Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News (gizmodo.com) 639
Michael Nunez, reporting for Gizmodo: Facebook workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network's influential "trending" news section, according to a former journalist who worked on the project. This individual says that workers prevented stories about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, even though they were organically trending among the site's users. In other words, Facebook's news section operates like a traditional newsroom, reflecting the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation. Imposing human editorial values onto the lists of topics an algorithm spits out is by no means a bad thing -- but it is in stark contrast to the company's claims that the trending module simply lists "topics that have recently become popular on Facebook." The revelation comes amid a report on the same publication which claimed that a small group of journalists controlled and decided what should trend on Facebook. Also recently, a leaked screenshot revealed Facebook employees asking whether they should do something to prevent Donald Trump from becoming the president.
In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Yeah, I don't think there is such a thing as a truly unbiased media platform and people will like the ones that support their beliefs and complain about the ones that don't. The worst case scenario being finding yourself working for an organisation that's on the other side.
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:5, Insightful)
The big story here is that facebook wants to become the *only* way you get your news. No news outlet really was built with that goal in mind, they all are just "newspapers".
I have disliked this thought from the day I've heard it, and this is just more proof to why it is a bad idea for me as an user to use this service. It might be a good idea for facebook, obviously mark zuckerberg became really rich with that.
Its the same story as selling junk food it seems. Bad for the customer but good for the seller.
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:5, Informative)
This is just journalism majors being journalism majors. It's why we can't get decent coverage of science stories.
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:5, Insightful)
You'd be amazed how far the mainstream media went to suppress liberal views this election cycle. In particular, the behavior of the NY Times and Washington Post became indefensible. So, it goes both ways.
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:4, Informative)
Ah yes the "liberal media" LOL. The largest single news source in the US is Fox News, but sure, let's go with that obscure idea that there's some left-wing media. MSNBC is the only one that's left wing, CNN and the rest are fairly neutral or right leaning by multiple sources, but you keep on believing your little weird world view. Add to that conservatives control all talk radio, large swaths of the internet and Twitter and despite what this article implies without a shred of actual evidence, you know, proof, you continue to think you're able to discern truth any better than a naive high schooler. This article is a right wing circle jerk and nothing more.
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:5, Insightful)
A single network with the largest single percentage of individual networks, but (and objective numbers are hard to find here), but all other sources are between 2 and 3 times the viewers of the Fox Network.
Newspapers and magazines, there does not appear to be an equivalent of Fox News.
And online, it doesn't matter, as people tend to self-segregate by politics for news sites.
But the argument that there is no "liberal media" fails on analysis. . .
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is liberal and conservative media. But this is not indicative of most of the media. I would argue that most of the media doesn't care and are just so thrilled to have a Trump vs Clinton battle to gabble on about for the rest of the year.
In other words, the media doesn't favor Trump nor Clinton, it favors the fight between them because that is what will bring it revenue.
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:5, Informative)
Is there a liberal equivalent of talk radio?
Commercially, no. All large scale commercial attempts [wikipedia.org] have failed spectacularly. Air America [wikipedia.org] is the most outstanding attempt that comes to mind. The only national network is NPR [npr.org]. While not specifically liberal, the network tends toward liberal views. Many of NPR's large supporters have a liberal bend so they have a large influence on their programming.
There several independent liberal radio station but they tend be in larger, more affluent cities.
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Similarly, talk radio is all about yelling. There are plenty of angry progressives, but few progressive figureheads who are capable of directing that anger. Hence the comple
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:5, Interesting)
Newspapers - holy god, have you never read the WSJ?
I know something about the WSJ. I read them for 30 years. I was a journalist, I ran into their reporters, and I used to pick up stories from the WSJ all the time, adding my own reporting, and frequently interviewed/fact checked the same sources they interviewed.
For all that time, the WSJ had an uncanny reputation among left and right for objective, accurate, unbiased reporting that was not influenced by their advertisers or publisher. That was unusual in the news business. One of their reporters, A. Kent MacDougal, wrote a great article for Monthly Review about how he, as a socialist, could write anything he wanted as long as he backed it up with facts.
