Researchers studying Facebook misinformation say they were deplatformed

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/05/media/reliable-sources-facebook-researchers-deplatform/index.html

by SmkyMt • 5 years ago

177 47 5 years ago

We took these actions to stop unauthorized scraping and protect people's privacy

It's not really unauthorized if people installed the pluggin for the express purpose of providing the researchers with data about the ads they received and how their personal information may have gotten them targeted for those ads. Given IRB requirements, that would have to have been made clear to users as well. Not like the click-wrap "I agree" buttons Facebook and other use to keep knowledge what users are giving to them opaque.

croes2• 5 years ago

Especially when FB banned the researchers user accounts and not prevent the data collection extension

kelnage• 5 years ago

I believe FB is being purposely disingenuous with its statement there - using the language of user privacy and security to protect itself from third-party academic research.

The authorisation it talks about here is not the users - it’s their authorisation. The privacy concerns are the advertisers (yes, really - they claimed at one point some adverts include names and contact details for the advertiser, and hence constitute private information). That’s why they say “people’s privacy” without explicitly identifying the people they are protecting.

paulryanrogers2• 5 years ago

they claimed at one point some adverts include names and contact details for the advertiser, and hence constitute private information

So if Facebook allowed ads do contain PII haven't their privacy protections already failed? And if advertisers are allowed to include PII by design then it cannot really be private. If it is private then surely users whom the ad targets have a right to record their experience.

samhw2• 5 years ago

They are referring to the privacy of _other_ users whose information could be scraped by these plugins, contrary to the privacy guarantees of their post (e.g. "only my friends can see this"). I'm sceptical of Facebook's motivations, but we should at least be accurate.

mishafb• 5 years ago

Yeah, but obviosuly facebook doesn't have shadow profiles /s

paulryanrogers2• 5 years ago

This is possible with any extension that can scrape site data or every camera ever made. Also the source of the extension can prove such exfiltraion is not its purpose.

matheusmoreira3• 5 years ago

By unauthorized, they mean unauthorized by Facebook. They own their users and they'll be damned if they let some researchers shed light on their user exploitation activities.

In this day and age, mere mortals are not allowed to do anything that goes against a corporation's business interests. If it costs them money, it might as well be illegal as far as they're concerned.

motohagiography2• 5 years ago

Is it safe to say censorship, deplatforming, shadowbans, unbanking, watchlisting, and unpersoning is pretty much normalized, and now everyone can just say, "it is what it is," and imagine they aren't going to be caught up in the next wave?

pengaru2• 5 years ago

These kinds of practices have always been normalized in the context of internet web forums. They're privately owned and operated sites whose "members" amount to volunteer content contributors with zero legal right to be published via or given access to said site. Facebook is no different.

There's a serious computer and internet literacy problem when the general public believes otherwise.

Hell, doesn't SomethingAwful let users ban others for a fee?

fnord77• 5 years ago

Hell, doesn't SomethingAwful let users ban others for a fee?

that's kinda brilliant

imgabe4• 5 years ago

There are lots of things that can be normalized at a small scale that don't work at a large scale. If you're a 3 person startup with your 2 best friends you can work in your living room, keep whatever weird hours you want, call each other rude nicknames, and joke around. When you're a 1000 person company with an HR department you need to have some clear procedures because there's lots of different people that can't all know and trust each other the way three people do.

Likewise, a small niche forum with an insular community can police itself pretty much however it likes. A global communication network that has become telecom infrastructure for all intents and purpose has do a little more justification before it cuts someone off from what is becoming a vital service.

robocat• 5 years ago

Hell, doesn't SomethingAwful let users ban others for a fee?

I couldn’t find anything that said that. You could buy your way out of a ban[1].

You might be thinking of “Another brilliant monetization not mentioned in the article: you could pay to customize your own user image and title. For twice the price, another user could pay to anonymously choose their own title/image for you, usually to insult. Want to change your appearance back? Pay again.” as per philipkglass https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14122169

[1] “When Rich put the paywall in effect, it kept idiots out to an enormous degree. It was probably the smartest decision he ever made in regards to the website. You have to put in a little investment if you want to participate and if you're a real shithead you're going to end up paying Rich like $150 because you keep buying accounts, which is good for the site and it's also kind of funny to watch really, really bad people shell out a lot of money.” - https://www.vice.com/en/article/nzg4yw/fuck-you-and-die-an-o...

jterrys• 5 years ago

There is a somewhat strange level of mental dissonance that occurs when people approach the policing of 'the internet' and 'social media platforms'.

Internet forums have existed for a long time, and for an equivalent period their moderation policies sufficed. If you disagreed with one forum, there were plenty others to take its place.

