Meta to get rid of factcheckers and recommend more political content (FB, Insta, Threads)

[ska invita]

My understanding is that Facebook is a bit fucked. They're losing users. The younger you are the less likely you are to use it. Peak facebook has long gone. Which when you draw the curve out onto a graph into the future looks terminal.

Since then they've effectively lied about their usage figures. Rather than being transparent about stats they changed the model to make it look a lot better than it is. The AI bots thing is a lot to do with this.
As for the metaverse...

From what I gather they've been actively choking the posting of political content from around the time of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. That was the point lots of people started leaving.
I guess they're hoping to reverse the trend by doing this.

And just to give the tiniest bit of "tbf" automated moderating is pretty terrible + theres the trauma experienced by their farmed out human moderators

'I was moderating hundreds of horrific and traumatising videos'

The BBC speaks to social media moderators, whose job it is to find and remove distressing and illegal content.

www.bbc.co.uk

META is worth billions though so there's no excuse for not moderating properly one way or other

 

[Bus Honeygun]

This is already happening judging by the amount of right-wing US shite that's already appearing on my feed. I keep batting it away and it keeps coming back along with loads of AI 'bantz' and rose-tinted reactionary bollocks. If it wasn't for the fact that Facebook is my only means of keeping in touch with a few older and far-flung friends I'd bin it tomorrow.

 

[Crispy]

I genuinely miss early Facebook. All my friends, near and far, nattering away. I barely use it now, and will probably do a performative flounce after this latest news.

 

[Lurdan]

The more you read it, the worse it gets. Talk about the banality of evil....

Putting the "let's not ban" into banality.

 

[PR1Berske]

As though by magic, I've just been "encouraged" by Facebook to join a group which asks if Kier Starmer is a "secret Muslim" and whether working class men are denied freedom of speech "by law".

Xitter is the front door of 4Chan, Facebook swiftly becoming the kitchen.

 

[PTK]

This is already happening judging by the amount of right-wing US shite that's already appearing on my feed. I keep batting it away and it keeps coming back along with loads of AI 'bantz' and rose-tinted reactionary bollocks. If it wasn't for the fact that Facebook is my only means of keeping in touch with a few older and far-flung friends I'd bin it tomorrow.

Could you not keep in touch with people by email?

 

[moochedit]

Oh and in case you missed it, Meta is going to populate Facebook with AI bots.

Meta Opens Floodgates For AI-Generated Accounts On Facebook, Instagram

AI-generated user accounts are the new normal for Instagram and Facebook parent, Meta. Here's how AI influencers and artificial accounts are evolving.

www.forbes.com

Thought they u-turned on that?

 

[BigMoaner]

.

Could you not keep in touch with people by email?

Makes me wonder how on earth we managed to keep in touch “before” (no criticism honeyman). Maybe back then not rabbiting and “communicating” all the time was not seen as negative and terrifying. Maybe we were content with the odd phone call/letter now and then.

I saw some old footage of a queue going into a rave from the 90s the other day, and what struck me is how…happy they looked. And I bet they were content with the odd phone call, the odd letter. It’s almost like they’ve created a false economy, monitising “connection”. We are now commanded to communicate every which way we look. It’s like they’ve created a need and sold the solution. Fuck em.

 

[PTK]

Makes me wonder how on earth we managed to keep in touch “before” (no criticism honeyman). Maybe back then not rabbiting and “communicating” all the time was not seen as negative and terrifying. Maybe we were content with the odd phone call/letter now and then.

I saw some old footage of a queue going into a rave from the 90s the other day, and what struck me is how…happy they looked. And I bet they were content with the odd phone call, the odd letter. It’s almost like they’ve created a false economy, monitising “connection”. We are now commanded to communicate every which way we look. It’s like they’ve created a need and sold the solution. Fuck em.

I think that the effect of all this on children is rather like drug addiction.

 

[moochedit]

Thought they u-turned on that?

Yeah they've started deleting them after they got attention

https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/03/business/meta-ai-accounts-instagram-facebook/index.html

 

[BigMoaner]

Phone rings: “Hi mate, what time we meeting at the pub?”

“ about seven”

“Cool see you there”

Put phone down.

My level of communication other than with work colleagues for the entire week circa about 1995.

 

[MickiQ]

[ trendy teacher sits on desk ] Hey, guys. I know you all think fascism hits different and woke is cheugy. So finna give Insta a glow up, no cap. TFW you wanna racism at yo fam? Bet. You can high key racism all day. Dank.

What language is that Danny?

 

[BigMoaner]

I think that the effect of all this on children is rather like drug addiction.

I have said this many times on here but what really made me rethink all this shit is seeing that if I gave my kids there screen at 7am they would, no exaggeration at all, not put it down until their beds at 9pm. Non stop. Without pause. Just not think to stop. That’s childhoods we are talking about. I noticed when I realised “why do I have to step in all the time and stop it?”. Like some decider of attention, of focus.

 

[danny la rouge]

What language is that Danny?

Youth.

 

[PTK]

I have said this many times on here but what really made me rethink all this shit is seeing that if I gave my kids there screen at 7am they would, no exaggeration at all, not put it down until their beds at 9pm. Non stop. Without pause. Just not think to stop. That’s childhoods we are talking about. I noticed when I realised “why do I have to step in all the time and stop it?”. Like some decider of attention, of focus.

