Wasn't this story done weeks ago on NBC?
1)Just exactly how many people glued to an FB screen on a daily basis bother to get up, leave the house and go vote?
2)As in many battles, source reduction is the key to making great strides. In terms of "Fake News" the problem is epidemic at what used to be legitimate news sources.
3)Digital never gets anything first. Kill this problem in the nest and FB will be much ado about nothing.
2
Twenty people in a 25 by 35 foot room.. Give me a break. This huge corp. , worth close to a trillion dollars , looks like it is putting up a show for Congress to keep it from passing any regulations that might effect it.
9
Facebook became a behemoth of a social media platform by signing up boatloads of new account holders. The price of admission was a just a userid and password. Now we have an electorate that uses FB as its source for voting information.
Our response has been to ask FB to filter out lies, distortions and propaganda because the fate of democracy as we know it lies in the balance. Really ? Will we expect them to block the words of our President who on average lies 6 times per day?
This is not strictly an FB problem and they should not be scapegoated.
2
Youtube has recently become a target of similar politically divisive propaganda. Multiple user accounts are posting news programs from channels such as CNN and MSNBC and misrepresenting them with thumbnail images that suggest extreme political tones and inflamatory text designed to look as though it is part of the program. Youtube does not provide a complaint category to fit this type of misconduct. I hope that The Times might report on this.
5
The irony of this is, sloppy Facebook greedily accepted the paid for Russian ads featured in the three key Midwest states that targeted Hilary.
4
I work hard at choosing my sources of information from among the credible, I avoid obtaining information from strangers. The fact that Facebook feels the need for a "war" room means it is mainly a source of misinformation or, let me call it "family trivia". Obviously, I am in the minority, as we see by the popularity of super market newspapers. Do we want the same people who facilitate the propagation of unreliable information, to decide on what is true and what is not ?
3
I was upset about the final comment, "The best outcome for us is that nothing happens in the war room."
What will they do if massive disinformation is circulated on the evening of November 5 about closing of polling places, or other discouragement of voting? Are they ready to not only try to block that but to get out good information?
Will they put extra effort to discover efforts at disinformation into black and hispanic areas?
Frankly this looks like locking the barn after the horse is stolen. This very needed effort is basically lose-lose for Facebook. Their costs are increased and they will lose profitable "eyeballs" on the political fringes. Keep up the pressure on Facebook!
3
This is all based on the premise that the electorate are not intelligent enough to judge what is fake or unacceptable, from any source, by themselves. A really scary premise in a democracy. It is, in essence, censorship. The pictured "war room" is not very convincing. Seems like a nice group but I really want no one telling me what I can read or say. Sounds elitist and egotistical to me. Has anyone ever concluded that the "Russian Interference" through facebook changed a voters mind ? Seems we are to be told what is acceptable or believable. Information control by group of elitists.
5
@Eddie
I am not much of a FB user yet so many around me live their lives on FB and actually do get their "news" on the FB platform. Yes, I do see a lesser degree of intelligence and scrutiny of FB news feeds by users. I do see a lack of willingness to do any sort of filtering of their FB news sources, whether it's a weather report, the latest scandal, or politics/civics. Most of my observation of what I see FB users doing on the platform vis a vis news or other information reminds me of the aberrant images on "The National Inquirer" and other hysterical sources. It sorely disappoints me to see that our population's ability to think critically has been seriously diminished.
4
I'm much more worried about local, partisan meddling inside broken state electoral systems than I am about Russian memes on Facebook. Where is the ongoing investigation of that?
1
Well at least they are trying, but the silver linings end there. Western democracies (it’s not just us) are getting dumber. Stupidity feels rampant and I can not help but blame social media. I do not expect everyone that votes to have a doctorate, but the level of misconception today is staggering. Democracies fail when majority decisions are made on false premises. Facebook’s infiltration by enemies of our state is not the problem. Facebook’s existence is the problem. It’s not going away, nor is it’s more toxic, deranged cousin, Twitter, but the arc of history is hopefully in the down slope for both institutions. The experiment is over, the cons out weigh the pros. Print journalism and real life friends please over 100 character arrows of misinformation and viral fake news “likes”.
1
Given the liberal proclivities of FB, GOOG and other social media titans (witness the GOOG "all hands" video the day after the 2016 election of Donald Trump), we know who the "war" will be prosecuted against. The bias is ongoing and obvious. Why aren't these (essentially) systemic, in-kind campaign contributions required to be reported???
2
When many people who do not read the newspaper but watch TV and get their info from Facebook, if FB had done this earlier, we would not have a 72-year old Petulant child in the WH.
