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This looks like a continuation of a long running theme in the media: how awful and terrible and threatening to democracy it is when Google and Facebook suddenly

This looks like a continuation of a long running theme in the media: how awful and terrible and threatening to democracy it is when Google and Facebook suddenly made it easy to be exposed to lots of alternative points of view on the same story. The media have been going after Google News for years with various arguments. Now they're latching on to "Only human editors can ensure your news is not fake". I suspect it'll fail like all the rest unless they can convince governments to regulate, and even then maybe not as Germany and Spain's attempt to control Google News didn't work out. At any rate, Facebook isn't in denial. They're talking about the problem and fixing it, which is probably quite easy to do algorithmically (once you've knocked off the existing sites, simply send sites that appear to be news but which are brand new through manual review). American media still is in denial though. Other than a few articles blaming all their mistakes on polling companies, I haven't seen much self reflection amongst journalists on why their trust numbers are so low, why so many Americans have simply concluded they're hopelessly biased and tuned them out, or why it's tech companies that now control their traffic instead of themselves.

amelius 10y ago
> how awful and terrible and threatening to democracy it is when Google and Facebook suddenly made it easy to be exposed to lots of alternative points of view on the same story You are being sarcastic here but (imho) gossip, fake news, and echo chambers are really threatening democracy. > I haven't seen much self reflection amongst journalists The problem is that journalists are getting caught in a vicious circle. Either they present true news and have little viewers, or present gossip or echo what people want to hear and have lots of viewers.
- zigzigzag 10y ago
  Echo chambers? Would you lump existing media outlets into that bucket? I think if there's one thing that 2016 revealed very clearly it's the extent to which journalists tend to line up behind whatever the political elite groupthink is, regardless of how well it matches what the overall population thinks. The Guardian has become something of a joke paper - on the rare occasions these days that they open the comments the top rated comments are mostly giving them flak over the wildly extreme positions their journalists take.
  - anentropic 10y ago
    you're speaking as someone who takes a wildly extreme position so the mild liberal/left views in The Guardian seem like "wildly extreme" positions to you probably you live in a right-wing social media echo chamber
    - zigzigzag 10y ago
      How would we resolve this dispute? I don't think my views are extreme, nor does opinion polling indicate that they are. I regularly read papers across the political spectrum: The Guardian, the Financial Times, the Economist, the Daily Mail, the Express, the Telegraph, and often stories from the New York Times and the Washington Post (I like news). That seems like a pretty broad reach. I don't think it's an echo chamber. I also use Google News a lot. That throws up a pretty random selection of sources on whatever the topics of the day are. The Guardian regularly runs articles by authors like these: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jessicavalenti https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jessicavalenti https://www.theguardian.com/profile/joris-luyendijk https://www.theguardian.com/profile/joris-luyendijk Example articles: In Brexit Britain, being a foreigner marks me out as evil Why the mediocre male's days may be numbered After Brexit, a game plan for the EU: unleash Project Pain: Nobody wants to be vindictive, but maximum political and economic damage would stop other arsonists. Hey, misogynist killjoys: stop denying that Hillary has made history Why we need to lose biased words like 'mistress' for good and from others there: The far right tell us kindness is weakness. We can’t give in to that: Urging people to be something as squishy as ‘kind’ may seem childish. But compassion is a revolutionary tool that can steer people away from bigotry The US will no longer feel like a haven for Jews under Trump A win for Trump was a win for bigotry. Here’s how we resist him I have no hesitation at all in describing these as extreme views, but these were just a random selection of headlines I pulled from their website in 90 seconds.
      - Chris2048 10y ago
        Look at this mild piece of liberalism: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/09/election-analysis-trump-clinton-terrifying-moment-for-america https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/09/electi... "This is a terrifying moment for America. Hold your loved ones close" of course, this is an "Opinion" piece, that's where Guardian airs it's worst bias, The feminism section if full of them.
- soyiuz 10y ago
  > The problem is that journalists are getting caught in a vicious circle. Either they present true news and have little viewers, or present gossip or echo what people want to hear and have lots of viewers. I think the problem lies in that the assumption that investigative journalism, of the kind that is vital to democracy, must be profitable. But why would that be the case? And if it cannot be profitable, should we not institute good journalism as a matter of public policy? In other words, let's return PBS and NPR to their former funding levels, when they could afford to have actual journalists and newsrooms and operate somewhat independently of the market. How to make people care about the truth is a matter for another discussion (and certainly not a problem in Facebook's charter).
- jazzyk 10y ago
  >You are being sarcastic here but (imho) gossip, fake news, and echo chambers are really threatening democracy. What is threatening democracy is the absence of critical thinking among population (across the political spectrum). But hey, you know, "math is hard"... </s>

