Monday, May 9, 2016

Facebook: Artificially Truncated News, Conveniently Pre-Biased To The Left For The Ease Of Your Indoctrination

Of course it is.
Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

"Rather, Facebook’s efforts to play the news game reveal the company to be much like the news outlets it is rapidly driving toward irrelevancy: a select group of professionals with vaguely center-left sensibilities. It just happens to be one that poses as a neutral reflection of the vox populi, has the power to influence what billions of users see, and openly discusses whether it should use that power to influence presidential elections.

“It wasn’t trending news at all,” said the former curator who logged conservative news omissions. “It was an opinion.”"
If you get your news from a single source, then it's not news; it's propaganda. With the web available everywhere, there's no excuse for using just one source, unless you just don't care enough to know what's real and true.

I dropped Facebook after about 6 months. They are intent on spying and manipulating rather than providing a useful but benign product.

16 comments:

Steven Satak said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Stan said...

Crud. I deleted your comment (It's early morning, and I just started on my coffee). BUT. I can retrieve it in order to reprint it here:

Steven Satak said:
"I dropped Facebook after about 6 months. They are intent on spying and manipulating rather than providing a useful but benign product."

C,mon Stan, get with it. Join the 21st Century. Didn't you realize that with Facebook, *you* are the product? Not partaking of it is your call; I never look to Facebook for my news and never will. I recognize its built-in bias (consider it's founder and owner, Zuckerberg. Living proof that a creep with 25 billion is still a creep). I use it for connecting with other geeks and nerds. And staying in touch with my son and some of my old friends. That's all (and in my opinion, all it's good for)."

Steven Satak said...

Whoa, buddy! Maybe it's better you stay off Facebook. Hahaha! No telling the amount of carnage you'd wreak there!

World of Facts said...

Ran into this article today; similar to what you reported here...
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/05/leaked-documents-contradict-facebook-claims-about-its-trending-news-feature

It's good that Facebook is under the lens fro such behavior. Hopefully they will make sure their goal of being neutral remains. However, what I find silly here is that 'Trending Topics' are just a tiny part of what people actually get on Facebook so they make it sound much worse than it really is. Basically, regardless of Facebook's employees do, or not, it does not have much impact on what gets shown in individuals' feed, which is based on 'likes', friends' share, sponsored content, etc... and THAT is extremely biased, no matter what, so it's up to the individual to research more on their own.

Xellos said...

Here's another thing FB did: when a group of kids had a performance at a Trump rally, their FB account's picture got changed to the Hitlerjugend sign. (I doubt they are as stupid as to do it themselves.)

Xellos said...

Messed up the link, here.

World of Facts said...

Ran into this article; very interesting...

https://medium.com/@glennbeck/what-disturbed-me-about-the-facebook-meeting-3bbe0b96b87f#.gipv7tgsd

Stan said...

Aside from the fact that Glenn Beck carries no weight with me whatsoever, what that meeting represented is obviously Potemkin impressions for the potential "useful idiots", just as the bolsheviks did for the western Left in the early days of the USSR.

Evidence is what is needed. A company so tightly coupled to the Obama propaganda machine is not to be trusted; its performance is to be considered suspect until verified, and that verification must be constant. But why bother? Until the Left finally shuts down the few remaining news sources via the FCC, there are remaining paths to actual news other than through Facebook. Only the lazy, low information types would trust Facebook, given its completely Leftist bent.

World of Facts said...

What a jump... to such wild conspiracy-ish conclusions...

Facebook doesn't generate content; users do. Your complaints make absolutely no sense. If, and that's a big 'if', people trust "Facebook" as a news source, they are only trusting their friends and public entities they follow.

Facebook's reaction to the Trending Topic "controversy" is exemplary, as Beck noted. Yet, you still find them to be some sort of evil Leftist pro-censorship entity!

But of course, as someone who doesn't even use Facebook, as you said, you must still be correct, right?

World of Facts said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
World of Facts said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
World of Facts said...

i.e. what evidence would be needed, and for what exactly? But if you do have evidence of, something... please do share.

