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Senate GOP Launches Inquiry Into Facebook's News Curation (gizmodo.com)
Michael Nunez, reporting for Gizmodo: The US Senate Commerce Committee -- which has jurisdiction over media issues, consumer protection issues, and internet communication -- has sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg requesting answers to questions it has on its trending topics section. The letter comes after Gizmodo on Monday reported on allegations by one former news curator, who worked for Facebook as a contractor, that the curation team routinely suppressed or blacklisted topics of interest to conservatives. That report also included allegations from several former curators that they used an "injection tool" to add or bump stories onto the trending module. The letter asks that Facebook "arrange for your staff including employees responsible for trending topics to brief committee staff on this issue." The letter was signed by Chairman for the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Senator John Thune (R) from South Dakota.
It's not like ABC News, Fox News, and all the other major news networks don't do the same thing... Why does it matter if Facebook does it? The news industry in the USA has a reputation of being garbage. Why investigate Facebook for keeping with the low standards of everyone else?
Look out, /. editors; you're next.
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
Seriously, I'd expect this kind of story from China when one of the state news agencies wasn't keeping on side.
The only accusation I can think of is false advertising. If FB promoted its "trending" module as driven by an objective algorithm, then they may be culpable for these false claims.
Other than that — there is just "no there there". Not from a legal standpoint, anyway...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Facebook does not want to be a propaganda arm for the gop?
Oh the horror! Whatever will they do if they cannot spread their lies consistently? Oh, the gnashing of teeth is unbearable, the wailing and rending
But seriously, WHY should any media outlet be expected to spread lies spun from whole cloth and innuendo just because faux news and some bloated yelling man on the radio want them to?
If Facebook is a private non-governmental company what does it matter if they decide to do that to the news feed? No body pays for access to the site, so you get what you pay for. If you feel that you are not getting your fullest daily dose of insane right-wing news you can just go to Fox or Brietbart.
arrests and torture will ensue!
Actually, the news portions of Fox is rated the most fair of any networks - this would be the Bret Bair news casts, etc. This excludes opinion shows such as O'Reilly, Megyn Kelly or Hannity which are incorrectly included as news reporting by many folks who clearly are out to get Fox - mostly because of their envy of the tremendous success of Fox News.
I thought it just a site for clicking on virtual farms and spreading anti-vax me-mee's.
Mark Zuckerberg literally shit himself from laughing so hard after reading the GOP's whiny little demand for attention.
If they are going to act like necessities in our lives, then they clearly need some rules governing their behavior.
I wish the anti-regulation faction of the GOP would understand this.
When will Facebook finally stop blocking free speech?
It's not because it is a private company that has monopolized on the online speech of the technically challenged majority that they have the right to block free speech.
I don't know who said it first, but he was right: Facebook is an enemy of the freedom of internet.
I know dozens of people whose Facebook has recently been banned because they joined the 'challenge' to insult Erdogan to 'fight' (behind their keyboard) for free speech.
For me not a problem, I wished Facebook banned everyone. A self solving solution to the problem that is Facebook. But unfortunately, most people only know Facebook and have no clue how to 'use the internet with their friends' without it. I've had desperate friends on the phone who can no longer access their Facebook which they also need for their hobbies and sometimes even their jobs.
Lest we forget the Democrats are doing the same thing.
http://freebeacon.com/issues/d...
Though all news-sources profess objectivity, we know, they are run by fallible humans, who are bound to act on their own impulses and agendas.
Facebook, however, implied — or, maybe, even explicitly stated — that its "trending" module is driven by an objective computer-algorithm.
These claims appear false now, which may open them to legal charges of false advertising.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The facebook contractors were told to block conservative stories (whatever that means these days) and these GOP Senators are making a big deal out of it - to get votes and continue the myth that the media has a Liberal (whatever that means these days) bias.
And of course there is going to be a big chunk of their constituency that will fall for this complete and utter waste of Senate time.
Idiocracy is a documentary you know.
What incentive does FB have to respond?
Dear Senator John Thune (R) from South Dakota, Chairman for the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation,
Fuck off. We're a corporate not government entity and can do whatever we want with our property. Remember, you Republicans are are suppose to be way into that.
Hugs and Kisses,
Facebook
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
This handy document discusses, in detail, the nature and source of the power of the Congressional Subpoena.
It turns out that Congress has basically unchecked and unlimited power to compel anyone to produce anything they desire to see, provided that the matter is the subject of a prior legislative decree.
https://www.mayerbrown.com/fil...
