Does anyone else find the whole Facebook ads / fake news "scandal" moronic?

hatrickpatrick · 22-03-2018 8:08pm #1

Does anyone else feel that it's peoples' own fault if they are affected by online fake news / political propaganda and this latest Cambridge Analytica thing?

I come from an age in which the internet was not considered serious business and the first rule was "on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog" - in other words, check your sources and don't believe what you read unless you know where it's coming from. To that end, all these "scandals" about fake news, Facebook marketing, social media "manipulation" etc are actually just all covers for a different root issue - too many people have become gullible idiots who'll believe any old ****e they see on the internet regardless of where it originates - and, indeed, sometimes without even knowing or caring where it originates.

In my view, it's those peoples' own fault if they get manipulated. I have about as much sympathy as I do for the people who actually fall for the "Nigerian prince 419" email scam and end up getting their bank accounts fleeced - if you place your trust in random **** from the internet and make major life decisions based on it, then to be honest you probably just shouldn't be using the internet at all. The only "action" required from Facebook, in my view, is to include a message which says "This is the internet. A lot of things written on it are completely made up bull****, and have been since the feckin' thing has existed. If you want facts, turn on the TV or read a newspaper - social media is for ****s and giggles, and should be regarded, like Wikipedia, as an inherently unreliable source".

I find it pretty sad that we're now talking about regulating the internet in an extensive way just because there seems to be a whole generation of idiots out there for whom the "don't take stuff written by random people online seriously" principle has not sunk in. We should be telling them to change their own behaviour, not forcing the internet to change for them.

Tl;dr - reputable news websites are for serious business. Social media is for cat videos, party photos, and time-wasting memes. Ignore this, and it's your own damn fault if you end up voting for someone you otherwise wouldn't have.

Anyone else feel this way? It pisses me off that cool, fun things on the internet might be about to get ruined, regulated or shut down because there are too many morons who aren't capable of understanding the principle that the internet is not necessarily a reliable source of information about current affairs, and that social media is explicitly designed for soapboxing and advertising - not giving an accurate or balanced picture of world events. That's what the Six One news is for. Facebook shouldn't be under any obligation to do anything about this, as the real problem here is people using social media for something it was never designed to be used for. Their own stupidity, tbh.

How many of you on AH have honestly ever made a decision about who to vote for based on something you read on Facebook or Twitter? Seriously?

dudara · 22-03-2018 8:11pm

There have always been idiots and there will always continue to be idiots. The internet is just a more efficient means of spreading mistruth and misinformation. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to protect them.

hatrickpatrick · 22-03-2018 8:15pm

dudara wrote: »

There have always been idiots and there will always continue to be idiots. The internet is just a more efficient means of spreading mistruth and misinformation. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to protect them.

If by protecting them you mean educating people about the very basic fact that the internet is anonymous and a lot of what gets written on it is bullsh!t, then fine by me. But I am absolutely loathe to see the internet become another one of those cases of "restrict everyone's freedom in order to protect a small minority of muppets", like so many other things. I don't see why the rest of us shouldn't still get to have our online craic just because there are some people out there who just shouldn't be using it at all.

The_Valeyard · 22-03-2018 8:17pm

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

If by protecting them you mean educating people about the very basic fact that the internet is anonymous and a lot of what gets written on it is bullsh!t, then fine by me. But I am absolutely loathe to see the internet become another one of those cases of "restrict everyone's freedom in order to protect a small minority of muppets", like so many other things. I don't see why the rest of us shouldn't still get to have our online craic just because there are some people out there who just shouldn't be using it at all.

Probably the same people who think video games cause school shootings.

dudara · 22-03-2018 8:19pm

We’re all susceptible to influence, some of us more than others. But to think that you’re not is foolhardy. Everyone of us will get caught out at some stage.

A function of society is to protect the weaker members. Some of that can be preventative through education, some of it will be preventative through rules.

I do personally think we have a lot of stupidity in the world right now but I bet you someone was saying the exact same thing back in Egypt 2,000 years ago.

kneemos · 22-03-2018 8:20pm

Facebook Always struck me as a bit tyrannical.
Don't like it or engage with it much. It does appear to be a particularly effective kind of direct marketing though.

endacl · 22-03-2018 8:23pm

dudara wrote: »

There have always been idiots and there will always continue to be idiots. The internet is just a more efficient means of spreading mistruth and misinformation. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to protect them.

