Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg Outlines Projects to Reduce Fake News

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Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers a keynote conference on the opening day of the World Mobile Congress at the Fira Gran Via Complex in Barcelona, Spain, on Feb. 22, 2016.

Credit: David Ramos/Getty Images

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted a comment to his home page last night that finally addresses the problem of fake news on his social media site. "Normally we wouldn't share specifics about our work in progress, but given the importance of these issues and the amount of interest in this topic, I want to outline some of the projects we already have underway," he wrote.
The importance of and interest in the topic arose shortly after the election when journalists like New York Magazine's Max Read began faulting social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Reddit for Donald Trump's unexpected win. "The most obvious way in which Facebook enabled a Trump victory has been its inability (or refusal) to address the problem of hoax or fake news," Read wrote.
"Fake news is not a problem unique to Facebook, but Facebook's enormous audience, and the mechanisms of distribution on which the site relies — i.e., the emotionally charged activity of sharing, and the show-me-more-like-this feedback loop of the news feed algorithm — makes it the only site to support a genuinely lucrative market in which shady publishers arbitrage traffic by enticing people off of Facebook and onto ad-festooned websites, using stories that are alternately made up, incorrect, exaggerated beyond all relationship to truth, or all three," Read wrote.

In just the last year, nearly 140 new hoax news sites arose, reported Buzzfeed, including WorldPoliticus.com, TrumpVision365.com, USConservativeToday.com, DonaldTrumpNews.co and USADailyPolitics.com — all, oddly enough, originating from a Macedonian town of Veles. They're not the only websites of their kind.
 
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On Nov. 12 Zuckerberg acknowledged the presence of these and other hoax news sites on Facebook, but downplayed their influence, saying "...more than 99% of what people see on Facebook is authentic."
But what people see may not influence them as much as what they share. And therein lies the problem of fakery. It likes to go viral, more so than real news.
Analysis from BuzzFeed founding editor, Craig Silverman, revealed that the "... 20 top-performing false election stories from hoax sites and hyperpartisan blogs generated 8,711,000 shares, reactions and comments on Facebook." In the same time period real stories from 19 actual news sources generated a 7,367,000 shares, reactions and comments.
Dozens of other sites have continued to write about the fake new problem, picking away at this post-election wound. Even President Obama called attention to it this past Thursday while visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. He said, "Because in an age where there's so much active misinformation, and it's packaged very well, and it looks the same when you see it on a Facebook page or you turn on your television, where some overzealousness on the part of a U.S. official is equated with constant and severe repression elsewhere, if everything seems to be the same and no distinctions are made, then we won't know what to protect. We won't know what to fight for. And we can lose so much of what we've gained in terms of the kind of democratic freedoms and market-based economies and prosperity that we've come to take for granted."
Finally last night at 9:30 pm, after Zuckerberg landed in Lima for the APEC Summit, he posted a response that seemed to take a different tone. "We've been working on this problem a long time and take this responsibility seriously," Zuckerberg wrote.
He outlined at least seven areas the company is working on in order to reduce fake news. They are:

• Stronger detection
• Make it easier for people to report that a story is fake
• Third party verification
• Flagging stories as false
• Raising the bar for stories that appear in the News Feed
• Disrupting the economics of fake news with better ad policies (one announced earlier in the week)
• Getting input form journalists

He concluded with, "Some of these ideas will work well, and some will not. But I want you to know that we have always taken this seriously, we understand how important the issue is for our community and we are committed to getting this right."
Here's the note in full:

In the meantime, don't be fooled by fake news. Always check Snopes.com to confirm that a story is true. And for tips on spotting hoaxes in your feed, check out this public Google Doc from Melissa Zimdars, an associate professor of communication and media at Merrimack College in North Andover, Mass.

