6 ms·

Manipulating the News Feed to show users pro-Facebook articles is...so obviously and blatantly unethical that I'm surprised so many people were willing to autho

Manipulating the News Feed to show users pro-Facebook articles is...so obviously and blatantly unethical that I'm surprised so many people were willing to authorize it.

muchtolearn 5y ago
It certainly feels like a hail Mary attempt to save their image, especially given the recent media barrage. Anecdotally at least, it feels like most of my friends who used the platform 5 years ago are no longer active on it.
fallingknife 5y ago
The traditional media is FB's competition, though. Why should a company be obligated to host links to negative publicity paid for by a competitor? I assume you don't think that the NYT should be required to print anti NYT articles written by FB, right?
- saurik 5y ago
  The comment you responded to said "unethical"; there are many things that are unethical that are not illegal (though I am not claiming this should not be, as Facebook is supposedly providing a communications platform here... but it doesn't matter if it should or shouldn't be: ethics is not law).
  - fallingknife 5y ago
    You are right. But I don't think it's unethical either. Just like I don't think it's unethical that the NYT doesn't run anti NYT articles written by FB. edit: When it comes to censoring content by political opinion, then I'm more towards the unethical side, but I think it's a step to far to expect any company to allow it's platform to be used to spread attack pieces against itself.
    - kelnos 5y ago
      The NYT and FB are two different kinds of entities, and I don't think you can judge similar (hypothetical) actions that either one might take. The NYT is a news outlet. They publish what they believe is newsworthy, interpreted with whatever biases they might have. They don't just take random things that other people have published (or want to publish) and publish them. FB is a social media site. They don't "publish" things; they provide a platform for their users to share things that interest them (and a platform for advertisers, but that's not really relevant here). If a user shares something that praises FB and another user shares something critical of FB (let's assume for the moment that both the praise and criticism are accurate, to preempt the "misinformation" argument), it is absolutely unethical for FB to over-promote the praise and bury the criticism. That's pretty much the textbook definition of unethical.
- ggggtez 5y ago
  The point is that Facebook publicly claims it's not a media company. They do that to avoid government oversight. Once they are revealed to be acting like a media company, it's a house of cards. Regulation presumably would follow.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  Facebook doesn't present itself as a media company to its users though. It presents itself as a social platform allowing people to communicate, and the expectation from the user is that you will see content that is popular and/or being shared by your friends without any editorial control/oversight such as downranking "inconvenient" truths. It's also not done transparently, it would be one thing if FB turned around and outright said "this is inconvenient to our business, so we won't allow you to post it", but in this case they silently downrank the content behind the scenes.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  > you don't think that the NYT should be required to print anti NYT articles written by FB Facebook isn't journalism; it's not comparable. The NYT does publish results of internal investigations into flaws, as do many other businesses, including much of the IT industry (all those open after action reports, for example). Openness and transparency are necessary antidotes to concentrated power.
enumjorge 5y ago
As someone who works at a not-small tech company, I try to practice the whole "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones". After all, most tech companies exhibit some behavior that is objectionable. But Facebook... I honestly don't know how their employees are comfortable working there.
- redonkulus 5y ago
  Easy ... money
- josephg 5y ago
  > I honestly don't know how their employees are comfortable working there. Probably most of the people who don’t feel comfortable with facebook’s role in society have already selected themselves out of the employee pool. If you’re the sort of engineer Facebook wants to hire, and you have a strong sense of ethics, there’s no shortage of well paid work you could do instead. The people who end up at FB are the people who don’t see a problem or don’t care.
  - gorwell 5y ago
    This is why resumes with recent FB history should be thrown in the trash.
    - coolspot 5y ago
      By the same logic, should people with criminal history also not be considered for any jobs?
      - fortuna86 5y ago
        People with with criminal histories show remorse.
        fortuna86 5y ago
        Everyone I know that has taken a big bag of money from FB is still in denial about what they've done to the world.
usernomdeguerre 5y ago
and don't forget shelving their own comissioned reports that didn't fall in line with the pro-facebook narrative: "Mr. Schultz argued that Facebook should publish its own information about the site’s most popular content rather than supply access to tools like CrowdTangle, two people said. So in June, the company compiled a report on Facebook’s most-viewed posts for the first three months of 2021. ... A day before the report’s publication, Mr. Schultz was part of a group that voted to shelve the document, according to the emails."
- fallingknife 5y ago
  But what company out there releases internal reports that would not show it in a good light? Have you ever worked at a company that just airs out its dirty laundry like that? This is an unreasonable expectation that is applied to no other company.
  - adrianh 5y ago
    Given the reach and usage patterns of Facebook, the expectation is indeed reasonable.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - _jal 5y ago
    Many companies have earned varying degrees of trust. Behavior like this continues to demonstrate why FB is not one of them. They're craven and untrustworthy from the top down. They have been since they started, and continue to prove it nearly every single month.
  - wolverine876 5y ago
    I don't agree with the factual claim: As examples, IT industry businesses publish their flaws and internal investigations into them all the time, about massive security failures, for example. If a plane crashes, they manufacturer and the airline are expected to be very open. Facebook has great power over our communities, and thus we have very high expectations. The parent's 'expectation' that businesses (or individuals) only act in their own immediate interests, and not in the interests of their communities, is an odd contemporary idea that humanity's worst instincts are the 'true' and necessary ones, while humanity has many instincts, good and bad, and it's our free will to choose. It also ignores even 'enlightened self interest': Our society is falling apart, and social media plays a major role; you don't sh-t where you eat.
ahahahahah 5y ago
What does that have to do with anything? That's not what's described in the article. It's "an informational unit clearly marked as coming from Facebook". It's similar to the units that facebook has for vaccine information or voting information.
- jasonhansel 5y ago
  There's a big difference between providing information to help the public and providing disinformation to increase profits.
autokad 5y ago
not saying its right, but all the tech companies do it. Blind for instance will remove a post within minutes if you create a post saying 'blind is censoring our posts', as they did with me. Surprised I didn't get banned but maybe that's coming.
- lupire 5y ago
  YouTube doesn't censor anti-Google sentiment. I don't think Twitter censors anti-Twitter sentiment.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    Do you have evidence to back that up? I wouldn't be surprised at all if either of those things happen regularly.
throwaway10673 5y ago
The NYT reporter posted on Twitter clarifying that the news feed isn’t being manipulated: https://twitter.com/rmac18/status/1440457311298883588 https://twitter.com/rmac18/status/1440457311298883588
- kordlessagain 5y ago
  Link or not, they did not use the term "manipulated".
- wolverine876 5y ago
  Why create a throwaway account to post this? Their use is limited under HN guidelines.
- thesausageking 5y ago
  Why are you using a throwaway to mischaracterize what the reporter wrote? He literally wrote: "So to be clear: Project Amplify, in this iteration, does not involve any algorithm changes to news feed (which we don't say in the story). But it still involves Facebook pushing pro-FB content into News Feeds in a pre-determined fashion to boost its reputation." The feed ranking wasn't change, but the News feed is being manipulated by adding pro-FB content to it and he stands behind what he wrote. The article never said the News feed algorithm was changed.
  - fortuna86 5y ago
    Right, so why would "altering the news feed" matter? They don't need to alter it to add their pro-FB content, they just do it. Talk about trying to confuse on a technicality.
mc32 5y ago
Out of all the unethical things they do, you think their being biased for themselves is so bad that you wonder how they authorized it? Spying on users, UX dark patterns, engagement tactics, monopolistic practices, all sorts of other abuses, but you wanna call them on this? They have a lot worse things they do that I'd call them over.

