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Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against conservatives

143 points by sergiotapia 10y ago

horpulous 10y ago
I'm totally fine with this. If you want to advocate for a world in which all resources are privately-owned (leaving no commonly-owned space for discourse) and that a global, multi-billion-dollar social media service has the same free speech rights as a mom and pop grocery, then you deserve to reap the rewards of your own ideology.
- unlinker 10y ago
  This is not about free speech in any way.
  - avs733 10y ago
    Of course it isn't...but it is what Republican Free Speech is(c). It is similar to Republican Jesus (https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/republican-jesus https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/republican-jesus)
  - sjm-lbm 10y ago
    You are correct, but the conservatives calling Facebook out on that are trying to tell everyone it is: > I believe they are acting in good faith and share some very deep, fundamental principles with people who believe in the principles of liberty and freedom of speech. http://www.glennbeck.com/2016/05/19/what-disturbed-glenn-about-the-facebook-meeting/?utm_source=glennbeck&utm_medium=contentcopy_link http://www.glennbeck.com/2016/05/19/what-disturbed-glenn-abo...
- talmand 10y ago
  It's not always that. Most of the thinking I've heard about this is not to control what Facebook may or not do. Many critics say that Facebook is a private company and can do what they want. The complaint among them is that Facebook lies about it.
  - solipsism 10y ago
    Why would "Facebook is a private company and can do what they want" not apply to lying, as long as it doesn't become fraud?
    - talmand 10y ago
      Oh sure, they could lie. It's not that these people are necessarily demanding laws about the company lying, it's more a suggestion that it's not a nice thing to do. It is the outcry of people with little power to do anything other than complain about an injustice they see. I hear it's quite a popular thing to do on the left side of the political spectrum in the US.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- brbsix 10y ago
  As an advocate of free markets and private property, I don't have any issue with bias expressed by or within Facebook. That's their prerogative. However it's my prerogative, if I so choose, to publicize their bias and dissuade others from using their platform. Rather than appeal for state intervention in the matter, I sense that's what a great deal of others are attempting to do.
rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
I suspect this may be an unpopular opinion, but given that in my experience, the Trending tab tends towards garbage and clickbait instead of real news, one would imagine Fox News hysteria and Facebook's Trending news would be a match made in heaven, and if it weren't for personal curation, we would see even more garbage as a result.
- digi_owl 10y ago
  Thats because those things avoid PR shitstorms. You see the same thing with what Reddit has on their default front page.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  Yeah, if they use clicks to train the thing surfacing the news items it's pretty likely that the thing will start surfacing click bate.
- unlinker 10y ago
  It's funny how BuzzFeed or Vox shit is deemed reasonable by the left while Fox News shit is treated as, well, shit. No. Both are shit.
  - untog 10y ago
    I'm not sure when I've ever seen someone deem Buzzfeed's shit "reasonable".
    - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
      To be fair buzzfeed does have some decent long-form journalism. Just like any media company, they want as many eyes as they can get, whether they're reading intently or glazed over during a commercial break.
Aelinsaar 10y ago
"But with nearly two-thirds of Facebook users saying they get at least some of their news from the online platform, conservatives said any chance of bias could skew political conversations." Two-thirds... get at least some... Ooookay? I'm not sure at what point we're all supposed to start running around with our hair on fire. Am I supposed to pretend that the much smaller number of people who rely on Facebook for their news were ever going to be great in a political (or any other) conversation?
- MisterBastahrd 10y ago
  They still haven't shown that there's any sort of anti-conservative bias. Finding a trending topic and using the best source available to represent the information is not the same thing as bias. Conservative sites are, by definition, not the best sources available.
  - talmand 10y ago
    Well, other than Facebook admitting to the possibility of bias.
    - MisterBastahrd 10y ago
      Well, that's why everyone who's ever been on trial for murder is a murderer. Wait, that isn't correct? Neither is the Washington Times headline... but then, the Times is about as mainstream as it gets for the right-wing fringe. The content of the article disagrees with their headline. Saying that there's a possibility is not the same as saying that there's a certainty. Except when it comes to political nonsense.
      - talmand 10y ago
        I honestly have no clue what you are going on about.
        deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
abhi3 10y ago
It is hard for me to believe that one employee could show this kind of bias for this long without being noticed. It had to be more systematic and widespread. But good to see FB admitting it and taking corrective action.
- rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
  It's more likely that their "liberal bias" reflected the general culture at FB and therefore seemed normal to most people.
  - VLM 10y ago
    Note that there's no need for a conspiracy or even a bias. Or even an official stated policy. FB is ground zero for hyper holiness signalling spiral, extroverted, somewhat narcissistic, workforce automation software for the middle school girl social experience of shunning and friending and whatnot. Its has little relation to the real world, yet strangely reflects it, much like an augmented reality game like Ingress. It would be highly surprising if the tiny fraction of the population that are "whales" in terms of unusually heavy participation in such a weird activity are of a political outlook remotely similar to that of the general population. Its like a shocking expose of the really large amount of praying going on in churches. It doesn't require a conspiracy or a mysterious pro-prayer bias. All you need for non-typical beliefs and behavior is a weird filter that keeps out most of the general population plus self selection bias and you're off to the races. Theres probably a more general theory that the more wall clock time is spent by participants in a subculture, the less likely the subculture's values will align with, or even make sense when compared to, the main culture. Groupthink conquerors all.
