Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News • Hacker News Board

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#171

Post by Grishnakh » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:43 PM UTC

dba7dba wrote: post #71

throwaway2016a wrote: post #65

Anecdotal: apparently this isn't work for me. My news feed is FILLed with conservative election news. How can I enable this feature ;)

Apparently you are too conservative according to Facebook? Or too many friends that are conservative?

He probably has too many conservative friends. FB seems to think that just because you've "friended" people that you want to see, and agree with, all the inane political bullshit they post.

One of many reasons I don't use FB. I keep an account on there for a few reasons, but I almost never actually look at it.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#172

Post by kisna72 » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:47 PM UTC

PaulHoule wrote: post #144

luso_brazilian wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of what you said is hyperbolic or plainly not true, another part a false equivalence and, in both cases, it greatly misses the point. 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 proce…

The issue is that the right wing machine has gone so far that it has destroyed the Republican party. There won't be a Republican party in 2022 unless they get a constitutional amendment to repeal Citizen's United.

I am pretty doubtful of your statement as conservative media does a pretty good job of making people believe what the republical party wants them to believe.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#173

Post by nibs » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:49 PM UTC

pklausler wrote: post #100

Perhaps Facebook was suppressing "news" items contradicted by empirical reality, and this policy disproportionately affected conservative positions.

Have you ever breached the subject of intelligence/IQ science, evolutionary biology or being pro-GMO with "progressive" "educated" "liberals" before? Systemic blind spots exist on both sides of the political spectrum.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#174

Post by SyneRyder » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:51 PM UTC

bobwaycott wrote: post #111

SyneRyder wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, but I'm someone who leans libertarian, and Trending Topics is one of the reasons I deactivated my Facebook account. I wasn't interested in most of the trending stories, they were often news stories designed to make people sad or angry, and that's not what I want to feel when visiting Facebook. I couldn't find a way to hide that feature either - so like bad advertising, it was always there annoying me. I w…

Another genuinely curious: Any chance your departure from FB coincided with that little social feed experiment they performed to see if they could manipulate people's emotions?

Funny you mention that! I left in October 2015, so it was long after their emotion contagion experiment. But I've often wondered if I fell into that experiment group, because I've felt much happier & calmer since leaving Facebook.

I've deactivated my account for short periods before, so it's possible I may have deactivated previously during the experiment. But 7 months is the longest I've stayed deactivated & I have no desire to return to FB this time.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#175

Post by SFLemonade » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:51 PM UTC

1024core wrote: post #126

jimmytidey wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any democratic country depends on the quality of public discourse for the effectiveness of its political system, and for this reason many countries have special rules for newspapers and TV. What's important here is that Facebook is not covered by those laws, simply because it did not exist when the laws were created. In my view it should be covered by those laws. One defence Facebook might consider is to say that it…

> What's important here is that Facebook is not covered by those laws, simply because it did not exist when the laws were created. In my view it should be covered by those laws. Is Fox "News" covered by these laws? Surely you're not suggesting with a straight face that Fox News is "fair and balanced" ?

Are you suggesting with a straight face that CNN "News" is fair and balanced? Or perhaps any of the myriad of blatantly politically charged companies out of Silicon Valley?

It happens on both sides, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to argue that the left is much more guilty of this than the right. Fox News has become a meme because it is the only mainstream news source that blatantly shows conservative bias. Try pointing to mainstream news sources that blatantly show liberal bias and you'd lose count.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#176

Post by kisna72 » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:58 PM UTC

PhantomGremlin wrote: post #150

Mendenhall wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not true. "Another former curator agreed that the operation had an aversion to right-wing news sources. “It was absolutely bias. We were doing it subjectively."

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

Thre is a law in the US where employers must pay foreign workers with H1B Visas at least the average salary in that field. The law is already there to protect US workers. I read the title of that news story and immediately thought this was an "sensational" article targeted towards people who know nothing about how H1B Visa program works.

