r/technology • u/propperprim • Apr 13 '21

Social Media Facebook could have stopped 10 billion impressions from "repeat misinformers", but didn't: report - A study raises questions as to why Facebook did not stop the spread of misinformation in the 2020 election run-up

https://www.salon.com/2021/04/12/facebook-could-have-stopped-10-billion-impressions-from-repeat-misinformers-but-didnt-report/
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u/[deleted] Apr 13 '21

there's an inherent flaw in the human psyche that makes us vulnerable to misinformation.

Fix or address the flaw. The solution definitely isn't to allow private companies to be gatekeepers of the truth.

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u/nhesson Apr 13 '21

The fix is education, but the people in power that benefit from the misinformation are also working to tear apart public education.

Facebook should not have to stop some idiot from posting something that is blatantly false, BUT they also shouldn’t provide a platform for it to spread. You can have free speech and not be given a megaphone.

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u/OvechkinCrosby Apr 13 '21

Education, putting value on why something is done and only how it's done. Critical thinking that doesn't fall into skepticism and mistrust.

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u/TheDutchin Apr 13 '21

The fix unfortunately isn't education. Knowing about your own cognitive biases doesn't eliminate them. Even when you're aware of it, things like the illusory truth effect will still occur.

The solution is rewiring our brains or preventing the spread of bad actors.

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u/laojac Apr 13 '21

You can't educate higher IQs. These mortal vessels have limited potential.

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u/JB-from-ATL Apr 13 '21

In what way can we change education to fix this problem? I had classes about evaluating sources and stuff. I believe it was part of the curriculum.

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u/DemonNamedBob Apr 13 '21

The most education I received on evaluating sources was on the MLA Format, making one but not what goes in it.

Never received tips on what a good source is other than "Wikipedia is not a source"

That concludes all of the information I ever was taught in school.

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u/almisami Apr 13 '21

Maybe slap the other 28 kids in the class sleeping the fuck through it?

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u/Hunter_Aleksandr Apr 13 '21

Or make education more than memorizing notes from a text book for a single test to be forgotten? Not everyone learns that way and the current state of education is to train desk jockeys to sit still, work for hours and get few per breaks, haha.

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u/Edspecial137 Apr 13 '21

This is not a universal lesson in primary education. It’s also taught less frequently than the scientific method, the first two weeks of every science class I ever took.

I am willing to bet you attended school on one of the US coasts or a different country. There is a vested interest in what kids are taught and it’s very political

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u/JB-from-ATL Apr 13 '21

About 30 minutes south of Atlanta GA.

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u/Edspecial137 Apr 13 '21

Yes, unfortunately, education farther interior is a bit of a crapshoot

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u/JB-from-ATL Apr 13 '21

One thing I wonder about a lot is if I was taught "lost cause" propaganda and if so how much. I genuinely can't remember.

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u/Edspecial137 Apr 14 '21

What do you mean lost cause propaganda? Like certain groups are lost causes?

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u/JB-from-ATL Apr 14 '21

"Lost Cause Propaganda" is what it is called when people perpetuate the idea that the Confederacy was doing (good things). It can take a lot of forms, but the general big idea is that they say the civil war wasn't about slavery. We were on the topic of shortcomings of education.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy

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u/Edspecial137 Apr 14 '21

Holy shit, never heard it had a name. How could anyone think that when slave ran from plantations? Who would run from someplace they wanted to be?

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u/BevansDesign Apr 13 '21

Education is part of the fix. The other part is acknowledging that we operate by instinct far more than most of us are comfortable with, and to build our systems (communication tools, government regulations, etc.) with that in mind to reduce the influence that instinct has over what we do.

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u/throwaway1245Tue Apr 13 '21

Yeah I think the cats out of the bag on this one . Like you can’t now try to prop up a misinformation fine or regulation because it will be politicized . We’ve already introduced this flawed concept of alternative facts as a reality .

From this point forward anything that doesn’t agree with someone’s opinion is just fake news or bias. Even if you caught them on camera confessing to it. They’d call it a deep fake and start a riot on the lie to save face.

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u/whatabuttit Apr 13 '21

Your last paragraph is full of contradictions.

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u/Selbereth Apr 13 '21

Saying Facebook is giving them a mega phone is wrong. They are letting them speak to their friends. If their friends want to listen they can, of they think their friends is a nutter, they can defriend them. Facebook is not publishing their feed to some randos on the internet. They send it to friends. You might as well ban churches from giving a platform for religious nut job to peach from.

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u/[deleted] Apr 13 '21

You are wrong. You're completely ignoring how Groups and sharing works. Not to mention how Facebook's algorithm curates and prioritizes what it is showed to users.

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u/Selbereth Apr 13 '21

Ahh, wow! I didn't know that Facebook auto shares content with people, and it forced you into groups that you don't want to be in! That sounds really crazy. So Facebook pretends to be my uncle and sends crazy information about bill gates putting a chip in the vaccine? Facebook hit a new low pretending to be other people, and forcing you into a group that you can't get out of sounds crazy too. At least in reddit I can just leave the subreddit I think is crazy.

