I disagree - It's a private company's prerogative to display whatever content they wish - A competitor could choose to suppress liberal articles.
As long as they are not breaking any relevant speech laws, then I see nothing wrong with their actions. If we shut down all biased media, all we'd really be left with is the BBC (although a large number of people would disagree here)
> It's a private company's prerogative to display whatever content they wish
True, but it could be argued that users are reasonable in assuming that Facebook is a neutral or automatic platform, not manually manipulating content to achieve political goals. If that is true the ethics of misleading millions of people is at best questionable.
It is perfectly possible to affirm that a company has the legal right to do whatever they wish, while at the same time arguing that you find it disgraceful.
Specifically with regards to Facebook, they position themselves as a platform and not as a publisher, so it's not that strange that they're being held to the standards that we expect from a platform, of which neutrality is a big one.
They absolutely have a right to display what they want. However, just as Fox News gets slammed for claiming to be "fair and balanced", Facebook should be shown the same contempt for claiming their news is in any way an actual representation of what is trending on Facebook. They have a right to do it, but that doesn't mean users have to be ok with it. Furthermore, I would much rather have a biased editorial process that is run by people that have at least been exposed to so form of media ethics, than a bunch of tech managers telling recent Ivy-league graduates what to curate.
Gizmodo is part of the Gawker empire. Their writers overlap and all push for click bait. I dislike their sites except for Deadspin because I don't mind reading trashy sports news.
It has been blatantly clear something is up with their Trending algorithm when you notice there is a Trending: Hillary Clinton header on top of every single shared Bernie Sanders article. Never once have I seen a Trending: Bernie Sander header.
Given Facebook's influence and the sheer size of their userbase, the potential long-term implications of this particular kind of manipulation are... unsettling.
It's ironic. Silicon Valley is all about question the authorities. Ask why.
And now we hear stories like these Orwellian like practices...
This will be another interesting topic historians will examine years from now. What happens when an outsider/outcast/underdog group becomes the insiders/powerful. Do they act like tycoons in the past (using power to preserve itself) or keep true to the spirit of outsider/outcast that may lead to its demise?
I vote for Silicon Valley powers becoming like the past tycoons.
For anyone interested in this shift in power, check out futurist Alvin Toffler's Powershift.
His thesis is that the pinnacle of power throughout time as technology has evolved has shifted from brute strength, to money in the industrial age, and now finally to information in the post-industrial age which we live in now.
I once watched a group of pigeons in a park fight for food. The biggest pigeon bullied all the other pigeons. I thought that was unfair... he was getting all the food. So I shooed him away. Immediately afterwards, one of the formerly bullied pigeons became the new bully.
Power is a funny thing... and I suspect people aren't so different than other animals in this regard.
I suspect this is more a result of the media's heavy pro-Clinton bias rather than any overt attempt by Facebook. Remember that the mainstream media is ultimately the primary driver of these algorithms.
That's really a pretty useless analysis. By that metric, the media had an overwhelming bias towards Lincoln Chaffee.
In fact, it directly supports the scenario the OP brought up. Frequently Bernie Sanders will bring something up and then the media focuses its article on Hillary's response (even if that article might sometimes be unflattering).
What this shows is the media has a positive bias towards Kasich and Sanders, neither of which were received as such by voters. What it also shows is media bias doesn't always win votes or elections.
> What this shows is the media has a positive bias towards Kasich and Sanders, neither of which were received as such by voters.
No, what it shows is that the media writes way more articles about Clinton, positive and negative.
Imagine the media writes 2 articles about Sanders, one negative and one positive. And then it writes 20 about Clinton, 11 negative and 9 positive. Who is it biased in favor of?
From an extremely pure free-market conservative/capitalist approach, sure, there is nothing wrong with this, they can do what they want.
From a basic governmental regulation (Hayek) monopoly approach, FB is the incumbent and it will be extremely difficult for anyone else to gain a foothold here. Regulation ought to make it easier for others to approach the space. They are the single biggest voice in the news at this point, and whatever stances they support has an inestimable advantage in ways that far outstrip campaign finance contributions or lobbying. They may have to be governmentally disrupted to keep their power from becoming too great.
From a consumer labeling perspective, Facebook is profiting off improperly calling articles "trending" that are just their preferred way to view the world.
I just wonder if these articles go far enough to collapse any trust.
To your point, back in the day, I was having lunch with David Boies (yeah, I know, name dropping, but relevant) and re: Microsoft he said that his position was that EVERY company should have the opportunity to become a monopoly, but then to not be able to use that power of monopoly to deny that chance to others.
My concern with regulatory or judicial constraints here is -- they're always too late. Be it IBM in the 60s or ATT in the 80s or Microsoft in the late-90s/early-2ks, by the time the government gets around to doing anything, the company is already being eroded from beneath.
I think the only (national) example I can think of, in the US, is AT&T, which was able to keep their position because of government licensure. i.e. Natural monopolies don't occur as often as people claim. Incumbency buys patrimony.
Maybe this should go to GP: IF a monopoly arises, AND that entity takes advantage of their monopoly position (reduced quality for price, outrageous margins) almost always, a challenger will appear. And get funded.
If this was a partisan media outlet like CNN, NBC/MSNBC, ABC, etc etc ad nauseam or FOX news (is there any other conservative network?), then yeah this would be expected.
The issue here is for the 'unsuspecting user' Facebook doesn't present itself as a partisan resource.
There's nothing 'wrong' with this per se as long as the user understands who they are dealing with, which articles like this one help in that respect.
> FOX news (is there any other conservative network?)
Not on TV. Fox Business has quite a lot of libertarians (and some really, really devote Trump supporters). CNN did hire some conservatives who are actual conservatives recently (e.g. Mary Katharine Ham), but it really doesn't change the editorial.
Some newspapers have well known left or right leanings. But its declared and out in the open. Most people thought Facebook news was organically trending. That's the difference here.
Protocol #12:4 - “NOT A SINGLE ANNOUNCEMENT WILL REACH THE PUBLIC WITHOUT OUR CONTROL. All news items are received by a few agencies from all parts of the world. These agencies will be entirely in our control and will give publicity only to what we dictate to them.”
>The former curators, all of whom worked as contractors, also said they were directed not to include news about Facebook itself in the trending module.
Heh, not really a big surprise to me. Rule probably doesn't apply to whenever MZ makes a big announcement though. Betting those got stuck high in the rankings from day 1. Anyway, sounds about right for any image-protective service, or, you know, typical state-run-media censorship.
Interesting, just last week my friend and I were debating how much Google and Facebook can influence an election.
We agreed it would be catastrophic if either decided to lean one way or the other...
Facebook is essentially suppressing free speech. Although, it has somewhat a right to do what it wants, it is skewing what other people share with one another (which is a big deal)
> conservative stories which aren't corroborated by mainstream sources.
Conservativism is mainstream. Part of the problem is that many people who are not conservative have been lead to believe that it is a marginal/extreme ideology. It is not. It may be a majority ideology, but it is at a bare minimum a the second most common.
For what it's worth I don't consider myself a conservative.
Last I checked (can't find the stats on mobile), conservatives represented 65+% of the vote in the U.S. However, they are significantly less likely to vote, many living in a rural area.
> Last I checked (can't find the stats on mobile), conservatives represented 65+% of the vote in the U.S.