Why investigate Facebook
Because they realize that Facebook, if it does influence the outcome of elections, can't be controlled as easily as Fox News.
They'll investigate Facebook for bias but not Fox News.
They'll investigate Clinton for operating an email server, but not Rice or Powell, who also operated their own email server.
Man. Republicans act like spoiled brats, and somehow we accept this as part of our political system.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Surely GOP politicians, of all people, will recognize that unlike IRS, Facebook is a PRIVATE CORPORATION which can rate trending topics by whatever criteria it chooses, including Political Correctness. If wingnuts don’t “like” it, they can use some other network, or better yet start their own.
Yes, most news outlets pick and choose what to report on, and all of them have a partisan bent (which is nice to hear you admit since so many on Slashdot claim most news stations are "objective").
However is does seem like there is an important and insidious difference. While news stations choose what they THINK is news, Facebook KNOWS what is news because of links people are sharing and what people are talking about - and knowing what is important to many people, they purposefully exclude any items that are important to lots of conservatives.
On a site that is supposed to represent the curation of your interests and friends, it seems like rather a betrayal to bury something that you and other people like you find important.
I would say the same thing regardless of what was being suppressed. I could see and agree with Facebook injecting at times news it thought was important and should be more widely seen (even if that itself had a partisan bent) but it's quite a lot different to censor the spread of something popular because of ideology.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So what exactly is the issue here? I just don't see any problems. Facebook is a commercial entity that can express itself editorially anyway it sees fit. Users don't pay for the service, corporate sponsors do, and all media is protected from governmental editorial intrusion by the First Amendment of the Bill Of Rights. So as long as they aren't doing the equivalent of yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater, or fomenting armed insurrection against the government, then Congress has no business getting involved with anything Facebook publishes.
Just filtering out the obviously insane stories would make Conservatives angry, and in this case it seems like they're upset that Facebook did them a favor, and didn't document the insane things the far-right extremists say at CPAC.
There's no satisfying Conservatives. They insist on their own "facts" that come from propaganda outlets, and they've been trained to be outraged on command. Even if we gave up all morality and met these lunatics in the middle, allowing them to harm some % of the vulnerable people they hate, they'd just be emboldened and make ever more extreme demands. All you can do with that crowd is to marginalize them, and arrest them when they act on their violent fantasies.
Fox News spews lies morning, noon and night, and no one in Washington raises a peep. Now, this will be become the false scandal of the hour (a new one is needed, as Benghazi is fading, and it looks like the FBI won't deliver the goods on those email servers), so without doubt we'll being hearing about this ad infinitum for months.
Having spent some time watching conservative news I can imagine that this apparent "bias" is just a matter of fact checking. Is it bias to omit articles saying President Obama isn't an American citizen. Nope, it's just fact checking. Yet, there were countless conservative news stories touting this lie. And this isn't the only issue along these lines.
And I despise Republicans. And Democrats.
I comment occasionally so that I can mod others -1 overrated or -1 offtopic.
What they do is not illegal. There is no requirement that Facebook or anyone else present a 'fair and balanced' story. Facebook certainly does a better job than Fox news does.
If I were them, I would simply state "You are asking about legal actions that Facebook considers to be proprietary corporate secrets. We will be happy to comply - after you first publicize Fox and MSNBC's own methodology for presenting stories."
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Do they not have anything better to do? What's wrong, is Bengazi not getting sufficient attention anymore, so now it's time for a new witchhunt?
Fox has been doing far worse for years, why arn't they being investigated?
Many on this thread are missing the point. Facebook is a private company and they are entitled to promote whatever they consider "news". They are no different in that regard from Fox News and CNN and the New York Times. Each of which produces its own version of the news, designed to push whatever political agenda they happen to have. This should be obvious to anyone that watches or reads content from those outlets. The exact same story will get reported in a different way, sometimes slightly different, sometimes completely different. Other stories are simply not reported.
What makes it different for Facebook is that they claim their new stories appear as a result of "trending". Meaning that they are the most talked about, most "liked", most "shared" stories and that there is some fancy algorithm behind it. When it appears that these stories appear in the trending section based solely upon the opinion of a small group of editors at Facebook. Fox and CNN and the NYT make no such claims. It just so happens that conservative stories were suppressed but it would no less evil had it been liberal stories.
