Facebook: Yo 'people'! Zap fake news on our giant ad farm, would'ja? Facebook has asked its users (sorry, people) to flag up posts on the free-content ad network that they think are hoaxes masquerading as news items. However, the Mark Zuckerberg-run company claimed that links to satirical stories would not be culled from Facebook as a side-effect of the crackdown on fake stuff. But asking its …
I started to report fake pages when they started to appear, but after about 100 reports I stopped, for two very good reasons:
1. Only *2* of the reports I made had a response from Facebook saying "thanks for your feed back, that post has been removed"
2. On those 2, they were feed back at least a week after I reported them.
These fake pages rely on the message being broadcast to a lot of people in a short space of time. By the time they were removed they would have had the desired effect - dupe meeeeellions of people.
For facebook at accept posts from new (throw away) users as genuine is just irresponsible. Now I just hide what I don't want to see, because having to stab away at my screen another 2 or 3 times to report what I've hidden just isn't worth the effort, even if they are now planning on "tagging" these reported posts (hey, has anyone thought that real company's competitors and their clients may not be so honest in their reports? At what point does the markup appear? There are too many holes for this to work IMO).
If only they could do something about the dredging up of old inflammatory news stories regarding minority ethnic/religious groups that some low life found and reposted as if it were new. Normally round a time when said group is making an appearance on the news such as recent European events. Although the comments below them do have the added benefit of showing up some of the pond life that infest Facebook.
If I had a quid for every time I've been asked if something was true or not that could be easily found as bull by going to snopes I'd be very rich.
The polarization in US politics is such that many strongly conservative and liberal people don't want to hear/see anything that conflicts with their views. The liberals will flag every Fox News article as slanted, the same for conservatives flagging Huffpo articles (or for the most conservative, every "lamestream media" source from ABC to NYT)
This will flop, unless there is a whitelist of major sources that, for better or worse, can't get flagged status, or there is some sort of curation by people who look at highly flagged articles and make a judgement call. Hopefully the Onion is whitelisted, because it is funny seeing the responses from the occasional moron who thinks it is serious.
To put it politely, this is asking the inmates to run the asylum.
I believe this would actually make the false/satire/doesn't-conform-to-my-beliefs-so-must-be-fake stories more durable. If it just shows up with a note "this has been flagged false by users" that will do jack all at best. If links flagged as "fake" get removed, then you tweak all the conspiracy mongers into KNOWING the link is true, because it got suppressed.
In all actuality, this would probably just turn into another means of online harassment.
What's with this "users (sorry, people)" meme —as I believe the 'kewl kidz' would call it?
It's so innocuous as to be pointless and really not working at all, unless the intent is to mildly irritate the reader. Why not try something with a bit more bite instead, such as "product (sorry, people)" or "used (sorry, users)"?
...at people using FuckwittBook as a source for news —and getting upset that (surprise! surprise!) it 'may contain nuts'.
Oh well, I guess you can always fall back on the "Some bloke down the pub told me..." source, if you really find thinking- and finding stuff out for- yourself such a chore.
Something like (politeness adjusted up or down depending on context):
"Sorry, but you've been had - that is a false story from over <N> years ago <link>. If you want to avoid getting had again, check these: <link> <link> <link>" [Usually snopes, hoaxslayer and google].
It also helps to educate people about the 'blue tick' so they don't think it really is Range Rover giving away a brand new Evoque to a random 'liker' that says what colour they want.
The third time I have to send personal messages like these, I block or unfriend. Over time, my feed has cleaned up nicely!
It is the uneducated idiots that also fall for all the bullshit spewed out by the doomtards, wootards and fearporn merchants that hang around in Facebook like flies around a turd that have trouble distinguishing between satire and hoaxes.
People capable of walking without using their knuckles are less likely to be sucked in.
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