5 ms·

I also kind of rolled my eyes at the "rogue employee" angle. I hope Facebook makes things right.

by sergiotapia 10y ago

vkou 10y ago
Makes things right? There are no expectations of impartiality in American media.
sergiotapia 10y ago
@voku of course there is, otherwise this wouldn't be news.
- abiox 10y ago
  i tend to think there's a decorum aspect to things, but nobody expects mainstream news to be "unbiased" - it's the WWE of journalism. (not that alt-news or blogs are often any different.) court cases have established that, really, "free speech" and other things end up meaning that "the news" can lie, distort and implicate whatever it wants, whenever it wants, to fantastical degrees.
- vkou 10y ago
  This is manufactured outrage. As mentioned by abiox, in a free country, every source of news is free to lie and distort things as much as it feels like. Facebook having an anti-conservative slant (true or not) is about as newsworthy as Fox News having an anti-reason slant. For some reason, though, there aren't too many conservative senators wringing their hands and calling for an investigation into the latter.
  - Torgo 10y ago
    All this proves is that the distinction between government and private entity suppression of speech (see: that moronic XKCD cartoon) is a bullshit distinction when your communications mediums are owned by megacorps.
  - talmand 10y ago
    Actually, courts have established that the first amendment does not necessarily allow anyone to lie and distort things as much as they wish. There are limitations. It's just that some people are better than others at skirting along that line.
    - vkou 10y ago
      Only in a very few select contexts. 1. When you have a fiduciary duty. 2. When you are on a witness stand. 3. When you are speaking to a federal agent. 4. When you are committing fraud. (See #1) 5. ??? None of these are relevant to mass media.
      - talmand 10y ago
        There is libel and slander, which are relevant to mass media.
gnaritas 10y ago
Things are right. There's nothing wrong with Facebook having a liberal bias. Every tech company full of young smart people is going to have a liberal bias. They aren't the government, they don't have to be unbiased. Conservatism isn't exactly popular among the non-old non-white population despite any anecdotal data about young conservatives you might know. Young people and minorities skew liberal, that's just how the world is.
myko 10y ago
There's no evidence that anyone did anything wrong? They just admitted that it would be possible. This article is as sensationalist as it gets - read Glenn Beck's medium post, it's a lot better: https://medium.com/@glennbeck/what-disturbed-me-about-the-facebook-meeting-3bbe0b96b87f#.48v1vqi06 https://medium.com/@glennbeck/what-disturbed-me-about-the-fa...

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.

sergiotapia 10y ago

@voku of course there is, otherwise this wouldn't be news.

abiox 10y ago
i tend to think there's a decorum aspect to things, but nobody expects mainstream news to be "unbiased" - it's the WWE of journalism. (not that alt-news or blogs are often any different.) court cases have established that, really, "free speech" and other things end up meaning that "the news" can lie, distort and implicate whatever it wants, whenever it wants, to fantastical degrees.
vkou 10y ago
This is manufactured outrage. As mentioned by abiox, in a free country, every source of news is free to lie and distort things as much as it feels like. Facebook having an anti-conservative slant (true or not) is about as newsworthy as Fox News having an anti-reason slant. For some reason, though, there aren't too many conservative senators wringing their hands and calling for an investigation into the latter.
- Torgo 10y ago
  All this proves is that the distinction between government and private entity suppression of speech (see: that moronic XKCD cartoon) is a bullshit distinction when your communications mediums are owned by megacorps.
- talmand 10y ago
  Actually, courts have established that the first amendment does not necessarily allow anyone to lie and distort things as much as they wish. There are limitations. It's just that some people are better than others at skirting along that line.
  - vkou 10y ago
    Only in a very few select contexts. 1. When you have a fiduciary duty. 2. When you are on a witness stand. 3. When you are speaking to a federal agent. 4. When you are committing fraud. (See #1) 5. ??? None of these are relevant to mass media.
    - talmand 10y ago
      There is libel and slander, which are relevant to mass media.

gnaritas 10y ago

Things are right. There's nothing wrong with Facebook having a liberal bias. Every tech company full of young smart people is going to have a liberal bias. They aren't the government, they don't have to be unbiased. Conservatism isn't exactly popular among the non-old non-white population despite any anecdotal data about young conservatives you might know. Young people and minorities skew liberal, that's just how the world is.

myko 10y ago

There's no evidence that anyone did anything wrong? They just admitted that it would be possible. This article is as sensationalist as it gets - read Glenn Beck's medium post, it's a lot better: https://medium.com/@glennbeck/what-disturbed-me-about-the-facebook-meeting-3bbe0b96b87f#.48v1vqi06 https://medium.com/@glennbeck/what-disturbed-me-about-the-fa...