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I disagree. The article states: > There is no political bias that I know of and we were never told to suppress conservative news. But then later goes on to sa
by ecdavis 10y ago
I disagree. The article states:
> There is no political bias that I know of and we were never told to suppress conservative news.
But then later goes on to say:
> “Facebook relies heavily on just 10 news sources to determine whether a trending news story has editorial authority.” The problem is, even after repeated questions and requests for guidance, no one ever explained what that meant. Much of it was left to interpretation for curators and copy editors. Topics are treated differently depending on who you are working with.
Which leads to a fairly obvious observation: providing insufficient editorial guidelines leaves room for unconscious bias to take over.
Of course, qualified journalists should be aware of their own biases and be able to compensate for them. Unfortunately, journalism in the US is becoming increasingly less valued and more partisan.
I wouldn't be surprised if this whole bias fiasco was an unexpected side-effect of Facebook hiring largely left-leaning editorial staff.
- jyrkesh 10y ago> I wouldn't be surprised if this whole bias fiasco was an unexpected side-effect of Facebook hiring largely left-leaning editorial staff. I always assumed that this was exactly what's going on. You don't need a handbook that says "stifle conversative stuff", you just need vague rules, managers playing the world's worst game of corporate telephone, and a bunch of disorganization. Life at large companies...
- airtonix 10y agoThe left never think they are biased. If you are unable to see through the looking glass, then why would you ever come to the conclusion that you're biased?
- Sacho 10y agoWouldn't that statement be just as correct for the "right"?
- kagamine 10y agoPlatitudes are true for everyone, the comment you replied to was without value. Why do people seem to think all journalists are left-leaning?
- facepalm 10y agoThere was a statistic published recently, iirc.
- humanrebar 10y agoThe data seems to back it up pretty clearly. There is other data out there on overwhelmingly Democrat political donations. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/05/06/just-7-percent-of-journalists-are-republicans-thats-far-less-than-even-a-decade-ago https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/05/06/ju...
- Intermernet 10y agoThe "left" probably do see themselves as biased, but regard their bias as correct. Same applies to the "right". Without logical points to debate, your comment is just noise. Unfortunately, so is my reply.
- joeblow9999 10y ago> Wouldn't be surprised if this whole bias fiasco was an unexpected side-effect of Facebook hiring largely left-leaning editorial staff.' So, average bay area residents...
- jonathankoren 10y agoThe curation team is based out of New York.
- lmm 10y agoEven so, all successful large cities are left-leaning, no?
- pervycreeper 10y ago>Which leads to a fairly obvious observation: providing insufficient editorial guidelines leaves room for unconscious bias to take over. Fully agree. Things like this tend to be better explained, as a rule, as side effects, without resorting to agency or conspiracies. That specific information, however is not new as of this article ("As the Guardian reported in leaked documents...." precedes the bit you quoted in TFA).
- MichaelGG 10y agoSo should FB admit there may be accidental bias, or double-down on the "everything's fine"? Seems one way they admit to lying and manipulating, and the other way continues to look dishonest. Probably should have immediately said they'd review it, then found that, uninstructed, some editors may have shown a "slight bias". And coincidentally it comes out coinciding with a US "conservative" candidate that's talking about rigged processes and unfair treatment.
- jonathankoren 10y agoIf you're really curious, Facebook released the internal trending curation guidelines for anyone to read.[0] [0]https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/full-trending-review-guidelines.pdf https://fbnewsroomus.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/full-trendi...