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Facebook Communications Network Social Networks The Internet News

Facebook Will Now Ask Users To Rank News Organizations They Trust (recode.net) 140

Posted by BeauHD from the user-generated dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Recode: Facebook is doing a very un-Facebooky thing: It's going to start declaring that some news sources you see in your Facebook feed are better than others, and act accordingly. But Facebook being Facebook, it's going about it in the most Facebooky way possible: It's going to rely on users -- not the super-smart people who work at Facebook -- to figure out which of those sources are better. Mark Zuckerberg says the move is part of an effort to prioritize "news that is trustworthy, informative, and local," within the network and suggests that there will be more announcements to come. The one he describes today will prioritize what kind of news sources pop up in your Facebook News Feed, and will reward ones that Facebook thinks are "broadly trusted," based on user polls, so it can "build a sense of common ground." Facebook is also using today's news to refine last week's roll-out: Zuckerberg says the previously announced changes will reduce the amount of news stories people see in their feed to 4 percent, down from 5 percent.
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Facebook Will Now Ask Users To Rank News Organizations They Trust More

Facebook Will Now Ask Users To Rank News Organizations They Trust

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  • More Americans get their news from the Daily Show than any other nationality.
    • What could possibly go wrong? The results couldn't possibly get skewed (skewered?) could they? Nah.
    • Is that still true? I think a lot of people quit watching when John Stewart left. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if most people have moved away from televised news altogether in favor of internet sources with sites like Facebook and Reddit serving as aggregators of sorts.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        Maybe you didn't read the GP post carefully enough. I'm pretty sure that as long as the show remains on a cable network that is available almost exclusively in the U.S., what the GP said will probably always be true.

      • And some of us went to Reuters, AP, BBC, Al Jazeera, etc.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by k6mfw ( 1182893 )
      I second that though I haven't watched The Daily Show for some time. Though it was slanted satire and humor, it mentioned more number of news events than regular news which tend to repeat same news over and over. However, having a comedian for host has to deliver different subjects (Jon Stewart would not be successful if he kept repeating the same joke).

    • Re:The Daily Show (Score:5, Insightful)

      by scatbomb ( 1099255 ) on Friday January 19, 2018 @08:01PM (#55964801)
      ... that's pretty sad. Also, there's wonderfully circular about Facebook's proposal.

      1. Users read news on network A

      2. Users use information they read on network A to decide which network is "trustworthy" (network A of course)

      3. Network A becomes "trustworthy"

      What could possibly go wrong?

  • Dear Facebook (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19, 2018 @04:57PM (#55963683)

    If you ever want me back, you'll let me check a box that:

    1) Only shows me content created by friends
    2) Makes it come in chronological order

    Everything else is pointless.

  • abuse (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PhantomHarlock ( 189617 ) on Friday January 19, 2018 @04:58PM (#55963689)

    This will in no way be abused by ideologues asking their millions of flunkies to upvote their favorite extremist 'news' organizations without a second thought.

    • I think the bigger danger is what "broadly trusted" means. It means more penetration to the media players who are already rich, with independent voices pushed out. I'll take free speech anyday.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by aliquis ( 678370 )

        This is what they want.

        But I'd say that's already the case. Only it will become worse. But it's definitely not free and at equal means as is.

        More limited and monoton? Yes.

        Remove some illusionary freedom we already have? We don't have it as is (In Europe, in the US you don't necessary have it either but you're at-least better off.)

    • ...or the Russian trolls being paid to do so.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by aliquis ( 678370 )

        ...or the Russian trolls being paid to do so.

        Why does it matter where they are from?

        For USA vs Russia maybe, as humans or from an ideological stand-point not at all.

        Our Swedish government already pay interest groups to act on social media and in society and support media and try to shut down opinions they don't like and jail people of the wrong opinions and their private thought police make people lose their jobs and threaten people and so on.

