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Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

theguardian.com

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Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#111

Post by peoplewindow »

pjc50 wrote: post #107
rtpg wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet there are some good opportunties for some concentrated journalism that people will find interesting enough to build a "proper business" untainted by as much advertising. The success of patreon has me believe that you could probably get enough rich people to pay (say) $50/month for a news source that feels less of a need to pander. I don't want to be too dismissive, but even though I like the coverage I get from…

> pay (say) $50/month for a news source that feels less of a need to pander That's about the price of a print subscription to the Financial Times, who are dry but reliable with good worldwide business-focused coverage. > I'm still financing a bunch of think pieces on the fashion industry, their cooking apps, "78 hours in X" articles, movie reviews, Bret Stephens op-eds That kind of stuff unfortunately pays for the se…

Reliable by what metric?

The FT panders just as hard, it has its own severe biases that result in deeply unreliable reporting.

My go-to example of how unreliable the FT can be is an article they published before the Brexit referendum. It said the FT had polled a panel of over 100 "experts" and "leading thinkers". Every single one thought a vote to leave would damage economic growth. In fact economic growth accelerated. The FT, by the way, literally flies the EU flag above its offices in London.

https://www.ft.com/content/1a86ab36-afbe-11e5-b955-1a1d298b6...

In the FT’s annual poll of more than 100 leading thinkers, not one thought a vote for Brexit would enhance UK growth in 2016.

Where is the line between spectacularly bad reporting and propaganda? If the FT really couldn't find a single "leading thinker" who could actually get it right in a pool of 100, and they didn't even realise that was a problem, how reliable can their coverage on other topics be? Like all newspapers the FT employs generalists who rely heavily on FT-identified 'leading thinkers' for analysis and facts. If they aren't able to spot self-created bias and groupthink on the topic of Europe then they surely cannot in other areas.

I agree with rtpg - journalism seems to have a serious sickness and I'd pay for news sources that seemed to have real commitments and processes in place to ensure wide-angle reporting.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#112

Post by peoplewindow »

acdha wrote: post #105
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, in fact I do want to read an interview with the Google Manifesto guy. I totally understand why you want to filter those out from your life, and I also want to filter a lot of things out of my life too. But that's our problem, not the media's. I think the job of journalism is to give you what needs to be heard instead of what you want to hear. Being unbiased is not easy so I think at least media needs to provide a…

You want to read an interview with the Google Manifesto guy not because it’s not propaganda but because it’s propaganda you agree with: massive political agenda, big claims unsupported by evidence or logic, designed to sound science-y to people without prior experience with the issue, etc. — that’s worse on every axis than the journalists you’ve been attacking. This also neatly sums up why “tell every side” is the sa…

I think your post is indicative of the problem journalists face here.

Manifesto Guy was backed up by actual scientists who spoke out to say he'd got the science right, he provided many citations of scientific papers, most of what he wrote was about Google's own culture anyway (and those parts were clearly supported by leaked communications), and in interviews he dwelled on his own firing - a fact.

To you it's just "science-y sounding" and "unsupported by evidence or logic". But what he said is all true. You can read the studies or look at the statistics yourself. There is a clear imbalance in interest (vs ability) between genders in the field of computer science.

By denying this you make yourself the gender-science equivalent of a climate change denier.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#113

Post by peoplewindow »

delhanty wrote: post #55

Have no love for Facebook but: The Guardian would publish this wouldn't they? This is a good idea by former editor (1975-95 [1]) Peter Preston: move The Guardian back to Manchester from London and trim the wage bill in the process. [2] Perhaps then they might slow the cash burn of their Scott "Trust" endowment (£838.3m 2015) ... [3] Also, if they weren't quite so London centric they might be less surprised by "events…

The Guardian has been pushing the line that non-Guardian news sources are 'dangerous for democracy' for a long time now. Other similar publications like the NYT have the same viewpoint.

It's impressive double think: what they mean is, exposure to views they disagree with might cause people to vote against things Guardian writers like and for things Guardian writers dislike, therefore, it's important that such people are not exposed to "wrong" views. The assumption that the Guardian can't or shouldn't argue against those views is held very deep - if they took opposing views seriously and tried to engage in debate, that would "legitimise" such views or worse, they might lose the argument.