- sergiotapia 10y ago
  I also kind of rolled my eyes at the "rogue employee" angle. I hope Facebook makes things right.
  - vkou 10y ago
    Makes things right? There are no expectations of impartiality in American media.
adamnemecek 10y ago
To be honest, I'm a.) somewhat surprised that people are surprised by this b.) not sure why there is a government probe into this. Also the irony of Glenn Beck bitching about bias in media is definitely not lost on me.
- coderdude 10y ago
  This is a big deal because "the system" has shown a lot of hate toward things that oppose it. Even Stephen Colbert (our would-be go-to celebrity) has clearly aligned with the propaganda. The system is about to have themselves voted against and so now it will align with the new power.
- bpodgursky 10y ago
  Glen Beck actually wrote a piece after the meeting saying he took Mark at his word, and complained about the tenor of the other conservatives in the meeting: http://www.glennbeck.com/2016/05/19/what-disturbed-glenn-about-the-facebook-meeting/ http://www.glennbeck.com/2016/05/19/what-disturbed-glenn-abo... > But until then, based on our research and my personal experience with Facebook, I believe they are acting in good faith and share some very deep, fundamental principles with people who believe in the principles of liberty and freedom of speech.
  - adamnemecek 10y ago
    The fact that he went to the meeting suggests that he had some questions about bias in media.
    - bpodgursky 10y ago
      Facebook invited a group of who they considered "leading conservatives" to Facebook to discuss this personally after the allegations came out. Glen was on that list. I don't think many people would have turned down that invitation, whether or not you had concerns beforehand.
      - 10y ago
karmakaze 10y ago
It seems to me that the same system that dialled in the ratio of happy to sad news was used here as well. Given that it's a configured system, hard to see how no one in charge was aware of the conservative misconfiguration.
atf104 10y ago
I'm still waiting for the Fox News bias probe.
- eplanit 10y ago
  And the msnbc one? And pbs? I can't name any unbiased news source in the US.
- dreamsofdragons 10y ago
  It is interesting, how we collectively accept news organizations of having bias and falsifying news. And yet a social media site, with no need to be balanced, this bias is seen as unacceptable. Maybe because we can easily see the blatant bias of the news organizations, but the thought of being subtly manipulated irks us.
  - atf104 10y ago
    This is exactly the point. Fox carefully manipulates, coverage, actual delivery by journalists and counter points to advance their agenda, as I'll admit MSNBC does as well. Crying wolf on Facebook is ridiculous in the grand scheme of things imho.
- nickff 10y ago
  Evidence seems to indicate that MSNBC is actually the most biased news network.[1] [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/14/five-facts-about-fox-news/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/14/five-facts-a...
  - bduerst 10y ago
    The problem with this study is that the data wasn't controlled for being about a president vs. a candidate. There's going to be a number of mundane stories mentioning the president (i.e. bills being signed, travel, meetings, etc.) that are outside the scope of what's also being reported on a candidate. The result is that any organization that is reporting on the president will inevitably mention the president in articles that are less biased, skewing the results comparison.
randomgyatwork 10y ago
It's always a "rogue employee"
- vernie 10y ago
  Misconduct attributed to designated whipping boy.
- ProAm 10y ago
  VW emissions scandal a couple of 'rogue' engineers as well....
- maxerickson 10y ago
  It's also sort of believable that it would be people doing their own thing rather than a huge, fairly well run corporation doing something transparently stupid. The controversy probably isn't costing Facebook much, but it isn't doing them any good either, and it's pretty easy to predict that coloring the feed will piss people off.
- jasonlotito 10y ago
  The original claim from the single person that started this whole show made that claim as well.
- wmccullough 10y ago
  There are phases to big corporate press releases for these things. 1. My dog doesn't bite 2. My dog does bite but it isn't my fault 3. My dog wouldn't have bitten if consumers had more personal responsibility (I don't see how they could ever make the leap to this one)
  - kps 10y ago
    4. That is not my dog. ¹ http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-bosch-idUSKBN0TK5OK20151201 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-bosch... ² https://youtu.be/SXn2QVipK2o?t=52s https://youtu.be/SXn2QVipK2o?t=52s
nostromo 10y ago
It's interesting how media outlets are spinning this news. People that read conservative media are left thinking that Facebook has admitted bias. People that read liberal media are left thinking the opposite. Washington Times: "Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against conservatives" LA Times: "Facebook investigation reveals no evidence of bias against conservative topics, company says" NY Times: "Facebook Says an Investigation Found No Evidence of Bias in a News App" WSJ: "Facebook to Revamp 'Trending Topics' Feature to Reduce Bias Risk" NY Post print edition (my favorite): "You won't read this on Facebook; Site censors the news"
- kailuowang 10y ago
  I am curious how many of these medias actually admit that they are biased themselves?
  - noobermin 10y ago
    I think this election has demonstrated the media's bias fairly well.
    - duaneb 10y ago
      Yea, but not their own recognition of the bias (which is the useful part).
      - unlinker 10y ago
        Do you think they'd recognise their own bias? That would be like saying "we can't do journalism properly", because proper journalism is unbiased.
        duaneb 10y ago
        > That would be like saying "we can't do journalism properly", because proper journalism is unbiased. I'm not entirely sure about this. Trump's been eating the media's lunch in interviews; perhaps a more biased approach acknowledging his interview games would actually lead to better reporting.
aerlinger 10y ago
You can't give employees the power to filter content then label them as "rogue" when a bias inevitably emerges. Obviously any innate biases (overt or not) will influence what gets filtered.
- MichaelGG 10y ago
  Exactly. This outcome was clear. FB handled this astonishingly poorly and now it looks like they were lying the whole time. Which honestly I'd probably true since it's so obvious that personal bias would enter.
