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Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News (gizmodo.com)
Michael Nunez, reporting for Gizmodo: Facebook workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network's influential "trending" news section, according to a former journalist who worked on the project. This individual says that workers prevented stories about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, even though they were organically trending among the site's users. In other words, Facebook's news section operates like a traditional newsroom, reflecting the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation. Imposing human editorial values onto the lists of topics an algorithm spits out is by no means a bad thing -- but it is in stark contrast to the company's claims that the trending module simply lists "topics that have recently become popular on Facebook." The revelation comes amid a report on the same publication which claimed that a small group of journalists controlled and decided what should trend on Facebook. Also recently, a leaked screenshot revealed Facebook employees asking whether they should do something to prevent Donald Trump from becoming the president.
res ipsa loquitur
Conservatives at least claim to be for smaller government, which could be a direct threat to Facebook, since they are a CIA operation after all...
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
The GOP is not Conservative at all. They like to spend as much as the Democrats do. People need to find a better label for the Republicrats.
Conservatism is suppressed because it is a threat to the dominant paradigm. If it cannot be suppressed, terms are re-defined so that they exclude meanings which could be conservative. Most people go along with this, because actual conservative reasoning -- not the watered down liberal hybrid presented by characters such as disguised Zodiac Killer Ted Cruz -- does not flatter the human ego. It requires instead recognition of the smallness of the self, and this offends most people.
Of course, it would be easy to "blame the victim" here and say that, since at least the more libertarian and/or corporatist conservatives see nothing wrong with unregulated near-monopolies then they deserve whatever suppression of their ideology they get....
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
When Zuckerberg is running the show and agrees with your lefty political positions, all of the sudden Corporations have rights and should be allowed to run the elections as long as they support the "correct" positions.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Ummm, actually it's the left-wing "news curators" who are being the Fascists here...
My politics usually fall on the liberal side, but this is really disgusts me.
"Trending News"?
Really? More like FB propaganda.
The sad thing are the millions who get their "news" from FB.
FB has the monopoly, and it using it well.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Right because today's "safe space", "rape-culture", anti free-speech, socialist youth aren't anything to worry about?
The wealthy are always going to be a bunch of pricks. But nothing scares the bujeezus out of me more than the monolithic intolerance coming out of youth movements today.
We should all be deeply concerned by it. Historically speaking, that's where the real danger is. And it starts *exactly like this* every time.
I don't have a problem with them doing it. I DO have a problem with them lying about doing it.
We get enough lies and deceit from conservative sources as it is. It's basically par for the course, at this point. I have much higher expectation from supposedly left-leaning organizations.
Exactly.
Censorship is censorship. And one should note that FB is censoring news that's rising organically.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
the short lived conservative "alternative" to Facebook called "Reaganbook"? (I believe they're rebranded it as FreedomBook...)
All conservatives, all the time. Except, of course, they got trolled immediately, because they forgot to lock off screen names of "Ronald Reagan", "Ayn Rand" and so forth, not to mention zombie variants thereof.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
So does google. Every day all the time. No one is surprised.
Honestly, we're past this. Facebook et al. provide the romper room world view preferred by the low information crowd and and the rest of us found suitable alternatives long ago.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
And another liberal demonstrates that it's just a short road from liberalism to fascism. No ideas allowed that don't resonate in the echo chamber.
Uh... that "true fascist" just took issue with the anti free-speech movements on college campuses.
Do you know what a fascist is?
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Soon they'll be banning anything written by a man!
Hey, that would be discriminatory against feminists with body dysmorphia who have been converted into men!
Cause a conservative would never advocate for censorship when it served their purposes, would they?
Blocking opposing views is wrong.
If they are lies or dangerous, make sure you have a proper rebuttal ready but just don't block it.
Crazy Liberal Views are just as bad and dangerous. And if you stop and listen to even the Crazy views you find that both sides are feeling that there is some force that is disempowering them. The Conservatives thinks it is the government who are making laws that hinders our freedoms. The Liberals thinks it is the company's who combine low pay with expensive products that prevents us to get ahead.
Both sides see that there are people with power to control us and get the feeling the games is stacked against them.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Could be.
Typically left-leaning people will notice more if left-leaning stories are rejected/suppressed and right-leaning people will notice more if right-leaning stories are rejected/suppressed. That's human nature: we naturally "protect our turf"; a tribal-like instinct.
Without some kind of objective statistical analysis, it's hard to know if there is really an aggregate bias, or if the complainers here are (perhaps subconsciously) cherry-picking rejection incidents. And, objective measurements of politics are hard to come by because classification of a topic or story tends to reflect ones viewpoint also.
Table-ized A.I.
Ack.. this interface blows. Sorry AC ... wrong thread.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Right! You should only hear about news we allow you to hear about Comrade!
So, I guess you've completely forgotten about the "Free Speech Zones" under Bush the Younger? Or how the Tea Party labels some politicians as RINOs? Ideas that fall outside of some mythical Republican ideal are ignored too. Doesn't make the Democratic/liberal side of things any less acceptable, but let's not pretend for a second that Republicans aren't pulling the same shit.
