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The question I’ve been asking myself since skimming through the report earlier is this: Why should I take Facebook at their word for anything? If the data is p

The question I’ve been asking myself since skimming through the report earlier is this: Why should I take Facebook at their word for anything? If the data is publicly available, then it can be verified. But until then, I don’t believe Facebook have the credibility to be taken seriously.

yupper32 5y ago
What would they be hiding? If they wanted to hide any data, why not simply not post it?
- duncan-donuts 5y ago
  It’s not necessarily about the hiding as much as it controlling the narrative. If you publish reports but leave out one or two things here and there you can paint an entirely different picture. You don’t get to paint that picture if someone else is telling it.
  - zeruch 5y ago
    "controlling the narrative" is absolutely the line of defense here.
- notatoad 5y ago
  The first couple paragraphs of the linked article lay out pretty clearly what they are hiding: the "facebooktop10" Twitter account publishes a list of the ten most shared posts every day, and it's always dominated by Dan Bongino, Ben Shapiro, and Tucker Carlson. Facebook doesn't want to be seen as a platform for sharing bigotry and misinformation, so they are releasing this report to counter the data aggregated by facebooktop10.
  - Tenoke 5y ago
    That account posts the top 10 links shared and interacted with by (what it considers as) US pages which is quite different to the most seen by all users. As the report states pages (let alone just US pages) contribute less to what you see than either friends or groups.
    - makomk 5y ago
      I'd argue that pointing to what gets shared, rather than what reaches people and actually gets viewed, as proof that Facebook is a hotbed of right-wing content and that the idea they discriminate against it is a lie is actually outright misinformation. The thing Facebook's algorithms control is which widely-shared and widely-interacted content actually shows up in people's feeds, and if you ignore that you're ignoring Facebook as a company's entire role in influencing what their audience sees.
      - Tenoke 5y ago
        Pages can share whatever they want. I can create 5000 pages tomorrow to only share Colbert. That's something that Facebook has less control over than what gets seen, and is less relevant at that. >The thing Facebook's algorithms control is which widely-shared and widely-interacted content This disproves your point though. According to facebooktop10 most of what is shared is 'right-wing content' yet most of what people actually see isn't. So really, it does kind of look like they might 'discriminate' against right-wing content if they show it less despite being so widely shared.
    - IAmEveryone 5y ago
      Yes. That’s the point. They are publishing this list, because the other list makes them look like a cesspool of forwards-from-racist-grandpa and MAGA-chums. Both lists are probably correct. (It’s not like—completely hypothetical—view counts of videos which are sort-of like the the double-slit experiment for Facebook.) Which one is more meaningful? It probably wasn’t entirely accidental that they started with measuring engagement, and everything they (and others) do is intended to raise engagement. The pivot to view counts is motivated only by their increasing fear of nor just increasing regulation. They are simply bleeding users, especially the most lucrative groups that are young, educated, and international, who are leaving the country club of social networks because they see these lists-even though their own feeds have maybe slowed down but not changed much otherwise.
      - Tenoke 5y ago
        Are they even losing users overall? This[0] suggests MAU is still increasing. 0. https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly...
- guerrilla 5y ago
  > If they wanted to hide any data, why not simply not post it? The article already answers this question. They're publishing data to make it look like they're transparent while not being transparent at all, i.e. "transparency theater." > If they wanted to hide any data, why not simply not post it? The article answered that question in the beginning. It seems like the real content that is most popular, based on other analyses, is right-wing talking heads and conspiracy theorists.
tomc1985 5y ago
This. Facebook has a proven track record of saying whatever the hell people want to hear to feel good about Facebook. To say nothing of the fact that this report seems to omit ad views and those are occupying an increasingly large portion of peoples' feeds
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wodenokoto 5y ago
If you don’t believe summary statistics of the data, why would you believe the data? If you think Facebook is lying in the report, why wouldn’t they lie if releasing the data?
- argvargc 5y ago
  It's one thing to fake or massage a summary, it's an entirely different thing to fake the whole data set. This divergence increases based on the amount of data. Your question is essentially equivalent to: "If you don't believe what the politician said about the event, why would you believe the video recording of it?"
  - Taylor_OD 5y ago
    It's also easier for someone to figure out they are faking it if they actually released the data. Or at the very least say, "Some of this data seems off"
  - rdiddly 5y ago
    If the politician is holding the camera and editing the footage, it's a valid question. Anyway you wouldn't need to fake a whole data set; you just need to employ a little bias in what data you choose to collect, how you collect it, how you process it and how you present it. Those things happen all the time. Or on an only slightly more extreme level, you could also selectively censor it using automation. People are used to thinking data is truth, but even the best data is always filtered through a human source.
    - argvargc 5y ago
      Were the first point accurate, it would instantly become not so upon recognition of the existence of the concept of delegation. The point about selectively choosing data, how to process it, etc is important, and often overlooked. People are accustomed to working with what they're given, but objectivity may be a step further back. Regardless, such things can only be better revealed by providing the data. If the goal is greater illumination, there is simply no argument to be made against greater transparency.
AlexandrB 5y ago
Whenever a company releases a report like this it should be treated as marketing copy. I'm sure it's "true" in the sense that the data matches the report, but the relevant metrics and methodology was chosen such that the result reflects well on Facebook - otherwise this would not have been released. The first sentence of the overview gives away the game: > Transparency is an important part of everything we do at Facebook. This is a marketing statement, not a statement of fact.
- BugWatch 5y ago
  > This is a marketing statement, not a statement of fact. Precisely. It's also the reason that all those cookie banners titled "We care about your privacy" - followed by 20 different dark patterns, defaulting to ON, and (il)"Legitimate purposes" - make me irate, and make me groan quite audibly.

