back to article Real-time crowdsourced fact checking not really that effective, study says

Social media companies have proposed enlisting their respective audiences to catch the misinformation they distribute, or are already doing so. Facebook, now living under the assumed name Meta for its own protection, says, "We identify potential misinformation using signals, like feedback from people on Facebook, and surface …

Page:

  1. Blank Reg

    There is no wisdom of crowds.

    According to the first law of stupidity, we all underestimate how many stupid people there are.

    So really it should be the idiocy of crowds

    1. Kevin Johnston

      I thought the IQ of a crowd was average IQ multiplied by the inverse square of the number of people in it?

    2. ThatOne Silver badge

      > There is no wisdom of crowds

      Came here to say just that. Those are contradictory terms, crowds are as stupid (panicky, aggressive, egoist) as their stupidest member. Take a bunch of intelligent, educated people, let them form a crowd, and suddenly you have a brainless group of bleating sheep prone to easily induced knee-jerk reactions. It's really frightening.

      "Crowdsourcing" is just another word for shearing those sheep.

      1. jake Silver badge

        "Crowdsourcing" is just another word for fleecing those sheep."

        FTFY

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "crowds are as stupid (panicky, aggressive, egoist) as their stupidest member"

        I'd say it's more that they are as stupid as their most openly and loudly outspoken member. There could be semi-intelligent people in the crowd that just don't speak up.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Ah, I see you're also an expert in..

        .. the greater internet f**kwad theory

    3. John Jennings

      true - if we believed in the crowds, we would still have bear baiting and the coliseum in regular use. I am sure both were popular - both were barbaric.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        And... crowds at modern sports are less barbaric because they don't expect a killing at the end?

    4. The Man Who Fell To Earth Silver badge
      FAIL

      I'm shocked! Shocked!

      That once again in the Computer World, garbage in equals garbage out.

      1. ecofeco Silver badge

        Re: I'm shocked! Shocked!

        Whoucouldaknowed?!

    5. veti Silver badge

      "The wisdom of crowds" is real, but it's very much abused by people who see a chance to save a few bucks or headaches.

      If you ask a crowd to guess the weight of a cow, then average all their answers, the final result will probably be pretty good. (Not nearly as good as it would have been 100 years ago, when more people had first hand experience with cows, but still pretty good for all that.) But that's asking people to guess at a number (easy to average objectively), that can itself be objectively determined.

      If you ask people to spot "fake news", not only is there no clearly agreed definition of what they're looking for or criteria for judgment, there's also no objective way to convert to numbers and average their input. The "wisdom of crowds" assumptions are not even being acknowledged, much less fulfilled.

    6. alisonken1
      Alien

      MiB quote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WPMMNvYTEyI

      Jay - "People are smart"

      Kay - "A Person is smart. People are dumb, panicky animals and you know it!"

    7. ecofeco Silver badge

      Confederacy of dunces.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    FAIL

    "Wisdom" of the crowds

    In a test setting it works.

    BUT, in a test setting the participants are all individual humans and can't talk to, much less influence, the other participants.

    IRL, the participants may have multiple identities and may not even be human. They actively try to influence others and can bring in others to participate.

    Won't work. Can't be made to work.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: "Wisdom" of the crowds

      I appreciate that one of the papers authors specifically calls out the issue of adversarial misinformation. It's a much harder problem, and one that breaks ML based implementations, at least as far as hitting a sufficient number of 9's for use in the real world.

  3. Gene Cash Silver badge
    Go

    "Facebook, now living under the assumed name Meta for its own protection"

    I'm dyin' here! Funniest damn thing I've heard in weeks.

    1. Spasticus Autisticus

      With Meta being close to the Hebrew word for dead. 'Meta head' must mean dead head?

  4. jake Silver badge

    One word: Duh!

    A couple more: As any sysadmin worth his salt knows, ONE person can be utterly brilliant. However, groups of people are universally fucking stupid. From direct observation, it would appear that a crowd is automatically brought down to the intelligence level of it's lowest common denominator.

    1. Michael

      Re: One word: Duh!

