Can Facebook Keep Large-Scale Misinformation From the Free World? (sfgate.com) 189
You can have a disaster-free Election Day in the social media age, writes New York Times columnist Kevin Roose, "but it turns out that it takes constant vigilance from law enforcement agencies, academic researchers and digital security experts for months on end."
It takes an ad hoc "war room" at Facebook headquarters with dozens of staff members working round-the-clock shifts. It takes hordes of journalists and fact checkers willing to police the service for false news stories and hoaxes so that they can be contained before spreading to millions. And even if you avoid major problems from bad actors domestically, you might still need to disclose, as Facebook did late Tuesday night, that you kicked off yet another group of what appeared to be Kremlin-linked trolls...
Most days, digging up large-scale misinformation on Facebook was as easy as finding baby photos or birthday greetings... Facebook was generally responsive to these problems after they were publicly called out. But its scale means that even people who work there are often in the dark... Other days, combing through Facebook falsehoods has felt like watching a nation poison itself in slow motion. A recent study by the Oxford Internet Institute, a department at the University of Oxford, found that 25 percent of all election-related content shared on Facebook and Twitter during the midterm election season could be classified as "junk news"...
Facebook has framed its struggle as an "arms race" between itself and the bad actors trying to exploit its services. But that mischaracterizes the nature of the problem. This is not two sovereign countries locked in battle, or an intelligence agency trying to stop a nefarious foreign plot. This is a rich and successful corporation that built a giant machine to convert attention into advertising revenue, made billions of dollars by letting that machine run with limited oversight, and is now frantically trying to clean up the mess that has resulted... It's worth asking, over the long term, why a single American company is in the position of protecting free and fair elections all over the world.
Despite whatever progress has been made, the article complains that "It took sustained pressure from lawmakers, regulators, researchers, journalists, employees, investors and users to force the company to pay more attention to misinformation and threats of election interference. Facebook has shown, time and again, that it behaves responsibly only when placed under a well-lit microscope.
"So as our collective attention fades from the midterms, it seems certain that outsiders will need to continue to hold the company accountable, and push it to do more to safeguard its users -- in every country, during every election season -- from a flood of lies and manipulation."
Most days, digging up large-scale misinformation on Facebook was as easy as finding baby photos or birthday greetings... Facebook was generally responsive to these problems after they were publicly called out. But its scale means that even people who work there are often in the dark... Other days, combing through Facebook falsehoods has felt like watching a nation poison itself in slow motion. A recent study by the Oxford Internet Institute, a department at the University of Oxford, found that 25 percent of all election-related content shared on Facebook and Twitter during the midterm election season could be classified as "junk news"...
Facebook has framed its struggle as an "arms race" between itself and the bad actors trying to exploit its services. But that mischaracterizes the nature of the problem. This is not two sovereign countries locked in battle, or an intelligence agency trying to stop a nefarious foreign plot. This is a rich and successful corporation that built a giant machine to convert attention into advertising revenue, made billions of dollars by letting that machine run with limited oversight, and is now frantically trying to clean up the mess that has resulted... It's worth asking, over the long term, why a single American company is in the position of protecting free and fair elections all over the world.
Despite whatever progress has been made, the article complains that "It took sustained pressure from lawmakers, regulators, researchers, journalists, employees, investors and users to force the company to pay more attention to misinformation and threats of election interference. Facebook has shown, time and again, that it behaves responsibly only when placed under a well-lit microscope.
"So as our collective attention fades from the midterms, it seems certain that outsiders will need to continue to hold the company accountable, and push it to do more to safeguard its users -- in every country, during every election season -- from a flood of lies and manipulation."
Of course they can - here's how: (Score:1)
1. Shut the company down.
2. Done.
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Re: Of course they can - here's how: (Score:3, Insightful)
That is not the problem. People who form their opinions and beliefs from social media are the problem. That form of stupidity is on the rise.
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I agree with you: the form proposed ("attack platform's wallets") will make the platform avoid it from it's users, I think...
Perennial Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Who decides what is fake and what is their agenda?
Re: Perennial Question (Score:1)
Re: Perennial Question (Score:2)
I do.
Duhhhhh!
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Well, that will stop facebook. It will do absolutely nothing for other sources of lies, most problematic among them the candidates and political parties themselves.
