Facebook Disputes Gizmodo Report, Says It Never Built and Withheld Any News Feed Changes Based on Their Political Impact (slate.com) 68
Tech news site Gizmodo reported Monday that Facebook planned a News Feed update that would have identified fake or hoax news stories, but "disproportionately impacted right-wing news sites by downgrading or removing that content from people's feeds" so it chose to never release the update. Facebook has denied the claims in the report. A spokesperson told Slate: "The article's allegation is not true. We did not build and withhold any News Feed changes based on their potential impact on any one political party. We always work to make News Feed more meaningful and informative, and that includes examining the quality and accuracy of items shared, such as clickbait, spam, and hoaxes. Mark himself said, "I want to do everything I can to make sure our teams uphold the integrity of our products." This includes continuously review updates (sic) to make sure we are not exhibiting unconscious bias.
And so does (Score:2, Insightful)
CNN, ABC, MSNBC, Huffpo, and every other media outlet in the country. Lie and Deny has worked pretty well against the masses for a long time. People do eventually catch on though. Hence, just before the election 76% of people said that the US was going the wrong way, media has a 6% trustworthy rating (probably lower now). The first stat was a dead giveaway that Hillary did not have a 99.8% chance of winning as polsters proclaimed on those same media outlets.
In fairness, there is certainly some bias in t
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In what bizarre alternate reality is Bill O'Reilly left of center?
Re:And so does (Score:5, Funny)
In what bizarre alternate reality is Bill O'Reilly left of center?
Alt-right!
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There are the same Democratic talking points repeated with little to not rebuttals
Is it possible those talking points are simply true, and not rebutted for that reason?
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Re:And so does (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you mean things like wanting to secure the border and vet immigrants makes you racist and xenophobic? Deporting criminals is racist? Saying that the inner cities are hell and education is broken makes you racist?
Well those things seem like opinions all around. Probably not much worth arguing about, since logic can't get you out of what it didn't get you into. If you're getting this upset about someone else not being that upset about immigrants, then... yeah, you're probably xenophobic. Especially if that "someone else" is Bill O'Reilly. I don't know you, though. And your above statements are so vague that no sensible person would agree or dispute it without inferring a lot about your assumptions.
We do secure our borders and vet immigrants. We could devote more resources to those things, but we could also devote less. Nobody is suggesting we completely open borders. Nobody seriously thinks we're going to completely secure them. Or... nobody serious thinks that? Similar with deporting criminals. Everyone is in favor of that, but the disagreement is over how many resources we should devote to deporting which criminals.
Saying inner cities are hell just shows that you don't know what you're talking about. It's not racist, exactly, unless the reason you think they're hell is because you think black people live there. These days, white people love cities because many of them are pretty awesome. The more "inner" the city, the better, usually. Minorities have a tendency to get pushed into the outer city. And they're not necessarily hell. They're just poorer than the rich areas. I'm a white guy who lived in a black neighborhood for a couple years. It kinda sucked because there weren't any banks or good grocery stores, but the people were friendly.
Education is broken? Sure, some of it is somewhat broken, at least. It's not really working. I don't think anyone is happy with it. I'm not sure what you mean to imply by bringing that up. Did someone say you were racist because you thought education needed improvement? Or did you imply that the solution was to get rid of the minorities in the school?
So what's your point? Is it just to be angry at people and show that you have a very limited binary perspective?
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-the border is secure
-we do vet immigrants, especially refugees, especially from Syria region
-someone is not a criminal just because they were brought here as a child and stayed
-inner cities are not hell
-education is not broken, but it is underfunded, and as long as BS like the texas textbooks whitewashing (literally) slavery it will be lacking. but broken is not the word I would use, not even in the face of the massive delusions required to elect Trump
No, you cannot prove anyone wrong because you haven't e
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Talking points are by design political. For a news organization you don't want any talking points, either left or right. The current news media in America of any stripe is incapable of doing this, they muddle the line between news and editorializing. Fox News basically revived the old Yellow Journalism style but the other cable news networks have started copying.
Just trying to pinpoint where various anchors stand on the issues makes you a part of the reason that the news media biases the news - they want
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They provide enough conservatism to claim being conservative and nothing more.
