161–170 of 368 posts
Other governments may be starting to come to the same conclusion.
The issue is that FB advertises itself as "conduit" or "network connection". You log in, communicate with people and the site tools, FB runs ads on your eyeballs, etc. Similar to how I give my electricity provider money, and they give me electricity. Now FB clearly sees themselves as (let's be honest) a "power broker" or "rain maker". Not the same as "utility" or "network connection" or "conduit".
I don't think I've looked at Facebook like that at all since they started using an algorithmic newsfeed. I was under the impression that that confirmed them as a "power broker" to pretty much everyone. If you're looking for a "utility" or "network connection" I'd direct you to app.net if they're even still in business
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Try posting a link to a Breitbart story here on HN. It's silently suppressed. Doesn't even appear in 'new'. Whereas links to rt.com are welcome. That's just how things are, comrade! :) My previous rant: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11518592
Because Breitbart is one of the least trustworthy sensationalist sources of nonsense on the Internet, right up there with Infowars. The fact is the truth isn't somewhere in the middle. We shouldn't be encouraging disingenuous assholes by giving them a platform to spread deliberate lies and mis-information, no matter whether that source is "conservative" or "liberal".
But yeah, let's just call everyone we disagree with "disingenuous assholes". The Breitbart story I tried to submit was: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/07/exclusive...
Try clicking on this HN link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10182135
You can't even see the link at all as an anonymous user. I don't know if it shows up for people to have 'showdead' enabled, or if it's equivalent of a hellban, where I'm the only one who can see it.
This seems like a story built specifically for a segment on Fox News where the newscasters feign shock and horror that their news topics aren't being covered by "mainstream media". Of course trending news is curated. All hell would break loose otherwise. There is no shortage of rabid political content conservative or otherwise on Facebook. A good part of the end user community would rather not deal with it.
Not necessarily the case, but this is certainly my initial assessment of the situation without learning more.
The problem is, as a private company, should Facebook choose to manipulate it's news feed algorithm to promote one candidate or the other, or for whatever reason, this would be its prerogative under the First Amendment. I personally choose to not use Facebook specifically for these reasons. Even though I know many Facebook employees personally, I don't trust it's employees to divorce their own interests and their pow…
> it's news feed algorithm to promote one candidate ... would be its prerogative under the First Amendment As long such practices are declared. People tend to look at "what's trending" in an effort to optimize/manipulate their content so that users would "trend" on it. The fact that FB was artificially eliminating stories gave false results to observers. Another way of looking at this is if Nielson were to lower the…
This seems like a story built specifically for a segment on Fox News where the newscasters feign shock and horror that their news topics aren't being covered by "mainstream media". Of course trending news is curated. All hell would break loose otherwise. There is no shortage of rabid political content conservative or otherwise on Facebook. A good part of the end user community would rather not deal with it.
To get two points right out of the way: 1. I completely agree that the mainstream media in the U.S. (and in most parts of the world) is very biased and partisan. 2. I also agree that, as private companies, both Facebook and the mainstream media are in their complete right to proceed with their business as they see fit, within the legality of it anyway. I don't believe whatever it is that they do is a First Amendment…
That kind of thing is relegated to smaller and active communities that can decide for themselves what content to exchange.
A highly trafficked global community has to be managed differently, and a system that is completely democratic will be gamed because of the eyeballs it has in front of it.
Facebook, Digg, Reddit, Slashdot, etc. are all sites that have been heavily targeted by astroturfing campaigns. They've all attacked that problem in their own ways, and they all have failed spectacularly.
One way of attacking the problem is curating popular content. It works but it doesn't. Show me the website that has more than a few million daily visitors that has democratized information, and I'll show you a website that is being gamed by marketers. (Seriously... because if it isn't already, I'd love to make a quick buck)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
To your point, back in the day, I was having lunch with David Boies (yeah, I know, name dropping, but relevant) and re: Microsoft he said that his position was that EVERY company should have the opportunity to become a monopoly, but then to not be able to use that power of monopoly to deny that chance to others.
My concern with regulatory or judicial constraints here is -- they're always too late. Be it IBM in the 60s or ATT in the 80s or Microsoft in the late-90s/early-2ks, by the time the government gets around to doing anything, the company is already being eroded from beneath.
I think the only (national) example I can think of, in the US, is AT&T, which was able to keep their position because of government licensure. i.e. Natural monopolies don't occur as often as people claim. Incumbency buys patrimony.
Maybe this should go to GP: IF a monopoly arises, AND that entity takes advantage of their monopoly position (reduced quality for price, outrageous margins) almost always, a challenger will appear. And get funded.
I have no great love of conservative politics, but there's a convincing argument to be made that their ideas and views are routinely suppressed by media outside of explicitly partisan media outlets (i.e. Fox News or talk radio). There are a number of studies that back up this claim. A 2008 study[0] found that 88% of journalists donate to the Democratic party. Jonathan Haidt has shown[1] that non-economics social scie…
I have no great love of conservative politics, but there's a convincing argument to be made that their ideas and views are routinely suppressed by media outside of explicitly partisan media outlets (i.e. Fox News or talk radio). There are a number of studies that back up this claim. A 2008 study[0] found that 88% of journalists donate to the Democratic party. Jonathan Haidt has shown[1] that non-economics social scie…
While I agree that ideological conformity is a problem, I think it's a symptom rather than something that needs to be fixed itself at the moment. You would probably see more distributed alignment within certain communities if there wasn't so much "noise" elsewhere.
> “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. > Other former curators interviewed by Gizmodo denied consciously suppressing conservative news, and we were unable to determine if left-wing news topics or sources were similarly suppressed. The conservative curator described the omissions as a function of his colleagu…
Irrelevant. FB is a nuclear weapon. Chain reactions that start there can take out society in a blink. That has to be understood and digested by society. Doesn't matter what the actual story of the day getting filtered is. Trump has subverted the republican party in 8 months. 8 years ago a community organizer subverted the dems in 2 years. Look at Corbyn, Modi, Kejriwal, Joko etc etc Its thanks to social media and the…