Thin end of the wedge (Score:5, Insightful)
Once we appoint Facebook as gatekeeper of truth, a "Ministry of Truth" as it were, who gets to ensure that that Facebook determines the truth correctly and in a non-partisan way, and doesn't inadvertently or otherwise misinform its users from a position of privilege.
Re:Thin end of the wedge (Score:5, Interesting)
That's simple. The fundamental rule has always been that facts are universal, opinion is personal. Virtually every respectable media outlet has a version of that doctrine.
You can say what you like, think what you like, feel what you like, but you can choose only these. You cannot choose a different set of facts.
No, that doesn't stop you writing fantasy or fiction. As the late, great Terry Nation once said, if on your world rocks can talk, then that is fact. On that world, rocks talk.
It does not stop caricatures. Britain has incredibly strong libel laws, but TW3, Spitting Image and HIGNFY are not just applauded by those they put down, the famous and powerful were/are integral to them.
All it stops is malicious, twisted Misty Mountains nastiness. Gollum! That doesn't take a Ministry of Truth, any Bagginses will do.
Re:Thin end of the wedge (Score:4, Interesting)
Not my experience through this last election cycle. Just saw a friend who was black-listed from posting because she chose to forward something from a "Secretary of State for CA" FB page. I read the post at it's source - NOTHING there that was either controversial or even partisan (and Partisan SHOULD BE OKAY!) Thought Police are ALREADY HERE!
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Was it from the real Secretary of State for CA, or a fake one?
Even if the message was not controversial, by spreading messages from fake Secretaries of State it makes them look legitimate and trustworthy, so that when they start posting misinformation it's more effective.
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You cannot choose a different set of facts.
Apparently the present US Administration declares you wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] As Patriot Kellyanne Conway noted when she defended Press Secretary Spicer's obvious lie about the size of Trump's inauguration crowd size "Our press secretary, Sean Spicer, gave alternative facts to [these claims], but the point remains that..." before she was inturrupted by rude biased and lying liberal media representative Chuck Todd who said "Wait a minute. Alternative facts? ... Alternative facts are not fac
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The fundamental rule has always been that facts are universal, opinion is personal.
Great start. Now how do we figure out whether something posted as fact was truthful ?
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> That's simple. The fundamental rule has always been that
> facts are universal, opinion is personal. Virtually every
> respectable media outlet has a version of that doctrine.
Remember when "Virtually every respectable media outlet" was telling us that Sadam had Weapons of Mass Destruction? Not to mention "respectable" Robert Mueller https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: Thin end of the wedge (Score:5, Informative)
The BBC was interviewing this interesting guy, Dr David Kelly, who said there weren't. The Guardian was running articles on CIA attempted coups launched via the weapons inspector teams. The Independent was skeptical of the claims, as weapons inspectors had found nothing and President Bush was making shrill claims he couldn't back.
Most of the media covered the Plame affair, with clear and open coverage of the fact that no yellowcake had been bought or shipped to Iraq.
I'd say most of the free media were very, very doubtful of the claims.
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I listed several facts. You have not objected to them.
I listed two credible original sources. You have not disputed them.
Your argument, then, is what? That two escapades that led to a trial and word of the year were maybe not known about? That Americans were oblivious to Scooter and his pardon? That the rest of the world (20x larger) were?
Do you think France was ignorant? On the balance of probability, alone.
You can't falsify an argument with demands you never parameterized.
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Care to show a credible source?
There was no yellowcake there. There were no WMD labs. The program had been shut down after the first Gulf War and never restarted. You cannot make things be by wishing.
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That's not a credible source. Unnamed officials who we know lied? And whose unsubstantiated claims were later disproved?
Sorry, you're an idiot if you think outright fraud constitutes a credible source.
No, I want a credible source. From a credible news outlet that wasn't taking bribes.
https://www.theguardian.com/me... [theguardian.com]
This is a credible source - a former CIA operative working in the weapons inspections team. He was not some gullible fool, he had worked on this sort of stuff for many years and he was very good
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Even if true (doubtful), one newspaper article in one newspaper with limited circulation in one country is not the liberal press.
Re: Thin end of the wedge (Score:2)
There are no "facts" in politics.
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That's simple. The fundamental rule has always been that facts are universal, opinion is personal. Virtually every respectable media outlet has a version of that doctrine.
Like the "Fake But Accurate" President Bush [wikipedia.org] reports, and all the recanted Kavanaugh accusations [washingtontimes.com] from more of the "respectable media" outlets? After all, modern media is much more critical of the current Administration [npr.org], and much of the "respectable mainstream media" [journalism.org] is more biased than Fox News and the Wall Street Journal.
