9 ms·

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

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.
      - vidarh 10y ago
        There is no such thing as unbiased journalism. Without bias, what you have is cacophony of competing interpretations of events. Even reporting "just the facts" consists of making judgement calls that introduce bias with respect to which facts you report, and what you accept as fact. I'd rather have reports from sources that don't try to pretend to be unbiased.
        noobermin 10y ago
        cspan is probably the closest thing to unbiased journalism, it's great, but no, it isn't a money maker and is only entertaining to those truly seeking the raw content. I agree that for reporters, the least they can do is acknowledge their own bias. If anything, that acknowledgement goes far towards mitigating said bias.
      - ryanl0l 10y ago
        Without bias how do you pick your stories? Without bias how do you pick your sources? Bias towards official sources is ubiquitous. Bias is an integral part of journalism, it's up to the reader to understand this fact and collect information from multiple sources (if they're so inclined).
  - drewrv 10y ago
    This cracks me up because some people believe the media has treated Sanders unfairly, others believe they've treated Trump unfairly. Maybe both. Personally I believe left/right bias isn't that interesting. The media has a strong bias toward sensationalism, and in elections there's a strong bias toward reporting on a horse race. Maybe this is the bias you're talking about. IMO these biases have helped Trump and Sanders respectively. What a weird society we live in where everyone thinks the media is biased and few agree on exactly how.
  - MisterBastahrd 10y ago
    The media's bias is towards sensationalism. Bernie has the personality of cold oatmeal.
- redthrowaway 10y ago
  My anecdata suggests conservative outlets tend to acknowledge their bias, as a counterweight to liberal bias in the "mainstream" media, whereas liberal outlets tend to believe themselves to be unbiased. Given how much liberal outlets scoff at the notion of there being a pervasive liberal bias in the MSM, I suspect they legitimately just don't see it as they're surrounded by people with the same political views and so are predisposed to believing that's what "normal" is.
  - hackuser 10y ago
    > pervasive liberal bias in the MSM The biggest cable news channel, the most popular newspaper (I think WSJ leads; EDIT: and certainly it dominates the business world), and almost all talk radio are highly conservative. They try to paint themselves as underdogs, but it's a little silly.
    - redthrowaway 10y ago
      Yes, the big ones are conservative, because every other one is liberal. Conservatives flock to places like Fox and WSJ because they're a refuge from the liberal bias that pervades the rest of the media. If you're a liberal and you want to watch news that doesn't offend you, you can choose from any of the major networks save Fox. If you're a conservative and want the same, you're stuck with Fox.
      - hackuser 10y ago
        > every other one is liberal I don't agree. First, there are plenty of smaller conservative ideological publications (two were listed in the original comment, plus endless more: RedState, Daily Caller, Breitbart, etc.). Almost all talk- radio, as I mentioned, is conservative. Also I said in another comment, there is plenty of apolitical journalism. (!conservative) != (liberal) The ideologues adopt a Manichean, binary view of the world: With us or against us. They say everyone is ideological and anyone who doesn't agree with them must be in the 'other' camp. They seek ideological conflict, to justify their beliefs and behavior. But the world is more complex than that and everyone is not ideological (most are not). There are leftist ideologues, and they say the NY Times is conservative and there is no difference between the parties (as incredible as that sounds). Either you share their ideology, or you are in the 'other' camp. The right-wing ideologues are the same: They define any journalism as not ideologically conservative as liberal. (They also call themselves outsiders when the control the 2/3 of the states and both houses of Congress). But it's not the case.
- abiox 10y ago
  of course they're biased. profit-seeking enterprises are strongly incentivized to not bite the hand that feeds. (not that state news isn't subject to this.) as noam chomsky has talked about, they "manufacture consent". you see it in say, chris matthews basically trying to "assassinate" sanders while cozying up to clinton.
- ChuckMcM 10y ago
