Facebook on PBS Frontline

[oldtimer]

Besides, this is what is really important:

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/soccer/report-man-burns-down-his-friends-house-over-argentine-soccer-rivalry/ar-BBPrVjL?ocid=spartanntp

 

[CECAA850]

5 minutes ago, oldtimer said:

Besides, this is what is really important:

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/soccer/report-man-burns-down-his-friends-house-over-argentine-soccer-rivalry/ar-BBPrVjL?ocid=spartanntp

 

Seems reasonable.

[Jeff Matthews]

1 hour ago, Zen Traveler said:

The guy I'm talking about was the guy interviewed who said "If I'm going to spend 100 Million Dollars on this platform I want a manual."  That dude was bad *** and credited to know more about Facebook than Facebook at the time! He has already been interviewed by government and may not be guilty of anything, along the lines  that spreading propaganda isn't a crime, where we agree...That said, they guy was a genius and knew/used ALL of the fake/mfg regardless if he knew where it came from--He was the guy who understood the Facebook's algorithms potential and used it--He knew that "Pope" story wasn't true but he darn knew where to send it.

Right.  We're talking about the same guy.  Are you saying the FB Documentary Part 2 connected him directly with the distribution of fake news?  I remember him paying $100 million and demanding training by FB engineers, etc.  I never heard the part about him (or his group) distributing fake news.

[Zen Traveler]

40 minutes ago, Jeff Matthews said:

Right.  We're talking about the same guy.  Are you saying the FB Documentary Part 2 connected him directly with the distribution of fake news?  I remember him paying $100 million and demanding training by FB engineers, etc.  I never heard the part about him (or his group) distributing fake news. 

I can't post any links that aren't too political in the title. Parscale was the top guy in the campaign. He is the one who figured out he could post something called  Dark Posts into those Newsfeeds I have been bringing up and FB no longer does. What he did was target ads that looked like News stories and that was part of the "Fake News" phenomena. It didn't look like an ad and was disguised as "News." 

[Zen Traveler]

2 hours ago, TubeHiFiNut said:

2 hours ago, oldtimer said:

Apparently anything that isn't far right wing apologetic misdirection "leans left."

 

If you are referring to my opinion regarding the slight left perspective of Frontline, you are not even close to how I view things.

Fwiw,  it used to be called "the press," and once FoxNews took a stance on being "on the right" and started labeling every other outlet "Left" folks feel the need to make the distinction....Now you have terms like "MSM" and you ask what they mean you get a different answer from different people. I consider most professional news outlets as Mainstream whose punditry may or may not be on either side of the spectrum--PBS Frontline is definitely down the middle.

[JJkizak]

Just now, Zen Traveler said:

Fwiw,  it used to be called "the press," and once FoxNews took a stance on being "on the right" and started labeling every other outlet "Left" folks feel the need to make the distinction....Now you have terms like "MSM" and you ask what they mean you get a different answer from different people. I consider most professional news outlets as Mainstream whose punditry may or may not be on either side of the spectrum--PBS Frontline is definitely down the middle.

 

They did leave out a key group---ambidextrous.

JJK

[Jeff Matthews]

11 minutes ago, Zen Traveler said:

I can't post any links

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/27/politics/who-is-brad-parscale/index.html

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/10/09/60-minutes-profiles-the-genius-who-won-trumps-campaign-facebook/?utm_term=.238084962fc8

 

I can't find any attribution to him of fake news.  Granted, I put all of 10 minutes into it, but nothing is coming up.

[Zen Traveler]

@Jeff Matthews Here is a link explaining it: https://www.newsweek.com/trump-brad-parscale-russia-digital-guru-637322

 

"The campaign was sophisticated and carried on in a vast scale, running as many as 50,000 Facebook ads a day to establish which ones resonated best with voters, reported Wired, and paying for "dark posts" that are publically invisible and show up in a voter's news feed."

[Jeff Matthews]

4 minutes ago, Zen Traveler said:

@Jeff Matthews Here is a link explaining it: https://www.newsweek.com/trump-brad-parscale-russia-digital-guru-637322

 

"The campaign was sophisticated and carried on in a vast scale, running as many as 50,000 Facebook ads a day to establish which ones resonated best with voters, reported Wired, and paying for "dark posts" that are publically invisible and show up in a voter's news feed."

Nothing in there attributes fake news to him.  They say he is a person of interest in that regard, but that's all.  I've not seen any reference to any false material proven to emanate from him.  I haven't even seen direct accusations of such in the links posted by you and me.

 

Are you sure you aren't wishing he is responsible for fake news?

[Zen Traveler]

3 minutes ago, Jeff Matthews said:

Are you sure you aren't wishing he is responsible for fake news?

He was responsible for sending "Dark Posts" to people's Newsfeed that was not news---Isn't that fake news? 

[Jeff Matthews]

3 minutes ago, Zen Traveler said:

He was responsible for sending "Dark Posts" to people's Newsfeed that was not news---Isn't that fake news? 

"Dark Posts" sounds like a jingle.  They say it means non-public posts available in user's news feeds.  Nothing says the content was false.  What was the content of those?  The only way you could judge would be to see examples.

[Zen Traveler]

6 minutes ago, Jeff Matthews said:

"Dark Posts" sounds like a jingle.  What was the content of those?  The only way you could judge would be to see examples.

Now you are just playing games. Dark Posts didn't start with the current situation and Facebook's NewsFeed was supposed to be from News sources that the person was interested in--They didn't realize "Dark Post" Advertising was being done on them through that outlet and evidently neither did Facebook and why they stopped it. Btw, I am not saying Parscale is responsible to the fake news coming from overseas but do bet he had connections with several right-wing outlets over here.

