Did Facebook bury conservative news? Ex-staffers say yes.
Source: Washington Post
The great irony of the tech blog Gizmodo's revelation that Facebook's trending-topic curators weeded out stories about Facebook or about issues popular with conservatives is that Gizmodo's story therefore won't end up on Facebook's list of trending topics. After all, the report, which suggests that the social media behemoth's team filtered out stories on conservative topics from conservative sites, will most certainly be very, very popular with conservatives.
What we're talking about here is that little box in the upper right of your Facebook page the short list of news topics that are being discussed on Facebook at the moment. They're clearly tailored to the user; as I write, mine include stories about New York (where I live) and politics, which I would assume that a surgeon in Dallas probably wouldn't see. Because Facebook has one-sixth of the world using it every day, pretty much everything is being talked about to some extent. The company uses an automatic system (an algorithm) to surface what's currently popular, and a team of staffers then further curates the list to tailor it to meet particular standards.
And there's the problem. Gizmodo quotes several former curators suggesting that conservative news stories would be booted from the automatically generated list of trending stories for two reasons. One was if the story came from a conservative-leaning site, such as Breitbart.com or Newsmax.com, in which case curators were told to find the same story on a mainstream media site, if possible. The other was if the curator didn't want to include the story or didn't recognize the story as important. It's hard to know the extent to which the latter judgments took place, but one of the former curators a conservative told Gizmodo, "I believe it had a chilling effect on conservative news."
That's problematic, for obvious reasons. (Gizmodo notes that it's not clear whether this is still happening, because the trending news algorithm is constantly being tweaked, and that it's not clear whether liberal news was similarly affected.) The bigger question is the extent to which Facebook overlays another filter on top of what you see and the extent to which that can influence political decisions.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/09/former-facebook-staff-say-conservative-news-was-buried-raising-questions-about-its-political-influence/
onehandle
(51,122 posts)I used to see links to newsmax etc, but I would click on 'I don't want to see things like this' and they quickly stopped being fed to me within the Facebook ecosphere.
Of course now on my Mac and iPhone, I have ads blocked, so I see none of those Google/Facebook feeding ads/links.
TygrBright
(20,758 posts)underpants
(182,769 posts)This is nonsense- the "news" articles, they are complete nonsense.
philosslayer
(3,076 posts)Facebook is a publicly owned site. As long as their shareholders don't object, then so what.
hughee99
(16,113 posts)political leanings of the people in charge, right?
philosslayer
(3,076 posts)They aren't beholden to freedom of speech laws. So yes. If you object, you are free to start a competing company.
hughee99
(16,113 posts)At the very least, if a website is going to filter content based on some ideological (or financial) interest, they should be up front about it.
w4rma
(31,700 posts)have been censored, also.
houston16revival
(953 posts)Like it's not happening anywhere else?
Democat
(11,617 posts)A right winger says right wingers are being censored.
rustbeltvoice
(430 posts)The two "conservative-leaning" sites are not "leaning", they are hard extreme propaganda sites. If that is their complaint, it is a complaint against being responsible and rational. Also, with the 'curating' Fox network does such an action to complain is hypocrisy.
the_sly_pig
(741 posts)1. who cares.
2. smart people don't want to read that global warming is fake or that the world is only 6000 years old.
3. Gizmodo? Newsmax? Fox? .... news or entertainment? Entertainment.
harrose
(380 posts).. for saving people from vile, Rethug, hate speech.
Maeve
(42,279 posts)LiberalFighter
(50,888 posts)I see too much conservative bull on my Facebook feed. Even when I specify I don't want to see posts from certain sites.
OilemFirchen
(7,143 posts)HuckleB
(35,773 posts)It's just bad propaganda. Sheesh.
ReRe
(10,597 posts)... an oxymoron.
Hong Kong Cavalier
(4,572 posts)Why would they blatantly publish the digital fishwrap from those two sites? They make up most of their articles and call it "journalism".
Skittles
(153,147 posts)mitty14u2
(1,015 posts)Americans in large numbers are turning off TV newscasts, canceling subscriptions to newspapers, and seeking other sources of news. Distrust of the national media has hit an all-time high.
A recent Pew Research Center survey found that 65 percent of Americans believe that the national news media have a negative effect on our country.
http://www.shieldspirit.com/2016/03/mainstream-media-no-confidence.html
Did Facebook bury conservative news? Ex-staffers say yes.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/09/former-facebook-staff-say-conservative-news-was-buried-raising-questions-about-its-political-influence/
Pot calling the Kettle Black!
The Media should no longer be called News Stations but Political Surrogates, You take the Koch Bros., They own multable products so they spend $Millions on advertising and getting Republicans elected. Mix Advertising Dollars and Politics in the media you no longer have news.
Want To Boycott Koch Brothers' Products While Shopping? There's An App For That
Theres a good chance billionaire industrialists and liberal whipping boys Charles and David Koch are making money off your weekly shopping cart.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2012/06/18/microsoft-programmer-turned-democrat-politician-plans-anti-koch-brothers-smartphone-app/#1f7eb0a225d4
Hugin
(33,120 posts)Second of all... The rules laid out would imply it was true for ANY news. It would only be responsible. News should be verified and second sourced before it went into "Trending".
It sounds more like a personal problem of their "Unnamed Source" quoted at Gizmodo. Which may be why the "Unnamed Source" is no longer at Facebook.