The great moment that established the WSJ's credibility was when in the 1950s they got a leak of General Motors' new cars, and GM didn't want them printed. GM threatened to cancel all their advertising in the WSJ if they printed it. The WSJ printed it. GM cancelled their ads. GM needed the WSJ more than the WSJ needed GM. GM finally came crawling back, and it was a long time before the WSJ took them back. There really aren't too many newspapers or magazines that would stand up to a major advertiser like that. I used to read stories on auto safety and pollution in the New York Times that were effectively censored by their auto advertisers. Ms. magazine throughout its history published cigarette ads (which according to Ms. advertising policy, were a seal of approval), while running stories on every cancer except lung cancer.
The reason for that, I concluded, was that the WSJ was owned by a wealthy family, the Bancrofts, who were politically liberal but believed in free speech and balanced journalism, and weren't out to maximize their profits. If every wealthy corporate owner was like the old Bancrofts, America would be a better country. But the next generation of Bancrofts were more interested in money than principle, and sold out to Rupert Murdoch. That's my great man/woman theory of journalism.
Under Murdoch, the WSJ has indeed become a corporate whore. I tried to give him a chance, but stopped subscribing when they started writing about "death taxes." Great journalism was worth $250 a year. Murdoch propaganda is worth zero.
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:5, Insightful)
Left, right... it's all relative.
Remember that what passes for left-wing in the US is right-wing by European standards - do you see many democrats calling for a full public healthcare system, as is standard in Europe?
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Left, right... it's all relative.
Remember that what passes for left-wing in the US is right-wing by European standards - do you see many democrats calling for a full public healthcare system, as is standard in Europe?
The thing I don't get is, even if the government is going to be wasteful and inefficient, doesn't it make more sense (and be cheaper too) to have a single payer healthcare system then mandating that everyone purchase insurance from a for-profit third party? With private insurance companies you have the same costs as government run insurance plus profit and shareholder expectations(profits and unlimited growth quarter after quarter)/dividends. It would have to be cheaper.
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:4, Insightful)
Not true.
The Democratic Party looks like a typical Social Democratic party in Europe. Actually more left-wing in some cases. For example, in Sweden and Denmark the Social Democratic parties are not promoting government-mandated minimum wages (they understand that it's economic nonsense) and they are less demagogic than the Democratic party in the sense that they realize that a big welfare state can only be implemented by imposing high taxes on the middle class (not just on the "rich", as the democrats typically claim).
The various wings of Republican Party look like a combination of conservative, and nationalist parties in Europe. Many mainstream centre-right parties in Europe are actually less statist than the present-day Republican party. For example, the Dutch VVD, Sweden's Moderaterna and Germany's CDU wouldn't nationalize as many banks or increase the national debt as much as Bush did.
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Pretty much yes.
And it doesn't matter much since "all" workplaces fall under collective agreements, and if you try to run a business without signing that agreement, then you'll be boycotted by all unions (no services performed, no deliveries etc.) and many customers as well.
The odd american company tries to bring their corporate (anti-union) culture over here, but they've all failed spectacularly so far. The last I remember is Toy's R Us, way back when. They folded pretty quickly.
So in Sweden almost anybody
Re: In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:5, Informative)
Bullcrap. This has been the primary point of contention between Bernie Sanders and the democratic leadership. The current democratic front runner for president is on record as saying it is impossible and a bad idea and will never ever happen. Thats the democratic standard these days, its not very liberal.
Now if the question was "do you hear progressives calling for full public healtcare" then sure, that happens all the time, but the democratic party no longer strongly represents progressive values. It only supports things that are "liberal" when they can draw a line of outrage between them and the republicans.
Re: In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:4, Informative)
It's not bullcrap. Every single socia...err...Democrat I know wants single payer. They all admit that the ACA which they all fullheartedly supported is now a failure, and we should impose single payer instead. And don't act like every Dem in congress wouldn't vote for it if it came up.