      I'd suggest it is the lowest IQ of a member of the group divided by the number of people in the group.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: However, groups of people are universally fucking stupid

      That's odd. I heard once that quite a large group of people once managed to get a few of their number all the way to the moon and back. Perhaps I misheard. :-)

      1. Khaptain Silver badge

        Re: However, groups of people are universally fucking stupid

        That "large group of people" are definitely not the kind of people that spend their days tweeting to all and sundry...

        Those that study Rocket Science are generally not part of the Twitterati Trollers Community ( TTC for short)...

        So what you heard was correct, it's just that they are not in the same league as the TTCs whose average IQ fails to pass that of the associated blue bird that they hail.

        1. Mike 16

          Re: Rocket Scientists

          My current home was previously owned by a Rocket Scientist (working for a major aerospace firm).

          Over the years, dealing with the repairs and "improvements" made by this person led me to radically change the qualities I associate with that term.

      2. Version 1.0 Silver badge

        Re: all the way to the moon and back

        No, that was Sopwith Camel singing Monkeys on the Moon, "It used to be so peaceful in space, now there's hard rock all over the place" :-)

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: all the way to the moon and back

          One wonders how much Steely Dan owes to The Sopwith Camel ...

      3. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: However, groups of people are universally fucking stupid

        "a large group of people once managed to get a few of their number all the way to the moon and back"

        OTOH read Feynman on the Challenger disaster.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: However, groups of people are universally fucking stupid

          @Doctor Syntax.

          Wrong. It was one man who wouldn't listen to a group of engineers who said it wasn't safe to fly.

          See the Netflix documentary where the chap concerned openly admits to it.

          1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

            Re: However, groups of people are universally fucking stupid

            Don't have Netflix, don't want Netflix.

            Read the Fantastic Figures chapter in "What do you care what other people think?" pp176 et seq in the hardback edition.

      4. jake Silver badge

        Re: However, groups of people are universally fucking stupid

        It was a large group of people in aggregate, yes. However, the very large,complicated project was split into many, many much less complex components, each of which was worked on by a much smaller number of people. The vast majority of them never came into contact with the rest.

        A mob it wasn't.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: A mob it wasn't.

          And the original phrase replied to, and quoted, was "However, groups of people are universally fucking stupid", and as one might plainly see, contains no qualifier suggesting it is somehow restricted to some subset of groups of people.

          Not to "mobs". Not "people that spend their days tweeting". Not those "split [...] into a much smaller number of people". Not even "kneejerk responders to something which they like to assume was said but wasn't". Given the other content of the original post, one could probably argue for an IT support context, but, curiously, this is not one of the subsets chosen as worthy of mention.

          In the original phrase, "Often fucking stupid", or "frequently fucking stupid", or similar, would have been fine.

          "Universally fucking stupid", however, is flat wrong. As we would hope, I suppose, being members of a *group* of people who post comments in The Register's forums, and would presumably - but perhaps optimistically - consider ourselves not "fucking stupid". Of course, the reader may judge whether this exchange points to one conclusion or the other. :-)

      5. G R Goslin

        Re: However, groups of people are universally fucking stupid

        I think that a better way of putting that would be to say "A few of their people got to the moon and back despite the efforts of a large group"

  5. Mike 137 Silver badge

    Motivations

    Around 20 years ago I read a report of research into the motivations behind the popularity of crowd sourced knowledge. A surprising finding was, not that it was viewed as more reliable than recourse to experts, but that it was considered to be more 'democratic'.

    However, as was pointed out almost two millennia ago by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (AD 121 - 180) "The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject"

    1. Chris G

      Re: Motivations

      However, as was pointed out almost two millennia ago by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (AD 121 - 180) "The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject"

      Hence, the appalling results of so many democratic elections.

      The study in the article makes it clear that the time is right for a globe spanning Ministry of Truth, nothing can be published on any platform until it has had the approval and relevant certification of truth from the ministry.

      I am sure it would be easy to find staff who would religiously ascertain the truth or not of anything that has been submitted for approval.

