
Facebook algorithm found to actively promote holocaust denial - elsewhen
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/16/facebook-algorithm-found-to-actively-promote-holocaust-denial
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lipstone
Surely the tech-minded folks of HN understand that this doesn't actually occur
under any reasonable definition of "active." This article is a clear example
of how the media twists reality due to their lack of understanding and/or
maliciousness.

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seesawtron
>> Researchers found that when they followed public Facebook pages containing
Holocaust denial content, Facebook recommended further similar content.

I can understand that being precise is crucial when making statements like
this but instead of getting hung up on that detail, the tech-minded folks of
HN would also understand the main argument about the perinicious effect of
such feedback of "similar content" reinforcing the false beliefs and
conspiracies.

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ithkuil
Indeed, often technically correct is not the best kind of correct.

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rbecker
"Actively promote" meaning being treated no different than any other content,
unless the article omitted some information about that study. Perhaps
technically true, but still a highly misleading title.

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chillacy
This is the full headline:

> Facebook algorithm found to 'actively promote' Holocaust denial > Similar
> content is also readily accessible across Twitter, YouTube and Reddit, says
> UK-based counter-extremist group

Reminds me of back when Foxconn was the big media story and every article lead
with "Apple uses child labor" (Subtitle: also every other company uses Foxconn
too)

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throwawaysea
What does “actively promote” mean here? The article doesn’t seem to have
evidence of this. It seems more like “we found a nonzero amount of holocaust
denial content”.

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uniqueid
How much holocaust denial content should one _expect_ to find? The internet
has increasingly normalized nonsense. I'll bet plenty of people, post- the
advent of social media, would think 25%, for example, would be perfectly
reasonable.

How much would one find in the pages of a newspaper, transcripts of a public
conference, or publications in a university library? Would it even be 1%?

If this new normal on social media is enlightening people and making the world
a better place, one would expect to see it reflected in the world around us. I
don't think the general consensus is that society has been making big strides
in a good direction, over the past decade.

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rbecker
Those are some fine rhetorical questions, but they don't shed any light on
whether "actively promote" is grossly misleading in this case.

~~~
uniqueid
Okay, I can't go all the way, and describe it as _grossly_ misleading, but "
_actively_ promote" uses too strong an adverb. So, I'll concede that, strictly
speaking, the headline _is_ misleading.

On the other hand, if a reader gets the impression that Zuckerberg and the
other social media CEOs, _to the extent that they can get away with it_ ,
signal-boost holocaust denial (and propaganda from hate-groups, in general),
recent history speaks for itself.

So if someone asked me to rewrite the title, I would go with " _passively_
promote."

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Ckfu
How many HN authors are masons?

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aaron695
They wanted a shitty paper on holocaust denial that the trailer park trash can
froth at the mouth about how evil it all is and the newspaper got it's clicks.

Pretty good AI, delivered exactly what everyone wanted.

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slim
they typed "Holocaust" in fb search box and got suggestions for pages denying
Holocaust. So they concluded that Facebook alogorithms promote Holocaust
denial but did not check if there is actually any reachable alternative
content for the keyword "Holocaust". I don't think facebook users created any
educative pages about Holocaust.

