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A Small Group of Journalists Control and Decide What Should Trend On Facebook (gizmodo.com)
An anonymous reader writes: According to five former members of Facebook's trending news team, "news curators" as they're known internally, Zuckerberg and company take a downright dim view of the media industry and its talent. In interviews with Gizmodo, these former curators described grueling work conditions, humiliating treatment, and a secretive, imperious culture in which they were treated as disposable outsiders. After doing a tour in Facebook's news trenches, almost all of them came to believe that they were there not to work, but to serve as training modules for Facebook's algorithm." "We choose what's trending," said one former news curator. From personal experience I can share a similar incident. An Indian outlet extensively wrote about flaws in Facebook's Free Basics. Few days later, "Ban [that outlet's name]" was trending on Facebook. Clicking on it, for the first few hours, literally didn't return any relevant result, as nobody was talking about it, and no media outlet had written about it. It was after more than a day or so after this fabricated item kept trending that some other outlets started to write about it. (That's common in the media industry: writing about trending topics.) In the past, we've also seen Facebook employees ask whether the company should do anything to stop Donald Trump from becoming the president.
So, a bunch of "news curators" (journalists???) take a job with Facebook and fail to understand who and what Facebook is, which is not a purportedly "unbiased" news source or service such as a major newspaper or other news gathering entity, and after discovering what just about everyone with a brain understands about Facebook, they are now but-hurt? As far as âoean Indian outletâ that pissed Facebook off, well, you know? Facebook is a company that can do what they want with their product.
After doing a tour in Facebook's news trenches, almost all of them came to believe that they were there not to work, but to serve as training modules for Facebook's algorithm."
Well, yeah, did they think Facebook would not automate the process? Did they think Facebook would hire a multi-hundred team of âoenews curatorsâ to keep the monster going?
I know this is a little flippant, but GEEEEZE, what kind of weed were the people smoking! Call these "news curators" a WAAAAAAAABULANCE!
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
We'd better be careful as a society about slowly eroding the value of in-depth, not-yet-trending or popular journalism that creates significant public value, but is hard to recognize while it's being done.
The kind of respected journalism that takes time and effort to research and write, where the journalist/researcher/writer don't have the promise of instant reward, and maybe are facing significant personal risk to find the story that takes down an injustice, powerful person, or entrenched interest.
If you don't watch out diligently, the funneling of our popular consciousness through these most-votes-win, popular-for-today, let's-not-offend-anyone, feel-good-only channels will result in us becoming more and more of a stupidity contest where the fastest, easiest, cheap thrills and sugary taste wins and we have no cultural backbone worth respecting at all.
I am not a Trump support and will not be voting for him in any election. However Facebook should stay away from trying to shut him down as the institution.
For one this guy is fueled by hate. So an active attempt to stop him, will just fall under his narrative, sure he will lie if needed, but if there is truth on his side, he will use it to his full advantage.
The problem is silencing such people is only effective for a short time, but their anger will just build up further. It is better to have them out in the public and hopefully get pounced from a strong majority vote, to show that they are not indeed the silent majority, but actually just a vocal minority. The more you can show you are playing by the rules. The more power you have if pointed as unfair.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I don't know that it's even possible for a venue to avoid influencing the discussion. Who you market your "town square" to determines who shows up. How you deal with abusive users matters (and there's always some people who really do need to be kicked out). Whether you focus on small groups of people talking to each other, or whether you hand out microphones; whether there's a stage for people to get up on, and what's the process for letting people onto it, all that stuff can really impact what people hear.
The bigger you are, the more outsiders you'll have who want to do whatever's possible to spread their own messages on your platform, and basically every single policy you make is going to impact who gets heard and who doesn't.
An Indian outlet extensively wrote about flaws in Facebook's Free Basics. Few days later, "Ban [that outlet's name]" was trending on Facebook. Clicking on it, for the first few hours, literally didn't return any relevant result, as nobody was talking about it, and no media outlet had written about it. It was after more than a day or so after this fabricated item kept trending that some other outlets started to write about it.
Emily Kane: Really, Charles. People will think...
Drunk Charles Zuckerberg Kane: ...what I tell them to think!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I am not a Trump support and will not be voting for him in any election. However Facebook should stay away from trying to shut him down as the institution.
For one this guy is fueled by hate.
I'm so tired of this slur. You know who's *really* fueled by hate? Bernie Sanders. His followers' extreme envy of anybody who makes more than minimum wage is true hatred - and you can easily see where it leads with the extreme "protests" that they exhibit.
Do you have ESP?
I dunno man. I'm a Bernie supporter because I make six figures and I'm tired of being the main safety net for my friends and relatives. It's a burden on me that I think the government could organize better and more efficiently with my tax dollars than I could...yeah, call efficient government a joke all you want, but it's time consuming as hell to do it myself, and local organized charities don't serve everyone.