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> That's simple. The fundamental rule has always been that facts are universal, opinion is personal. Virtually every respectable media outlet has a version of that doctrine.
You are living in a fantasy land there bub.
The media tells blatant lies about easily verifiable facts. They also mislead by hiding information that interferes with their "narrative" while promoting information that supports their narrative.
If you've ever had personal knowledge of an event or any technical subject, then you have inevit
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Science never predicted global cooling. Do not confuse science fact with Internet mythology.
The predictions put forward by the international committee were probabilities of varying outcomes. It is very hard for a probability to be wrong the way you describe. However, they underestimated global warming, it's far worse than forecast.
But you don't care, you're wrapped up in partisan fantasies and care nothing for facts that contradict them.
There are fantasists on both sides, I reject all of them. They don't th
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Science say cooling is inevitable, we are literally in the middle of the interglacial of an ice age.
Science says were are in the Holocene interglacial. Learn something today:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Science never predicted global cooling. Do not confuse science fact with Internet mythology.
Plenty of scientific people and papers [wattsupwiththat.com] talked about the threat of global cooling, back in the 1960s and early 1970s. Do not confuse climate change propaganda with historical facts.
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I assume that was a primary school. It would explain why you think one article in Newsweek (based on the opinions of one scientist) that got picked up by a handful of other outlets constitutes a pandemic of hysteria.
You aren't getting confused with scenarios about a nuclear winter, are you?
Re: Thin end of the wedge (Score:3)
You imagine they're policed because they don't say what you want them to say. Sure, go ahead, create your own social network. Won't make the inaccurate any more honest. Won't help break down barriers. But if that's what you want to do, go for it.
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Facebook doesn't decide what is true or otherwise. It does two things.
1. It has some material fact checked by external sources. Unfortunately these include bullshit factories like The Weekly Standard, but also more reliable ones like FactCheck.org.
2. It deletes accounts that are deliberately misleading, i.e. they claim to be from Alabama but always log in from a Moscow IP address during Russian office hours, and mostly post known Russian memes.
So really the danger isn't Facebook becoming the Ministry of Tru
Pathetic (Score:3, Insightful)
So fucking pathetic. This shit is as old as communicat. Dis/info is nothing, people should exert effort to understand what is going on. Otherwise we trade one propaganda for another.
The modern world is toddler level. Not by our choice but by corps and the loudest screechers?
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> Half of all people are of below average intelligence
And 90% seem to be ignorant of the difference between median and mean (average).
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There's too much information. Nobody can know everything. Yes, I've tried.
That means you rely on the solution in the Byzantine General's Problem. As long as 50%+1 of people are telling the factual truth (regardless of opinion) on any given topic, you don't need to know everything. Enough people know each fact to ensure that you can rely on those facts.
If disinformation exceeds that, you might as well give up. You can rely on nothing and no-one. Nobody, not even a survivalist, can survive for long like that
Re: Pathetic (Score:3)
If you are seeking truth on social media your IQ doesn't matter and you are functionally a moron
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I dunno, Genevieve von Petzinger has a very nice channel on mesolithic rock art.
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I don't think people seek the truth on social media as much as get bombarded by low quality news when they go there.
Even if it's not fake news, if often contains language that subtly warps people's perception of events. The classic example is talking about "hoards" and "floods" or migrants, or describing a million bucks as a "huge amount" when it's relatively modest in context. Commonly known as weasel words.
Information Overload (Score:3)
Misinformation is everywhere. It's easy to misremember something, and then a few hops away it turns into something quite different from the original idea. And that's the most innocuous instance. Charlatans preaching bullshit, or easily-disproven nonsense, get far more traction than I'd think possible. E.g. young-earth creationism.
Too many ideas and claims are thrown at people all day every day for someone to fact-check every single one. It's known that repetition leads to belief, so someone might forget if they researched something that they believe, or if they just heard it from a few sources a few times. The Internet is a great source of second-hand information but there are tons of people who only know how to click links and don't know how to e.g. search wikipedia for an article on a certain topic.
Betteridge again (Score:2, Insightful)
As always, the answer is "HELL FSCKING NO!"
The US not only spends about ten times more on weapons than anyone else, leads a magnitude more of wars than anyone else, the US also has the biggest public relations aka propaganda budget with a similar leading number. No one spends as much money as the US on ads, both the private sector and the public.
