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Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against conservatives

washingtontimes.com

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

#191

Post by talmand »

westernmostcoy wrote: post #134
talmand wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook admitted to the problem, so those people may be wrong about Fox News but in this case they were correct with Facebook. Just because someone is wrong about one thing doesn't automatically make them wrong on everything else. That's just an excuse to dismiss them.

Can you link to where they admit to anything more than the possibility of wrongdoing? What they're saying appears to be "we involved humans, we acknowledge humans can be biased, we will remove some human involvement going forward" which is very different than "we hid stories from sources we don't like." Some conservative groups (and the author of this article, seemingly) would have you think they acknowledged that th…

I don't need to link a source, you summed up my meaning of the problem they admitted to quite well on your own.

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

#192

Post by heisenbit »

The concept of unbiased news is in my mind troubling. How can one have editors that won't make judgment decisions?

The more tightly one boxes the editors in with rules the more predictable the enterprise becomes. And a predictable huge enterprise is a standing invitation to be gamed. There is a whole industry of marketeers and political hacks searching for new ways to leverage others infrastructure and social assets to get their message out. The human element so far seems vital to protect against spam. Even Google can't stand still and constantly tweaks their rules - and gets taken to court for it too.

And if one has editors making decisions and they are all young they tend to be on average more left than the general population.

It is hard for Facebook to win here. The best move may be not to play.

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

#193

Post by chipotle2 »

mwfunk wrote: post #163
chipotle2 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fox News is less biased than NPR. You joshing us, son???

You're bringing a butter knife to a nuclear war. If you're going to make that claim you need something a hell of a lot more than "you joshing us, son???". :) It's not like this isn't an area that's been investigated to death in media studies 10x over for the past decade+. The data is out there, no need to take anyone's word on it.

Nah.

I was insinuating that Fox News is EXTREMELY biased to the right. But to say that NPR is not left wing leaning... that's a complete joke. Diane Rehm is as much a militant democrat as O'Reilly is a republican. At least O'Reilly is for show. Rehm just has a smugness about her that smacks of distaste for all things republican. She builds one strawman after the other and lets her guests kick them down. Even for shows like PHC or WWDTM, they often delve into "low brow" territory where simply "being republican" is the punchline.

Fox News is almost comedic at this point. NPR is much more insidious.

Also note this website (HN) itself is very left leaning in its ideology. Probably because the vast majority of the viewership adhere to the common SV psychology, which is also left leaning.

Myself? I find it all disgusting, harbor distrust for all media. Like someone else mentioned... a long time ago (before I was born, I'm sure) they stopped telling the news and started hocking style to sell advertising space. You have to be awfully stylish yourself not to get sick of it once in awhile.

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

#194

Post by gmarx »

hackuser wrote: post #73
redthrowaway wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My anecdata suggests conservative outlets tend to acknowledge their bias, as a counterweight to liberal bias in the "mainstream" media, whereas liberal outlets tend to believe themselves to be unbiased. Given how much liberal outlets scoff at the notion of there being a pervasive liberal bias in the MSM, I suspect they legitimately just don't see it as they're surrounded by people with the same political views and so…

> pervasive liberal bias in the MSM The biggest cable news channel, the most popular newspaper (I think WSJ leads; EDIT: and certainly it dominates the business world), and almost all talk radio are highly conservative. They try to paint themselves as underdogs, but it's a little silly.

Your statement is actually a lot of evidence that it isn't silly. They dominate AM radio has been something the liberals have been claiming as evidence against media bias for years. I'd say if the only place those people could get their views aired was AM radio it kind of proved the point that the mainstream media (TV, every newspaper and magazine except for those which are specifically conservative) accepts the slightly left of center as normal

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

#195

Post by mcphage »

redthrowaway wrote: post #59
kailuowang wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious how many of these medias actually admit that they are biased themselves?

My anecdata suggests conservative outlets tend to acknowledge their bias, as a counterweight to liberal bias in the "mainstream" media, whereas liberal outlets tend to believe themselves to be unbiased. Given how much liberal outlets scoff at the notion of there being a pervasive liberal bias in the MSM, I suspect they legitimately just don't see it as they're surrounded by people with the same political views and so…

> My anecdata suggests conservative outlets tend to acknowledge their bias

"Fair and Balanced"?

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

#196

Post by dang »

thisargisARGH23 wrote: post #170
rhino369 wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A key difference between Fox News and Facebook is that Fox commentators are pretty much advertising their bias. Bill Oreilly is clearly stating his personal opinions. Facebook is stating it's politically neutral but it wasn't. Another thing to considers is that Facebook is a monopoly in the social networking business. There are probably half a dozen news networks on a cable plan, plus nearly infinitely online news ou…

Their tagline is "Fair and Balanced". In reality they're nothing of the sort. Here is a link describing how Trending topics works: https://www.facebook.com/help/737806312958641 Where does it state Trending topics is a neutral source for unbiased news? They admit readily that an algorithm does much of the work, but that it also relies on human intervention. And the Valley, including Zuckerberg, have worn their "libera…

Please don't create many obscure throwaway accounts on HN. This forum is a community. Anonymity is fine here, but users should have some kind of consistent identity that other users can relate to. Otherwise we might as well have no usernames and no community at all, and that would be an entirely different forum.

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

#197

Post by drewrv »

redthrowaway wrote: post #153
howlingfantods wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reality has a notorious liberal bias. Look at climate change, which went from scientific position to liberal position.

Parroting lines from the Daily Show/Colbert Report only makes you seem credible to other young lefties. You're not going to win any converts from the other side; we'll tend to roll our eyes and dismiss the speaker.

The line stuck so well because it was so poignant when Colbert said it. This was a time when Karl Rove was criticizing people in the "reality based community" who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality."

Since then the republican party has gone even further off the deep end.

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

#198

Post by drewrv »

noobermin wrote: post #27
kailuowang wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am curious how many of these medias actually admit that they are biased themselves?

I think this election has demonstrated the media's bias fairly well.

This cracks me up because some people believe the media has treated Sanders unfairly, others believe they've treated Trump unfairly. Maybe both.

Personally I believe left/right bias isn't that interesting. The media has a strong bias toward sensationalism, and in elections there's a strong bias toward reporting on a horse race. Maybe this is the bias you're talking about. IMO these biases have helped Trump and Sanders respectively.

What a weird society we live in where everyone thinks the media is biased and few agree on exactly how.

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

#199

Post by tmaly »

ChrisArgyle wrote: post #113
nostromo wrote: post #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: "F…

Honestly this is more likely due to the actual outcome being too complex for a headline. "Facebook denies systematic bias but admits their current process allows bad actors to apply bias and takes remediating steps" Doesn't work. Although WSJ came kinda close.

the choice of the word rogue says something. That term has been popular in the financial industry in the context of "Rogue Trader" as a way to deflect blame on the company even when they knowingly took part in the conduct.

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

#200

Post by gnaritas »

nametakenobv wrote: post #184
gnaritas wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to what, your gut? If you're going to keep insisting that companies "must" do this or that, you need to cite the law that requires them to do so.

According to anti-trust law.

Anti-trust laws are about preventing monopolies, which Facebook is not, and have nothing to do with mandating any kind of fair service for non monopolies. No case can be successfully made calling Facebook a monopoly on social networks, you don't have to use them there are many other options.
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