Now if the autoher of the article you posted was training foreign workers not in the US, that would be a different thing. But the article specifies that the person was in the US. Article has some serious bias against foreign workers even though the facts say otherwise.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#177

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, May 09, 2016, 5:59 PM UTC

SFLemonade wrote: post #175

1024core wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What's important here is that Facebook is not covered by those laws, simply because it did not exist when the laws were created. In my view it should be covered by those laws. Is Fox "News" covered by these laws? Surely you're not suggesting with a straight face that Fox News is "fair and balanced" ?

Are you suggesting with a straight face that CNN "News" is fair and balanced? Or perhaps any of the myriad of blatantly politically charged companies out of Silicon Valley? It happens on both sides, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to argue that the left is much more guilty of this than the right. Fox News has become a meme because it is the only mainstream news source that blatantly shows conservative bias. Try point…

> Are you suggesting with a straight face that CNN "News" is fair and balanced?

No, it just has slightly weaker right-wing bias than Fox.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#178

Post by tynpeddler » Mon, May 09, 2016, 6:14 PM UTC

popmystack wrote: post #169

throwit992 wrote: post #138

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…

In the specific case of conservative politics, why does it matter that it's so skewed? I have absolutely no issue with, in this specific case, conservative politics not receiving much attention. I would liken it to not giving "flat earthers", blatant racists, and charlatans air time (excuse the hyperbole, hopefully the point was understood). While I agree that ideological conformity is a problem, I think it's a sympt…

The concern is that you may be equating the conservative position to flat earthers bases on biased information. It's the classic epistomological dilemma, how do you know what you know? Maybe reality doesn't have a liberal bias. Maybe it's just the loudest people who have a liberal bias.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#179

Post by whatthesmack » Mon, May 09, 2016, 6:15 PM UTC

popmystack wrote: post #169

throwit992 wrote: post #138

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…

In the specific case of conservative politics, why does it matter that it's so skewed? I have absolutely no issue with, in this specific case, conservative politics not receiving much attention. I would liken it to not giving "flat earthers", blatant racists, and charlatans air time (excuse the hyperbole, hopefully the point was understood). While I agree that ideological conformity is a problem, I think it's a sympt…

> "flat earthers", blatant racists, and charlatans air time (excuse the hyperbole, hopefully the point was understood).

The point was understood, but differently than you intended.

These terms seem to be used to reference the folks that would claim to hold the conservative viewpoint, but the terms themselves only further evidence the misunderstood viewpoint non-conservatives may have of conservatives, and that misunderstanding may have been furthered by what is discussed in the article.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#180

Post by PaulHoule » Mon, May 09, 2016, 6:16 PM UTC

kisna72 wrote: post #172

PaulHoule wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is that the right wing machine has gone so far that it has destroyed the Republican party. There won't be a Republican party in 2022 unless they get a constitutional amendment to repeal Citizen's United.

I am pretty doubtful of your statement as conservative media does a pretty good job of making people believe what the republical party wants them to believe.

That's exactly what it did. It got them to support Trump. For a long time the party has had a fortunate synergy of "red meat" issues that constituents care about and business interests who for some reason think that Hillary Clinton hates Goldman Sachs (but pays her $8000 a minute to hear what she has to say.) Note how "pro business" republicans will pay lip service to the Teslas and Ubers of the world until the local car dealers and taxi medallion owners want to stop them.

So much money gets thrown at anybody who passes the "litmus tests" that the the Republican party has a field of 17 losers who all looked alike and they were bowled over effortlessly by someone who could pick and choose from the litmus test issues to make a message that actually sells.

If there was not so much money for conservative candidates there might have been fewer candidates and it would have been easier for somebody serious to get some traction. Look at how $100 million got spent on those stupid "Ted Cruz is a flip flopper, you always know where Jeb stands, he stands in the same place as Rhett Butler, Han Solo, and Hillary Clinton..." ads -- in the Citizens United age, spending huge amounts of $$ just makes you look like a jackass.