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
When Zuckerberg is running the show and disagrees with your righty political positions, all of the sudden corporations can be called out for their censorship despite the fact that the First Amendment only applies to the federal government and everyone else is free to do what they want.
Imagine that: Hypocrisy works both ways.
Everything is biased. An impartial news source does not exist, nor does an impartial news aggregator.
If you aren't interested in the service Facebook provides, or don't like it (for whatever reason), don't use it.
You mean mocking adversaries (calling someone a Rino) is the same thing as censorship to you?
Free Speech zones is a little more complicated. People going to an abortion clinic should not have to walk through a gauntlet of people shouting murderer at them, just as people going to a Trump speech shouldn't have to go through a gauntlet of people yelling racist at them. How do we draw the line between competing rights on public property? It's not cut and dried and and it certainly is not censorship. (Unless there is more to free speech zones than I'm aware of).
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Zuckerberg is a leftist. He openly supports the Democrats. Now i don't have a problem with that but here's the problem: I think that a lot of people that get their news from Facebook truly believe it is unfiltered and crowd-sourced. If this allegation is true then it shows us that Facebook is no better or no worse than all the other news agencies.
Everyone - be it Fox News or the NY Times, or CNN - is selling an agenda. They choose the news they report and all of them put their own political spin on it to advance that agenda. The line between hard news and political commentary is blurred and has been for some time. I believe that the only way to get the real story is to view it from both a right wing and a left wing perspective. The truth usually lies somewhere in the middle.
Nothing that Facebook does surprises me in the least. It's one of the reasons I don't use it. I don't trust them. Not with my personal information and not with news feeds either.
And it starts *exactly like this* every time.
What is "it"? "Danger"? Danger comes from monolithic intolerance coming from youth movements? Really? Do you have any historical examples to back this up?
I don't respond to AC's.
This one wouldn't.
Stop projecting.
"His name was James Damore."
It's not censorship. Facebook is not restricting freedom of speech nor are they preventing anyone, anywhere from publishing content of any type in any manner of their choosing.
Facebook provides a service. Part of that service is providing you content THEY want to deliver. Don't like the content Facebook delivers? Don't use Facebook.
Is it censorship that Facebook doesn't provide me with my daily BBW jerk off material? Did Facebook shut down the BBW porn site I visit? Did the government, using force of law, manipulate hinder or block any of the stories provided by Facebook, or prevent me from obtaining BBW jerk of material on the internet or printed media?
Yes. While they have a right to present the information in any manner they want, to censor some while saying all they do is present the trending topics is duplicitous. A larger issue, however, is doing that prevents people from being both sides of the argument and perhaps think critically abut their positions instead of getting tehi news from an echo chamber. I would imagine conservatives would tend to ignore the trending sections since it has nothing of interest to them and those avoid seeing the liberal items trending and those following trending get a false sense of what is important to FB users since one viewpoint is omitted.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Or to put it another way, Facebook is a company that had its axe to grind, and no legal reason to do anything against its own best interests. Nobody bitches when they remove naked pictures, pictures of decapitated reporters/workers, etc.. You have a problem because it targets your political agenda which is 100% fine. That's the power of consumerism. If you don't like the product, get a different one.
If you want to argue that Facebook shouldn't legally be allowed to influence a news filter bubble, that's also 100% completely fine, but this is against the company's free speech (to do what it likes to communicate with their audience) and to restrict it is to also stifle free speech.
Bye!
If so then, regardless of this case, you really have nobody to blame but yourself.
Seriously, FaceBook is not sending out reporters and makes no claim to be "fair" in its reporting.
They're a private corporation, I guess part of their function could be media amalgamation but AFAIK, there are no claims to being unbiased or presenting all viewpoints.
What if they said they were sick of the Kardashians and felt people saw enough of them already and decided to downplay news reports they were featured in? What about the KKK? I'm sure there are many mainstream media sites that ignore their press releases and articles written about them. Should there be an outrage over these cases?
Mimetics Inc. Twitter
it is discovered there are people who give a rat's ass about what it trending and, even more impressively, think that Facebook is a news platform.
morcego
What I'm saying is that both parties play the "I don't want to hear things outside my bubble." They ignore news articles, or research papers, or whatever. Look at how many conservative politicians pretend that climate changes is a complete myth and we should ignore any possible consequences.
The difference is, there isn't a social media outlet that is broadly conservative on the level of Facebook. A group tried to create one called ReaganBook (now known as FreedomBook, I believe), but they got trolled pretty hard.
Again, both sides shut themselves off from ideas and viewpoints they don't want to see. Is it a shock that Facebook did the same? No, not really. But if your only news source is Facebook, that's a problem to begin with. (For the record, I routinely check HuffPo, CNN, USA Today, and several other news sites.)
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
No surprise. Since Zurkerberg has been working with the German government to censor Facebook posts there: http://louderwithcrowder.com/facebook-has-begun-censoring-germany/
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Did they suppress news about Bernie Sanders? Because he was ignored wholesale by the media.
Sanders won nearly every poll, and yet the media claims Hillary won, even when the poll on their own pages show Sanders winning by a mile.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
So, think what you want about this BUT. Facebook is a social networking app, not a news network. When Bill O'Reilly criticized Jon Stewart for reporting with a liberal bias, Stewart responded appropriately with the fact that he is a comedian, not a news anchor.