yupper32 5y ago

What would they be hiding? If they wanted to hide any data, why not simply not post it?

duncan-donuts 5y ago
It’s not necessarily about the hiding as much as it controlling the narrative. If you publish reports but leave out one or two things here and there you can paint an entirely different picture. You don’t get to paint that picture if someone else is telling it.
- zeruch 5y ago
  "controlling the narrative" is absolutely the line of defense here.
notatoad 5y ago
The first couple paragraphs of the linked article lay out pretty clearly what they are hiding: the "facebooktop10" Twitter account publishes a list of the ten most shared posts every day, and it's always dominated by Dan Bongino, Ben Shapiro, and Tucker Carlson. Facebook doesn't want to be seen as a platform for sharing bigotry and misinformation, so they are releasing this report to counter the data aggregated by facebooktop10.
- Tenoke 5y ago
  That account posts the top 10 links shared and interacted with by (what it considers as) US pages which is quite different to the most seen by all users. As the report states pages (let alone just US pages) contribute less to what you see than either friends or groups.
  - makomk 5y ago
    I'd argue that pointing to what gets shared, rather than what reaches people and actually gets viewed, as proof that Facebook is a hotbed of right-wing content and that the idea they discriminate against it is a lie is actually outright misinformation. The thing Facebook's algorithms control is which widely-shared and widely-interacted content actually shows up in people's feeds, and if you ignore that you're ignoring Facebook as a company's entire role in influencing what their audience sees.
    - Tenoke 5y ago
      Pages can share whatever they want. I can create 5000 pages tomorrow to only share Colbert. That's something that Facebook has less control over than what gets seen, and is less relevant at that. >The thing Facebook's algorithms control is which widely-shared and widely-interacted content This disproves your point though. According to facebooktop10 most of what is shared is 'right-wing content' yet most of what people actually see isn't. So really, it does kind of look like they might 'discriminate' against right-wing content if they show it less despite being so widely shared.
  - IAmEveryone 5y ago
    Yes. That’s the point. They are publishing this list, because the other list makes them look like a cesspool of forwards-from-racist-grandpa and MAGA-chums. Both lists are probably correct. (It’s not like—completely hypothetical—view counts of videos which are sort-of like the the double-slit experiment for Facebook.) Which one is more meaningful? It probably wasn’t entirely accidental that they started with measuring engagement, and everything they (and others) do is intended to raise engagement. The pivot to view counts is motivated only by their increasing fear of nor just increasing regulation. They are simply bleeding users, especially the most lucrative groups that are young, educated, and international, who are leaving the country club of social networks because they see these lists-even though their own feeds have maybe slowed down but not changed much otherwise.
    - Tenoke 5y ago
      Are they even losing users overall? This[0] suggests MAU is still increasing. 0. https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly...
guerrilla 5y ago
> If they wanted to hide any data, why not simply not post it? The article already answers this question. They're publishing data to make it look like they're transparent while not being transparent at all, i.e. "transparency theater." > If they wanted to hide any data, why not simply not post it? The article answered that question in the beginning. It seems like the real content that is most popular, based on other analyses, is right-wing talking heads and conspiracy theorists.

tomc1985 5y ago

This. Facebook has a proven track record of saying whatever the hell people want to hear to feel good about Facebook. To say nothing of the fact that this report seems to omit ad views and those are occupying an increasingly large portion of peoples' feeds

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

wodenokoto 5y ago

If you don’t believe summary statistics of the data, why would you believe the data? If you think Facebook is lying in the report, why wouldn’t they lie if releasing the data?

argvargc 5y ago
It's one thing to fake or massage a summary, it's an entirely different thing to fake the whole data set. This divergence increases based on the amount of data. Your question is essentially equivalent to: "If you don't believe what the politician said about the event, why would you believe the video recording of it?"
- Taylor_OD 5y ago
  It's also easier for someone to figure out they are faking it if they actually released the data. Or at the very least say, "Some of this data seems off"
- rdiddly 5y ago
  If the politician is holding the camera and editing the footage, it's a valid question. Anyway you wouldn't need to fake a whole data set; you just need to employ a little bias in what data you choose to collect, how you collect it, how you process it and how you present it. Those things happen all the time. Or on an only slightly more extreme level, you could also selectively censor it using automation. People are used to thinking data is truth, but even the best data is always filtered through a human source.
  - argvargc 5y ago
    Were the first point accurate, it would instantly become not so upon recognition of the existence of the concept of delegation. The point about selectively choosing data, how to process it, etc is important, and often overlooked. People are accustomed to working with what they're given, but objectivity may be a step further back. Regardless, such things can only be better revealed by providing the data. If the goal is greater illumination, there is simply no argument to be made against greater transparency.

AlexandrB 5y ago

Whenever a company releases a report like this it should be treated as marketing copy. I'm sure it's "true" in the sense that the data matches the report, but the relevant metrics and methodology was chosen such that the result reflects well on Facebook - otherwise this would not have been released. The first sentence of the overview gives away the game: > Transparency is an important part of everything we do at Facebook. This is a marketing statement, not a statement of fact.

BugWatch 5y ago
> This is a marketing statement, not a statement of fact. Precisely. It's also the reason that all those cookie banners titled "We care about your privacy" - followed by 20 different dark patterns, defaulting to ON, and (il)"Legitimate purposes" - make me irate, and make me groan quite audibly.