accelerates the
unreliability of groupthink.

~~~
throwaway5752
I respectfully disagree with you on both counts. I have no illusion that FB
cares what I think and will take my approaching and it's not perfect, but it
would improve FB's situation. To address your other response, that is why I
invoke the Pareto principle (you can solve 80% of malicious news feed entries
with 20% of the effort).

Anyway, let me also note I find it strange that you are approaching this the
way you are. FB is a proprietary, private platform. They will take actions
that are best of the long term growth and profitability of the corporation on
behalf of the owners (the shareholders). This whole epistemological/political
element perplexes me, I think it entirely misses the mark of why FB is doing
this.

edit: I should also mention, your comment about groupthink makes me think you
misunderstand me. Gaming a PageRank like algorithm is certainly possible, but
the eigenvalues of the Markov process on the adjacency matrix of
complainants/news sources would take a away a large part of the human bias
element. And counter-counter-measures are pretty well researched.

~~~
pharrington
You express a vital misunderstanding of capitalism. Companies do not take the
actions that are best for their long term health. They take the actions that
are best for their health in the _foreseeable future_. Further, FB is a
private company that _owns largest forum for online socializing and public
discourse._ They are a _private_ entity that controls the _commons_. I don't
care about FB's profit motives; I care that their actions directly erode one
of the core requisites of a healthily functioning complex society, so that is
what I will talk about. It is not okay to make money by fucking shit up.

edit: I don't understand your stance on satire outfits. Was the Onion a satire
publication in 1988? If so, how do you square that with your claim?

edit2: You refer to "malicious newsfeed entries." It's interesting that the
only large scale activity that can even begin to consistently be considered
such is the creation of "dark posts," which FB's censorship program does zilch
to combat.

------
iamdave
Taking a long/high level view on this: When people are uncritical about that
immediate reaction to share, repost, reblog, retweet anything that feeds into
that dopamine high of "this coincides with my preconceived notions of _n_ "
regardless of how factual or accurate it is, how effective do we really expect
Facebook-a site that actively _encourages_ rabid sharing to be with something
like this?

How effective will _any_ tool, widget or service be at weeding out "fake news"
when one can't counter a questionable news source in social media without
being called "snowflake" or some other pointless pejorative for committing the
cardinal sin of disagreeing?

Am I asking this the right way?

~~~
dredmorbius
It's absolutely valid to point out that the entire incentive structure, from
advertising to outrage to virality to dopaminagenic, of the current state of
online media, is antithetical to promotion of truth.

Yes, the systems themselves, and their incentives, are at fault. And must be
changed. For the sake of the Liberal Democratic Experiment (referencing
liberalism, not the similarly named political party).

------
thinkmassive
This is actually a link to discover _why_ a story is marked as fake.

How do I mark a news story as fake?
[https://www.facebook.com/help/572838089565953](https://www.facebook.com/help/572838089565953)

------
zyxzevn
What about "grey" things for which different groups can be correct in some
way. Adding clarity to the information can improve things more than
"disputing" it.

Some scientific articles are click-bait like: "Reality does not exist until we
measure it". [http://www.sciencealert.com/reality-doesn-t-exist-until-
we-m...](http://www.sciencealert.com/reality-doesn-t-exist-until-we-measure-
it-quantum-experiment-confirms) But it says: an atom can be in superposition
state until it is measured. Which tells something about a single atom, not
about reality.

Or things that are claimed by officials or experts, but for which there is not
enough evidence, no evidence at all, or even contrary evidence? Like: Is
Russian hacking disputed for which there was no real evidence? Or is wikileaks
disputed who exposed quite some corruption? Is Snowden disputed? Is dirty wars
(drone assassinations) disputed?

Or can we ask deeper questions, like: How much are we being spied on by
Facebook? Is Facebook trying to change what we think? What organisations are
behind Facebook?

I think that both sides should have a fair say in things. With the emphasis on
fair. If we declare it disputed and only show one side, we push people apart
and stop any deeper discussions. Stupidity is caused by knowing only one side
of the story.

Adding a joke from the U.S. army: How can you tell if an official from the
pentagon is lying?

Answer: მиιʌow ƨι ʜ⊥now ƨιʜ.

