Thursday, January 25, 2018

Facebook's questionnaire to identify trustworthy news sources leaves a lot to be desired.

Courtesy of BuzzFeed:  

Last week, Facebook said its News Feed would prioritize links from publications its users deemed "trustworthy" in an upcoming survey. Turns out that survey isn't a particularly lengthy or nuanced one. In fact, it's just two questions. 

Here is Facebook's survey — in its entirety: 

Do you recognize the following websites
  • Yes 
  • No 

How much do you trust each of these domains?
  • Entirely 
  • A lot 
  • Somewhat 
  • Barely 
  • Not at all 

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed this as the only version of the survey in use. They also confirmed that the questions were prepared by the company itself and not by an outside party.

Uh....is that it?

Do you want InfoWars to be listed as a trusted news outlet.

Because this is how you get InfoWars listed as a trusted news outlet.

Right Wingers and Russian trolls will simply flood the questionnaire with responses and we will end up with Alex Jones, Russia Today, and the White House web page as the only sources listed on our Facebook news feed.

8 comments:

  1. Anonymous4:07 AM

    Gee Missy, you mean officer nano is a fake book? Why does this smell like the same shithole of the 2008 election and stench of you know who in Alaska? Low down dirty filthy liars committing crime after crime, and for what? A blob and mob take over of America? Really? shithole morons.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous5:00 AM

    How can a company smart enough to turn themselves into billionaires with their product, Facebook, be so stupid to think their solution to identifying fake news work? This "survey" just shows how much they do not understand about what has happened to their product and how much it needs to be honestly and thoroughly dealt with --- in it is NOT by asking the opinions of those who have been snookered by the problem generators. Their opinions have already been taken over by the fake news perpetrators. They wouldn't know fake news if they tripped over it, which they do daily, btw. NO, there has to be work done in the company, by competent people to identify which sources put out actual factual information, and which put out their own opinions as fact, when they are not fact. A survey will NOT do it and could end up outlawing real news leaving the readers with only fake news.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous7:59 AM

      And, really, anyone using Fscebook as their source of news might as well be watching Fox. No doubt that they are.

      Delete
    2. I think it indicates how much they don't want to do anything about it. This is window dressing, to make it look like they're doing something.

      Delete
  3. Anonymous8:04 AM

    SMH and rolling my eyes.

    My 90 year old dad could come up with a better survey. The feral cats in the parking lot could, too.

    Birdbrain

    ReplyDelete
  4. The guy that created Facebook, he didn't actually graduate from college, did he? Or only a bachelor's concentrated on one subject?

    This is what comes from ignoring professionals.

    Who are the professionals here?

    Librarians.

    This is Information Science. It's vetting a source. The experts in this field or LIBRARIANS. He could hire any librarian with a master's degree to train his staff on how to vet sources and they could do it without a fucking survey.

    You could divide them into three: Trusted, untrustworthy and biased (with a flag to indicate the bias and degree of bias.) Those from private individuals would automatically go into untrustworthy as who has time to vet the sources where *they* are getting their information.

    Easily done.

    But this survey?

    Just put FACEBOOK in the entire "Untrustworthy" category. They aren't news. They don't vet. They're social media. They're GOSSIP.

    They'll be more and more gossip too as intelligent people start dumping Facebook. I know plenty of people who already have or, like me, never signed up in the first place, mostly over privacy concerns.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Anonymous2:52 PM

      I dumped it about 8 years ago and don't miss it at all.

      Delete
  5. Anonymous8:04 PM

    I got a call yesterday that said it was from Florida. I checked it out and it was some communications outfit in Russia. I don't answer calls I don't recognize. Twice in l wk I've recieved Scam Likely calls. Reject reject..

    ReplyDelete

Don't feed the trolls!
It just goes directly to their thighs.