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Facebook has single-handedly almost ruined news consumption among certain demographics in the US. Your news feed is designed from the ground up with powerful a

by nilkn 10y ago

Facebook has single-handedly almost ruined news consumption among certain demographics in the US. Your news feed is designed from the ground up with powerful artificial intelligence to become an echo chamber, and lots of FB users just don't understand this. They fall for it completely. I have more liberal friends than conservative friends, and my FB feed literally only shows me anti-Trump pieces (along with ads and other spam), some of which are astoundingly blatant in their bias. I have to go out of my way to seek out opinions from or articles shared by my conservative friends. Even if I do this frequently, FB still does not incorporate them into my feed. Instead, every single day, it shows me low-quality clickbait anti-Trump articles shared by someone who lived on the same floor as me in a college dorm 7 years ago with whom I shared one conversation in real-life and whom I've never interacted with on FB in any way aside from approving her friend request.

rdtsc 10y ago
> only shows me anti-Trump pieces (along with ads and other spam), some of which are astoundingly blatant in their bias. That's how radicalization essentially happens. In this case it's self radicalization + Facebook/Google AI bias. Nobody is taking them and placing them in Madrasa with a cleric preaching terrorism and such but it ends up with a similar setup at its core. I've seen what I considered rational, educated people, including college professors go off the deep end with anti-Trump conspiracies, calling for assassinations, the Russian puppet narrative and so on. And from their point of view it kind of makes sense, their news feeds and circle of friends is telling them those things every day. People wonder how does a young end up believing blowing themselves up will lead to virgins in heaven and it seems crazy, but this is not too far from it as well. It's essentially the same process.
- eastWestMath 10y ago
  The Russian puppet narrative isn't exactly a conspiracy theory, several important members of his team have stepped down due to their ties with Russia. And the Russians are behind the hack into the DNC's email servers.
- notahacker 10y ago
  I'm going to go out on a limb and say that people choosing to forward articles that have the temerity to criticise the President of the United States and people murdering civilians in the belief it will grant them eternal life are not the same thing.
shimon_e 10y ago
You can unfollow such friends.
gdulli 10y ago
Do you think Trump has been a good president so far and liberals aren't aware of it because they're shown lies that fit their narrative? Or do you think the media has been gleeful and aggressive in their reporting and targeting of legit bad news about Trump?
- Neliquat 10y ago
  It is clearly a bit of both, and a little of neither. The bias on both sides grew leaps and bounds recently. Both sides are attempting to capitolize on it rather than come together. The issues seem like little more than hills to fight on, rather than families to fight for. I feel like anyone who is not firmly in either camp is derided by both and it undoubtedly stifles discussion and accord.
et-al 10y ago
I had a similar thing happen, but in the opposite direction. Back in September (two months before the election), a random meme of Hillary Clinton popped up on my Instagram Explore feed. It was funny, so I liked it. Immediately after, after one like on a seemingly innocuous meme, I started getting full blown "Hillary is a criminal" memes. Along with that, gun activism, taxation is theft, and that WW3 was going to happen. And I tried to fix this by flagging all the suggested posts as "not relevant to my interests", and even blocking the meme accounts, but Instagram wouldn't get a clue. So for weeks afterwards, my Instagram account was bombarded with pro-Trump memes. All because I thought one joke about Hillary Clinton was funny. With all these automatically curated feeds, there's no space for moderates anymore on the internet.
- Neliquat 10y ago
  Reminds me of that one time I watched a playthrough of an old video game that is now obscure. 3 years later, torrents of wannabe pewdiepies are all that is suggested to me. The related videos are now mostly useless even. Autocuration is cancer.
pmyteh 10y ago
This is something some colleagues in my research team (Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, part of the University of Oxford) are studying. The evidence doesn't seem to show an effect: while there's definitely partisan selective exposure as a result of Facebook's algorithm, our longitudinal audience data suggests that before Facebook people mostly only read or watched a single news source. So even the attenuated diversity you get through a selective feed still seems to result in wider incidental exposure than the pre-social media world. No paper to link, as the research is still ongoing. I understand they look like pretty robust results, though - it's certainly changed the way we look at things.
- Tanegashima 10y ago
  Facebook doesn't show up posts based on the source. They do it at individual levels. So even if you read the "Unbiased Times", you can get a biased selection of articles because of the algorithm.
  - pmyteh 10y ago
    Quite true. Analogous things happen in print, though: people often read only the sections of papers which interest them (and, at the extreme, consciously skip those op-ed columnists which raise their blood pressure).
    - Tanegashima 10y ago
      Exactly, and even if they read, they will reject it and forget it. However, in the old days, you could get away with fake news, and today, you can get away with fake news (even break the law, because it's the internet, and you can write in English and have .com or .us domain in whichever country you want), and it's even lucrative to do so!
- thenomad 10y ago
  That is fascinating to hear, and thank you for posting it on Hacker News. (Also rather reassuring, and interesting in terms of narrowing down the causes of the hyper-partisan trends that seem to be developing in politics.) Please do post the paper on HN when it comes out!
gavinpc 10y ago
Just stop using Facebook. You complain about your experience of it and claim (quite correctly) that it > has single-handedly almost ruined news consumption among certain demographics in the US but you just keep using it. What would it take to make you stop? I don't mean to single you out --- I'm just reaching a breaking point here. I usually hold my tongue, to avoid sounding "holier than thou." I stopped using Facebook about six or seven years ago when I stopped liking it. I don't miss it at all. On the contrary: as a non-user, I hate it more than ever. It is an out-of-control addiction causing real problems for society, and people know they hate it but can't stop). My sister --- who never used it in the first place --- sometimes says that she feels like Wesley in that episode of Star Trek TNG where everyone was addicted to that holographic puzzle game, and he had to pretend that he was into it in the hopes of delaying his assimilation. I feel that way more and more, especially on a thread like this where there is so much "concern" about Facebook from its very users, even among "our HN-reading, privacy-interested, technically-competent bubble" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14177389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14177389).

