Meta Says It Isn't Ending Fact-Checks Outside US 'At This Time' (cointelegraph.com) 78
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CoinTelegraph: Social media platform Meta has confirmed that its fact-checking feature on Facebook, Instagram and Threads will only be removed in the US for now, according to a Jan. 13 letter sent to Brazil's government. "Meta has already clarified that, at this time, it is terminating its independent Fact-Checking Program only in the United States, where we will test and refine the community notes [feature] before expanding to other countries," Meta told Brazil's Attorney General of the Union (AGU) in a Portuguese-translated letter.
Meta's letter followed a 72-hour deadline Brazil's AGU set for Meta to clarify to whom the removal of the third-party fact verification feature would apply. [...] Brazil has expressed dissatisfaction with Meta's removal of its fact check feature, Brazil Attorney-General Jorge Messias said on Jan. 10. "Brazil has rigorous legislation to protect children and adolescents, vulnerable populations, and the business environment, and we will not allow these networks to transform the environment into digital carnage or barbarity." Last Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced an end to fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram -- a move he described as an attempt to restore free expression on its platforms. He likened his company's fact-checking process to a George Orwell novel, saying it "something out of 1984" and let to a broad belief that Meta fact-checkers "were too biased."
Meta's letter followed a 72-hour deadline Brazil's AGU set for Meta to clarify to whom the removal of the third-party fact verification feature would apply. [...] Brazil has expressed dissatisfaction with Meta's removal of its fact check feature, Brazil Attorney-General Jorge Messias said on Jan. 10. "Brazil has rigorous legislation to protect children and adolescents, vulnerable populations, and the business environment, and we will not allow these networks to transform the environment into digital carnage or barbarity." Last Tuesday, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced an end to fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram -- a move he described as an attempt to restore free expression on its platforms. He likened his company's fact-checking process to a George Orwell novel, saying it "something out of 1984" and let to a broad belief that Meta fact-checkers "were too biased."
VPN, not just for porn any more. (Score:2)
How long is it until a VPN becomes pretty much mandatory for internet browsing?
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Did they think people would just go to church instead or something?
No. Since the preventative action probably has more to do with the amount of 13-year old boys that will be asking your daughter why she doesn’t do ass-to-mouth yet.
If we thought dating apps created delusional women’s dating standards, the hell do we think a 24/7 hardcore porn-surfing device put in every teenage boys hand under the guise of “smartphone safety” did to an entire generation of sexual standards? Talk about shit even the Catholics don’t teach..
Re:VPN, not just for porn any more. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, parents, who want the government out of the lives of their children always turn to the government to oppress everyone else when they are unwilling to try to parent.
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Yes, parents, who want the government out of the lives of their children always turn to the government to oppress everyone else when they are unwilling to try to parent.
No. Real parents who are parenting properly, do not want their morally trusting and ethically loyal child to be raped and pillaged by everyone and everything else. Also known as giving a shit about someone other than the narcissist in the mirror.
Parents who don’t parent, aren’t parents. And until it becomes legal to start slapping the sense back into other people’s kids again, who else other than government? Not-a-parent ain’t gonna do shit to help. And teaching every child Zero
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Sounds like a helocopter parent. I can't let billy experience pain he's my baby!
Give him a medal, he tried his best!
Real life sucks. Teach children to follow your rules or feel consiquences. Then teach them that trust is earned and that most of the world is out for itself. You can't create morality with laws. Morality comes from the parents not the government. If everyone parented these problems would go away.
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As for the bann
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"laws for Thee, but not for Me"
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"If we thought dating apps created delusional women’s dating standards, the hell do we think a 24/7 hardcore porn-surfing device put in every teenage boys hand under the guise of “smartphone safety” did to an entire generation of sexual standards? Talk about shit even the Catholics don’t teach.."