That's basically never been even close to the case. Polling from earlier this year had a 37%/35%/24% conservative/moderate/liberal split [1], with "conservative" having a high since 1992 of 40%.
The 'conservatism' espoused by a plurality of Americans is not necessarily the 'conservatism' of Breitbart and Red State. The activist left and right on the Internet are a small minority of even politically involved people. It is dangerous to assume that these outlets represent a substantial proportion of voters.
I never said that conservatism can't be mainstream. There are plenty of conservative outfits that are part of the mainstream (the WSJ, for example).
Brietbart, however, is not mainstream. Even many Republicans dislike it. Facebook also shouldn't include articles from dubious/questionable liberal equivalents like the Daily Kos.
Keep in mind that this allegation is coming from a single conservative curator who no longer works there.
And even he seems pretty indecisive about it being an institutional bias: "I’d come on shift and I’d discover that CPAC or Mitt Romney or Glenn Beck or popular conservative topics wouldn’t be trending because either the curator didn’t recognize the news topic or it was like they had a bias against Ted Cruz."
If Facebook is trying to suppress conservative news, they're doing a terrible job of it. I see far more Trump than I would like.
Apparently it's not coming from a single curator. The manipulation of the trending section was much wider spread than that:
"Several former Facebook “news curators,” as they were known internally, also told Gizmodo that they were instructed to artificially “inject” selected stories into the trending news module, even if they weren’t popular enough to warrant inclusion—or in some cases weren’t trending at all. The former curators, all of whom worked as contractors, also said they were directed not to include news about Facebook itself in the trending module."
The article then mentions a second curator that also admits anti-conservative bias:
"Another former curator agreed that the operation had an aversion to right-wing news sources. 'It was absolutely bias. We were doing it subjectively. It just depends on who the curator is and what time of day it is,' said the former curator."
> Keep in mind that this allegation is coming from a single conservative curator who no longer works there.
This is false, the headline even alludes to it being more than a single source. The entire article uses plural terms and refers to 'several.' I think you read the lede, but skipped the rest.
> Other former curators interviewed by Gizmodo denied consciously suppressing conservative news, and we were unable to determine if left-wing news topics or sources were similarly suppressed. The conservative curator described the omissions as a function of his colleagues’ judgements; there is no evidence that Facebook management mandated or was even aware of any political bias at work.
> When users weren’t reading stories that management viewed as important, several former workers said, curators were told to put them in the trending news feed anyway.
Maybe a goal here is to try to ensure that the FB community does not _appear to outsiders_ to be a right-wing, conservative, un-cool community.
If the FB user base were seen as a collection of mainstream, or even right-of-center, people, it would be bad for business. A lot of observers and decision-makers in industry might spend their ad dollars somewhere else.
I am confused why Facebook needs news curators to begin with? Why can't the news just be organic entirely and use ML to curate it per person. I can understand blacklisting certain sites or topics just for pure sanity or appropriateness. Having people as curators just seems like wasted capital.
Anyhow, I find this abhorrent, but I think Facebook has every right to do it as a private entity. I don't think they have a social responsibility to be 100% even. What does bother me is that they claim to be evenhanded, I do want transparency, especially when you are basically the monopoly in social media (excluding Snapchat and Twitter, they own everything.)
This also presents a problem, I think with Twitter's new algorithmic timeline and why the real-time feed is vastly superior for their model (I'll beat this dead horse until Jack realizes how dumb it is.)
This is obviously very bad from the standpoint that the trending news section is ostensibly supposed to be organic, based on user behavior, and free of bias—except that which is inherent in the users themselves sharing things to be picked up as "trending". It appears that "trending news" has really been "curated news". Not cool at all.
More concerning than trending news actually being curated news is learning that negative stories about Facebook were allegedly actively suppressed. Doublenotcool at all.
However, that there is "conservative news" and "liberal news" is even more bothersome. Especially that it's offered as something anyone should find to be acceptable as an idea at all.
> But we would have to go and find the same story from a more neutral outlet that wasn’t as biased.
This is delivered as if it is inherently a bad thing, when it most assuredly is not. When I come across a story about anything, I actively prefer to find it covered by a neutral outlet that isn't as biased. This is, to me, a good thing, and what news should be. News should be information about events. If I want opinionated and editorialized news, I'd go after an opinionated and editorialized source. They abound. That anyone who calls themselves a journalist would call out the suppression of "conservative news" or "liberal news", instead of calling out the elevation and coupling of inherent bias in reporting as the problem itself, strikes me as more than worrisome.
To my thinking, there is a difference between news that is of interest to [insert ideological group identification] and news that is delivered through the bias of [insert ideological group identification]. I would love it if there was a way to identify and filter news from a neutral outlet with less (ideally no) bias. I recognize that is largely impossible, as we cannot rid ourselves of our biases very easily. However, we can recognize our biases and seek to counterbalance them. We can also make attempts to actively omit them from news coverage. An outlet can report on facts.
That said, it appears this story highlights both: a biased suppression of news that is of interest to conservatives and news that is delivered through the lens of conservatively biased opinion and sources. The former is entirely bad, as it actively omits information that a group would like to know. The second is far less onerous to me, as I personally would love it if there were algorithmic delivery of actual news from outlets that eschewed biased delivery and editorializing.
Edit: It is made clear in the article that part of the problem stems from Facebook's desire to compete with Twitter for real-time trending news. This is unsurprising, as should the outcome be to readers and users. Facebook created a tool to allow humans to modify news in the trending section that wasn't organically trending. Someone thought this would be a competitive net positive because it could allow Facebook curators to keep up with breaking news that was "all over Twitter". That Facebook hired curators, and that one or more of those curators then divulged information about this tool being used to subjectively inject or suppress stories seems entirely unsurprising. The tool obviously should not exist. Creating it was a very dumb move. Not militantly monitoring and correcting its misuse was even dumber.
Of course there is "conservative news" and "liberal news". Liberal news is things that happened, things that will happen, etc. Conservative news is a made up stories, things that never happened, etc.
I think that's an overly broad and biased characterization. I find it hard to believe that an entire half of the voting spectrum is made up of liars and charlatans.
But it should be pretty easy to believe that half of people (at least) are gullible. If "Obama bans Christmas" ends up as trending news because a couple hundred far-out whackjobs clicked on it, then your mom sees that in the trending box, and now your mom thinks that Obama banned Christmas.
This seems to be a far more damning indictment of trending news than curated news or the gullibility of people. Perhaps that is what you're getting at. I have this nagging suspicion that people catalog information based on the subjective believability of headlines without following through to the story, and only click on things because they either A) don't believe the headline, or B) find it enticing enough to want the juicy details.
"Obama bans 'Merry Christmas'" would likely get far more clicks and trend more than "Obama said Happy Holidays yesterday". To me, the problem is in the headline writing, coupled with silly human behaviors and algorithms. Not sure how to solve that problem.
I think Gizmodo's headline on this story is a compelling example of what I'm talking about. "Facebook has a tool used by curators to modify the Trending News section" probably wouldn't get as many clicks.
>Of course there is "conservative news" and "liberal news". Liberal news is things that happened, things that will happen, etc. Conservative news is a made up stories, things that never happened, etc.
So what do you call Vox and Rolling Stone? Do you really have such a simplistic view of the world, where half of America is a bunch of morons with no legitimate gripes? You are destroying America. You are spreading division and hatred instead of understanding and reasoned arguments. I wonder if you would say the same thing if you were commenting with your real name.
