I don't like Facebook more than anyone else, but at this point aren't we just blaming them for enabling communication?
By all means, criticize Facebook for privacy issues, but not for stuff like this, unless you actually want censorship on the largest scale ever in history.
It’s odd because they pick and choose which “violence” is right and wrong. When Arab spring (in the end a very destabilizing movement) was facilitated by FB and Twitter it was great. When it facilitates caravan protests it’s great. When it facilitates anti-tax movements that threaten viability of an unpopular (vis a vis locals) but popular internationally (ie elites) then it’s seen as facilitating “bad” protests. Obviously media like to pick their narrative and winners and losers, deserving of freedom and those who don’t rather than let the masses decide for themselves.
That’s manipulation by traditional media upset their worldview and power to project it is slipping away from them.
Hasn't the majority of the criticism of Facebook been about enabling communication? Indeed, hasn't that been the cause of most of the Left's pearl-clutching about social media's influence on politics over the last few years? Many, if not most, of the complaints about Russian "interference" in the US election and Brexit that I've seen the Left being so distressed about consisted primarily of Russians saying things about politics on Twitter.
Advocating for outright bans on voicing disfavoured viewpoints is so obviously illiberal and thuggish as to be politically unpopular, which is why it is always platforms targeted rather than individual speakers, and why there is always some rationalisation for the complaint other than the viewpoint being expressed (Russian bots! Fake news! Algorithms optimising for rage! Harassment!) but in the end the root cause of the complaint is always that someone said something that progressives didn't like.
>unless you actually want censorship on the largest scale ever in history
that's what they want. The media and many government officials have been implying that the citizens are simply too stupid to be trusted with filtering their information so the glorious government must restrict what they're allowed to see. At what point will they decide the common man is simply too dumb to vote and get rid of democracy as well?
All this talk is demeaning and shows what our cultured elites really think about us, that we're a bunch of dumb cattle that need to be controlled
I think it is fair to criticize unedited internet communication in general, as we have just recently learned that this form of communication did not result in the improvement of public discourse that everyone might have hoped. Facebook just happens to be the largest platform offering that.
I don't think it is fair to consider large-scale censorship as the only other alternative. Having some kind of neutral editorial process to filter out the unsubstantiated, hateful opinions and leave room for a more nuanced discussion raises the level of discourse, and is the model that have been offered by traditional media for a long time.
I'm with you. I haven't used Facebook for years because I think it's unhealthy and disagree with their business practices. I believe that that is the correct response when you have a problem with a service that isn't necessary.
I'm of the view point that censorship is exactly the point of articles like this. They want Facebook to enforce a very bias view of what is acceptable speech, and intentionally conflate being a communication platform with being responsible for the outcomes of that communication.
Damned if they do, damned if they don't. Personally, I feel that a lot of this hate towards Facebook is done by media types who are jealous that Facebook has stolen their role as a place to find news, no matter if it's fake or real.
Yeah, as much as I dislike Facebook, at this point I'm kind of concerned about how much bad press is coming out about one company.
Most other tech companies (especially the ones still in the "hustling" phase) are just as bad as FB if not worse. It's starting to feel like a coordinated smear campaign, even if all of it is accurate.
It's not Facebook's fault, I agree. Or at least not just Facebook. It's our society, it's capitalism, it's the fact that we've accepted for decades that as we all collectively get richer and richer we'd accept that some would earn 100k$ a month and others would earn 600$ and that's all fine and acceptable. It's bound to break. It's obscene. The fake news are just a convenient way for people to find scapegoats. As long as people will look up and see people who earn a 100 times as much as they do how can we ever imagine that they'll accept even more sacrifices? Is it fake news that every time somebody talks about raising taxes on the riches they respond with threats of job cuts and moving away? How can you expect any kind of solidarity in this situation? This can only lead to a revolution.
The gilets jaunes is not a political movement, it's a fuck you movement. Like many of Trump's electors in the USA, like Bolsonaro's electors in Brazil, like many of the M5S electors in Italy. Populists and fascists always have a simple answer to everybody's problem, if we can't give the people a solution, they will, and they'll win.
Greed is killing us all. It's killing the climate, it's killing democracy, it's going to be the end of us. Merry Christmas everyone!
