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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Rejects Trump Bias Claims (bbc.com) 428

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has dismissed comments made by Donald Trump that the site has always been against him. From a report: The US president accused the social network of "collusion" on Twitter, branding it "anti-Trump". He made the same claim against the New York Times and the Washington Post. Facebook will shortly hand over 3,000 political adverts to congressional investigators probing alleged Russian meddling in the US election. The site believes the ads were probably purchased by Russian entities during and after the 2016 presidential contest. Facebook, Twitter and Google have been asked to testify before the US Senate Intelligence Committee on 1 November about the allegations of Russian interference. Mark Zuckerberg has made it clear in the past that he doesn't like Donald Trump -- or at least, his policies. "This statement shows frustration, I think. Not just with the president, but at the atmosphere swirling around Facebook at the moment -- commentary that is painting it as a burden on the electoral process, and maybe even on society as a whole. He's trying to show all the good -- as he sees it -- that Facebook has done.
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Rejects Trump Bias Claims

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  • by MangoCats ( 2757129 ) on Thursday September 28, 2017 @07:09AM (#55268519)

    ...crickets...

  • Those ads will have done far more harm to trump in the long run if they really did help him get elected. So in a twisted way Trump is right on this one.
  • He's right. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 28, 2017 @07:19AM (#55268553)
    Faceobook is kind of like the collective hive mind of America. And let's face it, more Americans dislike the head Cheeto than like him. So yeah, FB is probably biased against him ... as is everything else where more than four people get together at once. Because he's an asshole.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by toonces33 ( 841696 )
      As time goes on, I have come to despise Zuckerborg and his stupid "product" more and more.
    • Re:He's right. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Thursday September 28, 2017 @08:25AM (#55268855)

      Hive mind.... good analogy.. and by such its reasonable to suggest that if that 'hive mind' started to 'think' a certain way, the Hive would accept this 'new way of thinking' and make it 'their' way of thinking as individuals. Maybe these 'Russian entities' are onto something in respect to 'thought control' by using Facebook ads to brew a civil war.

    • Re:He's right. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TheRaven64 ( 641858 ) on Thursday September 28, 2017 @09:07AM (#55269065) Journal

      Faceobook is kind of like the collective hive mind of America

      Facebook is a complex tool designed for psychological manipulation. Its entire purpose is to build profiles of individuals that can identify the levers that can be used to influence their opinions and then sell access to those levers. Considering it as a passive entity is woefully naive.

      • by e3m4n ( 947977 )

        Even worse, it takes advantage of the 'go with the crowd' types (aka most of FB users) and then tell them the crowd thinks X. Suddenly they change their view to X, believing that everyone else does too. In reality its possible that hardly anyone thought X was right, but now that _everyone else_ supposedly does (ie nobody) it now becomes their opinion too.

    • Although for the same of full disclosure we don't have a meme or anything like that directly spells this out in plan terms that this was happening. But what we do have is dozens of news stories from about May last year there it was discovered that unnamed Facebook employers were artificially manipulating the 'Trending' feed for their own political bias. While Facebook did try to denying this happened they still completely and publicly announced that they would change the way trending is down to get tide o

    • You know how I know more people hate the head Cheeto than like him?

      I saw it on Facebook!

  • This sentence of your story sure indicates BIAS... "Mark Zuckerberg has made it clear in the past that he doesn't like Donald Trump -- or at least, his policies."
  • by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Thursday September 28, 2017 @07:43AM (#55268617)
    If the concern is foreign actors meddling with the U.S. election, shouldn't Facebook be turning over to Congress all political ads purchased on Facebook by foreigners for viewing in the U.S.?

    By turning over only the Russian ads, they've basically already confirmed Trump's accusation of bias. If you only look for roaches in the kitchen [wikipedia.org], you'll only find roaches in the kitchen. Doesn't mean there aren't roaches in the rest of your house. And for all you know the kitchen may actually have the fewest roaches.
    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

      By turning over only the Russian ads, they've basically already confirmed Trump's accusation of bias. If you only look for roaches in the kitchen, you'll only find roaches in the kitchen.

      What other nations do you suspect of attempting to bias the election via facebook ads? I'm sure if you make a credible claim, someone will be glad to look for that.

      • by brxndxn ( 461473 ) on Thursday September 28, 2017 @08:07AM (#55268731)

        Israel, you blind idiot.

    • If you only look for roaches, you will still find some evidence of rats, ants, and any other infestations.

      On the other hand, if you only look in the kitchen, you are unlikely to find the dragons living in the basement.

    • by XXongo ( 3986865 )

      If the concern is foreign actors meddling with the U.S. election, shouldn't Facebook be turning over to Congress all political ads purchased on Facebook by foreigners for viewing in the U.S.?

      They are turning over the ads that were requested by the congressional investigation.

    • by Ogive17 ( 691899 )
      Well normally you don't go looking for roaches unless there is evidence of a roach problem.

      There is evidence that Russia was involved. Is there evidence any other foreign actors were involved?
    • If the concern is foreign actors meddling with the U.S. election, shouldn't Facebook be turning over to Congress all political ads purchased on Facebook by foreigners for viewing in the U.S.?

      They can't. These people aren't identifying themselves as foreign agents; they're using false fronts. Facebook has learned who the Russian false fronts were, but nobody knows who the others might be.