      Now, where did I put that sarcasm icon?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Motivations

        Did Marcus Aurelius Antoninus have an Oven Ready Deal? After all he did say, “A person's worth is measured by the worth of what he values.”

    2. Primus Secundus Tertius

      Re: Motivations

      Vox populi, vox humbug.

      Attributed to the American General Sherman, but could have been Henry Ford or Sam Goldwyn.

    3. T. F. M. Reader

      Re: Motivations

      more 'democratic'

      The reported fact-checking of fact-checking actually reminded me of the famous gedankenexperiment on democratic decision-making: pick a contentious issue, frame it as a yes/no question suitable for a vote, conduct 2 referendums: one among the general voter population or a representative sample thereof, another - within 1,000 (10,000, whatever) of the most knowledgeable (most intelligent, highest IQ, best educated - take your pick) members of the society, compare the results.

      If the results are statistically similar the conclusion must be that knowledge/intelligence/etc. does not matter. Bummer.

      If the results are significantly different then the conclusion must be that knowledge/intelligence/etc. does matter, but the democratic process negates the benefits. Ouch.

      Looks applicable to fact-checking if you ask me - without additional research...

      1. yetanotheraoc Silver badge

        Re: Motivations

        "pick a contentious issue, frame it as a yes/no question suitable for a vote"

        Well there's one flaw right there.

      2. veti Silver badge

        Re: Motivations

        Referendum questions aren't about "facts". No-one puts "How many moons does Saturn have?" to a referendum. They're about preferences. "Do you want this, or that?"

        Nobody is more expert in what the general public wants, than the public itself.

  6. slimshady76

    Forget about the lonely asshat

    What about the media who actively disseminates fake news under the "freedom of speech" umbrella? You can deal with a thousand quackheads preaching the Earth is flat or COVID doesn't exist, but having a major media outlet throwing "alternative coverage" of some events without a real mean to contend their "view" is a lost battle from day 0.

    They will continue to preach tho their choir and will even grow it bigger. For every single post acknowledging a "mistake" they are forced to bury deep in the belly of their websites, they are spitting a hundred more reinforcing their "view".

    1. Version 1.0 Silver badge

      Re: Forget about the lonely asshat

      To the general media out there "Fake News" is irrelevant, what's important to them is generating income from the ads shown to all the users reading the posting, whether it's fake or accurate. In general you see far more users reading fake news than real news so the average news site makes a lot more from stupid people than smart people.

      1. Khaptain Silver badge

        Re: Forget about the lonely asshat

        "from stupid people than smart people."

        Exactlly, all that the Stupid People wan't is a life without complication, it is the main reason that they are so easilly lead... It's just unfortunate that those who are prepared to lead them are a bunch of hungry Wolfs that no longer even need to wear sheep's clothing...

        1. jake Silver badge

          Re: Forget about the lonely asshat

          "no longer even need to wear sheep's clothing..."

          Just $6,000+ Armani suits (with Thom Browne loafers, of course). Funny how the ripped Levis and torn tee-shirt clad denizens (wearing Crocs, no doubt) are the folks most likely to follow them, isn't it?

          Hey, Trump supporter[0]: Do you really think the filthy rich former idiot-in-chief would give you the time of day if he passed you in the street? Like hell he would. When was the last time you saw him at a tractor pull, drag race, swamp buggy race, or boggin' in the back country? Seriously, trailer trash, you are the last thing he wants to be the neighbor of ... so why are you a supporter? Glutton for punishment?

          [0] Substitute televangelist or "conservative" radio host, or YouTube "creator" of your choice. I won't mind in the least. Every single one of 'em are ripping you blind ... and you are so brainwashed you think you like it! The mind absolutely boggles ...

          1. ThatOne Silver badge

            Re: Forget about the lonely asshat

            > Glutton for punishment?

            Father figure I guess? Some people always seem to need somebody to tell them what's what, and what they should do or think. Life is so much easier that way, and then there is also that warm comforting feeling of belonging...

            Also let's not forget it, there is the prestige of "celebrities": Humans are always fascinated by them, no matter their real value/achievements.