thisargisARGH23 10y ago
"But with nearly two-thirds of Facebook users saying they get at least some of their news from the online platform, conservatives said any chance of bias could skew political conversations." I really don't understand this whole situation? How is this happening? If the argument is "We don't like how you're skewing news about our kind", how is this not seen as pure hypocrisy and laughed out of the room? Can you imagine the uproar by Conservatives if a Liberal group demanded a meeting with Roger Ailes over their manipulation of Liberal talking points, skewing political conversations across the country for the last 30 years? How can anyone on the Conservative side, especially pundits and politicians that rely on Fox News to spin their very special brand of stupid, stand up and say "Facebook is in the wrong?"
- talmand 10y ago
  Facebook admitted to the problem, so those people may be wrong about Fox News but in this case they were correct with Facebook. Just because someone is wrong about one thing doesn't automatically make them wrong on everything else. That's just an excuse to dismiss them.
  - westernmostcoy 10y ago
    Can you link to where they admit to anything more than the possibility of wrongdoing? What they're saying appears to be "we involved humans, we acknowledge humans can be biased, we will remove some human involvement going forward" which is very different than "we hid stories from sources we don't like." Some conservative groups (and the author of this article, seemingly) would have you think they acknowledged that they did something wrong but I only see them stating the opposite.
    - talmand 10y ago
      I don't need to link a source, you summed up my meaning of the problem they admitted to quite well on your own.
- rhino369 10y ago
  A key difference between Fox News and Facebook is that Fox commentators are pretty much advertising their bias. Bill Oreilly is clearly stating his personal opinions. Facebook is stating it's politically neutral but it wasn't. Another thing to considers is that Facebook is a monopoly in the social networking business. There are probably half a dozen news networks on a cable plan, plus nearly infinitely online news outlets. If you don't like Fox news, there is CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg, etc. Facebook has no direct alternative.
GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago
Having read the Washington Times before, I'm not inclined to believe a single thing they publish without corroboration.
- ProAm 10y ago
  Does the media outlet matter? They are all biased in direction or another... The fact that facebook curates their timeline tells you it's manipulated and biased. [1] [1] http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everything-we-know-about-facebooks-secret-mood-manipulation-experiment/373648/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everyt...
cowpig 10y ago
I don't think this is a problem that's specific to any one bias, nor will it go away when "rogue employees" are dealt with. I think this is an issue that's inherent to turning dials to tune what you want people to see in any kind of content-aware way. I also don't think that's necessarily problematic, but it probably is for Facebook because it has a near monopoly on its particular type of service, and because it gives the appearance of being content-neutral.
firasd 10y ago
I started using this Chrome extension to block Facebook trends: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-facebook-trends/khokbojephkhaaipdpbmmkgammfbjkgj https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-facebook-tre... I checked the source and it just seems to grab the div and set the style to hidden. It's not perfect, because when I open Facebook sometimes Trends are visible for a second, but it's much better than glancing at the section and being drawn into clicking on whatever celebrity news or other headline-of-the-moment is trending. It's kinda insidious--I don't watch TV or read celebrity gossip sites, but when the Trend says some Kardashian posted a selfie that people are talking about, I'm tempted to click and see the photo just to see what the discussion is about.
- xenophonf 10y ago
  FB Purity goes a lot further as far as customizing the Facebook UI. I heartily recommend it!
- el_benhameen 10y ago
  I use ublock origin and created a rule to block the trends feature. Just right-click the element and then select "block this". I suppose it would be optimal to create a rule to block the whole damn site, but baby steps ...
jklinger410 10y ago
"News" organizations who can barely report on the temperature outside without it dripping with bias who use their platform to push their agendas are stoking anger against another platform for being biased? It's very beneficial for news media to oust social media as bias. This was a con job from the beginning. I've never even looked at the "trending" section, anyway. So I guess this is yet another happening in modern American society which is generalized to imply societal importance but that really boils down to idiots yelling at other idiots.
wnevets 10y ago
Now if only we could get crazy conservatives to boycott facebook.
siegecraft 10y ago
If Facebook et al are going to replace the dying traditional print and broadcast media, maybe they need to be subject to the equal-time rule as well? Pushing "Don't forget to vote!" reminders only to Facebook users who are likely to vote in favor of facebook-friendly policies and candidates is one interesting anecdote I've seen. I take it with a grain of salt but it's nevertheless illustrative of the power that can be wielded with such a platform/network. It definitely can be done, so why wouldn't it?
- jameshart 10y ago
  What equal-time rule are the traditional print and broadcast media in the US subject to?
  - Terr_ 10y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine (defunct) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule
nametakenobv 10y ago
You look confused. Probably because people want to call facebook "social media" and Fox News is also called "media". Fox News produces editorial content. They are entitled to their opinion thanks to the first Amendment. Facebook is a delivery channel. They do not produce editorial content so they are not allowed to have bias in the very same way that your TV set is not allowed to receive only conservative news channels. edited for a better analogy.
- solipsism 10y ago
  Not "allowed"? By whom? I'm afraid it's you who is confused. The first amendment doesn't recognize a difference between "editorial content" and non-"editorial content". Comcast could carry only conservative channels without issue.
  - nametakenobv 10y ago
