'I Worked on Political Ads at Facebook. They Profit By Manipulating Us.' (washingtonpost.com) 190
Yael Eisenstat, a visiting fellow at Cornell Tech in the Digital Life Initiative and a former elections integrity head at Facebook, CIA officer, and White House adviser, writes for the Washington Post: As the company continues to struggle with how to handle political content and as another presidential election approaches, it's clear that tinkering around the margins of advertising policies won't fix the most serious issues. The real problem is that Facebook profits partly by amplifying lies and selling dangerous targeting tools that allow political operatives to engage in a new level of information warfare. Its business model exploits our data to let advertisers custom-target people, show us each a different version of the truth and manipulate us with hyper-customized ads -- ads that, as of two weeks ago, can contain blatantly false and debunked information if they're run by a political campaign. As long as Facebook prioritizes profit over healthy discourse, they can't avoid damaging democracies.
Early in my time there, I dug into the question of misinformation in political advertising. Posting in a "tribe" (Facebook's internal collaboration platform), I asked our teams working on political advertising whether we should incorporate the same tools for political ads that other integrity teams at Facebook were developing to address misinformation in pages and organic posts. It was unclear to me why the company was applying different, siloed policies and tools across the platform. Most users do not differentiate organic content from ads -- as I clearly saw on a trip to India, where we were testing our ads-integrity products -- so why were we expecting users to understand that we applied different standards to different forms of content that all just appear in their news feeds?
The fact that we were taking money for political ads and allowing campaigns and other political organizations to target users based on the vast amounts of data we had gathered meant political ads should have an even higher bar for integrity than what people were posting in organic content. We verified advertisers to run political ads, giving them a check mark and a "paid for by" label, and I questioned if that gave the false impression that we were vouching for the validity of the content, boosting its perceived credibility even though we weren't checking any facts or ensuring that ads weren't spreading false information. Most of my colleagues agreed. People wanted to get this right. But above me, there was no appetite for my pushing, and I was accused of "creating confusion."
Early in my time there, I dug into the question of misinformation in political advertising. Posting in a "tribe" (Facebook's internal collaboration platform), I asked our teams working on political advertising whether we should incorporate the same tools for political ads that other integrity teams at Facebook were developing to address misinformation in pages and organic posts. It was unclear to me why the company was applying different, siloed policies and tools across the platform. Most users do not differentiate organic content from ads -- as I clearly saw on a trip to India, where we were testing our ads-integrity products -- so why were we expecting users to understand that we applied different standards to different forms of content that all just appear in their news feeds?
The fact that we were taking money for political ads and allowing campaigns and other political organizations to target users based on the vast amounts of data we had gathered meant political ads should have an even higher bar for integrity than what people were posting in organic content. We verified advertisers to run political ads, giving them a check mark and a "paid for by" label, and I questioned if that gave the false impression that we were vouching for the validity of the content, boosting its perceived credibility even though we weren't checking any facts or ensuring that ads weren't spreading false information. Most of my colleagues agreed. People wanted to get this right. But above me, there was no appetite for my pushing, and I was accused of "creating confusion."
Even simpler (Score:5, Insightful)
FB is attracted to anything that generates revenue, that they can get away with legally or in terms of public image. They got burnt with the Cambridge Analytica mini-scandal, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. You can expect them to be selling anything to the highest bidder without any regards to morals or ethics, so long as Joe Public doesn"t get to hear about it.
So, nothing new there...
Re:Even simpler (Score:4, Interesting)
... so long as Joe Public doesn"t get to hear about it.
That's the whole point, isn't it? Everything sounds more believable if nobody tells someone otherwise.
One example, has anyone heard a bad word about electric vehicles lately?
Here's some:
https://notrickszone.com/2019/... [notrickszone.com]
This is new territory, the kind that we have never seen before. Until the age of the Internet the news moved slowly and was easily controlled by governments and big business. Now we can see a website that serves up a single static page can bring down the President of the United States.
News used to move only at the speed of a horse. Then the speed of a steam train, then the speed of a telegraph. Sound and photographs brought a realism that was unknown before. The next step was video. People have events like Tiananmen Square "tank man" burned into their minds. Does anyone know anything about the Apollo 12 mission? Not really, because the camera was destroyed before they could send a single frame of video. Few understand the horrors of Russian concentration camps but the Nazis are synonymous with evil people, because we have moving pictures.