More to the point, idiots with a vote. I’m aware of a young lady who swears by putting sliced onions in her socks whenever she gets a cold. Because she read it on the internet. Even tracing the source of the bull5hit, and showing her the source, and explaining how there is no mechanism whereby onions under your feet can have any effect whatsoever on a virus in the respiratory system, she still swears by cold-bustin’ sock onions.

I’m honestly not that bothered about protecting idiots. I am interested in protecting the systems whereby we make collective decisions that effect all of us, though.

[Deleted User] · 22-03-2018 8:23pm

I'd probably be of a similar vintage, and yeah, the internet was always something you wouldn't take too seriously.Or there was always the possibility it was a pisstake. But yeah times are changing. I suppose it's gotten more sinister or something, but on some level I think it would lose some of its charm if you couldn't take the piss. Yeah, this is kind of why I'm still weird about internet dating..id definitely not be surprised if instead of that eastern European cutie id arrive up and there'd be some fat 50 year old dude..

banie01 · 22-03-2018 8:27pm

Its a knee jerk reaction.
People are acting butthurt and surprised that a platform spefically designed to profile consumers to allow specific and targeted advertising, was exploited by a company to allow specific and targeted ads!

Facebook should never have allowed a permission that enables 3rd party access to profiles that did not explicitly consent.
It should not have been allowed that by 1 person accepting a 3rd party app, that their entire friend list is fair game.
I can't contract on behalf of a 3rd party, and my choice to complete the survey or app that allowed the access should only have allowed access to my profile, not every profile associated with me.

I dont use or authorise 3rd party apps on FB for this very reason.
Aside from the usual profile privacy awareness.
Granted C.A made much more specific use of the data than most, but it really was only to be expected that a polling company would seek to exploit the wealth of psychological data people freely share to swing a poll.

CrankyHaus · 22-03-2018 8:31pm

Great thread idea. I haven't yet seen anything to convince me that CA's targeted news (or any other factor like Ze Russians) was decisive in the Trump or Brexit votes.

Old media sees the Internet as a potentially mortal competitor and jumps all over things like this to reestablish their credibility.

Warnings about fake news from the folks that brought you WMDs in Iraq and the Zinoviev letter? (to name just two examples)
I'll take that with a pinch of salt thanks.

andekwarhola · 22-03-2018 8:39pm

It's a bit amusing to see people reacting with shock that Facebook provides a large expensive platform for free in exchange for carte blanche access to the personal data that you willingly provide.

pq0n1ct4ve8zf5 · 22-03-2018 8:42pm

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

If by protecting them you mean educating people about the very basic fact that the internet is anonymous and a lot of what gets written on it is bullsh!t, then fine by me. But I am absolutely loathe to see the internet become another one of those cases of "restrict everyone's freedom in order to protect a small minority of muppets", like so many other things. I don't see why the rest of us shouldn't still get to have our online craic just because there are some people out there who just shouldn't be using it at all.

It's not just to protect a small minority of muppets. Manipulate enough muppets and everyone is effected, even people who are savvy enough to check sources etc.

Doltanian · 22-03-2018 8:47pm

I wish people would just accept that Hillary Clinton was an inferior candidate and that Trump won. He is holding to his promises and him getting elected in 2020 seems to be a foregone conclusion already as he is delivering his pledges.

amacca · 22-03-2018 8:51pm

Sometimes I wonder if it should be a function of society to protect a certain cohort of its weaker members.....the elderly, sick, developmentally impaired etc etc etc should definitely be protected.....but the wilfully ignorant? I think natural selection should run it's course there.

Having said that, I do think it's only right that the way people's data seemed to have been used in this case should be questioned/regulated etc....

Particularly because it's such a feedback loop....your preferences etc are used to profile you and feed you the crap that suits your world view so you are never challenged just reinforced there's no broadening of horizons in it, no exposure to other values, changing of opinions or attitudes

the_syco · 22-03-2018 8:52pm

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Tl;dr - reputable news websites are for serious business.

I've come across a load of people who view the Kremlins mouthpiece, RT, as legit news, and believe it over the western media.

Doltanian · 22-03-2018 9:01pm

the_syco wrote: »

I've come across a load of people who view the Kremlins mouthpiece, RT, as legit news, and believe it over the western media.

Western Media is entirely controlled by vested interests and everything in the mass media is a Marxist mouthpiece pushing leftwing liberalism and political correctness. Breitbart, Fox News and the Far-Right are the only ones telling the truth at the moment. Facebook is only whingeing because they think Trump may have gained some advantage off it.

