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Buzzfeed: Renegade Facebook Employees Form Task Force To Battle Fake News

visionary

By visionary
in The Tailgate

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visionary

visionary

Posted
Posted

https://www.buzzfeed.com/sheerafrenkel/renegade-facebook-employees-form-task-force-to-battle-fake-n?utm_term=.dyDnKLwVN#.isv6xR8X9

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Renegade Facebook Employees Form Task Force To Battle Fake News

 

 Facebook employees have formed an unofficial task force to question the role their company played in promoting fake news in the lead-up to Donald Trump’s victory in the US election last week, amid a larger, national debate over the rise of fake and misleading news articles in a platform used by more than 150 million Americans.

 

The task force, which sources tell BuzzFeed News includes employees from across the company, has already refuted a statement made by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at a conference last week that the argument that fake news on Facebook affected the election was “a pretty crazy idea.”

 

“It’s not a crazy idea. What’s crazy is for him to come out and dismiss it like that, when he knows, and those of us at the company know, that fake news ran wild on our platform during the entire campaign season,” said one Facebook employee, who works in the social network’s engineering division. He, like the four other Facebook employees who spoke to BuzzFeed News for this story, would only speak on condition of anonymity. All five employees said they had been warned by their superiors against speaking to press, and feared they would lose their jobs if named.

 

The employees declined to provide many details on the task force. One employee said “more than dozens” of employees were involved, and that they had met twice in the last six days. At the moment, they are meeting in secret, to allow members of the group to speak freely and without fear of condemnation from senior management. The group plans to formalize its meetings and eventually make a list of recommendations to Facebook’s senior management. Another Facebook employee said while the task force remained small, “hundreds” of Facebook employees had expressed dissatisfaction with the company’s stance on fake news in private online chats, and wanted to support efforts to challenge that position.

 

 

 

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Burgold

Burgold

Posted
Posted

Mostly, I reject the idea of Facebook as a news source. It's non vetted, but just like Twitter and other social media too many people do take anything posted there as factual. Sometimes it's harmless like when you get suckered by an Onion article, but other times... I was in a debate just this morning by someone absolutely convinced that Nazism was a leftist philosophy. 

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twa

twa

Posted
Posted
11 minutes ago, skinsmarydu said:

I've never had a fb account, but good for them. 

Fight on, fight on, till truth has won.

 

yeah a secret group deciding what you see is great,maybe them and Wkileaks can team up.

:kickcan:

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No Excuses

No Excuses

Posted
Posted
Just now, Springfield said:

As long as they can still head on over to Drudge for their fake news...

It goes beyond drudge. People like this guy need to be banished from influential platforms:

https://www.facebook.com/DavidAvocadoWolfe/?fref=ts

We are past the point of pretending that all view points are equal and everyones opinion matters.

Nope.

 

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Vilandil Tasardur

Vilandil Tasardur

Posted
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6 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

Those of us in the sciences saw the arrival of a post-facts world long time ago.

A robust fact checking system on social media sites is absolutely necessary at this point.

Absolutely. I am amazing at my colleagues that still try to fight it on their personal facebooks. Young earth creationists and anti-vacciners and climate change hoaxers and the like will always win for the very simple fact that we have actual research to do, and they have unlimited blogs and fake news sites to link to without even reading. It's a fight not worth having.

I suspect banning fake news on facebook would just be the death of facebook.

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Springfield

Springfield

Posted
Posted
Just now, No Excuses said:

It goes beyond drudge. People like this guy need to be banished from influential platforms:

https://www.facebook.com/DavidAvocadoWolfe/?fref=ts

We are past the point of pretending that all view points are equal and everyones opinion matters.

Nope.

 

But 18 million people see what he says...

...including 20 of my own friends.

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No Excuses

No Excuses

Posted
Posted
14 minutes ago, Vilandil Tasardur said:

Absolutely. I am amazing at my colleagues that still try to fight it on their personal facebooks. Young earth creationists and anti-vacciners and climate change hoaxers and the like will always win for the very simple fact that we have actual research to do, and they have unlimited blogs and fake news sites to link to without even reading. It's a fight not worth having.

I suspect banning fake news on facebook would just be the death of facebook.

I wouldn't ban news but I would add warning disclaimers on all bull**** content. 

Repeat offenders get a special designation.

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PF Chang

PF Chang

Posted
Posted
9 minutes ago, No Excuses said:

It goes beyond drudge. People like this guy need to be banished from influential platforms:

https://www.facebook.com/DavidAvocadoWolfe/?fref=ts

We are past the point of pretending that all view points are equal and everyones opinion matters.

Nope.

 

Had never heard of this guy. His Wikipedia entry, mostly just a list of things he believes, is surprising even for these types. It was all your typical fun and games ("detox," chemtrails, deer antler spray) until I got to "mushrooms." 

"According to Wolfe, he believes that mushrooms have an "advanced intelligence and consciousness". He has stated that mushroom spores can "levitate off the planet" and believes they are trying to "get to the center of the sun".[34] He has stated that mushroom spores originally came from "distant planets" and were "carried by cosmic winds or meteors into the Earth's atmosphere", stating "the preliminary work develops as the mushroom mycelium sets itself up to network and nourish multi-celled carbohydrate-forming organisms".[35] He has also stated that the mushrooms that grow in trees are "medicinal mushrooms".

Also something about the matter-of-fact way this was stated had me laughing: "Wolfe believes that the Earth is flat and that gravity is a hoax." I mean I've heard of flat earthers but gravity denial is a new one to me. 

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Burgold

Burgold

Posted
Posted

The problem is that it is a social site and not a "news" site or an "scholarly" site. So where do you draw the censorship threshold?

Part of me wants to reject the notion of false news and the propaganda efforts. Much of me wants to banish the hateful and destructive rhetoric especially when it is focused at a group or person, but it is a delicate and difficult line to maintain. Do we then apply the same factual standards to comedy, television shows, and if so who becomes the arbiter of truth?

On the third hand, some of this misinformation is so destructive! 

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Vilandil Tasardur

Vilandil Tasardur

Posted
Posted

In case my earlier post didn't appropriately reflect my stance.

I think the correct way to police Facebook is simply not to. We as a society need to understand that Facebook is simply the modern day equivalent of spouting off in a bar. And that goes both ways:

People need to understand that you can't just be hateful/bully people just because it's the internet; if you wouldn't say it to someone's face then you shouldn't say it.

On the other hand, idiots should be free to be idiots, as if they were playing poker on a Saturday night or arguing over a pint.

 

To me, the problem is not the amount of venue of misinformation. Misinformation has always existed. The problem is a society that has decided that has been so thoroughly trained to believe that "everyone has an agenda" that we've actually STOPPED fact checking, because we're so suspicious of the fact checker's motives. 

FBI director makes a statement? Agenda. Scientists denounce a certain viewpoint? They're bought off. Economists warn of ramifications? Educated, elitist swine. Generals give out a warning? They're just trying to move themselves up.

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Destino

Destino

Posted
Posted

The sales database that fools people into providing their information, and keeping it up to date, so that it can be sold to marketers is now going to save idiots from being misled politically?  Next stop, utopia.  

The problem is that people want news that agrees with them more than news that's actually news.  Facebook can't fix that. 

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No Excuses

No Excuses

Posted
Posted

I don't think Facebook ever envisioned that it would transform into a daily news reader essentially. The social aspect of it has largely migrated to snapchat, at least with the young crowd. 

You have to question the worth of an information disseminator if it provides a platform for all kinds of bogus nonsense. They don't have to censor. But flagging known and repeat violators and putting out disclaimers doesn't hurt anyone.

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