Facebook Offers Political Bias Training In Wake Of Trending Controversy (gizmodo.com) 206
Michael Nunez, reporting for Gizmodo:Facebook is adding political scenarios to its orientation training following concerns, first reported by Gizmodo, that workers were suppressing conservative topics in its Trending news section. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, announced the change during an interview with conservative leader Arthur Brooks, president of the prominent conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute. Brooks also attended a private meeting between Facebook executives and prominent conservative leaders following the controversy. "We had an ex-contractor on that team who accused us of liberal bias," Sandberg said during the interview. "Frankly, it rang true to some people because there is concern that Silicon Valley companies have a liberal bias. We did a thorough investigation, and we didn't find a liberal bias."
In other news... (Score:1, Troll)
...the NRA did a thorough investigation, and didn't find a conservative bias.
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...the NRA did a thorough investigation, and didn't find a conservative bias.
National Rifle Association founded in 1871. Are you referring to the the oldest civil rights group in america?
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Yes, the organization that in recent decades has gained a very strong conservative bias and moved it's primary focus away from gun safety and towards gun rights lobbying. Are you trying to imply that they're centrist?
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Informative)
Mind you, this is coming from a gun *owner*, but let's call a flintlock a flintlock, okay?
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The NRA will never "return to its roots as a promoter of firearms education and safety" ... What the "liberals" do has nothing to do with their behavior.
If the NRA returned to only promoting firearms education and safety, then in short order there would be no shooters to educate because there would be no firearms in civilian hands. Before the "liberals" (and "conservatives" as well) began passing significant anti-gun laws, the NRA supported gun control. That changed at the behest of the membership in the 70s and 80s in response to the CGA and FOPA.
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Liberals have every right to attack your rights, and you have no rights to defend against them taking away your rights.
This is, the essence of the 2nd Amendment, and why it is crucial to understand why it is there in the first place.
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Hmm, is that username taken?
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...the NRA did a thorough investigation, and didn't find a conservative bias.
National Rifle Association founded in 1871. Are you referring to the the oldest civil rights group in america?
You mean the one that supports selling weapons people on the no fly list as likely trsts?
Quickly, explain why you support selling weapons s to them.
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I'd lol except it isn't at all funny that someone so ignorant and stupid and enslaved by the State is allowed to vote and otherwise express their uneducated spoon fed factless opinion.
Yeah, but they let you vote anyway.
NRA (Score:2)
Nazis
Retards &
Assholes
As most normal people refer to them ..
Just FYI
And No, Those cocksuckers are not a civil rights group anymore than Charles Manson is to movie stars.
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Uh, gun ownership and use is a right. It applies to civilians. It's a civil right.
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Gun ownership is a natural right.
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No, it isn't.
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There's no such thing as a natural right. All rights are invented.
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I'll hazard a guess that you're in favor of universal healthcare (there tends to be a correlation between a person's stance on that and gun rights) so how could you argue that people have a right
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Newspapers, ink, pens, don't occur naturally either. Someone I don't think you believe the right to Free Speech and of the Press is not a natural right.
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Uh, gun ownership and use is a right. It applies to civilians. It's a civil right.
Well, to be specific, the rtified second amendments states:
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Seing as how that is one sentence, it probably refers as much to the militia as to individual people.
But here is the tough part - "A well Regulated militia". Does this mean that anything but the militias are to be completely unregulated". This is where I think some organizations go wrong.
As a firea
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One needs to understand the word 'regulated' as it applies to the amendment, when it was written. Some people mistakenly think it refers only to gov't organized military.
Right, everything needs interpreted. But I look at militia as a militia, consisting of citizens, not necessarily the official military. But that regulated part probably means that they did expect some regulation, not the concept of selling arms to people hwo are expected to use those arms against the rest of the citizenry.
If you deserve to use firearms, then by all means. If you don't, you shouldn't. I don't think that people that have a credible possibility of carrying out terrorist acts should be allow
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Let's see how far you are willing to use that logic. I believe that you have a credible possibility of carrying out terrorist acts. You already have all the equipment to do so, so you certainly must be planning on murdering as many people as possible.
