Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right. Certainly there aren't any liberal blogs or "news" organizations that sensationalize headlines or downright make things up... It happens both ways and is unfortunate.
Liberals do not maintain a cottage industry of complaining about the conservative conspiracy to suppress their viewpoints, whereas conservatives seemingly spend 100% of their time doing so. For example there are plenty of dead tree books like [1], extensive networks of people investigating Obama's place of birth, including the current American conservative leader and icon Donald Trump. Meanwhile there is a real, conc…
Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News
321–330 of 368 posts
Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News
#322Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News
#323Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most of Facebook's users are international. There is a chance that what is "liberal" in America is simply something that runs counter to the American conservatives disciplined beliefs. Example #1: When a prominent American conservative does something like shutdown the government instead of compromising (remember compromising gets you booted at the next elections see: Paul Ryan). To most of the world (liberal and cons…
Your examples are not what happens though. What happens is promoting stories favorable to democrat politicians, hiding stories favorable to republican politicians, covering up "refugee" crimes, reporting completely made up "evil right wing death squad nazis" doing evil anti-refugee things that never happened, etc, etc.
This. Facebook agreeing to work with German government to do something about “racism” comments in German version (read: FB users talking about Cologne attacks that weren’t covered by mainstream press at all for weeks). FB blocking links to a mainstream respectable media’s article about freedom of speech in Czech version.
I have no doubt that FB doesn’t consider it bias. They’re righteous and seeing that attitude all over the supposedly “liberal” sphere is frightening.
Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News
#324Some newspapers have well known left or right leanings. But its declared and out in the open. Most people thought Facebook news was organically trending. That's the difference here.
> Most people thought Facebook news was organically trending. “They trust me. Dumb fucks.”
Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News
#325Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Even if you, like me, generally believe that the liberal political position is correct, ideological conformity of this magnitude should frighten you. What it does is make people whose views fall out of that bubble feel disenfranchised. This is no small part of the Trump phenomenon. I was watching a documentary about South American politics yesterday and there was a globalist establishment candidate running against…
I think it also helps to have someone "legitimize" what are relatively to mainstream news "outcaste" views. It also helps when you have a charismatic person personifying those ideas. Palin, for example may have had similar opinions but was not charismatic. Trump on the other hand sounds like your regular blue collar worker --I've known black as well as white blue collar workers and they speak just like that. When the…
This irritates me with corporate management types too, trying to tell you what to do without telling you, and therefore avoiding responsibility for their guidance.
I'll have to think about this more, thanks again!
Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News
#326Earlier quoted context omitted.
Literally no one has suggested that we silence opponents. I am not sure how you are confusing me and facebook's curation system not giving attention to certain sources and positions based on their credibility and integrity with actively preventing people from speaking. Whether your statement is based on disingenuous confusion or simple ignorance doesn't matter at this point because you've made your own post largely i…
"Whether your statement is based on disingenuous confusion or simple ignorance doesn't matter at this point because you've made your own post largely irrelevant and quite frankly it ticked me off a little bit" Your personal attacks on me are actually proving my point. In your original post, you said: "In the specific case of conservative politics, why does it matter that it's so skewed? I have absolutely no issue wit…
I am not sure if you actually read what happened, but this was a case of certain sources being "ignored" because they are borderline tabloids that often push stories that aren't even remotely true. Waiting for another source to pick up the story and then publish it, isn't censorship. It's reasonable.
For this to be censorship based on a specific political ideology following along one side of the spectrum, you'd have to have an example where they let through other sources that are also tabloid-esque but happen to fall along within their opinions and views.
Did the standard for their sources remain relatively constant regardless of the material being discussed? There isn't a clear answer here, but that doesn't make it defacto censorship of one set of particular political opinions. The sources that were discussed aren't credible in any meaningful form. The fact that they happen to be largely conservative seems like a problem conservatives should address instead of calling it censorship.