Is it ethical or "right" for Facebook to sensor things? That may be an argument to have, but for anyone to expect them to be unbiased is unrealistic. Probably the most unethical thing here is their lack of transparency about it.
Everyone outraged would be better served to have this discussion about news networks or someplace that's supposed to actually be unbiased.
You need news sources that actually pride themselves in their accuracy and thoroughness. Also The Economist is pretty good too.
A worthwhile org run by liberal lawyers highlighting the anti-free-speech youth movements and their scholastic enablers.
https://www.thefire.org/
It's not censorship. Facebook is not restricting freedom of speech nor are they preventing anyone, anywhere from publishing content of any type in any manner of their choosing.
Facebook provides a service.
If that is your position, then surely you'd at least expect them to clearly state the filtering policy, right? Isn't it somewhat unethical in your mind to act like they are simply presenting results on some objective basis? People don't expect the bias, so its deceptive. A simple disclaimer "we promote liberal content and suppress conservative content". That would be good, right?
I wasn't projecting, and you don't exempt the entirety of the conservative world.
If I understand you correctly, you are claiming that the "real danger" comes from the "socialist" left wing of politics. You curiously attached the adjective "historically", even though, in the history of democracy, not one single time has any established democracy ever been replaced by a repressive Soviet-style stalinist regime. Not. Once. Ever. The closest you get is when the USSR invaded the baltic states early in WW2, but that's more like a country-to-country invasion that would have happened no matter what the regime in Russia was.
As observed by Eric Hobsbawn in The Age of Extremes, real dangers to any established democracy have always, without exception come from the right wing of politics: fascism in Italy, nazism in Germany, Franco in Spain, Austro-fascism, Vichy France, various dictatorships in South America, the colonels' regime in Greece, Salazar in Portugal, the Shah in Persia, Suharto in Indonesia.
And the way dictatorships start is not by censoring news in a private media outlet, however despicable the practice may be; it is by instilling fear in the populace, identifying an enemy (real or imagined), and convincing the masses that they have to give up their rights and trust a heroic leader to gain security and maintain prosperity. Sounds like anyone you know?
Victims of 9/11: <3000. Traffic in the US: >30,000/y
I don't see any right-wing-run social media kicking anyone off because they like marijuana, but a few months ago, Facebook kicked off hundreds of gun groups for vague reasons and banned the admins for 72 hours.
It put Mewe on the map though...
IF FB decided to do this with anyone mentioning pot or other left frequenting topics, they would be crucified in the press on a daily basis, but spitting on 2A rights is perfectly OK to them.
But that's *SO* conservative!
After all, a private company is simply exercising its free speech rights. And if Conservatives don't like that, they can certainly switch to another social network (MySpace, perhaps?). After all, if we require Facebook to be "neutral" then the next day somebody would try to force FoxNews or Breitbart to provide a fair and balanced account of news.
" the conservative side of the house has a tendency to scream louder than the liberal side"
I think it would be more accurate to say that those on the extremes have a tendency to scream louder, and the conservative side has a higher proportion of extremists. Their opposite faction has extremists too - open communists, perpetually-offended SJWs, that sort of person - but they are much fewer in both number and percentage. Even the feared JSW movement only wields influence among student bodies.
bravo Facebook.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
"Not a crime" doesn't make censorship acceptable. It's not a crime to produce shoddy merchandise or to be a patent troll either.
he is however, good at outing a lot of ignorant simpletons that were somehow able to pretend that they were respectable before he came along.
JournoLists?
And it starts *exactly like this* every time.
What is "it"? "Danger"? Danger comes from monolithic intolerance coming from youth movements? Really? Do you have any historical examples to back this up?
Brownshirts.
Bolsheviks.
Khmer Rouge
You know.
Mass movements resulting in mass murder.
And they're ALL left-wing....
Right because today's "safe space", "rape-culture", anti free-speech, socialist youth aren't anything to worry about?
today doesn't worry me, it's tomorrow's "rape space" and "safe-culture" that have me truly concerned. one can only extrapolate that soon after, we'll have "space rape" and "culture safes". the future... so terrifying.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
This Pew Research poll of last summer shows 63% of FB users get their news there (up from 47% two years ago).
ANYBODY who gets their news from only one source simply doesn't care whether it's true.
And we all know what they say about news without truth, right?
It gets repeated...
"Another former curator agreed that the operation had an aversion to right-wing news sources. “It was absolutely bias. We were doing it subjectively. It just depends on who the curator is and what time of day it is,” said the former curator. “Every once in awhile a Red State or conservative news source would have a story. But we would have to go and find the same story from a more neutral outlet that wasn’t as biased.”"
Ah, so they were censoring sources that were known to be bastions of conservative misinformation. Ah yes, beat the drums.One guy said "THEY WUZ CENSORSING MURICAN PINIONS" and a moderate said "Eh, what we really did was remove sources that we thought were overly biased and replaced with a more neutral source."
Oh my god, my moral barometer is shifting with the moon phases and you can't explain that. I'm just OUTRAGED. Liburaldumcrats are RAPING my ECHO CHAMBER BY NOT SPREADING MISINFORMATION!
