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> Facebook engages in propaganda and psychological manipulation. Wasn't Facebook caught scrubbing positive conservative news stories in the past? I could see s

by ythl 10y ago

> Facebook engages in propaganda and psychological manipulation. Wasn't Facebook caught scrubbing positive conservative news stories in the past? I could see secret deals between facebook and political parties regarding the consumers of their "free" internet.

fweespeech 10y ago
> Wasn't Facebook caught scrubbing positive conservative news stories in the past? I could see secret deals between facebook and political parties regarding the consumers of their "free" internet. Yes but it wasn't because of a secret deal (and would likely never be such). SF/SV just leans more liberal and its conservatives are generally libertarians. So, natural biases were likely the only cause and why pay for what you can get for free? I think every Democrat would agree the GOP being killed off by the Libertarians would be a good thing simply because it narrows the scope to fighting over financial/economic issues and related civil rights issues. Rather than fighting over things like abortion and having the GOP quietly use building codes and other tricks to kill abortion clinics anyway.
krapp 10y ago
Which they're within their rights to do, as a company. They can distort your newsfeed any way they want, they don't have to be impartial or fair. Which is why they shouldn't be trusted as if they were a neutral party providing a utility - they're demonstrably not. Even if they intended to be, the temptation to wield the power they have towards some financial or political end would inevitably be too great to resist.
- jsprogrammer 10y ago
  A news service, such as a newsfeed, has a duty to be impartial by virtue of naming itself news unless there is a real contract with the user stating alternative duties.
  - nathancahill 10y ago
    ..he typed on Hacker News, a newsfeed actively censored by YC against negative news about companies that they invest in.
    - jsprogrammer 10y ago
      If you're good, you can still get your information through.
  - jwtadvice 10y ago
    Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Facebook radically alters its content for political and state power purposes. Not only is this not against the law, it's either illegal or highly discouraged not to do this everywhere in the world.
- rfrank 10y ago
  They've also actively tried to manipulate the moods of their users via manipulation of newsfeed content. Informed consent is for the little people, I suppose. Just like net neutrality. 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...
tiglionabbit 10y ago
They had a "trending" feature which was mostly created by an algorithm but had some in-house editors to curate it. They would remove fake news and anything that seemed inappropriate. Conservatives complained that the editors were biased and would remove news stories that were of interest to conservatives. So Facebook fired the editors. Shortly after, this happened: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/29/facebook-fires-trending-topics-team-algorithm https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/29/facebook-...

by ythl 10y ago

fweespeech 10y ago

> Wasn't Facebook caught scrubbing positive conservative news stories in the past? I could see secret deals between facebook and political parties regarding the consumers of their "free" internet. Yes but it wasn't because of a secret deal (and would likely never be such). SF/SV just leans more liberal and its conservatives are generally libertarians. So, natural biases were likely the only cause and why pay for what you can get for free? I think every Democrat would agree the GOP being killed off by the Libertarians would be a good thing simply because it narrows the scope to fighting over financial/economic issues and related civil rights issues. Rather than fighting over things like abortion and having the GOP quietly use building codes and other tricks to kill abortion clinics anyway.

krapp 10y ago

Which they're within their rights to do, as a company. They can distort your newsfeed any way they want, they don't have to be impartial or fair. Which is why they shouldn't be trusted as if they were a neutral party providing a utility - they're demonstrably not. Even if they intended to be, the temptation to wield the power they have towards some financial or political end would inevitably be too great to resist.

jsprogrammer 10y ago
A news service, such as a newsfeed, has a duty to be impartial by virtue of naming itself news unless there is a real contract with the user stating alternative duties.
- nathancahill 10y ago
  ..he typed on Hacker News, a newsfeed actively censored by YC against negative news about companies that they invest in.
  - jsprogrammer 10y ago
    If you're good, you can still get your information through.
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  Unfortunately it doesn't work that way. Facebook radically alters its content for political and state power purposes. Not only is this not against the law, it's either illegal or highly discouraged not to do this everywhere in the world.
rfrank 10y ago
They've also actively tried to manipulate the moods of their users via manipulation of newsfeed content. Informed consent is for the little people, I suppose. Just like net neutrality. 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...

tiglionabbit 10y ago

They had a "trending" feature which was mostly created by an algorithm but had some in-house editors to curate it. They would remove fake news and anything that seemed inappropriate. Conservatives complained that the editors were biased and would remove news stories that were of interest to conservatives. So Facebook fired the editors. Shortly after, this happened: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/29/facebook-fires-trending-topics-team-algorithm https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/29/facebook-...