    >Comcast could carry only conservative channels without issue. This is nonsense. When there is concentration in information distribution, the distributor must allow anyone and everyone equal access to the channel.
    - gnaritas 10y ago
      According to what, your gut? If you're going to keep insisting that companies "must" do this or that, you need to cite the law that requires them to do so.
      - nametakenobv 10y ago
        According to anti-trust law.
        gnaritas 10y ago
        Anti-trust laws are about preventing monopolies, which Facebook is not, and have nothing to do with mandating any kind of fair service for non monopolies. No case can be successfully made calling Facebook a monopoly on social networks, you don't have to use them there are many other options.
rajahafify 10y ago
Why would they be able to filter that has been represented at all?
Torgo 10y ago
Maybe this happens when your hiring process selects against ideological diversity.
- Torgo 10y ago
  I guess everybody forgot the "what is Facebook's responsibility to stop a Donald Trump presidency?" internal messageboard question.
nitroxxls 10y ago
Facebook also known to use bots to increase their ads revenue. True evil company.
puppetmaster3 10y ago
Here is an example of recent FaceBook censorship: http://youtube.com/watch?v=25tYyAgejA8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=25tYyAgejA8
wry_discontent 10y ago
Why am I supposed to care? Facebook isn't a news source. They're a software company. They're under no obligation to be fair and balanced.
- abiox 10y ago
  nobody is really obligated to be "fair and balanced", even people who use that expression.
- solipsism 10y ago
  News organizations also are under no obligation to be fair and balanced (obviously). They don't even have to pretend they are if they don't want to. Some think they should be obligated, but that's a different discussion.
  - tremon 10y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11764095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11764095 seems to suggest that at least political candidates can "enforce" some fairness if they'd care to do so.
- noobermin 10y ago
  You're probably right. This again is a demonstration of how much facebook is now a public utility more than it is a software company at least in people's minds.
- Turing_Machine 10y ago
  They wouldn't be under an obligation to be "fair and balanced" even if they were a news source. That's utterly irrelevant. However, given that the American electorate skews 37% conservative, 35% moderate, and 24% liberal, they might have a fiduciary duty to their stockholders to not alienate large swathes of users. http://www.gallup.com/poll/188129/conservatives-hang-ideology-lead-thread.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/188129/conservatives-hang-ideolog...
makecheck 10y ago
Or in other words: “people who chose a single source for news complained that this one source is biased”. Let’s not learn the lesson that perhaps it is a good idea to seek multiple sources so that biases are kept in check and accuracy is improved. Oh, and let’s make sure to demand that Facebook do exactly what we want since we’re not even paying for access to Facebook.
mrcactu5 10y ago
Is this the Washington Post? or the Washington Times? the Washington Times strikes me as having "conservative bias" as shown in their piece on the Democrat's War on Piece.
mixmastamyk 10y ago
I don't know if it made any difference in this story, and I hate both parties in the US, but I notice that the "right-wing" posts on FB are normally a notch or two uglier than those from lefties. I've got quite a wide range of friends from my travels from the fox news contingent all the way to real communists. I speculate that it's because those on the right are more "ends justify the means" type of people. Curious what others think.
- talmand 10y ago
  If you can generalize all people in a wide-area political spectrum as all are "ends justify the means", then I would suggest you meet more people in that spectrum before denouncing them as a group.
  - mixmastamyk 10y ago
    I know dozens, and do not denounce them. It's a valid philosophy.
    - talmand 10y ago
      Well then, if you know dozens then I stand corrected.
known 10y ago
"Man is by nature a political animal." --Aristotle
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mrcactu5 10y ago
This is not the Washington Post. It is the Washington Times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times Founded in 1982 by Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon, the Times was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the church until 2010, in which Moon and a group of former executives purchased the paper. It is currently owned by diversified conglomerate Operations Holdings.[
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
sawthat 10y ago
The irony of the Washington Times complaining about bias...
amaks 10y ago
Now it's employees' fault. It's nice to be able to blame grass roots, not the processes.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
heisenbit 10y ago
The concept of unbiased news is in my mind troubling. How can one have editors that won't make judgment decisions? The more tightly one boxes the editors in with rules the more predictable the enterprise becomes. And a predictable huge enterprise is a standing invitation to be gamed. There is a whole industry of marketeers and political hacks searching for new ways to leverage others infrastructure and social assets to get their message out. The human element so far seems vital to protect against spam. Even Google can't stand still and constantly tweaks their rules - and gets taken to court for it too. And if one has editors making decisions and they are all young they tend to be on average more left than the general population. It is hard for Facebook to win here. The best move may be not to play.
siegecraft 10y ago
Maybe one could let organizations register with social media platforms as a political speech organization. This would opt them out of algorithmic timelines and ensure that their followers always see their broadcasts. There would have to be some sort of downside, though, otherwise everyone would sign up as a political entity. Maybe if you're political you never show up in suggestions/organic recommendedations? The decision to self-identify as political speech would have to be in the hands of the indivudual orgs, otherwise you'd have the same filtering problem where people would just make speech they don't like as non-political.
Overtonwindow 10y ago
This just in: people have personal opinions!
scrame 10y ago
Reality has a strong liberal bias.
SpikeDad 10y ago
Haha. An article on conservative bias in a newspaper that is the epitome of conservative bias. Stand by for the "truth" as Fox News reports on the Washington Times report.