2
But will it weed out propaganda from both parties that play with the truth? Fake news is also making something news that really isn't.
1
Yeah, it’s called a copy desk. At least that’s how it was known in the decades-upon-decades that it was used by the newspaper business. Editors with a broad knowledge of the world, who knew grammar and writing, would sit around a “rim” and make one final check of the stories before they made it into the paper. Sometimes the top editor on the desk or other editors would also take a look. And the stories themselves were not submitted by untrained citizens, but by trained reporters already skilled in getting the truth, right down to the correct names of those interviewed.
It was a widespread concept and variations are still used in the news business today. But if the genius Zuckerberg knew about this at all, he probably didn’t understand it, and found it quaint and an unnecessary obstacle to his profitability. Hiring gatekeepers to publish the truth costs money.
Given all of the above, I had to chuckle after reading about this “innovation” at Facebook.
6
Many wise comments here about the human tendency to limit and regulate knowledge if it isn't what the regulators like; what promotes them and their economics and power.
I saw TV arrive in America and it was to be the great savior for educating the public and spreading knowledge. Of course it has done nothing like that promise. It was taken over by corporations, of course, and as the brilliant Noam Chomsky has pointed out, the media in general simply "manufactures consent." Promotes the consent of the public to the ideas the elites want and need to stay in power.
Reading this nonsense about the Facebook team, and listening to their statements and policies indicates Facebook is just another group of people, a corporation, heading in the same direction of all modern media. The "main stream media." Heaven help us.
1
Full disclosure - I am a Facebook shareholder. I obviously have a desire for Facebook to succeed controlling what makes its way to its platform, but I have my doubts.
It is set up as a place for anyone who sets up an account to have a voice. It counts on that for its revenue. I do not see that they can be overly restrictive and continue to produce significant revenue. In that regard I hope I’m missing something.
I believe that Facebook users need to be smart and patient with what they run with as presented on Facebook.
History is replete with fake news/rumors that attained agency and had devastating outcomes. I point to the Salem Witch trials 1692/1693 and the false rumors and grudges that led up to them and in the process destroyed innocent people.
To stop the spread of fake news, it's more important and effective to filter its spread, than stop its creation. As Moriuchi says, "foreign influence operations have changed... their focus...[is] on augmenting stories already out there which speak to hyperpartisan audiences.” To control the spread of foolishness and hate, we need to to augment the wisdom of crowds with smarter filtering algorithms that Rate the Raters and Weight the Ratings to know what to promote and what to ignore. More on that at http://bit.ly/AugmWoC.
1
Witch hunting enjoys a venerable tradition here in America, and be it by torchlight or algorithm, the intent has always been the same: the elite's quest to root out threats to its dogma and expunge so-called "danger" to the peace, order and good government of the people. You will note that to the current list of our witches we see here now slipped in "Iranians". Misleading and false news can be dangerous when it leads to death and destruction. Sad to say the last and historically most catastrophic example was the "news" of Iraqi WMDs. To our mass media: physician, heal thyself.
3
Maybe Facebook should take a long vacation prior to elections. Shut down completely for 6 weeks. Added bonus - cold turkey might effectively detox FB addicts.
10
does the "war room" really have a printout that says "war room" on the door?
“If you look at the way that foreign influence operations have changed these last two years, their focus isn’t really on propagating fake news anymore,” Ms. Moriuchi said. “It’s on augmenting stories already out there which speak to hyperpartisan audiences.”
This quote shows a mentality that is about 4 years behind reality. Thanks for the monthly dispatch from We are going to do better, really, Valley.
1
Recent history teaches us that the best understanding of this company's behavior comes with the most cynicism. Misinformation is a source of significant profits. In an ideal world - for the company - it would deflect regulation with showy stuff like the war room and self report significant success in limiting "old school" misinformation while actually doing little to limit evolved misinformation.
6
This isn't going to help, or not much.
The largest misconception is that fake news sources are trying to manipulate the platform - that is simply not true. They're trying (and succeeding) to manipulate PEOPLE. If someone can't spot a fake Facebook account, or unwilling to spend the extra 60 seconds it requires to determine the truth of a post, they shouldn't use Facebook. Or Twitter. Or whatever else.
Facebook can try and get ahead, but it's like going down into the Titanic with a bucket.
What they SHOULD do is invest resources in educating people. And the same goes for any other digital (or otherwise) communications platform, governments, NGOs, etc. Facebook isn't the weak link, the people are. Technology has gone past of our ability to use it, and while we can't take or rein that back (and we shouldn't, either) we CAN do our best to match it. Right now the majority of people aren't even doing the bare minimum. Or anything at all.