        So so fucking what that Russia try to spread their agenda too? Pretty sure Israel and USA is pretty good at i

      • Moderately insightful branch of the discussion. I can actually answer in terms of my longer suggestion below:

        The earned public reputation should be based on several dimensions, but the dimensions should NOT be related to ideology or positions on specific issues. Or if there are some dimensions of that sort, then I think they should be discounted in the default settings and people would have to enable them if they really want to. (I'm imagining a "Trump" dimension that assesses positive or negative sentiment

    • abused by ideologues asking their millions of flunkies to upvote . . . without a second thought

      Abuse? Usually we call that an "election."

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jvkjvk ( 102057 )

      Who cares?

      People are being asked to rate their own preference, if I read it right.

      At worst, their feed becomes an echo chamber.

      You are free to do the same.

      How is asking your followers to follow you abuse?

  • lol (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    $(news group that doesn't support my political views)=fake

  • Very bad idea (Score:3)

    by DaMattster ( 977781 ) on Friday January 19, 2018 @05:03PM (#55963743)
    Many people out there don't use the space between their ears for an by kind of critical thinking. So they're apt to believe anything they read and rank something that is blatantly false as trusted ... The old I read it on the internet so it must be true syndrome.
    • I don't even think it goes that far. Instead people will rank news based on how well it conforms to their existing beliefs and that's true of anyone regardless of political leanings or level of intelligence. There are very few people capable of being as skeptical about their own beliefs as they are about somebody else's.

      I don't see why Facebook wants to do this as it doesn't give them any information (political leanings) that they don't already know and they probably risk pissing off whichever groups hav

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by aliquis ( 678370 )

      But they don't want people to be skeptical.

      They want to encourage group-think and follow the stream. Obviously it should be THEIR stream but ..

      The sad part is that they call it democracy and working against fake news and made up stories and lies.

  • Democracy is the new system for fact selection (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Friday January 19, 2018 @05:07PM (#55963783) Homepage Journal

    We now can select our facts by majority opinion.

    Next we can take down science as it is a social construct with a bias toward western culture and straight white men specifically. We instead can have a plurality of accepted "facts" and have equally valid viewpoints that we label as science. Instead of logical arguments, a western concept that reeks of colonialism, we can operate based on consensus building and equal time for all sides. Democratic science and culturally sensitive "facts".

    Total bullshit of course, and perhaps an early signal that society is descending into madness.

    • It's certainly looking like the trend is heading there. It will be really scary once enough people vote against the holocaust ever happening that it becomes mainstream thought. That's when we will be supremely fucked.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by aliquis ( 678370 )

        Why would that ever happen?
        Especially considering what agenda those in charge want to push.

        But ANY such scenario is scary. Not just the ones the globalists & socialists doesn't like.

    • perhaps an early signal that society is descending into madness.

      I think social media in general exchanges rational behavior for attention seeking narcissism. The more extreme your behavior, the more attention you get which is normal but social media exploits to provide dopamine feedback for attention. If you aren't convinced then just look at the Tide Pod Challenge.

      Social media is highly exploitative.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PCM2 ( 4486 )

        I think social media in general exchanges rational behavior for attention seeking narcissism. The more extreme your behavior, the more attention you get which is normal but social media exploits to provide dopamine feedback for attention.

        I honestly have no idea where to find all these "attention seeking narcissists" that /.ers are always talking about. Maybe you're thinking of YouTube? On Facebook, all I ever see are:

        1. News stories people post
        2. Announcements of shows, events, etc.
        3. Reviews of the same
        4. Memes and joke videos
        5. Pictures of people's pets
        6. Pictures of food

        If all that adds up to hideous narcissism to you, all I can say is you must be fun at parties.

    • Hey what a great idea! While we're at it, can we vote on making 'Pi' exactly 3? All those pesky decimals are just too hard to deal with and really don't matter anyway.
    • Yes, society is decending into madness. Science has been on the chopping block for a long while. It's too inconvenient with all that "falsifiability" and "evidence." The new world demands sound bytes and headlines that imply things without saying anything definitive so that readers' biases can take over and fill in the rest. Anything nuanced or complicated is useless since nobody reads anything but headlines anyway.