143 points by sergiotapia 10y ago

I'm totally fine with this. If you want to advocate for a world in which all resources are privately-owned (leaving no commonly-owned space for discourse) and that a global, multi-billion-dollar social media service has the same free speech rights as a mom and pop grocery, then you deserve to reap the rewards of your own ideology.

unlinker 10y ago
This is not about free speech in any way.
- avs733 10y ago
  Of course it isn't...but it is what Republican Free Speech is(c). It is similar to Republican Jesus (https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/republican-jesus https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/republican-jesus)
- sjm-lbm 10y ago
  You are correct, but the conservatives calling Facebook out on that are trying to tell everyone it is: > I believe they are acting in good faith and share some very deep, fundamental principles with people who believe in the principles of liberty and freedom of speech. http://www.glennbeck.com/2016/05/19/what-disturbed-glenn-about-the-facebook-meeting/?utm_source=glennbeck&utm_medium=contentcopy_link http://www.glennbeck.com/2016/05/19/what-disturbed-glenn-abo...
talmand 10y ago
It's not always that. Most of the thinking I've heard about this is not to control what Facebook may or not do. Many critics say that Facebook is a private company and can do what they want. The complaint among them is that Facebook lies about it.
- solipsism 10y ago
  Why would "Facebook is a private company and can do what they want" not apply to lying, as long as it doesn't become fraud?
  - talmand 10y ago
    Oh sure, they could lie. It's not that these people are necessarily demanding laws about the company lying, it's more a suggestion that it's not a nice thing to do. It is the outcry of people with little power to do anything other than complain about an injustice they see. I hear it's quite a popular thing to do on the left side of the political spectrum in the US.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
brbsix 10y ago
As an advocate of free markets and private property, I don't have any issue with bias expressed by or within Facebook. That's their prerogative. However it's my prerogative, if I so choose, to publicize their bias and dissuade others from using their platform. Rather than appeal for state intervention in the matter, I sense that's what a great deal of others are attempting to do.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago

I suspect this may be an unpopular opinion, but given that in my experience, the Trending tab tends towards garbage and clickbait instead of real news, one would imagine Fox News hysteria and Facebook's Trending news would be a match made in heaven, and if it weren't for personal curation, we would see even more garbage as a result.

digi_owl 10y ago
Thats because those things avoid PR shitstorms. You see the same thing with what Reddit has on their default front page.
maxerickson 10y ago
Yeah, if they use clicks to train the thing surfacing the news items it's pretty likely that the thing will start surfacing click bate.
unlinker 10y ago
It's funny how BuzzFeed or Vox shit is deemed reasonable by the left while Fox News shit is treated as, well, shit. No. Both are shit.
- untog 10y ago
  I'm not sure when I've ever seen someone deem Buzzfeed's shit "reasonable".
  - rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
    To be fair buzzfeed does have some decent long-form journalism. Just like any media company, they want as many eyes as they can get, whether they're reading intently or glazed over during a commercial break.

Aelinsaar 10y ago

"But with nearly two-thirds of Facebook users saying they get at least some of their news from the online platform, conservatives said any chance of bias could skew political conversations." Two-thirds... get at least some... Ooookay? I'm not sure at what point we're all supposed to start running around with our hair on fire. Am I supposed to pretend that the much smaller number of people who rely on Facebook for their news were ever going to be great in a political (or any other) conversation?

MisterBastahrd 10y ago
They still haven't shown that there's any sort of anti-conservative bias. Finding a trending topic and using the best source available to represent the information is not the same thing as bias. Conservative sites are, by definition, not the best sources available.
- talmand 10y ago
  Well, other than Facebook admitting to the possibility of bias.
  - MisterBastahrd 10y ago
    Well, that's why everyone who's ever been on trial for murder is a murderer. Wait, that isn't correct? Neither is the Washington Times headline... but then, the Times is about as mainstream as it gets for the right-wing fringe. The content of the article disagrees with their headline. Saying that there's a possibility is not the same as saying that there's a certainty. Except when it comes to political nonsense.
    - talmand 10y ago
      I honestly have no clue what you are going on about.
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]

abhi3 10y ago

It is hard for me to believe that one employee could show this kind of bias for this long without being noticed. It had to be more systematic and widespread. But good to see FB admitting it and taking corrective action.

rm_-rf_slash 10y ago
It's more likely that their "liberal bias" reflected the general culture at FB and therefore seemed normal to most people.
- VLM 10y ago
  Note that there's no need for a conspiracy or even a bias. Or even an official stated policy. FB is ground zero for hyper holiness signalling spiral, extroverted, somewhat narcissistic, workforce automation software for the middle school girl social experience of shunning and friending and whatnot. Its has little relation to the real world, yet strangely reflects it, much like an augmented reality game like Ingress. It would be highly surprising if the tiny fraction of the population that are "whales" in terms of unusually heavy participation in such a weird activity are of a political outlook remotely similar to that of the general population. Its like a shocking expose of the really large amount of praying going on in churches. It doesn't require a conspiracy or a mysterious pro-prayer bias. All you need for non-typical beliefs and behavior is a weird filter that keeps out most of the general population plus self selection bias and you're off to the races. Theres probably a more general theory that the more wall clock time is spent by participants in a subculture, the less likely the subculture's values will align with, or even make sense when compared to, the main culture. Groupthink conquerors all.
sergiotapia 10y ago
I also kind of rolled my eyes at the "rogue employee" angle. I hope Facebook makes things right.
- vkou 10y ago
  Makes things right? There are no expectations of impartiality in American media.