Manipulating the News Feed to show users pro-Facebook articles is...so obviously and blatantly unethical that I'm surprised so many people were willing to authorize it.

muchtolearn 5y ago

It certainly feels like a hail Mary attempt to save their image, especially given the recent media barrage. Anecdotally at least, it feels like most of my friends who used the platform 5 years ago are no longer active on it.

fallingknife 5y ago

The traditional media is FB's competition, though. Why should a company be obligated to host links to negative publicity paid for by a competitor? I assume you don't think that the NYT should be required to print anti NYT articles written by FB, right?

saurik 5y ago
The comment you responded to said "unethical"; there are many things that are unethical that are not illegal (though I am not claiming this should not be, as Facebook is supposedly providing a communications platform here... but it doesn't matter if it should or shouldn't be: ethics is not law).
- fallingknife 5y ago
  You are right. But I don't think it's unethical either. Just like I don't think it's unethical that the NYT doesn't run anti NYT articles written by FB. edit: When it comes to censoring content by political opinion, then I'm more towards the unethical side, but I think it's a step to far to expect any company to allow it's platform to be used to spread attack pieces against itself.
  - kelnos 5y ago
    The NYT and FB are two different kinds of entities, and I don't think you can judge similar (hypothetical) actions that either one might take. The NYT is a news outlet. They publish what they believe is newsworthy, interpreted with whatever biases they might have. They don't just take random things that other people have published (or want to publish) and publish them. FB is a social media site. They don't "publish" things; they provide a platform for their users to share things that interest them (and a platform for advertisers, but that's not really relevant here). If a user shares something that praises FB and another user shares something critical of FB (let's assume for the moment that both the praise and criticism are accurate, to preempt the "misinformation" argument), it is absolutely unethical for FB to over-promote the praise and bury the criticism. That's pretty much the textbook definition of unethical.
ggggtez 5y ago
The point is that Facebook publicly claims it's not a media company. They do that to avoid government oversight. Once they are revealed to be acting like a media company, it's a house of cards. Regulation presumably would follow.
Nextgrid 5y ago
Facebook doesn't present itself as a media company to its users though. It presents itself as a social platform allowing people to communicate, and the expectation from the user is that you will see content that is popular and/or being shared by your friends without any editorial control/oversight such as downranking "inconvenient" truths. It's also not done transparently, it would be one thing if FB turned around and outright said "this is inconvenient to our business, so we won't allow you to post it", but in this case they silently downrank the content behind the scenes.
wolverine876 5y ago
> you don't think that the NYT should be required to print anti NYT articles written by FB Facebook isn't journalism; it's not comparable. The NYT does publish results of internal investigations into flaws, as do many other businesses, including much of the IT industry (all those open after action reports, for example). Openness and transparency are necessary antidotes to concentrated power.

