A few quick tips for avoiding fake signing posts

BennyBledsoe said:

It's not like anybody can just BUY a blue checkmark! I mean, Twitter has to have some integrity! (this is clearly a joke as I know it's X and I know you can indeed buy the checkmark)

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Yet when you hover over the checkmark it says the account has been "authenticated".

I guess this means the bank authenticated their credit card, since clearly X didn't do a thing to weed out posers.

Ian said:

I honestly don't understand how it's permitted. It's absolutely insane, especially the accounts that thrive off of it.

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Follow the money. Advertisers still pay for dwell time, whether you are dwelling for facts or for fake news.

Recently I saw a relative respond on FB to a "nostalgia" group about their home region of New England. I clicked through to the admin page, and the admins were in Bangladesh! Yep, those Bangladeshi really know New England nostalgia. Then if you scroll back a few pages you see they just seem to know what images trigger people to respond, and they keep re-posting the same images every few months to harvest more clicks. I suppose the resulting clicks generates enough money for someone in Bangladesh to survive on. OTOH, there are clickbait and/or troll sites out there whose work force are people who have been kidnapped.

Bottom line is these things could be banned if (a) internet firms were ethical and (b) there were acceptable ways to actually authenticate identity, but neither are true. As the old joke goes, on the Internet no one knows if you're a dog.

Ian said:

Agree with @ctpatsfan77 - it's really, really bad. Like he said, Twitter at least you can kind of tell by double-checking the account. But Facebook is a 100% no-go right now. I was on there a bit ago, and it's rampant, like really horrific. Fake reports, fake quotes, where sites are attributing things that were never said by real people and there are 100s if not thousands of likes, replies, where people fall for it.

This is the worst I've ever seen it, and unless it comes from an actual news outlet on there, or a real site (the URLs are typically a dead giveaway), don't post it.

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Social media sucks. Except patsfans.com

ctpatsfan77 said:

A couple of tips for avoiding fake reports, especially on Xitter:

• Check the number of followers the account has. If it's <1000: probably garbage. The more followers, the more likely it's true.
• Check the account name. Make sure it's not something like "@AdamSchef4er".
• Check their other content. A lot of accounts post a lot of nonsense hoping one or two things hit.
• Check if others are reporting the same/similar news.

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I have been off facebook, twitter, etc for a while for multiple reasons, including their being a completely unreliable source of any information. When I do see/read something, the first thing I do is open another tab and google it. It's amazing the number of stories that are strictly rumors and speculation, never mind the ones that are outdated, taken way out of context or flat out lies.

jimnance said:

Social media sucks. Except patsfans.com

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Trying to force myself to get back on board - which is hard because I hate social media.

jmt57 said:

I have been off facebook, twitter, etc for a while for multiple reasons, including their being a completely unreliable source of any information. When I do see/read something, the first thing I do is open another tab and google it. It's amazing the number of stories that are strictly rumors and speculation, never mind the ones that are outdated, taken way out of context or flat out lies.

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Facebook is far and away the worst - and the flat-out lies are insane, especially the quotes. They make stuff up and attribute it to a real person, which I honestly don't understand how they get away with that.

Ian said:

Facebook is far and away the worst - and the flat-out lies are insane, especially the quotes. They make stuff up and attribute it to a real person, which I honestly don't understand how they get away with that.

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Often times because [1] the effort to truly fight it is costly, and [2] Zuck doesn't give a damn, as long as your eyeballs are on his sites.

ctpatsfan77 said:

Often times because [1] the effort to truly fight it is costly, and [2] Zuck doesn't give a damn, as long as your eyeballs are on his sites.

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I’m very, very leery of bringing this up because done wrong and haphazardly (and it very well can be), it could be the end of this site and others, but I think section 230 of the Communications Act really needs to be revisited. No one possibly envisioned this type of future when that part of the law was enabled 30 years ago.

There needs to be very, very, very strong deference to site owners and what “reasonable” actions to take are, precisely to make sure sites like these can survive, and allowing free speech while minimizing libel. Maybe the only regulation that’s required is like op/ed pieces with newspapers and TVs, prominently displayed saying these posts do not reflect the views of this site and we cannon vouch for the accuracy of this information, readers are encouraged to do further research on their own. That would at least keep things simple and allow this site to survive. But I think something needs to be done; this is part of the reason we’re living in the powder keg environment that we’re seeing now, which was bad enough on its own but now that we know foreign actors are intentionally spreading disinformation, that takes it to a new level.

Hammer of Thor said:

I’m very, very leery of bringing this up because done wrong and haphazardly (and it very well can be), it could be the end of this site and others, but I think section 230 of the Communications Act really needs to be revisited. No one possibly envisioned this type of future when that part of the law was enabled 30 years ago.

There needs to be very, very, very strong deference to site owners and what “reasonable” actions to take are, precisely to make sure sites like these can survive, and allowing free speech while minimizing libel. Maybe the only regulation that’s required is like op/ed pieces with newspapers and TVs, prominently displayed saying these posts do not reflect the views of this site and we cannon vouch for the accuracy of this information, readers are encouraged to do further research on their own. That would at least keep things simple and allow this site to survive. But I think something needs to be done; this is part of the reason we’re living in the powder keg environment that we’re seeing now, which was bad enough on its own but now that we know foreign actors are intentionally spreading disinformation, that takes it to a new level.

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That law needs to stay, but I absolutely agree with your overall point. There needs to be more of a reasonable effort by site owners to handle obviously false things. From a sports standpoint, that line is cut and dry. Obviously, the rest is another rabbit hole I don't want to go down.

I don't know when posting BS (false reports of signings, false quotes, etc,) became acceptable and why those accounts are thriving rather than being deactivated. That's not free speech. Free speech is about being able to express your opinion and state what you feel. It shouldn't include the right to create, alter, and attribute others' speech, or to make up events that haven't happened (signings that haven't actually occurred just to get clicks). Again, I don't want to speak for other topics (let's not go there). I'm speaking purely in the sports sense because that line is far clearer.

And the larger sites with millions of users are the ones that I think need more regulation, or at least standards, given their reach. Because if it's a blanket thing, small sites like mine will be hit hard, even worse than I'm already dealing with, and killed off. Then it's just the billionaires who will be left, which would be grossly unfair.