Facebook wants to control what you know for their political ends. They will claim to be neutral on this but they are not.
Re:Even simpler (Score:5, Informative)
That web site? Yeah,. might want to read their "about us" page. It's a fucking doozy. https://notrickszone.com/about... [notrickszone.com]
Straight up climate change denialist right there, doing what climate change denialists do best: cherry picking facts to bolster their delusions. Pierre Gosselin is a lying fruitcake, https://davidappell.blogspot.c... [blogspot.com]
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That web site? Yeah,. might want to read their "about us" page. It's a fucking doozy.
Yes, indeed, he's a "doozy".
Straight up climate change denialist right there, doing what climate change denialists do best: cherry picking facts to bolster their delusions.
You mean like how the people pushing electric cars on everyone are cherry picking data? This is my point, and you stepped into it nicely, this one man pointed out a fact that people don't like to hear. He pulled this from publicly available information and highlighted it to show that electric vehicles are not nearly as popular as others will claim.
Call this man a "fucking doozy" but it wasn't him that showed electric car sales falling off, it was Pricewaterhouse Coopers.
Pierre Gosselin is a lying fruitcake
Wait, w
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If sales of electric cars are declining, I don't see how that says much about climate change in any way. Declining sales is an odd data point to refer to, as there are so many possible reasons for this.
- Most of the people really intent on getting electric vehicles have purchased one. What's left are those waiting for their current auto to need replacing. It is not unusual for some new products to have a large initial surge in sales.
- Infrastructure is a bit lacking. Sure, you can charge at home, but man
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But electric cars are actually a terrible "solution" to climate change. Replacing the world's fleet of vehicles is hardly a carbon-neutral proposition.
Want the planet to recover from our abuses? Bike to work. If you can't, then ride-share. It's not our cars that will need to change, it's our lifestyles.
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That simple quip doesn't imply anyone is on the fence. It implies that if two folks are taking moral stands, they are likely to be standing on opposite sides of the fence.
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"Blatantly False" (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that when you try to apply those filters, you mostly end up finding ads fro one side are "blatantly false and debunked".
I would way rather see some "blatantly false" information at times, which BOTH major political parties post, than to have Facebook censor one side and not the other. Otherwise it's the same as Facebook promoting one party above the other.
If something is truly false and debunked, most people will realize this fairly quickly.
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"Most" people didn't vote for Trump, so I guess you are literally correct. Nonetheless, most people are not discerning in general, much to the delight of scammers, politicians, and religious leaders around the world.
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That's a good example of the bandwagon fallacy! But do you have a more convincing argument for the more logically minded?
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What does logic have to do with politics?
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The CIA and the NSA said that people did. I imagine they're correct.
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You mean the CIA and NSA officials did. The ones that now to be under investigation themselves.
Re:More mistaken liberal definition (Score:5, Insightful)
What the hell has happened to slashdot? We believe the CIA and the NSA now?
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No, they didn't you are lying. Know how I know this? Because there is no way to know why someone voted for a particular candidate.
What is known is that foreign governments attempted to dip their toes in the water of political manipulation by small-time Facebook and other online operations. Operations that either party could have also legally employed had they utilized domestic ad agencies through second or third parties for deniability.
What is also known is that it's asinine to believe that the choice betwe
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I believe you mean "you're" and "insinuate".
Of the MANY people who voted, "Most" voted against him.
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Technically quite correct. Probably 60% of the eligible voters actually voted. So given that the election was extremely close in terms of popular numbers (not electoral college), roughly 30% voted for the winning candidate (plus or minus a percentage that's small enough to not quibble with).
I'd be happy if 75% of eligible voters bothered to show up. And that's just for presidential elections, in off year elections we don't even have a majority of eligible voters bothering to show up. Which is a shame si
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Ha. My mom is pretty right wing, and once she asked me to talk about my "independent" candidate who seemed interesting to her. I was a bit baffled since I didn't have a candidate. Turns out that when I said I was independent she assumed I mean the American Independent Party. Which is an extremely far right party. Since then I stopped saying I was "independent" and instead was "decline to state" or "unaffiliated". Though that is starting to backfire as there are a lot of far right and far left voters w
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Well, that's one of the gimmicks. If you constantly make everyone think that the things people are saying is "code for [insert your fear here]" then you can create all sorts of strong division.