But the article you linked to means little to nothing, so what's the problem exactly? Where's the evidence of Facebook's Left leaning, besides its employees who have little to do with the content?

Stan said...

Apparently it is the contractors who select the "trending", and the company which gives the conditions by which it is to be done. When a corporate entity supports a psychopathic administration, fully and completely, it places itself in the position which the rest of the MSM has done to themselves: fully biased and without any self-assessment, as warriors against the despised constitutional Flyovers.

The fact that there are objective sources remaining which publish the information which the MSM absolutely withholds is proof of concept: the media, including Leftist Facebook, is dishonest by traditional standards of honest journalism.

The evidence, should anyone want to pursue it, would be to compare Facebook's past "trending" list with actual news of the day for a significant period of time. I don't know if that can even be done, since Facebook's "trending" is a volatile thing, maybe not even available. But it could be done in the future, if users cared to do so.

World of Facts said...

No, you have no clue what you are talking about. (a) It is not physically possible for humans to deal with that kind of quantity of content, and (b) Facebook explicitly said that they do not give conditions to choose content. Because yes, they can choose to purposely remove some items and promote some; but the algorithms behind that kind of content are not as simple as that 1 person whining in the article pretend them to be. But your suggested test would be meaningless since the trending topics 'are' what the actual news of the day are. There is no difference; they are links to these news.

Moreover, you did not acknowledge the main point here: the trending topic section is a TINY position of Facebook. Honestly, before reading this article, I had barely noticed its existence. And I use Facebook every single day for connecting with distant friends, dealing with neighbors in my building, getting reminders of birthdays/events, and, yes, read some news article from the sites that I picked. Me. Not Facebook. I choose what I see in my feed and so do their billion+ users.

You, on the other hand, prefer to bring up the MSM and the Obama administration...

Stan said...

”No, you have no clue what you are talking about. (a) It is not physically possible for humans to deal with that kind of quantity of content, and (b) Facebook explicitly said that they do not give conditions to choose content.”

They didn’t have just one human, they had a basement full – good grief. And what “Facebook explicitly says” is now unquestionable Truth? No skepticism at all? It’s just: Facebook =Truth?

What did I expect…. Of course there’s no skepticism when it comes to an Atheist defending Leftism.

And if their algorithms were sacred and untouchably accurate, why would they need a bank of humans, anyway? No need for skepticism; no need at all. Your credulousness regarding Leftist license is fully expected.

”Because yes, they can choose to purposely remove some items and promote some; but the algorithms behind that kind of content are not as simple as that 1 person whining in the article pretend them to be.”

Ah. Too complex to control. Why of course! Now I understand: no one can control the mighty algorithm. Probably no one can understand the algorithm due to its massive complexity. And the algorithm controls itself toward the benefit of mankind. The algorithm is not to be questioned.

Got it.

” But your suggested test would be meaningless since the trending topics 'are' what the actual news of the day are. There is no difference; they are links to these news.”

Yes. Yes!! The Algorithm says Q and Z are trending news, thereby making them trending news. How mighty is the algorithm!! It’s so obvious: I should have seen that right off. Actually, that is the issue here, isn’t it…

”Moreover, you did not acknowledge the main point here: the trending topic section is a TINY position of Facebook.”

Completely unimportant. Facebook’s influence is documented as being huge and growing, while the stodgy paper-bound news-liars are going under. Of course the documentation for all that was not approved by the mighty algorithm, so it cannot be Truth, and thus, certainly may be questioned.

” Honestly, before reading this article, I had barely noticed its existence. And I use Facebook every single day for connecting with distant friends, dealing with neighbors in my building, getting reminders of birthdays/events, and, yes, read some news article from the sites that I picked. Me. Not Facebook. I choose what I see in my feed and so do their billion+ users.”

Oh good. Good to know that someone – you – can speak authoritatively for the billion+ users. I feel so much better. It must require a lot of time on Facebook, though, what with a billion+ and all, to know that what they all choose is actually NOT the trending algorithm.

”You, on the other hand, prefer to bring up the MSM and the Obama administration...”

Birds of a feather… and great balls of snakes of a kind.

Stan said...

{SARC=OFF} for the time being.