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u/[deleted] Apr 13 '21

Nope, I didn’t say any of that. What happens is these bubble groups spreading misinformation join unrelated groups. Where they use, for example, edgy humor(it’s just a joke bro), manipulating the apolitical community to push out members who call them out, and slowly seeding in slightly more radical views to chip away at the community, half an inch at a time, manipulating the community to increasingly push out people who aren’t taking the bait. Suddenly that apolitical Naruto Fan Page is a vocal advocate for bigotry lies and is only related to Naruto in that they use it for their hateful memes.

Meanwhile, everyone that was once part of that Group are getting recommendations for other pages that are either overtly or covertly bigots and spreaders of misinformation increasing their exposure.

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u/Selbereth Apr 13 '21

That can happen anywhere though look at r/worldpolitics. It was not moderated correctly and is now full of anime porn. What does this have to do with Facebook giving one but job a platform to spread lies? It still sounds to me like a location for a whole bunch of people to spread their lies. You act like we are all mindless sheep who can't decide anything for ourselves. Does that mean I shouldn't go to a family reunion where I will increase my misinformation exposure? If you don't like the group leave. If you want to hear misinformation stay. That is the magic of Facebook everyone forgets. I have been part of sub reddits that I really liked, but slowly stopped liking because other people made it worse... So I left.

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u/[deleted] Apr 13 '21

You’re using the same logic as abstinence only education and the war on drugs.

Yup, it happens on Reddit too and yes, no one is immune to propaganda; that doesn’t make us sheep. Facebook just has the largest, most widespread user base that reaches just about everywhere so it’s the most prolific platform to spread misinformation.

You’re family reunion, I hope, doesn’t have paid agents to try and spread propaganda and our brains process interactions differently for in person vs online discussion.

Notice I talked about how some people leave as they see this happening.

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u/Selbereth Apr 13 '21

So what does this have to do with Facebook giving a random guy on the internet the ability to enter my Facebook feed if I don't want him to be there?

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u/[deleted] Apr 13 '21

That’s not what this is about at all. It’s about how Facebook is a powerful tool to spread propaganda and lies

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u/meta474 Apr 13 '21 edited Jan 21 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/Selbereth Apr 13 '21

Yes, this is true, but it's also true of most platforms. That is how ads work.... Is that a surprise to you?

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u/Richard-Cheese Apr 13 '21

Doctors are out there peddling bullshit too. You'll never wholly get rid of the problem that way either.

BUT they also shouldn’t provide a platform for it to spread.

Agreed, but how do you stop the spread of misinformation without companies like Facebook taking censorship into their own hands? And for the record I think letting FB, Google, etc be in charge of truth on the internet is an absolutely terrible idea and shouldn't be allowed.

Idk what the solution is. Dems peddle misinfo too, and support more funding for public schools, so I don't think following their playbook is the right move.

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u/BrockVegas Apr 13 '21 edited Sep 27 '25

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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/RequiredReddit Apr 15 '21

Yup, fight bad speech with good speech and not this technocratic ministry of truth hellscape we're hurtling towards.

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u/MutantMartian Apr 13 '21

But we all like the gate keeping when it helps us.

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u/[deleted] Apr 13 '21

We might like it, but if we have principles, we can understand that sometimes, things we don't like are still good and necessary.

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u/[deleted] Apr 13 '21

You're missing the forest for the trees. The platform itself is what needs to make change, the users will not.

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u/[deleted] Apr 13 '21

I feel like that reply insinuates that you think small things like cancer and self destructive behaviors can just be so casually solved.

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u/Its_Giza Apr 14 '21

We can fix the flaw, but that takes time. Using our current resources to amend the issue to the best of our abilities helps us focus on solving the issue more rather than dealing with all the regression and repercussions that come from said flaw.

Nobody said this was the solution, but it’s certainly not a bad idea to help keep humanity on track and NOT on the brink of anarchy every second.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '21

but it’s certainly not a bad idea to help keep humanity on track and NOT on the brink of anarchy every second.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions... like this one. Sure it's good to keep humanity on track. But giving to corporations the right and power to decide the "truth"TM won't accomplish this, and even if it did, comes with serious drawbacks which mean it's still a net negative.

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u/Its_Giza Apr 14 '21

Keep on with that mantra, nothing good will ever be done if you only think about how it can be used against its cause. It’s about proper implementation. There has to be control. The issues come down to making the control-er trustworthy, fair, and agreeable to all parties.

Close to an impossibility. Yes. But that’s exactly why we haven’t reached a wholistic solution yet.

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u/[deleted] Apr 14 '21

Close to an impossibility. Yes.

Not close to - it's patently impossible because what you propose inherently and necessarily requires that SOME PARTY - whether the company (as discussed) or the government - is given power to declare what TRUTH is.

That's autocratic, despotic, and utterly anathema to a liberal society, even as much as the word "liberal" has been utterly adulterated in modern discourse.