This kind of division is required for Dictators to take hold of power because without it... too many people will be able to wake up the moment that power is grabbed band together and stop it... but as things stand these days... we are uncomfortably close to people wanting Dictators in power... Dictators that they lik
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They're called dog whistles because only certain people can hear them. And that's part of the appeal of them is that they're so easy to deny (sometimes a cigar is just a cigar). And yes, politicians of all political stripes use them.
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Very few? This is one of the silliest right wing talking points, I hang out on some e.g. gun forums full of far right wing nutballs and this is one of their dreary narratives. There has been no credible evidence of even a vaguely meaningful level of voter fraud in modern US elections. I find it hilarious that Trump won but they still think someone was, lol, "cooking the books". It's fucking absurd.
They also like to whine about their healthcare costs as if it's Obama's fault still and that without the ACA th
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The problem is that when you try to apply those filters, you mostly end up finding ads fro one side are "blatantly false and debunked".
That's because it is, in fact, one side that is producing ads that are blatantly false and debunked.
You just demonstrated why it's a minefield to try to ban lies from political ads: people like you start screaming "how come you're only banning ads from my side? You're clearly biased!".
... If something is truly false and debunked, most people will realize this fairly quickly.
Are you seriously so naïve you actually believe that?
Re:"Blatantly False" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's doubtful that he really believes anything he said. He's actually attempting a standard issue false equivalence fallacy, which is a commonplace gambit of right-wing extremism. You have to remember, these right-wing extremists do not believe what they claim to believe [youtube.com].
He KNOWS that the reason that most ads that wind up blocked for being falsehoods will be from conservatives; it's because conservatism has produced the bulk of lies in the past 30-40 years of political discourse. He simply doesn't care to engage honestly.
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Every word in Trump's "blatantly false and debunked" ad was true. You people are delusional.
Re:"Blatantly False" (Score:5, Insightful)
My gosh. One sides lies more often, and more blatantly, than the other. The false equivalence gambit does not hold up to rational scrutiny.
Refusing to run falsehoods isn't "promoting one party above the other". It's having some basic ethical integrity.
They don't (Score:5, Interesting)
A big part of this is that The Free Market of Ideas isn't free. The billionaire class tends to be on the right wing (because they want low taxes, regulation, and limited benefits for the working class) and they spend a _ton_ of money making sure their goals are met, regardless of whether there's any truth behind it.
So you get propaganda outlets. You get situations where repetition [youtu.be] is used to make something false appear true.
I like what Twitter did, but I'm far too clumsy to explain why, so I'll lean on Beau of the Fifth Column [youtube.com]. You should watch the video. Ending political advertising is the best way to give power to the people and their ideas (instead of the billionaire's)
Re:They don't (Score:4)
The billionaire class tends to be on the right wing
This is untrue. The majority of billionaires by a small margin in the US are democrats - link [politifact.com]. Of the remainder, very few are truly right-wing but tend to support the more liberal republican platforms such as free market, radical individualism etc. When it comes to those platforms... that basically constitutes the ruling class within both parties.
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I think a more statistically significant way to look at this would be to see how much the billionaires spend for political campaigns/influence, and to see if it correlates (and how) to the distribution & amplification of false or misleading information.
A bigger discussion to be had is how this stuff influences attitudes long term (think propaganda), which makes future elections easier.
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The billionaire class tends to be on the right wing
This is untrue. The majority of billionaires by a small margin in the US are democrats - link [politifact.com]. Of the remainder, very few are truly right-wing but tend to support the more liberal republican platforms such as free market, radical individualism etc. When it comes to those platforms... that basically constitutes the ruling class within both parties.
I checked the link. It said "We can’t answer the question of which side has more because it’s impossible to know exactly who donates to elections and how much they give. Certain types of political nonprofits are not required to disclose all their funders, although some do so voluntarily."
It then gave data showing that some billionaires donated to Republican causes, and some billionaires donated to Democratic causes, but most of the donations by billionaires couldn't be tracked "due to the disc
Ignore party. Look at policy. (Score:2)
Clinton (Bill) moved the party hard right in the 90s to win the favor of the billionaires and of some conservative voters. Sanders, AOC and the "Justice" Democrats are working to bring the party back to it's roots (I'm ignoring the switch in the 1800s here when the parties switched roles from pro-Business/Corporate vs pro-Worker).
The Billionaires oppose single payer healthcare (they'd have to pay for it, and they'd lose health i
Mitt Romney paid no taxes (Score:3)
The Democratic leader of the Senate repeatedly said so and the MSM repeatedly repeated it. But some FB ad said Hillary should be locked up so I guess that's balance.
