4 ms·

And yet conservative media dominates Facebook: https://twitter.com/facebookstop10?s=21 https://twitter.com/facebookstop10?s=21

by wilde 6y ago

blmsjw 6y ago
What does that have to do with facebooks policy?
- untog 6y ago
  It's evidence that their policy is not to suppress conservatives, because conservative content is very obviously flourishing on their network.
  - blmsjw 6y ago
    Or it’s evidence that facebook does indeed have the potential to disrupt the distribution of information to conservatives because their platform is more or less a monopoly. You should always imagine how you would feel if your views were being censored. Free debate is a cornerstone to America
    - pwinnski 6y ago
      I'm sorry, that's not how evidence works. The initial claim was that Facebook is currently acting to suppress one political view. This claim is false, based on that political view being the dominant view on Facebook. You can say that despite that, we should all be concerned about Facebook's power to suppress political views, and I would definitely agree. First they came for the trade unionist, and so on. But saying that despite the evidence disproving the first point, we should still be concerned is very, very, very different from saying, no, this evidence against the first point is actually evidence of something completely the opposite of that. That's not how evidence works. Please, don't say nonsensical things that run counter to how reason or facts work. Thanks.
      - insickness 6y ago
        Are you playing stupid or do you really have no idea how both of these claims can be true at the same time: - Facebook is currently acting to suppress conservatives political views. - Conservative political views are the most dominant on Facebook.
        untog 6y ago
        But only one of those assertions is actually backed up by evidence.
        pwinnski 6y ago
        There is no evidence to support your first claim, and some evidence that it is incorrect, but okay, let's hypothetically assume it's true. That still doesn't make the comment to which I responded make any sense. - A - Evidence of Not-A - "Or it’s evidence of A!" No, there is no way whatever that it is evidence of the opposite of what it is evidence of. Just re-starting the assertion without any supporting evidence, and worse, pretending that evidence against is somehow evidence for based on restating the assertion again, it's not a good faith statement.
        insickness 6y ago
        We're not even talking about evidence here. I'm saying this claim is false: > The initial claim was that Facebook is currently acting to suppress one political view. This claim is false, based on that political view being the dominant view on Facebook. I'm saying that both can be true at the same time, independently of each other. Try this example: - Quadrant 8 of the city has the most incidents of graffiti - The police spend the most time preventing graffiti in Quadrant 8 of the city Both of those could be true independently of each other. Neither proves the other true or false. One could surmise that the reason police spend so much time preventing graffiti in that part of the city is because it has the highest rate of incidents of graffiti, just like maybe Facebook censors so many conservative news stories because they are so prevalent, but that is not necessarily the case.
rbecker 6y ago
A top 10 list is not an good measure, because it's vulnerable to something like "splitting the vote". E.g. how Muhammad is the most popular baby name in the UK, despite Arabs not dominating UK society: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/muhammed-really-most-popular-baby-name-uk-mohammed-muhammad-9895605.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/muhammed-rea...
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  It's not an ideal measure, but do you have a better one in mind? It's gotta be at least a bit better than trading our individual guesses.
  - rbecker 6y ago
    It's more than just not ideal - it measures the wrong thing entirely. Yet finding a better measurement is difficult. This 2015 survey claims conservatives are less likely to share their unpopular views on Facebook [1], and this 2020 report claims Facebook News leans left-center [2]. But neither measure the traffic of conservative vs. liberal news stories on Facebook, so it's risky to draw any conclusions on that. On the other hand, they ban white nationalism entirely [3]. I'm not sure it counts as conservative today, but it was official US policy until 1965. [1] https://civicscience.com/is-facebook-changing-the-political-landscape-forever/ https://civicscience.com/is-facebook-changing-the-political-... [2] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/facebook-news/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/facebook-news/ [3] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/27/facebook-white-nationalism-hate-speech-ban https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/27/facebook-...