  That of course is the interesting question. Of course the media knows they are biased, some even call it out in their tag line like "The conservative voice" others are less outspoken. Facebook is in an interesting position, they have such a wide swath of populations for reasons other than an editorial slant, they have people on site who might disagree with their position. Unlike the media where people who don't like the editorial bias of a paper simply don't read it. It would be perfectly reasonable for Facebook to have an editorial position on the stories. But it has asserted that it does not. And that is where things get tricky. We saw on a propublica story about how the machine algorithm can get biased by poor data and assumptions, and we've seen from Facebook's media response that even when they don't have an "official" position, their employees naturally do and Facebook is seeking additional training for them to protect their biases from leaking into their curation choices. That said, the "reality" of what is and what isn't trending is more about reinforcing one's belief in a position and less about the news. People who believe a story that strongly endorses their position but never trends is "suppressed", and stories that conflict with their opinions but are trending are "biased". I have yet to find any way to have a reasonable discussion about the popularity of views versus the correctness of those views with anyone who believes their point of view is being suppressed by "shadowy influences." I don't think there is any way for Facebook to win here and a lot of ways it can lose.
  - tjr 10y ago
    Stupid question, I imagine... I thought that Facebook users subscribe to the posting feeds of individuals and organizations of their own choosing. Would not the resulting custom feed be comprised of articles from sources which that particular user selected? Where is the Facebook editorial bias coming into play?
    - needcaffeine 10y ago
      The trending news section, which is supposedly manually curated.
    - tracker1 10y ago
      I have very conservative, and very liberal friends... I myself lean libertarian, which puts my conservative on some issues and liberal on others... so, there is definitely a need for curation for quality, and diversity of opinion.
talmand 10y ago
Oddly enough there's enough leeway that they are all correct, from a certain point of view.
- Malarkey73 10y ago
  Bayesian Star Wars : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8IuGxP4Pa4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8IuGxP4Pa4
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mtgx 10y ago
Facebook will apparently modify how its trending topics work after this. So I'm leaning to believe that it was indeed biased (whether intentionally or not through the types of people Facebook hired, that's another issue). What's funny to me is that about a year ago Politico had an article [1] about how Google can influence elections, when to me the elephant in the room was actually Facebook. I have no doubt Google can influence elections (especially through its corporate media "AMP partners" [2] that get shown in a carousel on Google above everything else, and through automated top answers), but at least on Google you have to show some kind of intent when searching for something. I'm not going to see Hillary Clinton articles when searching for a new laptop. On Facebook, stuff gets pushed to you potentially trying to change your views every day. So I do think Facebook is the bigger danger for this sort of thing. [1] http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/how-google-could-rig-the-2016-election-121548 http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/how-google-co... [2] http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-10/07/google-accelerated-mobile-pages-amp http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-10/07/google-accele...
hackuser 10y ago
When I think liberal publications, I think Huffington Post, Salon, the Intercept, Vox, etc. What are they saying? The NY Post and WSJ are Murdoch/Fox/News Corp publications; they are on a mission. Last I knew the Washington Times was owned by the cult leader Sun Myung Moon and his Unification Church - I never understood why anyone takes it seriously. But there still is apolitical journalism in the world; it's hardly impossible to do. The political operatives like to paint everything as politicized in order to delegitimize news they don't like, and to legitimize their own propaganda campaigns by making it a norm.
- sremani 10y ago
  Shall we talk about WaPo and Bezo's beef with Trump?
  - hackuser 10y ago
    I thought Bezos overstepped the bounds of a newspaper owner, though Trump did attack his publication. But what does that prove or disprove about the comments above? The Washington Post wasn't mentioned.
    - sremani 10y ago
      That's exactly the point, WaPo is actually leading the lynch mob against Trump, NYT's efforts look pale. There was time during Bush presidency when WaPo could have been centrist-ish. Even before Bezos stepped in to it took a left turn and after Bezos (a guy known for his Union busting tactics - well anti-union formation tactics), it became even more Leftist (the Corporate version). You did not mention WaPo and NYT in liberal publications, and if you do not consider them liberal, then your politics are pretty hard core Leftist.
      - hackuser 10y ago