Facebook is indeed a huge distribution model, one that's defective and one that's become a vector for disinformation. That is newsworthy, it's one of the biggest and most interesting media stories of the past half century.
Facebook's reach is why it's newsworthy, but Facebook's actions (and inactions) are why you hear more about them than Google, etc.
> Sometimes, the social network carries obvious fake news, such as images of bleeding protesters taken two years ago in Spain or spreads the rumors of tanks ready to move against the Yellow Vests (15,000 interactions).
This video of senseless police brutality looks in fact to be pretty real and from the latest events: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK8b4plAlJQ&feature=youtu.be . Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's lots of fake news related to the recent events but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater by saying that everything that gets shared on social networks is fake news.
Genuine question: Is it just me or the whole 'fake-news' concept seems like an excuse for ~old~ traditional (failing?) media to continue to act as gatekeepers of information ? I've seen an increasing number of alternative / independent journalists and websites being given the label of "fake-news site" recently and I'm a bit worried to see that trend continue.
There are different types of things being conflated as "fake news":
- fiction not labelled as such: items invented from whole cloth with no regard for evidence. Conspiracy garbage. "B52 FOUND ON MOON".
- correctly reporting an official statement that turns out to be false, without checking the underlying facts ("WMD in Iraq": the newspapers accurately reported what the officials said!). Various other sorts of bad, sycophantic or "yellow" journalism.
- hostile propaganda, malicious lies, racial slander, and the like: protocols of zion/blood libel/etc material. Similar slander of Muslims. QAnon and Pizzagate. Previously the mainstream media refused to touch this stuff, but now it's being spread to a large audience via social media. Various sorts of government psyops, including but not limited to Russia.
The problem is that people correctly see the "old fake news" (2), but then replace it with even less accurate news (3).
Not sure why you are downvoted at the bottom, because you are right. As long as media continuously and relentlessly post articles about how terrible facebook is (as a "news source"), the legacy organizations will stay relevant. They are fighting for survival and it's more obvious now than ever.
Brazil had such an outburst in 2013, also seemingly spontaneous and enabled by social networks.
Fast forward a few years and the president-elect is a far-right idiot who ran on a platform of conspiracy theories and attacks on the press, supported by a huge disinformation campaign on anonymous, encrypted and widely popular messengers, completely bypassing all forms of campaign accountability.
World is not black and white. You can always criticize Facebook for their brutal user information sharing practises, or lack of curation to try to avoid fake news. But at the same time its possible to recognize that not everything on FB is fake news. Or in this particular case, that letting people share and communicate is not reprehensible.
I'd argue it's more a defence of accuracy than Facebook per se.
Just because you don't like a person or company or country or whatever doesn't mean that it's reasonable to accuse them of all the ills of the world.
I'd even argue that it can be detrimental. If you get enough "Facebook killed my puppy" stories, folk will start ignoring stories about Facebook and miss the stuff that's genuinely a problem.
The issue described in the article is not an issue with Facebook. Filter bubbles are an issue that's much larger than Facebook. Blaming it all on Facebook would mean we ignore the fact that they also exist elsewhere.
It seems that this content source is only concerned about news about prominent tech companies, which matches their Palo Alto location. Facebook’s been going through the grinder because they’ve recently had a lot of evidence against them come out; of course technically interested people care about a leader in research and industry.
I'm leery of any movement that the media refers to as "populist" as it seems many of these movements in the past years have been fueled by concerted efforts by despotic governments to destabilize democracies (Ukraine, US) or spread internal discord (Myanmar).
Facebook and Twitter play a key role in these influence operations by not adequately detecting and removing accounts controlled by these despotic governments until after the fact.
Traditional media outlets are not blameless as they frequently treat the results of these intelligence operations as though they were authentic grassroots movements.
"France has riots" is hardly news, since '68 onwards. This time it's not the banlieus or the students, but what in the UK we'd call "white van man"; the self-employed working class.
The spread of fake news at viral speed is somewhat new, but people taking to the streets is a much more normal part of French politics.
