10 ms·

The Facebook bubble just popped

100 points by shawndumas 10y ago

herbst 10y ago
Are they seriously trying to blame facebook for the voting result now?
- konart 10y ago
  http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/11/donald-trump-won-because-of-facebook.html http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/11/donald-trump-won-because-...
  - deleted 10y ago
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- ghouse 10y ago
  No, they're not. Read the article. Their research indicates Facebook shows you news, even fabricated news that agrees with whatever you already believe.
  - herbst 10y ago
    I've read the article, it says that Facebook did favor Trump somehow and and does passively suggest that they did this knowingly by showing other cases where they did that. I realize its not the complete message, but its appearantly the subtle message they want to bring over.
    - nzjrs 10y ago
      Which article did you read?
overcast 10y ago
As opposed to what? Some other major media outlet, pushing their own agenda on previous elections? Give me a break.
- webkike 10y ago
  Or maybe - just maybe - they report the news without opinion. Facebook injects opinion into everything by it's very nature. Maybe that's not a good thing.
  - overcast 10y ago
    Buahahahahaha, media outlets report news WITHOUT opinion? Welcome to Earth, outsider.
    - webkike 10y ago
      Besides the obvious empirical weight of your condescending dismissal I have yet to see any evidence that states it is impossible to report the news without an opinion. In fact, if you open the NYT you will find it divided into sections on opinion and factual news. Give me some evidence of main stream media reporting opinion with news. Give me a non-opinion piece newspaper article that has opinion.
      - devonharvey 10y ago
        You should check out Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky. It's a classic book on this topic.
      - FeatureRush 10y ago
        how about this: some time ago when the news that tortures did not produce any valuable intel to counter terrorism was wildly reported in USA, the Polish media instead run a story about how terrorists were planning attacks in Poland during mayor holidays. See: no real opinion is conveyed here explicitly, but by controlling which and when facts get reported you get the same result as directly stating the opinion (in this case defending the need for doing nasty things to fight terrorism).
  - gipp 10y ago
    There is no such thing. Even if only through the selection of events considered "newsworthy", reporting news _always_ implies a particular narrative of the world, and politics is nothing but competing narratives.
JustSomeNobody 10y ago
> On Facebook, a Trump victory was likely, or a Clinton win was all but assured. And if you were watching the election coverage the night of you could very discernibly see the change in the commentators narrative from "yay! Clinton!" to the shock of "Wait, Trump?" to "Those dirty rednecks! (er ... uneducated white folk)" as their reality was changing before them. It wasn't JUST Facebook.
- Waterluvian 10y ago
  I watched CNN and it was so painful to watch them try to keep it exciting. They didn't want to call Florida for so long even after it became statically impossible for Clinton to make up the difference. The sense I got is the sooner the conclusion is reached, the sooner people stop watching.
  - cmrdporcupine 10y ago
    I think since 2000 the networks are super cautious about calling Florida in particular.
  - adiabatty 10y ago
    I remember Fox News doing something similar for one of the elections that Obama ended up winning, although I don't think it was Florida-specific. I take this behavior as an example of motivated reasoning in action.
- downandout 10y ago
  Tom Brokaw was especially insulting to the half of the country that voted for Trump. After several comments about uneducated rednecks causing the downfall of our nation, he summed it up this way: "This election was much more about ‘Duck Dynasty’ than ‘Saturday Night Live’." Hell hath no fury like an elite liberal scorned.
  - gdulli 10y ago
    That Trump won in large part due to disproportionate support from voters without a college degree is a plain fact worth being reported. Reading insult into it is discretionary.
gremlinsinc 10y ago
Yeah because, all the other news outlets predicted a trump win... this is a shit piece article... Show me one outlet that gave Mr. Trump > 50% chance of winning (Fox doesn't count as news). If anything this is more the fault of bad pollsters, and people not realizing that 4 million Bernie or Bust voters were real and not just spouting empty promises. I was one of those. I wrote in Bernie, and I'd rather have Trump and a rebuild the DNC from scratch -- from the far left, than see Clinton -- the epitome of corruption rise to power. We might as well let mob-bosses run for President.
- DubiousPusher 10y ago
  FiveThirtyEight consistently gave Trump a %25+ chance of winning. That's obviously a pretty good chance which is something they constantly reminded their audience of.
- jerf 10y ago
  "Show me one outlet that gave Mr. Trump > 50% chance of winning (Fox doesn't count as news)." I actually don't recall Fox predicting it either. But isn't it kind of weird that you both supposed they were the only ones who might have gotten it correct, but also that they were not "real news"? Didn't "real news" just let you down hardcore? It doesn't do any good to say "The deviation of reporting from reality means I have to re-examine my views" if you secretly include the caveat "as long as none of my views have to change". That said, I've got no particular reason to give you that Fox should be given any more credit than any other major news source. But I'd submit that isn't because you should give Fox more credit, but because you should adjust your view of the others to match your current view of Fox. There isn't that huge a difference between Fox and, say, CNN. But there's a lot more people who will mouth agreement with that sentence, but then don't follow through with their actions. CNN is trash, and it's more dangerous for those who are generally inclined to agree with them than those who aren't. And so on for all or at least almost all of the other "real news sources". You need to follow through, stop watching, stop trusting things they say, and really stop trusting things they say that make you feel good. (BTW, as for "what's my suggestion" then, at the moment I don't have a place I can point at and say "If they say it, I trust it.")
sickbeard 10y ago
What an absurd article. Facebook is worldwide but somehow the US only elections popped it's bubble? Not to mention this was a 50/50 opinion split.. not exactly earth shattering.
- herbst 10y ago
  Well for one thing i never heard anyone using Facebook as news source, if U.S. people really do that there is at least that. Otherwise really absurd article, agreed.
  - acobster 10y ago
    As an American and former FB user I must admit that before I gave it up entirely, it was my primary channel for finding news. This is still true of many of my friends and, I suspect, no small number of Americans. But yeah.
    - herbst 10y ago
      this is really strange to me honestly. From what i can tell (i avoid facebook as much as possbile) "News" on my feed are mostly just uplifting news style. Everything relevant and political has no place on facebook within my environment. And i dont consider myself sheltered.
      - istorical 10y ago
        Many people use it as a link-sharing medium like others use Twitter.
        herbst 10y ago
        "we" do that too, just not for these kind of news. Everytime i see some of the hardliners posting something political it will be completely ignored, or at max liked by some other hardliners. If someone posts a article about vegan or animal rights or shit, thats the kind of stuff that goes viral in my circles.
paki123 10y ago
Can people stop posting techcrunch and wired. It's all bullshit.
sickbeard 10y ago