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The billionaire class tends to be on the right wing (because they want low taxes, regulation, and limited benefits for the working class) and they spend a _ton_ of money making sure their goals are met, regardless of whether there's any truth behind it.
I'd say this is probably more the millionaire class. The billionaire class has so much money they likely don't care one way or the other about earning or keeping more money. That level of financial security pretty well eliminates most fear of losing it all.
The millionaire class is absolutely terrified that they may not be set for life and do everything in their power (fair or not) to keep it that way.
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There are two obvious solutions that occur to me:
1) hold political ads on Facebook to at least the same standards of honesty that TV and radio ads are held to (admittedly hard work to cross a low bar)
2) Ban political ads altogether. If you want to post something political, and that post gets liked and shared toa wide audience, good for you. But you're not allowed to pay for a larger or targeted audience.
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There are two obvious solutions that occur to me:
1) hold political ads on Facebook to at least the same standards of honesty that TV and radio ads are held to (admittedly hard work to cross a low bar)
2) Ban political ads altogether. If you want to post something political, and that post gets liked and shared toa wide audience, good for you. But you're not allowed to pay for a larger or targeted audience.
Amendment I: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Your points one and two fail as a result. Political speech is at the heart of the first amendment--it's why we protect all other speech, from talking about your favorite linux distro to pornography, and everything between (not
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Ads however are neither press nor free speech - they're commercial speech, and fall under different laws. I can stand on the corner and say Immer Widgets are Wonderful - but as soon as I pay someone else to do so on a media platform I'd better not outright lie about *anything*, or the FTC can come down on me like a ton of bricks. Poltical ads are even more tightly restricted.
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If something is truly false and debunked, most people will realize this fairly quickly.
Yes, and scamming humans became extinct many years ago because of this fact.
Of course, this also means you shouldn't trust any automation. I mean, there could be someone spewing utter bullshit (also known as "blatantly false information") via spam email, but secretly they're promoting one product above another.
Best not take any chances. Disable your spam filter immediately. Manually sort all of your information feeds. It's the only way to eliminate the obvious racism.
TL:DR (Score:5, Insightful)
No shit (Score:2)
How can we collect the most data and how to sell it at the highest price.
They have completely forgotten how to improve on almost anything.
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They have not forgotten, there is just no profit to be had by doing so... well at least no profit they "think" is to be had and that is the crux of all things in life.
cui bono?
As in all Economic Models, there is only one "regulatory" control that works... "Conscious Consumers" actively deciding how they are going to impact the economic landscape rather than turning to government controlled and business purchased regulations.
The Market does indeed "self-regulate" provided people start including " conscious c
" amplifying lies " (Score:4, Insightful)
Like Epstien committed suicide. Like Covington kids are nazi's. Like trump colluded with Russia. Like Smollett was racially attacked by MAGA people. Like it's safe to travel to Pakistan alone as a woman. Like the concentration camps on the border. Like antifa is non-violent.
Spare me your selective outrage of lies and the supposed amplification of sharing a meme against corporate money forcing a corporate agenda through artificial metric manipulation.
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Re:" amplifying lies " (Score:5, Insightful)
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Might be time to replace the foil with the heavy duty stuff if the signals are still getting through.
Didn't hear anyone call the Covenington kids Nazis (Score:4, Insightful)
As for Trump & Russia, he tried. Go read the report. It's like that old Dilbert Joke, Trump would have had to have been smarter to have done something stupid. They literally tried to collude, failed (they couldn't find anyone to collude with) and got off on a technicality. Why the hell do you think Trump committed 10 counts of obstruction of justice (again, fact, read the report) to cover it up?
Smollett got caught pretty quick by real journalists. I've never once heard anyone say it's safe to be a women in Pakistan or any of those hyper religious countries and the border camps _are_ concentrations camps. They're camps where a specific population is being held. That is by definition a concentration camp. And as others have pointed out they're also building the infrastructure that can be used for death camps if we so choose.
And who the *bleep* has ever said anti-fa is non violent. The difference is they throw milk shakes and the occasional punch. Milkshakes are not Car Bombs [youtube.com]. And anti-fa hasn't killed anyone yet. Yeah, they should stop with the punches (you can kill somebody with a punch) but it would help if there weren't provocateurs kicking up trouble and actively trying to get punched (that Ngo guy got a few hundred $k in sympathy donations to a go fund me and a ton of free press).