You know "hardcore porn" predates dating apps, right? And what do Catholics teach that creates "delusional women's dating standards"? And what is put into "every teenage boy's hand under th
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"If we thought dating apps created delusional women’s dating standards, the hell do we think a 24/7 hardcore porn-surfing device put in every teenage boys hand under the guise of “smartphone safety” did to an entire generation of sexual standards? Talk about shit even the Catholics don’t teach.."
You know "hardcore porn" predates dating apps, right? And what do Catholics teach that creates "delusional women's dating standards"? And what is put into "every teenage boy's hand under the guise of 'smartphone safety'"? None of this makes any sense.
I don't think any "13-year old boys" are asking daughters about "ass-to-mouth", but we can see what's on your mind, AC.
Well, there needed to be something since there's no Sears catalog any more.
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Well, there needed to be something since there's no Sears catalog any more.
It's amazing how many teenage boys used to shop for bras...
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No. Since the preventative action probably has more to do with the amount of 13-year old boys that will be asking your daughter why she doesn’t do ass-to-mouth yet.
That's what happens when you make it so porn is the only sex ed kids get. Hiding the porn isn't the solution though.
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Dictators will eventually demand to shut down all VPN services, or make you need a special "license" to use one.
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That level of government interference is going to piss off a lot of employers and WFH employees.
Dictators might get away with it in third world countries, but I think if they try it here, those dictators will find that they were only able to be dictators with corporate support.
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How long is it until a VPN becomes pretty much mandatory for internet browsing?
Thats the point really. Get everyone to be a law breaker then when the government wants to stop someone who is inconvenient they simply charge them with being a criminal and send them to jail or worse.
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The China way!
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I agree, it's a perfect fit for Trump. Evangelicals would want it, Trump would easily demonize it, Republicans could easily circumvent it.
Re: VPN, not just for porn any more. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Free speech would let me say without any risk of a lawsuit, "Donald Trump is a goat fucker, and has been seen by multiple people actually fucking barn animals". Allowing and encouraging lies and falsehoods is a BAD thing. Now, freedom to state opinions is another matter entirely. No one wants to see free speech removed, but this nonsense that people should be free to spread misinformation, not just biased, but fully fake needs to go away.
Anyone who wants to defend Donald Trump and his friends telling
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Now you will, as long as it's about an approved target. What will get censored is when someone tries to point out the original is libel.
Zuck isn't removing censorship, he's removing restrictions on right wing propaganda.
Re: VPN, not just for porn any more. (Score:2)
If you lie, and I call you a liar, we have both exercised our free speech.
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with the US leaning more towards free speech.
You don't genuinely believe that do you?
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Convicted rapist Mark Zuckerberg.
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Nonsense. There *might* be a difference in how Americans vs other countries determine the validity of facts, but that doesn't mean that they have "different facts." Americans tend, on average, to be more individualistic than individuals elsewhere. In other countries, the citizenry might place a higher degree of trust in institutions and weigh community and consensus more than in the USA.
This doesn't mean that the conclusions reached in the USA will always differ, just that "who gets to verify, challenge and
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Only fact checkers in the US suck? (Score:2)
So fact checkers in every other country around the world are good honest people and only the American ones are bad at their job? That doesnt seem likely.
They might be saying this is the reason but stuff like this makes these claims seem awfully suspect. Seems much more likely to me these claims are about kowtowing to the incoming US president while not pissing off the rest of the world.
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the stated reason for removing US fact checkers is that they're so politically biased and wrong so much of the time that community notes would likely do a better job of actually checking facts. I'm not on facebook or in the US so I can't confirm if this true or not but I don't find it an absolutely incredible claim
I don't think that's the real reason, but I do think it's true. Facebook moderation is famously shit, why would the fact checking (which is related) be any different?
I think the real reason is that he doesn't want Faceboot to get sued by Trump in case it does accurate fact checking. Until Section 230 is repealed (count on the Reps to give it the ol' college try at least once in the next 4 years) Facebook isn't liable for community-driven fact checking.
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There’s a reason Zuckerberg gave a million dollars to Trump’s inauguration.