Poor analysis by a journalist who works for the most corporate French newspaper (le Monde), which is largely subsidized by the government (21 millions euros a year). Nothing to see, really. 72% of the French population still supports the movement, albeit all the efforts from the government and media, the insisting on violence... and the explanation still is "people are stupid and manipulable?". No, the explanation is simple, the People is right, and its Will is just; and the smug Parisian journalists are just displaying their class contempt for the unwashed masses, and this is frankly disgusting. "Macron, démission".
I see; now that mass unrest has reached the doors of the rich world, social media is a serious problem and requires immediate regulation. I don't recall any such hand-wringing during the 2011 "Arab Spring", itself a darkly comical title given what later unfolded in Libya, Egypt and Syria.
Back then, the narrative among western governments and press was that Twitter was a beacon of hope, allowing free democratic expression in dictatorial regimes. Not a word about the potential for bad actors to leverage the power of such networks to create political instability so they could take the throne.
Can someone explain the nuances of these protests?
Am I wrong to find it weird that the seemingly liberal, "woke" French are rioting over a carbon tax? Aren't carbon taxes progressive and environmentally responsible?
And it could merely be that folk on the edge of French society — truck drivers, provincial plumbers, builders, deliverymen, teachers, parents — are saying `Enough is enough. Stop making our lives harder.’
How exactly are truck drivers, provincial plumbers, builders, deliverymen, teachers and parents parents on the edge of French society? How are their lives being made harder?
Thats not the favored narritave worldwide. We are being sold that the french are antarchist ingrates on american media. I still don't knkw how to get an unbiased view.
[+] [-] purplethinking|7 years ago|reply
By all means, criticize Facebook for privacy issues, but not for stuff like this, unless you actually want censorship on the largest scale ever in history.
[+] [-] mc32|7 years ago|reply
That’s manipulation by traditional media upset their worldview and power to project it is slipping away from them.
[+] [-] dao-|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] XCabbage|7 years ago|reply
Advocating for outright bans on voicing disfavoured viewpoints is so obviously illiberal and thuggish as to be politically unpopular, which is why it is always platforms targeted rather than individual speakers, and why there is always some rationalisation for the complaint other than the viewpoint being expressed (Russian bots! Fake news! Algorithms optimising for rage! Harassment!) but in the end the root cause of the complaint is always that someone said something that progressives didn't like.
[+] [-] beginningguava|7 years ago|reply
that's what they want. The media and many government officials have been implying that the citizens are simply too stupid to be trusted with filtering their information so the glorious government must restrict what they're allowed to see. At what point will they decide the common man is simply too dumb to vote and get rid of democracy as well?
All this talk is demeaning and shows what our cultured elites really think about us, that we're a bunch of dumb cattle that need to be controlled
[+] [-] ulrikrasmussen|7 years ago|reply
I don't think it is fair to consider large-scale censorship as the only other alternative. Having some kind of neutral editorial process to filter out the unsubstantiated, hateful opinions and leave room for a more nuanced discussion raises the level of discourse, and is the model that have been offered by traditional media for a long time.
[+] [-] AlexB138|7 years ago|reply
I'm of the view point that censorship is exactly the point of articles like this. They want Facebook to enforce a very bias view of what is acceptable speech, and intentionally conflate being a communication platform with being responsible for the outcomes of that communication.
[+] [-] snaky|7 years ago|reply
How The Paper And Writing Is Fueling the French Populist Rage
How The Ability To Speak Is Fueling the French Populist Rage
[+] [-] jdhn|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hardwaresofton|7 years ago|reply
Most other tech companies (especially the ones still in the "hustling" phase) are just as bad as FB if not worse. It's starting to feel like a coordinated smear campaign, even if all of it is accurate.
[+] [-] randiantech|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simias|7 years ago|reply
The gilets jaunes is not a political movement, it's a fuck you movement. Like many of Trump's electors in the USA, like Bolsonaro's electors in Brazil, like many of the M5S electors in Italy. Populists and fascists always have a simple answer to everybody's problem, if we can't give the people a solution, they will, and they'll win.
Greed is killing us all. It's killing the climate, it's killing democracy, it's going to be the end of us. Merry Christmas everyone!
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nkozyra|7 years ago|reply
Facebook is indeed a huge distribution model, one that's defective and one that's become a vector for disinformation. That is newsworthy, it's one of the biggest and most interesting media stories of the past half century.