        > You did not mention WaPo and NYT in liberal publications and if you do not consider them liberal, then your politics are pretty hard core Leftist Hard core leftists almost universally think the NYT is conservative, bought and paid for by corporations and the establishment. Hillary Clinton supporters think the Times is out to get her (they broke the email server story, for example). Of course, conservative ideologues love to demonize the Times. If you're looking for an apolitical news source, it's a good indicator when ideologues on all sides think the publication is biased against them. So I disagree about the NYT, regardless of the oft-repeated common wisdom about them. Honestly, I'm not sure what to make of the Post; it was shrill and sensationalist for awhile after Bezos took over, but now has calmed down. Certainly their editorial page has been anti-Trump recently, but many on the right share that perspective.
6stringmerc 10y ago
In an alternative scenario you could have the state-run media, cough insert-name-here cough, simply forcing every single outlet to run with their version of the headline: "There still is no Facebook, only use National Party Communication Gathering Website!"
- mmanfrin 10y ago
  Studies have found that state run media in democratic nations are the least biased. NPR, BBC.
  - chris_va 10y ago
    Publically financed and state run are two very different things.
  - damptowel 10y ago
    Can you give some references? Might be a good read.
  - maxerickson 10y ago
    NPR is an independent organization. It receives some flow through federal dollars, but it isn't state run. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding
  - bpodgursky 10y ago
    If you genuinely think NPR is the least biased news source available in the US, you have more serious problems.
    - kbenson 10y ago
      So what's an example of a less biased news source, and why do you think it's less biased?
      - bpodgursky 10y ago
untog 10y ago
If WSJ is "liberal media" we might need new definitions to work from.
buro9 10y ago
Is bias illegal? Should it be? Whatever the answer the political class would like to apply to Facebook, should it not also be applied to the traditional mass-media?
- randyrand 10y ago
  Don't be ridiculous. No one is arguing to get rid of free speech. And no one is saying FB should be banned from censoring. But people are saying they dont like FB censoring. And FB is trying to reassure they dont. Why you ask? Isnt this a double standard, you ask? FB as primarily a communication platform is not traditional mass media. And as such people have different expectations. I don't really want my communications platform censoring posts, etc. wheras I may be okay with my news outlet showing bias. FB and WaPo serve different functions, and people have different expectations. That's all.
bitwize 10y ago
I think this is just what Facebook wants. Conservatives will come away believing that Facebook acknowledged the bias and is Doing Something About It. Liberals will come away believing that Facebook was cleared of wrongdoing -- as they should have been since the idea that there was any bias to apologize for is, as always, a VRWC invention. Either way, Facebook wins.
ChrisArgyle 10y ago
Honestly this is more likely due to the actual outcome being too complex for a headline. "Facebook denies systematic bias but admits their current process allows bad actors to apply bias and takes remediating steps" Doesn't work. Although WSJ came kinda close.
- chimeracoder 10y ago
  > "Facebook denies systematic bias but admits their current process allows bad actors to apply bias and takes remediating steps" If their system allows bad actors to apply bias, that's literally a systematic bias. Unless they're claiming all of their 'bad actors' are symmetrically distributed along every relevant axis[0], that's the same thing as saying that there is a systematic bias. There is no reason to believe that any 'bad actors' are perfectly representative of the population at large and cancel each other out, and plenty of reasons to suspect otherwise, even based solely on our prior beliefs about Facebook employees (before this story broke). [0] I say 'every' axis, because even though we're talking about a one-dimensional spectrum (liberal/conservative), in reality, there are many different dimensions along which bias could be introduced.
  - ChrisArgyle 10y ago
    I took "systematic bias" to have similar meaning to "systematic error" meaning that there is a constant shift on every data point. Admitting the possibility of bias is very different than admitting bias in every single trending content decision.
    - ta_donk_gt 10y ago
      I think you are confusing "systemic" and "systematic". When someone indicates a problem is systemic, they mean it is rooted in the core of the system, and is thus deeply engrained in the system and present system-wide (and generally therefore requires a change that will affect everything from top to bottom in order to fix). Edit: though I see you've used systematic from the start, so maybe that was your intention.
    - 10y ago
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.
randyrand 10y ago
Slightly off topic - Why does it seem there are so many more liberal news outlets than conservative ones?
- tremon 10y ago
  Because there's many more ways to disagree than ways to agree.
- hnnicker 10y ago
  Evan Sayet has some thoughts on this (many videos on youtube). In a nutshell, Liberals like to talk about things, whereas Conservatives like to do things. So liberals go into fields like journalism, acting, teaching, etc.