You might be basing your belief on non-credible information. I have no criminal record, and no signs of instability. On the other hand, Did you know the Orlando shooter tried to purchase 1000 rounds of ammo and high grade body armor a month before he went on the rampage?
You might say hindsight is 20/20, but sorry. The gun shop owner was very suspicious of hime, and called the FBI after he left the shop. Considering the fellow was already under investigation, and now attempts a purchase that particular st
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Sure, but this time it isn't you deciding. This time it is me, and I say that you are a threat.
No system is perfect, and sure as shootin' the No Fly list isn't. But your idea that people are going to accuse others of being terrorists - you have the cites of exactly how often that happens? We see all too many times people trying to make perfection the enemy of good.
Indeed, even in this case, the FBI had two incidences of the Orlando gunman being reported to them, and didn't find anything actionable, even when he tried to purchase police grade body armor. Sounds like it takes a bit to actually get y
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I am not making a threat you fucking dumbass.
As you wrote:
Sure, but this time it isn't you deciding. This time it is me, and I say that you are a threat.
So tell me - were you lying? I try to take people at their face value, and you can rest assured thart if I told somone they were a threat, I would mean it, and take all legal actions of reporting them to law enforcement.
Such are dumbasses, eh?
Your rhetoric is an example of exactly how people get themselves into trouble on the internetz. A minor example, and no doubt - considering that I don't suspect you plan to turn me in on a whim, and I have no reason at all to suspect you are any so
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Nope. [findlaw.com]
LOL if that isn't sad and twisted.
So the right to defend yourself and to have the means to do so is not a civil right.
By that reasoning there are no rights.
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Informative)
He's right. It's not a "civil right" according to the definition in the link provided, as pedantic as that is.
What it is is more important... it is a Fundamental Right, or a Civil Liberty. It is a Right that predates Governments and is not subject to Government infringement.
Re: In other news... (Score:2)
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God Made Men
Sam Colt Made Them Equal.
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. . . and J. J. Thompson made some men More Equal than others (grin)
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Horseshit. See here [wikipedia.org]
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That's not a civil right. See here [cornell.edu].
You didn't read your link did you ?
A civil right is an enforceable right or privilege, which if interfered with by another gives rise to an action for injury.
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All these words wasted on a pedantic argument.
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It's a civil liberty not a civil right.
They aren't mutually exclusive. The grandparent was correct.
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Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
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You have a female COO- proof of liberal bias.
Re: In other news... (Score:2)
There has been a steep rise on both sides where individuals on one side are completely disgusted by individuals with opposing views. Liberals are disgusted with conservatives and conservatives are disgusted with liberals. The bias doesn't disturb me. It's the intolerance of opposing views.
Re: In other news... (Score:5, Interesting)
The bias doesn't disturb me. It's the intolerance of opposing views.
As I've always said, if you can't argue the opposing view on any contentious topic, you don't understand the topic and shouldn't hold a strong view. It's so damn easy to attribute the opposing view to malice or trolling, as it takes no effort.
This always pissed me off growing up, when some on the religious right would claim that gays were only have same-sex sex out of a desire to be evil, not a sincere desire for the same sex. Total lack of understanding. More recently I've seem the exact same ignorance in reverse, where people on the progressive left would claim that the only reason conservatives could oppose gay marriage was hatred of gays, and no other reason was sincere. Same total lack of understanding.
Intolerance of opposing views comes mostly from ignorance of the rationale for those views, which is simple intellectual laziness. The worst part is, people seem proud of this ignorance.
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There are plenty of issues on the right (most Obama conspiracies, 6000 year old earth, "creation science") that can't be logically argued. There are also loony left issues (anti-vaxxers, anti-GMO, almost anything they peddle at Whole Foods) that can't be logically argued.
On the other hand, I might not agree with everything that the likes of George Will, Paul Ry
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There are plenty of issues on the right (most Obama conspiracies, 6000 year old earth, "creation science") that can't be logically argued.