8
What new wedge issues or sleeper issues were exploited in 2016? Our system pushes divisive issues to the fore. There's nothing left for oppressive regimes to work with. Our politicians have beaten them to it. It is totalitarian systems that fear foreign meddling.
2
Is this the same War Room where Facebook pitched the idea to both the Clinton and Trump campaigns to embed their people into their campaigns to fully exploit FB's political potential in 2015-16? Trump's people agreed and went on the raise approx. 280 million dollars. Is this the same War Room where Donald trumps campaign asked for a got a targeted suppress the vote operation he targeted Ideological liberals, Women, & African Americans influence them into not voting? Is this the War Room that, According to Bloomberg Financial, Trumps Director of Online Media was quoted saying: "Without Facebook we wouldn't have won.." If it's that War Room...No Thank You.
To be fair Facebook did effectively lobbied the US Congress to be exempt from influencing political campaigns so it's not all FB's fault. The bigger question should be why is Facebook being allowed to do anything that doesn't have the oversight related to elections as traditional media does in this country especially after 2016? I'm beginning to think it's time to clean house at all levels of government at the midterms. We've looking at the same election disfunction we had two years ago and everyone in American knows 2020 is going to be chaos already.
3
As someone that’s spent 20 years working in the valley, this all sounds very vague. It doesn’t give me any confidence that Facebook knows how to get a grip on this problem. However, one thing we can all be certain about it Facebook seems to be more than eager and willing to accept paid advertising with very little to no regard for the content of said advertising, which is part of the cause of this entire problem. Until Facebook stops taking advertising on political and social issues it will never solve this problem.
6
Sure looks like a room full of Trump supporters to me.
3
An incredibly inadequate, almost cartoonish response to a very real and malignant set of threats by Real Bad Guys, staged by a cadre of rich, socially clueless geeks who are totally unprepared (and probably incapable) of protecting the rest of us. I don’t want the defense of our democracy orchestrated by a Gen Xer in a designer hooded sweatshirt.
Zuckerberg’s grandiosity and ambition have always exceeded his Emotional Intelligence, as well as his integrity. Anyone who thinks he has the best interests of users at heart is naive to a fault. Not even hiring Sheryl Sandberg to be Facebook’s chief empath can begin to compensate for the chips he has missing from his brain where his sense of ethics and social responsibility should be located.
Facebook should be operating now in close consultation with the best minds in US security and intelligence, in government or otherwise. FB has been a loose cannon long enough, insinuating itself into all niches of online life - including major “independent” news and science venues, and including the Times.
Narcissist geeks and mercenaries like Zuckerberg and Assange have way too much power - in some ways even more than our crazy president. Congress, the FCC and others are hamstrung by their own cowardice and incompetence. The barn door is wide open on our national security, and Facebook is the last organization we should trust to keep us safe from Russia and other real threats to our democracy.
23
Nice "War Room" sign--guess six pieces of tape should hold that in place.
4
Facebook has 2.2 billion users globally - Facebook has about 20,000 employees.....they can’t possibly control fake accounts, foreign disinformation, data weaponization, or anything else on their “platform”. They are in business of data mining and selling that data to whomever will pay. I fear the worst is yet to come.
The thing that really gets me though is people who complain about Trump, but still use Facebook. If you are on Facebook, then you are part of the problem. Delete Facebook now !!
5
What a joke. They can’t get rid of unrelenting weight-loss spam ads, their algorithm is laughably off-base, the geniuses can’t fix the most obvious problems, but they’ll take on the Russians. Right.
7
Zuckerberg is just interested in advertising revenue. "Senator, we sell ads" says it all. Read the article about him in last week's The New Yorker. He pretends he is on top of everything and has this global vision and understanding, but his company is just being taken for a huge ride by the Russians and any other country/person which wants to spread false news. And anyone with a FB account is involuntarily buying in to it. He is as much a creep as Trump. If you have a FB account, the best thing you can do is, DELETE IT. You are being sold to the world.
8
This may be superficial, but I can't believe that Facebook is taking the idea of a 'War Room' seriously when they use that font, in that color, on that paper, on that door, in that colored wall.
9
Leaving Facebook a year or so ago was one of the best decisions I ever made. I had been on it since it was very new- back when it was only for college students and the most exciting thing about it was to get a picture of a giant hand, saying a friend had “poked” you.
It has dissolved into an ugly chat room full of everyone’s worst inclinations. Unproductive communication. Time-suck. Brain-waster. Socially isolating while giving the dopamine hit to make you feel close, for even a moment.
13
Something's still quite rotten in the land of faceplace.
