If you’re reading this report from a link on Facebook, it may be the very last time you do so! Facebook allows you to share a link from any website on the Internet on their platform. If you believe a link you have seen should not be on Facebook, you can report it for removal. But who decides what is, or is not, appropriate?
It is completely understandable that something advocating for violence or depicting explicit acts probably does not belong on the social media platform Facebook. But, many people and organisations alike use the system to post news reports. You can find news on any subject imaginable floating around on Facebook; some of it is rather mainstream while other reports take alternative angles. All news is subjective. How you, the reader, interpret the news is what matters. It is up to you, not Facebook, to decide what you should trust. How can we even trust Facebook after it has been caught harvesting user data? Furthermore, what counts as a reputable source is highly subjective. Yet, the criteria of a ‘reputable source’ is exactly what Facebook will now apply to news posted on its platform.
It is now possible to ‘flag’ a news story posted on Facebook as a “false news story”. So now, “an article that many people have reported as a hoax or chose to delete will get reduced distribution in the News Feed”. If an article is flagged in this way, a warning will be posted saying “many people have reported that this story contains false information”. Many people can believe something to be false, or true for that matter, yet it does not mean that is the case.
The most disturbing aspect here is that Facebook assumes it is possible for a ‘reputable’ source to disprove a supposedly non-reputable source.
If every person reading this piece wrote down their own personal definition of ‘reputable’, we would not be able to find even two identical responses; it is a subjective opinion.
While the Western media is quick to point out ‘stated-funded’ media operations in so-called ‘rogue’ states, they are always failing to identify the BBC as a state-run, and license payer-funded institution. If state-funding is a reason to doubt a media outlet’s reputation, let us start with those closest to home.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: This latest move by Facebook is expanding its previous ‘communitarian policing‘ online. This is used to devastating affect on YouTube with most banned video being taken down simply from an anonymous troll who wants to shut down the information. Facebook appears to enabling a similar communitarian environment here.
What will this mean for freedom of expression and diversity of opinion in the online world?
Facebook allows users to weed out fake news
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RT News
Facebook has unveiled a new feature, which allows users to flag news articles deemed “purposefully fake or deceitful news.” The move is said to be aimed at restricting the number of fake stories, hoaxes and scams appearing on the social network.
The new algorithm developed by the internet giant filters out the flagged story’s link from the people’s feeds, based on the number of users who reported the story to be fake.
“Today’s update to News Feed reduces the distribution of posts that people have reported as hoaxes and adds an annotation to posts that have received many of these types of reports to warn others on Facebook,” software engineer Erich Owens said.
It is not believed that the new feature will affect satirical stories. “We’ve found from testing that people tend not to report satirical content intended to be humorous, or content that is clearly labeled as satire. This type of content should not be affected by this update,” Owens added.
Facebook is increasingly becoming a tool used for news updates. Pew Research Center said in its 2013 survey that 30 percent of adults in the US rely on Facebook for their news…
Continue reading the full story at RT.com
READ MORE FACEBOOK NEWS AT: 21st Century Wire Facebook Files