Re: In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:4, Informative)
Norway is single payer and the system and it usually has long waiting times. Also, many things are not covered. For example, if you get an ACL injury playing soccer, the system will only cover emergency treatment. It will not cover the reconstruction surgery because it is not life threatening. Of course, you will have chronic pain and won't be able to run anymore. You have the option pay for the surgery at a very high price (like everything else in Norway).
Sweden is a combination of government payed and private insurance companies. The public system also has long waiting times. For example, if you want to see a specialist doctor you have to wait around four months. With private insurance the wait for this is reduced to days, although not for more complex procedures.
The Netherlands is fully private. All hospitals are private and it's not single payer. It is mandatory for people to buy private health insurance. Insurance companies cannot deny people from buying the most basic package, but the government compensates insurance companies when they sell to high-risk people.
Switzerland is similar to The Netherlands.
So no. Single payer is not the norm in Europe and where it is it's not always as good as you might think.
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MSNBC is rather left-leaning but CNN?
give me a break.
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:4, Insightful)
That says more about you than it says about the media.
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:4, Insightful)
Or maybe you forget just how far other nations moved to the left.
Liberal media? Not so much... (Score:5, Insightful)
My observation: this election cycle, the news has pushed for Clinton pretty hard. She's pretty center, and right of it if anything. Very corporate, very pro-war, very pro-PATRIOT act, very pro drugwar, etc.
Sanders was subjected to constant downplay and neg-speak. Everything from the NYT to the Guardian. Sanders is, in my view, actually a fairly liberal candidate.
To find media support of him (not voter support, there's plenty of that), you have to hit places like Salon, Huffington post, etc.
Just saying... I don't see the MSM as liberal. Now Fox News... I don't see them so much as conservative as batshit crazy, but that's just me. :)
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Definitely left... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see any right-wing-run social media kicking anyone off because they like marijuana, but a few months ago, Facebook kicked off hundreds of gun groups for vague reasons and banned the admins for 72 hours.
It put Mewe on the map though...
IF FB decided to do this with anyone mentioning pot or other left frequenting topics, they would be crucified in the press on a daily basis, but spitting on 2A rights is perfectly OK to them.
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Pot is not a left/right issue. It's a freedom issue.
The left had their chance to make this theirs, they passed.
Re:Definitely left... (Score:4, Insightful)
As is the right to bear arms.
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:5, Insightful)
The media world in a nut shell:
1. Revenue is generated off of advertising dollars
2. Advertisements sell best when you have access
3. You gain access by building a rapport with high profile interviewees.
3a. Don't say anything too controversial or you will end that rapport
3b. Create enough controversy that you get advertising dollars.
This allows for high profile interviewees such as Trump and Clinton to get glamorous interviews while spokespersons get shafted. This is also why Hillary and Trump get these polite interviews while Sanders gets more of a hard hitting interview.
4. Don't make the our company look bad.
As some of these people get a bit more clout such as Rachel Maddow, they get the opportunity to shirk some of the rules, but for the most part, you see these people abide by the rules of the media darlings so that they can build up their reputation and get more press time inside the company.
Liberal or Conservative biases aside, all work the same.
If the Democrats started attacking campaign donations aggressively like Bernie Sanders, you would see a shift in liberal bias by the media because guess who benefits from campaign donations.
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah, yes: that same liberal media that was ignoring Bernie Sanders for months, even when his polling numbers were very respectable.
If you want to say that the media supports the Democratic establishment, then perhaps that's true, but let's not confuse mainstream Democratic elite with liberals. Politics in the USA have moved so far to the right that that the Democratic leadership would be considered center-right in any other Western democracy.
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:4, Insightful)
Became indefensible?
The NY times have been DNC owned and operated for a long, long time.
Your post tells me you thought they were defensible when they did the exact same thing to conservatives.
Grow up. It's not OK when your side does it. MSNBC is not defensible. 'Democracy Now' is not defensible.
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Tell me, who is the liberal that is running? All I see are a bunch of authoritarians.
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Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:4, Interesting)
Only because the left is incredibly happy to relay his insanity verbatim.
Just this week he has gone from repudiating the debt to inflating it away.