FB is a private company. People are not forced to sign up, when signed up they are not forced to spend time. Facebook will use first amendment defense, saying that free speech is speaking freely.
If FB get's singled, why would huffington post, another low IQ and low energy place be any different?
At least on the liberal side there *is* still a road to walk. Conservatives have already arrived. Maybe we will all get there eventually...or maybe this cycle is the wake up call we needed to bring moderation back into fashion.
>>You're just old and confused by people not wanting to give a podium to nakedly racist sexist assholes.
Ageism. Not quite as trendy as "racism" and "sexism," as it's inherently a disease of the fashionably young. But you're an ageist.
>>we don't need to give them a space to talk
Yeah, son, actually you kinda do. And that space is called "everywhere in the U.S." You're just young, and confusing the rights you think you *should* have with the rights outlined in the Constitution that you actually, legally, *do* have.
Hold up a second. Media outlets in the U.S., despite not being an actual part of the government, can censor. And they have. And they do.
When they do it, however, it's not abridging your First Amendment rights.
It's when the government tells you "You can't write an article about this." that it's potentially abridging your First Amendment rights. (I say potentially, because it could involve national security, and that starts getting tricky.)
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
Piling on with another example of "monolithic intolerance coming from youth movements" leading to mass murder for the historically undereducated.
Maoists rooting out capitalists killed millions during China's Cultural Revolution (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution - also covered briefly in pop culture in "The Last Emperor")
Nobody believes your lies.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Actually, that you believe there is a SJW movement to be deplored speaks to the effectiveness of the extremists on the right to concoct a narrative.
I'm sure there are some nutjobs, but c'mon, there's no movement.
I have absolutely no idea why you were moderated "troll". Slashdot is increasingly ridiculous.
It is also a reminder of the necessity of ideological neutral aggregators like Newslookup.com and why they continue to exist.
You seem to have fallen into your own trap here. It's not a complete myth because it's trivially true, climate is always changing. However whether or not you think it's mostly mans' fault and the consequences are going to be catastrophic is up for debate. Except of course it isn't ,reallyup for debate because of the liberal bias both in the media and academia.
There are a lot of people who don't want to hear outside their bubble. But give modern conservatives credit - unlike "safe-zone" progressives they aren't trying to shut down the speech of those who disagree with them.
I've had more substantive conversations as a pro-choice atheist with conservatives than I have with liberals who talk about women having a right to their body (for abortions). But these same women who have the right to terminate a fetus don't have the right to decide whether or not to smoke weed or wear seat belts.
Calling someone a RINO makes sense IF you define what a Republican or Conservative is. Then, when someone takes too many opposing views then RINO may be an appropriate term.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Hypocrite much?
Blocking opposing views is wrong.
It's just one of many political tactics used by every political party or group of supporters.
If they are lies or dangerous, make sure you have a proper rebuttal ready but just don't block it.
That's your prerogative. Groups or media outlets who do block ideas/positions that are contrary to their own won't change to a neutral POV because you or others think they are "wrong". Organize your own outlet, boycott the ones you don't like, but squealing about its unfairness, or that is wrong, is piss-weak and ineffectual.
Crazy Liberal Views are just as bad and dangerous. And if you stop and listen to even the Crazy views you find that both sides are feeling that there is some force that is disempowering them. The Conservatives thinks it is the government who are making laws that hinders our freedoms. The Liberals thinks it is the company's who combine low pay with expensive products that prevents us to get ahead.
Both sides see that there are people with power to control us and get the feeling the games is stacked against them.
And if the "Conservatives" and "Liberals" just whine about it, media outlets will continue to push their preferred positions and agenda. They will distort, lie and dissemble whenever it is in their interest to do so. Out-competing them by taking their clicks, readers and viewers is the only way to effect change, and that requires considerable numbers, money, effort, organization and commitment.
300+ million Americans can squeal in proportion to their outrage, but if they buy and consume what Murdoch, Zuckerberg et al dish up, then they're just background noise. Those you despise will laugh and skip to the bank, and into the halls of power.
The US deserves either Clinton or Trump, Enjoy your shit sandwich!
USB, USB, USB!
I agree that FB censorship isn't a crime. But it *is* misleading to call a list of news stories "Trending" when stories that are *actually* trending are explicitly excluded; and, when stories that have fallen out of interest with FB users (an therefore are *not* trending) are explicitly injected.
It should also be noted that-- regardless of whether or not FB wants to be people's primary news source (which I have a hard time believing)-- the manipulation of the perceived discourse of users is an evil application of peer pressure.
Free Speech zones is a little more complicated. People going to an abortion clinic should not have to walk through a gauntlet of people shouting murderer at them, just as people going to a Trump speech shouldn't have to go through a gauntlet of people yelling racist at them. How do we draw the line between competing rights on public property? It's not cut and dried and and it certainly is not censorship. (Unless there is more to free speech zones than I'm aware of).
Surely in the USA, with the second amendment and right to keep and bear firearms, both sides would be armed and we'd let them sort it out among themselves. Just keep the police away, put up some bullet proof shielding around them and wait until they have settled down.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
No true Scotsman.