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Which makes it a good example of the bandwagon fallacy [thoughtco.com].
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Ob. quote from the late Sen. Pat Moynihan: "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts".
Said quote is apparently no longer pertinent under the Dear Orange Leader..
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They think they have, not only have they accomplished a sexual purity law but VPN use can identify who should be put in jail.
"How long is it until a VPN becomes pretty much mandatory for internet browsing?"
The question should be how long before VPNs are illegal in red states. You can't oppress when you can't see. Or better yet, require VPNs to be honey pots.
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Depends on how cynical you are doesn't it.
If you actually care about keeping harmful content away from children. Then age-verification laws work and VPN or no VPN who cares.
Little Johnny age 7 with his iPad isn't going to install a VPN, in fact if the parental controls are enabled, if he even tries and goes to the app store, mom or dad will get an request to approve the app install which they will deny. It is an effective parental control that everyone is able to use without having to have special IT knowl
Because they would get kicked out (Score:5, Informative)
Free speech has limits and that limit is when you're obviously lying. False advertising is a crime. Stupid people fall for stupid things and there are lots and lots of stupid people and they don't just hurt themselves
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OK, just curious. Define âoeNaziâ for me in the year 2025.
If it think it's a Nazi, repeats Nazi propaganda verbatim, or acts like a Nazi, it's a fucking Nazi.
In a world increasingly becoming less and less of that purist-grade neo-white
hahAHAHAHHAHAHaHAHAHaHAHAHAHA
Seriously, the concept of âoeneoâ nazis sounds about as threatening as roving gangs of Amish buggies to the oil industry.
https://rollcall.com/2021/02/1... [rollcall.com]
https://www.brennancenter.org/... [brennancenter.org]
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We can see you from a mile awhile and it is really pathetic. Elon is a better man than you, you know and you can't stand it.
I dropped a better man than Elon off in the toilet this morning. It didn't promote even a single Nazi, it just went down the drain.
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The guy who agrees with a Twitter post pushing Replacement Theory? The guy who avidly associates with European political parties with multiple members (who havent been kicked out of said parties) who have been found guilty in courts of law for espousing racist ideals? These are political parties that no other political party will interact with in their countries because they're beliefs are so problematic. The guy who opened Twitter up to all the racists under the fiction of "free speech for all" but continu
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This is your daily reminder (Score:2)
Corporations don't care about you, me, or anyone else. They care only about appeasing the government of the day. Expect fact checking to return to the USA when the republicans lose the next election.
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They care only about appeasing the government of the day.
Only is as much as to maximise their profit potential which is all any real corp actually cares about.
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Facebook doesn't do fact checking. This is about the pretense of fact checking, beneficial when Democrats have power, a liability otherwise. It's all a show.
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But posts comparing Musk to Hitler are immediately deleted.
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"I could be wrong" but I think Zuckerberg's remarks about 'male energy' in the workplace are a sentiment of how he really fee
Hey Zuck... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just thought you'd like to know, there's something brown and gooey on your nose there...you might want to clean it off, it reeks of convicted felon.
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Facts matter ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Meta Says It Isn't Ending Fact-Checks Outside US 'At This Time'
Yeah, it didn't take very long after 'The Zuck' announced the end of fact checks on Facebook for EU and S-American national leaders to make it clear there would be consequences if Facebook did this in their corner of the world, reason being that they don't want torrents of non-fact-checked digital sewage pumped into their back yard. The mere fact that this change is limited to the USA which is functionally the same as saying that facts matter everywhere except in the PRC, Hungary, Russia, Middle Eastern dictatorships and now the USA says a lot about the state of American public discourse. This isn't being done to increase free speech it is being done because a certain type of person got butt-hurt over being called out for spreading lies and the consequences that brought with it.
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It's easier to sell lies when they can't be effectively challenged. They know exactly what they're doing, and it isn't promoting free speech - it's securing a domestic propaganda outlet.