Facebook's reach is why it's newsworthy, but Facebook's actions (and inactions) are why you hear more about them than Google, etc.
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] paganel|7 years ago|reply
This video of senseless police brutality looks in fact to be pretty real and from the latest events: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK8b4plAlJQ&feature=youtu.be . Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's lots of fake news related to the recent events but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater by saying that everything that gets shared on social networks is fake news.
[+] [-] stef25|7 years ago|reply
Also, if you're going to pick a fight with a crew in full riot gear it's best to not get cornered by them.
[+] [-] ceejayoz|7 years ago|reply
The same thing is happening in the French protests: https://observers.france24.com/en/20181129-debunked-videos-y...
[+] [-] zabana|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjc50|7 years ago|reply
- fiction not labelled as such: items invented from whole cloth with no regard for evidence. Conspiracy garbage. "B52 FOUND ON MOON".
- correctly reporting an official statement that turns out to be false, without checking the underlying facts ("WMD in Iraq": the newspapers accurately reported what the officials said!). Various other sorts of bad, sycophantic or "yellow" journalism.
- hostile propaganda, malicious lies, racial slander, and the like: protocols of zion/blood libel/etc material. Similar slander of Muslims. QAnon and Pizzagate. Previously the mainstream media refused to touch this stuff, but now it's being spread to a large audience via social media. Various sorts of government psyops, including but not limited to Russia.
The problem is that people correctly see the "old fake news" (2), but then replace it with even less accurate news (3).
[+] [-] dao-|7 years ago|reply
What you consider alternative / independent journalists could be charlatans by journalistic standards. It's hard to say in the abstract.
[+] [-] 0x445442|7 years ago|reply
How government officials are panicked over losing control of narratives.
Please trust us Plebes. we'll give you the information you need.
[+] [-] degenerate|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zorked|7 years ago|reply
Fast forward a few years and the president-elect is a far-right idiot who ran on a platform of conspiracy theories and attacks on the press, supported by a huge disinformation campaign on anonymous, encrypted and widely popular messengers, completely bypassing all forms of campaign accountability.
Ignore the symptoms at your peril.
[+] [-] lordfoom|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] randiantech|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lucozade|7 years ago|reply
Just because you don't like a person or company or country or whatever doesn't mean that it's reasonable to accuse them of all the ills of the world.
I'd even argue that it can be detrimental. If you get enough "Facebook killed my puppy" stories, folk will start ignoring stories about Facebook and miss the stuff that's genuinely a problem.
[+] [-] ahje|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tonyedgecombe|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] merpnderp|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] buboard|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stochastic_monk|7 years ago|reply
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=mondaynote.com
[+] [-] dopylitty|7 years ago|reply
Facebook and Twitter play a key role in these influence operations by not adequately detecting and removing accounts controlled by these despotic governments until after the fact.
Traditional media outlets are not blameless as they frequently treat the results of these intelligence operations as though they were authentic grassroots movements.
[+] [-] saalweachter|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] EGreg|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sylvinus|7 years ago|reply
It's major, but quite far from the worst we've ever had.
[+] [-] Jyaif|7 years ago|reply
"in one of the worse civil unrest ever seen in France"
[+] [-] saagarjha|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pjc50|7 years ago|reply
The spread of fake news at viral speed is somewhat new, but people taking to the streets is a much more normal part of French politics.
[+] [-] wazoox|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fabricexpert|7 years ago|reply
That's a poor, cheap shot at women's rights. How sad that an article that wraps up with this can sit at #1 on HN.
[+] [-] rchaud|7 years ago|reply
Back then, the narrative among western governments and press was that Twitter was a beacon of hope, allowing free democratic expression in dictatorial regimes. Not a word about the potential for bad actors to leverage the power of such networks to create political instability so they could take the throne.
[+] [-] jklinger410|7 years ago|reply
Am I wrong to find it weird that the seemingly liberal, "woke" French are rioting over a carbon tax? Aren't carbon taxes progressive and environmentally responsible?
[+] [-] vixen99|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stdbrouw|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justtopost|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aklemm|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] 0x445442|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
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