Big Tech is supposedly working to earn the trust of their users again. This news comes to us after social media leviathans figuratively executed Alex Jones. Who, sure, isn't this generation's Jonas Salk. But the execution splattered bad news all over the digital walls. So, each head of the social media mob family is meeting in Sicily -- of all places -- to discuss how to best offer deals to users they cannot refuse. Facebook thinks the way to do it is by assigning users a trust rating. A trust rating users aren't allowed to see.

By the way, the Sicily part is made up. Humor thy name is news. But the double-secret rating is real.

I don't think the word "trust" means what Facebook thinks it means.

Facebook is rating users based on how "trustworthy" it thinks they are. Users receive a score on a scale from zero to one that determines if they have a good or bad reputation – but it's completely hidden.

I love it when my trust is hidden. It's the best kind of honesty: hidden honesty.

The rating system was revealed in a report by the Washington Post, which says it's in place to "help identify malicious actors". Facebook tracks your behaviour across its site and uses that info to assign you a rating.

If you put the 1 and 0 together, you get a 10. Everyone wants to be a perfect 10!

This is all to "protect" users from "fake news." Hidden trust ratings.

"For example, if someone previously gave us feedback that an article was false and the article was confirmed false by a fact-checker, then we might weigh that person’s future false news feedback more than someone who indiscriminately provides false news feedback on lots of articles, including ones that end up being rated as true."

Please keep in mind these are the same "fact" checkers that "fact" check satire (see Snopes “Fact” Checks Babylon Bee’s Cosby/Planned Parenthood Joke and Satire Website Babylon Bee is Being Marked as Fake News on Facebook). This hidden trust rating is the equivalent of saying there is insufficient data to determine if the chicken really crossed the road. Or if that guy from Nantucket really is that well endowed.

Let us know in the comments below. On a scale of one to zero, how much does this worry you?

And is all this social media meddling news encouraging you to flee all social media platforms entirely?

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