            Who said humans are rational? That's utterly ludicrous: There isn't the slightest sign for it, but plenty of solid proof for the contrary.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      @slimshady76 - Re: Forget about the lonely asshat

      Forget about the media.

      What about the governments ? Aside from the clear-cut duality US, UK and friends = all true, China, Russia = all fake, how should we know we're dealing with fake news ? Remember those WMD of the Gulf war, we had absolute and indubitable proof but in reality they were fabricated a.k.a. fake news.

      As someone used to say, government is not hiding the truth, they replace it with other truths we also need to know.

  7. steelpillow Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Home "truth"

    Post a loaded item, be it news or opinion, and who will care enough to report it? Those who already have a chip on their shoulder about it, that's who. If 60% vote X, then news which puts X in a bad light will get reported more than news which puts it in a good light. Truth? I dunno, wasn't that a 2015 film about Dubya?

  8. Draco
    Big Brother

    "fact checking" or "political checking"?

    The study opens with: Misinformation spreads rapidly on social media, before professional fact checkers and media outlets have a chance to debunk false claims.

    And near the end concludes: Both models performed best when only using the evaluations from those with high political knowledge.

    I wonder what sort of "facts" are best evaluated by "those with high political knowledge"?

    a) Science?

    b) History?

    c) Philosophy?

    d) Propaganda?

  9. Henry Wertz 1 Gold badge

    I know this doesn't work

    I know this doesn't work. I watched a game show where the person asked the audience, why does stuff weigh less on the moon than earth. a) lower gravity b) low air pressure. Something like 80 percent picked the wrong answer, so the contestant went with the "wisdom of the crowd" and lost. I mean, even if they didn't know the answer, they use low pressure chambers for medical and other uses on earth and the stuff does not start floating away!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I know this doesn't work

      Stuff doesn't go "floating away" on the moon either - it's not negative gravity.

      Barometric pressure *does* influence the effective weight of things on the earth - indeed, this is why helium balloons float away. (Of course, lower pressure leads to reduced upthrust and hence higher net weight).

      So there's no need to be quite so dismissive.

      It may also depend on exactly how the question was worded. Did the question imply that there was a "lesser type of gravity" on the moon? No: the gravitational constant is the same out there. It's just that the moon has less mass than the earth, whilst maintaining a similar density (x0.6)

  10. Shane Sturrock

    A person is smart, people are stupid

    Look at a platform like Reddit where the limits on someone’s ability to upvote or downvote are very light and you’ll frequently see discussions which are not remotely accurate if you have any knowledge about the field. Worse, a knowledgeable person who says something the crowd doesn’t like will get downvoted to oblivion. Crowdsourced moderation cannot work if there’s no qualification step required for someone to have an opinion. I remember working with people in the past who would have an strong opinion on my work and my reaction was “you’re not qualified to have an opinion” and that’s the way it is. Complicated matters cannot be judged by an uneducated crowd because the more complicated the question, the lower the odds that a majority will produce the right answer. Worse, these groups will push ideas that are attractive to them if it avoids facing the reality of bad things happening due to making the wrong choices. The internet is many things, but a filter for dumb ideas is not one of them.

  11. Eclectic Man Silver badge
    Holmes

    Does this mean

    that, in general, knowledgeable people are more knowledgeable than unknowledgeable people?

  12. Giles C Silver badge

    The problem with probably down to the fact that people seem to want to go with the consensus rather than their own decision.

    As an example (which is true), I arranged a day out for a car club, when we met up I told everyone the lunch stop was less than 1/4 mile from a junction.

    So off we go with me in front, we get to the junction and it fed onto a dual carriageway, at this point I kept my speed down so as to turn off at the right point.

    One saw an open stretch of road and decided to open up the car, out of the 16 cars in the group - most of them then followed. Myself and 3 others kept the speed down and got to the lunch stop, the rest of the group had to drive another 15 miles to get back as it was 7 miles to the next junction.

    When they finally arrived I asked them why - one person didn’t realise why I was driving slowly and the others just followed him…

    Sheeple!

    So crowd sourcing facts, not a chance of it being accurate because people don’t want to be singled out because they think it is “wrong”

Page:

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like