Right. Certainly there aren't any liberal blogs or "news" organizations that sensationalize headlines or downright make things up... It happens both ways and is unfortunate.
Liberals do not maintain a cottage industry of complaining about the conservative conspiracy to suppress their viewpoints, whereas conservatives seemingly spend 100% of their time doing so. For example there are plenty of dead tree books like [1], extensive networks of people investigating Obama's place of birth, including the current American conservative leader and icon Donald Trump.
Meanwhile there is a real, concrete conspiracy by conservatives to actively suppress the truth, especially in the area of climate science. It would be hard to not notice that the conservative PM of Canada actually banned scientists from speaking to the public, or that Republicans in the USA are constantly trying to defund NOAA and NASA, or that the Republican-controlled 104th Congress of the US forbid the NIH from studying gun violence, among many other examples.
How about leftist anti-nuclear, anti-GMO, organic food pseudoscience? Nuclear power is the solution to fossil fuel emissions that doesn't require destroying our economy, but the left is the biggest obstacle to its development. Or how about the wage gap, which no serious economist actually thinks exists.
I agree that it is imperative to understand the biases present in the media we encounter. It is not possible to have a neutral news outlet. The mere choice or what to cover or not to cover is a judgement call. Some people might consider PBS or NPR to be neutral, but in fact they have a strong point of view in their choice of coverage and tone. Same with the major print and broadcast outlets. As this election cycle has made clear, everyone has an agenda in their coverage.
Personally, I would rather read sources on the various extremes of the spectrum and make the choice of what to trust myself. The most neutral (in my mind) coverage of US Politics I can find is foreign media such as the BBC.
>> But we would have to go and find the same story from a more neutral outlet that wasn’t as biased.
>This is delivered as if it is inherently a bad thing, when it most assuredly is not.
Keep in mind this is a statement quoted by the curator summing up what s/he said they did over a long span of time. Their recollection of what they tended to do is not necessarily reality. They could be lying in that quote to try to soften what they did. And their quest to find something less biased means diddly given the bias across all news.
Oh, I know. I perhaps should have made it more clear that my issue was with the curator saying that as if it was inherently bad and indicative of a problem, instead of inherently good and useful as a rule.
On the point about the difference between "conservative news" and "liberal news", I agree that it's unfortunate the two even exist. But for the sake of the Gizmodo article, I think it was important for them to call this out, because not only was "conservative news" being censored, but "liberal news" was being introduced or boosted.
Curators would find less biased (read: not as sympathetic to the conservative viewpoint) sources for trending conservative topics, but they would not do the same for liberal topics. So I agree that it's best to find balanced journalism, but that should happen on both sides (conservative and liberal). If they only find less biased sources for conservative media, then that is in itself even more biased toward the liberal agenda. They were censoring or watering down the conservative view point from multiple angles.
Yes they are a private publicly traded company and they are within the law to manipulate news or whatever they want with their platform in most places at this time. However, if they were to become a clearinghouse for information I would think eyes of scrutiny would descend and look at how they attempt to manipulate news and opinion.
It's not clear who (in the hierarchy) is behind the decision to shape the news nor is it clear why they would mainly suppress conservative stories over liberal stories. Are liberal sources less prone to exaggeration? Or would they simply upset their audience less?
Interesting never the less. And certainly this could have serious repercussions on how news is consumed and perceived.
Well when your company leadership proclaims how they lean it certainly lends direction to those who work there. As for why would the suppress, those in power will tend to use it and many will justify it as fixing the system after all they are the smartest people they know so how could they be wrong?
Really the media has been slanted off and on for some time and most techies are very one sided if not blinded by altruistic claims that can never be delivered. Its the only song and dance of "its for the children" - who is going to say they don't like children
The problem is, as a private company, should Facebook choose to manipulate it's news feed algorithm to promote one candidate or the other, or for whatever reason, this would be its prerogative under the First Amendment.
I personally choose to not use Facebook specifically for these reasons. Even though I know many Facebook employees personally, I don't trust it's employees to divorce their own interests and their powerful position as Facebook's curators.
Any democratic country depends on the quality of public discourse for the effectiveness of its political system, and for this reason many countries have special rules for newspapers and TV.
What's important here is that Facebook is not covered by those laws, simply because it did not exist when the laws were created. In my view it should be covered by those laws.
One defence Facebook might consider is to say that it simply reflects the preferences of its readers algorithmically. However, this article shows that is not the case, and that the company does exercise editorial judgement. Of course, the design of the algorithms is tacit editorialising anyway, so the whole point is moot to me.
While we are considering the fact that FB is a private company (actually a public company), some might be inclined to say that if users realise Facebook cannot be trusted, then they will leave the site causing its revenues to decrease. Other more honest and transparent competitors will take its place. However, in practise there are many reasons to think this won't happen, which is why we have special laws for the press in the first place.
> What's important here is that Facebook is not covered by those laws, simply because it did not exist when the laws were created. In my view it should be covered by those laws.
Is Fox "News" covered by these laws? Surely you're not suggesting with a straight face that Fox News is "fair and balanced" ?
Are you suggesting with a straight face that CNN "News" is fair and balanced? Or perhaps any of the myriad of blatantly politically charged companies out of Silicon Valley?
It happens on both sides, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to argue that the left is much more guilty of this than the right. Fox News has become a meme because it is the only mainstream news source that blatantly shows conservative bias. Try pointing to mainstream news sources that blatantly show liberal bias and you'd lose count.
I think in the US newspapers are more constrained in their biases, but as you say TV stations do take editorial views. But, as an example of regulation, only US citizens can own TV station in the US. Additionally, no single US TV station has anything like the viewer share that Facebook has.
CNN (and many other media companies) support Hillary because they are pro-corporate and pro-status-quo.
They have de facto supported nonsensical positions because CNN pioneered the "two sides to every argument" stupidity in their effort to look "unbiased". CNN's reporting is heavily distorted, but the distortion is usually giving credibility when it isn't deserved. Fox simply pushes their agenda directly, while CNN gives cranks a stage no matter how stupid their position is, because calling out even the obviously wrong is "biased". Often this involves conservative opinions (for varying definitions of "conservative"), but almost every opinion of every topic gets the same treatment from CNN.
> it's news feed algorithm to promote one candidate ... would be its prerogative under the First Amendment
As long such practices are declared.
People tend to look at "what's trending" in an effort to optimize/manipulate their content so that users would "trend" on it. The fact that FB was artificially eliminating stories gave false results to observers.
Another way of looking at this is if Nielson were to lower the rankings of shows it disagrees with and affecting the duration of those shows.
Nielsen makes specific claims about the meaning of its data to people who pay for that data, so it would be fraud for them to undermine those claims by manipulating the data. I doubt Facebook does anything similar.
What about to the advertisers? If I were a well-funded news outlet with a conservative bias, and I spent money on Facebook, I'd be evaluating my legal options right about now...
The more I hear about what Facebook has become, the less I like it.
Previously we heard that they run experiments to alter users news feeds to see if they could alter their mood, now we learn they're engaging in what is basically propaganda by suppressing certain viewpoints. And all this for what? So that you can be advertised to while you waste your time on the internet. What a terrible company. Speaks ill of humanity that it is so popular.
People are people. In a way this isn't news at all.
The problem is that these companies are hiding behind the "But it's all just an algorithm" defense, when, in fact, as we all suspected, there are real people behind the scenes slanting things.