They were industry expropriating, banker hating, nanny state socialists with a big old streak of nationalism. Kind of like Chavez.
But having never achieved the workers paradise, they remain 'not socialists', just like all the others.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Your statement would be true if there was another team on the field, but I don't know any TV "news" which is Conservative/Libertarian. I know a few that claim they are, but a self appointed label does not change the ideology they press onto the public.
I know of a couple (2) radio shows, neither are nationally syndicated, who are truly Conservative/Libertarian. They won't be nationally syndicated because of their views. Generally these shows bounce station to station because maintaining a sole station is extremely problematic when you are anti-establishment.
Even the Jon Stewart version of The Daily Show, which everyone claimed disproved the liberal/progressive biased networks, blocked conservative and Libertarian speakers. Now we have the new and improved more progressive version of the show (which I stopped watching because it's just like FOX and MSNBC in peddling propaganda).
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
after all my mommie told me I was special.
Wait a damn minute here. Do you mean to tell me that Facebook is not a politically neutral company run by a centrist or apolitical leader? Are you trying to tell me that Mark Zuckerberg is a left-wing fascist?
Say it isn't so!
except for the tiny little fact that fascism, insofar as it exists on the left-right spectrum at all, falls onto the right wing side.
but then that's because youre conflating and confusing fascism with simple authoritarianism.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Americans tend to get all high and mighty about their First Amendendment fetish. You guys tend to forget that censorship is huge in the US. Facebook and Apple censor all female breasts for example. Yet we now know that female breasts are as biologically sexual as male breasts. Muslims like to censor female hair, just like Americans like to censor female breasts. Showing them on American Facebook can be as political as lifting your veil and showing your hair on Iranian television. Who gets to decide what is political and what not? The most powerful censorship tool of all is the copyright. Because if an American media company sends out a copyright notice, Google, Facebook and Apple will block the content internationally. Censorship requests from Europe (such as the recent "right to be forgotten" legislation passing in European parliaments) will only be applied to visitors from the countries of origin. Thus censorship via American copyright trumps other forms of censorship.
Then there is also censorship of images of the dead, child porn and other things also labled "offensive" in most countries (many more than just naked people, which are not deemed offensive in most of the US). Is an image of a dead Taliban or dead American soldier political? Who cares? You don't get to see it, because it will be censored. So there isn't even a discussion on that. Who does those? Fillipinos. There are legions of Fillipino clickworkers who decide what get's censored and what not on Google, Facebook, Apple and the like. They were chosen, because the Philippines are Christian, thus their value system is deemed close enough to our so that they have an idea what offends us and what not.
In Germany we get offended more by hate speech than by boobs. But I guess Fillipinos don't care.
Getting your panties in a bunch over this piece is laughable. Sorry. Media was always about gate keeping. It is always about censorship. About deciding what to report on. And, perhaps more important, what not to report on. Reporting on a rape by a Mexican immigrant is deciding not to report on hundreds or thousands of other rape cases. Showing a border crossing where refugees are rioting is deciding not show dozens of other border crossings where nothing is happening. Reporting on a murder in one town is deciding not to report on twenty other towns without a murder.
Your First Amendment religion kinds prevents you from seeing that censorship is everywhere. And because of American media dominance, this religion is spreading all over the globe.
The current biggest censor, is the Google algorithm, btw. It decides what to show you on the front page, when you search for something. And it is also one of Google's biggest secrets. By only relying on a handful of major operators to decide what we see and what not, we now trust a very limited number of gate keepers. Of censors. What happens when they don't decide to censor something? Europe's biggest story of 2015 was the refugee crisis. Those refugees organized over Facebook. They found their human trafficers over Facebook. Facebook and the smartphone were the single most influential tools that allowed the scale of the refugee crisis to emerge. Zuckerberg could have stopped or even prevented this from happening at a touch of a button (or a couple of clever algorithms, written by his engineers, or even a couple Fillipino clickworkers). Google can easily disrupt communications on GMail. We have already seen WhatsApp censor messages about rival messengers even after the Facebook takeover.
I am not against censorship. I think SJWs are onto something and I am personally quite offended at the things Trump is saying. And I think a lot of idiots dismiss SJWs, because they don't quite grasp the concept of why exactly we don't use the N-Word anymore.
I just think we should choose the censors more wisely. Those Fillipino clickworkers I mentioned need to be replaced after less than 24 month (most of them quit anyways) because of psychological issues stemming from looking at disturbing images a
The 2 Amendment applies to two concepts (which is under attack by progressives).
1. In forming the social contracts we delegated away many things (including retribution) but we did not delegate away our right to self-defense.
2. An armed citizenry is a check and balance on oppressive government. We all hope that point 2 never comes to play. That would be horrible.
Three boxes of citizenship: “the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box” ~Frederick Douglass
The 2nd A is not there to have people shoot each other because they disagree politically. People were well armed in the 19th C and we did not have political violence. (Although we did have a civil war from 1860-1865). People are still well armed - and we still do not have political violence. Although progressives are being real d!cks with their anti-free-speech movement.