What's more, it's only Monday
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p>Just this week he has gone from repudiating the debt to inflating it away.
Did you conclude that yourself from listening to him, and the context of his words? It sounds more like you are repeating an interpretation of his words from some very recent news articles. What you'll find out about Trump is that he's not one who thinks there is only one way to solve a problem or move forward. That bugs far right conservatives, and it gives fodder to liberals.
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http://www.wyff4.com/politics/... [wyff4.com]
"People said I want to go and buy debt and default on debt, and I mean, these people are crazy. This is the United States government," Trump told CNN's Chris Cuomo on "New Day." "First of all, you never have to default because you print the money, I hate to tell you, OK?""
If you would like to support someone who gets his "news" from the National Enquirer more power to you?
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:5, Funny)
When I'm president, I'm going to make the debt great again. It'll make your head spin.
Re: In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:5, Insightful)
So what do you think happens when you print money to pay off debt?
Who cares? Trump didn't say he would do that. He said you could avoid default if you did that, but never said he'd do it. But you are so glad to think the liberal reporter found a 'gotcha' on Trump, you still won't read the words he actually spoke and decide for yourself. I assume that you'll never admit you were misled by the article, and if you somehow do admit it, you would forgive and still trust that source in the future.
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:4, Interesting)
1) I don't think Trump is as conservative as his followers seem to think: I do think he's an isolationist, but I know plenty of liberals who would prefer isolationism over the current policy (for different reasons perhaps). In terms of the usual conservative trash (i.e. returning to the theocracy that never was), he's very weak and makes no attempt to hide it. The biggest fear that many of us have, is that he tells us what we want to hear, but we have absolutely no idea what his real agenda is. A lot like his competition...
2) I have not seen a shortage of conservative news on Facbeook. While it may be getting filtered by useless things like Facebooks recommendations and trending stories, the users of FB that i am connected with have been spamming me for years with Benghazi, email, religious shit, etc. such that I am inundated with conservative "news". I actually don't see much liberal news.
I think this is a story for the sake of story and does not reflect how people use or perceive Facebook. As far as I'm concerned is is a place where I get spammed with Faux News stories. But then I rarely read the trending bar because 9/10 it's celebrity "news". The other 1/10 is bombastic headline that always turns out to be unsubstantiated.
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's also clear to anyone with any objectivity that conservative ideas have their own billionaire-funded media outlets to promote and distribute right wing propaganda as news. I totally understand any group that wants to screen out the right wing noise machine. You are entitled to your own opinion, you are not entitled to your own facts.
While you're at it explain how Rush Limbaugh has been able to stay on the air for so long with nothing but music playing during commercial breaks.
Sounds like you've been getting all your information from the hard left biased 'news' sources, or maybe liberal funded talk radio speakers. Who give a flying F where Limbaugh gets his paycheck. everyone knows that he's a conservative. Do liberals activists getting funded by liberal backers offend you as much? Frankly, I could care less about either, I don't listen to either and don't lay awake at night fretting about either. If your answer to FB censorship is that Rush has conservative supporters, well all I can say is "good for you" because there is no logical way to tie the point.
Re:In other news, water gets things wet... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would there be apprehension with Clinton? We know roughly what she would do in office, which is to continue the policies of the Obama administration. You might like that idea or hate it (I hate it, but for different reasons than the conservatives do), but it's not an unknown to be nervous about in the way a Trump presidency would be.
This should come as no surprise (Score:2)
Re:This should come as no surprise (Score:5, Insightful)
At least in the US, conservatives stand for small government. Except on the issue of abortion, and sex education, and recreational substances, and national security, and pornography, and broadcast indecency, and regulation of marriage. Oh, and they insist the government has a duty to issue non-binding religious proclamations telling the people who and how they are supposed to worship and erect tax-funded monuments to their deity. And regulate who is allowed to use which restroom. But aside from all that, they stand for small government.
