The chief executive says Facebook should become a ‘social infrastructure’ for users
“Today’s threats are increasingly global, but the infrastructure to protect us is not,” Mr. Zuckerberg wrote. “Humanity’s current systems are insufficient to address these issues.”
.. Facebook, which faced criticism for, among other things, the design of its news feed, which put legitimate news sites on equal footing with those peddling misinformation during the U.S. presidential campaign. The company also drew fire for failing to catch violent live videos and for inconsistently applying its content standards, such as when it deleted posts containing a famous Vietnam War photo of a naked girl fleeing napalm bombs last fall. After considerable public uproar, Facebook reversed that decision.
.. This didn’t go over well with many employees who argued that the social network should be doing more to confront fake news as well as the “filter bubble” in which many users see few ideas or information different from their own, current and former employees said at the time.
.. Thursday, Mr. Zuckerberg said fake news and filter bubbles worried him, but a greater concern is “polarization.”
.. Facebook wants to show users a wider range of perspectives and demote sensationalized news, but has to be careful to do so without deepening divisions, Mr. Zuckerberg wrote, citing research showing that people hold tighter to their beliefs when confronted with an opposing view. “Our goal must be to help people see a more complete picture, not just alternate perspectives,” he wrote.
.. Longer term, Mr. Zuckerberg wants to build artificial intelligence that can detect violent content and terror-recruiting networks. Some of that work can be done now, he said, but major advances are still needed to build effective systems that can catch hate speech, graphic violence or sex.
Facebook will lose 80% of users by 2017, say Princeton researchers
Forecast of social network’s impending doom comes from comparing its growth curve to that of an infectious disease
Facebook has spread like an infectious disease but we are slowly becoming immune to its attractions, and the platform will be largely abandoned by 2017, say researchers at Princeton University (pdf).
.. The 870 million people using Facebook via their smartphones each month could explain the drop in Google searches – those looking to log on are no longer doing so by typing the word Facebook into Google.
The 870 million people using Facebook via their smartphones each month could explain the drop in Google searches – those looking to log on are no longer doing so by typing the word Facebook into Google.
Fixation on Fake News Overshadows Waning Trust in Real Reporting
while the ecosystem contained easily identifiable and intentional fabrication, it contained much, much more of something else.
.. The overarching claims of the story were disingenuous and horrifying; the facts it included had been removed from all useful context and placed in a new, sinister one; its insinuating mention of “Muslim martyrs,” in proximity to mentions of Mr. Khan’s son, and its misleading and strategic mention of Shariah law, amounted to a repulsive smear. It was a story that appealed to bigoted ideas and that would clearly appeal to those who held them.
This was a story the likes of which was an enormous force in this election, clearly designed to function well within Facebook’s economy of sharing. And it probably would not run afoul of the narrow definition of “fake news.”
.. .. criticism of Mr. Trump was instantly projected back at his opponent, or at the critics themselves. “No puppet. No puppet. You’re the puppet.”
.. This tactic was used on the language of social justice, which was appropriated by opponents and redeployed nihilistically, in an open effort to sap its power while simultaneously taking advantage of what power it retained. Anti-racists were cast as the real racists. Progressives were cast as secretly regressive on their own terms.
.. It didn’t matter that its targets knew that it was a bad-faith maneuver, a clear bid for power rather than an attempt to engage or reason.
.. “Fake news” as shorthand will almost surely be returned upon the media tenfold.
Facebook and Fake News
according to the algorithm there isn’t anything particularly special about any content, beyond the level of engagement it drives.
.. The reason the media covered Trump so extensively is quite simple: that is what users wanted. And, in a world where media is a commodity, to act as if one has the editorial prerogative to not cover a candidate users want to see is to face that reality square in the face absent the clicks that make the medicine easier to take.
.. Indeed, this is the same reason fake news flourishes: because users want it. These sites get traffic because users click on their articles and share them, because they confirm what they already think to be true. Confirmation bias is a hell of a drug — and, as Techcrunch reporter Kim-Mai Cutler so aptly put it on Twitter, it’s a hell of a business model.
.. Facebook’s research shows that the company’s algorithm encourages this by somewhat prioritizing updates that users find comforting…
.. the company is heavily incentivized to be perceived as neutral by all sides; anything else would drive away users
.. I would be far more concerned about Facebook were they to begin actively editing the News Feed; as I noted last week I’m increasingly concerned about Zuckerberg’s utopian-esque view of the world, and it is a frighteningly small step from influencing the world to controlling the world.
.. those Macedonian news stories aren’t great, but their effect such as it is comes from confirming what people already believe. Contrast that to Miller’s stories in the New York Times: because the New York Times was a trusted gatekeeper, many people fundamentally changed their opinions, resulting in a disaster the full effects of which are still being felt