Facebook blocks links to B.S. Detector, fake news warning plugin

It's easy to be outraged rather than actually thinking about the problem.

HEADLINE:"FACEBOOK NEWS FEED POPULATED BY BIASED EDITORS"

INTERNET:"MACHINE LEARNING IS UNBIASED WHY ISN"T FB USING ML?" -- HEADLINE:"FACEBOOK NEWS FEED POPULATED BY FAKE NEWS BECAUSE ML ISN'T DIFFERENTIATING NEWS TYPES"

INTERNET:"FACEBOOK NEEDS TO CONTROL WHAT NEWS GETS ON THE NEWS FEED" --- HEADLINE:"FACEBOOK CENSORING CONTROVERSIAL NEWS" INTERNET:"FACEBOOK NEEDS TO HIRE EDITORS THAT WON'T CENSOR THINGS"

GOTO 1

Fighting fake news would not increase the degree to which Facebook shapes what people see. It would just adjust the criteria. Facebook already exerts total control over what its users see.

"Discretion" is not the right word, though, because Facebook is algorithmic. The problem is simply that the algorithm is optimizing for the wrong thing, which is causing harm.

It's like if you decided what to eat and drink solely by how sweet things taste. Each individual bite would be pleasurable. But the long-term health effects of eating nothing but sweets would be terrible.

Blocking is not the only answer BTW. Simple labeling would go a long way. The Onion would still be funny with a little "satire" tag.

> why do you want Facebook to exercise even _more_ discretion over what kind of news people see?

The argument is that, whether we like it or not, Facebook has become the hub for millions of people and these people share articles with each other. Media has become decentralized, and although the libertarian approach of do-nothing sounds nice, we just found out that in practice it doesn't work very well. You thought the Reddit fiasco with the marathon bomber was bad? The equivalent is happening a thousand times over with fake news spreading faster than the news that debunks it.

Ultimately it's a very hard problem to solve.

Fake news, and its far more dangerous big brother, propaganda, can have an enormous effect on a society. Providing people with tools to identify real information from fake information seems like a great thing for those who want to use them.

But a lot of folks (whether they realize it or not) want to see fake news because it confirms their personal worldview (or: how everyone loves confirmation bias) and makes them feel good about being part of their in-group.

I suspect folks who push for censorship think that it will somehow ensure these types of folks don't consume fake news or propaganda (probably without realizing that they, too, have consumed fake news from time to time).

But the reality is fake news has existed for a very very long time. Hell, you could tune into MSNBC or Fox News and find stories that border pretty closely on fake news without even trying. And, again, they do it because it increases ratings. And it increases ratings because it makes people in their respective demographics feel good.

So what you're ultimately trying to fight is the human need for a sense of belonging, and the desire to feel good about their personal beliefs. Good luck with that...

No one thinks it would be a simple task, but if you consider it a threat to democracy you can understand why many want a solution.

Blatant lies intended to scare people into voting a certain way are a problem. How much of a difference is there really between "vote X or I'll kill your family" and "vote X or someone else will kill your family" if the intent is the same?

The gray zone expands even more with the lesser-known satire sites, which sometimes have a mix of articles that are obviously satire, and some that aren't.

For example, I've seen a few articles shared as truth from "World News Daily Report," which played it so straight that I would have considered it "fake news" if I hadn't seen the satire disclaimer tucked at the bottom of the page. Other articles on that same site are much more obviously satirical though. I tend to blame this on poor writing rather than malice, though you can probably make a decent counterargument.

Some sort of "possibly false" notice attached to links like these, rather than just a "block or not" decision, seems like it would strike a nice balance here.

Also, the people making loud, direct calls for censorship are mostly journalists, writers, and opinion-makers. Seems like great fodder for views and clicks. Perhaps there's much for them to gain by whipping up drama (and potentially alienating competition).

Wouldn't it be reasonable to force facebook and similar social network sites to be transparent about how they rank articles? And in combination with this make reasonable legislation on content responsibility.

Welcome to the original "editorial" question. Read up on "Yellow Journalism" for a history.

The answer to your rhetorical is "some people start from a position of reporting responsibility some start from a position of personal responsibility."

Lets presume there is a conversation between Alice and Bob on what is happening. Eve can hear both conversations and to some extent can ascertain when either Alice or Bob are communicating a falsehood or a misstatement to the other.

In the personal responsibility policy camp Eve doesn't do anything, it is up to Alice and Bob to evaluate the integrity and accuracy of the other's facts. In the reporting responsibility policy camp, if either Alice or Bob is communicating to a group (which is to say the communication is one to many) then Eve must inform the many when Alice states a falsehood or lies, conversely if Bob is the one who is communicating to the many then his falsehoods and/or misleading statements must be called out.

Facebook lands in the middle because both Alice and Bob are in fact communicating to lots of people (everyone on the feed, everyone reading the comments section what ever). As the "market maker" for this meeting of speakers and listeners, either Facebook is 100% responsible for the quality of the facts or 100% not responsible for the quality of the facts.

If you think of the information being exchanged as "product" and people publishing information as "sellers" and people reading that information "buyers" (even though there may be no financial transaction involved), there is quite a bit of experiential guidance around what the market owner must do versus the sellers and buyers in the market. The challenge is that people who might be suspicious being offered a Rolex watch at a flea market for a fraction of the price, seem more willing to believe a "news story" from an unaccredited news source which differs markedly from what the mainstream press is reporting. If they saw such news stories as 'cheap rolexes' it might activate the same sorts of suspicions they would get in a market when the price is too good to be true.

Facebook already exercises a lot of discretion -- they reorder posts on your timeline to drive engagement, they promote related links, they have the Trending bar, etc. People aren't asking them to do more. They're asking them to do what they're doing now more responsibly.

