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

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#341

Post by mindcrime » Tue, May 10, 2016, 7:48 PM UTC

golemotron wrote: post #204

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…

> Even if you, like me, generally believe that the liberal political position is correct, ideological conformity of this magnitude should frighten you. What it does is make people whose views fall out of that bubble feel disenfranchised. This is no small part of the Trump phenomenon. I was watching a documentary about South American politics yesterday and there was a globalist establishment candidate running against…

It was strange to see that the globalist was on the right and the protectionist was on the left and that is exactly the opposite of what we are seeing in the US election this year.

Realistically, the terms "left" and "right" don't mean a damn thing in modern politics, at least not in the US. There's not really a cohesive ideology that you can say is "the left ideology", or one you can call "the right ideology". Both labels are, at times, attached to a smorgasbord of ideas, some related, some unrelated, and probably some that are diametrically opposed to each other.

Mostly those words exist simply as pejoratives now.

And to the extent that they have any meaning, the idea of one dimensional model of political orientation is brain-dead anyway. You can't actually reflect the variety of political belief like that. Take, for example, Libertarians, who are, as the old joke goes "left of left, AND right of right". That shouldn't be possible, and yet, here we are.

We really ought to quit talking in terms of "left" and "right" and find a richer and more consistent model to describe political orientation.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#342

Post by krapp » Tue, May 10, 2016, 8:00 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #341

golemotron wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if you, like me, generally believe that the liberal political position is correct, ideological conformity of this magnitude should frighten you. What it does is make people whose views fall out of that bubble feel disenfranchised. This is no small part of the Trump phenomenon. I was watching a documentary about South American politics yesterday and there was a globalist establishment candidate running against…

It was strange to see that the globalist was on the right and the protectionist was on the left and that is exactly the opposite of what we are seeing in the US election this year. Realistically, the terms "left" and "right" don't mean a damn thing in modern politics, at least not in the US. There's not really a cohesive ideology that you can say is "the left ideology", or one you can call "the right ideology". Both…

>We really ought to quit talking in terms of "left" and "right" and find a richer and more consistent model to describe political orientation.

We would need a higher dimensional political process to apply it to, first. A two party system can only describe one-dimensional politics.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#343

Post by mindcrime » Tue, May 10, 2016, 8:08 PM UTC

krapp wrote: post #342

mindcrime wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was strange to see that the globalist was on the right and the protectionist was on the left and that is exactly the opposite of what we are seeing in the US election this year. Realistically, the terms "left" and "right" don't mean a damn thing in modern politics, at least not in the US. There's not really a cohesive ideology that you can say is "the left ideology", or one you can call "the right ideology". Both…

>We really ought to quit talking in terms of "left" and "right" and find a richer and more consistent model to describe political orientation. We would need a higher dimensional political process to apply it to, first. A two party system can only describe one-dimensional politics.

I believe referring to our system as a "two party" system is mistake. In the United States there are far more than two political parties, although two specific parties dominate electoral politics. BUT, continuing to refer to the system as "two party" simply perpetuates this belief that there's no reason to vote for "third" parties, even though "3rd party" candidates DO get elected. Most of them are at the city council / county board of commissioners level, they they get elected and hold office.[1]

And as long as we stick to this incorrect single dimensional model, we make it even more difficult to talk about 3rd parties, exactly because some (many?|most??) of them don't fit the simplistic left/right continuum. To continue with an earlier example, American libertarians do not fit cleanly on either side of that model. I'm pretty sure there are other examples, but the Libertarian one is the one I'm most familiar with.