The US government has the biggest spin machine by far world wide, that goes both for public and private, no distinction The US produces more lies, more propaganda,
It's all "social media", not only facebook (Score:4, Interesting)
Only Democrat/Progressive Misinformation Allowed (Score:4, Insightful)
Facts are facts, they don't change with the weathe (Score:1)
Or the person or the politics of the time.
Are you scared of those facts? If not, then work out how to distinguish fact from opinion. Opinions are personal, facts are not. Comment is, and should remain, free. Facts are immutable.
I don't distinguish left or right, libertarian or authoritarian in that. One law, for rich and poor alike, for politicians, media and individuals alike. No immunity, no exceptions.
If you think that facts favour the left, question why you're on the right.
Re:Facts are facts, they don't change with the wea (Score:4, Insightful)
Facts are immutable.
There is no dispassionate dispenser of "facts". Facts can be reported out of context. Some facts can be omitted, while others amplified. What are considered "facts" one day can be found to be falsehoods the next. And facts can be spun together to paint a misleading or partisan narrative.
If you think that facts favour the left, question why you're on the right.
If you think "facts" favor the left, then question your own bias.
Re: Facts are facts, they don't change with the we (Score:2)
But muh FACTS(tm)(c)(r)!!!!1!!!11!!!
Respek muh authoritay!!!
Re: Facts are facts, they don't change with the we (Score:2)
And doubtless the Pope will claim 1+1=2.
And?
Dressing up doesn't mean a statement is right or wrong. The statement being right makes it right. Facts really are immutable, there is only one universe and we're all in it. We do not live in alternative realities.
The church made claims about reality that were falsified. As per William of Occam, we can reject them. That means those statements were wrong. It doesn't mean reality is whatever you want it to be. If it was, then they couldn't have been wrong.
This is so
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Nobody claimed science was about truth, besides yourself.
You throw up more and more straw men, each one knocked down. Give it up.
Why should I define a fact, when you claim to have all the answers? You talk of the church but are the only one here with the divine revelations. Curious.
If you don't think you know how I define fact, then you can claim nothing about such a definition until you know it. In that case, you, not I, are the one with the religious doctrine.
If you claim you do know, then you are definit
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This post is a perfect example of the garbage that the right-wing noise machine loves to produce and amplify. It's aggressive, dishonest, makes far reaching conclusions with no factual basis, feeds a persecution complex, and treats the left as some kind of boogeyman responsible for all that is bad.
Not only will they control everything you see they will also control everything you can say and do by threatening to cut you off from their increasingly mandatory monopoly for any reason they feel like.
Projecting is another strong suit of the right-wing machine.
FFS, the President of the United States just revoked the white house pass of a journalist, supported the action with a doctored video from an Infowars co
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Simple, clearly label all advertising as adverts a (Score:2)
Re: Simple, clearly label all advertising as adver (Score:1)
Bullshit (Score:1)
Truth isn't "facts". Facebook isn't stopping misinformation it's adding to it by deciding in an arbitrary and highly political fashion as to what the people get to see and declared as "truth". That's completely anathema to the point of a free press.
You see this right now with the midterm elections where the media is calling the reports of election fraud nothing more than a conspiracy theory and besides, the Democrats just want to ensure "every vote is counted" while Democrat heavy precincts continue to fi
You hate news you don't like (Score:3)
Join the club, but don't blame a free press for it and don't blame sides selectively. Blame all who are guilty or none.
You say votes are being found days after, in South Carolina they found hundreds stuffed behind office furniture in Republican administrative buildings, plus a box found behind a fire escape, in 2000. Curiously, you only go for the side you don't like.
Sure, you'll get the sympathy of those on your side. You're a tribe and tribes don't give a shit about facts. The left have done the same in t
Define "free world" (Score:1)
I'm not sure what you mean by that these days
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It's called censorship (Score:3, Interesting)
What next, someone censoring which books get publshed? There is a fine line between "misinformation" and information which makes some people uncomfortable. Facebook should stay out of the censorship business. One person's "minsinformation" is another person's truth.
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Publishers reject books all the time. That's not censorship, that's a business decision. Nobody censored J. K. Rowling, yet her Harry Potter novels were rejected by something like 30 publishers.
Re: It's called censorship (Score:2)
That's what the OP implied, it's also the only way Facebook could censor.