Pepefrogok · 22-03-2018 9:15pm

Ov course they cheated when Obama was doing it in 2012.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-digital-data-machine-facebook-election

facehugger99 · 22-03-2018 9:29pm

Doltanian wrote: »

I wish people would just accept that Hillary Clinton was an inferior candidate and that Trump won. He is holding to his promises and him getting elected in 2020 seems to be a foregone conclusion already as he is delivering his pledges.

Do you just randomly walk into rooms where people are talking about something else and announce this?

CrankyHaus · 22-03-2018 9:41pm

the_syco wrote: »

I've come across a load of people who view the Kremlins mouthpiece, RT, as legit news, and believe it over the western media.

In real life? I've only come across this online.

Skylinehead · 22-03-2018 9:45pm

Doltanian wrote: »

Western Media is entirely controlled by vested interests and everything in the mass media is a Marxist mouthpiece pushing leftwing liberalism and political correctness. Breitbart, Fox News and the Far-Right are the only ones telling the truth at the moment. Facebook is only whingeing because they think Trump may have gained some advantage off it.

Mod: Stop soapboxing. Every damn post is about the liberal marxist media.

Ipso · 22-03-2018 9:46pm

Doltanian wrote: »

Western Media is entirely controlled by vested interests and everything in the mass media is a Marxist mouthpiece pushing leftwing liberalism and political correctness. Breitbart, Fox News and the Far-Right are the only ones telling the truth at the moment. Facebook is only whingeing because they think Trump may have gained some advantage off it.

Sure. And Infowars and Weekly World News.

Cheerful Spring · 22-03-2018 10:14pm

Doltanian wrote: »

I wish people would just accept that Hillary Clinton was an inferior candidate and that Trump won. He is holding to his promises and him getting elected in 2020 seems to be a foregone conclusion already as he is delivering his pledges.

If you watch the Channel 4 documentary about Cambridge Analytica the program kept bringing up Russia when they could. The program was trying to push an agenda Russia could have hired this group? The program even showed their hand when they had Hilary Clinton on speaking about her campaign against Trump and how the Russians could have helped him?

The group is based in the UK and was hired by Steven Bannon I believe. So their no link to Russia at all. Even one of the guys caught on film claimed to know former MI5 and MI6 and Israel spies, working for private security and consultant companies, they were hired to gather intelligence for this group. This very revealing as this group was involved in deciding other foreign government elections.

scamalert · 22-03-2018 10:32pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VkswePNh80&index=143&list=WL&t=186s

Just watch this there is agreement in US that ISP's can collect and sell almost any data, furthermore just skip to 1:20 part theres list agreements of like 14 countries to share and collect online data.

Nowadays these news like people manipulated by social media etc, should take darwin route honestly.

a lot of drama over nothing, bet ppl selling will rebuy facebook stock and make killing once the masses turn their 5 second attention span to something else.

[Deleted User] · 23-03-2018 5:09am

I've been lectured on this site about wikileaks not being a reliable source. So yeah, I've been on the receiving end of "fake news".

Ubbquittious · 23-03-2018 10:00am

I preferred the internet when it was less serious and the OP does have a point in that regard. The internet has also gone too centralised now with the FANG companies ruling the roost.

I remember unmoderated USENET groups where you could be called every name under the sun but unlike the Facebook cyber bullying carry on nobody seemed to take any notice

darkdubh · 23-03-2018 10:11am

CrankyHaus wrote: »

Great thread idea. I haven't yet seen anything to convince me that CA's targeted news (or any other factor like Ze Russians) was decisive in the Trump or Brexit votes.

Old media sees the Internet as a potentially mortal competitor and jumps all over things like this to reestablish their credibility.

Warnings about fake news from the folks that brought you WMDs in Iraq and the Zinoviev letter? (to name just two examples)
I'll take that with a pinch of salt thanks.

You think the entire mainstream Western Media is represented by the Daily Mail?

Franz Von Peppercorn · 23-03-2018 10:36am

Both Brexit and the election of Trump were huge shocks to parts of the establishment psyche. So they are flailing around looking for excuses. It can’t be economic issues. It can’t be dislike of the “liberal order”, of the EU etc. It could be proles are racist, or stupid. That’s theory number one.

