News People

Edward Snowden addresses Facebook fake

news claims: 'It's a sad indictment of our
democracy'
The exiled NSA whistleblower criticises the fact massive companies
dominate and monopolise the sphere of social media and suggested it can
have dangerous consequences
Maya Oppenheim | @mayaoppenheim | 5 hours ago | 17 comments

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Snowden suggests that when one platform makes a mistake or bad choice everybody else is forced to suffer

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Since Donald Trumps shock victory, ngers of blame have been

pointed in all manner of directions. The perceived failure of
Hillary Clinton, the popularity of third party candidates and the
absence of everyman Bernie Sanders being three points to be
heralded time and time again.

But in the tech world, Facebook has undoubtedly been the most
vocally chastised. From reports that fake election news got more
attention than real stories on Facebook to reports some of the
company's own sta have now forged an unocial task force to
address the problem, it would be fair to say the social media site's
reputation has not come out of this election well. Mark
Zuckerberg is far from pleased with claims that Facebooks fake
news inuenced the election, rejecting them as crazy.

Edward Snowden has now waded into discussions about the role
of Facebook in the election. The exiled NSA whistleblower
suggested that the real problem is not the fake news itself but the
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fact the electorate could News US Election Voices Culture
shares be so easily duped by it.
Snowden also said the problem lay in the lack of competition in
the sphere of social media and the fact Facebook, Twitter and
other key players are the only news source for so many people.
There is a big controversy happening right now, about this
election particularly, regarding Facebook, Snowden said at
Fusions Real Future Fair via Snowbot - a bizarre telepresence
robot device which allows you to make video calls to a screen on
remote control wheels.

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16
show all

There is this claim it hasnt really been proved, it hasnt really

been substantiated, but its getting pretty popular that
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Facebook rigged theshares
News US Election Voices Culture
election because they showed fake news.
If that was true, if that was possible, and Facebook just put on
fake news up and down their pages all day long, and we were
persuaded by that, I think thats actually very sad indictment of
our democracy that our voters could be so easily misled.
Where it true and there is some evidence that it may be - this
gets into a bigger challenge, which is the lack of competition.

READ MORE

Mark Zuckerberg rejects claims fake news inuenced Trump

victory

There seems to be no alternative to the largest services. Because

of this network eect, because of the rst mover advantage.
When you get a Google or a Facebook or Twitter in place, they
never seem to leave.

Snowden criticised the centralisation of power in the sphere of

social media, warning that the monopolisation of power can lead
to dangerous consequences. He suggested that when one
platform makes a mistake or a bad choice, everyone else is forced
to suer.
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Snowden instead proposed a federalist vision of Facebook where
Culture

numerous interconnected Facebook sites exist and can all
propose their own rules.

The Silicon Valley desire for massive, world-eating services, the

scale that takes over not only our country but all others, its
 asking us to accept a status quo where we set aside that
competition in favour of scale. We should be particularly cautious
about embracing this and taking this to be the case.

There seems to be no alternative to the larger services. Because

of this network eect, because the rst mover advantage. When
you get a Google or a Facebook or Twitter in place, they never
seem to leave".

To have one company that has enough power to reshape the way
we think, I dont think I need to describe how dangerous that is.

More about: | Edward Snowden | Donald Trump

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COMMENTS

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17 Comments Subscribe RSS

jamyskis 1 hour ago

Snowden has a point, but he's wrong in insinuating that the

focus of power around these social media is the cause of the
proliferation of fake news.

1K
Facebook is a business,
shares
News expense
its biggest US Election
is on Voices
human Culture
resources. Moderation and content control require greater HR

expense, so they keep it to the bare minimum, ostensibly in
the name of "freedom of opinion", but really because they
simply don't want to bear the expense of having to lter out all
the crap.
Not only that, but they know that their income is based on
having as many users as possible and commanding such a large
market share, and the ad clicks of political extremists are
nancially worth no less than those of "normal" people.
Twitter's the same.

He is, however, absolutely right in that the greater problem

lies in the willingness of the people to blindly trust such
unreliable sources. A product of a society in which the media
have considerable inuence over the minds of the populous, I
fear.
Reply Share 1 reply 0 likes

$BK17$ 38 minutes ago

The people who are plugged into social media 24/7 are
the ones who follow someone else without looking into
what the "leader" is really meaning. Facebook cannot
control how gullible the common populus is.
Reply Share +1 likes

$BK17$ 1 hour ago

Edward Snowden was making $200,000 a year and was living

in a Hawaiian paradise. He gave up his whole life to do the
right thing. We need more people like him in this world.
#truehero
Reply Share 0 likes

peopleb4prot 2 hours ago

MSM know they are losing the battle to control us with

propaganda so they are desperate to have the alternative media
closed down.
Too late you silly billies! We know what you are doing and we
don't believe you any more.
Just give up - you are history.
Reply Share
1K

-1 likes Culture

shares
News US Election Voices
Gibble 2 hours ago

The 'fake' news sites as reported by the Indy100 include the

likes of Private Eye and Zerohedge.
This is just an attempt at removing alternative news sites from
FB altogether in the hope the media regain some of their
waning power.
The MSM will have to do a lot better than that to regain trust.