Not to mention realclearpolitics and projectthirtyfive all had poll after poll with all the number crunching data saying Clinton would win. In the end.. clinton: 59,938,290 votes trump: 59,704,886 votes 59million liked all new age sjw stuff 59million other people didn't
- jbondeson 10y ago
  > 59million liked all new age sjw stuff That is such an absurd and reductionist dismissal of this election that is no different than the equally wrong people saying "59 million people liked all the old sexist, homophobic, racist and xenophobic attitudes, and 59 million other people didn't" What you are doing here is just perpetuating the problems that have plagued this election cycle and made it so people are completely unable to discuss real issues.
  - zzalpha 10y ago
    I almost think this was a textbook troll. Start with a reasonable statement. Back that up with some interesting facts. Then drop a bomb in the room and wait for the aftermath. Pretty nicely crafted, all things considered...
    - sickbeard 10y ago
      Thanks but you're wrong. Maybe SJW is a trigger word for you but it was just a general description of the divide shown in the US election. The people living outside of the cities obviously rejected things being shoved down their throats. For the record I liked Hillary, but I wouldn't be surprised if she lost against a frog.. let alone trump.
      - 75j 10y ago
        What does SJW mean to you? Just someone who cares about social issues, or someone who only pretends to care for self-serving purposes? Or something else? I really dislike that term, but maybe I'm misunderstanding what exactly people mean by it.
wyager 10y ago
> Facebook didn’t just reflect your views back to you Hardly. I'd say it accurately represented the view distribution of my social group, which I infrequently agree with. > But beyond that, it turns a blind eye to the nature of the content within its walls. Is this article claiming that FB should censor more? It's also wrong; I know of several Facebook pages that have been unpublished for being politically unsavory (from Facebook's perspective, of course). I'm not exactly sure what this article is supposed to convince us of.
- utternerd 10y ago
  Completely agree this was a ridiculous article, but it's also what I'd expect from TC.
woodchuck64 10y ago
Not just the left and right's echo-chambers, but those who attempt to actually listen to reality got it wrong, too: FiveThirtyEight for example has been using proven, reality-based statistics for a while and should have predicted this result. (As it was, Silver was lambasted for being too generous on Trump's chances.) At issue in this election is apparently a new idea: people who hold positions that are being publically shamed tend to lie to pollsters.
- wskinner 10y ago
  Not really a new idea. This effect is called preference falsification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification For those who don't want to follow the link: "individuals convey preferences that differ from what they genuinely want"
  - maratd 10y ago
    No, the idea of being persecuted for what you believe and then in turn, lying in public about it is not a new idea. It doesn't need a Wikipedia article nor a term for it. It has been around since the beginning of time. What is new is that this sort of environment is taking hold in the US, which is unfortunate. And this forum is as guilty as any other. People lambasted Peter Thiel for speaking his mind and voting his wallet. They demanded his head and spoke of repercussions. That's what you get when you behave that way. When people are threatened when they speak out, they just wont speak in public, but it doesn't change what they believe. Our society is worse off for silencing their voices.
    - internaut 10y ago
      > What is new is that this sort of environment is taking hold in the US, which is unfortunate. And this forum is as guilty as any other. People lambasted Peter Thiel for speaking his mind and voting his wallet. They demanded his head and spoke of repercussions. Very true unfortunately. That's not all of HN of course. Many of us supported Thiel and his ideas, or else thought it was worth having an opposing voice around even if they disagreed with it. I wrote an essay on Peter Thiel's ideas and (partly about) how the Media misunderstood him here: https://medium.com/@internaut_48577/peter-and-the-wolfe-b8dee6228918 https://medium.com/@internaut_48577/peter-and-the-wolfe-b8de... It was composed from a chain of HN comments before the election went to Trump, so I can credibly state that I saw a media malfunction with reality on the cards. I was watching his press conference from a few days ago at the National Press Club event, and I really did Laugh Out Loud when he said (paraphrasing), "You know, this is pretty much the first time I'm not making a contrarian stance, I mean literally how can I be a contrarian when half the population agree with me, and for this I get the flak? Unbelievable!". Together with the investment in Seasteading, this has been incredibly high impact for comparatively minor sums of money. Thiel has managed managed to make himself the only venture capitalist in Silicon Valley who appeals to the majority of the working class. That is power. He'll be reaping dividends from that for the rest of his life. This is because many serious inventions and innovations were created by the working class, not the middle class as they appear to think today. In fact historically (and I would argue currently too) the middle classes and elites looked down on entrepreneurship. Entreprenurship is seen as being unprofessional. Most engineering was created by working class with the aristocrats holding up the exploration of science. The water mills, the steam engines, these were not created by the kind of people who studied at universities. We no longer understand our own past. This may sound like an attempt at provocation, but I swear it is not. I really do think many of the best innovators and inventors have a working class way of looking at the world. Let us take something that isn't directly in Silicon Valley's ballpark. Tiny Houses. All the non-cosmetic innovations I've seen in Tiny Houses have been created by working class people. The majority of Tiny Houses are created by young aspirational middle class or those who want to retire without worrying. It is especially gratifying to see many young women picking up the hammer to forge something for themselves. I saw one who built a VOC-free house recently and that is impressive if you know anything about building. Despite this, the only major differences between most builds are cosmetic. People really are afraid of being different despite being adventurous enough to live differently to most. There is a finite amount of adventurousness people have and it is easily exhausted. The names in italics are Youtube channels if you wanted to inspect what I'm talking about. Esket Tiny House is built by a carpenter, and he has built a magnificent curved roof when everybody else went with a standard gable roof. If you're perceptive you'll notice that a Tiny House only has 13 ft 6 inches to play with. So logically changing the roof shape would hugely improve the living space in the loft area. Yet they choose not to change it. Tiny House Customs is another working class Joe (framer). He has cleverly hidden the trailer's wheels and tow bars so it doesn't even appear to be a potentially mobile structure. Life in a Box (electrician) has introduced the concept of a rain screen, despite being in Arizona! Everybody's builds (in the more rainy regions) are going to have the siding rot off in five years! This is smart. The Not So Tiny House (power plant operator but definitely working class) has very cleverly hidden his trailer using a faux rock skirt. It now just looks like a regular house on a foundation. It is a rather brilliant solution. The reason why I mention these is because there are very few working class people building Tiny Houses. I think that is a shame. However the thing to notice here, is that when they do build, they build them very differently to the cookie-cutter approach most middle class people do. In retrospect, all their innovations are extremely obvious. That is quite curious. I think this says something pretty profound. There is something about being middle class that could damage your ability to integrate innovations into real life. I realize this is anecdotal but in retrospect I have the feeling I see this pattern everywhere in life. One explanation could be that: once your comfort increases, your comfort 'zone' decreases. I think this could be a powerful explanation for why so few Silicon Valley companies are truly inventive despite being a Mecca for all kinds of talent and enterprise. As Peter Thiel points out: all kinds of clever young minds go to Harvard, and despite that they keep electing to join industries just as bubbles are bursting. That is not an accident, it is culture. tldr; When you think of diversity, maybe think of the working class also. Maybe they have something to add nobody else does.
