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Facebook and Fact Checking

Jeff Wagg

Illuminator
Jeff Wagg
Joined
Sep 24, 2003
Messages
3,125
Location
Chicago
I used to live here. Then I moved. I came to visit a few times and found that you can never go home again.

But now I'm leaving Facebook, which has been my home for about 19 years, and @arthwollipot suggested I come back, so here I am, giving it a try.

On my mind is how to exist in a "post-truth" or maybe "post-fact" world. "Social truth," that is, an agreed upon set of "facts" are now more powerful than actual facts.

So what is someone dedicated to understanding objective reality as much as possible do? How does a curious person satiate themselves in a world where facts and fiction have the same value?

Does "the truth" require authority?
 
Welcome back! I remember you from the old days, but never understood what happened at the time.

But about Facebook, I must admit that although I have an account that I only use when ISF is down, in order to see when it comes up again, I had no idea that Facebook had fact-checking. Considering the lies and conspiracy theories that I have been presented with (by others) on Facebook, it certainly can’t have been very effective.

And I read that whatever they had will now be replaced with the system of X that was intended to be a fig-leaf to blow away any kind of fact-checking (if fig-leaves can do such things).

I don’t think “truth” has any authority. The only authority is those who pay.
 
I feel like Facebook is simply the modern era's equivalent of the village gossip of yesteryear. "I heard that blah blah blah!" and accepting it as "news", the only difference is that now it's delivered globally on machines (and sometimes composed by machines) instead of over a fence in proximity to a goat or something.
 
TragicMonkey said:
I feel like Facebook is simply the modern era's equivalent of the village gossip of yesteryear. "I heard that blah blah blah!" and accepting it as "news", the only difference is that now it's delivered globally on machines (and sometimes composed by machines) instead of over a fence in proximity to a goat or something.
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The difference is, I think, that Facebook only shows you the gossip they want to.
 
I don't think I've seen any signs of real fact checking on Facebook. I've been subject to posts being removed by algorithms that incorrectly identified them as posts which breached their guidelines, and then embarked on the generally futile path of appealing the decision, which appears to be handled by more algorithms.
 
Also, the fact checking is being removed in the US, but apparently is still required in Europe and the UK, and I've not seen how that is supposed to work on a global system.
 
Fakebook is comedy central, for entertainment purposes only. Facts there are few and far between. I usually filter my feeds to just show posts from friends an groups I belong to. I only bother with the main page when I an bored.
 
Steve said:
Fakebook is comedy central, for entertainment purposes only. Facts there are few and far between. I usually filter my feeds to just show posts from friends an groups I belong to. I only bother with the main page when I an bored.
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It's a tool, and you can choose how you use it.

I use it to keep in contact with some people I know (though it's losing its usefulness for that, as more people get pissed off by the ongoing ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊), and for promoting my own photography and a music festival. Again, for the latter, usefulness is decreasing. At the moment, I don't see an obvious replacement, unlike Twitter where Bluesky now seems to be a viable option (at least for the way I use Twitter).
 
Googling >news from social media poll< gets quite a few hits. The numbers vary somewhat but it looks like a significant portion of the US population gets some or much of their news from social media.
www.pewresearch.org

Social Media and News Fact Sheet

Many Americans use social media for news: About a fifth or more regularly get news on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
www.pewresearch.org www.pewresearch.org

I find this both sad and disturbing.
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
Googling >news from social media poll< gets quite a few hits. The numbers vary somewhat but it looks like a significant portion of the US population gets some or much of their news from social media.
www.pewresearch.org

Social Media and News Fact Sheet

Many Americans use social media for news: About a fifth or more regularly get news on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
www.pewresearch.org www.pewresearch.org

I find this both sad and disturbing.
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If this forum counts as social media, I get a lot of my news from there, too.
 
zooterkin said:
If this forum counts as social media, I get a lot of my news from there, too.
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I don't necessarily get my news here, but I do use it as a source to find news related issues that I will then follow up with background and/or corroboration from other sources.
 
I never see news or that sort of thing on FB. Almost 100% family and friends interaction, with some ads but not overly much. The real cesspool I visit is TwiX. It's difficult not to engage but there's mostly no point in having a quippy post get lost in the tens of thousands of replies in some threads. But I've actually had some people Follow me there which I think is quite crazy.
 
I like Facebook for keeping in touch with friends, family, and local community. I've never relied on it for a news source.

For news, I use AP, Reuters, and Australia's ABC, and the BBC, and primary sources.

And I use our very own ISF, because we have posters from a wide range of the political spectrum who can debate the facts, not just repeat bald assertions or myths.
 
I'll stay on Facebook. I use Events extensively, for a lot of purposes. Several of my social groups use Events as their entire method of organisation, and it would not be good for me to lose that.

However, I am also on Bluesky and Threads, and even occasionally on Reddit. Reddit in fact is the only place where I don't use my usual pseudonym, having burned that account many many years ago.
 
Jeff Wagg said:
I used to live here. Then I moved. I came to visit a few times and found that you can never go home again.

But now I'm leaving Facebook, which has been my home for about 19 years, and @arthwollipot suggested I come back, so here I am, giving it a try.

On my mind is how to exist in a "post-truth" or maybe "post-fact" world. "Social truth," that is, an agreed upon set of "facts" are now more powerful than actual facts.

So what is someone dedicated to understanding objective reality as much as possible do? How does a curious person satiate themselves in a world where facts and fiction have the same value?

Does "the truth" require authority?
Click to expand...
Welcome back.

With respect to facebook, it was always going to happen. Zuckerberg was forced into the minimal fact ckecking he is now getting rid, he never wanted any of as his business model was always to let any conspiracy and hate speech onto the site no matter how harmful. You've got to remember facebook's original purpose as a women's "hotness" rating site.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
Welcome back.

With respect to facebook, it was always going to happen. Zuckerberg was forced into the minimal fact ckecking he is now getting rid, he never wanted any of as his business model was always to let any conspiracy and hate speech onto the site no matter how harmful. You've got to remember facebook's original purpose as a women's "hotness" rating site.
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At just Zuck's university. In short, it was a leering, creep frat-boy, beer-kegging, herp-derp website. Little appears to have changed since then...

I dropped FB about a year ago. Its algorithms started mistaking very mild sarcasm, even directed at myself, as some sort of rule-breaking, and kept on pinging me. Same as Zooterkin in post #5.
 
Norman Alexander said:
At just Zuck's university. In short, it was a leering, creep frat-boy, beer-kegging, herp-derp website. Little appears to have changed since then...

I dropped FB about a year ago. Its algorithms started mistaking very mild sarcasm, even directed at myself, as some sort of rule-breaking, and kept on pinging me. Same as Zooterkin in post #5.
Click to expand...
I dropped facebook years ago after their first admission of a major data breach (which IIRC they only admitted something like 18 months after it happened) and never looked back.

The worst thing about facebook is that if you're a member you're their product; you're not a customer, you're what tgey're selling to customers. And facebook's best paying customers are anti-truth.
 
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