The point is that Facebook has lied and mislead its users. Sadly, Facebook has a long history of this. It is one of the reasons that I don't use Facebook. I simply don't trust them. Not with my data and not to deliver an unbiased news feed.
Facebook has stated that their "trending topics" section is an uncurated feed of actual trending topics, of topics about which their customers are reading and commenting; there has never been, to my knowledge, a disclaimer from Facebook that this feed may be curated to exclude conservative points of view, or to include topics that Facebook wishes to become trending.
Customers who had thought they were getting an accurate representation of what on Facebook was actually trending were intentionally misled, which does properly fall under consumer protection (much as if a person bought a herbal supplement that claimed to cure baldness without any disclaimer). They were defrauded.
I don't argue what the proper remedy for this should be, or if there even should be a proper remedy, only that investigating such behavior shouldn't be considered out of bounds, especially considering Congress has already made the decision that the government should be involved in a thing called 'consumer protection'.
Thune is a classic Republican big brother, big government statist at work. No wonder they want a sociopath like Trump to lead America down.
Obviously they would only be concerned with facebook's business once they have already resolved all the other more pressing matters that face our country. It's great to see this new level of productivity from our congress.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Dissent will not be tolerated. If it can be shown that FB does not actively support the current right wing congress and if it does not use it's considerable resources to spread the conservative christian message then it will be assimilated.
Hillary gets a lot of free press - about how awesome she is, about how she did this or that for the good of mankind.
The "free press" Trump gets is pretty much all "look at the insane thing Trump is doing now" or "this new person thinks Trump is Hitler, don't you agree".
How is Trump not the victim still? The only different between Trump and other victims of the press is Trump is skilled in New Judo, turning back attacks to ridicule the attacker. It does not excuse the nature and viciousness of the attacks, even though they are "free" and the end result is more people admiring Trump...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The real problem here is accountability. It appears that there is none, not in the private sector nor public. You started to see some of this in a touch of revolt with exit polls and media outlets being surprised by the intent and whit of the American public and the data they (the public) were communicating. It appeared to me that the public got wise to the tradition of entrance and exit polls and to an extent misled the media! We are at a tipping point with all of this. My fear is that it is irreversible and what we should be trying to protect may in fact already be gone...
Because the GOP is all about keeping Big Government out of the choices of Free Citizens.
If a baker has to make a gay cake, then Facebook has to post conservative news.
Facebook owns Facebook. Facebook gets to decide what's on Facebook. They cannot be held to answer for it by the government. So...we're done here.
Simply let the conservative version of Facebook filter out liberal stories then the free market will sort everything out.
Why does the phrase "go pound sand" jump to mind?
Since this is way more important than filling the seat for the Supreme Court, I say more power to them. " Supreme Court nominations, and you wont believe #13" is just as 'newsy' as anything on Fox, CNN and Facebook. I am sure that click bait has been on all the sites mentioned, as well as all the far left and right. All the sites everywhere massage their trending topics.
Here's the reality. Clinton and Trump are both historically disliked.
How can you be so dense as to conflate results with actions?
Clinton and Trump are, yes, both widely disliked.
But the media is mostly soft on Hillary, and very harsh on Trump. The *reality* is disconnected from what the media attempts to MAKE reality.
Now it is true that thanks to Sanders, there have been some more widely reported negatives about Hillary. But it's still been VERY soft compared to Hillary.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I can't imagine what laws the GOP thinks Facebook has broken. You wonder how anyone could have made Congress even less popular than it was under Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, but somehow Republicans have managed to leverage rank stupidity like this to accomplish that feat.
Will the GOP congress propose that there be equal-time rules for websites? Is there a floor beneath which the GOP will not sink? Stay tuned. The convention is still months away.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Formerly ReaganBook.com:
http://www.freedombook.com/
They're all about free speech, so they're going to operate without the vulgarity and bullying inherent in other social media sites!
That's exactly what the courts do today. Decide the truth of matters. Do you suggest we should eliminate the court system, and leave the decisions of guilt, innocence, and punishment to private entities?
No doubt the courts are quite corrupt, however, there is some ability for oversight. This is considerably less true for private entities.
I, for one, would not mind if a news organization was required to only print factual matter, rather than speculation and opinion. I see no reason that the opinion of a newspaper editor or reporter has any more validity than that of my neighbor, and the circulation of the media ensures that said opinion has considerably more impact, which I consider both unfair and unjustified, and obviously so.