I have been receiving ads from the President and his "take this media survey" for days. Pretty sure it was a fake account. I finally blocked the widget pushing the ad; after blocking that person multiple times, that MAGA page, I still kept seeing it. Live Troll Action! Trust me, I did not subscribe to that nor have I ever "liked" it.
Facebook doesn't get it. Hell, the young people that will try to fix it don't even use the site anymore. Facebook is for "old people" say my kids.
Facebook can't handle this problem, there are not systems in place to truly address the issue of Trolls. This is just lip service. Twenty people? Seriously. For millions upon millions of posts a day. Do the math, it's not feasible.
6
“... safeguarding elections”. The price of access is clearly collusion. What a ridiculous moniker. Facebook is the company that has weaponized propaganda. It’s pure hubris to claim a mere algorithm can sift truth from falsehood. Facebook threatens our democracy, it doesn’t safeguard it.
6
So is Facebook going to root out fake news like ‘Saddam has weapons of mass destruction’ and ‘Medicare for All would cost more than the current system’?
Yeah, didn’t think so......
14
I'm glad to see that they are doing something. Censoring propaganda from foreign actors seems a reasonable task. I've learned that many will find other ways to find fake news if it provides confirmation (bias) for their beliefs.
In a world that has no boundaries to readily define truth vs untruth, isn't what FBs War Room strategy the ultimate in social engineering? They don't want to say exactly what their methods are but lacking a clear understanding of their rules, anyone who expresses an opinion/idea/thought they don't like will be expelled. This is scary.
18
It’s still a private company. If it were a govt agency transparency could be demanded. Since not, if you use the platform you are subject to their discretion. Don’t like it? Don’t use FB.
1
Lots of comments here stating "There are 2 Billion users and only 20 employees working on improving this situation? how is it going to make any difference!?" don't seem to understand how social networks work from a technology point of view. By flipping a few parameters in the algorithms and Databases that populate the content of what the users can see, they can completely bury certain content lowering its impact. The whole thing is just a matter of finding patterns. It's not like they have to read everything and choose manually what's fake and what's not. It's a matter of finding certain patterns (origin of the shared article, amount of grammar and spelling mistakes, etc...). Take a look at the NY Times recent article where they present a test to check if you can figure out which news are fake and which ones are not, there's definitely some repeating patterns. And yes, the armies of trolls will find ways eventually to bypass those new checks, but by the time they do this particular important election will be over and the users that need to be guided like little toddlers through the sketchy posts hopefully won't be fooled as easily as they were in the 2016 US election.
14
Oh, the poor, clueless little Users!! This is one user who has performed the ultimate low-tech but effective feat: I closed my frigging account! Whoever decided that FB would be the world’s greatest social network?? Not I...
7
Twenty people and one conference room? Reports are at one time Russia's Internet Research Agency (troll farm) had 1000 working at one building, and more working remotely. Somehow I don't think Facebook's room of 20 people will be very effective at countering this (though I've heard they're also working on automated detection). And it's not really in Facebook's interest to counter this, because they make money off user engagement, which may decrease if all this provocative content is removed.
5
Why are we having a private company safeguard our elections. Shouldn’t that be a function of government?
35
@Scott D
Because people have logged on and signed up and given them lots and lots of data. So now they have us over a barrel. They can manipulate and sell that data and target their users. So now it's a dangerous tool.
The solution is very, very simple: delete your account. Decide to not be their victim.
27
Sorry to say this, but this is going to fail.
trollers will figure out the ways to skirt whatever 'protective measures' again and again.
And that's not facebook's fault. there is no entity in this planet to block all misinformation&slanders--as it is often really hard to tell it apart from conflicting views. human language is so subtle. unless you block facebook as a whole(like china), it's basically an impossible task.
the best alternative for us as customers is simply stop using these kinds of services. it's unfortunate that this is not facebook's fault, but that's not a good reason for us to keep using it.
13
This will go wrong and we can’t afford it! Zuckerberg will be appearing before Congress again!
Too little, too late...I've been seeing Russian bots all over the place for months. Why can't they just verify users?
7
@Aaron
You can only see them if you have an account. Why do you have an account?
4
Facebook:
75 Billion dollars
900 Engineers
2.2 Billion users
0 ethics
35
"20 focused on rooting out disinformation"
2,230,000,000 subscribers to Facebook and 20 in the War Room to defend us from disinformation. Wonder how that wars going to turn out?
God help us!
17
Is there fighting allowed in the War room?
1
@Dundeemundee I saw what you did there. Ha!
