Just to clarify, are they developing a universal trust ranking for all users or developing a per-user ranking of what sources that user trusts most? The first option is awesome because it'll hide propaganda outlets that are universally mistrusted but masquerade as legitimate news sources, while the second will entrench polarization deeper.

And how will that "universal trust ranking" be determined?

See the problem?

There is no problem at all here. I totally trust Mark "dumb fucks" Zuckerberg at Facebook to watch the watchmen. /s

"gathered data on how consumers perceive news brands "

Oh great, its a model based on consumer opinion. And we know loads of people trust Fox news.

What Fox News says is as trustworthy as any other mainstream news source.

What stories they cover (or ignore) and what details they include (or omit) are where the bias comes from. Every other news source is the same way.

(deleted)

That isn't really what they said, unless you equate 'all mainstream news' and 'all news'.

> unless you equate 'all mainstream news' and 'all mainstream news'.

I suspect there is an error here, as most people would equate those things since they are letter-for-letter identical phrases.

Yep. Fixed, thanks for pointing it out.

(Not that any of this is relevant, I guess, since the post I responded to was deleted?)

I wouldn't label any major news outlets as trustworthy. They all have sensationalist, often outright lying headlines. They all clip parts of conversations and stories to make something sound much worse or better than it actually is. It's not honest in any regards.

How will Facebook, a brand built on dishonesty choose honest sources correctly?

Further, why should a person who build a brand based on dishonesty be trusted to implement a trustworthy way to rank news sources?

I found it kind of funny to see the link lead to Buzzfeed. When it comes to trustworthiness in news I'd rank them slightly above Info Wars.

Disclaimer: haven't been on Facebook for years, mainly because I was pissed at all those stupid games and surveys at the time.

The problem with simply providing a trust appreciation is that you continue to encourage low-value social behaviour. If you want to solve the problem, I think you should try to promote critical thinking.

Why not simply de-advantage the news and concentrate on social aspects? Simply put more emphasis on Original Content created by your "friends", not re-shares (no social added value, as the cost for creation was low) or simple link sharing (same thing, if you don't integrate a small comment or analysis, it has no social added value).

> If you want to solve the problem, I think you should try to promote critical thinking.

I don't think Facebook wants to encourage too much critical thinking, as it's business is to sell an audience to advertisers. If the audience thinks too critically, it's harder to manipulate into doing what's in the interests of FB its advertisers.

> Why not simply de-advantage the news and concentrate on social aspects? Simply put more emphasis on Original Content created by your "friends", not re-shares (no social added value, as the cost for creation was low) or simple link sharing (same thing, if you don't integrate a small comment or analysis, it has no social added value).

They've already done that.

This is exactly what countless people on Hacker News ("why can't Facebook have some sense of the trustworthiness of a news source") have been demanding for years.

I'm sure we will now hear complaints that Facebook shouldn't be choosing which sources are trustworthy.

That might be because there is more than one person the internet, and people sometimes disagree.

And Facebook doesn't need to do the choosing; they could use a mix of independent, non-partisan rankings of news sources (example: http://www.allgeneralizationsarefalse.com/the-chart-version-...).

To be clear, I don't think they'll do that, but they could.

My complaint is that Facebook itself is untrustworthy.

Bingo!

Close, we’ll hear complaints that untrustworthy users are skewing the scores of trustworthy organizations.

Naturally, this will lead to rating user trustworthiness, and filtering untrustworthy people and their untrustworthy views out of your newsfeed.

Was that really the consensus? I got the impression it was the opposite. "Fake news" can be used as an excuse to censor certain stories or publications.

The problem was created in the first place by Facebook deciding which stories to rank higher, instead of giving people the stories and posts in chronological order. But it did that very poorly and in a way that could be easily manipulated.

Now they're trying to "fix" that by exerting even more control over the stories - in other words, doubling down on the thing that hasn't worked.

The article already makes me worried about their plans. I've seen some stories recently say that many Trump supporters, for instance, have a tendency to "trust" fake news sources. So according to Facebook's plans, those fake news sources may actually become "trusted" on the platform now, because many people trust them.

Alternatively, just like YouTube, Facebook may "curate" the landscape so much, that only "non-offensive" stories will ever be shown on the platform.