I used to be a Guardian reader. I read it religiously around the time Snowden's stuff was getting published there. But I came to find it manipulative and extremist. The amount of vitriolic hate they publish in their comment is free section is very disturbing. If they go bankrupt I won't miss them.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#114

Post by detaro »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #69

This tells more about the journalists than Facebook. Facebook has always been the same. It's journalists who sold their soul so that they can make money. Furthermore, it's funny hearing this hypocrisy coming from journalists, since they are the ones who are throwing away their "journalistic integrity" to make money. It's impossible to come across a mainstream publication with unbiased point of view nowadays. They hav…

Kind of sad to see such a generic "journalism is bad!" rant with IMHO useless generalizations at the top of the comments here, instead of a discussion of the specific example. Yes, the relationship between Facebook and the media is problematic, but that doesn't mean every journalist using it "sold his soul" and that Facebook shouldn't be careful about how they experiment with changing this.

I get cutting down on noise, but it sounds like they made following a page basically irrelevant (since the "explore" tab apparently has "recommended content it thinks you might find interesting, including posts, articles, photos and videos from sources you haven’t followed yet" (https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/18/facebooks-discovery-focuse... ). That sounds a bit much.

Large media companies that "sold out" might be able to afford to promote some stories (which then will have to have a higher profit, pushing even more click-bait?), but for smaller actors as described in the article that seems unlikely. That kind of sounds like this move pushes what you dislike about "journalism" even more?

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#115

Post by marcus_holmes »

peoplewindow wrote: post #110
marcus_holmes wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And I would say it's a good thing even for the media because essentially they are being cut off of access to the race to the bottom that's killing them. I would completely agree if it wasn't possible for a media page to pay to have their posts back in the news feed again. Which it is. If FB was genuinely trying to "make users happy" then I'd be more charitable. But they're not. They're trying to monetise more. As a…

Yes, people can type a url into a browser. But they don't. they scroll their newsfeed. They don't ... for your site. You know how often I see Hacker News on Facebook? Never. Yet I visit here regularly. Same for reddit and many other sources of news. You know how often Breitbart links appear in Facebook or Google News? Never. Yet it's the 49th biggest site in the USA according to Alexa. Our choices are: take FB head-o…

HN, Reddit and FB are all aggregators, not journalists. They are not sources of news, they merely link to it.

Producing quality journalism is expensive, the business model doesn't work to pay for the journalists and also pay for our traffic.

Having been through this test, our only viable long-term choice here is to gtf off FB. That's going to be extremely painful.

Let's hope a few good news sources survive the pain, eh? Otherwise all you've got left on your lovely FB/HN/Reddit feed is the shite that's cheap to produce and optimised for clicks...

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#116

Post by kupaka »

peoplewindow wrote: post #110
marcus_holmes wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And I would say it's a good thing even for the media because essentially they are being cut off of access to the race to the bottom that's killing them. I would completely agree if it wasn't possible for a media page to pay to have their posts back in the news feed again. Which it is. If FB was genuinely trying to "make users happy" then I'd be more charitable. But they're not. They're trying to monetise more. As a…

Yes, people can type a url into a browser. But they don't. they scroll their newsfeed. They don't ... for your site. You know how often I see Hacker News on Facebook? Never. Yet I visit here regularly. Same for reddit and many other sources of news. You know how often Breitbart links appear in Facebook or Google News? Never. Yet it's the 49th biggest site in the USA according to Alexa. Our choices are: take FB head-o…

> You know how often Breitbart links appear in Facebook or Google News? Never.

Both Google News and Facebook tailor what you see based on your search history/engagement habits. Just because you've never seen Breitbart in your search results doesn't mean no one's seen it.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#117

Post by peoplewindow »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #115
peoplewindow wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people can type a url into a browser. But they don't. they scroll their newsfeed. They don't ... for your site. You know how often I see Hacker News on Facebook? Never. Yet I visit here regularly. Same for reddit and many other sources of news. You know how often Breitbart links appear in Facebook or Google News? Never. Yet it's the 49th biggest site in the USA according to Alexa. Our choices are: take FB head-o…

HN, Reddit and FB are all aggregators, not journalists. They are not sources of news, they merely link to it. Producing quality journalism is expensive, the business model doesn't work to pay for the journalists and also pay for our traffic. Having been through this test, our only viable long-term choice here is to gtf off FB. That's going to be extremely painful. Let's hope a few good news sources survive the pain,…

HN/Reddit being aggregators isn't relevant to my point - I derive value from these sites and browse to them directly. If your site was that valuable, people would do the same. Besides, much news in newspapers is also just aggregations of AP/Reuters stories.