You're right about the corporate agenda though, but none of what's above conflicts with the corporate agenda in the slightest. The corporations want the same things they always have : Cheap Labor, no regulations (safety, pollution, etc), no worker rights or benefits, and all the money and power for themselves.
Re:Didn't hear anyone call the Covenington kids Na (Score:4, Insightful)
And who the *bleep* has ever said anti-fa is non violent
I'm pretty sure that Antifi is just constantly being held up as a straw-man to make it seem like being against fascism is bad.
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> given what I know about the events of that day, the latter is possible and the former is pretty much guaranteed.
Then you don't know much about what happened and haven't watched the full context.
>They found a few crazy old black men,
The black hebrew isrealites, yes. They are crazy and black. They try to be as provacative and offensive as possible. Like denying the holocaust as one example.
>started some shit with them
No, the black isrealites were starting with anyone there. That is their MO. Yellin
Plenty of proof, if you believe in science (Score:2, Insightful)
There is no proof Epstein didn't commit suicide
Look up the video of the professional coroner going over the reasons why even the official coroners report shows multiple ways it could not have been suicide, despite the conclusion reached in just days by the NYC coroner.. all it was missing was a "this political message approved by Hillary Clinton" stamp at the end.
But honestly, you didn't need a coroners report to know that multiple cameras being broken and guards taking a break all at the same time is way m
Re:Plenty of proof, if you believe in science (Score:4, Interesting)
Hillary Clinton ahahaha! This 'Clintons did it!' nonsense is great, you kooks never cease to amuse.
Also, the professional coroner, huh? The one hired by..Epstein's brother?
Real life is messy, the most likely and simple explanation is suicide you'd have to have quite a bit of evidence besides "well, this might..." to prove otherwise.
Fucking conspiracy kooks.
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"Hillary did it" is distraction that allows this to be handwaved away--it's equally likely that Darth Cheeto was behind a hypothetical murder (and let's face it, there is absolutely no shortage of people with a net worth in the eight to twelve figure range with motive for such a thing).
Ignoring (whichever) coroner's report, the following are all facts:
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Wait, do you mean Neville Chamberlain or The Chamberlain from the Dark Crystal?
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Show some video or it didn't happen.
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Say again [youtube.com]?
You mean the racial slurs and harassment from the Black Israelites? Have you never seen the Black Israelites before? They are very hateful and over the top. They purposefully try to antagonize and not afraid of using violence [youtu.be].
> KKKovington KKKids
You mean, "dusty ass cracka's". or "Kanye n*ggers" [youtu.be], dusty ass animals [youtu.be], faggots [youtu.be], future school shooters [youtu.be], devils, demons, incest babies. I mean I forget what names to call those kids when there are so many names to choose from. And the cheering from Co [youtu.be]
ACLU might differ (Score:2)
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You lose the moment you ask for government (Score:2, Insightful)
That is just how it is and nothing will change that simple fact.
If Democracy were possible, Government would not be necessary because "majority rule" would already solve all the problems but it doesn't... why is that?
If you hate the rich & elite, why create Government and give it power? It is the very basis of how the rich and elite will control you like a slave.
If you hate Dictators, why ask for socialism? No matter what structure you put into place you need a leader to "control it"... and shortly af
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These services should necessarily include definition and enforcement of criminal law, relation of the state to surrounding states, co-ordination and regulation of individual and group/corporate activities which can have either significant local adverse impact or significant impact on the whole or large segmen
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Your solution to others being easily manipulated by social media is to reduce the power they have over you such that only other locals can affect your life. This is basically libertarianism. The problem, as usual, with libertarianism is easy exploitation of everything (common resources, people, etc). You may localize certain problems such that other people aren't affected, but overall you end up with a lot more (isolated) problems.
I'm not saying I have a better solution. There may not be a better solution f
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Your comment is interesting in that it is both extreme and false. It is you who aggrandizes government.
So stop collaborating (Score:3)
Maybe you should stop using Facebook.
Please, social media, just die already (Score:3)
I don't know what could be done to 'fix' it so it can't be perverted into what it's become. I don't think even taking away the monetary aspect of it would fix it, it would still be capable of being used as a tool by bad actors to spread lies and misinformation like a world-spanning shotgun blast.
Or is the real problem humans themselves?
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Or is the real problem humans themselves?