Large tracts of America have the same violence levels as the most peaceful areas of Europe despite the citizenry being well-armed, so guns are not the source of violence.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
Yes. Re-read that first sentence. Progressivism is the dominant paradigm because evolutionarily, it is a winning strategy. We see problems and say "Let's find a way to fix this." When we see problems that seem intractable for one, we build tools to increase our leverage and/or join together to fix them. This is a good thing, as without it, we never would have done anything.
Don't let this be taken as implying that our conservative brethren are evolutionary losers, and that women looking to improve the genetic outcome of offspring might be better off avoiding their "charms" - this being Slashdot, that would be redundant.
That is all.
No, it's a very long road from liberalism to fascism. What we have in the US is not liberalism, it hasn't been for 70 years.
Even if it's not censorship, it's manipulative, dishonest, and unethical.
I'd say that it's bordering on censorship as it's (from the claim) hiding data. It's not government censorship (that we know of) and it's not illegal or anything. It's just sleazy and yes, yes I am pretty hard left. (Albeit for very different reasons than most.)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Liberalism in the US basically means exactly the opposite of what it did 70 years ago. Once you understand that, then it becomes clear how close Liberalism and Fascism are in the US.
Free Speech Zones were a DNC creation. 1988, New York. The Democrats brought those into the world. No, that doesn't make the use of such by any group any better but I think it'd be nice if you were honest about it.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Don't forget straight. Is Ted Cruz one of those white hispanics, like George Zimmerman?
Here's another one attempting to twist that history into a knot. Check Wikipedia. Free Speech Zones were brought into the world by the Democrats in 1988 at the DNC in New York. Don't any of you remember this stuff?
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Every time I notice someone linking to 'em, I donate to 'em. ;-) So, the tab is open. We'll see what the responses are to your post later and that will determine how much I donate this time. Last time, it was ColdFyord who posted it so he got a bunch of responses. We'll see if you get more responses than he. And no, don't let my donating stop you folks from doing so too. I've added them to my yearly list as well so they're on the list with the ACLU, EFF, and the Maine Chapter of the ACLU. (They get to double-dip, I like 'em.)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
It's not censorship. Facebook is not restricting freedom of speech nor are they preventing anyone, anywhere from publishing content of any type in any manner of their choosing.
You seem to be one of those people that is incapable of divorcing the concept of "censorship" from "first amendment violation." Here's a hint: Facebook is censoring stories on their platform. There is a word for that. Whether they have the right to do that (they certainly do, it's their website!) is immaterial to whether or not it is censorship.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
non sequitur /nän sekwdr/
noun a conclusion or statement that does not logically follow from the previous argument or statement.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Enjoy your visit from the Secret Service. Dumb ass. All you're doing is making the new owners dig out an IP address from the database when they come ask for it. And no, no they're not going to make the Secret Service go get a warrant when you say stupid shit like that. It'll amuse me greatly if they don't even take you serious and just come to your house and cock-punch you a half dozen times and then just leave.
Yeah, Trump's got SS protection now. He also has his own security but he's certainly got SS assigned to him. I don't know if it's a criminal act that you've committed but it's gonna get your ass on a list - and you'll complain about being on the list and claim it is an injustice. Really, I hope they just cock-punch you - preferably in public.
And no, no I don't like Trump. It's tempting to vote for him because I also don't like you. Alas, there are good people so I won't do that. I'd vote for Trump if he picked Sanders as his running mate. It would be the most epic political troll of all time and I'd have to participate in that. Still, here's hoping you get cock-punched.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
My observation: this election cycle, the news has pushed for Clinton pretty hard. She's pretty center, and right of it if anything. Very corporate, very pro-war, very pro-PATRIOT act, very pro drugwar, etc.
Sanders was subjected to constant downplay and neg-speak. Everything from the NYT to the Guardian. Sanders is, in my view, actually a fairly liberal candidate.
To find media support of him (not voter support, there's plenty of that), you have to hit places like Salon, Huffington post, etc.
Just saying... I don't see the MSM as liberal. Now Fox News... I don't see them so much as conservative as batshit crazy, but that's just me. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
This has led to lower taxes without corresponding cuts in spending.
"Taxes" is a vague word. Please use the more precise terms "tax rates" and/or "tax revenue."
Your statement gives the impression that tax revenue is lower. No, revenue is at record-high levels. And that makes the size of our ongoing budget deficits all the more depressing; these deficits exist because the insatiable spending outpaces the record-high revenue.
Bush 43 reduced tax rates for all taxpayers, but those reductions had sunset provisions that made them expire at the end of 2010. Interestingly, the Democratic Congress of 2010 thought it unwise to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire during the weak economic recovery, and extended them to 2012 for all taxpayers via the "Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010," which President Obama signed. In 2012, he signed legislation making the Bush tax cuts permanent for anyone making under $400,000 per year. I'm glad a realization of economic reality made Democrats abandon their campaign promises to entirely roll back the Bush tax cuts.
spending = revenue + deficit
Now, just tackle the spending side of the equation, where the problem lies.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Certainly not if he is a genuine conservative. If he isn't, he's by definition a progressive.
You're equating imagining someone might do something with people who actually did it and got caught doing it?
