Woo! Getting real! Will Facebook manage to get rid of that phony deranged journalist publishing daily weepy fake obituaries of folks who haven't died yet, his favorite repeat obituary for Hugh Hefner?! These might stay around, despite my many letters to the Facebook Board of Directors, none of whom have ever responded to me. Why might this most glaring source of fake news on Facebook survive? Because his is paid advertising.

::::::::

Facebook's VP and General Counsel, Colin Stretch

Rather than this endless dreary round of articles about Fake News in the boring mainstream press and the slightly less boring alternative media, I would rather read more about what this chap has to say about all of this, a more substantive and profound exchange of ideas than the recent news merely about his selling 750 shares of Facebook, which he did last August but which seems to be big news in the Financial press very recently, on December 15.

I am sure Colin Stretch could write a brilliant article about the legal aspects of that burgeoning giant corporation, Facebook, in general terms, without giving away any secrets or deep strategies. The corporation is, however, his client, and not the inquiring minds of liberal Americans. Yet, still, within those parameters, what interesting articles Colin Stretch could write.

He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer and for Justice Laurence Silberman of the U S Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and holds an A.B. in Government from Dartmouth College and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

>>>>>

Facebook to start putting warning labels on 'fake news'

coverage on CNN Money, by Brian Stelter

click here

>>>>

Discussion from Stephen Fox:

Woo! Getting real! It is about time. I wonder if Facebook will soon get to that phony deranged journalist who puts out all sorts of weepy fake obituaries of people who haven't died yet. His favorite repeat obituary is for Hugh Hefner, and this might stay around, despite my numerous letters to the entire Board of Directors of Facebook, none of whom have ever responded to me. Why might this most glaring source of fake news on Facebook survive? Because his click-bait advertising is all paid for.

However, all in all, this is a good and long overdue step for Facebook. If they can identify who pays the Macedonians to pump all of this fake news bilge out in the political realm, they will be making real progress. Personally, my surmise is that that power is probably West of the Urals and East of Poland. Starts with "M" and rhymes with "Holy Cow"...

The actual tools used by Facebook to determine veracity of news stories and posts are interesting. I was surfing through group pages recently and looked at one ostensibly pertaining to "Health" that turned out to be made up entirely of pornographic photos of loosely clad women's genitalia with vague references to camel's feet made by individuals that had obvious fake names. I took about 10 minutes and reported each of these offensive posts as pornography to Facebook.

Some of these offensive posts were removed by Facebook, but the response to most of the complaints were preposterous in that charming corporate boiler plate language unique to Facebook:

Thanks for letting us know about this. We looked over the post, and though it doesn't go against one of our specific Community Standards, you did the right thing by letting us know about it. We understand that it may still be offensive or distasteful to you, so we want to help you see less of things like it in the future.

From the list above, you can block [name removed] directly, or you may be able to unfriend or unfollow them. We also recommend visiting the Help Center to learn more about how to control what you see in your News Feed. If you find that a person, group or Page consistently posts things you don't want to see, you may want to limit how often you see their posts or remove them from your Facebook experience.

We know these options may not apply to every situation, so please let us know if you see something else you think we should take a look at.

>>>>>as reported on CNN by Brian Stelter:

Facebook says it will start applying warning labels to some "fake news" stories that users share on the social network.

Knowingly false articles published with the intent to trick people will be marked with what Facebook is calling a "flag, and below the headline there will be a red label that says "disputed by 3rd Party Fact-Checkers" ; users will be able to click on a "learn why this is disputed" link to get more information. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly said that "we do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves, but instead rely on our community and trusted third parties."

[Mark Zuckerberg has outlined a series of measures that should help prevent fake news from being shared on Facebook. The planned controls, which were announced in a late night Facebook post, follow accusations that a flood of fake news stories influenced the U.S. presidential election.]

Zuckerberg has come under pressure to do more to fight the fake news scourge. Some former employees said the CEO's public comments even contradicts Facebook's pitch to advertisers. The site's core business is built on the premise that advertisers can use Facebook's targeting tools to show the right users the right message at the right time leading to the right outcome. If it works for advertisers, shouldn't it also work for political campaigns? Zuckerberg's latest post makes clear that Facebook does not want to play the role of an editor.

"The problems here are complex, both technically and philosophically," he said. "We do not want to be arbiters of truth ourselves, but instead rely on our community and trusted third parties."

The social media giant is also working to undermine the business model used by fake news publishers. Facebook said earlier this week that it would not place ads from fake news publishers on third party apps or websites, because the content falls under the broader category of "illegal, misleading or deceptive" content. Google (GOOG) has taken similar steps.

"Some of these ideas will work well, and some will not," Zuckerberg admitted. "We understand how important the issue is for our community and we are committed to getting this right."