Higher minimum wage means a lot more peace of mind for me personally, even though it won't impact my own wages.
I've got pretty good health insurance, but it's an utter travesty that when friends run into medical trouble, they need to open a GoFundMe to survive.
I am wealthy, I support Bernie. Normally I wouldn't bother to state such an uninteresting combination of 2 facts, or with trying to list the various aspects of objective reality that contradict your ridiculous, uninformed and, well, hateful description of a group of 'others' (gee, where have I heard such rhetoric recently?), but you wrote your argument so poorly that this simple statement seems to QED the whole show, so...thanks for saving me some time I guess?
That will be a lovely sentiment for your Mother's day card on Sunday 'Fuck you, and fuck your cancer. Love, Donald'
Joking aside, it's a lot easier to say "You have a leg infection? Good thing basic medical care is free through my taxes" than "Okay, let's figure out how much that costs and I'll pay it myself, keeping in mind that a doctor will charge you more than they would charge my insurance company in the first place because of negotiated prices".
And both of them are a lot cheaper than "You have a leg infection, and can't pay for it? Well, just wait until it's bad enough that you need to go to the ER, where the hospital will amputate it, pass the much higher cost on to taxpayers or other patients, and remove you from the workforce". That's something I've seen actually happen--and it's one reason why I think I'd still come out ahead by paying higher taxes to help other people out.
Most of everyone's supporters are uninformed reactionaries who get angry pretty easy and are jealous of whatever they don't have. That's just American politics (okay, all politics). It's easy to say "The crazies in my own group are just a vocal minority, but look how many and how loud they are in everyone else's party!"
I live in a society where we have guaranteed medical care for everyone. I am also a relatively high income earner and my effective tax rate doesn't exceed 30%.
A fine way to breed drug resistant bacteria, it's so lovely that you're sharing this excellent way of reducing global life expectancy and promoting a return to the medical outcomes so familiar at the start of the last century.
If you're not a retard, you're doing no more harm than a doctor prescribing the same exact drug.
You've skipped the part where the doctor would determine first that antibiotics are the appropriate response.
Of course, I'm skipping the part where some doctors are retards handing out antibiotics like candy where it wont add any benefit except a small placebo effect and a large contribution to the doctor's profits.
LOL Well, I'm not going to argue your qualifications as that of Libertarian. It's not up to me to decide what you self-identify as. I would like you to take a few minutes to think about this - if you want. Okay?
The root of the word is "liberty." That is not the same as freedom, by the way. I like to explain it like this - and I ask that you keep in mind that I'm not trying to lecture nor am I hoping to change your mind, okay? If you can do that then this can be constructive for both of us and for others who might read it. I am not preaching, I am not asserting that I'm sure I'm correct, I'm simply sharing what I believe.
Liberty, the root of Libertarian (note the capitalization) is important. To put this into easy to understand words:
You are free to kill me. You are not at liberty to do so. If I am trying to kill you, you have a right to kill me.
Sanders is not Chavez. Sanders is akin to the European "Socialist Democrat." Yes, he has some policies that I disagree with. But, he's the closest one to the policies that I do agree with so it's in my interest to vote for him. No, he won't be of great help for me - in fact, he'll make me pay more money (assuming I don't just want to avoid the taxes - that's easier done than most think.)
Keep in mind that he'll have NO support from the Democrats or the Republicans. That's not a bad thing - it means he'll be really limited in what he's able to accomplish.
See, the best thing we can hope for is to give everyone the liberty to maximize their enjoyments of their freedoms. Freedoms are only taken by force, by the way. I'm literally free to shoot you. There's nothing stopping me. There will be consequences but I am free to do so.
Let's see how you take that and we'll see if we can go from here. Keep in mind, I'm not offering or trying to change your views. I'm merely explaining my position. I'm merely justifying, giving the reasoning and logic behind it, the expressed ideals that I have shared. You're free to disagree, agree, or posit your own views. I have no interest in silencing you. I do have a vested interest in ensuring that you're given all the information that I have access to in order to make your own choices. It's good to be able to have varied views.
On thing I will mention is that zealotry is never acceptable - extremism is not going to work. If you're a party to any such things we can simply stop the discourse immediately and save us both some time. To that, I add that Sanders is, by no means, an unrealistic zealot.
If you do get a minute, I'd ask that you take some time to research some of the math involved. One of the primary reasons that I support Sanders is that, in all likelihood, it will end up being less expensive OVERALL after a period of about 5 years. It will, without a doubt, be more expensive at first. It will take a generation to reach full fruition and we need to be able to accept that there's going to be further refinements made as time progresses. I think it's an excellent starting position but not a very good end-point.
What say you, is this a meaningful discussion or is it just idle banter on Slashdot best suited for throwing shit and calling each other names? That is entirely up to you. I'm quite receptive to either. I'm as much a monkey as anyone and slinging poop suits me just fine.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."