admstockdale 10y ago
Some of this article is spot on. There is a need in the internet age to educate people on how to consume information. When we had fewer news organizations, information was more controlled. It was done by professionals with years of training. While there's a lot of benefit in providing more voices and more outlets, there's a real danger of spreading misinformation propped up by false equivalences as to what qualifies as a professional news organization. I'm not sure the answer other than education.
partycoder 10y ago
There was an assumption that Bernie voters would go to Clinton, but instead some of them didn't vote or went third party. In swing states, 1% more votes could have made the difference. Florida for instance was very close. In addition, the democratic party acted in a very biased way against Bernie. Superdelegates also didn't care about what candidate was more popular in each state.
DubiousPusher 10y ago
Stop writing narratives out of this. Many of us who are incredulous about this election not because a Republican won but because Donald Trump won. We're shocked that you can mock a war hero, a person with a disability, a sexual assault victim in the public sphere and still get elected. It's not our politics that are shocked it's our sensibilities. Edit: sorry about the original swear.
- iamcasen 10y ago
  Exactly! Up until this week, presidents had to be... well, presidential. I'm truly astonished that a demographic who is normally very outraged at moral missteps voted this man into office.
CodeGenie 10y ago
Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation on its platform. https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/10/facebook-admits-it-must-do-more-to-stop-the-spread-of-misinformation-on-its-platform/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/10/facebook-admits-it-must-do...
CodeGenie 10y ago
Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation on its platform. https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/10/facebook-admits-it-must-do-more-to-stop-the-spread-of-misinformation-on-its-platform/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/10/facebook-admits-it-must-do...
Alex3917 10y ago
The biggest problem with our country isn't the people who voted for Trump, it's the people who are surprised that he won. For what it's worth, here is an email conversation about this that I submitted to HN before the election: https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/e1rtmBSJR16mkcCRlqmWwQ/lifehack-newsfeed-liking https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/e1rtmBSJR16mkcCRlqmWwQ/lifehac...
- pmoriarty 10y ago
  If you were cynical, you would have predicted that the United States, a country full of racists and bigots, would never elect a black man for President. But they did: twice. There were good reasons to predict that George W Bush, an embarrassing, arrogant, stupid buffoon who got the country in to two disastrous wars and failed to prevent 9/11, who had massive protests against him from all over the country would not get elected for a second term. But he did (arguably with the help of voting fraud, but regardless of how he got there, he still served a second term). Many were surprised when an actor, Ronald Reagan, was elected as President. Another actor was elected Governor of California, and arguably may have become President had he been born in the US. A wrestler became Governor of Minnesota. Most analysts, and even American intelligence agencies, were shocked by the swift downfall of the Soviet Union. In the 1960's, when Segregation was in full swing, many could not imagine that it would ever end. They thought, as the song goes, "That's just the way it is. Some things will never change". But it did end, and in relatively short order. Some argue the US is still not fully desegregated, but in many important ways it is. For my part, when Bush Jr managed to get a second term in office, I stopped trying to predict the political future. So now I'm no longer surprised. Any idiot or asshole can get elected President in the US, and anything, no matter how unlikely, can happen. It reminds me of when the Yippies nominated a pig for President.[1] They did it as a joke, but the US has been headed in that direction ever since. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigasus_%28politics%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigasus_%28politics%29
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  - hga 10y ago
DubiousPusher 10y ago
Why is this hard for people to get. "I can't believe it," is a figure of speech not a statement of fact. Most of us are shocked that this could happen not that it did happen.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  Do you mean that even if Clinton would have won the election, you would still have been shocked? Because even if she did win, Trump could have won, as many pollsters predicted he has a double-digit chance of winning?
  - DubiousPusher 10y ago
    Without reservation yes. I have been in a state of shock for months now. The frustration of the reality is what makes it bubble over into visible outpourings. My assumption wasn't that because no one I interacted with on social media was supporting him therefore he can't win. My assumption was that people are too basically decent for him to win. There's a lot of ground between knowing something can happen and being emotionally prepared for it to happen.
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w8rbt 10y ago
I don't use Facebook, but no one I know was surprised by the outcome. Bill Clinton was disbarred, impeached, and he sexually exploited young female interns in the White house and was also accused of sexual crimes by many women. Hillary Clinton defended him in all of these things. The Clinton Foundation is a front (masquerading as a charity) for political favors and payments. The Clintons are political/criminal cronies enriching themselves while impoverishing others. While they claim that average Americans are too 'uneducated' and 'low information' (i.e. stupid) to understand these sophisticated political topics, we all see right through it. Enough is enough. Follow the same rules and laws that we all have to and treat us fairly and we'll vote for you. Abuse us like this and we won't. It's that simple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_v._Jones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_v._Jones
misterbowfinger 10y ago
We're all definitely in an echo chamber. Hacker News is an echo chamber. So is Reddit, FB, Twitter, etc. This is what happens when, as an industry, we move towards "personalization". All of our "personalized" feeds allow businesses to increase their ad revenue, but it siphons us away from the rest of the world. 30 years ago, we were beholden to the large media outlets, which is also bad, but I believe we've overcorrected. All of our apps are just too personalized and they don't work hard enough to tell us what we should know, as opposed to what we want to know.
- ff10 10y ago