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That's the sort of thing Citizens United [wikipedia.org] was all about. In that case, a movie was suppressed, and Obama's Deputy Solicitor General argued that it extended to books under McCain-Feingold, the 2002 "Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act" where politicians agreed no one should be able to say nasty things about them.
The scary thing: this blatant Federal suppression, "Congress shall make no law", of core political speech was blocked by only 5 Supreme Court justic
Can Facebook Keep Misinformation From the World? (Score:3, Insightful)
This means that what remains after censorship is propaganda.
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They have never censored, just as Fox News has never censored.
What you're objecting to is not censorship, but preference.
Facebook is entitled to an opinion other than yours.
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> They have never censored, just as Fox News has never censored.
They have censored me numerous times. Some of those times didn't involve anything that could any way be considered rude, objectionable, illegal or misleading. I just said something someone disagreed with.
The FB police will censor and ban you over nothing more than that.
All it takes is a little mild deviation from their liberal narrative. You don't even have to be mean about it.
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Worrying that nonsense like this gets modded "+5 insightful".
A recent documentary on Channel 4 showed that Facebook is very reluctant to censor anything, often allowing really extreme material to remain up. That's because such material is profitable, and Facebook's main goal is to make money.
The fake news and propaganda is making Facebook lose money because people don't want to go there and don't trust them any more. Plus Zuck got hauled in front of Congress which has bad optics, so they are doing something
You mean other than what they spread ? (Score:3)
I have as yet to see any of the mainstream media take any kind of action to remedy deliberate misinformation or lack of reporting on their part
Remember when Chris Cuomo Told The World It Was Illegal To Read Wikileaks
https://www.realclearpolitics.... [realclearpolitics.com]
Or just how much coverage have they given to the screw job the DNC gave the Sanders campaign.
Or the latest we find out James Comey who lead the FBI investigation into Hillary's email was using GMail to handle classified documents. Many of which still can't be published in anything close to a readable state due to the need to redact.
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The Guardian publishes corrections, as do the BBC. The Guardian is also notable for providing OpEd space for politically opposed views, and the BBC even ran interviews with highly controversial figures fundamentally opposed to the BBC's mere existence.
The Independent is pretty good, too.
If you don't have outlets of this calibre, ask why. Why PBS isn't equal. Why local newspapers are being dominated by a few overlords. What happened to the controls meant to prevent bias by size.
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PBS and NPR are both horribly ideologically biased. I even enjoy PBS but mostly for the home improvement and woodworking shows they haven't had a good news show since the Nightly Business Report was still being hosted by Louis Rukeyser.
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who's responsible? (Score:2)
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My responsibility is to choose between attending to or to discounting "information" provided by a given source, based on a reasonable estimation of credibility of that source. That would be true for friends on Facebook, news organizations, or propaganda outlets supported by nation-states or non-state assholes.
Facebook's responsibility is to ensure that I have that sourcing information. I believe that in some cases organizations (like Facebook, Twitter, etc.) have access to credible knowledge that particular
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Unresponsive.
You are welcome to take facebook comments with a grain of salt. Good on ya. I also avoid it, for the same reason.
There are plenty of people who look for messages that confirm their own perspectives and amplify those messages, independent of the original sources. Those original sources hide their identities and interests while simultaneously using substantial resources to craft messages and target those messages to the people most vulnerable to their effects.
Anonymous cowards, as it were. If onl
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The last person to live to be capable of that died in 1829.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org]
Facebook provides a service, not a product. For a product, you're not responsible for use, only for the product being fit for purpose. For a service, you are responsible for use.
SaaS is a very dangerous strategy that leaves you open to liabilities that would not otherwise apply. You are responsible for conduct outside your control. It's how any service is.
Have you never tipped a waiter less for ingredients he didn't
Click! And it's gone (Score:1)
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Social media should probably be banned.
People should have personal peer-to-peer web servers that provide such functionality.
Can the misistry of information, (Score:1)
make sure only the correct propaganda reaches the voters?
People thinking wrong due to getting non approved propaganda is becoming a problem!
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And that is exactly it.
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All propaganda is wrong, as are those who believe that that is all there is to life, or that real victory is controlling others.
Marshall McLuhan (Score:2)
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I would have to disagree.
Education, real education, increases ability, freedom and resilience against the effects of age and cynicism.
Entertainment does none of that.
Education rewires the brain, entertainment exploits it.
Education can be found anywhere, but particularly in the novel situation. Entertainment can only be found in the familiar.
