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Oh the tiresome conspiracy theory. Right, editors from different media publications are "coordinating." They are actively strategizing and communicating with o

Oh the tiresome conspiracy theory. Right, editors from different media publications are "coordinating." They are actively strategizing and communicating with one another in order to "destroy" one of the most powerful companies in the world. Because there's zero possibility that given involvement of FB in everything from violence in Myanmar, Philippines and Sri Lank to fake political ads in US elections, FB's further encroachment on our lives is an actual topical interest story? Yes "quite strange."

partiallypro 8y ago
Except those had been going on for years, and now all of a sudden, after Facebook changes their algorithm, journalists notice that Facebook has a problem.
- tivert 8y ago
  > Except those had been going on for years, and now all of a sudden, after Facebook changes their algorithm, journalists notice that Facebook has a problem. I think the 2016 presidential election has a lot more to do with the increased scrutiny. It brought both the media's direct attention and motivated many insiders to make public criticisms of Facebook, which fuels coverage.
  - partiallypro 8y ago
    The question also is, had Hillary won, would there have even been much increased scrutiny from that? Or would the story have merely faded away.
    - bogomipz 8y ago
      That's a total strawman but the answer is yes. Even before the "Russia story" broke, the story of Brad Parscale the Digital Director of the Trump Campaign and how FB embedded employees with him was a national news story. It was covered on 60 Minutes: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-embeds-russia-and-the-trump-campaigns-secret-weapon-60-minutes/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-embeds-russia-and-the-... And even before that back in 2012 the Atlantic did a piece on the emerging role of FB in politics entitled: "Did Facebook Give Democrats the Upper Hand?" https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/did-facebook-give-democrats-the-upper-hand/264937/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/did-f...
      - partiallypro 8y ago
        And...the 2012 article doesn't actually put Facebook under a critical microscope like it is today. In fact, at the time it was viewed and covered as political genius. So, you sort of proved my point. Examples: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/magazine/the-obama-campaigns-digital-masterminds-cash-in.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/magazine/the-obama-campai... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-campaign-digital-team https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-campaign... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/14/obama-digital-campaigning-dashboard https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/14/obama-digital-...
        bogomipz 8y ago
        >"And...the 2012 article doesn't actually put Facebook under a critical microscope like it is today." Maybe reread your own comment above where you stated the concern of "increased scrutiny" and not criticality. The link is evidence of of increased media scrutiny. From seven years ago no less. Specifically it discusses FB's emerging place as a political channel. Scrutiny and criticality are orthogonal concepts.
        partiallypro 8y ago
        Scrutiny requires criticality.
drak0n1c 8y ago
There have been repeated cases of journalists from different media publications relying on shared email lists and private "Hacker News" style forums as a starting point for coming up with stories and angles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList Of course such practices don't mean there's some kind of organized conspiracy, but it could plausibly explain why the news cycle is flooded with derivative material and many headlines share the same keywords. Here are a variety of outlets using the same unusual adjective "Dark" in non-editorial news headlines covering the same event: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/21/full-text-donald-trumps-prepared-remarks-accepting-the-republican-nomination/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/21/fu... https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/donald-trumps-dark-dark-convention-speech https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/donald-trumps-da... https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000004545647/trumps-speech-casts-us-in-dark-light.html https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000004545647/tr... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/us/politics/donald-trump-rnc-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/us/politics/donald-trump-... https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/07/22/a_dark_speech_for_a_dark_time_131288.html https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/07/22/a_dark... https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/donald-trump-rnc-speech https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/donald-trump-rnc-spe... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/22/donald-trump-paints-dark-vision-of-america-in-authoritarian-conv/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/22/donald-trump-pai... https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-donald-trump-convention-speech-fact-check-20160721-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/melania-trump-brings-light-touch-dark-opening-night-gop-convention-n612131 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/melania-trump... https://www.thenation.com/article/donald-trumps-angry-dark-speech-caps-off-a-disaster-rnc/ https://www.thenation.com/article/donald-trumps-angry-dark-s... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-gop-convention-speech/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-gop-convention-spe... https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/07/stephen-milller-wrote-donald-trump-s-dark-resentful-speech.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/07/stephen-milller-... https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/07/21/republican-convention-in-dark-speech-donald-trump-pledges-to-restore-order/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/07/21/republican-convention...