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.
    - vidarh 10y ago
      There is no such thing as unbiased journalism. Without bias, what you have is cacophony of competing interpretations of events. Even reporting "just the facts" consists of making judgement calls that introduce bias with respect to which facts you report, and what you accept as fact. I'd rather have reports from sources that don't try to pretend to be unbiased.
      - noobermin 10y ago
        cspan is probably the closest thing to unbiased journalism, it's great, but no, it isn't a money maker and is only entertaining to those truly seeking the raw content. I agree that for reporters, the least they can do is acknowledge their own bias. If anything, that acknowledgement goes far towards mitigating said bias.
    - ryanl0l 10y ago
      Without bias how do you pick your stories? Without bias how do you pick your sources? Bias towards official sources is ubiquitous. Bias is an integral part of journalism, it's up to the reader to understand this fact and collect information from multiple sources (if they're so inclined).
- drewrv 10y ago
  This cracks me up because some people believe the media has treated Sanders unfairly, others believe they've treated Trump unfairly. Maybe both. Personally I believe left/right bias isn't that interesting. The media has a strong bias toward sensationalism, and in elections there's a strong bias toward reporting on a horse race. Maybe this is the bias you're talking about. IMO these biases have helped Trump and Sanders respectively. What a weird society we live in where everyone thinks the media is biased and few agree on exactly how.
- MisterBastahrd 10y ago
  The media's bias is towards sensationalism. Bernie has the personality of cold oatmeal.
redthrowaway 10y ago
My anecdata suggests conservative outlets tend to acknowledge their bias, as a counterweight to liberal bias in the "mainstream" media, whereas liberal outlets tend to believe themselves to be unbiased. Given how much liberal outlets scoff at the notion of there being a pervasive liberal bias in the MSM, I suspect they legitimately just don't see it as they're surrounded by people with the same political views and so are predisposed to believing that's what "normal" is.
- hackuser 10y ago
  > pervasive liberal bias in the MSM The biggest cable news channel, the most popular newspaper (I think WSJ leads; EDIT: and certainly it dominates the business world), and almost all talk radio are highly conservative. They try to paint themselves as underdogs, but it's a little silly.
  - redthrowaway 10y ago
    Yes, the big ones are conservative, because every other one is liberal. Conservatives flock to places like Fox and WSJ because they're a refuge from the liberal bias that pervades the rest of the media. If you're a liberal and you want to watch news that doesn't offend you, you can choose from any of the major networks save Fox. If you're a conservative and want the same, you're stuck with Fox.
    - hackuser 10y ago
      > every other one is liberal I don't agree. First, there are plenty of smaller conservative ideological publications (two were listed in the original comment, plus endless more: RedState, Daily Caller, Breitbart, etc.). Almost all talk- radio, as I mentioned, is conservative. Also I said in another comment, there is plenty of apolitical journalism. (!conservative) != (liberal) The ideologues adopt a Manichean, binary view of the world: With us or against us. They say everyone is ideological and anyone who doesn't agree with them must be in the 'other' camp. They seek ideological conflict, to justify their beliefs and behavior. But the world is more complex than that and everyone is not ideological (most are not). There are leftist ideologues, and they say the NY Times is conservative and there is no difference between the parties (as incredible as that sounds). Either you share their ideology, or you are in the 'other' camp. The right-wing ideologues are the same: They define any journalism as not ideologically conservative as liberal. (They also call themselves outsiders when the control the 2/3 of the states and both houses of Congress). But it's not the case.
abiox 10y ago
of course they're biased. profit-seeking enterprises are strongly incentivized to not bite the hand that feeds. (not that state news isn't subject to this.) as noam chomsky has talked about, they "manufacture consent". you see it in say, chris matthews basically trying to "assassinate" sanders while cozying up to clinton.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
That of course is the interesting question. Of course the media knows they are biased, some even call it out in their tag line like "The conservative voice" others are less outspoken. Facebook is in an interesting position, they have such a wide swath of populations for reasons other than an editorial slant, they have people on site who might disagree with their position. Unlike the media where people who don't like the editorial bias of a paper simply don't read it. It would be perfectly reasonable for Facebook to have an editorial position on the stories. But it has asserted that it does not. And that is where things get tricky. We saw on a propublica story about how the machine algorithm can get biased by poor data and assumptions, and we've seen from Facebook's media response that even when they don't have an "official" position, their employees naturally do and Facebook is seeking additional training for them to protect their biases from leaking into their curation choices. That said, the "reality" of what is and what isn't trending is more about reinforcing one's belief in a position and less about the news. People who believe a story that strongly endorses their position but never trends is "suppressed", and stories that conflict with their opinions but are trending are "biased". I have yet to find any way to have a reasonable discussion about the popularity of views versus the correctness of those views with anyone who believes their point of view is being suppressed by "shadowy influences." I don't think there is any way for Facebook to win here and a lot of ways it can lose.
- tjr 10y ago
  Stupid question, I imagine... I thought that Facebook users subscribe to the posting feeds of individuals and organizations of their own choosing. Would not the resulting custom feed be comprised of articles from sources which that particular user selected? Where is the Facebook editorial bias coming into play?
  - needcaffeine 10y ago
    The trending news section, which is supposedly manually curated.
  - tracker1 10y ago
    I have very conservative, and very liberal friends... I myself lean libertarian, which puts my conservative on some issues and liberal on others... so, there is definitely a need for curation for quality, and diversity of opinion.