adamnemecek 10y ago

To be honest, I'm a.) somewhat surprised that people are surprised by this b.) not sure why there is a government probe into this. Also the irony of Glenn Beck bitching about bias in media is definitely not lost on me.

coderdude 10y ago
This is a big deal because "the system" has shown a lot of hate toward things that oppose it. Even Stephen Colbert (our would-be go-to celebrity) has clearly aligned with the propaganda. The system is about to have themselves voted against and so now it will align with the new power.
bpodgursky 10y ago
Glen Beck actually wrote a piece after the meeting saying he took Mark at his word, and complained about the tenor of the other conservatives in the meeting: http://www.glennbeck.com/2016/05/19/what-disturbed-glenn-about-the-facebook-meeting/ http://www.glennbeck.com/2016/05/19/what-disturbed-glenn-abo... > But until then, based on our research and my personal experience with Facebook, I believe they are acting in good faith and share some very deep, fundamental principles with people who believe in the principles of liberty and freedom of speech.
- adamnemecek 10y ago
  The fact that he went to the meeting suggests that he had some questions about bias in media.
  - bpodgursky 10y ago
    Facebook invited a group of who they considered "leading conservatives" to Facebook to discuss this personally after the allegations came out. Glen was on that list. I don't think many people would have turned down that invitation, whether or not you had concerns beforehand.
    - 10y ago

karmakaze 10y ago

It seems to me that the same system that dialled in the ratio of happy to sad news was used here as well. Given that it's a configured system, hard to see how no one in charge was aware of the conservative misconfiguration.

atf104 10y ago

I'm still waiting for the Fox News bias probe.

eplanit 10y ago
And the msnbc one? And pbs? I can't name any unbiased news source in the US.
dreamsofdragons 10y ago
It is interesting, how we collectively accept news organizations of having bias and falsifying news. And yet a social media site, with no need to be balanced, this bias is seen as unacceptable. Maybe because we can easily see the blatant bias of the news organizations, but the thought of being subtly manipulated irks us.
- atf104 10y ago
  This is exactly the point. Fox carefully manipulates, coverage, actual delivery by journalists and counter points to advance their agenda, as I'll admit MSNBC does as well. Crying wolf on Facebook is ridiculous in the grand scheme of things imho.
nickff 10y ago
Evidence seems to indicate that MSNBC is actually the most biased news network.[1] [1] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/14/five-facts-about-fox-news/ http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/14/five-facts-a...
- bduerst 10y ago
  The problem with this study is that the data wasn't controlled for being about a president vs. a candidate. There's going to be a number of mundane stories mentioning the president (i.e. bills being signed, travel, meetings, etc.) that are outside the scope of what's also being reported on a candidate. The result is that any organization that is reporting on the president will inevitably mention the president in articles that are less biased, skewing the results comparison.

randomgyatwork 10y ago

It's always a "rogue employee"

vernie 10y ago
Misconduct attributed to designated whipping boy.
ProAm 10y ago
VW emissions scandal a couple of 'rogue' engineers as well....
maxerickson 10y ago
It's also sort of believable that it would be people doing their own thing rather than a huge, fairly well run corporation doing something transparently stupid. The controversy probably isn't costing Facebook much, but it isn't doing them any good either, and it's pretty easy to predict that coloring the feed will piss people off.
jasonlotito 10y ago
The original claim from the single person that started this whole show made that claim as well.
wmccullough 10y ago
There are phases to big corporate press releases for these things. 1. My dog doesn't bite 2. My dog does bite but it isn't my fault 3. My dog wouldn't have bitten if consumers had more personal responsibility (I don't see how they could ever make the leap to this one)
- kps 10y ago
  4. That is not my dog. ¹ http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-bosch-idUSKBN0TK5OK20151201 http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-bosch... ² https://youtu.be/SXn2QVipK2o?t=52s https://youtu.be/SXn2QVipK2o?t=52s

nostromo 10y ago

It's interesting how media outlets are spinning this news. People that read conservative media are left thinking that Facebook has admitted bias. People that read liberal media are left thinking the opposite. Washington Times: "Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against conservatives" LA Times: "Facebook investigation reveals no evidence of bias against conservative topics, company says" NY Times: "Facebook Says an Investigation Found No Evidence of Bias in a News App" WSJ: "Facebook to Revamp 'Trending Topics' Feature to Reduce Bias Risk" NY Post print edition (my favorite): "You won't read this on Facebook; Site censors the news"

kailuowang 10y ago
I am curious how many of these medias actually admit that they are biased themselves?
- noobermin 10y ago
  I think this election has demonstrated the media's bias fairly well.
  - duaneb 10y ago
    Yea, but not their own recognition of the bias (which is the useful part).
    - unlinker 10y ago
      Do you think they'd recognise their own bias? That would be like saying "we can't do journalism properly", because proper journalism is unbiased.
      - duaneb 10y ago
        > That would be like saying "we can't do journalism properly", because proper journalism is unbiased. I'm not entirely sure about this. Trump's been eating the media's lunch in interviews; perhaps a more biased approach acknowledging his interview games would actually lead to better reporting.

aerlinger 10y ago

You can't give employees the power to filter content then label them as "rogue" when a bias inevitably emerges. Obviously any innate biases (overt or not) will influence what gets filtered.