Conservative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Conservative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Conservative does not mean libertarian. There was a time when embracing some libertarian ideas seemed like a good way to pursue a conservative agenda, but that is no longer the case: (1) Since older people are disproportionately conservative, they need to keep this base happy by keeping benefits to the elderly flowing. Not a "small government" principle at all. Yet until Obama, George Bush had the record for largest expansion of Medicare ever. (2) Since society started to move to embrace social movements unpopular among conservatives, they had to use the federal government to try and stomp this out - see the "defense of marriage act" as one example. (3) It's hardly a new phenomenon, but the Republicans and Democrats have both competed vigorously for the support for the richest people in the US. This has led to lower taxes without corresponding cuts in spending. So we no longer borrow for infrastructure spending, but we need loans simply to cover day-to-day operations. It's not hurting us right now, but eventually rates will go up and we'll feel that debt burden. Or rather, our children will.
The sad fact is that neither party in the US stands for responsible or sustainable fiscal policy anymore. And arguably, "conservatives" even less so given their inability to compromise on taxes or on entitlement programs.
Re:Conservative? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing is static, including language. In political science, terms such as "conservative", "liberal", etc. are not buckets, but points on a spectrum. In the classic polysci "wheel" of political beliefs, the Republican and Democrat positions are remarkably close in almost all respects except social policy. And even there, the differences are not all that far apart. The mainstream position of both parties has been trending towards larger government with larger social programs. Free trade has been a cornerstone of both parties' economic policy since the 90s. The handoff in economic policy amidst a crisis between Bush and Obama was remarkably smooth and consistent. Both parties have had activist foreign policy since WW2. Both sides supported the Patriot Act and domestic spying. Deregulation of financial markets, etc, etc.
It's become more and more of a team sport, "red" vs "blue" and a lot less interesting if you really care about issues besides those that have become "wedge" issues: gay rights, abortion, um.... is there anything else that defines the parties? As important as these things are, they are ultimately social issues driven by the populace, and the government has little long-term influence - in other words, politicians either ride the popular wave or perish. So for things where the government actually has a large impact - defense, trade, civil liberties, taxes, foreign policy, social programs... the parties are largely homogeneous.
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I would say, after extensive testing, that acid doesn't make you believe anything you're not predisposed to believe.
I would say it does give you a sense that some things are extremely profound, but we could never remember what the hell it was the next day. A portable cassette recorder was employed during one session and all that resulted was incoherent babbling and laughter.
We did run into one of the well-known, silver tongued campus preachers one time. We must have spent 2 hours talking to him, and I don
No different than the rest of media and academia (Score:2)
Yet another reason why monopolies are evil (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, it would be easy to "blame the victim" here and say that, since at least the more libertarian and/or corporatist conservatives see nothing wrong with unregulated near-monopolies then they deserve whatever suppression of their ideology they get....
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Yeah facebook building this restricted version of the internet means that they have full control over what happens on it, including which news reach the people, and which don't. This is part of why facebook is so valuable. Facebook stock would drop if this practice would be banned.
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Facebook continues to remain just like AOL of old.
Walled gardens are for children...wear a write protect tab.
I for one loved AOL and love Facebook. Never used ether.
Lefties now support corporate censorship (Score:4, Insightful)
When Zuckerberg is running the show and agrees with your lefty political positions, all of the sudden Corporations have rights and should be allowed to run the elections as long as they support the "correct" positions.
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Oh look, someone stuffing words into the mouths of others!
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You saying this doesn't make it true. I don't know of anybody suggesting that corporations should have "rights" or should "run the elections" other than the super wealthy and the non-wealthy dullards who support them.
Despicable (Score:5, Insightful)
"Trending News"?
Really? More like FB propaganda.
The sad thing are the millions who get their "news" from FB.
FB has the monopoly, and it using it well.
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"Trending News"?
Really? More like FB propaganda.
That's why whenever I see something on FB that is propaganda and/or pure marketing I tag it as offensive/sexually explicit.
I have no idea if that actually dos anything, but it does make me feel good.