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Many LASIK Patients Have New Eye Problems After Surgery

Credit: Rocketclips, Inc. | Shutterstock.com

A significant percentage of people who undergo LASIK eye surgery to correct their vision may experience side effects from the surgery, according to a new study.
Researchers found that, three months after the participants had LASIK surgery, more than 40 percent of them reported experiencing new visual symptoms, such as seeing glare or halos around objects, that they did not experience before undergoing the surgery.
"To our knowledge, our study is one of the few that have reported the development of new visual symptoms" after the surgery, the researchers at the Food and Drug Administration wrote in the study, published today (Nov. 23) in the journal JAMA Ophthalmology. [The 7 Biggest Mysteries of the Human Body]
In the study, the researchers followed two groups of people for up to six months after they underwent the eye surgery. The first group was made up of 262 active-duty Navy personnel, whose average age was 29. The second group was made up of 312 civilians, whose average age was 32.
The people in the study completed a web-based survey about their vision before their surgery, and a few times afterward. The survey included questions about how satisfied they were with their vision and whether they were experiencing any visual symptoms that involved seeing halos, starbursts, glare or double images.
In LASIK surgery, doctors make a small cut in the eye's cornea, or outermost layer, according to the FDA. Then they use a laser to remove some of the cornea tissue, reshaping it, with the aim of improving the person's vision.
Overall, people's vision did improve after the surgery, the researchers found. However, 43 percent in the naval group, and 46 percent in the civilian group, reported experiencing new symptoms, such as seeing double images, glare, halos or starbursts, three months after the surgery. [Costly, Deadly, Complicated: These 7 Surgeries Take the Biggest Toll]
People in the study were, on average, more satisfied with the quality of their vision after the surgery than before it. However, between 1 and 4 percent of people in both groups reported some degree of dissatisfaction with their vision at three to six months after the surgery, the researchers found.
The new results show that "there is no such thing as perfect surgery," said Dr. Mark Fromer, an ophthalmologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, who was not involved in the study. However, he noted that, based on his own experience with LASIK patients, the people who experience the symptoms reported in the study do not typically feel incapacitated by these symptoms.
People should be informed about the risk of such symptoms by their doctors before they decide whether to undergo LASIK surgery, he said.
"Laser vision correction surgery can be a wonderful procedure, but it has to be for the right patient," he said. "It has to be for the patient who is willing to accept any of the possible side effects that sometimes can occur with LASIK, such as dry eye or eye glare or double image."

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Igbo want presidency, not Biafra, says Iwuanyanwu

Chidiebube Okeoma

Politician and businessman, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to stop treating the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kalu, as a hero.

Iwuanyanwu advised President Buhari not to treat the IPOB leader as an important personality by keeping him in detention for months but to quickly try him in court.

Iwuanyanwu, who spoke on Friday at the National Executive Council meeting of the Nigerian Union of journalists in Owerri, the Imo state capital, said Igbo desired to produce the president of the country and not to separate from it.

He said, “Igbo people are majority tribe in Nigeria. We are everywhere and doing greatly.”

He urged the President to quickly summon a meeting of elders in the country in order to find a permanent solution to the Niger Delta problems and insurgency.

Iwuanyanwu also berated the Niger Delta militants for blowing up oil pipelines, describing the act as stupidity capable of hindering the progress in the region.

Also, the Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, who spoke at the event, said the country’s unity was non-negotiable.

The governor vowed to do everything to keep the country as one.

Okorocha said, “I see myself as an unusual Nigerian. While Igbo parents gave birth to me, I was born in the North, went to school there and even married in the North there. I was empowered by the West. For me, there is no better place to call our own than Nigeria. We must do everything possible to protect the country from those who seek its downfall.”

On his part, National President of NUJ, Mr. Waheed Odusile, said the union was happy with the ongoing war against graft, urging the Federal Government to allow journalists practise without restriction.

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AWCON 2016: Falcons, Black Queens qualify for semi-final

Nigeria has qualified for the semi-final of the ongoing Africa Women’s Cup of Nations in Cameroon.

The Super Falcons beat Kenya 4-1 on Saturday, to finish as winners of Group B.

Florence Omagbemi, whose team hammered Mali 6-0 and drew 1-1 with Ghana in their previous fixtures, were in sparkling form with goals from Ngozi Okobi, Faith Ikidi, Oshoala Asisat and Desire Oparanozie sealing victory.

The Black Queens of Ghana won Mali 3-1 in Yaounde and came second in the group.

Nigeria will take on South Africa in the last four on Tuesday, while Ghana play hosts Cameroon.

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