      If ones' identity is not founded in any verifiable information (what you do, your physical b
  • Bernie Sanders had to turn to alternative news [google.com] to get coverage for his Medicare for All push. Once in the while MSNBC will have him on to bash Trump but they don't let him get too far into the weeds on substantive policy. CNN just pretends he doesn't exist.
  • None Of The Above!!!!!

    I won't answer any poll that does not provide a none of the above option on all of their questions.

    Just my 2 cents ;)

  • I think it's because the objective of Facebook is so stupid. NOT the objectives of the people who want to use Facebook. It's the mismatch between their objectives and what Facebook wants that is creating such stupidity.

    Facebook just wants your time and phuck you if you care about good time versus wasted time.

    The OBVIOUS (ttMCO) countermeasure to this stupid idea is to create fake news sources more quickly. It also leaves the trolls and their sock puppets in place so that they can quickly link to the new fak

  • So how long will it take for major news organizations to figure out a way they can use the built in advertising to boost their ranks and better position themselves? Facebook relies on advertising money. If suddenly major advertisers are being ranked low do you really think Facebook will allow that? How long till companies are paying for better ranking?

    • So how long will it take for major news organizations to figure out a way they can use the built in advertising to boost their ranks and better position themselves? Facebook relies on advertising money. If suddenly major advertisers are being ranked low do you really think Facebook will allow that? How long till companies are paying for better ranking?

      Facebook may find a way to charge news outlets for *verified* status and thus another stream of revenue.

    • I'm sure that the Russian trolls will just hire troll armies and click farms to upvote all of their fake news posts just enough to insure that their feeds do not get shut down.

      If that doesn't work, they'll just use those same people to promote new legitimate sounding news organizations to popularity every few weeks.

  • 1: If Facebook had done it themselves, they'd be lambasted by wailing from certain groups that they are "biasing" the news. Regardless of whether not it was true, many people these days seem to believe that being presented with viewpoints you don't agree with automatically constitutes unethical bias.

    2: If it only shows you news sources that you select as "trustworthy", well, then many people will be enjoying their own personal echo chamber. Neat.

    3: If it uses mass aggregate results to select the "trus
  • Just rate them all as ZERO, and non-news agencies as "-1".

  • Facebook will next offer a product that uses Venn diagrams to best show the similarities and differences between the people and products on their site. Oh the humanity.

    --
    You said it.

  • If they even are slightly honest with the feedback they get from the users.
  • Seems to me that news agency from the United Kingdom that we revolted against back in the days gives better news coverage than those agencies here in the colonies.

  • I don't want to hear anything that might not confirm my bias!

  • Time to educate their followers, citizens start about clicking on social media.
    Up vote the national broadcaster with the good news about the nation.
    Down vote the negative international press about corruption, trade deals, pollution.
    Up vote for tourism and happy news.
    SJW can ban news about any political topic they don't like. No more news about illegal migrants.

    Got a new movie? Up vote the good reviews. Ban the negative reviews and remove the accounts of the negative reviewers.
    Every movie review

  • Better method (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I've got a much better method to make it more neutral.

    Let me note what sources I trust and what sources I don't trust. Let me make that decision, not piles of others from who knows where, and likely gaming the system. Or at least offer me the option of using my own trust scores instead of the default, probably tilted to the far left (but yes, maybe titled to the alt-right Infowars types as well if the system gets gamed).

  • I suppose you have to give Facebook credit for being honest about slanting the "news". Spoon-feeding people news from sources they are comfortable with is exactly the WRONG thing to do if your goal is informed, enlightened subscribers. Facebook's goal SHOULD be to provide the best balance it's algorithms can generate of opposing, or at least differently slanted, versions of the same news story or topic. That way if you're a lefty you can read the news versions you like but you might elect to read how the

  • Facebook Will Now Ask Users To Rank News Organizations They Trust

    Doublespeak, Facebook looks for the best outlets for propaganda.

  • what a miserable response to a serious problem...

  • What do I care about what 10 million facebook users think about what I want to see? They went from being a great way to keep in touch with your friends to the equivalent of an ongoing job interview where you better not say or like the wrong thing. I give them 5 years and they will be joining the ranks of AOL, Yahoo and dozens of other internet giants.

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