And yet conservative media dominates Facebook: https://twitter.com/facebookstop10?s=21 https://twitter.com/facebookstop10?s=21

by wilde 6y ago

And yet conservative media dominates Facebook: https://twitter.com/facebookstop10?s=21 https://twitter.com/facebookstop10?s=21

blmsjw 6y ago

What does that have to do with facebooks policy?

untog 6y ago
It's evidence that their policy is not to suppress conservatives, because conservative content is very obviously flourishing on their network.
- blmsjw 6y ago
  Or it’s evidence that facebook does indeed have the potential to disrupt the distribution of information to conservatives because their platform is more or less a monopoly. You should always imagine how you would feel if your views were being censored. Free debate is a cornerstone to America
  - pwinnski 6y ago
    I'm sorry, that's not how evidence works. The initial claim was that Facebook is currently acting to suppress one political view. This claim is false, based on that political view being the dominant view on Facebook. You can say that despite that, we should all be concerned about Facebook's power to suppress political views, and I would definitely agree. First they came for the trade unionist, and so on. But saying that despite the evidence disproving the first point, we should still be concerned is very, very, very different from saying, no, this evidence against the first point is actually evidence of something completely the opposite of that. That's not how evidence works. Please, don't say nonsensical things that run counter to how reason or facts work. Thanks.
    - insickness 6y ago
      Are you playing stupid or do you really have no idea how both of these claims can be true at the same time: - Facebook is currently acting to suppress conservatives political views. - Conservative political views are the most dominant on Facebook.
      - untog 6y ago
        But only one of those assertions is actually backed up by evidence.
      - pwinnski 6y ago
        There is no evidence to support your first claim, and some evidence that it is incorrect, but okay, let's hypothetically assume it's true. That still doesn't make the comment to which I responded make any sense. - A - Evidence of Not-A - "Or it’s evidence of A!" No, there is no way whatever that it is evidence of the opposite of what it is evidence of. Just re-starting the assertion without any supporting evidence, and worse, pretending that evidence against is somehow evidence for based on restating the assertion again, it's not a good faith statement.
        insickness 6y ago
        We're not even talking about evidence here. I'm saying this claim is false: > The initial claim was that Facebook is currently acting to suppress one political view. This claim is false, based on that political view being the dominant view on Facebook. I'm saying that both can be true at the same time, independently of each other. Try this example: - Quadrant 8 of the city has the most incidents of graffiti - The police spend the most time preventing graffiti in Quadrant 8 of the city Both of those could be true independently of each other. Neither proves the other true or false. One could surmise that the reason police spend so much time preventing graffiti in that part of the city is because it has the highest rate of incidents of graffiti, just like maybe Facebook censors so many conservative news stories because they are so prevalent, but that is not necessarily the case.

rbecker 6y ago

A top 10 list is not an good measure, because it's vulnerable to something like "splitting the vote". E.g. how Muhammad is the most popular baby name in the UK, despite Arabs not dominating UK society: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/muhammed-really-most-popular-baby-name-uk-mohammed-muhammad-9895605.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/muhammed-rea...

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
It's not an ideal measure, but do you have a better one in mind? It's gotta be at least a bit better than trading our individual guesses.
- rbecker 6y ago
  It's more than just not ideal - it measures the wrong thing entirely. Yet finding a better measurement is difficult. This 2015 survey claims conservatives are less likely to share their unpopular views on Facebook [1], and this 2020 report claims Facebook News leans left-center [2]. But neither measure the traffic of conservative vs. liberal news stories on Facebook, so it's risky to draw any conclusions on that. On the other hand, they ban white nationalism entirely [3]. I'm not sure it counts as conservative today, but it was official US policy until 1965. [1] https://civicscience.com/is-facebook-changing-the-political-landscape-forever/ https://civicscience.com/is-facebook-changing-the-political-... [2] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/facebook-news/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/facebook-news/ [3] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/27/facebook-white-nationalism-hate-speech-ban https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/mar/27/facebook-...