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umm know its because a bunch of neo-marxist scum buckets rule in places like SA and, the Zuck is a cuckold always has been.
He is afraid of them, just like he was afraid of the Obama and Biden people. It sad he does not just give them the middle finger and do the right thing, push free expression everwhere but at least he is just a freckles mercenary and not a Demorat true believer.
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Is "neo-marxist" your new word of the day?
Looking at your posts apparently everyone but America's far right and a small handful of others are neo-marxists. What a strange world you live in.
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Is "neo-marxist" your new word of the day?
Looking at your posts apparently everyone but America's far right and a small handful of others are neo-marxists. What a strange world you live in.
My word, or rather concept, of the day is 'freedom-of-speech', complete freedom of speech, the kind of freedom of speech where not just the lying bullshitters have freedom of speech but where people who fact check lying bullshitters and call them out for being bullshitters are free to speak too no matter how butt-hurt the bullshitters get over that. It's the kind of world where 'neo-marxists' are free to speak too, not just MAGA drones.
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I get frustrated by a lot of the free speech claims nowadays from the right as apparently (at least for some of them) it's only free speech when it's something they agree with meanwhile when a company that runs a web company exercises their own free speech rights by taking down a post they don't want on their platform these same people go crazy.
Not that I necessarily agree with corporate personhood but it's conservatives that pushed that one on us.
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reason being that they don't want torrents of non-fact-checked digital sewage pumped into their back yard.
I'm from the Netherlands, honestly it's a bit of a mixed bag what politicians here think of fact-checkers. Obviously on a day like this you will hear more complaints from the people heavily in favor. However, I think there is pretty broad consensus that fact checking is only good if you can do it objectively, and that's very hard.
There is a specific EU organization, the East StratCom Task Force, designed specifically to tackle Russian disinformation. It is mostly known as EUvsDisinfo. Russian disinformation
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reason being that they don't want torrents of non-fact-checked digital sewage pumped into their back yard.
I'm from the Netherlands, honestly it's a bit of a mixed bag what politicians here think of fact-checkers. Obviously on a day like this you will hear more complaints from the people heavily in favor. However, I think there is pretty broad consensus that fact checking is only good if you can do it objectively, and that's very hard.
There is a specific EU organization, the East StratCom Task Force, designed specifically to tackle Russian disinformation. It is mostly known as EUvsDisinfo. Russian disinformation is of course a very real problem. After EUvsDisinfo made some mistakes and mistakenly called out some Dutch publications for distributing disinformation, the Dutch parliament (which is hardly a MAGA like group) voted in favor of requesting the EU to abolish this organization. The organization was not abolished in the end but they did have to change their way of working.
Even with the best intentions it's enormously complicated to get a group of people to accurately fact-check items without letting politics or their personal opinion getting in the way.
I also think if you look at X and the fact-checking there, it's actually pretty good and pretty balanced. Even when it's flawed, at least it's a fairly transparant process in how it works.
So it's somehow better that politicians get to bully billionaire CEOs into deciding that it is not acceptable to point out that some bullshitters social media post does not survive even cursory comparison with reality because that would mane a certain part of the electorate very, very, butt-hurt? Like for example pointing out that there isn't a shred of scientifically verifiable evidence that Ivermectin will cure acute respiratory viral infections? What happens when the un-fact-checked bullshit gets thousan
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It's amazing how much of my Facebook feed is just blatantly obvious lies and propaganda. There are apparently still people out there that see a single post online somewhere and just accept it as truth, which is no longer based on any factual evidence.
EuroNews has a daily section callled: (Score:2)
"Fact-Checking Donald Trump". 'Nuff Said!
Freedom of Expression != Blatant Lies (Score:3)
Like Twitter (X), Facebook will quickly (again) turn into another propaganda outlet that spreads misinformation and confusion, which ONLY ends up hurting everyone in the long run.
The U.S. vs the world (Score:2)
The rest of the world needs facts.
The United States just makes up its own facts.
'Murica.