by nilkn 10y ago

rdtsc 10y ago

> only shows me anti-Trump pieces (along with ads and other spam), some of which are astoundingly blatant in their bias. That's how radicalization essentially happens. In this case it's self radicalization + Facebook/Google AI bias. Nobody is taking them and placing them in Madrasa with a cleric preaching terrorism and such but it ends up with a similar setup at its core. I've seen what I considered rational, educated people, including college professors go off the deep end with anti-Trump conspiracies, calling for assassinations, the Russian puppet narrative and so on. And from their point of view it kind of makes sense, their news feeds and circle of friends is telling them those things every day. People wonder how does a young end up believing blowing themselves up will lead to virgins in heaven and it seems crazy, but this is not too far from it as well. It's essentially the same process.

eastWestMath 10y ago
The Russian puppet narrative isn't exactly a conspiracy theory, several important members of his team have stepped down due to their ties with Russia. And the Russians are behind the hack into the DNC's email servers.
notahacker 10y ago
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that people choosing to forward articles that have the temerity to criticise the President of the United States and people murdering civilians in the belief it will grant them eternal life are not the same thing.

shimon_e 10y ago

You can unfollow such friends.

gdulli 10y ago

Do you think Trump has been a good president so far and liberals aren't aware of it because they're shown lies that fit their narrative? Or do you think the media has been gleeful and aggressive in their reporting and targeting of legit bad news about Trump?

Neliquat 10y ago
It is clearly a bit of both, and a little of neither. The bias on both sides grew leaps and bounds recently. Both sides are attempting to capitolize on it rather than come together. The issues seem like little more than hills to fight on, rather than families to fight for. I feel like anyone who is not firmly in either camp is derided by both and it undoubtedly stifles discussion and accord.

et-al 10y ago

I had a similar thing happen, but in the opposite direction. Back in September (two months before the election), a random meme of Hillary Clinton popped up on my Instagram Explore feed. It was funny, so I liked it. Immediately after, after one like on a seemingly innocuous meme, I started getting full blown "Hillary is a criminal" memes. Along with that, gun activism, taxation is theft, and that WW3 was going to happen. And I tried to fix this by flagging all the suggested posts as "not relevant to my interests", and even blocking the meme accounts, but Instagram wouldn't get a clue. So for weeks afterwards, my Instagram account was bombarded with pro-Trump memes. All because I thought one joke about Hillary Clinton was funny. With all these automatically curated feeds, there's no space for moderates anymore on the internet.

Neliquat 10y ago
Reminds me of that one time I watched a playthrough of an old video game that is now obscure. 3 years later, torrents of wannabe pewdiepies are all that is suggested to me. The related videos are now mostly useless even. Autocuration is cancer.

pmyteh 10y ago

This is something some colleagues in my research team (Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, part of the University of Oxford) are studying. The evidence doesn't seem to show an effect: while there's definitely partisan selective exposure as a result of Facebook's algorithm, our longitudinal audience data suggests that before Facebook people mostly only read or watched a single news source. So even the attenuated diversity you get through a selective feed still seems to result in wider incidental exposure than the pre-social media world. No paper to link, as the research is still ongoing. I understand they look like pretty robust results, though - it's certainly changed the way we look at things.

Tanegashima 10y ago
Facebook doesn't show up posts based on the source. They do it at individual levels. So even if you read the "Unbiased Times", you can get a biased selection of articles because of the algorithm.
- pmyteh 10y ago
  Quite true. Analogous things happen in print, though: people often read only the sections of papers which interest them (and, at the extreme, consciously skip those op-ed columnists which raise their blood pressure).
  - Tanegashima 10y ago
    Exactly, and even if they read, they will reject it and forget it. However, in the old days, you could get away with fake news, and today, you can get away with fake news (even break the law, because it's the internet, and you can write in English and have .com or .us domain in whichever country you want), and it's even lucrative to do so!
thenomad 10y ago
That is fascinating to hear, and thank you for posting it on Hacker News. (Also rather reassuring, and interesting in terms of narrowing down the causes of the hyper-partisan trends that seem to be developing in politics.) Please do post the paper on HN when it comes out!

gavinpc 10y ago

Just stop using Facebook. You complain about your experience of it and claim (quite correctly) that it > has single-handedly almost ruined news consumption among certain demographics in the US but you just keep using it. What would it take to make you stop? I don't mean to single you out --- I'm just reaching a breaking point here. I usually hold my tongue, to avoid sounding "holier than thou." I stopped using Facebook about six or seven years ago when I stopped liking it. I don't miss it at all. On the contrary: as a non-user, I hate it more than ever. It is an out-of-control addiction causing real problems for society, and people know they hate it but can't stop). My sister --- who never used it in the first place --- sometimes says that she feels like Wesley in that episode of Star Trek TNG where everyone was addicted to that holographic puzzle game, and he had to pretend that he was into it in the hopes of delaying his assimilation. I feel that way more and more, especially on a thread like this where there is so much "concern" about Facebook from its very users, even among "our HN-reading, privacy-interested, technically-competent bubble" (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14177389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14177389).