Full list in link:

https://www.indy100.com/article/facebook-google-fake-news-
websites-list-lection-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-pope-
francis-7420276
Reply Share +2 likes

Apocalypse Now 2 hours ago

Almost as dangerous as cretins like Snowden who think they

know better than anyone else.

I just hope that when Trump and Putin become best buddies,
Putin gives Trump Snowden's head on a platter.
Reply Share 2 replies -3 likes

$BK17$ 2 hours ago

do you realize what Snowden did for the country? THE

NSA WAS SPYING ON INNOCENT
CITIZENS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He did what needed to be done
long ago.
Reply Share +4 likes

cornhill 1 hour ago

I love the people who believe that their "better"s know

best, that the powerful always, always, rule in the
interests of the best, and never, never, keep secrets in
order too hide their own misdeeds, mistakes, corruption
or blatant hypocrisy. Why on earth would any right
thinking person think otherwise when it so singularly
obvious that the true function of an ordinary citizen is to
serve the interests of the rich and powerful whilst being
kept in the dark and fed mushroom fertiliser.
Reply Share
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0 likes Culture

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cornhill 3 hours ago

Amidst its self-righteous condemnation of Facebook, the

mainstream media seems to be ignoring a rather large herd of
elephants in the room. You only have to cast your mind back
to the recent referendum to remember the wall to wall lies
carried by that same mainstream media. And Snowden has a
point when he deplores the possible ignorance of the
electorate, but doesn't specically note that it is the
mainstream media that works to keep us in ignorance.

Partial truths can amount to objective lies and quite often

stories in the "respectable" media leave out so much of the
truth that the printed/broadcast story ends up as a dishonest
statement of fact. Together with the outright lies that are the
common currency of the media world, I would suggest the real
message to be taken away from this exaggerated farago
attacking social media is one the corporaate media drones
should heed - "physician, heal thy self" or, alternatively,
"people in glasshouses shouldn't .............."
Reply Share 2 replies +4 likes

Sianna 2 hours ago

Very well worded. When it comes to the recent election,

I think that lack of quality investigative journalism, gave
us exactly what we got. Trump.
Reply Share 1 reply +3 likes

$BK17$ 11 minutes ago

That was a very analytical and intellectual

perspective. I didn't vote for either of the two
parties. Yet, i do like what Trump has done before
he takes oce. The media that this article is on
led many to believe that he was homophobic,
racist, and sexist. He was supporting gay pride in
one of their parades holding a gay pride ag. The
people he is taking into oce with him say the
exact opposite of the misleading media.
Reply Share +1 likes

kawasakiman 3 hours ago

1K got moreNews
"fake election news
shares
attention than real Voices
US Election stories" Culture

Of course it did, and that's why people turn to social media &
alternative news sites, because they can't trust what the bought
& paid for MSM spew out.
Reply Share 2 replies +4 likes

jamyskis 1 hour ago

Surely you realise though how ridiculous that logic is.

Getting your news from social media instead of reliable
sources is like buying a car stereo from a dodgy geezer in
a back alley because you don't trust Dixons. Out of the
frying pan, into the re, as it were.

Honestly, I take most privately-owned media with a

generous pinch of salt, especially in the UK and the US,
where journalistic integrity is more or less dead and the
publications exist largely to serve their owners' political
and nancial interests.

But there are sources that are largely genuinely

reliable, among them some public broadcasters like the
BBC, the US PBS and the German ARD, despite the
attempts of the political fringes to smear them with
accusations of "bias" (and, in countries with questionable
democratic credentials like Poland, Russia and Hungary,
and formerly Italy, where the reigning powers severely
compromised the independence of the public
broadcaster).

Of course, people that can't handle the truth and instead

choose to live in their own little ideological bubble can't
be helped, and anything to them that doesn't conform to
their narrow-minded worldview will be "biased" for
them.
Reply Share 1 reply +1 likes

kawasakiman 25 minutes ago

The truth is out there Jamyskis, but unfortunately

'getting to it' is becoming quite the art from.

1Kare the days

Gone
shares
of a single
News trustworthy
US Election Voices news
source, and in are the days of 'hearing about
Culture

something' and then spending time nding out
what happened yourself, using many sources.

Social media, despite it's obvious failings, is one of

the quickest ways, to 'hear about something', and
 in many cases, see pictures of events posted from
the actual scene. The MSM narratives which
follow will usually reveal as much about their
sponsors as they do about the event.

Unfortunately, when large corporations speak of

clamping down on 'fake news', the message is
quite clear...censorship.

Reply Share 0 likes

BRoper91 3 hours ago

She lost because the people wanted change, no more to it.

Reply Share 2 replies +2 likes

Apocalypse Now 2 hours ago

She was a pretty repulsive evil Witch who made people

physically sick when she opened her mouth...
Reply Share 1 reply -1 likes

$BK17$ 33 minutes ago

It isn't wise to speak for a group of people.

generalization can be very oensive to many
people.
Reply Share 0 likes

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