enumjorge 5y ago

As someone who works at a not-small tech company, I try to practice the whole "people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones". After all, most tech companies exhibit some behavior that is objectionable. But Facebook... I honestly don't know how their employees are comfortable working there.

redonkulus 5y ago
Easy ... money
josephg 5y ago
> I honestly don't know how their employees are comfortable working there. Probably most of the people who don’t feel comfortable with facebook’s role in society have already selected themselves out of the employee pool. If you’re the sort of engineer Facebook wants to hire, and you have a strong sense of ethics, there’s no shortage of well paid work you could do instead. The people who end up at FB are the people who don’t see a problem or don’t care.
- gorwell 5y ago
  This is why resumes with recent FB history should be thrown in the trash.
  - coolspot 5y ago
    By the same logic, should people with criminal history also not be considered for any jobs?
    - fortuna86 5y ago
      People with with criminal histories show remorse.
      - fortuna86 5y ago
        Everyone I know that has taken a big bag of money from FB is still in denial about what they've done to the world.

usernomdeguerre 5y ago

and don't forget shelving their own comissioned reports that didn't fall in line with the pro-facebook narrative: "Mr. Schultz argued that Facebook should publish its own information about the site’s most popular content rather than supply access to tools like CrowdTangle, two people said. So in June, the company compiled a report on Facebook’s most-viewed posts for the first three months of 2021. ... A day before the report’s publication, Mr. Schultz was part of a group that voted to shelve the document, according to the emails."

fallingknife 5y ago
But what company out there releases internal reports that would not show it in a good light? Have you ever worked at a company that just airs out its dirty laundry like that? This is an unreasonable expectation that is applied to no other company.
- adrianh 5y ago
  Given the reach and usage patterns of Facebook, the expectation is indeed reasonable.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- _jal 5y ago
  Many companies have earned varying degrees of trust. Behavior like this continues to demonstrate why FB is not one of them. They're craven and untrustworthy from the top down. They have been since they started, and continue to prove it nearly every single month.
- wolverine876 5y ago
  I don't agree with the factual claim: As examples, IT industry businesses publish their flaws and internal investigations into them all the time, about massive security failures, for example. If a plane crashes, they manufacturer and the airline are expected to be very open. Facebook has great power over our communities, and thus we have very high expectations. The parent's 'expectation' that businesses (or individuals) only act in their own immediate interests, and not in the interests of their communities, is an odd contemporary idea that humanity's worst instincts are the 'true' and necessary ones, while humanity has many instincts, good and bad, and it's our free will to choose. It also ignores even 'enlightened self interest': Our society is falling apart, and social media plays a major role; you don't sh-t where you eat.

ahahahahah 5y ago

What does that have to do with anything? That's not what's described in the article. It's "an informational unit clearly marked as coming from Facebook". It's similar to the units that facebook has for vaccine information or voting information.

jasonhansel 5y ago
There's a big difference between providing information to help the public and providing disinformation to increase profits.

autokad 5y ago

not saying its right, but all the tech companies do it. Blind for instance will remove a post within minutes if you create a post saying 'blind is censoring our posts', as they did with me. Surprised I didn't get banned but maybe that's coming.

lupire 5y ago
YouTube doesn't censor anti-Google sentiment. I don't think Twitter censors anti-Twitter sentiment.
- kelnos 5y ago
  Do you have evidence to back that up? I wouldn't be surprised at all if either of those things happen regularly.

throwaway10673 5y ago

The NYT reporter posted on Twitter clarifying that the news feed isn’t being manipulated: https://twitter.com/rmac18/status/1440457311298883588 https://twitter.com/rmac18/status/1440457311298883588

kordlessagain 5y ago
Link or not, they did not use the term "manipulated".
wolverine876 5y ago
Why create a throwaway account to post this? Their use is limited under HN guidelines.
thesausageking 5y ago
Why are you using a throwaway to mischaracterize what the reporter wrote? He literally wrote: "So to be clear: Project Amplify, in this iteration, does not involve any algorithm changes to news feed (which we don't say in the story). But it still involves Facebook pushing pro-FB content into News Feeds in a pre-determined fashion to boost its reputation." The feed ranking wasn't change, but the News feed is being manipulated by adding pro-FB content to it and he stands behind what he wrote. The article never said the News feed algorithm was changed.
- fortuna86 5y ago
  Right, so why would "altering the news feed" matter? They don't need to alter it to add their pro-FB content, they just do it. Talk about trying to confuse on a technicality.

mc32 5y ago

Out of all the unethical things they do, you think their being biased for themselves is so bad that you wonder how they authorized it? Spying on users, UX dark patterns, engagement tactics, monopolistic practices, all sorts of other abuses, but you wanna call them on this? They have a lot worse things they do that I'd call them over.