Threads app is today overflowed with tons of blatant obviously stupid posts about Zuckerberg and Meta "because we dont need fact checking", like zuck is dead, zuck is gay, zuck bought canada, zuck sold meta, zuck is trans - all kinds of nonsense shit people posting randomly. Like okay, the US don't need fact checking so here you go. Lets blow it up through the roof.
this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2025
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Context:
Remove liberal global affairs, replace with Republican: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgrw785585wo
Donation to Trump inauguration and more context: https://apnews.com/article/meta-facts-trump-musk-community-notes-413b8495939a058ff2d25fd23f2e0f43
Trump appeasement. Looks like he's still pissed he was banned. Meta looking desperate.
Honestly didn't know Facebook even had a fact-checker system. They are pretty explicit in their mission to sow discord and disinformation, it's basically their whole business model
They are pretty explicit in their mission to ~~sow discord and disinformation~~ maximize profits and minimize costs
With Trumpism taking over the federal government wholesale, there's little reason to even pretend to cater to the minority party. Unless there's a shift during the midterms, of course. Then Zuck will rediscover religion and insist the content on his site needs to be moderated by liberals again.
But its all just patronage. These moderation jobs are either soul-sucking gig work or no-show positions for the local professional political leadership. The work isn't a profit center so it only exists as a means of assuaging regulators or cultivating cronies. Facebook's real work is in harvesting data for Nat.Sec and gulling suckers with ads. Nothing else matters.
I entirely agree, except I don't think it has anything to with maximizing profits for Facebook. If it did, then the logical thing to do is whatever gets the most people on the site the fastest, not do something that instantly alienates a massive amount of people. It does have everything to do with maximizing profits for those in charge of running the Facebook show, though. Then it makes perfect sense to align the company with whatever political regime can promise the most bloody money for the new yacht and underage 'entertainment'.
Also, I genuinely think the Zuck gets off on being a slimy little cunt and is probably really excited right now. Facebook has always been a little too quick to go down the scummy road, even for capitalism.
the logical thing to do is whatever gets the most people on the site the fastest, not do something that instantly alienates a massive amount of people
Not true. Facebook knows no one is leaving (at least not in any significant numbers). So what makes them money is showing ads. What allows them to show more ads is people staying on the site longer. What keeps people on the site longer is "engagement". The easiest way to keep people "engaged" is to sow discord.
Just think about it, are you more inclined to comment on an image of a cute puppy, or a post where someone is spreading disinformation?
the logical thing to do is whatever gets the most people on the site the fastest
With over 2.1 billion (with a B) active users, they've saturated the market. The game now is to avoid regulatory constraints and to maximize revenue per-user, which means degrading the experience in pursuit of the most lucrative individual users.
It does have everything to do with maximizing profits for those in charge of running the Facebook show, though. Then it makes perfect sense to align the company with whatever political regime can promise the most bloody money for the new yacht and underage ‘entertainment’.
A big part of the Facebook model is predicated on national surveillance paying them for access to their data. That's what gives the 2.1B active users real tangible value - they're subjects of surveillance. Sucking up to the people who cut the national security checks is a necessary part of that model.
Also, I genuinely think the Zuck gets off on being a slimy little cunt
I'm sure plenty of folks on Facebook do. But Zuck himself seems to have largely checked out, not unlike billionaires like Bezos and Gates, now that he's got more money than he could spend in a thousand lifetimes. He's off living his best life with his unlimited financial resources, and only pops in to make announcements like this as an investor celebrity.
Honestly its probably for the best. When people started investigating the "Fact checkers", it was discovered that they didn't know anything about the checks that were attributed to them.
Fact checkers don't have to be expert on the subject, often all it requires is some googling and a quick glimpse at some research paper.
No, people reading scholastic documents and drawing the wrong conclusions is how we got into this mess.
I mean that's a problem... but it sounds like the problem gets worse.
Realistically fact checking always lies in the problem of how do we know the fact checkers aren't corrupted. Unfortunately popular vote seems just as dangerous way of trying to back it.
Huh. Facebook would never either knowingly or because they are money grubbing POSs hire incompetent fact checkers and then when their incompetency comes to light use that as an excuse to scrap the whole thing... Never!
The fact checkers were not incompetent, they weren't involved at all.
What’s next for that absolute cesspool?
Looking forward to the next pandemic where vaccines aren’t even developed because the Facebook rabble demands politicians provide us all with crystals and horoscopes instead.
We also not getting any real medications prescribed, but weights, raw meat, and some grifter's vitamin supplements.
Why should ziozuck pay to fail when he can fail for free?
ziozuck
For a moment I thought I was on 4chan, I has real whiplash hah
I'm guessing this is a cost thing. You don't need to pay for fact checking anymore.
.. still obnoxious and pushing us towards a dead echo chamber internet. Get ready for AI personalities voting on community notes.
Nope. It's a US election, Trump appeasement thing. Meta replaced Nick Clegg (a UK liberal) with a Republican (Kaplan) for global affairs lead and this came out a few days later. A few days before they donated $1m to the inauguration ceremony. Prior to this, there was talk of Trump being pretty annoyed with Meta.
This is all shameful capitulation and political appeasement. They really teaching politicians how to do politics.
In order to avoid political confrontation, they sold all those that wanted a safe space.
No, this is to make it even easier to spread disinformation.
I was in the trenches of Twitter's community notes, useful notes were downvoted in favor of funny ones, and also had a bot/brigading problem.
By design, just like Meta's decision.
Just doing what their elderly conservative user base demands.
This truly is a new age of Enlightenment for humanity!
unless you can opt out of community notes like you can turn off comments then what's the point? i'll just stop posting (i pretty much already do)
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