  • Zuck also said that it was "crazy" idea that fake news on Facebook influenced the election.
    (http://fortune.com/2016/11/11/facebook-election-fake-news-mark-zuckerberg)

    Now he's being asked to hand over 1,000 ads that may have influenced the election.

    So which is it? Were you in denial earlier, or just plain incompetent?

  • Putting aside issues of bots, Russian interference, fake news etc., if Facebook is predominantly "anti-Trump" it is because the people who use the service are anti-Trump.

    I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find groups of Trump supporters within the service if someone were so inclined to look.

    • by e3m4n ( 947977 )

      I don't agree. There is plenty of evidence that FB will delete any far right nutjob in a millisecond but take weeks or months to get around to taking down Islamic State recruiting videos, or Antifa crap. If you're going to have a no-hate-speech rule, it needs to be enforced 100% the same regardless of who posts the content. Even Nancy Pelosy, someone who I don't have a lot of respect for, has admitted that Antifa is a hate group and themselves behaving in a fascist manner. Its no different than defending an

      • by swb ( 14022 )

        Do you think that, broadly speaking, "left wing" groups are quicker to complain and seek sanctions on their opponents than "right wing" groups?

        I'm kind of inclined to believe this, and it might account for some of apparent bias the "average" user not closely linked with "left wing" or "right wing" groups might see on Facebook.

    • I think it's simpler than that. Facebook has ALL kinds of people posting ALL kinds of opinions. If you look for it, no matter what "IT" is, it will be there. Do you think that Facebook is full of racists? Look for them, and you will find them. Do you think facebook is full of Kardashian fans? Look for them, and you will find them. Do you think facebook is full of Trump haters? Look for them and you will find them.
  • by e3m4n ( 947977 ) on Thursday September 28, 2017 @08:09AM (#55268745)

    what the hell does "The site believes the ads were [probably] purchased by Russian entities .." mean? Either there is clear evidence that <madeupname> Nikoli Polityetski </madeupname> purchased an add that linked back to an account with the Bank of Moscow, or there isn't. To say that any anti-clinton add _probably_ was purchased by Russian entities, and no body else, is nothing but hearsay and speculation. I hope its not a 'probably' but instead a clearer link than that. Otherwise this is nothing but Jury tampering before a trial (figurative or literal, whatever the case may be)

    3000 ads doesn't really seem like a large number to me. I'm pretty sure the 3 or 4 days right before any election, I see nearly that many ads of all the local political races like judges, magistrates, city council, etc. And why is it that most of these articles make it look like all the Russian tampering was pro-trump, when just a day ago there was another article that suggested that these 'Russian entities' were buying a lot of pro Black Lives Matter, as well as anti-immigration ads, in equal amounts. That article suggested these 'Russian entities' where deliberately trying to divide the populace and create racial tensions.

    Here is a link to one of the papers re-capping the information. http://nypost.com/2017/09/27/r... [nypost.com] Ironically the NYPost cites sources at CNN, which I went back and watched the video with Wolf Blitzer, and yet CNN keeps beating the "Russians cheated to get Trump elected" drum.

    • >Either there is clear evidence that Nikoli Polityetski purchased an add that linked back to an account with the Bank of Moscow, or there isn't.

      How difficult do you think it is to have a Russian purchase ads through a proxy so the cash appears to come from an American source and the customer name on the invoice is an American individual or company?

      The method for tagging the ads as 'Russian-purchased' needs to be examined. Personally, I believe it's far more likely than not. I also believe that doesn'

      • by e3m4n ( 947977 )

        dont even get me started on legal loopholes. Since when is intent required for prosecution? IE the supposed intent to distribute classified information to unsecure recipients. She sent classified email in plain unencrypted text to here insecure, public, email server, then lied, lied, lied again, deleted, and lied some more that there never was classified information in the first place. After all that coverup and lying, suddenly we get the 'we wont proscute because even though she's a complete bumbling idiot

        • > She sent classified email in plain unencrypted text

          Why the wall of text about somebody who isn't POTUS? Hillary's irrelevant to whether or not there are sufficient grounds to investigate wrongdoing by Trump.

  • by Trondheim ( 2012498 ) on Thursday September 28, 2017 @08:15AM (#55268783)
    I spend a fair amount of time on Facebook. The trending stories were all (and still are) overwhelmingly negative towards Trump. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever seen anything positive about Trump on Facebook. And I've not once seen a pro-Trump ad.
    • So your social circle is Anti-Trump enough that the algorithms don't even try to sway you. If you have enough racist uncles and high school classmates who never went to college you will get a fair amount of it. Read some far right stuff while logged into Facebook, wait for the sponsored ads to pop up, and click on some of them, and it'll put more in. Get tired of it and only click on pets doing silly things and it dies back down to whatever your friends are into. It only shows you stuff it thinks you'll
  • One problem with "self analysis" is that you are prone to the logical problem of "confirmation bias". You are going to see what you want to see.

    If you start out biased, then try to investigate if you are biased or not, chances are you will discover that you are NOT biased. The only way Facebook would find themselves biased is if they had set out to be biased up front and agreed to admit to it.

    I don't think they set out to be biased and didn't intend to favor one side over the other, but I do believe that

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