[Jeff Matthews]

Just now, Zen Traveler said:

Now you are just playing games. Dark Posts didn't start with the current situation and Facebook's NewsFeed was supposed to be from News sources that the person was interested in--They didn't realize "Dark Post" Advertising was being done on them through that outlet and evidently neither did Facebook and why they stopped it. Btw, I am not saying Parscale is responsible to the fake news coming from overseas but do bet he had connections with several right-wing outlets over here.

Well, at least I got you to appreciate the finer points.  "Dark Posts" is a derogatory term subject to misuse and misinformation.  It led you to believe something was the case when it was not.  You really have to carefully pay attention to all your sources.  

[Zen Traveler]

2 hours ago, Jeff Matthews said:

Well, at least I got you to appreciate the finer points.  "Dark Posts" is a derogatory term subject to misuse and misinformation.  It led you to believe something was the case when it was not.  You really have to carefully pay attention to all your sources.  

What is your definition of Fake News? In this context and not now it's currently being used. I would think when paid propaganda was coming in through a person's Newsfeed and it's really a political ad disguised as News that would qualify. You may have misunderstood and thought we were talking about a different source of "fake news" that the documentary also pointed out. I think the international aspect will be more than an interesting discussion as well. 👀

[TubeHiFiNut]

3 hours ago, Zen Traveler said:

-PBS Frontline is definitely down the middle

 

I consider The PBS News Hour to be right doen the middle and is my primary nightly news broadcast.

[Jeff Matthews]

14 minutes ago, Zen Traveler said:

What is your definition of Fake News?

I thought it would consist of falsehoods.  

 

Let's say, for example, a FB algorithm determined people in Category X react favorably to materials which claim Party X spends irresponsibly and will run up the debt.  If you run an ad disguised as news to members of Category X showing all the votes by Candidate A that involved irresponsible spending, I didn't think that was "fake news."  Now that you describe it as otherwise truthful ads made to look like news stories, okay, I can see that.  It reminds me of all those "buy gold and silver" ads that look like news articles.

[Zen Traveler]

12 hours ago, TubeHiFiNut said:

 

I consider The PBS News Hour to be right doen the middle and is my primary nightly news broadcast.

Me too. Fwiw, I have developed a new strategy that when I find a topical discussion on a site I trust I go to FoxNews and search keywords for the story there. As I reported earlier, punditry is pretty obvious but when you search for the written word it seems they try to be factual.

12 hours ago, Jeff Matthews said:

Now that you describe it as otherwise truthful ads made to look like news stories, okay, I can see that.  It reminds me of all those "buy gold and silver" ads that look like news articles

I think the "Dark Posts" are pretty well defined, but will meet you that maybe differentiating between the abuses we saw on the documentary. Maybe "Fake News" is to broad of term and it has been clouded by others using it for political gain. I gather we still agree that what we've discussed so far isn't illegal but it definitely should be eye-opening. 

[Jeff Matthews]

6 hours ago, Zen Traveler said:

I gather we still agree that what we've discussed so far isn't illegal but it definitely should be eye-opening. 

Yes, we agree.  I will say that for me, being apprised of the Breitbart false reporting was more illuminating than finding out ads were made to look like news.  I saw that with the "Buy gold!" ads that looked like news stories, and I saw through it right away.

 

Wordpress, etc. have really become so good that anyone can be a journalist, and so there is no filter, like the hiring process and credentialing.  Just start a blog and put out as much clickbait as you can.  This, to me, describes Breitbart and a whole slew of others I've seen, such as Infowars, etc. 

 

People have come to know what Infowars is about, and so too will be the case with Breitbart and the others.  Time, experience and knowledge.  It doesn't take much more than that.  

[oldtimer]

40 minutes ago, Jeff Matthews said:

Yes, we agree.  I will say that for me, being apprised of the Breitbart false reporting was more illuminating than finding out ads were made to look like news.  I saw that with the "Buy gold!" ads that looked like news stories, and I saw through it right away.

 

Wordpress, etc. have really become so good that anyone can be a journalist, and so there is no filter, like the hiring process and credentialing.  Just start a blog and put out as much clickbait as you can.  This, to me, describes Breitbart and a whole slew of others I've seen, such as Infowars, etc. 

 

People have come to know what Infowars is about, and so too will be the case with Breitbart and the others.  Time, experience and knowledge.  It doesn't take much more than that.  

breitbart and infowars have one very big thing in common.  their funding.

[Zen Traveler]

On ‎11‎/‎8‎/‎2018 at 4:32 PM, Jeff Matthews said:

People have come to know what Infowars is about, and so too will be the case with Breitbart and the others.  Time, experience and knowledge.  It doesn't take much more than that.  

Happy Thanksgiving  Jeff and other Klipsch Fans! While my wife is smelling up the house with great aroma I watched this newly released COMPLETE interview with the former head of Facebook security and he is one of those who was on the frontlines having to deal with this important issue. Of course we are concerned with what is happening here but I was surprised to learn that 90% of Facebook users are outside of the USA. 😯

 

The other thing is what Alex Stamos said at the end about the one thing that isn't being talked about in public (but more than likely during the Mueller Investigation) is the danger of WikiLeaks and information hacking--He claimed THAT was what drove Media and online discussions and is just as dangerous today. Fwiw, we saw that first hand in our own little Idaho...