The vast majority of news sources are actually worse than "shite that's cheap" and optimised for clicks - they're stuffed with lying, manipulation and nonsense designed to bring about political outcomes preferred by the journalists. See my other post in this thread about the FT. If we end this era with most current journalistic outlets going bankrupt and disappearing, fine! There will always be news. If it comes from other people who see journalism as a way to aggregate timely facts rather than push agendas, so much the better.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#118

Post by peoplewindow »

rtpg wrote: post #88
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on everything except for the part about "Medium is already kinda this". Medium has also made the same mistake of introducing bias even though they claim to want to become a platform. A lot of people see Medium as a place where a bunch of self-important people, wannabe activists, growth hackers, social justice warriors live. You can see that by the type of posts they promote on their main page as well…

I don't really want an unbiased platform. I want a news source that accepts the postulates I accept. I don't want to read an interview with the Google Manifesto guy. I do want to read more things about labor issues, without the habitual "some people think that unions are actually bad!" stuff. I don't need the both sides fallacy, especially given the current state of politics. You wouldn't want to read a defense of ho…

Are you sure you want a news source at all? News is inherently defined by what's happening at the moment. If Manifesto Guy is at the centre of a political controversy, an interview with him would seem to be "news" in the sense of "something new", just as an interview with Xi Jinping would be relevant given the recent People's Congress in the last few days. You don't have to agree with the guy for it to clearly be news.

It sounds like what you actually want is a blog of opinion pieces that aligns with your own preconceived political notions. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's a perfectly reasonable product to want. But that would not be news.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#119

Post by pjc50 »

peoplewindow wrote: post #111
pjc50 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pay (say) $50/month for a news source that feels less of a need to pander That's about the price of a print subscription to the Financial Times, who are dry but reliable with good worldwide business-focused coverage. > I'm still financing a bunch of think pieces on the fashion industry, their cooking apps, "78 hours in X" articles, movie reviews, Bret Stephens op-eds That kind of stuff unfortunately pays for the se…

Reliable by what metric? The FT panders just as hard, it has its own severe biases that result in deeply unreliable reporting. My go-to example of how unreliable the FT can be is an article they published before the Brexit referendum. It said the FT had polled a panel of over 100 "experts" and "leading thinkers". Every single one thought a vote to leave would damage economic growth. In fact economic growth accelerate…

> In fact economic growth accelerated.

Really? Are you sure? It's still in the fractional percentage points: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-growth

And some of that article says "medium term". There is still no decision on what Brexit will look like and the number of businesses planning accordingly is increasing.

> "Don Smith, deputy chief investment officer at Brown Shipley, said: “The uncertainty generated by a decision to leave the EU would undoubtedly be damaging for sterling assets across the board and, indeed, the value of sterling on foreign exchanges"

Sterling was 1.3 to the euro just before the vote and is now 1.13.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#120

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

acdha wrote: post #105
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, in fact I do want to read an interview with the Google Manifesto guy. I totally understand why you want to filter those out from your life, and I also want to filter a lot of things out of my life too. But that's our problem, not the media's. I think the job of journalism is to give you what needs to be heard instead of what you want to hear. Being unbiased is not easy so I think at least media needs to provide a…

You want to read an interview with the Google Manifesto guy not because it’s not propaganda but because it’s propaganda you agree with: massive political agenda, big claims unsupported by evidence or logic, designed to sound science-y to people without prior experience with the issue, etc. — that’s worse on every axis than the journalists you’ve been attacking. This also neatly sums up why “tell every side” is the sa…

> You want to read an interview with the Google Manifesto guy not because it’s not propaganda but because it’s propaganda you agree with

thanks for the speculation, but no.

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