Well, opaque algorithmic censorship might be the worst one.

The algorithm will probably "nerf" small papers with insufficient data and boost big ones. Papers that are controversial in some political camp will get flags and instead people will get food articles and CNN/ABC/Fox etc.

I liked Facebook's old "show stuff in order" (pre 2011?) way more.

I want a feature on Facebook that says "avoid putting anything on my feed that has been seen by 10k+ people."

That would likely include all news.

> This is exactly what countless people on Hacker News [...] have been demanding for years.

And plenty of us thought it was stupid back then, too.

So where will Facebook place itself on this list?

Facebook doesn't create any news stories themselves.

As the financial crisis of 2008 taught us it's kind of important that the ratings agency (ranking agent) is trustworthy as well.

Pro-tip: If you unfollow all major and minor news sources on facebook you will encounter no fake news, no real news, and no political commentary that links to a media article.

Totally improved my newsfeed UX though it took a few days to get em all.

And buzzfeed is at the bottom of the rankings?

perhaps rather than suppressing everything, a "trustworthiness of this news source cannot be verified" tag could be applied to the posts that seem legitimate but have no ranking.

Shouldn't they rank themselves the lowest then? ;)

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

If only there was a way to remove 'trusted 3rd parties' and allow people to decide for themselves, in a wholesome way that aids the macro-ecosystem.

cough bitcoin cough

Blockchains are shared global ledgers. If you want an individualized solution, blockchains are the opposite of that.

Social media websites aren't private.

I think in numerous court cases (at least in the US) even email is considered public.

So, with that said, a DLT (dist. ledger tech; i.e. bitcoin) is a great solution for the problems facing a publicly facing company.

There's a weird loophole where law enforcement can get your emails in certain cases without a warrant. It's not the same as being public. https://www.cnet.com/news/doj-we-dont-need-warrants-for-e-ma...

Anyway I can't understand what the use case would even be here. You need FB to publish their rankings publicly which doesn't need to be decentralized, or you want each person to have their own rankings which don't need to be distributed?

I don't think publishing their rankings will help.

The use case that I think is: A competitive marketplace to compete for the best use of encrypted data. Where each data point and evaluation has a 'cost' to the system and each algorithm competes and entirely based on pseudonyms. Since how we perceive 'trust' is etherial/intangible/ever-changing.

I don't think the solution is an easy one to create but I do think the building blocks to them are (no pun intended).

Best use of encrypted data? What does that have to do with ranking news organizations?

One must think differently if you wanted to use a DLT/Bitcoin solution.

It's not simply just a ledger.

I'm talking about every data point that facebook has, to be hashed and competitively manipulated in a global market place.

Trust is very relative but using a bitcoin-like solution would allow for the market to compete for the better solution, each and every day. Facebook's authoritarian solution won't last forever, nor should it; allowing competition through FB's data could be a way that FB stays in the limelight.

Bitcoin is rather bad for the Earth's ecosystem considering the carbon impact of building and operating mining hardware. I don't see anything wholesome about that.

It's a shame you only regurgitate information instead of looking up things yourself.

Based on the 'total consumption chart' [1] you are incorrect.

Even though many, including Digiconomist, only look at the current value. They are distorting the narrative of scientific inquiry. As, in another 10 years, in hindsight, the value of mining Bitcoin today is significantly more efficient than mining gold was today.

Gold, when it was used as a global standard, produced multitude more in CO2 pollution than it produces. Economies of scale and as people use the 'digital gold', value increases.

An apt comparison would be during the various gold rushes (hundreds of years ago). I don't believe I've seen a true apples to apples comparison. But now you know how to compare a mature asset like gold, to a new asset like Bitcoin. It's not in today's measure. It's in the relative situational circumstances that are equivalent. Also, if Elon Musk were to obtain one astroid with sizable portions of gold on it. Well, then gold's value will be debased and it will be difficult to easily compare the two. Every factor matters. Please don't act like it's a huge waste of energy, it's actually not even close to many other forms of money that humanity has used.

[1] - https://digiconomist.net/bitcoin-mining-more-polluting-than-...

Yes gold mining causes environmental damage. That's one of many reasons why it's a good thing we moved away from the gold standard to fiat currencies. Neither Bitcoin or precious metals are a sound basis for a complex international financial system.