Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

gizmodo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 368 posts

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#91

Post by bobwaycott »

wildmusings wrote: post #75
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there is "conservative news" and "liberal news". Liberal news is things that happened, things that will happen, etc. Conservative news is a made up stories, things that never happened, etc. Example of trending "conservative news": Obama bans the phrase "Merry Christmas". E.g. http://www.redflagnews.com/headlines-2015/barack-obama-bans-...

> Of course there is "conservative news" and "liberal news". Liberal news is things that happened, things that will happen, etc. Conservative news is a made up stories, things that never happened, etc. So what do you call Vox and Rolling Stone ? Do you really have such a simplistic view of the world, where half of America is a bunch of morons with no legitimate gripes? You are destroying America. You are spreading di…

Hey, there's really no need for attacking each other. That doesn't improve anything.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#92

Post by dba7dba »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #86
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #52

People are people. In a way this isn't news at all. The problem is that these companies are hiding behind the "But it's all just an algorithm" defense, when, in fact, as we all suspected, there are real people behind the scenes slanting things. My gut tells me that a lot of tech companies are subtly controlling the types of news their consumers get. Overall this is probably a good thing -- helps keep the quality high…

But that's not what the article said. They had a conservative on staff who was in charge of these feeds, and he wasn't cutting out conservative articles, he was cutting out articles that supported candidates he didn't like. As long as you choose to consume their product, you get the results of their work. Don't like it? Go somewhere else. You should appreciate that as a libertarian. I see no harm in excluding article…

So facebook is a news site? Or a connector of people?

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#93

Post by pdkl95 »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #52

People are people. In a way this isn't news at all. The problem is that these companies are hiding behind the "But it's all just an algorithm" defense, when, in fact, as we all suspected, there are real people behind the scenes slanting things. My gut tells me that a lot of tech companies are subtly controlling the types of news their consumers get. Overall this is probably a good thing -- helps keep the quality high…

> controlling the types of news their consumers get

Of course they are. They control the medium. What a lot of people don't seem to understand is that "it's just an algorithm" isn't a defense. Just because a process involves calculation doesn't make the entire process free of bias or agenda.

The basic decision to use an algorithm is an opinionated decision that affects the outcome. Personal opinion influences how an algorithm was chosen or designed, how it will be applied, the selection of input data, and every other decision made during implementation.

Yes, some time may not intend to add their own bias and opinion, but it still happens. Jacob Appelbaum recently[1] discussed this problem; "Your politics are in everything that you write". The same is true for software and algorithms in general. Your politics are in everything you design. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it exists, and pretending that an an algorithm is "unbiased" or otherwise free from human influence and manipulation is foolish.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJValv4YQcY#t=78

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#94

Post by dragonwriter »

api wrote: post #62

What if it were liberal news? This is basically the filter bubble problem. All filters have biases whether they are human or algorithmic.

> What if it were liberal news?

If you read the article, its quite possible that it was also liberal news, depending on individual curators. Given other FB interventions I've seen, I'd be surprised if, like everything else at FB, the news moderation wasn't just stunningly inconsistent with rampant suppression of left, right, and center according to individual and essentially unaccountable whim.

FB is tolerably usable for basic circle-of-immediate-friends social functions without excessive interference. As far as public communication, news, and advocacy, well, its there, and there's enough people that come to it for that that it can't be ignored, but its fairly horrible for it, not so much from a systematic one-sided distortion but more absolute caprice.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#95

Post by hugh4life »

I always use uBlock's "element picker" to block out trending topic lists as I find them somewhat manipulative.

1) I do sometimes suspect biased curation 2) They can be astroturfed 3) Even if spontaneous there's a virtual mob mentality that comes with trending topics.

Trending topic lists are ok if they're on their own separate page but when you have it upfront the subtext is "this is what you must care or know about".

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#96

Post by pgm8705 »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #47
bobwaycott wrote: post #41

This is obviously very bad from the standpoint that the trending news section is ostensibly supposed to be organic, based on user behavior, and free of bias—except that which is inherent in the users themselves sharing things to be picked up as "trending". It appears that "trending news" has really been "curated news". Not cool at all. More concerning than trending news actually being curated news is learning that ne…

Of course there is "conservative news" and "liberal news". Liberal news is things that happened, things that will happen, etc. Conservative news is a made up stories, things that never happened, etc. Example of trending "conservative news": Obama bans the phrase "Merry Christmas". E.g. http://www.redflagnews.com/headlines-2015/barack-obama-bans-...

Right. Certainly there aren't any liberal blogs or "news" organizations that sensationalize headlines or downright make things up... It happens both ways and is unfortunate.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#97

Post by MisterBastahrd »

dba7dba wrote: post #92
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's not what the article said. They had a conservative on staff who was in charge of these feeds, and he wasn't cutting out conservative articles, he was cutting out articles that supported candidates he didn't like. As long as you choose to consume their product, you get the results of their work. Don't like it? Go somewhere else. You should appreciate that as a libertarian. I see no harm in excluding article…

So facebook is a news site? Or a connector of people?

I must have lost track of the law that said that all things must be monolithic in their nature. Facebook is a connector of people that uses news to keep people interested an on the site.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#98

Post by alistairSH »

bobwaycott wrote: post #60
oarsinsync wrote: post #55

TL;DR 'Trending News' is actually 'Curated News'

Thanks to a tool that specifically allows modifying the news shown to users and the alleged biases of curator contractors who seem to have no accountability checks.

I wouldn't say "no accountability checks." The article references instances where the curators were instructed to boost non-trending stories. So, they are being actively managed. And, presumably can be replaced easily if their curating deviates from Facebook's wishes.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#99

Post by dba7dba »

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #97
dba7dba wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So facebook is a news site? Or a connector of people?

I must have lost track of the law that said that all things must be monolithic in their nature. Facebook is a connector of people that uses news to keep people interested an on the site.

EDIT: No sir, there is no such law that said that all things must be monolithic in their nature.

So, distort stories to keep eyeballs of main customers (younger hence more liberal) on Facebook, for the sake of earning more ad dollars?

I think the younger customers deserve more than that? Should give more credit to the younger generation no?

Post reply on HN