News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Facebook announces policy changes ahead of 2020 elections. Parent comment

Re:Facebook announces policy changes ahead of 2020 elections by jfengel on Saturday June 27, 2020 @12:01AM (#23659428)
I don't think it's hard to find the right information. It's right up front. It's just very easy to walk past the right information in favor of attractive lies. Most of the time people aren't ignorant of the truth. They just dismiss it as a conspiracy.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Facebook announces policy changes ahead of 2020 elections by mbesto on Saturday June 27, 2020 @12:49AM (#23659586)
Oh really? Example - just google "COVID hospitalization rates". You'll find hundreds of different sites/sources all varying degrees of accuracy. This is mentally taxing.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Facebook announces policy changes ahead of 2020 elections by usaar333 on Saturday June 27, 2020 @08:49AM (#23661510)
Because it's too simplified of a question. That's highly dependent on things like age, sex, and pre-existing conditions. Population wide numbers are in turn dependent on population structure and in turn who gets it.

You see similar problems in places like /r/covid19 on reddit where people argue about IFR with few accepting the meaninglessness of the question.

Complexity is hard, but I don't think the world is better if we oversimplify things.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Facebook announces policy changes ahead of 2020 elections by ativzzz on Saturday June 27, 2020 @11:43AM (#23662516)
Because the question is hard, and there are so many answers, you can twist those answers and that data to support pretty much any viewpoint, and ultimately this is the problem with having too much data at our fingertips.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Facebook announces policy changes ahead of 2020 elections by iso947 on Saturday June 27, 2020 @06:16AM (#23660800)
It’s a complex subject. On the one hand you have someone normally healthy who contracts covid, tests positive, and goes in for breathing difficulties. On the other hand you have someone who has tested positive but gets in a car crash.

We used to pay people to take the raw facts and distil useful information. It was called journalism.

Clickbait and conspiracy pays more than actual journalism though.

[ Parent | on HN ]