Yes, according to this generation, and every generation before that for the last few thousand years.
Perhaps at some point we'll get it, but I doubt it. Because the real problem, is humans themselves...
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Slashdot is social media.
Go screw yourself (Score:3, Insightful)
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CIA, White House adviser, now reporting that FACTS should be enforced in advertising. Yeah, that's great. Except what is the truth? Have you looked at how bent news is now. I'm not even worried about advertising material anymore the regular news is 80% opinion.
"News" platforms that are only 20% news aren't news—they're infotainment. Actual news does still exist. Oligarchs do need news, and they're not a monolithic cooperating front, even though it can look like that from the outside. So there is still real news. It's mostly called business news, and it mostly costs money. And no, I'm not talking about the Wall Street Urinal. I'm talking about LexisNexis and Westlaw and Dun & Bradstreet, names 90% of the plebes on FaceBook have literally never hear
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None
Ads versus organic (Score:2)
I asked our teams working on political advertising whether we should incorporate the same tools for political ads that other integrity teams at Facebook were developing to address misinformation in pages and organic posts.
That's because all ads are human-approved on Facebook, and require an approval process that delays them by hours or days. They also run them through other tools, like making sure ad images have very little text in them (only a certain percentage of the image are can contain text).
So there was already an extensive approval process for ads. The misinformation tools under development were for the raw masses of garbage that gets regurgitated through Facebook daily which is not vetted or approved by people. A
Solved (Score:5, Funny)
The Republicans claim everything the Democrats post is "misinformation". It all gets taken down.
The Democrats claim everything the Republicans post is "misinformation". It all gets taken down.
Mutual assured destruction! Now go back to watching cat videos.
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The Republicans claim everything the Democrats post is "misinformation". It all gets taken down.
The Democrats claim everything the Republicans post is "misinformation". It all gets taken down.
Mutual assured destruction! Now go back to watching cat videos.
I was going to do that, then the dog owners had the cat videos taken down.
The only way to fight bad speech is with good speech. Putting in controls on who can say what only leaves both sides a weapon to be used against them.
wombat videos FTW (Score:2)
By which you mean Wombat videos, am I right? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8cIrZs2UnI
Left vs. Right on free expression (Score:4, Insightful)
The message from the Left is "shut up", while from the Right it's "keep talking".
The powers that be at Facebook can deny political ads access to their platform because they know that their buddies on other platforms will let the Left message through. The majority of Jurassic Media is owned by the Left, and on new media the Right is getting through so these people are now panicking about people actually communicating freely.
Here's something I keep hearing, "money is not speech". Well, speech is still speech. If I buy advertising space then I should be able to use that space to get my message across, if someone says I am limited in what I can say then that is a limitation on my speech.
Another related argument is that a private company can limit who has access to their platform without a violation on the First Amendment right of free speech. That is true, but it also creates an atmosphere of what people are allowed to say in "polite company". The right of free speech wasn't created to protect what everyone already agrees upon, that needs no protection. This was to protect what people found "uncomfortable" to hear.
There are legal aspects to this editorial control on what is said on any given platform. One is contract law. This is a problem that YouTube fell into. They made a contract to carry content with the agreement to share advertising revenue. With YouTube denying channels the ability to put up advertising, to get shown in search results, when they violate some unwritten rule then this is a violation of contract. Everything needs to be known up front or this is not an honest negotiation.
Another legal problem on this editorial control is the claim of having "common carrier" protections. A phone company is a common carrier in that they take no control on who a customer can call, or what is said in that call. Should anyone make editorial control on what is said, or on who has access, then they are not a common carrier and can now be held legally liable for what content they portray. Facebook doesn't want to run political advertising? That's fine, now when someone complains they will have to be held to be consistent and to the contract they made with the users of that platform.
I am not a Facebook user and I doubt I ever will be. This sounds less like a forum of free expression and more of an echo chamber. There's a reason the telephone companies place such value in being a common carrier, because as soon as they fragment their customer base their utility as a means of communication tanks. I don't know how long Facebook can cling to this policy of controlling who has access. Being a new platform for which the analogy of a phone network falls apart quickly makes any predictions difficult. It does leave an opening for a competing platform to come in with a policy of free expression and destroy their customer base.
Go ahead Facebook, keep talking.
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This is some of the dumbest pseudo-intellectual nonsense I have read on /.
Congratulations.