My gut tells me that a lot of tech companies are subtly controlling the types of news their consumers get. Overall this is probably a good thing -- helps keep the quality high. But I'm a libertarian. If a bunch of left-leaning folks start controlling what I consume from a political angle and not just quality angle -- and then lie about it? Really pisses me off.
Yes, you're a private company. Do whatever you want. It's the lying that's the problem here -- and the implication that the electorate needs people better than they are to control and guide what they're allowed to talk about.
I bet we continue to hear about this, and in places most people would never suspect, over the coming decade or two. This is unacceptable, and something is going to need to give somewhere.
As a libertarian, are you equally pissed off when a bunch of right-leaning folks start controlling what you consume from a political, and not just quality, angle—and then lie about it?
Stop telling people what the topic is, please. This is a public forum, you can't control other people's conversations, or determine the validity of their interests.
Post a comment about Facebook that's worth replying to if you want to steer things away from politics.
EDIT: I said stay on topic, because some will try to go tangent to prevent meaningful discussion on the real topic. Much like politicians not answering questions. This achieves one's goal of causing FUD to keep the person/organization's brand from getting tarnished.
If facebook comes out saying it's not true, will anyone really believe them, knowing their past practices?
Facebook has a lot of eyeballs looking and thus influence, and so the higher-ups there now want to use it to influence others. Much like celebrities do.
And they got to such position of influence using not so good tactics. Are people ok with this? My guess is not.
I am staying on topic. That I ask a followup to identify the extent of where someone stands on an issue isn't going off-topic. The parent made a statement about ideological leaning informing their ire toward information suppression. I was curious if it was one-way ire. Since you aren't the parent, I don't think you're able to answer my question.
Moreover, the topic here isn't just Facebook, but their suppression and intentional modification of news and information based on a specific ideological bias.
I believe both right and left news medias filter out stories to meet own agenda. No question about that imo.
The problem here is Facebook never claimed to be a news site but a connector for people. But here we find out they were acting as a left leaning news site or a powerbroker.
Not the PP, but yes, I am for the most part equally pissed at anyone that injects political editorial bias into otherwise factual news.
And I am also meta-pissed when a bunch of money/power-leaning folks start influencing the propaganda themes of both the bunch of left-leaning folks and the bunch of right-leaning folks. Media consolidation just makes that particular channel wider and deeper.
I am not pissed that there is a conservative talk radio station on my FM spectrum, and no other talker on the dial within range. Their bias is open and obvious. if I don't like it, I can listen to one of the 50 identical Bain Capital/THL Partners (IHeartMedia) or Oaktree Capital Management (Cumulus) stations. And I am pissed about that.
Yeah, I feel you—especially on the meta-pissed point. Media consolidation really bothers me. I haven't listened to radio in years and genuinely feel a bad mood start whenever I'm around it.
Not the OP, but I'm someone who leans libertarian, and Trending Topics is one of the reasons I deactivated my Facebook account. I wasn't interested in most of the trending stories, they were often news stories designed to make people sad or angry, and that's not what I want to feel when visiting Facebook. I couldn't find a way to hide that feature either - so like bad advertising, it was always there annoying me.
I would have preferred if the trending topics learned what I was interested in. I'm not averse to curation (either way), but I'd prefer that users were ultimately in control of their own filters. Even if that filter is "never show any politics, only show cat videos".
Funny you mention that! I left in October 2015, so it was long after their emotion contagion experiment. But I've often wondered if I fell into that experiment group, because I've felt much happier & calmer since leaving Facebook.
I've deactivated my account for short periods before, so it's possible I may have deactivated previously during the experiment. But 7 months is the longest I've stayed deactivated & I have no desire to return to FB this time.
For the past couple of decades, there's been some amount of affinity between Libertarians and conservatives. That's likely because the conservatives pay lip service to ideals of "smaller government", which is central to libertarianism. However, that really is just lip service, and so that alliance is a very [un]easy one.
Even aside from that friction, there is some potential affinity between Libertarians and Liberals, because Libertarians see no governmental role in issues like gay marriage and use of medication/drugs. Because both groups seek similar outcomes in those areas there would be room for cooperation. But (IMHO) the Liberals are too antagonistic of property rights and self defense rights for this potential to be realized.
Aside from political affinities, I think the real thrust of the parent post was that FB's actions are fraudulent: the product they're delivering to you differs in an important (to some people) way from what they claim they're delivering. In libertarian philosophy, fraud is just one form of force, which is the core evil: the central tenet of libertarianism is to not initiate force against another person.
So at the risk of putting words in someone else's mouth: yes, a libertarian would be equally pissed off if the issue were the mirror of what we see here.
EDIT: end of first para - omitted the "un", significantly changing meaning!
But that's not what the article said. They had a conservative on staff who was in charge of these feeds, and he wasn't cutting out conservative articles, he was cutting out articles that supported candidates he didn't like.
As long as you choose to consume their product, you get the results of their work. Don't like it? Go somewhere else. You should appreciate that as a libertarian.
I see no harm in excluding articles from Breitbart, Washington Examiner, and Newsmax. Or Alternet for that matter. Those aren't news organizations. They're propaganda tabloids which consume the work of Reuters and the AP and regurgitate it with a ton of spin.
I must have lost track of the law that said that all things must be monolithic in their nature. Facebook is a connector of people that uses news to keep people interested an on the site.
>As long as you choose to consume their product, you get the results of their work. Don't like it? Go somewhere else.
Except when you don't know what you aren't seeing.
>Those aren't news organizations.
Breitbart has teams of reporters and editors, so does Infowars. Breitbart has offices in different locations, such as London and the U.S. Breitbart has it's reporters following the campaign and they get many exclusives. If we all should agree they aren't news orgs, then the HuffPost isn't a news org.
Who said that HuffPo was a news org? They're an ideological blog. Just like Breitbart is an ideological blog. Having offices doesn't make one a news org.
Why are you making arguments against claims I never made? Also, why do libertarians hate it so much when people use their own basic ideology against them?
No, having reporters and editors who cover current events does. The reason I brought up huffpost was anyone saying breitbart isn't news, immediately I'd have to test them with HuffPo. You know to spot the hypocrite. But anyway, HuffPo and Breitbart are both news orgs like it or not. News has always been slanted whether by selective coverage or the way things are framed. Example: 2 stories about refugees, one covers a family (with photos) where the children speak english (outliers) The other covers a boat load of military age males (again with photos), talks about concern over violence and culture war.
Both would be news stories. One you're likely to find in NPR or the Washington Post, the other you'll find on Breitbart. Sorry you're wrong about what's a news source and what's not. feel free to comment on quality or slant though.
> controlling the types of news their consumers get
Of course they are. They control the medium. What a lot of people don't seem to understand is that "it's just an algorithm" isn't a defense. Just because a process involves calculation doesn't make the entire process free of bias or agenda.
The basic decision to use an algorithm is an opinionated decision that affects the outcome. Personal opinion influences how an algorithm was chosen or designed, how it will be applied, the selection of input data, and every other decision made during implementation.
Yes, some time may not intend to add their own bias and opinion, but it still happens. Jacob Appelbaum recently[1] discussed this problem; "Your politics are in everything that you write". The same is true for software and algorithms in general. Your politics are in everything you design. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it exists, and pretending that an an algorithm is "unbiased" or otherwise free from human influence and manipulation is foolish.