  There are now a multitude of echo chambers, you could easily argue that each user has his own personalized bubble. What is different from before social and personalized media is that there is (much) less common experience anymore, no dominant common denominator like a major newspaper. What Zuckerberg should point out is that – in a way – this is detrimental to what his alleged aim with FB is: to connect people. I'm not sure where this will lead us to. Since I started using FB more intensively I actually feel more disconnected from people than ever.
- ianai 10y ago
  It has everything to do with human behavior. It takes energy and induces cognitive load to interact with 'the other' - other people, other view points, etc. So people group up by like interests. Technology just makes it possible to highly concentrate.
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  - dlp211 10y ago
    I agree, but I think this goes beyond technology at this point. I hypothesize that we are self-segregating as a nation into Rural and Urban tribes and this is going to cause a lot of pain for half the country and further erode the trust in our institutions. I think we are on a dark path, not because a Republican won, but because we can't effectively govern by coming together and being nuanced and compromising.
kens 10y ago
The article links to the WSJ "Blue feed, red feed" page, which is very interesting. It shows two different Facebook feeds side-by-side for various topics and makes it clear just how much bias (in either direction) is in the feed. In general I think the Internet has reduced the "filter bubble", but these Facebook feeds, wow, that's a lot more filtering than I would have expected. http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/ http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/
Ftuuky 10y ago
"If you liked that, you'll love this." - Adam Curtis on his new documentary Hypernormalisation. I really recommend it. You can also read this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/goodies_and_baddies.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/goodies_and_ba...
draw_down 10y ago
No, it just succeeded wildly. A lot of pundits and media types now need to go back and re-examine their thinking, because almost all of them were wrong about everything. Stop listening to them, because they are naive people who think themselves worldly but they don't understand the present moment nor the future. They all need to go. Nicholas Nassim Taleb's Twitter and Medium are excellent reads these days.
paradite 10y ago
Not new at all. I wrote a piece in 2014 on Hong Kong's protest talking about the exact same issue of Facebook: https://paradite.com/2014/11/11/internet-polarized-society/ https://paradite.com/2014/11/11/internet-polarized-society/
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aikah 10y ago
So basically Facebook shows its users content they want to see. How is it a problem? if I have specific centers of interests, I don't want Facebook to show something I'm not interested in. Not because I want to live in an echo chamber BUT because I'dd have to filter content manually which is time consuming. There is nothing wrong with how Facebook works. The goal of Facebook is make money through ads, it's not a charity or a governmental agency (well, that's debatable). My point is Facebook needs to retain users or they'll go somewhere else.
gumby 10y ago
What a screed. Example: > To make matters worse, social media is a poor platform for getting people to understand opposing views. Another Pew study found that only 20 percent of users modified their stance on a social or political issue because of what they saw on social media. ... OK, but did people "modify their stance on a social or political issue" due to newspapers? TV? Or did they just pay attention to things that reinforced their existing biases? There may be a good criticism of FB, but this isn't it. And a scientific study (not sure what that would look like, but whatever) might well show the opposite.
thewhitetulip 10y ago
I find it funny that those who vouched for free speech have been trashing Trump's supporters all this election, too much talk for free speech eh?
- gipp 10y ago
  I'm not sure what you're talking about? Free speech is about legality of speech; nobody's talked about locking anyone up for supporting a candidate.
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    Locking up isn't the only way to punish people. There's actually some talk about e.g. firing someone from his/her job for supporting a candidate. Recently, there was a long discussion chain in HN about how Y Combinator should sever any ties to Peter Thiel because he supported Trump. That Thiel "should be fired". Discrimination at work may also be about free speech. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12733024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12733024
    - iamcasen 10y ago
      Right, and it's not because Trump is a republican. That's what people keep missing. Trump is a man who has openly incited violence against ethnic groups! Called for the deportation of muslims. He's called women fat pigs, and boasts about how he screws people in business. He boasts about avoiding taxes! This isn't GW, or McCaine... Most organizations have a very understandable right to not want to be associated with that. It's called a PR disaster. Somehow Trump is immune, and I will never know how.
ianai 10y ago
I think the cities and the small rural areas need a project to work on together. My suggestion would be infrastructure projects. Hire the people locally and from the city in masses.
helpfulanon 10y ago
A popular uprising against Silicon Valley is coming. Already I hear it from people in my life, all over the country. They blame social media for allowing the Trump memes to warp people's opinion. They're starting to put the pieces together on unemployment and blame tech automation for taking jobs and not offering a replacement, especially in the heartland. They're angry with Silicon Valley execs for not putting up any visible fight against Trump. They're starting to see how clustering all the best paying jobs in major cities leaves people outside of the bubble desperate, seeing desperate solutions. A tidal wave of rage against the election is about to be directed towards the tech industry, it's just a matter of time.
- talmand 10y ago
  Well, it's not just tech; it's any large corporation that gets coverage. Some people can only hear "we're making the world better" so much when by all appearances they are just making their own world better. I know it's not a fair assumption to make, but look at what gets reported (billion dollar companies that produce nothing with no profits, high level executives greatly rewarded for failure, and so on) versus the unknown companies that actually are trying to make things better with no coverage.
  - helpfulanon 10y ago
    Certainly. But this is about information. There are a lot of people who increasingly understand the dynamics of how the information economy affects popular opinion, how it affects the workforce, how it has disrupted work and yet done nothing to solve the problems that came with the consequences of that disruption. And many on the left outside of the valley bubble really thought that a boom in the left-leaning Bay Area meant that there were powerful people there who had their backs in all of this. They feel very hurt that tech seemed to sit on the sidelines through the election, and in some regards pretty much enabled and profited off the mass-dissemination of misinformation. So it's not just about corporate greed this time. It's about information, disruption, workforce automation, and the responsibilities that come from building and wielding powerful information tools.
- helpfulanon 10y ago
pascalxus 10y ago
There's plenty of places you can get your news from that are less biased, or not biased at all. No one is forcing you to read news on facebook.
muad 10y ago
Stop using FB, it makes you a worse person. Talk to your neighbors, look up from your phone, and engage people if you want to expand your bubble.

