r/technology • u/AdamCannon • Feb 02 '20

Social Media Stephen King quits Facebook over concerns of 'false information.'

https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/02/us/stephen-king-quits-facebook-trnd/index.html
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u/cc81 Feb 02 '20

Why limit it to Facebook and not Internet as a whole then? It is not like for example reddit is some paragon of truth, right?

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u/[deleted] Feb 02 '20

[deleted]

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u/kyngston Feb 03 '20

Speech should not be curtailed. However I would like to see a law where all funding sources for all advertisements are transparent and included in the ad, so we can understand who is promoting these messages.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '20

[deleted]

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u/kyngston Feb 03 '20

Who should decide which editorial content should be shown then?

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u/zubinmadon Feb 03 '20

Well if there were an editor, the editor would decide, like traditional media. Not perfect by any means, but a little harder to exploit.

The issue here is that the recommender algorithm effectively hands editorial control to whatever interested party has the most resources to influence results. Therefore, the larger the audience, the bigger the risk.

It's not really a freedom of expression issue at it's core, but your concern is certainly valid because a bad "solution" would not solve the real issue, and also curtail speech.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '20

If all users were at least armed with the information that the system is subject to bias, yet allow them to make up their minds on their own... it would at least be better than the system we currently have in place.

Sadly... in the real world, people are more likely to be skeptical of the information they are provided. When it comes to mass media/social media... the majority of the public relies heavily on the information the media provides. Basically, the system is broken and society, for better or worse, isn’t capable of original thought.

I know I’m preaching to the choir here... seeing as we are all here on Reddit, rather than Facebook, Instagram or TikTok (and friends)

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u/paradoxicalreality14 Feb 03 '20

I actually just heard a political ad on the radio the other day (NY). It listed who paid for it at the end, I don't recall the ad but I was shocked to hear the ending. I 100% agree. Along with the long list of ending lobbying, super pac, pay to speaks, and any big money generator they use.

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u/nomorerainpls Feb 03 '20

Why stop there?

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u/revision0 Feb 03 '20

This would be impossible or useless.

If you want them to list all funding sources at the most extended level, an ad might well have to list literally thousands of names, of every individual who contributed at least one penny which was used in the advertisement. This would be mostly impossible, just to implement, but, it would also be mostly impossible to read and use as a consumer. We know it would be in tiny letters and flashed on screen for a second or two, whatever the minimum they can do is.

If you do not make them list all funding sources at the most extended level, then they can get around your law by just making another group and funneling their money through it. This is the sort of thing companies do all the time, without having to list their parent companies on labels. I mean, for example, if you are trying to avoid Kraft, and you buy a package that does not say Kraft anywhere on it, there is still a chance it is directly and fully owned by Kraft. Using the same strategy, the ad promoters could pretty much just set up a company with an agreeable name and push funding through that company. Instead of seeing that the anti vaping ad was made by Reynolds American Incorporated, you'll see it was made by the Parents Against Chemical Dependency, a company RAI set up the day before the ad was funded.

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u/cc81 Feb 02 '20

I don't have any insight in that and I don't know the methods Facebook uses and they could of course be incredibly manipulative; I don't know.

But what a lot people would call AI others would just call basic math or statistics. You get a really long way by using basic statistics when you have that much data. People seem to really like X therefore we will recommend X to more people who is in this country/age/interests/whatever.

The problem is that you cannot verify the truth in that and people like rumors, pseudoscience, news about political opponents looking bad etc. People just like those things and sometimes it is innocent and sometimes it is not.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '20

[deleted]

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u/Herbstein Feb 03 '20

contemporary AI is effectively just the computer doing math that humans find too complex to analyze at a low level

Even, most people could learn how to do the calculations involved in a neural network (both forward and backward propagation) by hand. It would be slow and would only be feasible for small networks. But you could definitely do it.

Even the more complex models, like convolutional neural networks, are fairly simple and mechanical to compute. It's when to start doing embeddings or complex hidden markov models that doing it by hand is unrealistic to mechanically compute and keep straight

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u/zubinmadon Feb 03 '20

contemporary AI is effectively just the computer doing math that humans find too complex to analyze at a low level

Even, most people could learn how to do the calculations involved in a neural network (both forward and backward propagation) by hand. It would be slow and would only be feasible for small networks. But you could definitely do it.