partiallypro 8y ago

Except those had been going on for years, and now all of a sudden, after Facebook changes their algorithm, journalists notice that Facebook has a problem.

tivert 8y ago
> Except those had been going on for years, and now all of a sudden, after Facebook changes their algorithm, journalists notice that Facebook has a problem. I think the 2016 presidential election has a lot more to do with the increased scrutiny. It brought both the media's direct attention and motivated many insiders to make public criticisms of Facebook, which fuels coverage.
- partiallypro 8y ago
  The question also is, had Hillary won, would there have even been much increased scrutiny from that? Or would the story have merely faded away.
  - bogomipz 8y ago
    That's a total strawman but the answer is yes. Even before the "Russia story" broke, the story of Brad Parscale the Digital Director of the Trump Campaign and how FB embedded employees with him was a national news story. It was covered on 60 Minutes: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-embeds-russia-and-the-trump-campaigns-secret-weapon-60-minutes/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-embeds-russia-and-the-... And even before that back in 2012 the Atlantic did a piece on the emerging role of FB in politics entitled: "Did Facebook Give Democrats the Upper Hand?" https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/did-facebook-give-democrats-the-upper-hand/264937/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/did-f...
    - partiallypro 8y ago
      And...the 2012 article doesn't actually put Facebook under a critical microscope like it is today. In fact, at the time it was viewed and covered as political genius. So, you sort of proved my point. Examples: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/magazine/the-obama-campaigns-digital-masterminds-cash-in.html https://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/magazine/the-obama-campai... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-campaign-digital-team https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/feb/17/obama-campaign... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/14/obama-digital-campaigning-dashboard https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/14/obama-digital-...
      - bogomipz 8y ago
        >"And...the 2012 article doesn't actually put Facebook under a critical microscope like it is today." Maybe reread your own comment above where you stated the concern of "increased scrutiny" and not criticality. The link is evidence of of increased media scrutiny. From seven years ago no less. Specifically it discusses FB's emerging place as a political channel. Scrutiny and criticality are orthogonal concepts.
        partiallypro 8y ago
        Scrutiny requires criticality.

drak0n1c 8y ago

There have been repeated cases of journalists from different media publications relying on shared email lists and private "Hacker News" style forums as a starting point for coming up with stories and angles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList Of course such practices don't mean there's some kind of organized conspiracy, but it could plausibly explain why the news cycle is flooded with derivative material and many headlines share the same keywords. Here are a variety of outlets using the same unusual adjective "Dark" in non-editorial news headlines covering the same event: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/21/full-text-donald-trumps-prepared-remarks-accepting-the-republican-nomination/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/07/21/fu... https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/donald-trumps-dark-dark-convention-speech https://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/donald-trumps-da... https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000004545647/trumps-speech-casts-us-in-dark-light.html https://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000004545647/tr... https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/us/politics/donald-trump-rnc-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/22/us/politics/donald-trump-... https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/07/22/a_dark_speech_for_a_dark_time_131288.html https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/07/22/a_dark... https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/donald-trump-rnc-speech https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/07/donald-trump-rnc-spe... https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/22/donald-trump-paints-dark-vision-of-america-in-authoritarian-conv/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/22/donald-trump-pai... https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-donald-trump-convention-speech-fact-check-20160721-story.html https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-... https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/melania-trump-brings-light-touch-dark-opening-night-gop-convention-n612131 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/melania-trump... https://www.thenation.com/article/donald-trumps-angry-dark-speech-caps-off-a-disaster-rnc/ https://www.thenation.com/article/donald-trumps-angry-dark-s... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-gop-convention-speech/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-gop-convention-spe... https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/07/stephen-milller-wrote-donald-trump-s-dark-resentful-speech.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2016/07/stephen-milller-... https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/07/21/republican-convention-in-dark-speech-donald-trump-pledges-to-restore-order/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2016/07/21/republican-convention...