100 points by shawndumas 10y ago

herbst 10y ago

Are they seriously trying to blame facebook for the voting result now?

konart 10y ago
http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/11/donald-trump-won-because-of-facebook.html http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/11/donald-trump-won-because-...
- deleted 10y ago
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ghouse 10y ago
No, they're not. Read the article. Their research indicates Facebook shows you news, even fabricated news that agrees with whatever you already believe.
- herbst 10y ago
  I've read the article, it says that Facebook did favor Trump somehow and and does passively suggest that they did this knowingly by showing other cases where they did that. I realize its not the complete message, but its appearantly the subtle message they want to bring over.
  - nzjrs 10y ago
    Which article did you read?

overcast 10y ago

As opposed to what? Some other major media outlet, pushing their own agenda on previous elections? Give me a break.

webkike 10y ago
Or maybe - just maybe - they report the news without opinion. Facebook injects opinion into everything by it's very nature. Maybe that's not a good thing.
- overcast 10y ago
  Buahahahahaha, media outlets report news WITHOUT opinion? Welcome to Earth, outsider.
  - webkike 10y ago
    Besides the obvious empirical weight of your condescending dismissal I have yet to see any evidence that states it is impossible to report the news without an opinion. In fact, if you open the NYT you will find it divided into sections on opinion and factual news. Give me some evidence of main stream media reporting opinion with news. Give me a non-opinion piece newspaper article that has opinion.
    - devonharvey 10y ago
      You should check out Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky. It's a classic book on this topic.
    - FeatureRush 10y ago
      how about this: some time ago when the news that tortures did not produce any valuable intel to counter terrorism was wildly reported in USA, the Polish media instead run a story about how terrorists were planning attacks in Poland during mayor holidays. See: no real opinion is conveyed here explicitly, but by controlling which and when facts get reported you get the same result as directly stating the opinion (in this case defending the need for doing nasty things to fight terrorism).
- gipp 10y ago
  There is no such thing. Even if only through the selection of events considered "newsworthy", reporting news _always_ implies a particular narrative of the world, and politics is nothing but competing narratives.

JustSomeNobody 10y ago

> On Facebook, a Trump victory was likely, or a Clinton win was all but assured. And if you were watching the election coverage the night of you could very discernibly see the change in the commentators narrative from "yay! Clinton!" to the shock of "Wait, Trump?" to "Those dirty rednecks! (er ... uneducated white folk)" as their reality was changing before them. It wasn't JUST Facebook.

Waterluvian 10y ago
I watched CNN and it was so painful to watch them try to keep it exciting. They didn't want to call Florida for so long even after it became statically impossible for Clinton to make up the difference. The sense I got is the sooner the conclusion is reached, the sooner people stop watching.
- cmrdporcupine 10y ago
  I think since 2000 the networks are super cautious about calling Florida in particular.
- adiabatty 10y ago
  I remember Fox News doing something similar for one of the elections that Obama ended up winning, although I don't think it was Florida-specific. I take this behavior as an example of motivated reasoning in action.
downandout 10y ago
Tom Brokaw was especially insulting to the half of the country that voted for Trump. After several comments about uneducated rednecks causing the downfall of our nation, he summed it up this way: "This election was much more about ‘Duck Dynasty’ than ‘Saturday Night Live’." Hell hath no fury like an elite liberal scorned.
- gdulli 10y ago
  That Trump won in large part due to disproportionate support from voters without a college degree is a plain fact worth being reported. Reading insult into it is discretionary.

gremlinsinc 10y ago

Yeah because, all the other news outlets predicted a trump win... this is a shit piece article... Show me one outlet that gave Mr. Trump > 50% chance of winning (Fox doesn't count as news). If anything this is more the fault of bad pollsters, and people not realizing that 4 million Bernie or Bust voters were real and not just spouting empty promises. I was one of those. I wrote in Bernie, and I'd rather have Trump and a rebuild the DNC from scratch -- from the far left, than see Clinton -- the epitome of corruption rise to power. We might as well let mob-bosses run for President.

DubiousPusher 10y ago
FiveThirtyEight consistently gave Trump a %25+ chance of winning. That's obviously a pretty good chance which is something they constantly reminded their audience of.
jerf 10y ago
"Show me one outlet that gave Mr. Trump > 50% chance of winning (Fox doesn't count as news)." I actually don't recall Fox predicting it either. But isn't it kind of weird that you both supposed they were the only ones who might have gotten it correct, but also that they were not "real news"? Didn't "real news" just let you down hardcore? It doesn't do any good to say "The deviation of reporting from reality means I have to re-examine my views" if you secretly include the caveat "as long as none of my views have to change". That said, I've got no particular reason to give you that Fox should be given any more credit than any other major news source. But I'd submit that isn't because you should give Fox more credit, but because you should adjust your view of the others to match your current view of Fox. There isn't that huge a difference between Fox and, say, CNN. But there's a lot more people who will mouth agreement with that sentence, but then don't follow through with their actions. CNN is trash, and it's more dangerous for those who are generally inclined to agree with them than those who aren't. And so on for all or at least almost all of the other "real news sources". You need to follow through, stop watching, stop trusting things they say, and really stop trusting things they say that make you feel good. (BTW, as for "what's my suggestion" then, at the moment I don't have a place I can point at and say "If they say it, I trust it.")

sickbeard 10y ago

What an absurd article. Facebook is worldwide but somehow the US only elections popped it's bubble? Not to mention this was a 50/50 opinion split.. not exactly earth shattering.

herbst 10y ago
Well for one thing i never heard anyone using Facebook as news source, if U.S. people really do that there is at least that. Otherwise really absurd article, agreed.
- acobster 10y ago
  As an American and former FB user I must admit that before I gave it up entirely, it was my primary channel for finding news. This is still true of many of my friends and, I suspect, no small number of Americans. But yeah.
  - herbst 10y ago
    this is really strange to me honestly. From what i can tell (i avoid facebook as much as possbile) "News" on my feed are mostly just uplifting news style. Everything relevant and political has no place on facebook within my environment. And i dont consider myself sheltered.
    - istorical 10y ago
      Many people use it as a link-sharing medium like others use Twitter.
      - herbst 10y ago
        "we" do that too, just not for these kind of news. Everytime i see some of the hardliners posting something political it will be completely ignored, or at max liked by some other hardliners. If someone posts a article about vegan or animal rights or shit, thats the kind of stuff that goes viral in my circles.