>>>>>>from Stephen Fox:

For the record, I have published a lot of articles on Facebook's indelible and incredible Affects on American Politics, mostly for the good. I believe Facebook Groups has had an unprecedented effect on American Politics, mostly for the best, and that the big media and mainstream press is simply jealous of all of this fake news, tons of which they have either knowingly or unknowingly pumped out during this election.

I perceive that the NY Times (once the bastion of the highest quality journalism) now leads the charge here because they have lost so much of their own credibility, along with that overwhelming Political Cesspool in Albany, New York, not much more than Tammany Hall all over again, this time with Ipads and Cells phones, and no walrus mustaches....and so much for the Clinton Leadership Team in New York and totally ignoring one third of a million purged voters!

Isn't completely ignoring the causes and criminality in that in all but 4 newspapers a kind of Fake News? Like the real stuff is just too hard to deal with? Greg Palast was correct when he prophesied that these outrageous primaries were just dry runs for the far more corrupted General Election last month.

Here are two of my articles on Facebook OpEdNews:

Facebook Suppression of Bernie Sanders Supporters?

click here

In support of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook's Beneficial Effects on American Politics

click here

In the context of what is really going on, not this dancing around and pretending to have your patooties in an uproar about Fake News, read the real level of what hackers, censoring idiots, and cyber-criminals are capable of doing right here at OpEdNews. Be prepared for much much more of this in the coming years as it looks like it will be "no holds barred."

OpEdNews Attacked by dDOS Denial of Service Attack

click here

(Article changed on December 17, 2016 at 07:30)

Authors Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups/592985284186083/

Authors Bio:

Early in the 2016 Primary campaign, I started a Facebook group: Bernie Sanders: Advice and Strategies to Help Him Win! As the primary season advanced, we shifted the focus to advancing Bernie's legislation in the Senate, particularly the most critical one, to protect Oak Flat, sacred to the San Carlos Apaches, in the Tonto National Forest, from John McCain's efforts to privatize this national forest and turn it over to Rio Tinto Mining, an Australian mining company whose record by comparison makes Monsanto look like altar boys, to be developed as North America's largest copper mine. This is monstrous and despicable, and yet only Bernie's Save Oak Flat Act (S2242) stands in the way of this diabolical plan.

We added "2020" to the title.


I am an art gallery owner in Santa Fe since 1980 selling Native American painting and NM landscapes, specializing in modern Native Ledger Art.


I have always been intensely involved in politics, going back to the mid's 1970's, being a volunteer lobbyist in the US Senate for the Secretary General of the United Nations, then a "snowball-in-hell" campaign for US Senate in NM in the late 70's, and for the past 20 years have worked extensively to pressure the FDA to rescind its approval for aspartame, the neurotoxic artificial sweetener metabolized as formaldehyde. This may be becoming a reality to an extent in California, which, under Proposition 65, is considering requiring a mandatory Carcinogen label on all aspartame products, although all bureaucracies seem to stall under any kind of corporate pressure.


Bills to ban aspartame were in the State Senates of New Mexico and Hawaii, but were shut down by corporate lobbyists (particularly Monsanto lobbyists in Hawaii and Coca Cola lobbyists in New Mexico).


For several years, I was the editor of New Mexico Sun News, and my letters to the editor and op/eds in 2016 have appeared in NM, California, Wisconsin, New York, Maryland, the Christian Science Monitor, USA Today, and many international papers, on the subject of consumer protection. Our best issue was 10 days before Obama won in 2008, when we published a special early edition of the paper declaring that Obama Wins! This was the top story on CNN for many hours, way back then....


My highest accomplishments thus far are

1. a plan to create a UN Secretary General's Pandemic Board of Inquiry, a plan that is in the works and might be achieved even before the 75th UN General Assembly in September 2020.


2. Now history until the needs becomes clear to the powers who run the United Nations: a UN Resolution to create a new Undersecretary General for Nutrition and Consumer Protection, strongly supported ten years ago by India and 53 cosponsoring nations, but shut down by the US Mission to the UN in 2008. To read it, google UNITED NATIONS UNDERSECRETARY GENERAL FOR NUTRITION, please.


These are not easy battles, any of them, and they require a great deal of political and journalistic focus. OpEdNews is the perfect place for those who have a lot to say, so much that they exceed the limiting capacities of their local and regional newspapers. Trying to go beyond the regional papers seems to require some kind of "inside" credentials, as if you had to be in a club of corporate-accepted writers, and if not, you are "from somewhere else," a sad state of corporate induced xenophobia that should have no place in America in 2020!

This should be a goal for every author with something current to say: breaking through yet another glass ceiling, and get your say said in editorial pages all over America. Certainly, this was a tool that was essentially ignored in 2016, and cannot be ignored in the big elections of 2020.


In my capacity as Editor of the Santa Fe Sun News, Fox interviewed Mikhail Gorbachev: http://www.prlog.org/10064349-mikhail-gorbachev