Is it rising organically or is big money being spent to make it appear organic. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell the two apart. In the US conservatives are traditionally richer than their liberal counterparts. Makes me think maybe I should change political affiliations when I put it that way.
I agree, you might not like what they have to say, but they have just as much a right to say it as you do. It feels like the young movements of today, are fighting intolerance with even more intolerance. Back Asswards
and only social issues. So is the rest of the "left wing" media. When it comes to money they keep their damn mouths shut and do what they're told by their corporate masters. Christ, even HuffPo is kinda quiet on money issues. So yeah, for gays and abortion we have a "liberal" media. For anything else that matters (including drug policy and war policy) they're right of center or just plain far right.
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it never starts like this. It always starts with a big economic collapse that takes food from peoples mouths and makes them desperate enough to kill. Everything else comes after that as an excuse for the killing. Food and work shortages have _always_ been the problem.
As for your little spat against Political Correctness (it's really what you're getting at) I'll just leave this here.
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the reason they're not conservative is they're not in favor of maintaining the status quo, which is the definition of "conservative". They support massive society sweeping change, which makes them very much _not_ conservative. I'd be more likely to call them Radical Regressives than anything else.
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The 2nd A is not there to have people shoot each other because they disagree politically. People were well armed in the 19th C and we did not have political violence. (Although we did have a civil war from 1860-1865). People are still well armed - and we still do not have political violence. Although progressives are being real d!cks with their anti-free-speech movement.
Huh, an outside observer could be forgiven for thinking that armed conflict is an essential and respected part of American democracy...
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
Yeah, son, actually you kinda do. And that space is called "everywhere in the U.S." You're just young, and confusing the rights you think you *should* have with the rights outlined in the Constitution that you actually, legally, *do* have.
Let's get this straight: telling you that your hate speech is unwelcome in no way infringes upon your first amendment rights. Conservatives seem to think that they ought to be able to say anything at all, no matter how offensive or misanthropic, without having anybody call them out on it. Freedom of speech doesn't protect you from disagreement, and it doesn't protect you from being publicly lambasted for your opinions - it merely means that you can't be thrown in jail or otherwise silenced by the government.
I didn't say he was a Democrat. I was indicating he is liberal. He's certainly the most liberal of the big three that remain. And I'm pretty sure he's never identified himself as a communist. His label for himself, which I'm inclined to think isn't too far off the mark, is "Democratic Socialist."
Me, I identify as a compassionate constitutionalist. I think we should be following the rules as originally intended by the authors, which I also think is pretty bloody obvious, but I think most of the rules suck. Everyone hates where I stand. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
No, you get this straight, my Precious Little Snowflake: one cannot give offense, one can only take it. So un-bunch your panties and recognize that much of that "hate speech" your holding your hands over your ears to avoid hearing may just be another, considered, point of view.
You are thinking of the 'Red Guards'.
Kids really are gullible and easy to turn fanatic.
Don't forget the 'Hitler Youth'. Every cult of personality uses the kids for their own ends.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Actually, I pay NO attention to the news sidebar, and very, very little to sponsored pages.
But then, I'm a Conservative, raised to question even those I think I agree with.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Ditto.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
On the other hand, when presented with groups about literal neo nazis, white supremicists, hate groups of all kinds they claim those groups don't violate their terms of service.
Same thing for posts which espouse bigoted views. Nope, not a TOS violation. They won't take it down.
As noted by someone above, it goes both ways.
No, you get this straight, my Precious Little Snowflake: one cannot give offense, one can only take it. So un-bunch your panties and recognize that much of that "hate speech" your holding your hands over your ears to avoid hearing may just be another, considered, point of view.
Who has their panties in a bunch here? Because it certainly seems to me that the conservatives who bitch about their right to free speech, when NOBODY IS ACTUALLY RESTRICTING THAT SPEECH, are the really hysterical ones. Your first amendment rights allow you to spew anything you want, no matter how racist, sexist, or backwards it might be. My first amendment rights allow me to call you an idiot and tell everyone else that you aren't worth listening to. So, what you really need to do, is stop insisting that my criticisms of your ideas are an infringement of your rights. You apparently want state protection for hate speech, such that no one is allowed to disagree with you - I'm on the side of free speech, which allows people to respond to racist remarks however they like.
The hypocrisy in your statements is truly staggering. If you are a friend of free speech, you should realize what it means: that short of a very narrow category of things like threats, slander, and libel, people in the U.S. can say anything they damn well please, and other people can respond in kind, and the government can't do anything about it. However, your apparent desire to have racist remarks go unchallenged amounts to a direct request to RESTRICT FREE SPEECH. You are using a misconception about the nature of first amendment rights to destroy the very protections you claim.
So here's what it really means, and what you need to get through your head: you have a right to say whatever the hell you want. And everybody else in the country has a right to ignore you. Wishing it was otherwise just means you are yet another conservative with a made-up persecution complex who takes "freedom" to mean "freedom from things that make me uncomfortable". Which is really just another way of asking to remove freedom from other people.