paki123 10y ago

Can people stop posting techcrunch and wired. It's all bullshit.

sickbeard 10y ago

Not to mention realclearpolitics and projectthirtyfive all had poll after poll with all the number crunching data saying Clinton would win. In the end.. clinton: 59,938,290 votes trump: 59,704,886 votes 59million liked all new age sjw stuff 59million other people didn't

jbondeson 10y ago
> 59million liked all new age sjw stuff That is such an absurd and reductionist dismissal of this election that is no different than the equally wrong people saying "59 million people liked all the old sexist, homophobic, racist and xenophobic attitudes, and 59 million other people didn't" What you are doing here is just perpetuating the problems that have plagued this election cycle and made it so people are completely unable to discuss real issues.
- zzalpha 10y ago
  I almost think this was a textbook troll. Start with a reasonable statement. Back that up with some interesting facts. Then drop a bomb in the room and wait for the aftermath. Pretty nicely crafted, all things considered...
  - sickbeard 10y ago
    Thanks but you're wrong. Maybe SJW is a trigger word for you but it was just a general description of the divide shown in the US election. The people living outside of the cities obviously rejected things being shoved down their throats. For the record I liked Hillary, but I wouldn't be surprised if she lost against a frog.. let alone trump.
    - 75j 10y ago
      What does SJW mean to you? Just someone who cares about social issues, or someone who only pretends to care for self-serving purposes? Or something else? I really dislike that term, but maybe I'm misunderstanding what exactly people mean by it.

wyager 10y ago

> Facebook didn’t just reflect your views back to you Hardly. I'd say it accurately represented the view distribution of my social group, which I infrequently agree with. > But beyond that, it turns a blind eye to the nature of the content within its walls. Is this article claiming that FB should censor more? It's also wrong; I know of several Facebook pages that have been unpublished for being politically unsavory (from Facebook's perspective, of course). I'm not exactly sure what this article is supposed to convince us of.

utternerd 10y ago
Completely agree this was a ridiculous article, but it's also what I'd expect from TC.

woodchuck64 10y ago

Not just the left and right's echo-chambers, but those who attempt to actually listen to reality got it wrong, too: FiveThirtyEight for example has been using proven, reality-based statistics for a while and should have predicted this result. (As it was, Silver was lambasted for being too generous on Trump's chances.) At issue in this election is apparently a new idea: people who hold positions that are being publically shamed tend to lie to pollsters.

wskinner 10y ago
Not really a new idea. This effect is called preference falsification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preference_falsification For those who don't want to follow the link: "individuals convey preferences that differ from what they genuinely want"
- maratd 10y ago
  No, the idea of being persecuted for what you believe and then in turn, lying in public about it is not a new idea. It doesn't need a Wikipedia article nor a term for it. It has been around since the beginning of time. What is new is that this sort of environment is taking hold in the US, which is unfortunate. And this forum is as guilty as any other. People lambasted Peter Thiel for speaking his mind and voting his wallet. They demanded his head and spoke of repercussions. That's what you get when you behave that way. When people are threatened when they speak out, they just wont speak in public, but it doesn't change what they believe. Our society is worse off for silencing their voices.
  - internaut 10y ago
    > What is new is that this sort of environment is taking hold in the US, which is unfortunate. And this forum is as guilty as any other. People lambasted Peter Thiel for speaking his mind and voting his wallet. They demanded his head and spoke of repercussions. Very true unfortunately. That's not all of HN of course. Many of us supported Thiel and his ideas, or else thought it was worth having an opposing voice around even if they disagreed with it. I wrote an essay on Peter Thiel's ideas and (partly about) how the Media misunderstood him here: https://medium.com/@internaut_48577/peter-and-the-wolfe-b8dee6228918 https://medium.com/@internaut_48577/peter-and-the-wolfe-b8de... It was composed from a chain of HN comments before the election went to Trump, so I can credibly state that I saw a media malfunction with reality on the cards. I was watching his press conference from a few days ago at the National Press Club event, and I really did Laugh Out Loud when he said (paraphrasing), "You know, this is pretty much the first time I'm not making a contrarian stance, I mean literally how can I be a contrarian when half the population agree with me, and for this I get the flak? Unbelievable!". Together with the investment in Seasteading, this has been incredibly high impact for comparatively minor sums of money. Thiel has managed managed to make himself the only venture capitalist in Silicon Valley who appeals to the majority of the working class. That is power. He'll be reaping dividends from that for the rest of his life. This is because many serious inventions and innovations were created by the working class, not the middle class as they appear to think today. In fact historically (and I would argue currently too) the middle classes and elites looked down on entrepreneurship. Entreprenurship is seen as being unprofessional. Most engineering was created by working class with the aristocrats holding up the exploration of science. The water mills, the steam engines, these were not created by the kind of people who studied at universities. We no longer understand our own past. This may sound like an attempt at provocation, but I swear it is not. I really do think many of the best innovators and inventors have a working class way of looking at the world. Let us take something that isn't directly in Silicon Valley's ballpark. Tiny Houses. All the non-cosmetic innovations I've seen in Tiny Houses have been created by working class people. The majority of Tiny Houses are created by young aspirational middle class or those who want to retire without worrying. It is especially gratifying to see many young women picking up the hammer to forge something for themselves. I saw one who built a VOC-free house recently and that is impressive if you know anything about building. Despite this, the only major differences between most builds are cosmetic. People really are afraid of being different despite being adventurous enough to live differently to most. There is a finite amount of adventurousness people have and it is easily exhausted. The names in italics are Youtube channels if you wanted to inspect what I'm talking about. Esket Tiny House is built by a carpenter, and he has built a magnificent curved roof when everybody else went with a standard gable roof. If you're perceptive you'll notice that a Tiny House only has 13 ft 6 inches to play with. So logically changing the roof shape would hugely improve the living space in the loft area. Yet they choose not to change it. Tiny House Customs is another working class Joe (framer). He has cleverly hidden the trailer's wheels and tow bars so it doesn't even appear to be a potentially mobile structure. Life in a Box (electrician) has introduced the concept of a rain screen, despite being in Arizona! Everybody's builds (in the more rainy regions) are going to have the siding rot off in five years! This is smart. The Not So Tiny House (power plant operator but definitely working class) has very cleverly hidden his trailer using a faux rock skirt. It now just looks like a regular house on a foundation. It is a rather brilliant solution. The reason why I mention these is because there are very few working class people building Tiny Houses. I think that is a shame. However the thing to notice here, is that when they do build, they build them very differently to the cookie-cutter approach most middle class people do. In retrospect, all their innovations are extremely obvious. That is quite curious. I think this says something pretty profound. There is something about being middle class that could damage your ability to integrate innovations into real life. I realize this is anecdotal but in retrospect I have the feeling I see this pattern everywhere in life. One explanation could be that: once your comfort increases, your comfort 'zone' decreases. I think this could be a powerful explanation for why so few Silicon Valley companies are truly inventive despite being a Mecca for all kinds of talent and enterprise. As Peter Thiel points out: all kinds of clever young minds go to Harvard, and despite that they keep electing to join industries just as bubbles are bursting. That is not an accident, it is culture. tldr; When you think of diversity, maybe think of the working class also. Maybe they have something to add nobody else does.

