Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

> Facebook's product was manipulated and helped Donald Trump get elected by swaying public opinion.

I find this exceptionally hard to believe for a myriad of reasons.

- The MSM never gave Trump serious consideration. They thought he was a clown when he announced his candidacy. Even his own party thought he was a joke. Clinton never prepped for the possibility he might be the candidate. After he beat out 14 other candidates for the nomination, she still never took him seriously. She was so arrogant about winning, it was if she merely expected this to be her coronation after ceding to Obama in the previous race.

- The MSM was running nothing but glowing stories about Clinton the entire race. At one point MSNBC said she had a 98% chance of winning. At the same time, Trump was enduring a non stop wave of bad publicity and negative stories about him. The juxtaposition of the way the MSM covered the two campaigns is so obvious it felt at times the MSM was on the DNC payroll. All you heard was positive spin for every Clinton story, and negative spin on every Trump story.

- Clinton started to believe her own polling that showed her up in many of the battleground states. So much so, she started campaigning in traditional republican strongholds. The media were running stories that she didn't just want to beat Trump, she wanted to humiliate him like Reagan did to Mondale.

- Even on the day of the election The MSM was saying she was up 10 points in all the battleground states. They were basically saying her victory was all but assured.

- She was under an ongoing FBI investigation the majority of her campaign. In the history of the country, we've never had a presidential candidate who was running under the threat of possible FBI indictment and the possibility of going to jail.

All of these far outweigh the Facebook ads that were run. It can't even compare to Clinton's own arrogance and the MSM culpability in attempting to do anything to get her elected.

> There has to be consequences- sorry, but in my opinion not every voice deserves to be equal.

Every voice deserves to be equal, but unfortunately in our society, it will never be the case. We're so far removed from what "real journalism" is it's quite scary. There is no objectivity anymore. There is always a political angle to be had, pushed and manipulated so one side looks good and the other side bad. Hell, MSNBC and CNN, the Times and a multitude of other "news" outlets don't even pretend to be objective anymore. Real journalism is gone. What's replaced it is a political machine, bent on seizing power at all costs and pushing any other party that disagrees with them to the sidelines.

The days when journalists used to be the check on government are long gone. For the most part, they're all on the parties payroll now.

And Facebook's product was used in 2008 to help Obama get elected.

And several traditional media were used in all previous elections to get presidents elected.

If the media are information gatekeepers, why do they allow political ads without challenging the misinformation in those ads? What were the consequences of CNN, Fox News, etc for not being proper information gatekeepers?

Drawing the line at Twitter/Facebook is very arbitrary (and perhaps convenient).

But there is a vast chasm of difference between using social media to organize people and mobilize a campaign's message (as Obama's campaign sort of did in 2008, a lot of that engagement was organic though) and using the Facebook ad network and a network of phony accounts tied to real people in influencer groups to spread a litany of propaganda and false information meant to foment outrage and cultivate doubt in the integrity of the American election system.

1. Do not treat Facebook differently from traditional media - we seem to agree on this.

2. The use of phone accounts to influence people should be targeted in and of itself - not just because it happened to help win an election.

And on the side:

>using the Facebook ad network and a network of phony accounts tied to real people in influencer groups to spread a litany of propaganda and false information meant to foment outrage and cultivate doubt in the integrity of the American election system

Influencer groups spreading propaganda and false information is common amongst special interest and lobby groups, in both traditional media and social networks. I do not like it, but I do not see Facebook being in any way special about it.