Conservatives are such easy marks. Anyone can con them into giving money.
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you are f'ing delusional.
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That would practically make the alt-right outright fascists if one of Fox News' leading talking heads is now left-of-center.
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Alt-right!
Goddam it... First they tell me about the any key.. which isn't on my keyboard.
Now they are saying to hit alt-right? I see the alt key, there is no right key.
Is this like the any key? The right key is the same as the any key?
I'm here all week folks!
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That's because the right leaning media litter what little news of substance they publish with outright lies and white nationalism/supremacism that no one bothers to read the few articles that are actually based on logic and truth.
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CNN, ABC, MSNBC, Huffpo, and every other media outlet in the country. Lie and Deny has worked pretty well against the masses for a long time. People do eventually catch on though. Hence, just before the election 76% of people said that the US was going the wrong way, media has a 6% trustworthy rating (probably lower now). The first stat was a dead giveaway that Hillary did not have a 99.8% chance of winning as polsters proclaimed on those same media outlets.
In fairness, there is certainly some bias in the little tiny bit of Right leaning media (Kelly and O'Reilly are left of center but for the sake of argument lets call them "fair"). It's so little though, very few people noticed.
And so does Gizmodo and the other former Gawker sites still operating, which seems somewhat ironic now.
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Actually it was between 60 to 80 percent depending on the time out from the vote, with it hovering near 60 towards the end. So a 2 in 3 chance. Well the dice rolled and it was 1. But hey, have a bark and ignore the underlying math if it makes you feel better, I guess.
Well thats one
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Thiel was no longer gay simply because who he voted for. A mother of a 7 year old kicked him out of the house for voting in a mock election for Trump.
Dude did you just sleep thjrough the entire year ? Really? That's all you got? One bad parent? Meanwhile Trump is the dude who is a proven sexual predator, racist hate monger and being sued for running a scam (as the judge said) university. Yeah, but both sides are basically the same. uh huh. Yeah...
The Left have become extremist whackos doing anything they can for power including violence, bigotry, xenophobia, homophobia, and every other thing they accuse others of doing.
Like what?
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Like what?
Not been paying attention to the flagrant uses of identity politics by democrats and people on the left over the last 8-12 years? If you want a person to be hired based on merit, well merit is a MRA construct. Merit is also sexist/racist and homophobic. Not wanting to hire somebody based on the characteristics that they're born with is also sexist/racist/homophobic and so on. The left have also been the ones at the forefront of pushing the "diversity hires" not on skill, not on ability, not on merit. B
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and to repeat myself: because you conservatives tried to exclude people from the public sphere on the basis of their genitals, sexual identity, skin color, or creed.
that's why it matters.
the fact is, even when merit is identical , that non-white, non-straight, non-male persons are STILL at a structural disadvantage , hired less often and for less pay. this leads to a self perpetuating cultural cycle that reinforces itself. that's why representation matters, why breaking glass ceilings matters, why purpose
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You are deluded, in your right wing echo chamber, the media is biased because they report the actual words Trump said, its just like insisting reality is biased. What a moron.
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Except of course your false equivalency is based on RWNJ lies about Clintion. Going to be fun when you realise the truth.
As Trump said in 1998, he would run as a republican, they are the dumbest voters, and would believe anything he said. Sure sounds like he understands you.
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conservatives talk like that because they, delusionally, think welfare still exists.
Hint: it was killed in the 90's by Bill Clinton working with the GOP Congress, and replaced with TANF, aka, workfare.
TANF on the other hand is a limited block grant to the states of 16billion dollars (total, not each) that has never been increased or adjusted for inflation (so its lost more than 35% of its value), with work requirements and a lifetime cap, that the states get to spend on whatever they want. most don't spend
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BTW: it's been less than a week, and already there have been more than 360 reported hate crimes against minority groups following and attributable to the election and trump supporters, including outright, open, neo-Nazi acts.
as I said: you are engaging in projection.
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You "progressives" who LOVE to label everyone who doesn't slurp your Kool-Aid as a "RAAAACIST!!!!" or "HOMOPHOBE" will HATE this!