You're confused. The premise of this whole discussion is about "news curators" deleting perfectly valid "right wing" news stories, and artificially inflating stories about "left wing" topics such as Black Lives Matter, in order to control and spin a narrative in "trending news" feeds that were assumed to be neutral and algorithm-driven. You're the one bringing the notion of "hate speech" into the discussion -- unless you believe the curators regarded wire stories about Mitt Romney and CPAC to be hate speech. (Which, given that the curators are said to be 20-somethings hailing from northeastern Ivy League schools, I guess is not too far of a stretch...)
They were doing it for factual reasons and not political ones.
Just another second banana
Here's the thing though: you don't have a right to unbiased news. In fact, Facebook has no legal obligation to provide unbiased news - and it would be a restriction of Facebook's first amendment rights to legally require that they follow any specific doctrine with respect to the news that they choose to promote (or not). They don't need to be unbiased, and they don't need to disclose bias. So, strangely enough, if you really believe in free speech as a constitutional right you believe in Facebook's ability to censor or promote or distort to their heart's content.
That said, even if it isn't illegal for them to do so, you can certainly argue that it is immoral and bad business to censor content or introduce bias into the news feed without disclosing it or giving the user control. I wish that I had an option to make Facebook simply present content chronologically and do no "curating" whatsoever of updates... but it doesn't appear that's an option. If they continue this, though, and it's a big enough problem, that creates an opportunity for a different social network to gain traction. And hell, start your own, with a conservative bias, or that specifically vows to never censor content (a big part of Slashdot's attraction for many of its users, at least with respect to ACs and uneditable comments).
My point isn't to defend what Facebook is doing, but to say that what Facebook is doing isn't restricting free speech. You don't have a right to have airtime on any media platform of your choice, and that's essentially what the Facebook newsfeed amounts to - it's their tech, and their choice who and what they communicate over their platform. As it should be. IMO it's better to use the free market to address censorship and bias by patronizing unbiased news sources that have integrity in their journalism. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be what the masses are interested in, but that's life.
I agree with everything you just wrote. The only point now is that you are being a little disingenuous when you write that if "it's a big enough problem, that creates an opportunity for a different social network to gain traction." The average Mom&Pop who lives their life on FB doesn't go there for the world news, they go there for pictures of cats and first Communions. An opposing or more balanced news outlet shouldn't have to build an entire social network to reach people in that space. Facebook should at least make it clear that the news stories are curated, and not imply that they are organically trending. If a cola contains cocaine or poison, the bottler is obligated to mention that on the label because the populace has a right to know what they are putting in our bodies. Our *minds* should be given the same consideration.
Laws about disclosing bias are a tricky problem though - how far do you go on requiring that bias be disclosed? Bias is everywhere, and behind every single journal article and every single one of our comments here. Do you require it of all speech, or just speech with the potential for monetary gain? Do you have to disclose bias only if you make money on your content? What about a blogger who only makes a bit of cash on product referrals? What about a bias that you don't know exists (as we certainly both have)? Do you include comic artists, novelists, weather people, and
I think the standard rules are ok for the most part - where there's a clear financial incentive for a journalist (or anyone) to lie, they should disclose it (and typically advertisements are marked as such). I suppose you could require that people disclose their funding sources, but again, how far do you take that? Do you require it of novelists?
I agree with you that on some level we ought to reign in the amount of propaganda and advertising that pollutes minds. The problem is, though, how do you do that without seriously and dangerously restricting first amendment rights? How do you do that without empowering someone (the government, a corporation, etc) to silence dissent? There are some interesting models out there - a look at the advertising restrictions on public radio is a start, and you can consider the BBC for an example of different attempts to provide unbiased press. Removing the profit motive might help in some respects, but the BBC still isn't perfect and shoddy press is still a problem in England.
So, at some level the desire to have this problem go away amounts to the desire for people to stop being assholes. Which would be nice, but will never happen. The best thing I can come up with is that I can point out things like snopes and politifact to call out BS when I see it, and I can hold myself to a high standard of integrity in terms of the things that I will link to or post in internet discussions. We could also hope for better education, and a higher amount of skepticism and critical thinking to be taught to students - but that's not an easy problem either. For sure, though, the one thing you can control is your own integrity and commitment to objectivity - and so I do my honest best to demand evidence even (and especially) for things that I agree with, and to give fair consideration to people with different opinions from my own. That's a start at least.
For Facebook, in the case we have been discussing, it's simple: Stop using the word "trending." The Black Lives Matter stories were *not* trending, as it turns out, but the FB editors thought they should be, so included them. Words mean something. "Trending" means something. When you omit the biggest news stories of the weekend (that CPAC thing), and you prop up stories that few people online are discussing, and call it "trending," you are lying. As far as I'm concerned, if FB just prefaces its news as Twitter does its "Moments," i.e., with no implication that the stories are impartially driven by an algorithm measuring Internet "buzz," I'm fine with it. They can be as left- or right- leaning as they want to be, it's their servers and their business. Just don't put urine in a carton with an Orange Tree on the front, sell it in the juice aisle, and expect me not to get pissed when I discover its... piss.
you are improving your own standard of living at the expense of future generations.
Yes, do you remember a scheme to spend borrowed money proposed by Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2008? He called it "a gift from the future."
Wrong -- future generations would more accurately call it "larceny from the past."
That that is is that that that that is not is not.