~~~
mrdrozdov
What are the two sides? Why should they have a say? Some information can be
definitely marked as False without taking opinion into account.

I have three feet. <= False

------
thomk
Why aren't we focusing on the source of news instead of the truth of it?

Nothing is purely true or false because everything falls on a continuum. Words
can be strictly true but the sentiment can be false or vice versa.

So, a better system is one that attempts to trace back to the source and then
you let the reader decide if it's true. Lots of things happen along the way
until a news story gets to you.

Even direct access to the POTUS twitter account isn't the original source,
he's just reciting something he heard. Until there is a technological system
that quickly and immediately traces news stories back to the source we will
all just continue to be stuck in our own confirmation biases.

News outlets protect their sources? Fine. Then the endpoint is that news
source. I can then use analytics to discern how true that source has proven to
be in the past and/or if the person saying it is typically left/right etc.

Based on data you can decide what to believe.

I'd also like to see some data on why the POTUS may be lying and not just the
fact that he is lying. Sometimes its ego but other times its a red herring.

I like John Oliver (in doses) but after watching a few shows it's clear that
his show is full of cognitive biases. It is impossible that he doesn't know
that he's cutting corners at a minimum.

It got me thinking after his show on Apple and encryption. It was pretty clear
that in that show he definitely took some creative license. After I thought
about it, it makes sense; his whole show is about how ridiculous something is
and not to provide both sides of a story.

Here's how you know the media is biased. When was the last time you turned on
MSNBC and heard them say anything positive at all about the POTUS?

Even by accident he must have done something they would normally consider
good.

You will lie to yourself (cognitive bias). the media lies in a number of ways,
politicians lie in many different ways for different reasons and all of that
comes to you by way of massive corporations who, well, you get my point.

Forget trying to find the truth. Focus on the source of the story then tear
apart that source with data and analytics until you can reach some kind of
consensus about the degree of truth you are hearing.

~~~
DaUR
Every media is biased, especially TV since it's so segregated by ideology.

The problem is people being emotionally invested and biased. Many Trump
supporters will look at the Politifact rating posted higher in the thread, and
call Politifact "fake news" whereas the reasoning they give is solid. They
wouldn't give Politifact a chance, or build counterarguments, but just throw
the baby out with the bathwater. This is on both sides, and many people.

No technology can fix that, unless it's really subtle and targeted (in other
words, be mindful of your audience).

~~~
thomk
I think technology can help.

Your point about people being emotionally invested and biased is a valid one.
There are a lot of smart people on both sides of the political spectrum, so, a
while ago I decided to venture into the other side. I listened to all the
popular talking heads and read what they read and spoke to many of them to
find out what they believe and why.

I found it hard to believe that so many people are suffering from mass
delusion, so, I asked friends and family what they believed. I tried, the best
I could, to put myself in their shoes and remove my own biases.

In my very unscientific little, flawed study with a far too small sampling of
people I found out a few things that everyone probably already knows:

1\. Confirmation bias is real. Yes of course people tend to read the news they
agree with, but, they also live and work around people who they mostly agree
with. You are the average of the 5 people you associate with most.

2\. Social Proof is a big factor. Is EXTREMELY difficult to change your
viewpoint because you are fighting against social proof. Have you ever noticed
that young people tend to dress the same as their friends. You'll see two
young people walking along and wearing just a slight variation of the exact
same outfit. Two 16 year old boys both wearing striped shirt, hat on
backwards, ripped jeans and untied basketball shoes. That is social proof.

[https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Social_proof](https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Social_proof)

Now imagine coming into your job where you are among your peers saying the
opposite of what all of us believed yesterday: you'd be rejected even if it
was based on evidence.

