stopping of fact checking a huge disaster for society

[HeBeaverandSheBeaver]

I feel like I'm in some sort of second dimension

Any political party or radical group can get a grip of people now so easily.

Why is this being allowed.

Is anyone else feeling really concerned about this change.
Particularly with trump taking about Greenland and Canada

Propaganda will be wild!!!!

I usually just ignore bollock talk and so do most of my friends.

Propaganda and incorrect information being presented as 'facts' is already rife on social media, so if they've been fact checking up to now, they've not done a very good job of it.

It would be better if people stopped believing nonsense on the internet, but we probably too far beyond that now.

But then who influences the controls of the information etc, we had Edward berneys propaganda back in the day with the breakfast etc

I saw a 'tweet' on X from some right wing type woman who follows the likes of Tommy Robinson, saying "who like me gets all their news and info on X now? F*ck the BBC" which was 'liked' by thousands. And that scared the bejesus out of me, because X is just insane for misinformation.

It’s really scary, it is like seeing a breakdown in society right before your very eyes. I hope the Labour government crack down on these social media sites before too many people find themselves listening to the bile of bad faith actors who only want to destroy the very fabric of our society.

I think the horse has bolted on that one by about a decade. It’s been Orwellian for a while

Don't engage WITH FB, toxic

Yes but the "fact checkers" have their own biases as well. Many people have lost accounts or been banned from FB (and other platforms, incuding pre-Elon Twitter and even here on MN) when the moderation decided that what they said was wrongspeak.

I got FB suspended for a post along the lines of "TW are TW and should not be discriminated against, but are not adult human females". There was nothing factually incorrect about what I said but the fact checking refused to accept that. A community note allowing people to see what I said, plus what the mods thought, could have been a better strategy and let people decide who they agreed with.

Most important thing is to not spend too much time online, engage critical thinking and get news from a wide range of sources. I don't know how else to do it, social media, traditional media, or what. They rightly call it Orwellian but he pre-dated social media by many decades.

To be very honest, the people who believe the more extreme stuff are possibly the ones who would never be turned anyway. A lot of people are moving away from sm now, it’s no longer a way to keep in touch with people as they become more and more ‘pay to play’ and people are realising for their mh it isn’t helping

Facts don’t matter anymore. It’s utterly depressing.

I agree
I also take a highlighter to my mum's daily mail and fact check myself :)

If I found out my Mum read the daily fail, I would have disowned her immediately.

How can you tolerate that?

The whole point, as I understand it, is to remove the bias of the fact checkers and introduce a system more like X's community notes whereby people who have historically disagreed on other topics agree on the validity of the "facts" or corrections.

This aims to reduce the furtherance of any specific political agenda.

Based on what I've seen from Zuckerberg on this I'm all for it. Facebooks censorship and moderation has been historically woeful, with any discourse on controversial topics being removed for wrong think.

I don't for one second think Zuckerberg is in any way working towards the greater good as some sort of magnanimous gesture, ultimately he's going where the wind blows and the money leads him, but on the whole it's a good move.

By passive aggressive use of a highlighter ... apparently it's "just for the crossword". I'm too old to put myself up for adoption sadly

Yes It's fine to say do t engage but what about the rest of society. It's still going to affect you regardless of you not engaging.

There is no way to avoid the effect

As long as it fits their own narrow-minded narrative.

It’s not even about cherry picking facts to match your narrative anymore. We’ve passed that point. Now it seems to be more about ignoring all facts and barrelling on regardless. People just make stuff up and if you try to question them about it or bring up facts or evidence you’re trying to shut down conversation, a sheep or a left wing insert insult here.

That's kind of what I meant the facts don't matter when lies further whichever chosen agenda needs to be pushed (daily mail I'm thinking of for starters).

I find it so scary, I'm thinking of just hiding away from it.

I was initially puzzled by this but the amount of misinformation I hear from Facebook users - I don't use it myself - is amazing

so how much will it make a difference?

I agree with you OP it’s very scary
No government wants to stand up to social media companies
They should be regulated by law even harder than medical care or vehicle manufacturing or utilities. The damage they can and will cause allowing lies to be passed off as fact, is incalculable. Economies are failing, Cost of living still soaring, those hit hard by that will want someone to blame.

It's getting so bad I'm actually starting to wish aliens turn up and sort all this planet out as mad as that sounds!!!!!

Our problems are just too big

Our political parties buried heads for too long

I have a feeling something huge will happen this year and it's not a good one.

No government stopped newspapers printing utter tosh so they won't stop this either.

But who fact-checks the fact-checkers?

SM is different from newspapers in how we read and respond though. So immediate, cost free, low effort to contribute, and stories coming with influential comments from millions of readers.
Newspapers have minimum standards set by law. If they lie you can take them to court. the photos have to be real (remember that thing over Kate Middleton photoshopping a pic for a Christmas card? The newspapers wouldn’t print it. Didn’t qualify as real)
Or this is like newspapers maybe but if the whole world could print them for free and with no laws around what they write and they could freely stuff them through your door?