Thanks to a tool that specifically allows modifying the news shown to users and the alleged biases of curator contractors who seem to have no accountability checks.
I wouldn't say "no accountability checks." The article references instances where the curators were instructed to boost non-trending stories. So, they are being actively managed. And, presumably can be replaced easily if their curating deviates from Facebook's wishes.
The issue is that FB advertises itself as "conduit" or "network connection". You log in, communicate with people and the site tools, FB runs ads on your eyeballs, etc.
Similar to how I give my electricity provider money, and they give me electricity.
Now FB clearly sees themselves as (let's be honest) a "power broker" or "rain maker". Not the same as "utility" or "network connection" or "conduit".
I don't think I've looked at Facebook like that at all since they started using an algorithmic newsfeed. I was under the impression that that confirmed them as a "power broker" to pretty much everyone. If you're looking for a "utility" or "network connection" I'd direct you to app.net if they're even still in business
Twitter even, for the most part as far as I understand gives you complete control over your feed, with the (minor?) exceptions of promoted tweets and suggested followers.
It's worth noting the candidate who has been most successful (or at least taken advantage of it) on that platform might fit the parent article's definition of conservative (or at least the sort of content they are suppressing).
Hasn't Twitter recently been tweaking user feeds based on algorithms? Pretty sure I've been seeing mine out of order, with all manner of "you might have missed" and "stuff we think is relevant to you" tweets injected at the top. I think I recently had to flip a setting to try turning off this "stuff we think is relevant to you" off. Maybe that's the promoted tweets, or are those the ads?
The problem is that this is how Facebook advertises themselves. I don't think the above poster was looking for something outside of what Facebook said they did as a business model. Zuckerberg literally said he wants to be "electricity"
I hadn't ever experienced Facebook as anything I felt control over until a few weeks back, when I started ruthlessly pruning stories from people who are serial clickbait sharers. Then I found a few pages (seal watching photos, small town news for my hometown, and urban development) that interested me and set them to always show at the top of my feed. Next I set five or so friends as my best friends. Now, when I log in I get updates about my close friends and my interests, as well as knowing whose birthday it is. If I want news, I can look at the trending news items, where they actually write headlines correctly.
Right, and suppressing news that fits a certain criteria is a really obvious method of control — let's not forget that their algorithms suppress/highlight the people you interact with on their site.
I don't want to wander too far into conspiracy territory... but it's not completely unreasonable to suspect that a platform with such widespread and frequent use could knowingly make tiny adjustments to make a gentle push on society in one direction or another.
Also see previously: Facebook's study to see how content alters users' moods.
The problem isn't that FB is slanted, but that FB has a near-monopoly on user attention, which allows its slant to be both covert and disproportionately influential.
If FB was one of a selection of companies competing in the same space, political bias would be less of an issue, because it would be more like the print magazine and blog space.
But then you have the problem that the US gov has an entire network of foundations, think-tanks, blogs, PR companies, astroturfers, bought-and-paid-for journalists, and other "thought leaders" who exist solely to present a specific agenda - usually a pro-corporate one.
In the same way that you can't argue with the Fed, you can't argue with a state-organised propaganda machine - not easily, anyway.
> The problem isn't that FB is slanted, but that FB has a near-monopoly on user attention, which allows its slant to be both covert and disproportionately influential.
I couldn't agree more. They also have an unprecedented level of reach (billions of users) and user trust (appearance of community opinion vs. news media filtering).
> So the problem is much wider than FB.
Absolutely. Facebook is far from being the only offender here, and in a way, this is a growing pain of new technology. Just as we learned to not trust big media, we also will have to learn to approach social media with skepticism (despite it's inherently organic appearance).
If you read the article, its quite possible that it was also liberal news, depending on individual curators. Given other FB interventions I've seen, I'd be surprised if, like everything else at FB, the news moderation wasn't just stunningly inconsistent with rampant suppression of left, right, and center according to individual and essentially unaccountable whim.
FB is tolerably usable for basic circle-of-immediate-friends social functions without excessive interference. As far as public communication, news, and advocacy, well, its there, and there's enough people that come to it for that that it can't be ignored, but its fairly horrible for it, not so much from a systematic one-sided distortion but more absolute caprice.
> If you read the article, its quite possible that it was also liberal news, depending on individual curators.
"we were unable to determine if left-wing news topics or sources were similarly suppressed"
I see what you're getting at, but I highly doubt liberal news was systematically suppressed. Facebook is a notoriously far-left company, located in a region of the US that is already far-left.
> located in a region of the US that is already far-left.
Silicon Valley has a fairly substantial right-libertarian and just-plain libertarian segment, which, in the usual way multidimensional politics are smushed into the US two-party, one-axis system, fall out as "conservative", (and quite a lot of really hard to classify on a liberal-conservative axis types that are extremely socially liberal, but economically center-to-right-libertarian (that is, outside of culture-war kind of issues, they tend to agree more with the center-to-right types on the function of government, as well as leaning libertarian on its preferred degree and means of involvement in fulfilling that function); these don't fit well as either "liberal" or "conservative" in the classical sense, and often aren't very "moderate" though they might get classified that way as a result of being very liberal on some salient issues and very "conservative" (as that works out in the US political spectrum) on others.
I'd be interested to know a little bit more about how this relates to the news sites that are covering the story. Breitbart isn't much better than a tabloid--arguably worse, even. It's equivalent to leftwing sites like Alternet, which I also wouldn't expect Facebook to be comfortable linking to.
I'm confused by this comment, because to my eyes the Drudge Report frontpage looks like it was consciously modeled on tabloids. Obviously for historical reasons they have some importance--but so do some tabloids.
To clarify, I think this an issue of respectability, not reliability.
He probably has too many conservative friends. FB seems to think that just because you've "friended" people that you want to see, and agree with, all the inane political bullshit they post.
One of many reasons I don't use FB. I keep an account on there for a few reasons, but I almost never actually look at it.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 301 ms ] threadAs long as they are not breaking any relevant speech laws, then I see nothing wrong with their actions. If we shut down all biased media, all we'd really be left with is the BBC (although a large number of people would disagree here)
True, but it could be argued that users are reasonable in assuming that Facebook is a neutral or automatic platform, not manually manipulating content to achieve political goals. If that is true the ethics of misleading millions of people is at best questionable.
Specifically with regards to Facebook, they position themselves as a platform and not as a publisher, so it's not that strange that they're being held to the standards that we expect from a platform, of which neutrality is a big one.
It's ironic. Silicon Valley is all about question the authorities. Ask why.
And now we hear stories like these Orwellian like practices...
This will be another interesting topic historians will examine years from now. What happens when an outsider/outcast/underdog group becomes the insiders/powerful. Do they act like tycoons in the past (using power to preserve itself) or keep true to the spirit of outsider/outcast that may lead to its demise?
I vote for Silicon Valley powers becoming like the past tycoons.
His thesis is that the pinnacle of power throughout time as technology has evolved has shifted from brute strength, to money in the industrial age, and now finally to information in the post-industrial age which we live in now.
http://www.amazon.com/Powershift-Knowledge-Wealth-Violence-C...
Power is a funny thing... and I suspect people aren't so different than other animals in this regard.
http://www.vox.com/2016/4/15/11410160/hillary-clinton-media-...
In fact, it directly supports the scenario the OP brought up. Frequently Bernie Sanders will bring something up and then the media focuses its article on Hillary's response (even if that article might sometimes be unflattering).
