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Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against conservatives

washingtontimes.com

11–20 of 231 posts

Re: Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against conservatives

#11
post #4

It is hard for me to believe that one employee could show this kind of bias for this long without being noticed. It had to be more systematic and widespread. But good to see FB admitting it and taking corrective action.

I also kind of rolled my eyes at the "rogue employee" angle. I hope Facebook makes things right.

@voku of course there is, otherwise this wouldn't be news.

Re: Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against conservatives

#13
post #4

It is hard for me to believe that one employee could show this kind of bias for this long without being noticed. It had to be more systematic and widespread. But good to see FB admitting it and taking corrective action.

It's more likely that there was a policy in place that allowed for some curation, and either the policy targeted a specific political subset of news for removal unintentionally, or the policy was vague enough to allow the political leanings of the people tasked with carrying it out to express themselves.

Then again, maybe it's also a matter of a specific subset of news which is often factually incorrect and associated with a political view, such as conservative reporting on climate science (not that the same isn't true for some liberal new items, but this is a fairly egregious example).

Re: Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against conservatives

#14
I'm totally fine with this. If you want to advocate for a world in which all resources are privately-owned (leaving no commonly-owned space for discourse) and that a global, multi-billion-dollar social media service has the same free speech rights as a mom and pop grocery, then you deserve to reap the rewards of your own ideology.

Re: Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against conservatives

#15
It's interesting how media outlets are spinning this news. People that read conservative media are left thinking that Facebook has admitted bias. People that read liberal media are left thinking the opposite.

Washington Times: "Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against conservatives"

LA Times: "Facebook investigation reveals no evidence of bias against conservative topics, company says"

NY Times: "Facebook Says an Investigation Found No Evidence of Bias in a News App"

WSJ: "Facebook to Revamp 'Trending Topics' Feature to Reduce Bias Risk"

NY Post print edition (my favorite): "You won't read this on Facebook; Site censors the news"

Re: Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against conservatives

#17
"But with nearly two-thirds of Facebook users saying they get at least some of their news from the online platform, conservatives said any chance of bias could skew political conversations."

I really don't understand this whole situation? How is this happening?

If the argument is "We don't like how you're skewing news about our kind", how is this not seen as pure hypocrisy and laughed out of the room?

Can you imagine the uproar by Conservatives if a Liberal group demanded a meeting with Roger Ailes over their manipulation of Liberal talking points, skewing political conversations across the country for the last 30 years?

How can anyone on the Conservative side, especially pundits and politicians that rely on Fox News to spin their very special brand of stupid, stand up and say "Facebook is in the wrong?"

Re: Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against conservatives

#19
post #4

It is hard for me to believe that one employee could show this kind of bias for this long without being noticed. It had to be more systematic and widespread. But good to see FB admitting it and taking corrective action.

I also kind of rolled my eyes at the "rogue employee" angle. I hope Facebook makes things right.

Things are right. There's nothing wrong with Facebook having a liberal bias. Every tech company full of young smart people is going to have a liberal bias. They aren't the government, they don't have to be unbiased. Conservatism isn't exactly popular among the non-old non-white population despite any anecdotal data about young conservatives you might know. Young people and minorities skew liberal, that's just how the world is.

Re: Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against conservatives

#20

To be honest, I'm a.) somewhat surprised that people are surprised by this b.) not sure why there is a government probe into this. Also the irony of Glenn Beck bitching about bias in media is definitely not lost on me.

This is a big deal because "the system" has shown a lot of hate toward things that oppose it. Even Stephen Colbert (our would-be go-to celebrity) has clearly aligned with the propaganda. The system is about to have themselves voted against and so now it will align with the new power.
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