talmand 10y ago

Oddly enough there's enough leeway that they are all correct, from a certain point of view.

Malarkey73 10y ago
Bayesian Star Wars : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8IuGxP4Pa4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8IuGxP4Pa4

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

mtgx 10y ago

Facebook will apparently modify how its trending topics work after this. So I'm leaning to believe that it was indeed biased (whether intentionally or not through the types of people Facebook hired, that's another issue). What's funny to me is that about a year ago Politico had an article [1] about how Google can influence elections, when to me the elephant in the room was actually Facebook. I have no doubt Google can influence elections (especially through its corporate media "AMP partners" [2] that get shown in a carousel on Google above everything else, and through automated top answers), but at least on Google you have to show some kind of intent when searching for something. I'm not going to see Hillary Clinton articles when searching for a new laptop. On Facebook, stuff gets pushed to you potentially trying to change your views every day. So I do think Facebook is the bigger danger for this sort of thing. [1] http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/how-google-could-rig-the-2016-election-121548 http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/08/how-google-co... [2] http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-10/07/google-accelerated-mobile-pages-amp http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2015-10/07/google-accele...

hackuser 10y ago

When I think liberal publications, I think Huffington Post, Salon, the Intercept, Vox, etc. What are they saying? The NY Post and WSJ are Murdoch/Fox/News Corp publications; they are on a mission. Last I knew the Washington Times was owned by the cult leader Sun Myung Moon and his Unification Church - I never understood why anyone takes it seriously. But there still is apolitical journalism in the world; it's hardly impossible to do. The political operatives like to paint everything as politicized in order to delegitimize news they don't like, and to legitimize their own propaganda campaigns by making it a norm.

sremani 10y ago
Shall we talk about WaPo and Bezo's beef with Trump?
- hackuser 10y ago
  I thought Bezos overstepped the bounds of a newspaper owner, though Trump did attack his publication. But what does that prove or disprove about the comments above? The Washington Post wasn't mentioned.
  - sremani 10y ago
    That's exactly the point, WaPo is actually leading the lynch mob against Trump, NYT's efforts look pale. There was time during Bush presidency when WaPo could have been centrist-ish. Even before Bezos stepped in to it took a left turn and after Bezos (a guy known for his Union busting tactics - well anti-union formation tactics), it became even more Leftist (the Corporate version). You did not mention WaPo and NYT in liberal publications, and if you do not consider them liberal, then your politics are pretty hard core Leftist.
    - hackuser 10y ago
      > You did not mention WaPo and NYT in liberal publications and if you do not consider them liberal, then your politics are pretty hard core Leftist Hard core leftists almost universally think the NYT is conservative, bought and paid for by corporations and the establishment. Hillary Clinton supporters think the Times is out to get her (they broke the email server story, for example). Of course, conservative ideologues love to demonize the Times. If you're looking for an apolitical news source, it's a good indicator when ideologues on all sides think the publication is biased against them. So I disagree about the NYT, regardless of the oft-repeated common wisdom about them. Honestly, I'm not sure what to make of the Post; it was shrill and sensationalist for awhile after Bezos took over, but now has calmed down. Certainly their editorial page has been anti-Trump recently, but many on the right share that perspective.