What this shows is the media has a positive bias towards Kasich and Sanders, neither of which were received as such by voters. What it also shows is media bias doesn't always win votes or elections.
Exactly.
> What this shows is the media has a positive bias towards Kasich and Sanders, neither of which were received as such by voters.
No, what it shows is that the media writes way more articles about Clinton, positive and negative.
Imagine the media writes 2 articles about Sanders, one negative and one positive. And then it writes 20 about Clinton, 11 negative and 9 positive. Who is it biased in favor of?
has percentages. You are saying the media is biased towards no one, or has equal biases?
I want a collapse in trust in the major social networks. This is the internet we are talking about. Let them suppress, and let them see what happens.
As long as it gets out you mean?
From a basic governmental regulation (Hayek) monopoly approach, FB is the incumbent and it will be extremely difficult for anyone else to gain a foothold here. Regulation ought to make it easier for others to approach the space. They are the single biggest voice in the news at this point, and whatever stances they support has an inestimable advantage in ways that far outstrip campaign finance contributions or lobbying. They may have to be governmentally disrupted to keep their power from becoming too great.
From a consumer labeling perspective, Facebook is profiting off improperly calling articles "trending" that are just their preferred way to view the world.
I just wonder if these articles go far enough to collapse any trust.
"Will MySpace Ever Lose Its Monopoly?" (2007): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/feb/08/business....
To your point, back in the day, I was having lunch with David Boies (yeah, I know, name dropping, but relevant) and re: Microsoft he said that his position was that EVERY company should have the opportunity to become a monopoly, but then to not be able to use that power of monopoly to deny that chance to others.
My concern with regulatory or judicial constraints here is -- they're always too late. Be it IBM in the 60s or ATT in the 80s or Microsoft in the late-90s/early-2ks, by the time the government gets around to doing anything, the company is already being eroded from beneath.
I think the only (national) example I can think of, in the US, is AT&T, which was able to keep their position because of government licensure. i.e. Natural monopolies don't occur as often as people claim. Incumbency buys patrimony.
Maybe this should go to GP: IF a monopoly arises, AND that entity takes advantage of their monopoly position (reduced quality for price, outrageous margins) almost always, a challenger will appear. And get funded.
The issue here is for the 'unsuspecting user' Facebook doesn't present itself as a partisan resource. There's nothing 'wrong' with this per se as long as the user understands who they are dealing with, which articles like this one help in that respect.
Not on TV. Fox Business has quite a lot of libertarians (and some really, really devote Trump supporters). CNN did hire some conservatives who are actual conservatives recently (e.g. Mary Katharine Ham), but it really doesn't change the editorial.
Heh, not really a big surprise to me. Rule probably doesn't apply to whenever MZ makes a big announcement though. Betting those got stuck high in the rankings from day 1. Anyway, sounds about right for any image-protective service, or, you know, typical state-run-media censorship.
We agreed it would be catastrophic if either decided to lean one way or the other...
Facebook is essentially suppressing free speech. Although, it has somewhat a right to do what it wants, it is skewing what other people share with one another (which is a big deal)
It's not keeping you from posting ridiculous pro-Trump tirades. It's not even hiding those tirades from your friends.
All it's doing is choosing not to shine a spotlight on conservative stories which aren't corroborated by mainstream sources.
Conservativism is mainstream. Part of the problem is that many people who are not conservative have been lead to believe that it is a marginal/extreme ideology. It is not. It may be a majority ideology, but it is at a bare minimum a the second most common.
For what it's worth I don't consider myself a conservative.
That's basically never been even close to the case. Polling from earlier this year had a 37%/35%/24% conservative/moderate/liberal split [1], with "conservative" having a high since 1992 of 40%.
[1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/188129/conservatives-hang-ideolog...
I never said that conservatism can't be mainstream. There are plenty of conservative outfits that are part of the mainstream (the WSJ, for example).
Brietbart, however, is not mainstream. Even many Republicans dislike it. Facebook also shouldn't include articles from dubious/questionable liberal equivalents like the Daily Kos.
And even he seems pretty indecisive about it being an institutional bias: "I’d come on shift and I’d discover that CPAC or Mitt Romney or Glenn Beck or popular conservative topics wouldn’t be trending because either the curator didn’t recognize the news topic or it was like they had a bias against Ted Cruz."
If Facebook is trying to suppress conservative news, they're doing a terrible job of it. I see far more Trump than I would like.
"Several former Facebook “news curators,” as they were known internally, also told Gizmodo that they were instructed to artificially “inject” selected stories into the trending news module, even if they weren’t popular enough to warrant inclusion—or in some cases weren’t trending at all. The former curators, all of whom worked as contractors, also said they were directed not to include news about Facebook itself in the trending module."
The article then mentions a second curator that also admits anti-conservative bias:
"Another former curator agreed that the operation had an aversion to right-wing news sources. 'It was absolutely bias. We were doing it subjectively. It just depends on who the curator is and what time of day it is,' said the former curator."
This is false, the headline even alludes to it being more than a single source. The entire article uses plural terms and refers to 'several.' I think you read the lede, but skipped the rest.
> Other former curators interviewed by Gizmodo denied consciously suppressing conservative news, and we were unable to determine if left-wing news topics or sources were similarly suppressed. The conservative curator described the omissions as a function of his colleagues’ judgements; there is no evidence that Facebook management mandated or was even aware of any political bias at work.
Maybe a goal here is to try to ensure that the FB community does not _appear to outsiders_ to be a right-wing, conservative, un-cool community.
If the FB user base were seen as a collection of mainstream, or even right-of-center, people, it would be bad for business. A lot of observers and decision-makers in industry might spend their ad dollars somewhere else.
Anyhow, I find this abhorrent, but I think Facebook has every right to do it as a private entity. I don't think they have a social responsibility to be 100% even. What does bother me is that they claim to be evenhanded, I do want transparency, especially when you are basically the monopoly in social media (excluding Snapchat and Twitter, they own everything.)
This also presents a problem, I think with Twitter's new algorithmic timeline and why the real-time feed is vastly superior for their model (I'll beat this dead horse until Jack realizes how dumb it is.)
More concerning than trending news actually being curated news is learning that negative stories about Facebook were allegedly actively suppressed. Doublenotcool at all.
However, that there is "conservative news" and "liberal news" is even more bothersome. Especially that it's offered as something anyone should find to be acceptable as an idea at all.
> But we would have to go and find the same story from a more neutral outlet that wasn’t as biased.
This is delivered as if it is inherently a bad thing, when it most assuredly is not. When I come across a story about anything, I actively prefer to find it covered by a neutral outlet that isn't as biased. This is, to me, a good thing, and what news should be. News should be information about events. If I want opinionated and editorialized news, I'd go after an opinionated and editorialized source. They abound. That anyone who calls themselves a journalist would call out the suppression of "conservative news" or "liberal news", instead of calling out the elevation and coupling of inherent bias in reporting as the problem itself, strikes me as more than worrisome.
To my thinking, there is a difference between news that is of interest to [insert ideological group identification] and news that is delivered through the bias of [insert ideological group identification]. I would love it if there was a way to identify and filter news from a neutral outlet with less (ideally no) bias. I recognize that is largely impossible, as we cannot rid ourselves of our biases very easily. However, we can recognize our biases and seek to counterbalance them. We can also make attempts to actively omit them from news coverage. An outlet can report on facts.