amelius 10y ago

> how awful and terrible and threatening to democracy it is when Google and Facebook suddenly made it easy to be exposed to lots of alternative points of view on the same story You are being sarcastic here but (imho) gossip, fake news, and echo chambers are really threatening democracy. > I haven't seen much self reflection amongst journalists The problem is that journalists are getting caught in a vicious circle. Either they present true news and have little viewers, or present gossip or echo what people want to hear and have lots of viewers.

zigzigzag 10y ago
Echo chambers? Would you lump existing media outlets into that bucket? I think if there's one thing that 2016 revealed very clearly it's the extent to which journalists tend to line up behind whatever the political elite groupthink is, regardless of how well it matches what the overall population thinks. The Guardian has become something of a joke paper - on the rare occasions these days that they open the comments the top rated comments are mostly giving them flak over the wildly extreme positions their journalists take.
- anentropic 10y ago
  you're speaking as someone who takes a wildly extreme position so the mild liberal/left views in The Guardian seem like "wildly extreme" positions to you probably you live in a right-wing social media echo chamber
  - zigzigzag 10y ago
    How would we resolve this dispute? I don't think my views are extreme, nor does opinion polling indicate that they are. I regularly read papers across the political spectrum: The Guardian, the Financial Times, the Economist, the Daily Mail, the Express, the Telegraph, and often stories from the New York Times and the Washington Post (I like news). That seems like a pretty broad reach. I don't think it's an echo chamber. I also use Google News a lot. That throws up a pretty random selection of sources on whatever the topics of the day are. The Guardian regularly runs articles by authors like these: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jessicavalenti https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jessicavalenti https://www.theguardian.com/profile/joris-luyendijk https://www.theguardian.com/profile/joris-luyendijk Example articles: In Brexit Britain, being a foreigner marks me out as evil Why the mediocre male's days may be numbered After Brexit, a game plan for the EU: unleash Project Pain: Nobody wants to be vindictive, but maximum political and economic damage would stop other arsonists. Hey, misogynist killjoys: stop denying that Hillary has made history Why we need to lose biased words like 'mistress' for good and from others there: The far right tell us kindness is weakness. We can’t give in to that: Urging people to be something as squishy as ‘kind’ may seem childish. But compassion is a revolutionary tool that can steer people away from bigotry The US will no longer feel like a haven for Jews under Trump A win for Trump was a win for bigotry. Here’s how we resist him I have no hesitation at all in describing these as extreme views, but these were just a random selection of headlines I pulled from their website in 90 seconds.
    - Chris2048 10y ago
      Look at this mild piece of liberalism: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/09/election-analysis-trump-clinton-terrifying-moment-for-america https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/09/electi... "This is a terrifying moment for America. Hold your loved ones close" of course, this is an "Opinion" piece, that's where Guardian airs it's worst bias, The feminism section if full of them.
soyiuz 10y ago
> The problem is that journalists are getting caught in a vicious circle. Either they present true news and have little viewers, or present gossip or echo what people want to hear and have lots of viewers. I think the problem lies in that the assumption that investigative journalism, of the kind that is vital to democracy, must be profitable. But why would that be the case? And if it cannot be profitable, should we not institute good journalism as a matter of public policy? In other words, let's return PBS and NPR to their former funding levels, when they could afford to have actual journalists and newsrooms and operate somewhat independently of the market. How to make people care about the truth is a matter for another discussion (and certainly not a problem in Facebook's charter).
jazzyk 10y ago
>You are being sarcastic here but (imho) gossip, fake news, and echo chambers are really threatening democracy. What is threatening democracy is the absence of critical thinking among population (across the political spectrum). But hey, you know, "math is hard"... </s>