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The problem is, as a private company, should Facebook choose to manipulate it's news feed algorithm to promote one candidate or the other, or for whatever reaso
by notliketherest 10y ago
The problem is, as a private company, should Facebook choose to manipulate it's news feed algorithm to promote one candidate or the other, or for whatever reason, this would be its prerogative under the First Amendment.
I personally choose to not use Facebook specifically for these reasons. Even though I know many Facebook employees personally, I don't trust it's employees to divorce their own interests and their powerful position as Facebook's curators.
- jimmytidey 10y agoAny democratic country depends on the quality of public discourse for the effectiveness of its political system, and for this reason many countries have special rules for newspapers and TV. What's important here is that Facebook is not covered by those laws, simply because it did not exist when the laws were created. In my view it should be covered by those laws. One defence Facebook might consider is to say that it simply reflects the preferences of its readers algorithmically. However, this article shows that is not the case, and that the company does exercise editorial judgement. Of course, the design of the algorithms is tacit editorialising anyway, so the whole point is moot to me. While we are considering the fact that FB is a private company (actually a public company), some might be inclined to say that if users realise Facebook cannot be trusted, then they will leave the site causing its revenues to decrease. Other more honest and transparent competitors will take its place. However, in practise there are many reasons to think this won't happen, which is why we have special laws for the press in the first place.
- 1024core 10y ago> What's important here is that Facebook is not covered by those laws, simply because it did not exist when the laws were created. In my view it should be covered by those laws. Is Fox "News" covered by these laws? Surely you're not suggesting with a straight face that Fox News is "fair and balanced" ?
- SFLemonade 10y agoAre you suggesting with a straight face that CNN "News" is fair and balanced? Or perhaps any of the myriad of blatantly politically charged companies out of Silicon Valley? It happens on both sides, and it wouldn't be unreasonable to argue that the left is much more guilty of this than the right. Fox News has become a meme because it is the only mainstream news source that blatantly shows conservative bias. Try pointing to mainstream news sources that blatantly show liberal bias and you'd lose count.
- dragonwriter 10y ago> Are you suggesting with a straight face that CNN "News" is fair and balanced? No, it just has slightly weaker right-wing bias than Fox.
- jobadev 10y agoThat's why they support Hillary.
- jimmytidey 10y agoI think in the US newspapers are more constrained in their biases, but as you say TV stations do take editorial views. But, as an example of regulation, only US citizens can own TV station in the US. Additionally, no single US TV station has anything like the viewer share that Facebook has.
- pdkl95 10y agoCNN (and many other media companies) support Hillary because they are pro-corporate and pro-status-quo. They have de facto supported nonsensical positions because CNN pioneered the "two sides to every argument" stupidity in their effort to look "unbiased". CNN's reporting is heavily distorted, but the distortion is usually giving credibility when it isn't deserved. Fox simply pushes their agenda directly, while CNN gives cranks a stage no matter how stupid their position is, because calling out even the obviously wrong is "biased". Often this involves conservative opinions (for varying definitions of "conservative"), but almost every opinion of every topic gets the same treatment from CNN.
- basch 10y agofacebook is a public company insofar as a single person having the only vote
- nashashmi 10y ago> it's news feed algorithm to promote one candidate ... would be its prerogative under the First Amendment As long such practices are declared. People tend to look at "what's trending" in an effort to optimize/manipulate their content so that users would "trend" on it. The fact that FB was artificially eliminating stories gave false results to observers. Another way of looking at this is if Nielson were to lower the rankings of shows it disagrees with and affecting the duration of those shows.
- bobwaycott 10y agoEqually important, Facebook, through its contractor curators, was artificially adding stories, giving additional false results to observers.
- hyperpape 10y agoNielsen makes specific claims about the meaning of its data to people who pay for that data, so it would be fraud for them to undermine those claims by manipulating the data. I doubt Facebook does anything similar.
- Karunamon 10y agoWhat about to the advertisers? If I were a well-funded news outlet with a conservative bias, and I spent money on Facebook, I'd be evaluating my legal options right about now...