They very much can be, if you bother to understand them. Take creationism. The wonderful talk.origins FAQ website [talkorigins.org] (along with the many FAQs linked off of it) does just that. Turns out a lot of creationism is based on debunking "evolution as taught in high school", which is in fact often wrong, because the textbook was really bad, or oversimplified too far. Realizing that "oh, yeah, no scientist believes that either, it's just nonsense" can lead to actually resolving the disagreement based on proving new
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if you can't argue the opposing view on any contentious topic, you don't understand the topic
This was the #1 thing stressed in my speech and debate class. My school was really big on the whole critical thinking [wikipedia.org] thing which seems to be largely absent these days. I suppose it is the natural effect of romanticism beating out enlightenment.
Now get off my lawn.
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Thorough Investigation (Score:5, Insightful)
We did a thorough investigation, and we didn't find a liberal bias.
Biased group looks at self, finds no bias.
Re:Thorough Investigation (Score:4, Insightful)
+1
If anything I have found most tech centers to be thoroughly disgustingly overwhelmingly liberal to the point where you question whether or not these people actually have brains. Don't you dare ask some of these nuts to fact check and follow the money train or they start the ad-hominem attacks and petition to have you fired from your job.
I am 40+ to there's likely a LOT of 'Get off my Lawn' in there but please, lets get some balance going at least in the political / activist spectrum.
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+1
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You would have to witness or experience it to really understand but an oversimplification goes like this:
I say:
1+1=2, The Sky is Blue, would you like to take a walk on this wonderful day?
The Liberal says:
You're an insensitive color-abled piece of shit micro-aggressiving both color blind and wheel chair bound people by talking about color and taking walks. These people have absolutely no ability to do those things and here you are rubbing it in their faces. I am going get my buddies and I to call and harass
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Zuckerberg is prep-schooled, Harvard educated, Westchester County old money. He's known to associate himself with the likes of Chris Christie and Peter Thiel (Including fundraising for the former.). And now he's prostrating himself to the American Enterprise Institute and ordering his employees trained to their standards. And this is the guy you think designed and built Facebook to be a bastion of liberalism?
Look at the list of prominent American Enterprise Institute members and associates. It's practic
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See, for me, Facebook seems bound and determined to keep shoving "Hillary is Satan/Hitler/Davros/etc." crap in my face. I've no doubt it's because I have a few Bernie Sanders supporters amongst my friends. But it does suggest to me that the algorithm has at least as much, if not more, influence than the curators.
Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
If they found no bias, why are they adding the training?
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If they found no bias, why are they adding the training?
Well since it was announced from the top I would suspect it's a total PR move for Facebook...
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That is old History. [nytimes.com] Your statement has been wrong since 1983. Even before then those laws only dealt with analog broadcasts on limited spectrum licensed for station usage.
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Good luck with that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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How do you prove damage to public relations and reputation just because Facebook didn't put you on its front page?
Everyone knows... (Score:5, Insightful)
Everyone knows that the truth has a strong bias toward whichever political party we happen to support. Any investigation of bias can also take this into account and therefore show it does not exist. However, it also means we can perceive bias and there can be actual bias where others do not intend to be acting in a biased way.
Real communication is about getting past talking points and ad hominem attacks, of course. About questioning our own beliefs and those of our fellow human beings, and building compromises that drive society forward. About questioning our own biases and being able to work with those whose biases are different. The best is almost always the enemy of the good, in large part because we will always find much more disagreement over what is best.
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Maybe you took a wrong turn on your way to utopianfantasy.com, but this is Slashdot. We don't question our bias in these parts, and we damn sure don't build compromise. What, are you some kinda liber
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I suspect it's "realistic" for conservatives to accept that 90+% percent of climatologists lie for money because most conservatives themselves do and believe that's normal in the work-place: it's a "salesy" world, after all. That's the only coherent explanation I can find for believing such a huge portion of scientists would flat out lie. You are welcome to offer another explanation.
Theory. (Score:2)
Maybe there is a bias - and it exists because the two political factions are not mirror images of each other. Perhaps one of them actually does buy into more conspiracy theories, or their publications do peddle more lies? It could be that even if you run a perfectly objective fact-checking filter it'll appear to favor one side over the other, because that side is, in general, more honest?
Liberal bias (Score:2)
Facebook users should be the ones trained (Score:3)
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That probably explains why so many people rely on Facebook for news: Cat videos are approximately as useful as most "news". And, they have cats...
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A lot of people watch the news for comedy, and comedy for the news.