Re:Despicable (Score:5, Insightful)
How in the world can you say that Facebook has a monopoly? Just close your account and stop using it - no "service" that it provides cannot be gotten elsewhere. "Events" can be sent with Evite, messages with dozens of different competitors. I have many friends who are not on Facebook and they get along just fine. The only "monopoly" they hold is over the content on their own website, and that's true of all other websites as well.
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Really all it takes is some critical thinking, listening to what FB users say regarding news, current events, politics, etc.
I don't have a FB account, but I know a lot of people who do, and I have poked around on other peoples accounts, so I know what it looks like, how its setup, privacy settings(which I've helped people with...), etc.
I have no account to close.
What I do have is an understanding about human nature, and that pe
Re:Despicable (Score:4, Funny)
Okay, so now that you've accused me of not paying attention, lack of critical thinking, and not listening, would you like to try to prove your assertion that Facebook has a monopoly over something? As far as I can tell, they only have a monopoly over Facebook. Which is to say, no monopoly.
Why lie? (Score:2)
I don't have a problem with them doing it. I DO have a problem with them lying about doing it.
We get enough lies and deceit from conservative sources as it is. It's basically par for the course, at this point. I have much higher expectation from supposedly left-leaning organizations.
Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
So does google. Every day all the time. No one is surprised.
Honestly, we're past this. Facebook et al. provide the romper room world view preferred by the low information crowd and and the rest of us found suitable alternatives long ago.
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Citation needed
Trends Help: The homepage explained [google.com]
you’ll also see featured stories at the top of the page that are curated by the News Lab at Google
What news organizations are proudly called out on the top page at Google News Lab [withgoogle.com]? The News York Times. The Guardian. The Verge [Vox].
The usual suspects.
Doesn't surprise me one bit (Score:3)
Zuckerberg is a leftist. He openly supports the Democrats. Now i don't have a problem with that but here's the problem: I think that a lot of people that get their news from Facebook truly believe it is unfiltered and crowd-sourced. If this allegation is true then it shows us that Facebook is no better or no worse than all the other news agencies.
Everyone - be it Fox News or the NY Times, or CNN - is selling an agenda. They choose the news they report and all of them put their own political spin on it to advance that agenda. The line between hard news and political commentary is blurred and has been for some time. I believe that the only way to get the real story is to view it from both a right wing and a left wing perspective. The truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.
Nothing that Facebook does surprises me in the least. It's one of the reasons I don't use it. I don't trust them. Not with my personal information and not with news feeds either.
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Nah, there are right-wingers and ULTRA-right-wingers.
What else did they suppress? (Score:5, Insightful)
Did they suppress news about Bernie Sanders? Because he was ignored wholesale by the media.
Sanders won nearly every poll, and yet the media claims Hillary won, even when the poll on their own pages show Sanders winning by a mile.
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There's only one poll that matters, and Hillary has all but won it.
ANY Single Source balanced news (Score:5, Insightful)
This Pew Research poll of last summer [niemanlab.org] shows 63% of FB users get their news there (up from 47% two years ago).
ANYBODY who gets their news from only one source simply doesn't care whether it's true.
And we all know what they say about news without truth, right?
It gets repeated...
No one read the article it seems... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ah, so they were censoring sources that were known to be bastions of conservative misinformation. Ah yes, beat the drums.One guy said "THEY WUZ CENSORSING MURICAN PINIONS" and a moderate said "Eh, what we really did was remove sources that we thought were overly biased and replaced with a more neutral source."
Oh my god, my moral barometer is shifting with the moon phases and you can't explain that. I'm just OUTRAGED. Liburaldumcrats are RAPING my ECHO CHAMBER BY NOT SPREADING MISINFORMATION!
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"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. “Every once in awhile a Red State or conservative news source would have a story. But we would have to go and find the same story from a more neutral outlet that wasn’t as biased.”"
Sounds like the informer thinks every Red State story should automatically be flagged as trending on Facebook. Until we get some actual evidence, I'm going to treat this as another IRS non-scandal invented to "prove" that everyone is persecuting conservatives.
Like the "liberal" media who gave Trump free airtime in the middle of their next day's coverage of the first Democratic debate.
