I mean, there’s a lot of misinformation on these platforms prior to the election, much of it gets amplified by people too unwilling to verify. “Facts” aren’t owned by “the left” like this post suggests.
There’s only a handful of people who post disinformation (read: lies) in order to push their chosen candidate; but the people who don’t really care about factual information will spread it as far and as wide as they can because they don’t care if it’s true or not, only if they can convince people to vote for “their guy”.
The problem is Meta is controlling the discussion, not the people
“the people” are the idiots spreading these lies. They’re susceptible to propaganda. That’s why they are the perfect vehicle for spreading said lies. As a whole, ‘people’ on the internet can’t be trusted to be reliable sources of information. If I wanted to destroy a nation from the inside, the first thing I would do is go through social media and make people distrustful of one another because it’s so easy.
Even worse now, with LLMs running on such low end machines - it’s going to be utterly easy to set up a pack of LLMs to keep these people engaged in conversation. They don’t even have to be logically consistent, because the people interacting with them don’t care about logic.
That sounds great if you ignore the role Meta has already undertaken. Two great examples are on their own website, where they said allowing manipulated “ video that was edited to make it appear as though U.S. President Joe Biden is inappropriately touching his adult granddaughter’s chest” to stay up and be considered fine, while originally choosing to silence all coverage of October 7th under rules enacted after the event only reversing course after questions were asked about all the ad money spent by both sides
This looks like a very loop-hole way of those actors getting around Meta’s ruleset. When you create a set of rules, you’ve got to apply them evenhandedly, or what is the point? If Meta were to take it down, in violation of their own rules - it would be biased.
Meta isn’t perfect. I’m sure they’ve got their own agendas to push too. That’s why I suggest everyone get off of social media altogether.
Why should meta decide what are “reliable sources of information”?
Because the alternative is the government decides these things, or nobody does, which means under-moderation (terrorism breeding grounds). Would you prefer the government tell us what the truth is, more terrorists, or companies deciding what to remove?
In my mind, social media sites shouldnt decide what is truth. Thats why I use lemmy.
You haven’t answered the question.
Terrorists.
It’s practically impossible for individuals or governments to fact-check every piece of information effectively at the scale social media companies operate at. Social media companies have the resources and technology to implement automated and manual fact-checking processes to handle this volume.
They also have the only direct control over their platforms, needed to implement measures to fact-check in the first place. It’s their platform, so they should have control over it. They have a responsibility to combat misinformation, given the huge amount of influence they have over politics.
Yet, they are often wrong. It isn’t up to social media to decide what the “truth” is.
A good example is facebook blocked the hunter laptop story even though it was true. That impacts elections and that isn’t their job.
People should be able to read and evaluate the information and make their own decisions.
Now I will caveat that with i don’t mind them blocking meme and crap like that. I do not mind them blocking legitimate news outlets. That isn’t their job to be the keeper of the ‘truth’. That is why I don’t use facebook. They spread propaganda and not information.
Nothing about the hunter laptop story had any merit whatsoever. You are a great example of why people can’t be trusted.
Despite persistent allegations that the laptop contents indicated corruption by Joe Biden, a joint investigation by two Republican Senate committees released in September 2020 did not find wrongdoing by him, nor did a Republican House Oversight committee investigation by November 2023.
And then we get:
People should be able to read and evaluate the information and make their own decisions.
Yeah…fucking no. We had to stop using the phrase “Avoid it like the plague” because of “reading and evaluating the information on their own”. We had people saying that covid vaccines contained tracking chips and 5g and all sorts of vastly stupid shit. You, and people like you, are the reason that the general public cannot be trusted to determine what information is factual and what information is not. You can’t even be trusted to not regurgitate “HUNTER LAPTOP HURR DURRR”; even though it’s already a done deal. You are the epitome of propagandized.
The story has merit. That is absurd to think otherwise. It wasn’t Russian disinformation like Facebook claimed. It was legit.
You want to claim I listen to propaganda but you think a story about Hunter’s laptop with emails and photos doesn’t have merit? That is someone who has bought the party line. Not only do you lose any credibility with such an ignorant claim, but it also shows you have never reviewed anything from the laptop. You are just parroting what you read from a “fact” checker.
Removed by mod