admstockdale 10y ago

Some of this article is spot on. There is a need in the internet age to educate people on how to consume information. When we had fewer news organizations, information was more controlled. It was done by professionals with years of training. While there's a lot of benefit in providing more voices and more outlets, there's a real danger of spreading misinformation propped up by false equivalences as to what qualifies as a professional news organization. I'm not sure the answer other than education.

partycoder 10y ago

There was an assumption that Bernie voters would go to Clinton, but instead some of them didn't vote or went third party. In swing states, 1% more votes could have made the difference. Florida for instance was very close. In addition, the democratic party acted in a very biased way against Bernie. Superdelegates also didn't care about what candidate was more popular in each state.

DubiousPusher 10y ago

Stop writing narratives out of this. Many of us who are incredulous about this election not because a Republican won but because Donald Trump won. We're shocked that you can mock a war hero, a person with a disability, a sexual assault victim in the public sphere and still get elected. It's not our politics that are shocked it's our sensibilities. Edit: sorry about the original swear.

iamcasen 10y ago
Exactly! Up until this week, presidents had to be... well, presidential. I'm truly astonished that a demographic who is normally very outraged at moral missteps voted this man into office.

CodeGenie 10y ago

Facebook admits it must do more to stop the spread of misinformation on its platform. https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/10/facebook-admits-it-must-do-more-to-stop-the-spread-of-misinformation-on-its-platform/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/10/facebook-admits-it-must-do...

CodeGenie 10y ago

Alex3917 10y ago

The biggest problem with our country isn't the people who voted for Trump, it's the people who are surprised that he won. For what it's worth, here is an email conversation about this that I submitted to HN before the election: https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/e1rtmBSJR16mkcCRlqmWwQ/lifehack-newsfeed-liking https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/e1rtmBSJR16mkcCRlqmWwQ/lifehac...

pmoriarty 10y ago
If you were cynical, you would have predicted that the United States, a country full of racists and bigots, would never elect a black man for President. But they did: twice. There were good reasons to predict that George W Bush, an embarrassing, arrogant, stupid buffoon who got the country in to two disastrous wars and failed to prevent 9/11, who had massive protests against him from all over the country would not get elected for a second term. But he did (arguably with the help of voting fraud, but regardless of how he got there, he still served a second term). Many were surprised when an actor, Ronald Reagan, was elected as President. Another actor was elected Governor of California, and arguably may have become President had he been born in the US. A wrestler became Governor of Minnesota. Most analysts, and even American intelligence agencies, were shocked by the swift downfall of the Soviet Union. In the 1960's, when Segregation was in full swing, many could not imagine that it would ever end. They thought, as the song goes, "That's just the way it is. Some things will never change". But it did end, and in relatively short order. Some argue the US is still not fully desegregated, but in many important ways it is. For my part, when Bush Jr managed to get a second term in office, I stopped trying to predict the political future. So now I'm no longer surprised. Any idiot or asshole can get elected President in the US, and anything, no matter how unlikely, can happen. It reminds me of when the Yippies nominated a pig for President.[1] They did it as a joke, but the US has been headed in that direction ever since. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigasus_%28politics%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigasus_%28politics%29
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- hga 10y ago

DubiousPusher 10y ago

Why is this hard for people to get. "I can't believe it," is a figure of speech not a statement of fact. Most of us are shocked that this could happen not that it did happen.

ptaipale 10y ago
Do you mean that even if Clinton would have won the election, you would still have been shocked? Because even if she did win, Trump could have won, as many pollsters predicted he has a double-digit chance of winning?
- DubiousPusher 10y ago
  Without reservation yes. I have been in a state of shock for months now. The frustration of the reality is what makes it bubble over into visible outpourings. My assumption wasn't that because no one I interacted with on social media was supporting him therefore he can't win. My assumption was that people are too basically decent for him to win. There's a lot of ground between knowing something can happen and being emotionally prepared for it to happen.

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w8rbt 10y ago

I don't use Facebook, but no one I know was surprised by the outcome. Bill Clinton was disbarred, impeached, and he sexually exploited young female interns in the White house and was also accused of sexual crimes by many women. Hillary Clinton defended him in all of these things. The Clinton Foundation is a front (masquerading as a charity) for political favors and payments. The Clintons are political/criminal cronies enriching themselves while impoverishing others. While they claim that average Americans are too 'uneducated' and 'low information' (i.e. stupid) to understand these sophisticated political topics, we all see right through it. Enough is enough. Follow the same rules and laws that we all have to and treat us fairly and we'll vote for you. Abuse us like this and we won't. It's that simple. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_v._Jones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_v._Jones

misterbowfinger 10y ago

We're all definitely in an echo chamber. Hacker News is an echo chamber. So is Reddit, FB, Twitter, etc. This is what happens when, as an industry, we move towards "personalization". All of our "personalized" feeds allow businesses to increase their ad revenue, but it siphons us away from the rest of the world. 30 years ago, we were beholden to the large media outlets, which is also bad, but I believe we've overcorrected. All of our apps are just too personalized and they don't work hard enough to tell us what we should know, as opposed to what we want to know.

