This time for sure!
-Bullwinkle J. Moose.
Facebook Quietly Begins Fact-Checking Political Photos and Videos
Facebook announced today that the company began fact-checking political photos and videos on Wednesday in an attempt to root out fake news. The company announced in a blog post that the changes come as a result of Facebook’s plan to review “ongoing election efforts.”
“By now, everyone knows the story: during the 2016 US election, foreign actors tried to undermine the integrity of the electoral process,” Guy Rosen, vice president of product management at Facebook, wrote. “Their attack included taking advantage of open online platforms — such as Facebook — to divide Americans, and to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt.” Rosen said although the clock cannot be turned back, “we are all responsible for making sure the same kind of attack [on] our democracy does not happen again.” He said Facebook is taking its role in the effort “very, very seriously.”
Mr. Rosen conveniently neglects to mention Facebook’s direct assistance to the Obama campaign in 2012, and ignores Facebook’s unethical psychological experimentation on its users. So, by “same kind of attack” he apparently excludes domestic actors, like Facebook and the Obama campaign, trying “to undermine the integrity of the electoral process,” when they do the same thing of which those pesky Russians are accused. He’s not alone among Facebook luminaries in his facile ethos.
Alex Stamos (Facebook chief security officer) had this to say:
Stamos singled out “organized, professional groups” whose motivation is money. “These cover the spectrum from private but ideologically motivated groups to full-time employees of state intelligence services,” he said. “Their targets might be foreign or domestic, and while much of the public discussion has been about countries trying to influence the debate abroad, we also must be on guard for domestic manipulation using some of the same techniques.”
Stamos apparently is as devoid of self reflection as he is deficient in sense of irony.
What is Facebook but an ““organized, professional group” whose motivation is money“; an “ideologically motivated“, “domestic manipulation [clique] using some of the same techniques“? Explicitly including what Mr. Rosen called spreading “fear, uncertainty and doubt“, which they euphemized as “mood manipulation” when they did it.
Further reading, or piling on:
Facebook scraped call, text message data for years from Android phones
Promises, promises: Facebook’s history with privacy
Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News