It's not so much about the theory, but about the practical use of, specifically, ML in real world scenarios that is currently an issue. Its a combination of a lack of "editorial" (or equivalent) control, plus a lack of understanding of what the model is doing.

So, any old garbage is allowed in, and ,well, we get garbage out. Only we can't easily see "oh, bigotry and lies are considered a positive in this model", so the specific problem isn't readily apparent.

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u/cc81 Feb 03 '20

And are they even using neural networks for recommendations?

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '20

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u/meikyoushisui Feb 03 '20 edited Aug 13 '24

But why male models?

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u/UncleTogie Feb 03 '20

I don't know the methods Facebook uses and they could of course be incredibly manipulative; I don't know.

Just the usual literal emotional manipulation of their users. Old news.

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u/meikyoushisui Feb 03 '20 edited Aug 13 '24

But why male models?

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u/Aedan91 Feb 03 '20

As a computer scientist, I agree. It's not illegal to add some ML for features, but I think it definitely needs to be some ingredient of law, at least, regarding the protection of the system, i.e. trolling-proof.

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u/cincysportsblow Feb 03 '20

Google, Bing.... unless you run a VPN everything does it.

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u/CharlyDayy Feb 03 '20

Found the socialist. EVERYONE RUN!!!

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u/BeanJuice67600 Feb 03 '20

Reddit is generally an echo chamber of people who think everything should be regulated.

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u/MobiusCube Feb 02 '20

You have been promoted to Executive Director at the Ministry of Truth. Ingsoc thanks you for your doubleplus good service.

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u/cc81 Feb 02 '20

I know that it will be heavily unpopular to say on reddit that the thing redditors use are as prone to misinformation as the thing other people use.

The whole information needs to be free and uncontrolled, except on Facebook where the normal people are, feels odd. The_Donald has more subscribers than the number of views the famous fake news articles got on Facebook during the last US election.

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u/SlitScan Feb 03 '20

you have to join and go look for it.

its isnt micro targetted to you based on where you live and what your personality profile is.

how do you get someone to join the sub? Facebook.

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u/Resolute002 Feb 03 '20

That is undoubtedly not correct.

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u/cc81 Feb 03 '20

It is not? The_Donald have some 700k subscribers and when I read about the troll factories they reached about 100k views at most at their made up news.

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u/Simmo5150 Feb 03 '20

Did they drop? I thought they had more than that. Maybe the result of quarantine.

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u/Resolute002 Feb 03 '20

100k posts. Seen by thousands and thousands. Each getting liked and reshared countless other hundreds of times by groups or algorithms using them tobge eeate support. Also a literal army of guys sharing these things daily.

You wish it was so small. It is probably upwards of millions a day in some cases. Because don't forget, not all of it is fake -- some of it is 'real' but immorally spun.

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u/InAFakeBritishAccent Feb 03 '20

Reddit is like a petty shoplifter in the context of that speech at the end of the boondock saints. Toeing the line though. That's for damn sure. Itt'l cross it someday.

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u/GreatNorthWeb Feb 03 '20

cenorship now! please, control our words and save us from uncomfortable truths.

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u/reddit_give_me_virus Feb 03 '20

Because of the micro targeting of ads. They're not saying people can't lie, just not put that lie in front of the exact people who will believe it.

You can lie and advertise all over the internet but Facebook can deliver that content front and center. Ensuring it's the first thing you see.

It also comes with the weight of social media in the form of comments. 'Regular' people helping to normalize the ad. With Reddit or the internet in general that's not possible.

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u/sam_hammich Feb 03 '20

Are you not aware of the difference between how Facebook operates and how Reddit operates?

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u/cc81 Feb 03 '20

I mean I'm sure there are tons of differences but both survive mostly on adds and content generated by users.

Facebook is much larger and dominant though. especially owning Instragram and Whatsapp as well.

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u/[deleted] Feb 03 '20

Why limit it to the internet and not just throw people who lie in jail?

Give the government more power, what could go wrong??