University of Woolamaloo - Rule 2 (Score:2)
Would this be like the "beating up sooties" training some police departments use? IOW, how not to get caught doing it?
Why all the pretending? (Score:2)
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But if you're noticing t
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You hit a pothole. Your car seat and steering wheel drop six inches and veer to the left. You don't, because you aren't wearing a seatbelt. You are now in oncoming traffic with no control of the car because you are still 5 inches above your seat and if you yank the steering wheel back to the right, you will rotate and not the wheel.
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Do you have any statistics on the number of people who were hurt or killed because of someone else not wearing his or her seatbelt? I think I remember one case in the city where I live in the 70s when a mother was killed by one of her children in the backseat who was not wearing his seatbelt (in the 70s, no one in the backseat were wearing their seatbelt), but other than that, I must admit my ignorance.
Since you raised the argument, I'm sure you have valid data to support your argument, right?
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Not wearing a seat belt potentially endangers others (passengers, other drivers who may be struck as a result of avoidable loss of control were the driver to wear a seatbelt). Your freedom to make stupid choices ends when it infringes upon my freedoms.
An abortion endangers others (most notably the embryo / fetus). If you make a stupid choice (such as having unprotected sex when you don't want to get pregnant), you deserve it. As always, allowances should be made when the pregnancy didn't result from a choice (eg. rape). If killing a pregnant woman counts as a double homicide, then killing the embryo / fetus should count as a homicide, right?
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What you're talking about is a matter of interpretation that has been argued ad infinitum (the definition of when life begins) and has been ruled upon by the courts several times. The "fetal homicide" law is also not applicable in 12 states, and does not cover a decision by the mother, who after all, is the person who likely suffers the greatest consequences of the no doubt difficult decision to abort.
It really has very little in common with the clearcut seatbelt case, and attempts to conflate the two are muddled thinking.
Um, it has everything to do with people should be able to do stupid things unless it (potentially) hurts another - YOUR argument against seatbelt laws.
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Health care is not a right (as shown by your statement).
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No. Not at all. Doesn't go to the hospitals. You don't get the same medical care - if any.
If you're in an accident, you're going to the hospital, regardless of any stated belief or political persuasion.
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If you're in an accident, you're going to the hospital, regardless of any stated belief or political persuasion.
Not correct. Individuals can refuse medical treatment from emergency service providers, which includes telling them you do not want to be transported to a hospital or other care facility.
The question comes up almost every time I am in a first responder care class. You are required to ask the potential patient if they accept your services before you do anything. So, for example, you happen across a choking victim who is still conscious and you ask if you can help. If they shake their head "no", you cannot
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If you're in an accident, you're going to the hospital, regardless of any stated belief or political persuasion.
Not correct. Individuals can refuse medical treatment from emergency service providers, which includes telling them you do not want to be transported to a hospital or other care facility.
But you have to be capable of making that preference known, and I'm not 100% sure that someone in a horrific accident is going to be A) conscious enough to give that consent and B) coherent enough to think things through, or at least to make the same decision they made when they were healthy. The default action is to provide medical care and save the life in absence of an objection.
touch them. This sometimes surprises the newer students, who then ask "what do you do"? The answer is that you stand there until the patient passes out and then you provide assistance. Passing out is a change in status, and he's no longer refusing care, so you are ok to act. In other words, if you are a paramedic at an accident scene and a conscious and alert victim tells you "I am a Jehovah's Witness and I decline medical care", you move on to the next victim and come back to the JW after he passes out.
In which case, aren't you explicitly going against his stated wishes?
And bringing this thread back to the original context, the
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It rather depends on the life, doesn't it? A repeat offender spending most of his life in the slammer is likely an economic dead loss. A humble - but steady and honest - worker? Probably not.
I totally do. What I don't understand is how it's any different in non-socialist countries.
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Socialism works until it fails. Then it fails for just about everyone, since everyone becomes economically equal just before failure. See Greece, Venezuela for fine relatively recent editions of socialism's failure. I'd point to Denmark too, but it hasn't failed completely yet.
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I'd point to Denmark too, but it hasn't failed completely yet.