Don Draper knew it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9rrhKgusYs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9rrhKgusYs)

3\. They simply focus on different subject matter. Not "alternative facts"
different things all together; "Spin". "Yes my politician did do the horrible
thing you are saying, BUT, look at THIS great honest thing he did."

4\. Its exhausting. You are attempting to fight against the belief system that
you've trusted and your peers support possibly your whole life. You are
hearing and reading things that you have a negative visceral reaction to and
it's very, VERY hard to keep listening to or reading it.

\--

The idea that an average person can spend the time to find out what is
actually, objectively, completely true is unrealistic.

In my opinion a great first step is to give everyone a quick, free, way that
simply points to the source of each story. That eliminates the echo chamber
and cuts through a lot of bullshit.

At that point we can at least think about some sort of truth level indicator.

~~~
DaUR
Great comment. Agree with you on the solutions (sourcing).

I don't have a clearly defined political identity, so, mostly by accident at
first, I tried changing my own ideology. I discovered every ideology has a
pretty much coherent worldview. Just frame the world in a way that's unjust,
and _threatens you personally in some way_ , assign low social status to
opponents, and make it a part of my identity. It's crazy how I managed to
identify with everyone from the social-justice-left to the alt-right,
including the Clintonites, Trumpers and social conservatives in between). Fun
to do if you want to learn about cognitive dissonance.

The only thing that determines which ideology you end up with isn't facts, but
temperament (personality) and social circle.

All of these ideologies are coherent, and therefore don't provoke much
cognitive dissonance (if they did these ideologies wouldn't be evolutionarily
"fit", and the ideologies would die out). BTW, if Facebook wanted to be more
evil/involved, they could change the political opinions of vast swathes of the
population by deliberately triggering cognitive dissonance, and then exposing
them to material from the other side when they're much more receptive to it.
The only reason why that doesn't work so often currently is that cognitive
dissonance hasn't yet been completely weaponized, but as we understand it
more, it will be.

------
r_singh
"This feature isn't available to everyone yet."

How do they determine who to make this feature available to?

Only demographics, or some other parameter?

~~~
mgiannopoulos
Facebook does gradual releases. One can guess this is available only in the US
(or even just a part of the US) for now.

~~~
idw
It's launched in the US, Germany, and France so far. It started in the US, and
Germany and France both have elections coming up. Launching depends at least
on having factcheckers or mainstream media outlets doing factchecking active
in that country and willing to join the scheme.

(I work for a factchecker in a different country).

------
mrdrozdov
Considering that anyone can publish anything online, and then collect money
for advertising dollars on that topic, this seems like a very reasonable
feature regardless of the political climate.

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unicornporn
This is what greets me:

"This feature isn't available to everyone yet."

I get no info from the linked page.

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coconut_crab
I think people will just mark anything they don't like as disputed. IMO they
can try suggesting posts with different view points than the one users click
'share' or 'like' (combining ML and user provided data to pick the articles).
Maybe that will help people have a bit more balanced view on the matter.

------
ManlyBread
In my country the people who maintain facebook have a clear agenda which they
are not afraid of showing. These people have already went as far as blocking
the accounts of people who dared to question them in the guise of
"verification" (that is, being forced to send your actual ID or having your
account blocked).

Now they'll be able to decide which news are real and which ones are fake. I'm
sure that absolutely nothing wrong will come out of this.

------
felipemesquita
Do we all get the message saying the feature isn't available for erveyone or
do some (logged in, I presume) get an actual explanation?

~~~
mgiannopoulos
No explanation on my end (Europe) either

------
known
"Media does not spread free opinion; It generates opinion" \--Oswald, 1918
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_West](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_West)

------
libeclipse
I just get a "This feature isn't available to everyone yet" message. Is it
just me?

------
golergka
All I see on the OP link is:

> This feature isn't available to everyone yet.

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R0GUE
Third party "fact checkers"???-- factcheck[dot]org "FactCheck.org was launched
in December 2003 by Brooks Jackson, a former Associated Press, Wall Street
Journal, and CNN reporter" Just sayin.....

