4 ms·
We might also be equating anti-vaccine individuals to flat-earthers based on biased information. This is pretty much true for just about anything we filter out.
by Chathamization 10y ago
We might also be equating anti-vaccine individuals to flat-earthers based on biased information. This is pretty much true for just about anything we filter out. Sometimes the fringe stuff turns out to be correct, but often it's not. The National Enquirer broke the John Edwards scandal, yet most people don't take it as a reliable source since most of it's stories are still bogus.
From the story:
> Stories covered by conservative outlets (like Breitbart, Washington Examiner, and Newsmax) that were trending enough to be picked up by Facebook’s algorithm were excluded unless mainstream sites like the New York Times, the BBC, and CNN covered the same stories.
That doesn't seem too terrible to me. If something from a untrustworthy source known for political agitprop is trending, I wouldn't mind Facebook waiting to see if the mainstream press picks up on it.
If they were letting through stories from places like AlterNet through that would show bias, but being generally cautious with biased sites that have low journalistic standards isn't the worst thing in the world.