However, we've now approached a reality in which these forums have dwindled or become centralized. A much larger audience participates, and these forums have now expanded to be parts of multimedia service conglomerate megacorporations. There are no other choices, and these organizations are spread into aspects of life that would cause being banned to be quite inconvenient.

For example, getting your Google account banned could in theory result in loss of access to most of everything here: https://about.google/intl/ALL_us/products/. It gets worse when you consider that google could be your internet provider. And of course google insists everything be forced through their accounts. Loss of access to your account could mean loss of access to the internet. Hell, you'd lose access to your god damn Nest thermostat.

matheusmoreira3• 5 years ago

Forums? There used to be so many of them. They're about niche stuff, not a public space for all humanity. If they ban someone, what does it matter? It's literally an entertainment site, a hobby. People can always just make a new account if they really want to.

Social media is huge and centralized. Government officials post in there. Not having an account can cost people their jobs. It causes people to be isolated from friends and family.

At some point, the social media platform's freedom must be reduced lest they perpetrate far worse injustices upon individuals.

motohagiography2• 5 years ago

These kinds of practices have always been normalized

Yes, surely we have always been at war with right-wing disinformation. But hey, it is what it is.

rvz• 5 years ago

now everyone can just say, "it is what it is,"

Yes. Using the famous private platform argument here, if anything is in violation of their ToS, they can censor, deplatform, shadowban, unbank, etc whoever they want.

Whether if you are Gab using AWS, Onlyfans using the payment processors or Element on Google Play, the whole point is that it can happen to anyone. Doesn't matter if you scream, protest, throw a tantrum about it, etc. They have that right to do it.

andyxor• 5 years ago

don't violate the TOS if you want to use a platform for your research

also based on Edelson statement this research seems to be heavily biased before it even completed, favoring one political wing statements as "true" vs. another as "false", probably not much scientific value was there in the first place

croes2• 5 years ago

It's not on FB to decide the value of a study, that's the job of science.

And FB's TOS seems to be, don't endanger our profit.

baud147258• 5 years ago

> But the far right and far left media ecosystems are "fundamentally different," Edelson said, with 40% of the media sources cited on the far right actively spreading false information. In other corners of the media ecosystem and other partisan groups, this number doesn't go above 10%.

how are they quantifying this? Or is there link to other sources on this?

skinkestek2• 5 years ago

Don't be surprised if it is quantified the same way as the "ER filled with people overdosed on Ivermectin", i.e. by pulling the facts out of thin air.

pc86• 5 years ago

Unless you actually have evidence this is the case (other than your own personal bias), this is a completely unhelpful comment. Presumably the study's methodology is documented somewhere, it just may not be published yet.

jsuqo• 5 years ago

They are probably quantifying it using """independent""" fact checkers.

guilhas2• 5 years ago

This is a private company. As a company they also have freedom of speech. Government should not interfere. They should be free to curate their own platform. You can create your own facebook... -HN after Trump was banned, or after NoNewNormal was banned by reddit

It is amazing how fast the narrative changes, based on how people agree or disagree with the censored group in question. Do people notice they are behaving this way?

williamdclt• 5 years ago

I'm sure you've considered that maybe the people that were saying that then (which was far from everybody on HN) are not the same people that are saying something different now

guilhas2• 5 years ago

That would be something interesting to find out. One day I might crawl some controversial posts and to try and find people with most contradictory comments

moksly• 5 years ago

HN after Trump was banned…

Odd, that wasn’t my experience at all on HN. It seemed most people agreed that he should have been banned a lot sooner for being incredibly rude and racist. If anything the consensus at the time seemed to be Facebook and Twitter were cowards and wrong in that they only took action when it was free of consequences.

I’m curious to know why you felt the need to post as you did though. What were you hoping to achieve? On one hand what you wrote is a strawman argument that’s rather unrelated to the topic, on the other hand, even if we pretend that you were correct and the entire community on HN was as you lay it out here, then why on earth would you come here?

I hope you stay, however, but I think it would be good for you to stop judging people as groups. Every political thread on HN is full of different opinions and they aren’t all coming from the same people. We’re not a “hivemind” by any means. I’m Danish as an example, your mentioning Trump may just be the first time I have heard about him since Biden took office. I’m not sure where I would fit in your “HN” category, but I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t put me in the same box if you ever met me. It must be so hard and frustrating to think an entire community that you are part of is full of hypocrites instead of just full of interesting people. It shouldn’t be a negative experience to browse a social medium such as HN and if you find that it is, well, I would personally take a break, and I often do.

IAmGraydon• 5 years ago

Even your first sentence is wrong.

fortran772• 5 years ago

I'm skeptical that the "far right" spreads misinformation more than the "far left". I think that may reflect the bias of the researchers.

fortran772• 5 years ago

See https://unherd.com/2021/09/the-lefts-science-denial/ for example

Researchers studying Facebook misinformation say they were deplatformed

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