Funny that they managed to block the fact-checker.

I'd be happy if they did nothing, and simply let me read what I want. But this is the worst situation.

As long as it is public as to what they are blocking or flagging, then it's better than not doing it at all. The bigger problem is people may not either care or believe something is fake news, just because someone highlights it as such. It would be nice if there were questionnaires with people's voting, so post-election we could see how much understanding or knowledge different groups have; you couldn't, at least initially, put any weight on what someone's vote is worth based on this of course.

That's why you don't block; you flag. Let people make their own choices, but informed. Allow users to flag a link or post with tags such as Satire, Misleading, Controversial, Editorialized, Biased, Debunked, etc. Everyone else can still view the links and posts, but with some small indication of its trustworthiness. Though I feel like some tags, such as Debunked, should perhaps require a supporting link attached to a flag.

I think it is because people are generally NOT saying that they should necessarily BLOCK things, but instead label them appropriately.

THIS IS SATIRE: at the top of ONION articles. THIS IS FAKE: on top of us-political-truth-grabber-buzz.com

maybe OPINION gets added to HUFFPO

I think that would likely be enough to satisfy most of the needs.

... Although while we're talking blue sky / greenfield ... maybe we add something like:

   Here's How Ridiculously Expensive It Is To Replace A Windshield On An Aston Martin |[ $4414.41 ]

to all that shitty clickbait out there :)

>>"People keep saying that Facebook should be doing more to block fake news but ... why do you want Facebook to"

For the same reasons why I want my email provider to block spam or for my search engineer provider to block shady viagra ads.

>but here's the part that I don't get: why do you want Facebook to exercise even _more_ discretion over what kind of news people see?

This one is easy: people in these parts think that the fake news is one-sided, and that it got a president they don't like elected. So now fake news is a major issue.

I suggest Facebook block all types of content… they can start by blocking all personally-identifiable information. Short of that, they should be responsible and shut down their irresponsible service.

An even better plugin would block Facebook altogether.

That'd be a great plugin and seems relatively easy to make…does it exist?

And you think the B.S. detector was blocked quickly. There would be a pure vacuum left in the internet due to the quickness with which a third party remover would disappear.

I expect Facebook is saturated and or declining in the US due to excess BS. A few years ago it was rare that I would find a "fb free" person. Now it is much more common (maybe as much my age group as fb though).

A plugin like this would make FB usable again. Too bad it would get blocked asap.

This would be great - I hate all the "blank commented on" posts, I just want updates

The FBPurity browser plugin might interest you. You can block all sorts of content based on post type and keyword. http://www.fbpurity.com

Isn't that the current behaviour if you have no pages 'liked'?

I ask myself this about everyday I open the app. Unfortunatly, the answer is always: well in between all the BS there are things my family post or members of groups I joined post. So I keep on going even though I find it appalling.

How about a plugin that blocks Facebook in its entirety?

Facebook is an easy way for my friends to call my attention to a piece of external content that I might otherwise have not known about (and vice versa).

For example one FB friend follows whitewater racing closely and is constantly posting articles and videos from local websites throughout Europe. I would never get to see this content otherwise.

Sure a lot of people on HN don't like Facebook or don't use Facebook, but about a billion people do. And they do it for a reason: they like it.

The question is what obligation does Facebook have to those people--and to society in general--to avoid fooling or exploiting them. I'd say it is at least "some".

I only use it for messenger, which isn't bad...

The plugin doesn't block anything, it labels things.

Wikileaks is a "rumor" site. It doesn't provide verified information.

In what way is this relevant at all?

Just tried to post the link on my FB feed and it works fine. There is no blocking.

Then, just like television is not responsible for TV addicts, Facebook may not be responsible for the susceptibility of people to believe and share fake news.

exactly. if it comes down to people internalizing information from various sources without any critical thought, its really too late for democracy. trying to vet the sources after the fact is pointless. if any random person can bring down society purely by spewing innuendo, then the whole premise of the fourth estate is flawed.

That got even more ridiculous when Josh Marshall of TPM and Paul Krugman of the New York Times got pissed off at all the people who didn't buy it because of course, everyone knows that Russia was influencing the election: https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/802192619627540480 Just like the most obnoxious fake-news-spreading social media users, the fact that it confirmed their belief was more important than its obvious fakeness.

And make no mistake, a dodgy anonymous group spreading dubious but terrifying stats about Russian propaganda whilst redefining that to mean any site posting politicial views they disagree with is a form of fake news, even if they eventually managed to find a reputable news organisation that would launder their claims for them.

Insert

127.0.0.1 facebook.com 127.0.0.1 login.facebook.com 127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com

into your /etc/hosts file.

I use a Rasp Pi running Unbound DNS to block it. Using a dedicated DNS server provides coverage for mobile devices with no /etc/hosts access.

Ah, Facebook nowadays is just idiots writing their friends' names underneath meme pics, because they think that's how you share stuff with friends: some content has 100K comments, but most of it is just people's names, such a tragic UX. The great news is that this 9gag-level junk content is what will turn away their eyeballs base.

Checking against a PR-curated list: https://github.com/selfagency/bs-detector/blob/master/chrome...

Didn't check myself, can you just provide any example of that? Poster above says it blocks Wikileaks as a rumor site which is, um, not even non-left-wing. Wikileaks is a legitimate source that isn't partisan, but partisan people love or hate it whenever it reveals something good or bad for their side. :P

Fake news is a problem because the wrong metrics are being targeted. Fake news vendors are seeking clicks because ctr maps directly to their revenue stream. So they make outrage click bait, get the money, and compete to make the most outrageous stuff. There's a mix of human psychology and general platform failure going on here.