Then there were claims of Russian involvement. The election machines were hacked. The Logan act. And so on. Trump is a spy.

It’s all settled down to social media. Apparently both CA and the Russian troll farm distorted the election.

Problem is - there’s no proof. The troll farm trolled both sides. Cambridge Analytica worked for Ted Cruz and Trump. Only one won.

Sure there’s the harvesting of data. That’s bad, but it proves nothing about influence.

CA sent what are basically advertising re their promoted candidates to selected FB users. It was one of many fb ads that user would have seen. That’s just another form of advertising and there’s no proof that it worked. We do know that television and newspaper ads can work in elections though, maybe that explains why the gatekeepers of traditional media are so upset.

I’m amused by the breathless reporting of this by the totally technically illiterate Carole Cadwalldr.

It seems to me if Facebook were so useful in both Brexit and the US election then the results would have skewed to support of both amongst the users of Facebook, who themselves skew younger. The opposite is true.

Is the laid off steel worker in Pennsylvania more or less likely to have FB than the liberal college student down the road? Is the Fox News watching octogenarian likely to have FB set up?

If any of this worked you’d have to prove that either Facebook users were more, rather than less likely, to vote trump. Or that Facebook users changed over the election timeframe in favour of trump more than people who didn’t use it.

(Actually that would just prove correlation but at least it’s a start).

I bet neither of these can be shown.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 23-03-2018 10:37am

darkdubh wrote: »

You think the entire mainstream Western Media is represented by the Daily Mail?

The western media is more conformist than I have seen in my lifetime.

MilesMorales1 · 23-03-2018 10:38am

I'm gonna be wearing my smug 'I deleted my facebook years ago' hat for about a year now.

weldoninhio · 23-03-2018 10:41am

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Does anyone else feel that it's peoples' own fault if they are affected by online fake news / political propaganda and this latest Cambridge Analytica thing?

I come from an age in which the internet was not considered serious business and the first rule was "on the internet, nobody knows you're a dog" - in other words, check your sources and don't believe what you read unless you know where it's coming from. To that end, all these "scandals" about fake news, Facebook marketing, social media "manipulation" etc are actually just all covers for a different root issue - too many people have become gullible idiots who'll believe any old ****e they see on the internet regardless of where it originates - and, indeed, sometimes without even knowing or caring where it originates.

In my view, it's those peoples' own fault if they get manipulated. I have about as much sympathy as I do for the people who actually fall for the "Nigerian prince 419" email scam and end up getting their bank accounts fleeced - if you place your trust in random **** from the internet and make major life decisions based on it, then to be honest you probably just shouldn't be using the internet at all. The only "action" required from Facebook, in my view, is to include a message which says "This is the internet. A lot of things written on it are completely made up bull****, and have been since the feckin' thing has existed. If you want facts, turn on the TV or read a newspaper - social media is for ****s and giggles, and should be regarded, like Wikipedia, as an inherently unreliable source".

I find it pretty sad that we're now talking about regulating the internet in an extensive way just because there seems to be a whole generation of idiots out there for whom the "don't take stuff written by random people online seriously" principle has not sunk in. We should be telling them to change their own behaviour, not forcing the internet to change for them.

Tl;dr - reputable news websites are for serious business. Social media is for cat videos, party photos, and time-wasting memes. Ignore this, and it's your own damn fault if you end up voting for someone you otherwise wouldn't have.

Anyone else feel this way? It pisses me off that cool, fun things on the internet might be about to get ruined, regulated or shut down because there are too many morons who aren't capable of understanding the principle that the internet is not necessarily a reliable source of information about current affairs, and that social media is explicitly designed for soapboxing and advertising - not giving an accurate or balanced picture of world events. That's what the Six One news is for. Facebook shouldn't be under any obligation to do anything about this, as the real problem here is people using social media for something it was never designed to be used for. Their own stupidity, tbh.

How many of you on AH have honestly ever made a decision about who to vote for based on something you read on Facebook or Twitter? Seriously?

Yeah, stupid advertisers paying billions upon billions a year for something that is proven to work and influence people!! Idiots.

Wanderer78 · 23-03-2018 10:43am

It's been clearly obvious since day one, the dangers of social media sites such as Facebook are to society, they gather and sell data, period. These sites are not liberators, use them at your own peril, but be aware, god only knows what they're doing with your data, and if you don't like the idea of it, delete, and move on

Does anyone else find the whole Facebook ads / fake news "scandal" moronic?

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