It's something of a chicken-or-the-egg problem, granted, but right now it's probably easier to start changing the language we use, than it is to overcome first-past-the-post single-member-district voting systems, etc. [2]

[1]: https://www.lp.org/candidates/elected-officials

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#344

Post by golemotron » Tue, May 10, 2016, 9:09 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #341

golemotron wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even if you, like me, generally believe that the liberal political position is correct, ideological conformity of this magnitude should frighten you. What it does is make people whose views fall out of that bubble feel disenfranchised. This is no small part of the Trump phenomenon. I was watching a documentary about South American politics yesterday and there was a globalist establishment candidate running against…

It was strange to see that the globalist was on the right and the protectionist was on the left and that is exactly the opposite of what we are seeing in the US election this year. Realistically, the terms "left" and "right" don't mean a damn thing in modern politics, at least not in the US. There's not really a cohesive ideology that you can say is "the left ideology", or one you can call "the right ideology". Both…

Good observation but my point was that the Right in the US election is adopting a position with regard to trade that is people on the Left in the US advocate but only for other countries.

That is a puzzle that should be teased apart.

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#345

Post by MustardTiger » Tue, May 10, 2016, 9:57 PM UTC

popmystack wrote: post #329

vsl wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> covering up "refugee” crimes This. Facebook agreeing to work with German government to do something about “racism” comments in German version (read: FB users talking about Cologne attacks that weren’t covered by mainstream press at all for weeks). FB blocking links to a mainstream respectable media’s article about freedom of speech in Czech version. I have no doubt that FB doesn’t consider it bias. They’re righteou…

Because when has hyperbolic stories about immigrants ever gotten out of hand?

I don't know, when? And what exactly is "out of hand", and how out of hand does it need to be before censorship becomes good?

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#346

Post by chris_wot » Wed, May 11, 2016, 12:34 AM UTC

Facebook deleted my friend John Dickson's post, so this happens. I don't agree with John's post, but I don't expect civil (if I feel misguided) discourse to be deleted. I want to be able to speak to the person and state my position, and have them clarify there's, and so on - you know, free discourse and dissemination of ideas!

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#347

Post by chris_wot » Wed, May 11, 2016, 12:36 AM UTC

MustardTiger wrote: post #345

popmystack wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because when has hyperbolic stories about immigrants ever gotten out of hand?

I don't know, when? And what exactly is "out of hand", and how out of hand does it need to be before censorship becomes good?

In Australia. You might want to search for "The Children Overboard Affair".

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#348

Post by wyclif » Wed, May 11, 2016, 1:41 AM UTC

pj_mukh wrote: post #248

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> I find it extremely difficult to relate to and debate the American conservative Yet, the topic here is that conservative-related news items appear to have been suppressed or down-scored on the influential Facebook trending box, presumably by liberal or liberal-leaning curators (or algorithms written by liberal leaning programmers). How do you conclude that conservatives are uncompromising or closed minded when in…

Most of Facebook's users are international. There is a chance that what is "liberal" in America is simply something that runs counter to the American conservatives disciplined beliefs. Example #1: When a prominent American conservative does something like shutdown the government instead of compromising (remember compromising gets you booted at the next elections see: Paul Ryan). To most of the world (liberal and cons…

Isn't the newsfeed you see on Facebook specific to the country you're from?

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#349

Post by MustardTiger » Wed, May 11, 2016, 1:59 AM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #347

MustardTiger wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, when? And what exactly is "out of hand", and how out of hand does it need to be before censorship becomes good?

In Australia. You might want to search for "The Children Overboard Affair".

I don't follow. That story got out of hand? In what way? And again, how out of hand does a story need to get to make censorship good?

Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

#350

Post by krapp » Wed, May 11, 2016, 2:42 AM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #343

krapp wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We really ought to quit talking in terms of "left" and "right" and find a richer and more consistent model to describe political orientation. We would need a higher dimensional political process to apply it to, first. A two party system can only describe one-dimensional politics.

I believe referring to our system as a "two party" system is mistake. In the United States there are far more than two political parties, although two specific parties dominate electoral politics. BUT, continuing to refer to the system as "two party" simply perpetuates this belief that there's no reason to vote for "third" parties, even though "3rd party" candidates DO get elected. Most of them are at the city counci…

Fair enough.

It's not a two party system, but it is a two-party dominant system.