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Unless, of course, you're a doctor talking to a pregnant patient. Then the Republicans want all sorts of gag laws limiting speech.
Could you provide examples? Please?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Unless, of course, you're a doctor talking to a pregnant patient. Then the Republicans want all sorts of gag laws limiting speech.
Could you provide examples? Please?
https://psmag.com/social-justice/whats-the-effect-of-limiting-what-doctors-can-tell-patients-about-abortions
https://www.self.com/story/domestic-gag-rule-abortion-what-this-means
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/20/republicans-ban-teaching-medical-students-abortion
https://www.vox.com/2018/5/11/17319614/trump-abortion-planned-parenthood-domestic-gag-rule-title-x
Re: (Score:2)
Everything about healthcare is regulated out the wazoo. I don't think "speech" has much to do with it.
Manipulation is such a loaded term (Score:2)
Manipulation is such a loaded term, here at Facebook for Business we tend to think of it as harmonization.
Duh (Score:4)
"I Worked on Political Ads at Facebook. They Profit By Manipulating Us."
Allow me to be the first to say, "Duh".
What is to be done? (Score:2)
The "Duh" response was exactly what came to my mind. However it is possible to go deeper and ask why, and then even consider solutions or at least approaches that might lead to solutions. I did see one suggestion earlier in the discussion, but it was in the form of a joke.
If I had the energy, I'd write more about the broken financial models and alternatives.
I agree with Zuckerberg (Score:2)
when he says "It is not the role of a private company to censor political speech."
I think ultimately, there are only three solutions out of this mess:
1) open-source AI software and knowledge bases are going to have to be developed which have the capability to objectively assess the quality of information and convey the assessment and rationale.
2) People should have the right to select their own filtering layer rather than have one imposed on them.
3) People will have to develop cognitive "immunity"
Good summary of the problem... (Score:5, Insightful)
consider the source (Score:2)
Thank you (Score:2)
Thank you, Yael Eisenstat. I have never heard of you before, but I thank all that is holy that I have someone smarter than all of us to look after us and protect us from damaging information. My grandfathers had these strange ideas about a man not being a fool, and being skeptical of someone trying to sell things to you. But, I not longer have to worry about that sort of thing, because we all have you looking out for our better interests.
I ask all of my Slashdot friends to take a moment out of your day a
WTF else are political ads supposed to do? (Score:2)
Is this person so glib as to imply that political ads on any other platform are NOT trying to manipulate you?
That's the point of political ads, my dear. To manipulate you.
This is just another thinly veiled anti-FB article.
Never trust a journalist, folks.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, they think if they use 'manipulate' it makes it especially bad. Manipulate just means to convince someone of something or to take an action in this context. Had they said "These political ads are meant to profit by convincing people of..." then people would stare, goggle-eyed, at how inane the article is. But change it to "manipulate" and 'oooooh, that sounds bad!'.
Article title is manipulative.
Pot meet kettle (Score:2)
The Washington Post has been doing the same for 50 years. When was the last time the Post gave us just the facts: who, what, where, when, why and how, and then let the reader decide what to think of it?
The Post's unsaid gripe is that FB is putting them out of business.
All Politicians Lie (Score:2)
So why bother trying to figure out if an ad is the truth or not and just accept the fact the ad is a lie and collect the check?
What they should do for the 2020 election (Score:2)
NO FUCKING DUH BITCHBOI... (Score:2)
It was apparent the second FB started ramping up political posts on your friends feed. We have fucking tracked stats of this shit. If you're worth a shit, you'll know where to find and *USE* them.
Otherwise, you're just a typical asking asshole with no real agenda.
Too many words in title: (Score:2)
I Worked on Political Ads at Facebook. They Profit By Manipulating Us.
That should read:
I Worked on Political Ads. I Profit By Manipulating You.
Isn't that what selling ads is. (Score:2)
I don't even know how to respond to that title. Selling ads generates money by trying to manipulate. OK move along.
Re: (Score:2)
Freedom of speech protects all content in the USA (Score:2)
Users enjoy freedom of speech.
Users share memes, political jokes.
Free speech is not limited by or for US politics. In the US people have the freedom to publish about and LOL at the security services, political leaders, think tanks, NGOs, NATO, ads, tech...
Comments about a cartoon bear, Taiwan, memes about that last coughing spell are legal in the USA.
Commenting on and talking about politics in the USA is not a "version of the truth"... that's something a real person took the time to