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Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

gizmodo.com

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Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#31

Post by brokentone »

acheron wrote: post #29
brokentone wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an extremely pure free-market conservative/capitalist approach, sure, there is nothing wrong with this, they can do what they want. From a basic governmental regulation (Hayek) monopoly approach, FB is the incumbent and it will be extremely difficult for anyone else to gain a foothold here. Regulation ought to make it easier for others to approach the space. They are the single biggest voice in the news at this…

FB is the incumbent and it will be extremely difficult for anyone else to gain a foothold here "Will MySpace Ever Lose Its Monopoly?" (2007): https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/feb/08/business....

I don't think I need to explain the myriad reasons MySpace lost.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#33

Post by morgante »

Keep in mind that this allegation is coming from a single conservative curator who no longer works there.

And even he seems pretty indecisive about it being an institutional bias: "I’d come on shift and I’d discover that CPAC or Mitt Romney or Glenn Beck or popular conservative topics wouldn’t be trending because either the curator didn’t recognize the news topic or it was like they had a bias against Ted Cruz."

If Facebook is trying to suppress conservative news, they're doing a terrible job of it. I see far more Trump than I would like.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#34

Post by ChemicalWarfare »

carsongross wrote: post #17

I am a conservative and I see nothing wrong with this. It is their software and their servers, after all. I want a collapse in trust in the major social networks. This is the internet we are talking about. Let them suppress, and let them see what happens.

If this was a partisan media outlet like CNN, NBC/MSNBC, ABC, etc etc ad nauseam or FOX news (is there any other conservative network?), then yeah this would be expected.

The issue here is for the 'unsuspecting user' Facebook doesn't present itself as a partisan resource. There's nothing 'wrong' with this per se as long as the user understands who they are dealing with, which articles like this one help in that respect.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#35

Post by morgante »

lettergram wrote: post #30

Interesting, just last week my friend and I were debating how much Google and Facebook can influence an election. We agreed it would be catastrophic if either decided to lean one way or the other... Facebook is essentially suppressing free speech. Although, it has somewhat a right to do what it wants, it is skewing what other people share with one another (which is a big deal)

How is it suppressing free speech?

It's not keeping you from posting ridiculous pro-Trump tirades. It's not even hiding those tirades from your friends.

All it's doing is choosing not to shine a spotlight on conservative stories which aren't corroborated by mainstream sources.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#36

Post by HillaryBriss »

> When users weren’t reading stories that management viewed as important, several former workers said, curators were told to put them in the trending news feed anyway.

Maybe a goal here is to try to ensure that the FB community does not _appear to outsiders_ to be a right-wing, conservative, un-cool community.

If the FB user base were seen as a collection of mainstream, or even right-of-center, people, it would be bad for business. A lot of observers and decision-makers in industry might spend their ad dollars somewhere else.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#38

Post by adventured »

morgante wrote: post #33

Keep in mind that this allegation is coming from a single conservative curator who no longer works there. And even he seems pretty indecisive about it being an institutional bias: "I’d come on shift and I’d discover that CPAC or Mitt Romney or Glenn Beck or popular conservative topics wouldn’t be trending because either the curator didn’t recognize the news topic or it was like they had a bias against Ted Cruz." If F…

Apparently it's not coming from a single curator. The manipulation of the trending section was much wider spread than that:

"Several former Facebook “news curators,” as they were known internally, also told Gizmodo that they were instructed to artificially “inject” selected stories into the trending news module, even if they weren’t popular enough to warrant inclusion—or in some cases weren’t trending at all. The former curators, all of whom worked as contractors, also said they were directed not to include news about Facebook itself in the trending module."

The article then mentions a second curator that also admits anti-conservative bias:

"Another former curator agreed that the operation had an aversion to right-wing news sources. 'It was absolutely bias. We were doing it subjectively. It just depends on who the curator is and what time of day it is,' said the former curator."

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#39

Post by partiallypro »

I am confused why Facebook needs news curators to begin with? Why can't the news just be organic entirely and use ML to curate it per person. I can understand blacklisting certain sites or topics just for pure sanity or appropriateness. Having people as curators just seems like wasted capital.

Anyhow, I find this abhorrent, but I think Facebook has every right to do it as a private entity. I don't think they have a social responsibility to be 100% even. What does bother me is that they claim to be evenhanded, I do want transparency, especially when you are basically the monopoly in social media (excluding Snapchat and Twitter, they own everything.)

This also presents a problem, I think with Twitter's new algorithmic timeline and why the real-time feed is vastly superior for their model (I'll beat this dead horse until Jack realizes how dumb it is.)

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#40

Post by partiallypro »

morgante wrote: post #33

Keep in mind that this allegation is coming from a single conservative curator who no longer works there. And even he seems pretty indecisive about it being an institutional bias: "I’d come on shift and I’d discover that CPAC or Mitt Romney or Glenn Beck or popular conservative topics wouldn’t be trending because either the curator didn’t recognize the news topic or it was like they had a bias against Ted Cruz." If F…

> Keep in mind that this allegation is coming from a single conservative curator who no longer works there.

This is false, the headline even alludes to it being more than a single source. The entire article uses plural terms and refers to 'several.' I think you read the lede, but skipped the rest.

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