6stringmerc 10y ago

In an alternative scenario you could have the state-run media, cough insert-name-here cough, simply forcing every single outlet to run with their version of the headline: "There still is no Facebook, only use National Party Communication Gathering Website!"

mmanfrin 10y ago
Studies have found that state run media in democratic nations are the least biased. NPR, BBC.
- chris_va 10y ago
  Publically financed and state run are two very different things.
- damptowel 10y ago
  Can you give some references? Might be a good read.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  NPR is an independent organization. It receives some flow through federal dollars, but it isn't state run. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR#Funding
- bpodgursky 10y ago
  If you genuinely think NPR is the least biased news source available in the US, you have more serious problems.
  - kbenson 10y ago
    So what's an example of a less biased news source, and why do you think it's less biased?
    - bpodgursky 10y ago

untog 10y ago

If WSJ is "liberal media" we might need new definitions to work from.

buro9 10y ago

Is bias illegal? Should it be? Whatever the answer the political class would like to apply to Facebook, should it not also be applied to the traditional mass-media?

randyrand 10y ago
Don't be ridiculous. No one is arguing to get rid of free speech. And no one is saying FB should be banned from censoring. But people are saying they dont like FB censoring. And FB is trying to reassure they dont. Why you ask? Isnt this a double standard, you ask? FB as primarily a communication platform is not traditional mass media. And as such people have different expectations. I don't really want my communications platform censoring posts, etc. wheras I may be okay with my news outlet showing bias. FB and WaPo serve different functions, and people have different expectations. That's all.

bitwize 10y ago

I think this is just what Facebook wants. Conservatives will come away believing that Facebook acknowledged the bias and is Doing Something About It. Liberals will come away believing that Facebook was cleared of wrongdoing -- as they should have been since the idea that there was any bias to apologize for is, as always, a VRWC invention. Either way, Facebook wins.

ChrisArgyle 10y ago

Honestly this is more likely due to the actual outcome being too complex for a headline. "Facebook denies systematic bias but admits their current process allows bad actors to apply bias and takes remediating steps" Doesn't work. Although WSJ came kinda close.

chimeracoder 10y ago
> "Facebook denies systematic bias but admits their current process allows bad actors to apply bias and takes remediating steps" If their system allows bad actors to apply bias, that's literally a systematic bias. Unless they're claiming all of their 'bad actors' are symmetrically distributed along every relevant axis[0], that's the same thing as saying that there is a systematic bias. There is no reason to believe that any 'bad actors' are perfectly representative of the population at large and cancel each other out, and plenty of reasons to suspect otherwise, even based solely on our prior beliefs about Facebook employees (before this story broke). [0] I say 'every' axis, because even though we're talking about a one-dimensional spectrum (liberal/conservative), in reality, there are many different dimensions along which bias could be introduced.
- ChrisArgyle 10y ago
  I took "systematic bias" to have similar meaning to "systematic error" meaning that there is a constant shift on every data point. Admitting the possibility of bias is very different than admitting bias in every single trending content decision.
  - ta_donk_gt 10y ago
    I think you are confusing "systemic" and "systematic". When someone indicates a problem is systemic, they mean it is rooted in the core of the system, and is thus deeply engrained in the system and present system-wide (and generally therefore requires a change that will affect everything from top to bottom in order to fix). Edit: though I see you've used systematic from the start, so maybe that was your intention.
  - 10y ago

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.

randyrand 10y ago

Slightly off topic - Why does it seem there are so many more liberal news outlets than conservative ones?

tremon 10y ago
Because there's many more ways to disagree than ways to agree.
hnnicker 10y ago
Evan Sayet has some thoughts on this (many videos on youtube). In a nutshell, Liberals like to talk about things, whereas Conservatives like to do things. So liberals go into fields like journalism, acting, teaching, etc.