Facebook Launches a Petition Feature (techcrunch.com) 69
Tomorrow Facebook will encounter a slew of fresh complexities with the launch of Community Actions, its News Feed petition feature. From a report: Community Actions could unite neighbors to request change from their local and national elected officials and government agencies. But it could also provide vocal interest groups a bully pulpit from which to pressure politicians and bureaucrats with their fringe agendas. Community Actions embodies the central challenge facing Facebook. Every tool it designs for positive expression and connectivity can be subverted for polarization and misinformation. Facebook's membership has swelled into such a ripe target for exploitation that it draws out the worst of humanity. You can imagine misuses like "Crack down on [minority group]" that are offensive or even dangerous but some see as legitimate. The question is whether Facebook puts in the forethought and aftercare to safeguard its new tools with proper policy and moderation. Otherwise each new feature is another liability.
Community Actions start to roll out to the US tomorrow after several weeks of testing in a couple of markets. Users can add a title, description, and image to their Community Action, and tag relevant government agencies and officials who'll be notified. The goal is to make the Community Action go viral and get people to hit the "Support" button. Community Actions have their own discussion feed where people can leave comments, create fundraisers, and organize Facebook Events or Call Your Rep campaigns. Facebook displays the numbers of supporters behind a Community Action, but you'll only be able to see the names of those you're friends with or that are Pages or public figures.
Community Actions start to roll out to the US tomorrow after several weeks of testing in a couple of markets. Users can add a title, description, and image to their Community Action, and tag relevant government agencies and officials who'll be notified. The goal is to make the Community Action go viral and get people to hit the "Support" button. Community Actions have their own discussion feed where people can leave comments, create fundraisers, and organize Facebook Events or Call Your Rep campaigns. Facebook displays the numbers of supporters behind a Community Action, but you'll only be able to see the names of those you're friends with or that are Pages or public figures.
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"Yet another Facebook feature that will be overrun by Russian bots"
Why the emphasis on *Russian* bots.
Re: Oh great (Score:1)
Automatic integration from fake-news... (Score:3)
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Can I haz petition for cheeseburger, and privacy?
Re: Automatic integration from fake-news... (Score:2)
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I can haz cheeseburder and freedom fries?
Can we petition to end facebook (Score:1)
Because that would be it’s most useful feature
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:+1 I would really like to see this pseudo-social networks madness to end but I'm not really optimistic.
You want to share things ? There are privacy friendly alternatives. You want to petition ? There are privacy friendly alternatives. You want to organize events ? There are privacy friendly alternatives. Actually there are privacy friendly alternatives for everything (I say alternatives but most of the times the pseudo-social networks didn't invent anything, and the so-called alternatives are the original.
Idiot spin (Score:5, Insightful)
Community Actions could unite neighbors to request change from their local and national elected officials and government agencies. But it could also provide vocal interest groups a bully pulpit from which to pressure politicians and bureaucrats with their fringe agendas. Community Actions embodies the central challenge facing Facebook. Every tool it designs for positive expression and connectivity can be subverted for polarization and misinformation. Facebook's membership has swelled into such a ripe target for exploitation that it draws out the worst of humanity. You can imagine misuses like "Crack down on [minority group]" that are offensive or even dangerous but some see as legitimate. The question is whether Facebook puts in the forethought and aftercare to safeguard its new tools with proper policy and moderation. Otherwise each new feature is another liability.
I see this again and again from the mentally stunted. Yes, a petition can be launched to spread awareness of animal torture. A petition can also be launched to inspire more animal torture. That is not subversion! It is the same damn thing, but with the moral values inverted! What we in the west consider great moral virtues may be considered absolutely haram in the middle-east. The same thing happens within a country, where some people vote right and some people vote left. Don't pretend like it's some sort of nefarious scheme to voice your (quite possibly retarded) opinion just because other's don't share it.
The problem with the FB petition system is that it is open to everyone, which means that it's open to even the smallest groups within society, the extremists. As long as you force a threshold before any petition can be seen easily, it will be fine. Dumb petitions that relate to American Idol will still be viral, but extremist stuff will be kept to a minimum. That will make the system bland admittedly, but it will work for real issues.
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And here we see tyranny by majority in action.
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The problem with the FB petition system is that it is open to everyone ... As long as you force a threshold before any petition can be seen easily, it will be fine.