Real education is rare. Entertainment is common.
You mean preventing the candidates from speaking? (Score:1)
No, it cannot do that. And the candidates in any modern election are the main source of misinformation, i.e. lies. The only thing they are pissed about is that they lost control of the fairy-tales that people believe, not that they are fairy-tales.
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Hit a nerve there, haven't I?
What about the MSM (Score:2)
They've been peddling lies and fake news for decades and hiding behind press freedom while they do it. This applies to ALL of them before anyone starts any partisan bollocks.
It's All About The Bottom Line (Score:4, Insightful)
There are numerous steps that Facebook could take that would allow them to positively identify every single registered user. This would reduce the potential for fake content, because anyone found to be posting the same would be identifiable, would lose their accounts and would not be able to re-activate them.
The problem is that not only might this discourage people from creating an account, but it would also introduce an operational cost for Facebook themselves, since they would have to pay people to review such content and make decisions about revoking access.
But it is possible, all of it.
In fact, this is an excellent example of the reason that there needs to be a tighter form of regulation around companies like Facebook, because - as this example clearly shows - unless there is a legal obligation for Facebook to do something, they won't - because it will dent their profits. Going even further, strengthening the requirement for Facebook (and similar organisations) to establish the identity of users doesn't really have a material impact on the free speech of those users. Facebook wouldn't be telling those people what to write or not write. Instead, they would be making their users accountable for their actions.
Which, on reflection, seems entirely reasonable.
No, I don't have a Facebook account. Never have. Never will.
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There is no procedure known to man, short of a Class III certificate, that could positively identify a person to the standards you describe.
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So I'd have to say that I think that the well established S
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You see, the problem is that modern politics has politicized *so much* that we can't safely rule anything out. For example, one only has to read Donald Trump's Twitter feed to see that very broad range of topics that interest him. We must of course consider ALL of
A Failure of Capitalism (Score:2)
Whenever an individual is visible to a surveillance for profit business they become a commodity. Facebook shadow profiles are the perfect example. You can't opt out, all you have to do is visit a web site with a Facebook link and
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You are either the customer or the product. Open source relies on that, users mean development. In FB's case, they don't exploit the product internally but resell it.
As for the sig, it's not all snark that's the problem, but the good sort is rare. You must seek it with thimbles, you must seek it with care, you must pursue it with forks and hope. But most snarks are not like that and will not offer you tea, for most snarks are a boojum, you see.
Facebook is Evil (Score:2)
My wife an dI deleted our Facebook accounts when the Cambridge Analytica thing was exposed. Prior to that we only used Facebook to stay informed of what was going on with distant family members. We rarely posted to Facebook and then it was just to respond to something a family member had posted. I also have avoided buying an Oculus and went with a Vive because of Facebook's ownership.
We're just a couple of people in a massive user base but every little bit helps.
Facebook's role in spreading lies and disinfo
So long as facebbook needs to make a profit... (Score:2)
Clearly (Score:2)
I think this might be interesting (Score:2)
https://www.theguardian.com/bo... [theguardian.com]
Whether you agree with Dr Zuckerberg or not, it's interesting what she has discovered in the way of misinformation and the practices.
Does it really matter? (Score:3, Interesting)
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Absolutely! (Score:2)
Yes. I think that Facebook can keep the "Free World"'s large-scale misinformation to itself. ;)
Yes, and here's how ... (Score:2)
Facebook should be clearly labeled as a game environment populated by people who volunteer to be game pieces.
FOR ENTERTAINMENT PURPOSES ONLY
By consenting to our Terms of Service, you agree to enter into a legal contract where you affirm that the content is provided by you (Member) and is subject to our guidelines and you further stipulate that all content that you post is your original material and that only then can the material be shared.
By voluntary participation in this platform, you do hereby indicate that you have a full and compl
No. Malicious gossip is older than computers. (Score:2)
Anything that facilitates interpersonal communication also facilitates the spreading of false rumors. I'm not sure there's any way around that short of hard AI. Think of the Nigerian scams that appeared as soon as email became common.
Now the one way that is shown to work fairly well is to increase the cost of communicating. That didn't eliminate chain letters, or false advertising, but it sure reduced it. However that comes with other secondary costs.
The problem isn't fake news (Score:2)
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> Conservative snowflakes would howl with protest that their "alternative facts" are being censored.
If you don't howl with protest when ANYONE is censored then you have no business calling yourself a liberal.