A good number of posters in this thread seem fine with not bothering to really think of ways that the presented scenario doesn't hold up and completely accept what was stated is what was actually happening. It's a characteristically low standard of evidence and it just so happens that some of you have made it very clear that such a scenario also happens to align with your opinions. It's fantastically hypocritical.
>So you don't care about conservative views getting silenced here.
I am only going to clarify this once more and then I am no longer going to respond to you. I am not encouraging, advocating, enabling silencing of views here. I said I am okay such view points not getting a larger platform or attention, because it's a waste of time. Note that this is not the same as silencing, preventing discussion, outlawing, etc, etc. However, pretending that discussing all view points without considering whether they hold merit or not is somehow a path to better national dialogue is simply unfounded and doesn't make any sense. But that's my opinion, and really wasn't even what happened in the case above. That specific opinion of mine was brought up in response to someone claiming that we should defacto just give everything an equal voice in the national dialogue and somehow not doing so is censorship that will derail rational discourse on a national scale.
>But what if the major media outlet changes it's mind and starts to think liberals are wrong
You seem to misunderstand why this is happening. It's not a matter of opinions swaying. The sources discussed in the article have little to no credibility. The fact that they are all conservative is a problem conservatives might want to address.
Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News
#327Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's simply not how discourse works on a national scale. There are many things that can be given a platform but aren't because it'd be a waste of time. No one is afraid to give these things a platform, it's just pointless. Artificial platforming for the sake of having every imaginable view point with or without merit on the table would be a disaster. No one is stopping people from having these opinions, speaking ab…
> No one is stopping people from having these opinions, speaking about them, or teaching those perspectives. You may not have been paying attention, but unfortunately that's not the case. https://www.thefire.org/list-of-campus-disinvitations-2000-2... http://www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/whats-new-about... http://www.mediaite.com/online/university-president-shuts-do... And I can link to many more examples if…
Please do provide more examples.
Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News
#328Perhaps Facebook was suppressing "news" items contradicted by empirical reality, and this policy disproportionately affected conservative positions.
Or perhaps perception of "empirical reality" is shaped by existing biases, causing them to be denied outright, resulting in an echo chamber that disproportionately affected conservative positions.
Most of the publications that were being "suppressed" are tabloid-esque in manner. The fact that they are all conservative seems to be a problem conservatives may want to fix.
Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News
#329Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your examples are not what happens though. What happens is promoting stories favorable to democrat politicians, hiding stories favorable to republican politicians, covering up "refugee" crimes, reporting completely made up "evil right wing death squad nazis" doing evil anti-refugee things that never happened, etc, etc.
> covering up "refugee” crimes This. Facebook agreeing to work with German government to do something about “racism” comments in German version (read: FB users talking about Cologne attacks that weren’t covered by mainstream press at all for weeks). FB blocking links to a mainstream respectable media’s article about freedom of speech in Czech version. I have no doubt that FB doesn’t consider it bias. They’re righteou…
Re: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News
#330I have no great love of conservative politics, but there's a convincing argument to be made that their ideas and views are routinely suppressed by media outside of explicitly partisan media outlets (i.e. Fox News or talk radio). There are a number of studies that back up this claim. A 2008 study[0] found that 88% of journalists donate to the Democratic party. Jonathan Haidt has shown[1] that non-economics social scie…
Agree with everything you said up to this point.
Liberal politics is mostly correct on social matters and dead wrong on economics. And, of course, the GOP is dead wrong on social matters and mostly correct on economics.
And that's what sucks for a lot of us, no party with a shot at winning and setting us on the correct path is mostly correct across the board.
I have a feeling we are standing at a crossroad where the only option is to go for the economy. Why? Because if we deteriorate further we can kiss goodby to social and environmental responsibility. Just look at any country that's in the shits economically for examples of how well social and environmental programs work when you are broke.
Trump?
Barf.
Sadly.