That said, it appears this story highlights both: a biased suppression of news that is of interest to conservatives and news that is delivered through the lens of conservatively biased opinion and sources. The former is entirely bad, as it actively omits information that a group would like to know. The second is far less onerous to me, as I personally would love it if there were algorithmic delivery of actual news from outlets that eschewed biased delivery and editorializing.
Edit: It is made clear in the article that part of the problem stems from Facebook's desire to compete with Twitter for real-time trending news. This is unsurprising, as should the outcome be to readers and users. Facebook created a tool to allow humans to modify news in the trending section that wasn't organically trending. Someone thought this would be a competitive net positive because it could allow Facebook curators to keep up with breaking news that was "all over Twitter". That Facebook hired curators, and that one or more of those curators then divulged information about this tool being used to subjectively inject or suppress stories seems entirely unsurprising. The tool obviously should not exist. Creating it was a very dumb move. Not militantly monitoring and correcting its misuse was even dumber.
Example of trending "conservative news": Obama bans the phrase "Merry Christmas". E.g. http://www.redflagnews.com/headlines-2015/barack-obama-bans-...
"Obama bans 'Merry Christmas'" would likely get far more clicks and trend more than "Obama said Happy Holidays yesterday". To me, the problem is in the headline writing, coupled with silly human behaviors and algorithms. Not sure how to solve that problem.
I think Gizmodo's headline on this story is a compelling example of what I'm talking about. "Facebook has a tool used by curators to modify the Trending News section" probably wouldn't get as many clicks.
The publishers of conservative news stories are not "an entire half of the voting spectrum", so that's not the issue in any case.
So what do you call Vox and Rolling Stone? Do you really have such a simplistic view of the world, where half of America is a bunch of morons with no legitimate gripes? You are destroying America. You are spreading division and hatred instead of understanding and reasoned arguments. I wonder if you would say the same thing if you were commenting with your real name.
Meanwhile there is a real, concrete conspiracy by conservatives to actively suppress the truth, especially in the area of climate science. It would be hard to not notice that the conservative PM of Canada actually banned scientists from speaking to the public, or that Republicans in the USA are constantly trying to defund NOAA and NASA, or that the Republican-controlled 104th Congress of the US forbid the NIH from studying gun violence, among many other examples.
https://books.google.com/books?id=9iLHTFOQLGwC&pg=PA314&lpg=...
Personally, I would rather read sources on the various extremes of the spectrum and make the choice of what to trust myself. The most neutral (in my mind) coverage of US Politics I can find is foreign media such as the BBC.
Keep in mind this is a statement quoted by the curator summing up what s/he said they did over a long span of time. Their recollection of what they tended to do is not necessarily reality. They could be lying in that quote to try to soften what they did. And their quest to find something less biased means diddly given the bias across all news.
Curators would find less biased (read: not as sympathetic to the conservative viewpoint) sources for trending conservative topics, but they would not do the same for liberal topics. So I agree that it's best to find balanced journalism, but that should happen on both sides (conservative and liberal). If they only find less biased sources for conservative media, then that is in itself even more biased toward the liberal agenda. They were censoring or watering down the conservative view point from multiple angles.
It's not clear who (in the hierarchy) is behind the decision to shape the news nor is it clear why they would mainly suppress conservative stories over liberal stories. Are liberal sources less prone to exaggeration? Or would they simply upset their audience less?
Interesting never the less. And certainly this could have serious repercussions on how news is consumed and perceived.
Really the media has been slanted off and on for some time and most techies are very one sided if not blinded by altruistic claims that can never be delivered. Its the only song and dance of "its for the children" - who is going to say they don't like children
What's important here is that Facebook is not covered by those laws, simply because it did not exist when the laws were created. In my view it should be covered by those laws.
One defence Facebook might consider is to say that it simply reflects the preferences of its readers algorithmically. However, this article shows that is not the case, and that the company does exercise editorial judgement. Of course, the design of the algorithms is tacit editorialising anyway, so the whole point is moot to me.
While we are considering the fact that FB is a private company (actually a public company), some might be inclined to say that if users realise Facebook cannot be trusted, then they will leave the site causing its revenues to decrease. Other more honest and transparent competitors will take its place. However, in practise there are many reasons to think this won't happen, which is why we have special laws for the press in the first place.
Is Fox "News" covered by these laws? Surely you're not suggesting with a straight face that Fox News is "fair and balanced" ?
It happens on both sides, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to argue that the left is much more guilty of this than the right. Fox News has become a meme because it is the only mainstream news source that blatantly shows conservative bias. Try pointing to mainstream news sources that blatantly show liberal bias and you'd lose count.
No, it just has slightly weaker right-wing bias than Fox.
They have de facto supported nonsensical positions because CNN pioneered the "two sides to every argument" stupidity in their effort to look "unbiased". CNN's reporting is heavily distorted, but the distortion is usually giving credibility when it isn't deserved. Fox simply pushes their agenda directly, while CNN gives cranks a stage no matter how stupid their position is, because calling out even the obviously wrong is "biased". Often this involves conservative opinions (for varying definitions of "conservative"), but almost every opinion of every topic gets the same treatment from CNN.
As long such practices are declared.
People tend to look at "what's trending" in an effort to optimize/manipulate their content so that users would "trend" on it. The fact that FB was artificially eliminating stories gave false results to observers.
Another way of looking at this is if Nielson were to lower the rankings of shows it disagrees with and affecting the duration of those shows.
Previously we heard that they run experiments to alter users news feeds to see if they could alter their mood, now we learn they're engaging in what is basically propaganda by suppressing certain viewpoints. And all this for what? So that you can be advertised to while you waste your time on the internet. What a terrible company. Speaks ill of humanity that it is so popular.
The problem is that these companies are hiding behind the "But it's all just an algorithm" defense, when, in fact, as we all suspected, there are real people behind the scenes slanting things.
My gut tells me that a lot of tech companies are subtly controlling the types of news their consumers get. Overall this is probably a good thing -- helps keep the quality high. But I'm a libertarian. If a bunch of left-leaning folks start controlling what I consume from a political angle and not just quality angle -- and then lie about it? Really pisses me off.
Yes, you're a private company. Do whatever you want. It's the lying that's the problem here -- and the implication that the electorate needs people better than they are to control and guide what they're allowed to talk about.
I bet we continue to hear about this, and in places most people would never suspect, over the coming decade or two. This is unacceptable, and something is going to need to give somewhere.
As a libertarian, are you equally pissed off when a bunch of right-leaning folks start controlling what you consume from a political, and not just quality, angle—and then lie about it?
Post a comment about Facebook that's worth replying to if you want to steer things away from politics.
EDIT: I said stay on topic, because some will try to go tangent to prevent meaningful discussion on the real topic. Much like politicians not answering questions. This achieves one's goal of causing FUD to keep the person/organization's brand from getting tarnished.
If facebook comes out saying it's not true, will anyone really believe them, knowing their past practices?
Facebook has a lot of eyeballs looking and thus influence, and so the higher-ups there now want to use it to influence others. Much like celebrities do.
And they got to such position of influence using not so good tactics. Are people ok with this? My guess is not.
Moreover, the topic here isn't just Facebook, but their suppression and intentional modification of news and information based on a specific ideological bias.
The problem here is Facebook never claimed to be a news site but a connector for people. But here we find out they were acting as a left leaning news site or a powerbroker.