As a moderate conservative, I can reassure you that people who are racist and homophobic are racist and homophobic, can't stand the idea that it's unacceptable to be racist and homophobic in the 21st century, and cringe at being labeled racist and homophobic in public.
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Most people cringe at being called racist or homophobe, that why it's been such a powerful tool for silencing dissent.
The reality is everyone is racist to some extent. If someone accused me of being racist, I won't deny it. But an accusation of being racist isn't enough to silent my dissent.
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The word "homophobic" was popularized by homosexuals themselves, And the word "Islamophobic" was crafted by Muslim supporters to imply that their critics were crazy.
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Except some people really are racist and homo-phobes. Like Steve Bannon, Trump's advisor. That dude is white supremacist fck head.
Doesn't Gawker own them? (Score:2)
Somebody may be getting sued again...
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Somebody may be getting sued again...
Gawker is no more (praise be the Hulkster and his buddy Thiel). Gizmodo and the other surviving Gawker sites are owned by Univision now.
Not too surprising (Score:3, Insightful)
People that rely on fakebook for their news get exactly what they deserve. Same with people that rely on any single source for their news. Always ask yourself:
1. Is this news or gossip? (Exactly what am I being told?)
2. Why am I being told this?
3. Who is telling me this?
The answers will help you decide the truthiness of the stories.
A/B Testing (Score:4, Informative)
BULLSHIT Facebook. My account was shoved into the A/B testing for this several months ago. Articles from known satirical web sites would be flagged as such, and this was such a praised feature at the time, too. We all got sick and fucking tired having to constantly link to Snopes or other resources to "prove" that a particular site was a satire site. The only real issue is that this system was primarily limited to just domains as a whole, so bullshit clickbaitery web sites that have marginal content once in a blue moon wouldn't be listed (Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, and similar)
Lying with truth (Score:4)
We did not build and withhold any News Feed changes based on their potential impact on any one political party
What I see here is the use of "any one political party" which could mean that they didn't implement it because it was decided that it would impact all political parties or that it wasn't implemented because it would affect users (not political parties).
I just don't trust any PR statement.... they are bound to be carefully crafted to be "true" without actually being so.
The Liberal Search for Scapegoats Continues! (Score:1, Flamebait)
The was the most unbalanced election news coverage in history, with major outlets (NYT, WP, ABC, NBC, CBS) so far in the tank for Clinton and against Trump that it embarassed many old time journalists [battleswarmblog.com]:
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The media reported the facts. Trump said a lot of sexist, xenophobic, racist nonsense. And the media reported it.
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The media reported facts? Well that's debatable, very debatable. It would be like saying, the UVA rape case was factual because "Rolling Stone created a dialog." Something that many 3rd wave feminists(Valenti, Bindle, etc) like to spout. It's neither factual, or truthful. If the trust of the media is lower then congress, it's not a people problem. It's a media problem. Going by your reasoning, Clinton and Kaine said a lot of misandrist, sexist and racist things. The only difference was, the media wa
They flag everyones political leaning (Score:3)
They do a fair bit of herding people and hiding content. First they determine a persons political status, then they only show you stories based on your favorites, while avoiding triggering stories. They limit/censor what posts show up in your feeds. They have multiple lawsuits on leaving hate groups that they agree with, anti-Israel, gun groups, conservative media. Its not even a guess, its already been verified by multiple media outlets.
Everyone knows they jumped the shark, as a discussion medium it sucks.
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Their aim is just to maximise ad revenue, and the best way to retain viewers is to affirm them. People generally hate to be told they are wrong.
It's a free market: If your audience doesn't like the facts you are giving them, they will take their business elsewhere and find someone selling facts more to their liking.
So... (Score:2)
Which of the two is the fake/hoax news story?
I have a theory. (Score:2)
Perhaps there is simply a correlation between political affiliation and lying?
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I wouldn't expect it to be just one side with another - it would depend mostly on how far from center you are. But while people might like the idea of a tidy symmetry, where left and right are equal opposites of one another, there's no reason that has to be true. It could just be that right-leaning websites tend to distort the truth more then left-leaning websites, even though the far-right and far-left extremes will both be lying continually.