No, the problem with Facebook is that it is an echo chamber that is easy to manipulate.
To manipulate, all you need is just a few people who are willing to create and maintain multiple "credible" facebook accounts. It doesn't take much to give the appearance of a "community". Once there is a community, it makes it easier for anyone else to just join without critically evaluating the arguments since "all the others" have presumably already done that. Also, facebook doesn't even have Slashdot like moderation (
Not just Facebook (Score:2)
No, the problem with Facebook is that it is an echo chamber that is easy to manipulate.
That's the problem with ALL online social sites, Slashdot included. All sides of the political spectrum start using it to push an agenda and as time goes on they tend to drift to the extremes on both sides. I hate to say this, but I'm seeing that happen here lately.
Welcome to 2019 and the dawning of the Era of Groupthink. You will enjoy your stay, whether you like it or not. The Masses will make sure if it.
Sure, go right ahead and share that petition (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously ... I will unfollow anyone who shares one of these idiotic Facebook petitions, the same way I unfollow anyone who insists on sharing every bit of braindead clickbait they see, or who insists on posting nonstop political screeds.
You can definitely tell that Facebook's engagement metrics are falling, and that Zuckerberg is sweating over it, when "features" like this are pushed into user's faces.
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I feel that having their data exposed to the petition organiser is enough of a punishment. No need to unfriend them. They'll learn... hopefully.
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I keep feeling like I should do this. Those people seem to have absolutely nothing better to do with their lives than sit on the couch and share outrage-promoting drivel all day long. Slacktavism at its finest, and they think they're actually accomplishing something useful by engaging in it.
Then again, if you remove those people and everyone else who only does it for 20% of their posts, suddenly the whole feed would feel quite empty.
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You say that as if it was a bad thing. The fact is, my Facebook feed is quite empty. I only occasionally look at Facebook nowadays. I find that my quality of life has not suffered in the least.
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"Seriously ... I will unfollow anyone who shares one of these idiotic Facebook petitions, the same way I unfollow anyone who insists on sharing every bit of braindead clickbait they see"
If you are able to unfollow anyone, you are already part of the problem.
More online petitions (Score:3)
Not on (Score:2)
Not on Facebook
split up Facebook
Has a petition ever acheived anything? (Score:3)
I'm struggling to think of a single occasion where a petition has achieved what it set out to. In almost all cases they are simply ignored since there's absolutely no reason for anyone to pay attention to them.
There are far better means of making people listen. If you want to petition a company, you stop buying their product. If you want to petition a politician, you stop voting for them until they start paying attention. If you want to petition a politician and you're a large company or well funded non-profit organisation, you bribe them, but you call it a campaign donation to legitimise your corruption.
The only purpose of a petition is to allow people to feel good about themselves while achieving precisely nothing.
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You have no idea what you're blathering about. Petitions become ballot measures become law all the time. Why would you advertise how little you know about this without researching it?
Is it physically painful to be so obtuse? Which part of your brain is damaged to the point where you can't include the contemplation of any sort of context when cranking out your juvenile response?
I give it about 5 seconds (Score:4, Funny)
See why the USA IS NOT a democracy? (Score:4, Interesting)
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They are probably downmodding it because they recognize the poor copy-and-paste job (what's with the repeat paragraphs?): https://pastebin.com/aqA2kf5A [pastebin.com]
we already knows what will happen (Score:2)
"Every tool it designs for positive expression and connectivity can be subverted for polarization and misinformation."
this is true for any tool, doesn't matter that it is facebook related.
"The question is whether Facebook puts in the forethought and aftercare to safeguard its new tools with proper policy and moderation."
we also already know the answer to this; no, they don't care about our privacy or ethics in general.
An Excellent New Feature! (Score:3)
So long as it's use to:
Petition Facebook to reveal who it has sold users data to.
Petition Facebook to give the user control over what data is collected
Petition Facebook to be far more transparent about its moderation
Petition Facebook to take community feedback about it's standards
Petition Facebook to promote free speech...
Oh GREAT!! (Score:2)
The denizens of "Selfie Land" are going to band together to create petitions. What could possibly go wrong there? After all, are they not the smartest, brightest, and most engaged people we have?
Re: Oh GREAT!! (Score:1)