Denmark is not socialist. In many ways they are more capitalist than America. They rank higher on the Ease of Doing Business [wikipedia.org] index. There are few barriers to starting a business, and less bureaucracy when running one. Even their Postal Service [wikipedia.org] is privatized.
You are confusing Social Democracy [wikipedia.org] with Socialism [wikipedia.org]. They are two entirely different things.
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And what value will investments have if there are no children?
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Oh, and if you think that "depriving humanity of another life" is "saving a huge expense" then you obviously have no idea how retirement funds work in socialist countries. Hint: look up "Ponzi scheme" on Wikipedia.
Oh God, you're not one of those guys who thinks Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, do you?
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Bernie Madoff did what social security does, and he went to jail for it. IT is a ponzi scheme, and just because the government is involved, doesn't change a thing.
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IT is a ponzi scheme, and just because the government is involved, doesn't change a thing.
Ponzi schemes collapse when no new investors can be found to pay off the old investors. But if the government is doing it, then participation is compelled and there is no danger of collapse. Young people today are almost certainly going to get screwed by SS, and would be much better off investing elsewhere, but they don't have that option.
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Oh, and if you think that "depriving humanity of another life" is "saving a huge expense" then you obviously have no idea how retirement funds work in socialist countries. Hint: look up "Ponzi scheme" on Wikipedia.
Oh God, you're not one of those guys who thinks Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, do you?
Care to explain how it's not, then?
Sure, it's very easy -- in a Ponzi scheme, the people at the top do not get rotated out. In real life, retirees do not live forever -- no matter how long they live, they will eventually leave the system, and every working man and woman pays into the system without exception. So participation is tied to the unemployment rate, not to an individual's decision of whether it's a good idea or not. If we discovered immortality, then yes, the Social Security system would collapse, but that would also be the least o
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See how your argument fails there? The government cannot impose "whatever rules" it wishes; it can't prevent you from exercising your free speech while driving, they can't make you waive your Fifth Amendment rights while driving, etc.
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This season, we're seeing more of an intellectual/anti-intellectual split... or perhaps a technocrat/populist split. The idea that any group of people in Silicon Valley wouldn't fall pretty squarely on the former categories, compared to the population of the country as a whole, is laughable; but if Facebook was looking for a paleoconventional liberal bias, I can see why they wouldn't necessarily find one. The prevailing economic libertarianism in geek circles covers up a lot of social progressivism if you'r
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Thats because most Christians on the right, even if they have wacky views, will give consideration to your viewpoint, before calling you names (if they go down that road). Whereas if a liberal disagrees with you, you're a RACIST, HOMOPHOBIC, MISOGYNIST, THEOCRATIC TERRORIST!
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I'm going to watch the debates and then ask, "which is Dumb and which is Dumber?", I can't tell them apart.
Re:defining terms like Conservative (Score:4)
Nah.
Facebook didn't have a policy of ignoring certain news sources or stories.
But it did hire people to do the filtering, and most of those people were recent journalism graduates from liberal universities. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the end result was biased reporting, whether that was the stated intent or not.
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kinda like the reactionary attempted assault on the 2nd 4th and 5th amendments by democrats in congress because of a shooting that not a single proposal they want to push would have prevented it from happening???
Re:extremist (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not going to defend UKIP, but do you see the irony in labeling them "an extreme neo-Nazi group" in the comment section of an article about political bias?
I'll grant you they are a far right group with a lot of strong views towards migrants, but from what I can tell, there is no Nazi symbolism on their web site, no call for Jews or other "undesirables" to be exterminated, no stated desire to found a police state dictatorship or any other semblance of recreating the a German-style National Socialist movement.
So they don't seem very neo-Nazi to me, but you seem awfully biased by labeling them as such.
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Look at coverage of trade deals (Score:2)
Fascism is the least of my worries. Government is a tool. A powerful one. It's going to get made and it's going to get used whether anyone likes it or not. The rich have _always_ used gov't. If we put our heads in the sand to hide from facism and try to create "Small" government all that will happen is our Small will be crushed by their large. This is just what happens. Spend a few hours on google or even just listening to the court jesters that
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Bullshit- Trump is a fiscal liberal and Hillary is a sexual liberal. Both are liberals, just different stripes.