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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

#121

Post by acdha »

peoplewindow wrote: post #112
acdha wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "s…

> 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,

Thanks for inadvertently providing a great example for why this is so hard: what you said is wrong but recognizing that requires time – simply reading that turgid slog of an essay, recognizing the difference between a blog post or option piece (i.e. most of his citations) and peer reviewed publications in respected journals (of which he cited almost none), reading the few cited papers to see how they supported the claim being made and whether those results had been upheld or were suspect within the field (most of the remaining items), and using a logical framework to tell whether they were even relevant to the issue being discussed.

That’s a lot of work and most people are going to skip it in favor of picking the side closest to what they already believe, or which is the most entertainingly written, as you did. Most people are going to look at the issue, decide it’s too complicated and find something else, missing the fact that there’s far more scientific consensus among people who actually study the issue at hand.

As an example of what that looks like, consider https://medium.com/@tweetingmouse/the-truth-has-got-its-boot... – someone went to the trouble of figuring out original sources, analyzing specific claims, citing everything … and the most common complaint was that it was too long. At some point, it’s unreasonable to expect a general audience to follow the details of a big topic and that’s where journalists act as a useful filter finding relevant experts and filtering out the guys with degrees in other fields speculating wildly.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#122

Post by acdha »

acdha wrote: post #121
peoplewindow wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "s…

> 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, Thanks for inadvertently providing a great example for why this is so hard: what you said is wrong but recognizing that requires time – simply reading that turgid slog of an essay, recognizing the difference between a blog post or option piece (i.e. most of his citations…

And, to be clear, my point isn’t that you should just trust me but that to a first approximation the average person has no way to distinguish between two random people on the internet. Telling them to do more work seems futile since nobody has time to do that for more than a small number of topics in the news.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#123

Post by matt4077 »

peoplewindow wrote: post #117
marcus_holmes wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 de…

Does reading stuff like this make anyone else weep for the future of humanity?

And, since this sort of thinking seems to be quite prevalent on HN: does anyone subscribing to this dystopian view of today's journalism care to provide a single example of a for-profit publisher that they consider high quality?

Because all I can think of when I read about "aggregate[d] timely facts" is the phone book.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#124

Post by matt4077 »

rtpg wrote: post #78
smadge wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about rational actors is that their options are severely limited by the market. The publishers only choice is to follow the money and play the game or perish. And of corse complain about it.

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…

ProPublica is pretty close to what you want.

Other than that: The fluff you're complaining about has the fantastic benefit of being pretty cheap. Op-eds don't need days of calling people or at the courthouse.

These parts of publishing may also work much like a non-profits advertisement, in that they look like a terrible waste of money that could be put to better use. Yet they bring in more than they cost, and are therefore in your interest even if you (don't want to read them/weren't attracted to the charity by the ad)

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#125

Post by matt4077 »

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…

You're passing judgement on journalism. Yet you can't even distinguish between a paper's opinion, and that of the people it interviews.

Specifically, the article you linked to includes the full statements of everyone they asked. You can obviously accuse them of selectively choosing their panel's composition, but (a) it appears this is a group of people they regularly poll, meaning it doesn't have a specific anti-brexit slant because it predates that issue. And (b) I challenge you to find a group of 100 people with similar credentials that reflects your opinion.

I'd also like to see proof of brexit's positive effect in growth in 2016. Hint: that's impossible to do, unless you have an alternative universe.

If you invest the time to actually read the opinions, you'll also notice that almost every single one says they expect little effect on growth in 2016, which is probably pretty close to the truth, considering the referendum only happened in June, and the second half' numbers are completely within the normal range.

I'd also point out that several of comments quoted by the FT are as pro-brexit as you seem to want them to be. And that there are quite a lot of people today who would consider comments such as the following to be exactly the sort of contribution to public discourse that was regrettably underrepresented in the run-up to brexit:

We cannot count on the EU being prepared to grant continued access to the European market on the same privileged terms, particularly if the divorce turns vitriolic (contrary to received wisdom, in terms of trade flows "they" do not need "us" as much as we need them). And, if it were so easy to expand trade with the rest of the world to compensate, you would expect that to be happening already.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#126

Post by 0xbear »

_rpd wrote: post #83
0xbear wrote: post #73

Where by “impact on democracy” they mean impact on their ad revenues.

Yes, but also impact on their ability to generate and wield political power. Journalism is practically non-profit these days, but there'll never be a shortage of journalists looking to marshal the Fourth Estate.

That, too. Everyone is so eager to offer their “valuable” opinion and omit the parts of the story that don’t conform to that opinion.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#127

Post by nradov »

matt4077 wrote: post #123
peoplewindow wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 de…

Does reading stuff like this make anyone else weep for the future of humanity? And, since this sort of thinking seems to be quite prevalent on HN: does anyone subscribing to this dystopian view of today's journalism care to provide a single example of a for-profit publisher that they consider high quality? Because all I can think of when I read about "aggregate[d] timely facts" is the phone book.

wsj.com

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#128

Post by gt_ »

jeffdavis wrote: post #76
gt_ wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As things stand, Facebook has no responsibility beyond those required by law and market. This is not an endorsement of anything, but a reminder of the reality.

No, they have no legal responsibilities beyond those required by law. If they behave unethically we can certainly complain about it, and possibly take some kind of action if we feel strongly enough (e.g. boycott).

Like I said, they have a responsibility defined by the market. I’m not sure how your argument extends their responsibility any more than I did.

You comment concerning the users’ freedoms is, sure, correct; that’s the market I’m talking about.

Please clarify your argument if you have one.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#129

Post by eighthnate »

Quanttek wrote: post #97
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…

> 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. I'm not sure what your whole screed about journaists has to do with the decision at hand. It's just a fact that one of the largest online audiences is on Facebook and that newspapers & magazines have to be present on that platform to get views. They can't really g…

> If Fb suddenly cuts a major source of revenue for a whole industry without any discussion, if that is Fb's power, then this is really unhealthy for our market economy and our ideas of democracy

But that's what journalists are demanding. The NYTimes, Guardian, WaPo, WSJ and all the established news organizations have been pressuring FB, TWTR and google to censor other viewpoints.

The selfish hypocrisy of the media is what I just can't stand. The biggest proponent of censorship on the internet and social media are these supposing "free speech" loving journalists. They don't care about free speech or democracy. They just want money.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#130

Post by eighthnate »

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…

> 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.

Not only that. These same journalists are the ones demanding censorship of opposing views on FB and the rest of social media.

All these selfish greedy journalists want is their own "fake news" making money on social media and other people's "fake news" banned.

Frankly, I wish google, fb, twtr, etc would all band together and just ban all news from their platform for a week. Maybe that will quiet these useless journalists.

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