MichaelGG 10y ago
Exactly. This outcome was clear. FB handled this astonishingly poorly and now it looks like they were lying the whole time. Which honestly I'd probably true since it's so obvious that personal bias would enter.

thisargisARGH23 10y ago

"But with nearly two-thirds of Facebook users saying they get at least some of their news from the online platform, conservatives said any chance of bias could skew political conversations." I really don't understand this whole situation? How is this happening? If the argument is "We don't like how you're skewing news about our kind", how is this not seen as pure hypocrisy and laughed out of the room? Can you imagine the uproar by Conservatives if a Liberal group demanded a meeting with Roger Ailes over their manipulation of Liberal talking points, skewing political conversations across the country for the last 30 years? How can anyone on the Conservative side, especially pundits and politicians that rely on Fox News to spin their very special brand of stupid, stand up and say "Facebook is in the wrong?"

talmand 10y ago
Facebook admitted to the problem, so those people may be wrong about Fox News but in this case they were correct with Facebook. Just because someone is wrong about one thing doesn't automatically make them wrong on everything else. That's just an excuse to dismiss them.
- westernmostcoy 10y ago
  Can you link to where they admit to anything more than the possibility of wrongdoing? What they're saying appears to be "we involved humans, we acknowledge humans can be biased, we will remove some human involvement going forward" which is very different than "we hid stories from sources we don't like." Some conservative groups (and the author of this article, seemingly) would have you think they acknowledged that they did something wrong but I only see them stating the opposite.
  - talmand 10y ago
    I don't need to link a source, you summed up my meaning of the problem they admitted to quite well on your own.
rhino369 10y ago
A key difference between Fox News and Facebook is that Fox commentators are pretty much advertising their bias. Bill Oreilly is clearly stating his personal opinions. Facebook is stating it's politically neutral but it wasn't. Another thing to considers is that Facebook is a monopoly in the social networking business. There are probably half a dozen news networks on a cable plan, plus nearly infinitely online news outlets. If you don't like Fox news, there is CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg, etc. Facebook has no direct alternative.

GFK_of_xmaspast 10y ago

Having read the Washington Times before, I'm not inclined to believe a single thing they publish without corroboration.

ProAm 10y ago
Does the media outlet matter? They are all biased in direction or another... The fact that facebook curates their timeline tells you it's manipulated and biased. [1] [1] http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everything-we-know-about-facebooks-secret-mood-manipulation-experiment/373648/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everyt...

cowpig 10y ago

I don't think this is a problem that's specific to any one bias, nor will it go away when "rogue employees" are dealt with. I think this is an issue that's inherent to turning dials to tune what you want people to see in any kind of content-aware way. I also don't think that's necessarily problematic, but it probably is for Facebook because it has a near monopoly on its particular type of service, and because it gives the appearance of being content-neutral.

firasd 10y ago

I started using this Chrome extension to block Facebook trends: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-facebook-trends/khokbojephkhaaipdpbmmkgammfbjkgj https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-facebook-tre... I checked the source and it just seems to grab the div and set the style to hidden. It's not perfect, because when I open Facebook sometimes Trends are visible for a second, but it's much better than glancing at the section and being drawn into clicking on whatever celebrity news or other headline-of-the-moment is trending. It's kinda insidious--I don't watch TV or read celebrity gossip sites, but when the Trend says some Kardashian posted a selfie that people are talking about, I'm tempted to click and see the photo just to see what the discussion is about.

xenophonf 10y ago
FB Purity goes a lot further as far as customizing the Facebook UI. I heartily recommend it!
el_benhameen 10y ago
I use ublock origin and created a rule to block the trends feature. Just right-click the element and then select "block this". I suppose it would be optimal to create a rule to block the whole damn site, but baby steps ...

jklinger410 10y ago

"News" organizations who can barely report on the temperature outside without it dripping with bias who use their platform to push their agendas are stoking anger against another platform for being biased? It's very beneficial for news media to oust social media as bias. This was a con job from the beginning. I've never even looked at the "trending" section, anyway. So I guess this is yet another happening in modern American society which is generalized to imply societal importance but that really boils down to idiots yelling at other idiots.

wnevets 10y ago

Now if only we could get crazy conservatives to boycott facebook.

siegecraft 10y ago

If Facebook et al are going to replace the dying traditional print and broadcast media, maybe they need to be subject to the equal-time rule as well? Pushing "Don't forget to vote!" reminders only to Facebook users who are likely to vote in favor of facebook-friendly policies and candidates is one interesting anecdote I've seen. I take it with a grain of salt but it's nevertheless illustrative of the power that can be wielded with such a platform/network. It definitely can be done, so why wouldn't it?

jameshart 10y ago
What equal-time rule are the traditional print and broadcast media in the US subject to?
- Terr_ 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine (defunct) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule

nametakenobv 10y ago

You look confused. Probably because people want to call facebook "social media" and Fox News is also called "media". Fox News produces editorial content. They are entitled to their opinion thanks to the first Amendment. Facebook is a delivery channel. They do not produce editorial content so they are not allowed to have bias in the very same way that your TV set is not allowed to receive only conservative news channels. edited for a better analogy.

solipsism 10y ago
Not "allowed"? By whom? I'm afraid it's you who is confused. The first amendment doesn't recognize a difference between "editorial content" and non-"editorial content". Comcast could carry only conservative channels without issue.
- nametakenobv 10y ago
  >Comcast could carry only conservative channels without issue. This is nonsense. When there is concentration in information distribution, the distributor must allow anyone and everyone equal access to the channel.
  - gnaritas 10y ago
    According to what, your gut? If you're going to keep insisting that companies "must" do this or that, you need to cite the law that requires them to do so.
    - nametakenobv 10y ago
      According to anti-trust law.
      - gnaritas 10y ago
        Anti-trust laws are about preventing monopolies, which Facebook is not, and have nothing to do with mandating any kind of fair service for non monopolies. No case can be successfully made calling Facebook a monopoly on social networks, you don't have to use them there are many other options.

rajahafify 10y ago

Why would they be able to filter that has been represented at all?