And I am also meta-pissed when a bunch of money/power-leaning folks start influencing the propaganda themes of both the bunch of left-leaning folks and the bunch of right-leaning folks. Media consolidation just makes that particular channel wider and deeper.
I am not pissed that there is a conservative talk radio station on my FM spectrum, and no other talker on the dial within range. Their bias is open and obvious. if I don't like it, I can listen to one of the 50 identical Bain Capital/THL Partners (IHeartMedia) or Oaktree Capital Management (Cumulus) stations. And I am pissed about that.
I would have preferred if the trending topics learned what I was interested in. I'm not averse to curation (either way), but I'd prefer that users were ultimately in control of their own filters. Even if that filter is "never show any politics, only show cat videos".
Any chance your departure from FB coincided with that little social feed experiment they performed to see if they could manipulate people's emotions?
I've deactivated my account for short periods before, so it's possible I may have deactivated previously during the experiment. But 7 months is the longest I've stayed deactivated & I have no desire to return to FB this time.
Even aside from that friction, there is some potential affinity between Libertarians and Liberals, because Libertarians see no governmental role in issues like gay marriage and use of medication/drugs. Because both groups seek similar outcomes in those areas there would be room for cooperation. But (IMHO) the Liberals are too antagonistic of property rights and self defense rights for this potential to be realized.
Aside from political affinities, I think the real thrust of the parent post was that FB's actions are fraudulent: the product they're delivering to you differs in an important (to some people) way from what they claim they're delivering. In libertarian philosophy, fraud is just one form of force, which is the core evil: the central tenet of libertarianism is to not initiate force against another person.
So at the risk of putting words in someone else's mouth: yes, a libertarian would be equally pissed off if the issue were the mirror of what we see here.
EDIT: end of first para - omitted the "un", significantly changing meaning!
As long as you choose to consume their product, you get the results of their work. Don't like it? Go somewhere else. You should appreciate that as a libertarian.
I see no harm in excluding articles from Breitbart, Washington Examiner, and Newsmax. Or Alternet for that matter. Those aren't news organizations. They're propaganda tabloids which consume the work of Reuters and the AP and regurgitate it with a ton of spin.
So, distort stories to keep eyeballs of main customers (younger hence more liberal) on Facebook, for the sake of earning more ad dollars?
I think the younger customers deserve more than that? Should give more credit to the younger generation no?
Except when you don't know what you aren't seeing.
>Those aren't news organizations. Breitbart has teams of reporters and editors, so does Infowars. Breitbart has offices in different locations, such as London and the U.S. Breitbart has it's reporters following the campaign and they get many exclusives. If we all should agree they aren't news orgs, then the HuffPost isn't a news org.
Why are you making arguments against claims I never made? Also, why do libertarians hate it so much when people use their own basic ideology against them?
No, having reporters and editors who cover current events does. The reason I brought up huffpost was anyone saying breitbart isn't news, immediately I'd have to test them with HuffPo. You know to spot the hypocrite. But anyway, HuffPo and Breitbart are both news orgs like it or not. News has always been slanted whether by selective coverage or the way things are framed. Example: 2 stories about refugees, one covers a family (with photos) where the children speak english (outliers) The other covers a boat load of military age males (again with photos), talks about concern over violence and culture war.
Both would be news stories. One you're likely to find in NPR or the Washington Post, the other you'll find on Breitbart. Sorry you're wrong about what's a news source and what's not. feel free to comment on quality or slant though.
>Why do libertarians... I don't know, ask them.
Of course they are. They control the medium. What a lot of people don't seem to understand is that "it's just an algorithm" isn't a defense. Just because a process involves calculation doesn't make the entire process free of bias or agenda.
The basic decision to use an algorithm is an opinionated decision that affects the outcome. Personal opinion influences how an algorithm was chosen or designed, how it will be applied, the selection of input data, and every other decision made during implementation.
Yes, some time may not intend to add their own bias and opinion, but it still happens. Jacob Appelbaum recently[1] discussed this problem; "Your politics are in everything that you write". The same is true for software and algorithms in general. Your politics are in everything you design. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it exists, and pretending that an an algorithm is "unbiased" or otherwise free from human influence and manipulation is foolish.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJValv4YQcY#t=78
Similar to how I give my electricity provider money, and they give me electricity.
Now FB clearly sees themselves as (let's be honest) a "power broker" or "rain maker". Not the same as "utility" or "network connection" or "conduit".
It's worth noting the candidate who has been most successful (or at least taken advantage of it) on that platform might fit the parent article's definition of conservative (or at least the sort of content they are suppressing).
I don't want to wander too far into conspiracy territory... but it's not completely unreasonable to suspect that a platform with such widespread and frequent use could knowingly make tiny adjustments to make a gentle push on society in one direction or another.
Also see previously: Facebook's study to see how content alters users' moods.
The problem isn't that FB is slanted, but that FB has a near-monopoly on user attention, which allows its slant to be both covert and disproportionately influential.
If FB was one of a selection of companies competing in the same space, political bias would be less of an issue, because it would be more like the print magazine and blog space.
But then you have the problem that the US gov has an entire network of foundations, think-tanks, blogs, PR companies, astroturfers, bought-and-paid-for journalists, and other "thought leaders" who exist solely to present a specific agenda - usually a pro-corporate one.
In the same way that you can't argue with the Fed, you can't argue with a state-organised propaganda machine - not easily, anyway.
So the problem is much wider than FB.
I couldn't agree more. They also have an unprecedented level of reach (billions of users) and user trust (appearance of community opinion vs. news media filtering).
> So the problem is much wider than FB.
Absolutely. Facebook is far from being the only offender here, and in a way, this is a growing pain of new technology. Just as we learned to not trust big media, we also will have to learn to approach social media with skepticism (despite it's inherently organic appearance).
If you read the article, its quite possible that it was also liberal news, depending on individual curators. Given other FB interventions I've seen, I'd be surprised if, like everything else at FB, the news moderation wasn't just stunningly inconsistent with rampant suppression of left, right, and center according to individual and essentially unaccountable whim.
FB is tolerably usable for basic circle-of-immediate-friends social functions without excessive interference. As far as public communication, news, and advocacy, well, its there, and there's enough people that come to it for that that it can't be ignored, but its fairly horrible for it, not so much from a systematic one-sided distortion but more absolute caprice.
"we were unable to determine if left-wing news topics or sources were similarly suppressed"
I see what you're getting at, but I highly doubt liberal news was systematically suppressed. Facebook is a notoriously far-left company, located in a region of the US that is already far-left.
Silicon Valley has a fairly substantial right-libertarian and just-plain libertarian segment, which, in the usual way multidimensional politics are smushed into the US two-party, one-axis system, fall out as "conservative", (and quite a lot of really hard to classify on a liberal-conservative axis types that are extremely socially liberal, but economically center-to-right-libertarian (that is, outside of culture-war kind of issues, they tend to agree more with the center-to-right types on the function of government, as well as leaning libertarian on its preferred degree and means of involvement in fulfilling that function); these don't fit well as either "liberal" or "conservative" in the classical sense, and often aren't very "moderate" though they might get classified that way as a result of being very liberal on some salient issues and very "conservative" (as that works out in the US political spectrum) on others.
To clarify, I think this an issue of respectability, not reliability.
One of many reasons I don't use FB. I keep an account on there for a few reasons, but I almost never actually look at it.