The aunt of a friend's daughter was describing to me the other day how the girl, who is 11, is imbibing this stuff all day.

 

[PTK]

Phone rings: “Hi mate, what time we meeting at the pub?”

“ about seven”

“Cool see you there”

Put phone down.

My level of communication other than with work colleagues for the entire week circa about 1995.

I was always someone who liked long phone calls; but that was partly because I knew people who lived many miles away. However, I never wished that I could converses as I walked along the street.

 

[BigMoaner]

The aunt of a friend's daughter was describing to me the other day how the girl, who is 11, is imbibing this stuff all day.

It’s not even the content that worries me more than the total capture of their attention and focus. But it’s what they want to do, leave them be! I get that, but if you’re all the time doing X, what is lost when Y is abandoned? Anyway I’m a bore with it. #acceptance. Geni out of the bottle. No turning back. Never be afraid to ask what is being lost tho, I will say that.

 

[PTK]

It’s not even the content that worries me more than the total capture of their attention and focus. But it’s what they want to do, leave them be! I get that, but if you’re all the time doing X, what is lost when Y is abandoned? Anyway I’m a bore with it. #acceptance. Geni out of the bottle. No turning back. Never be afraid to ask what is being lost tho, I will say that.

Well, one thing that is being lost is that many children are not learning how to be alone with their thoughts, or how to be psychologically independent of their parents.

 

[BigMoaner]

I was always someone who liked long phone calls; but that was partly because I knew people who lived many miles away. However, I never wished that I could converses as I walked along the street.

There’s also something about feeling truly alone now and then. And not be exposed to other thoughts and images of all the time. Loneliness can be enjoyed.

 

[BigMoaner]

How weird to not have the world in your pocket.

 

[8ball]

I haven’t read much into this, and the overall urban take on this being a cynical ruse to fit in with the coming years of whatever “Trumpism” turns out to be is a good one imo.

I do agree with Zuckerberg’s assertion that biased fact-checkers have contributed to a general erosion of trust, though. Have read some right shite from fact-checkers over the last few years.

 

[PR1Berske]

I do agree with Zuckerberg’s assertion that biased fact-checkers have contributed to a general erosion of trust, though

Uh-huh.

 

[Lotte]

Didn't Facebook play a major role in the Rohingya genocide?

 

[8ball]

Uh-huh.

P’ting.

 

[Cloo]

Zuck statement translated

1/ Replace fact-checkers with Community Notes, starting in the US. ['Alternative facts are good!']
2/ Simplify our content policies and remove restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are out of touch with mainstream discourse. ['Most people are xenophobic, transphobic, misogynist assholes, so they need more enabling']
3/ Change how we enforce our policies to remove the vast majority of censorship mistakes by focusing our filters on tackling illegal and high-severity violations and requiring higher confidence for our filters to take action. ['But rape threats, nah, they'll be fine']
4/ Bring back civic content. We're getting feedback that people want to see this content again, so we'll phase it back into Facebook, Instagram and Threads while working to keep the communities friendly and positive. ['Bring on the propaganda!']
5/ Move our trust and safety and content moderation teams out of California, and our US content review to Texas. This will help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content. ['Right wing bias isn't bias']
6/ Work with President Trump to push back against foreign governments going after American companies to censor more. The US has the strongest constitutional protections for free expression in the world and the best way to defend against the trend of government overreach on censorship is with the support of the US government. ['Murca, Fuck Yeah! We can say what we like, but other countries can't say what they like']

 

[BigMoaner]

…and fuck any consequences, intended or otherwise.

 

[8ball]

Zuck statement translated

1/ Replace fact-checkers with Community Notes, starting in the US. ['Alternative facts are good!']
2/ Simplify our content policies and remove restrictions on topics like immigration and gender that are out of touch with mainstream discourse. ['Most people are xenophobic, transphobic, misogynist assholes, so they need more enabling']
3/ Change how we enforce our policies to remove the vast majority of censorship mistakes by focusing our filters on tackling illegal and high-severity violations and requiring higher confidence for our filters to take action. ['But rape threats, nah, they'll be fine']
4/ Bring back civic content. We're getting feedback that people want to see this content again, so we'll phase it back into Facebook, Instagram and Threads while working to keep the communities friendly and positive. ['Bring on the propaganda!']
5/ Move our trust and safety and content moderation teams out of California, and our US content review to Texas. This will help remove the concern that biased employees are overly censoring content. ['Right wing bias isn't bias']
6/ Work with President Trump to push back against foreign governments going after American companies to censor more. The US has the strongest constitutional protections for free expression in the world and the best way to defend against the trend of government overreach on censorship is with the support of the US government. ['Murca, Fuck Yeah! We can say what we like, but other countries can't say what they like']

Your response to point 5 has some merit.

 

[Cloo]

' out of touch with mainstream discourse' -aka discourse that 'immigrants are all rapist paedos taking our jobs while also claiming all our welfare' and 'trans women are rapist paedo men in dresses and should be shot'.

 

[BigMoaner]

Basically reads like a recipe from the How To Create Further Social Deterioration cook book.

 

[BigMoaner]

These cunts won’t stop until we are all howling at each other. Oh hang on.