ff10 10y ago
There are now a multitude of echo chambers, you could easily argue that each user has his own personalized bubble. What is different from before social and personalized media is that there is (much) less common experience anymore, no dominant common denominator like a major newspaper. What Zuckerberg should point out is that – in a way – this is detrimental to what his alleged aim with FB is: to connect people. I'm not sure where this will lead us to. Since I started using FB more intensively I actually feel more disconnected from people than ever.
ianai 10y ago
It has everything to do with human behavior. It takes energy and induces cognitive load to interact with 'the other' - other people, other view points, etc. So people group up by like interests. Technology just makes it possible to highly concentrate.
- deleted 10y ago
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- dlp211 10y ago
  I agree, but I think this goes beyond technology at this point. I hypothesize that we are self-segregating as a nation into Rural and Urban tribes and this is going to cause a lot of pain for half the country and further erode the trust in our institutions. I think we are on a dark path, not because a Republican won, but because we can't effectively govern by coming together and being nuanced and compromising.

kens 10y ago

The article links to the WSJ "Blue feed, red feed" page, which is very interesting. It shows two different Facebook feeds side-by-side for various topics and makes it clear just how much bias (in either direction) is in the feed. In general I think the Internet has reduced the "filter bubble", but these Facebook feeds, wow, that's a lot more filtering than I would have expected. http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/ http://graphics.wsj.com/blue-feed-red-feed/

Ftuuky 10y ago

"If you liked that, you'll love this." - Adam Curtis on his new documentary Hypernormalisation. I really recommend it. You can also read this: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/goodies_and_baddies.html http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/2011/03/goodies_and_ba...

draw_down 10y ago

No, it just succeeded wildly. A lot of pundits and media types now need to go back and re-examine their thinking, because almost all of them were wrong about everything. Stop listening to them, because they are naive people who think themselves worldly but they don't understand the present moment nor the future. They all need to go. Nicholas Nassim Taleb's Twitter and Medium are excellent reads these days.

paradite 10y ago

Not new at all. I wrote a piece in 2014 on Hong Kong's protest talking about the exact same issue of Facebook: https://paradite.com/2014/11/11/internet-polarized-society/ https://paradite.com/2014/11/11/internet-polarized-society/

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aikah 10y ago

So basically Facebook shows its users content they want to see. How is it a problem? if I have specific centers of interests, I don't want Facebook to show something I'm not interested in. Not because I want to live in an echo chamber BUT because I'dd have to filter content manually which is time consuming. There is nothing wrong with how Facebook works. The goal of Facebook is make money through ads, it's not a charity or a governmental agency (well, that's debatable). My point is Facebook needs to retain users or they'll go somewhere else.

gumby 10y ago

What a screed. Example: > To make matters worse, social media is a poor platform for getting people to understand opposing views. Another Pew study found that only 20 percent of users modified their stance on a social or political issue because of what they saw on social media. ... OK, but did people "modify their stance on a social or political issue" due to newspapers? TV? Or did they just pay attention to things that reinforced their existing biases? There may be a good criticism of FB, but this isn't it. And a scientific study (not sure what that would look like, but whatever) might well show the opposite.

thewhitetulip 10y ago

I find it funny that those who vouched for free speech have been trashing Trump's supporters all this election, too much talk for free speech eh?

gipp 10y ago
I'm not sure what you're talking about? Free speech is about legality of speech; nobody's talked about locking anyone up for supporting a candidate.
- ptaipale 10y ago
  Locking up isn't the only way to punish people. There's actually some talk about e.g. firing someone from his/her job for supporting a candidate. Recently, there was a long discussion chain in HN about how Y Combinator should sever any ties to Peter Thiel because he supported Trump. That Thiel "should be fired". Discrimination at work may also be about free speech. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12733024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12733024
  - iamcasen 10y ago
    Right, and it's not because Trump is a republican. That's what people keep missing. Trump is a man who has openly incited violence against ethnic groups! Called for the deportation of muslims. He's called women fat pigs, and boasts about how he screws people in business. He boasts about avoiding taxes! This isn't GW, or McCaine... Most organizations have a very understandable right to not want to be associated with that. It's called a PR disaster. Somehow Trump is immune, and I will never know how.

ianai 10y ago

I think the cities and the small rural areas need a project to work on together. My suggestion would be infrastructure projects. Hire the people locally and from the city in masses.

helpfulanon 10y ago

A popular uprising against Silicon Valley is coming. Already I hear it from people in my life, all over the country. They blame social media for allowing the Trump memes to warp people's opinion. They're starting to put the pieces together on unemployment and blame tech automation for taking jobs and not offering a replacement, especially in the heartland. They're angry with Silicon Valley execs for not putting up any visible fight against Trump. They're starting to see how clustering all the best paying jobs in major cities leaves people outside of the bubble desperate, seeing desperate solutions. A tidal wave of rage against the election is about to be directed towards the tech industry, it's just a matter of time.

talmand 10y ago
Well, it's not just tech; it's any large corporation that gets coverage. Some people can only hear "we're making the world better" so much when by all appearances they are just making their own world better. I know it's not a fair assumption to make, but look at what gets reported (billion dollar companies that produce nothing with no profits, high level executives greatly rewarded for failure, and so on) versus the unknown companies that actually are trying to make things better with no coverage.
- helpfulanon 10y ago
  Certainly. But this is about information. There are a lot of people who increasingly understand the dynamics of how the information economy affects popular opinion, how it affects the workforce, how it has disrupted work and yet done nothing to solve the problems that came with the consequences of that disruption. And many on the left outside of the valley bubble really thought that a boom in the left-leaning Bay Area meant that there were powerful people there who had their backs in all of this. They feel very hurt that tech seemed to sit on the sidelines through the election, and in some regards pretty much enabled and profited off the mass-dissemination of misinformation. So it's not just about corporate greed this time. It's about information, disruption, workforce automation, and the responsibilities that come from building and wielding powerful information tools.
helpfulanon 10y ago

pascalxus 10y ago

There's plenty of places you can get your news from that are less biased, or not biased at all. No one is forcing you to read news on facebook.

muad 10y ago

Stop using FB, it makes you a worse person. Talk to your neighbors, look up from your phone, and engage people if you want to expand your bubble.