I am not hopeful this "War Room" will make a difference. A few days ago, I notified Facebook of a fake Robert Mueller account. As of now, it is still up and I have gotten no response from Facebook about it. This is proof to me this "War Room" is Kabuki Theatre
24
I deleted my facebook account in July. Haven't felt better. It wasn't just the news. it was the constant barrage of politics from my friends, every day, all the time.
People I had previously liked I found myself not liking. Obscure "friends" from that I thought were emotionally unstable back in college were still emotionally unstable as adults, but now were on my page every day promoting their fringe beliefs.
People I cared about would lash out at the world when they were hurting and sometimes they would lash out at things that I cared about for ideological reasons.
Facebook was sickening and demoralizing and I don't know how I had missed that for so long. I am so glad I am out of it.
I periodically have to log in to access other websites that use Facebook as a login. And I still use Messenger almost every day.
But I believe that the twin toxicity of the Facebook Newsfeed and the rise and dissemination of Gawker style clickbait journalism are the root cause of 99% of the hyper-partisanship these days.
45
"I periodically have to log in to access other websites that use Facebook as a login."
Wait, those don't support email logins like non-broken websites? Report that bug to each and every one, and make sure you won't visit them if they don't fix it.
If they're just more marketing websites ("social networks"), or Instagram or WhatsApp, quit them anyway. Don't help Zuck and "the social" hurt America.
Step one: boot Trump off.
Step two: boot my brother in law off.
Step three: oh? That won't fix it?
Step four: fine, wreck another election.
3
The human tendencies- to insist on finding order and to easily abandon clear thinking- are partial explanations of the attractiveness of conspiracy theories which rationalize events and provide a sense of control. But, more than this, individuals subscribing to a conspiracy theory are often tenacious in their belief. That tenaciousness suggests an opportunity: that a warning about misleading information on the internet be the first page seen on beginning Facebook or Twitter, that warning being cast in the shape of a conspiracy theory, hoping thereby to generate an instrument which would be attractive and tenacious. For example:
WARNING: This is an uncensored discussion site. Freedom of speech allows dangerous groups to use this site to manipulate you, the reader, with half-truths and lies. You are a potential victim.
The warning could be focused on particular groups of readers. For example, there was recent misuse of WhatsApp in India: false reports of child molestation led Hindus to mob violence and murder. That site might have a warning that would include “ Muslim extremists have been fomenting violence with fictitious information. You are a potential victim of this disinformation.”
Facebook and Twitter aver strong interest in preventing their sites from being used by conspiracy theorists and would possibly volunteer to incorporate such warnings. The warning could be mandated by legislation.
3
Just finished the New Yorker piece about Facebook in the Sept 17 issue. Absolutely astonishing stuff.
Not a pretty picture of either Zuckerberg or Sandberg.
My conscience couldn't handle it. I posted a buh-bye to my friends and deleted my account.
32
So heartwarming to know our fate is in the hands of an evil corporation.
Delete your accounts, folks. Starve the beast. In the name of patriotism. Too much is at stake.
15
And in the hands of twenty-somethings. Did you see the faces on those kids in the war room. Let’s hope they’ve at least taken civics.
8
They are really throwing everything they have at this aren't they!
I'm done with this company, as much as I can be.
8
Since November 2016 I’ve only used Facebook when I absolutely have to. Last night I had to go on for the first time in months, and I have to say, I’m not sure why I used to spend so much time there.
5
This is bound to go badly isn’t it?
7
Twenty people? Unless these 20 people can work 24/7, that’s three or four people at any given moment. And they are also monitoring Brazil ‘and other countries’. You couldn’t say ‘like last time, we are going to do absolutely nothing’ more clearly.
I hope this company is being looked at in Mueller’s investigation.
38
There is no election war room. There is only a blue-painted smallish conference room with a sign on the door for us to feel assured. It didn't work.
29
@Tom J, I agree. It looks like a small room in the basement a building. Most likely their Milton Waddams cube.
5
With a cute “War Room” sign. It looks like a set for a Saturday Night Live skit.
10
Why not just wind up the company and let Americans who have muted ads since the 1980s win?
8
It’s not finished because they don’t want it to be. Money, resources, access are unlimited - desire - nil
If they did it right they would lose a significant number of users, advertising and clicks they count
16
I’d like to see Facebook and Twitter go on hiatus for the 2 weeks before the election. Second best: Block all political posts or ads for the 2 weeks.
68
Facebook and Twitter just spewed coffee through their noses laughing at this comment!
1
A great idea! Other nations take a “pause” where no campaign ads are allowed over the airwaves, so why not here and now with Facebook?
5
I would like to see us go on hiatus.