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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

#41

Post by neo4sure »

cobookman wrote: post #24
thrusong wrote: post #17

I think there will be increasing scrutiny over Facebook's ability to wipe their hands while claiming "it's free speech." There's a reason the media were information gatekeepers: there's a responsibility to be accurate and unbiased. Facebook's product was manipulated and helped Donald Trump get elected by swaying public opinion. There has to be consequences- sorry, but in my opinion not every voice deserves to be equa…

> and helped Donald Trump get elected Do you have actual proof of that. For all we know if facebook didn't exist the population might have voted even more towards Trump.

The joint statement by 7 intelligence agencies...

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#42

Post by BeetleB »

stevenwoo wrote: post #39
BeetleB wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point is twofold: 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 inform…

IIRC tradional lobbying/special interest groups didn't have groups of like minded and opposition minded users with phone numbers and email addresses. One could target supporters of one's opponent with discouraging news to suppress them getting out to vote and also target supporters with outrage inducing data to inspire turnout with pinpoint accuracy making very small ad buys effective at reaching the target audience…

At what level of accuracy is it acceptable? Cable outlets allow for a fairly targeted ad campaign (limited to one town, for example). Granted, perhaps not as well targeted as Facebook, Google, etc. But we should give a good justification of where we want to draw the line. It sounds like Facebook is getting criticism for merely being more efficient than traditional media.

As if we're saying "Yeah, we can tolerate the concept of ads, as long as they're fairly inefficient".

Ultimately, your comment sounds like the issue isn't about elections, but the dangers of extremely effective ad distribution networks (Google, Facebook, etc). As a tool, it can be used for all sorts of mass influence leading to outcomes some people do not like - that are not inherently tied to elections. Examples could be effective ads targeting a particular racial demographic regarding education. I don't see that being any more or less desirable than using it to affect an election.

I'm all for that conversation, as long as it is about the broader topic and not tied to the much narrower topic of influencing elections.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#43

Post by josephwegner »

This reads pretty similar to the cries that come out whenever Google updates their search algorithm. It's as if people believe there is some code big internet companies must live by, that ensures they never change.

These companies live by the code of the market - they will happily make changes that make them more profitable. It does not make them evil if a small customer gets caught in the crosshairs - it just means that small customers need to be resilient to change.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#44

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

malvosenior wrote: post #22
anigbrowl wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Journalists =/= publishers - Ignores non-negligible capital costs - Complaining about politics in your social feed is asinine since many people are interested in politics and choose to share that interest socially, so you're gonna hear about it anyway

> Journalists =/= publishers The article is about publishers (and the journalists who work for them). Not independent journalists/bloggers. > Ignores non-negligible capital costs That’s the same problem every service in the internet has. It’s pretty cheap to get started though so costs would come as usage scaled up. > Complaining about politics in your social feed is asinine since many people are interested in politi…

> unfriend or mute those people...

It's funny how these comments illustrate how different people use Facebook for different things. I for one mute people who post too much personal stuff, so I rather primarily use fb for discussing politics.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#45

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

c3534l wrote: post #34

> The experiment, which began 19 October and is still ongoing, involves limiting the core element of Facebook’s social network to only personal posts and paid adverts. This is the Orwellian outcry? I'm much more concerned about the idea of everyone getting their news (especially passively) from Facebook and making Facebook some sort of "social network" instead.

Regardless of how people getting their news (TV, news sites, or Facebook), there is always some entity controlling what news gets seen to some extent.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#46

Post by nerfhammer »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #31
thrusong wrote: post #17

I think there will be increasing scrutiny over Facebook's ability to wipe their hands while claiming "it's free speech." There's a reason the media were information gatekeepers: there's a responsibility to be accurate and unbiased. Facebook's product was manipulated and helped Donald Trump get elected by swaying public opinion. There has to be consequences- sorry, but in my opinion not every voice deserves to be equa…

Two fatal flaws in your reasoning: > 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 candida…

I recall quite a lot of headlines about Clinton's emails, I think you have to hand-wave that away to justify the more absolutist descriptions like "nothing but glowing stories" etc.

Besides that, this is just a list of things you think is unfair about the election or something but which doesn't actually address directly anything OP claimed

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#47

Post by dillondoyle »

I assume probably a response to decreased engagement metrics. My 'sample of one': I don't look at FB anymore, going from a daily user to maybe once a month if that. I would likely re-engage if only 'human social' posts were in my main feed. Sounds like I could still find public page posts and meme video shit if I want in the second feed. I could manually attempt to manipulate this outcome but the time and effect would pale in comparison to what FB could do fairly simply.

As an advertiser, I would love this change if it does in fact bring daily users back to engaging on FB. I already pay for reach, but much of it is mobile and off FB news feed.

I wonder what their metrics for ad engagement would show though: does ad engagement increase if the ad is the only non 'human social' post in view, or does the mixed content that 'blends' an ad into similar looking content produce more engagement (perhaps through engagements that users don't realize are on an ad)? And if engagement is higher because of this blending 'trick' engagement, do I actually want to pay for it or do I want to pay maybe a higher price for more 'authentic' engagement? Probably very hard to measure, which is why in my business we use polling to look beyond metrics FB reports...

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#48

Post by malvosenior »

em3rgent0rdr wrote: post #44
malvosenior wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Journalists =/= publishers The article is about publishers (and the journalists who work for them). Not independent journalists/bloggers. > Ignores non-negligible capital costs That’s the same problem every service in the internet has. It’s pretty cheap to get started though so costs would come as usage scaled up. > Complaining about politics in your social feed is asinine since many people are interested in politi…

> unfriend or mute those people... It's funny how these comments illustrate how different people use Facebook for different things. I for one mute people who post too much personal stuff, so I rather primarily use fb for discussing politics.

Indeed.

For me it’s nice to catch up on the truly personal moments my friends are having. Politics has invaded every aspect of life (professional, media saturation, Internet discussion...) so it’s nice to be able to tailor FB enough to not see it there.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#49

Post by frank_abagnale »

dillondoyle wrote: post #47

I assume probably a response to decreased engagement metrics. My 'sample of one': I don't look at FB anymore, going from a daily user to maybe once a month if that. I would likely re-engage if only 'human social' posts were in my main feed. Sounds like I could still find public page posts and meme video shit if I want in the second feed. I could manually attempt to manipulate this outcome but the time and effect woul…

I think FB only cares about maximizing impressions (if the ad is CPM) and clicks (if the ad is CPC).

Maximizing user's time by decreasing efficiency with dark patterns seems to be the name of the game.

Re: Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy

#50

Post by robryan »

return0 wrote: post #6

The journalists should really blame themselves for using facebook in the first place. They knew what they were buying into.

I think that most probably couldn’t afford not to leverage the Facebook source of traffic while their traditional print ad business was tanking.
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