Torgo 10y ago

Maybe this happens when your hiring process selects against ideological diversity.

Torgo 10y ago
I guess everybody forgot the "what is Facebook's responsibility to stop a Donald Trump presidency?" internal messageboard question.

nitroxxls 10y ago

Facebook also known to use bots to increase their ads revenue. True evil company.

puppetmaster3 10y ago

Here is an example of recent FaceBook censorship: http://youtube.com/watch?v=25tYyAgejA8 http://youtube.com/watch?v=25tYyAgejA8

wry_discontent 10y ago

Why am I supposed to care? Facebook isn't a news source. They're a software company. They're under no obligation to be fair and balanced.

abiox 10y ago
nobody is really obligated to be "fair and balanced", even people who use that expression.
solipsism 10y ago
News organizations also are under no obligation to be fair and balanced (obviously). They don't even have to pretend they are if they don't want to. Some think they should be obligated, but that's a different discussion.
- tremon 10y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11764095 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11764095 seems to suggest that at least political candidates can "enforce" some fairness if they'd care to do so.
noobermin 10y ago
You're probably right. This again is a demonstration of how much facebook is now a public utility more than it is a software company at least in people's minds.
Turing_Machine 10y ago
They wouldn't be under an obligation to be "fair and balanced" even if they were a news source. That's utterly irrelevant. However, given that the American electorate skews 37% conservative, 35% moderate, and 24% liberal, they might have a fiduciary duty to their stockholders to not alienate large swathes of users. http://www.gallup.com/poll/188129/conservatives-hang-ideology-lead-thread.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/188129/conservatives-hang-ideolog...

makecheck 10y ago

Or in other words: “people who chose a single source for news complained that this one source is biased”. Let’s not learn the lesson that perhaps it is a good idea to seek multiple sources so that biases are kept in check and accuracy is improved. Oh, and let’s make sure to demand that Facebook do exactly what we want since we’re not even paying for access to Facebook.

mrcactu5 10y ago

Is this the Washington Post? or the Washington Times? the Washington Times strikes me as having "conservative bias" as shown in their piece on the Democrat's War on Piece.

mixmastamyk 10y ago

I don't know if it made any difference in this story, and I hate both parties in the US, but I notice that the "right-wing" posts on FB are normally a notch or two uglier than those from lefties. I've got quite a wide range of friends from my travels from the fox news contingent all the way to real communists. I speculate that it's because those on the right are more "ends justify the means" type of people. Curious what others think.

talmand 10y ago
If you can generalize all people in a wide-area political spectrum as all are "ends justify the means", then I would suggest you meet more people in that spectrum before denouncing them as a group.
- mixmastamyk 10y ago
  I know dozens, and do not denounce them. It's a valid philosophy.
  - talmand 10y ago
    Well then, if you know dozens then I stand corrected.

known 10y ago

"Man is by nature a political animal." --Aristotle

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mrcactu5 10y ago

This is not the Washington Post. It is the Washington Times. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times Founded in 1982 by Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon, the Times was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the church until 2010, in which Moon and a group of former executives purchased the paper. It is currently owned by diversified conglomerate Operations Holdings.[

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sawthat 10y ago

The irony of the Washington Times complaining about bias...

amaks 10y ago

Now it's employees' fault. It's nice to be able to blame grass roots, not the processes.

deleted 10y ago

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heisenbit 10y ago

The concept of unbiased news is in my mind troubling. How can one have editors that won't make judgment decisions? The more tightly one boxes the editors in with rules the more predictable the enterprise becomes. And a predictable huge enterprise is a standing invitation to be gamed. There is a whole industry of marketeers and political hacks searching for new ways to leverage others infrastructure and social assets to get their message out. The human element so far seems vital to protect against spam. Even Google can't stand still and constantly tweaks their rules - and gets taken to court for it too. And if one has editors making decisions and they are all young they tend to be on average more left than the general population. It is hard for Facebook to win here. The best move may be not to play.

siegecraft 10y ago

Maybe one could let organizations register with social media platforms as a political speech organization. This would opt them out of algorithmic timelines and ensure that their followers always see their broadcasts. There would have to be some sort of downside, though, otherwise everyone would sign up as a political entity. Maybe if you're political you never show up in suggestions/organic recommendedations? The decision to self-identify as political speech would have to be in the hands of the indivudual orgs, otherwise you'd have the same filtering problem where people would just make speech they don't like as non-political.

Overtonwindow 10y ago

This just in: people have personal opinions!

scrame 10y ago

Reality has a strong liberal bias.

SpikeDad 10y ago

Haha. An article on conservative bias in a newspaper that is the epitome of conservative bias. Stand by for the "truth" as Fox News reports on the Washington Times report.