Anyone got screenshots of what has actually been trending on FB during the last few days?
Re:good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly.
Censorship is censorship. And one should note that FB is censoring news that's rising organically.
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It's not censorship. Facebook is not restricting freedom of speech nor are they preventing anyone, anywhere from publishing content of any type in any manner of their choosing.
Facebook provides a service. Part of that service is providing you content THEY want to deliver. Don't like the content Facebook delivers? Don't use Facebook.
Is it censorship that Facebook doesn't provide me with my daily BBW jerk off material? Did Facebook shut down the BBW porn site I visit? Did the government, using force of
Re: good for them (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:good for them (Score:4, Insightful)
And another liberal demonstrates that it's just a short road from liberalism to fascism. No ideas allowed that don't resonate in the echo chamber.
Re:good for them (Score:4, Insightful)
Cause a conservative would never advocate for censorship when it served their purposes, would they?
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Stop projecting.
Re:good for them (Score:4, Interesting)
Free Speech zones is a little more complicated. People going to an abortion clinic should not have to walk through a gauntlet of people shouting murderer at them, just as people going to a Trump speech shouldn't have to go through a gauntlet of people yelling racist at them. How do we draw the line between competing rights on public property? It's not cut and dried and and it certainly is not censorship. (Unless there is more to free speech zones than I'm aware of).
Re:good for them (Score:4, Insightful)
Right because today's "safe space", "rape-culture", anti free-speech, socialist youth aren't anything to worry about?
The wealthy are always going to be a bunch of pricks. But nothing scares the bujeezus out of me more than the monolithic intolerance coming out of youth movements today.
We should all be deeply concerned by it. Historically speaking, that's where the real danger is. And it starts *exactly like this* every time.
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What is "it"? "Danger"? Danger comes from monolithic intolerance coming from youth movements? Really? Do you have any historical examples to back this up?
Re: (Score:3)
Maoists rooting out capitalists killed millions during China's Cultural Revolution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution - also covered briefly in pop culture in "The Last Emperor")
"Historically", uh? (Score:5, Insightful)
If I understand you correctly, you are claiming that the "real danger" comes from the "socialist" left wing of politics. You curiously attached the adjective "historically", even though, in the history of democracy, not one single time has any established democracy ever been replaced by a repressive Soviet-style stalinist regime. Not. Once. Ever. The closest you get is when the USSR invaded the baltic states early in WW2, but that's more like a country-to-country invasion that would have happened no matter what the regime in Russia was.
As observed by Eric Hobsbawn in The Age of Extremes, real dangers to any established democracy have always, without exception come from the right wing of politics: fascism in Italy, nazism in Germany, Franco in Spain, Austro-fascism, Vichy France, various dictatorships in South America, the colonels' regime in Greece, Salazar in Portugal, the Shah in Persia, Suharto in Indonesia.
And the way dictatorships start is not by censoring news in a private media outlet, however despicable the practice may be; it is by instilling fear in the populace, identifying an enemy (real or imagined), and convincing the masses that they have to give up their rights and trust a heroic leader to gain security and maintain prosperity. Sounds like anyone you know?
Re:"Historically", uh? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, even though you seem to be presenting an opposing view, I think you are actually agreeing with him.
Ignore the political terms and see the true argument at hand.
Facebook is allowing intolerant, political ideologues to skew what it's users are seeing in an attempt to grossly influence people into their views. Fearmongering is a method to do the same thing using emotions, what Facebook is doing is way worse since they can stream in the influence in any method they want, any emotion they want and they can do so using heuristics they have garnered from your user activity.
This is a very dangerous precedent, no matter the beliefs of these ideologues.
Re:"Historically", uh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Proof you are wrong, sir: Hugo Chávez won all his elections fair and square, according not just to himself but to former US president Jimmy Carter [commentarymagazine.com], who was quoted saying "Venezuela probably has the most excellent voting system that I have ever known".
Chávez' opposition, instead, organised riots, a coup against him [wikipedia.org], and he was so magnanimous as not to have them sentenced to death (which is undoubtedly what would be done in case anything remotely similar were to occur in the US; it's called treason [cornell.edu]).
