6 ms·

Because they're a monopolistic entity with unprecedented control of information flow. Nothing quite like this has ever existed. It's in the public interest that

Because they're a monopolistic entity with unprecedented control of information flow. Nothing quite like this has ever existed. It's in the public interest that it be regulated precisely because it can control the outcome of elections and other behaviors that are functionally essential in a society.

forthefuture 10y ago
No one is changing their mind about politics after reading something on Facebook.
- tmpanon1234act 10y ago
  That people mostly still believe Facebook is innocuous is exactly the problem. https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-alters-our-thoughts https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- Trundle 10y ago
  What makes Facebook different from tv ads?
- nemothekid 10y ago
  >No one is changing their mind about politics after reading something on Facebook. That would imply Facebook's influence doesn't exist, and its $340B valuation is a sham.
- jonathankoren 10y ago
  The Facebook echo chamber is a true effect, and echo chambers cause a feedback loop of encouraging radicalization. If you wanted to, you could always run sentiment analysis over comments containing a political candidate, say Donald Trump, and penalizing in feed ranking comments that were pro-Donald or anti-Hillary, thus dampening the echo chamber. Same thing with simply penalizing links from right wing websites. The echos then start to fade, and then perhaps lower the motivation of someone to vote or donate money or something. In the end though, you're basically just playing at the margins.
  - 1337biz 10y ago
    News curators also have the power to “deactivate” (or blacklist) a trending topic—a power that those we spoke to exercised on a daily basis. This could be already describing what you are suggesting.
    - jonathankoren 10y ago
      No. Absolutely not. That's not what is happening at all. I know. I worked on FB trending from the algorithmic side. The types of trending topics that are blacklisted tend to be low quality trends. Say #FollowFriday, or take examples from the current Twitter trends, #mondaymotivation, #MondayMorning, #DressAFilm, or #MondayBlogs. They also will blacklist a trend when it's a duplicate of another trend say #GoodWifeFarewll vs #TheGoodWife. In fact, they'd probably try to combine those two if the clustering algorithm failed, and then relabel it "The Good Wife" since it undoubtedly corresponds to a FB page. The manipulation of the candidate set of trends is there because the trending algorithm and the clustering algorithm is too noisy to publicly surface. The trends you actually see are algorithmically chosen based on your behavior.
      - 1337biz 10y ago
        Interesting - but today's news story is claiming exactly the opposite: http://thehill.com/policy/technology/279192-report-facebook-trending-list-omitted-conservative-topics http://thehill.com/policy/technology/279192-report-facebook-... http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-suppressed-conser-1775461006 http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-supp...
        jonathankoren 10y ago
        Quoth the former curator: “Every once in awhile a Red State or conservative news source would have a story. But we would have to go and find the same story from a more neutral outlet that wasn’t as biased.” Well, there you go. Quite frankly there's a neutral editorial voice that FB wants to project. And so the main article has to be from a legitimate unbiased news source. Brietbart, Newsmax, and the like simply aren't. Having a list of approved sources to highlight is really common I these types of products, because no one wants Stormfront to be on the front page. Of the topics don't get out of the ghetto of subculture's echo chamber, it's never going to be approved. Even the topics cited are basically just birther conspiracy du jour. Even if the topic gets approved with a different main link, everything is being shown on the results page, just not with a gold star next to it in the top slot.

forthefuture 10y ago

No one is changing their mind about politics after reading something on Facebook.

tmpanon1234act 10y ago
That people mostly still believe Facebook is innocuous is exactly the problem. https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-alters-our-thoughts https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-internet-flips-elections-and-...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
Trundle 10y ago
What makes Facebook different from tv ads?
nemothekid 10y ago
>No one is changing their mind about politics after reading something on Facebook. That would imply Facebook's influence doesn't exist, and its $340B valuation is a sham.
jonathankoren 10y ago
The Facebook echo chamber is a true effect, and echo chambers cause a feedback loop of encouraging radicalization. If you wanted to, you could always run sentiment analysis over comments containing a political candidate, say Donald Trump, and penalizing in feed ranking comments that were pro-Donald or anti-Hillary, thus dampening the echo chamber. Same thing with simply penalizing links from right wing websites. The echos then start to fade, and then perhaps lower the motivation of someone to vote or donate money or something. In the end though, you're basically just playing at the margins.
- 1337biz 10y ago
  News curators also have the power to “deactivate” (or blacklist) a trending topic—a power that those we spoke to exercised on a daily basis. This could be already describing what you are suggesting.
  - jonathankoren 10y ago
    No. Absolutely not. That's not what is happening at all. I know. I worked on FB trending from the algorithmic side. The types of trending topics that are blacklisted tend to be low quality trends. Say #FollowFriday, or take examples from the current Twitter trends, #mondaymotivation, #MondayMorning, #DressAFilm, or #MondayBlogs. They also will blacklist a trend when it's a duplicate of another trend say #GoodWifeFarewll vs #TheGoodWife. In fact, they'd probably try to combine those two if the clustering algorithm failed, and then relabel it "The Good Wife" since it undoubtedly corresponds to a FB page. The manipulation of the candidate set of trends is there because the trending algorithm and the clustering algorithm is too noisy to publicly surface. The trends you actually see are algorithmically chosen based on your behavior.
    - 1337biz 10y ago
      Interesting - but today's news story is claiming exactly the opposite: http://thehill.com/policy/technology/279192-report-facebook-trending-list-omitted-conservative-topics http://thehill.com/policy/technology/279192-report-facebook-... http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-suppressed-conser-1775461006 http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-supp...
      - jonathankoren 10y ago
        Quoth the former curator: “Every once in awhile a Red State or conservative news source would have a story. But we would have to go and find the same story from a more neutral outlet that wasn’t as biased.” Well, there you go. Quite frankly there's a neutral editorial voice that FB wants to project. And so the main article has to be from a legitimate unbiased news source. Brietbart, Newsmax, and the like simply aren't. Having a list of approved sources to highlight is really common I these types of products, because no one wants Stormfront to be on the front page. Of the topics don't get out of the ghetto of subculture's echo chamber, it's never going to be approved. Even the topics cited are basically just birther conspiracy du jour. Even if the topic gets approved with a different main link, everything is being shown on the results page, just not with a gold star next to it in the top slot.