Just because you don't like his policies, his attitude or his inept successor does not make the man a dictator. And by the way there are still elections scheduled in Venezuela, and it is likely Maduro is going to lose.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So, all that persecution of socialists and communists, all that Barbarossa business, all that money the Nazis got from Krupp and the German aristocrats and industrialists, and that little issue with racial purity—that was all a charade? The No True Scotsman brought to new heights...
I hope you are trolling, because the other diagnosis is that you are so retarded you could be a Trump voter.
Re: (Score:3)
Right because today's "safe space", "rape-culture", anti free-speech, socialist youth aren't anything to worry about?
today doesn't worry me, it's tomorrow's "rape space" and "safe-culture" that have me truly concerned. one can only extrapolate that soon after, we'll have "space rape" and "culture safes". the future... so terrifying.
Re: (Score:2)
Soon they'll be banning anything written by a man!
Hey, that would be discriminatory against feminists with body dysmorphia who have been converted into men!
Re:good for them (Score:4, Informative)
>>You're just old and confused by people not wanting to give a podium to nakedly racist sexist assholes.
Ageism. Not quite as trendy as "racism" and "sexism," as it's inherently a disease of the fashionably young. But you're an ageist.
>>we don't need to give them a space to talk
Yeah, son, actually you kinda do. And that space is called "everywhere in the U.S." You're just young, and confusing the rights you think you *should* have with the rights outlined in the Constitution that you actually, legally, *do* have.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah, son, actually you kinda do. And that space is called "everywhere in the U.S." You're just young, and confusing the rights you think you *should* have with the rights outlined in the Constitution that you actually, legally, *do* have.
Let's get this straight: telling you that your hate speech is unwelcome in no way infringes upon your first amendment rights. Conservatives seem to think that they ought to be able to say anything at all, no matter how offensive or misanthropic, without having anybody call them out on it. Freedom of speech doesn't protect you from disagreement, and it doesn't protect you from being publicly lambasted for your opinions - it merely means that you can't be thrown in jail or otherwise silenced by the government
Re: good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:good for them (Score:4, Insightful)
Blocking opposing views is wrong.
If they are lies or dangerous, make sure you have a proper rebuttal ready but just don't block it.
Crazy Liberal Views are just as bad and dangerous. And if you stop and listen to even the Crazy views you find that both sides are feeling that there is some force that is disempowering them. The Conservatives thinks it is the government who are making laws that hinders our freedoms. The Liberals thinks it is the company's who combine low pay with expensive products that prevents us to get ahead.
Both sides see that there are people with power to control us and get the feeling the games is stacked against them.
Re: (Score:2)
Uh... that "true fascist" just took issue with the anti free-speech movements on college campuses.
Do you know what a fascist is?
Re: (Score:2)
Ack.. this interface blows. Sorry AC ... wrong thread.
Re: (Score:2)
Could be.
Typically left-leaning people will notice more if left-leaning stories are rejected/suppressed and right-leaning people will notice more if right-leaning stories are rejected/suppressed. That's human nature: we naturally "protect our turf"; a tribal-like instinct.
Without some kind of objective statistical analysis, it's hard to know if there is really an aggregate bias, or if the complainers here are (perhaps subconsciously) cherry-picking rejection incidents. And, objective measurements of politic
Re: (Score:2)
Right! You should only hear about news we allow you to hear about Comrade!
Re:Does anyone else remember (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
NPR has, recently, shit the bed in terms of "thoroughness".
I'm thoroughly, pun intended, disappointed in NPR's coverage of the recent campaign cycle.
I would honestly rate Fox News and CNN, which is a very, very low bar, as being more "thorough" than NPR.
But remember, even though NPR is "public", NPR itself has its' own agenda which does get influenced by outside entities.
Re: (Score:3)
What people are upset about with Facebook is that they misrepresent their editorial choices as "trending topics"; that is, they are falsely saying that their editorial choices represent majority opinions.
When HuffPo journalists are frothing at the mouth, they put their byline on it.