Facts, and nothing but the facts -- that'd be very nice indeed.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Because more and more even supposedly legit news organizations are giving more and more control to the Facebook feed (so they can cut even more staff), thus the baskets being winnowed down to one. Dan Gillmor follows this slow-motion disaster fairly closely.
But more to the point: whether they're named Hearst, McClatchy, Murdoch, or Zuckerburg, billionaires cannot be trusted to tell the truth, the Whole truth, and Nothing but the truth because money.
*and*, *and*, even if they were, they would *still* have editorial control over what stories they choose to run and what not to run regardless--just like all newspapers already have done for decades. Thus the existence of conservative vs liberal news organizations.
Since FB is just a private website--they can post whatever they want even more so--pure fiction if they chose since they have no media license to tell them otherwise. (As if that stops the licensed media from doing so anyways)
Big F*cking Deal. Leave it alone.
... The Fairness Doctrine.
Ever since the Reagan administration stopped enforcing it the idea of equal time for opposing viewpoints has been a joke. Watch the Sunday morning talking head shows; it's one Republican ideologue after another. The only alternative is a whole panel full of right-wing nut jobs shouting down the lone centrist or liberal panelist. Read the OpEd page of pretty much every newspaper in the U.S. It's the same diet of right-wing talking points. Now that the Republicans find themselves on the other side of that situation, it becomes something that requires Congressional hearings. Facebook needs to loudly and publicly remind them of this thing called the First Amendment and tell them to get stuffed.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
They should be investigated too. Are they using their unlimited mod points to -5 troll conservative postings? They want to know.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
and that matter, get rid of all the cruft on the right quarter of the screen. the no-interest-DIE! section of the screen.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I imagine the only argument for government investigation and/or intervention is if Facebook made a false representation by claiming it was accurately reflecting measurable trends when really it was knowingly and deliberately distorting the outcome.
I suspect that Facebook did kind of imply that, and it was a deceptive practice of sorts, but at the same time I think it unlikely that actual law-breaking can be proved.
The US Senate Commerce Committee has jurisdiction over internet communication?? That's sick! How is it possible that we let the government meddle with a kids' hangout? Absolutely insane!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
And users of Facebook will never hear about this story.
"They'll investigate Facebook for bias but not Fox News."
Um, sorry but it's not a full-blown congressional query; they are seeking answers on behalf of constituents who have doubtless been contacting them for answers. This is a common congressional function and the Democrats have done the same thing many times (had staffers gather info on a hot button issue about which capitol hill phones are ringing). Democrats had inquiries into all sorts of businesses and groups when they had the congress. During the first two Obama years, Democrats attacked Fox News frequently, tried to get other networks to help freeze-out Fox, and investigated a Fox anchor for terrorism while putting another on the "no-fly" list. Simple inquiries are fine, even if they are partisan. Let's talk about actual oppression rather than just question asking: Have the Republicans actually used the IRS to deprive wide swaths of left wing groups of their tax exempt status? The Democrats did that (and are still doing it) to the TEA Party. The Democrats at the FCC are always actually proposing rules to gag talk radio or Drudge Report type websites (FAR worse than just asking questions) and Democrat Attorney Generals are currently in court trying to shut down groups that disagree about man-made global warming (FAR worse than just asking questions).
"They'll investigate Clinton for operating an email server, but not Rice or Powell, who also operated their own email server."
You recite dishonest talking points very well. Neither Rice nor Powell operated a private email server and neither did all their GOVERNMENT work through it. Yes, Rice and Powell did what many Americans have done: have a private e-mail account on somebody else's server (like a Gmail account). This is NOT what Hillary did! She had her own server which she hid from congressional inquiries and from lawful FOIA requests, and upon which she stored thousands of pieces of classified information. This part is uncontested. She and her idiots now say "it's classified NOW but was not when she had it on her server" - a scam argument. The INFORMATION is what is classified and is deemed classified at the moment it is created, not when it's assigned some label. As SecState she was briefed on all this before being allowed to see her first classified info and she had to sign a form indicating she was properly trained and understood the rules. NO government documents are ever marked "classified" - which is why she always carefully claims she never passed "anything marked classified" through her server - to mislead morons like you) .
The GOP is the party that promotes hate and intolerance. If Facebook chooses to filter out climate change deniers or unwarranted bathroom patrols, GOOD.
also confuse inquiries, which politicians in both parties do all the time, with legislation.
Nobody has written and passed a law to regulate what news Facebook shows or how it ranks its news. If any Republican tried that, he would face the wrath of Conservatives who are staunchly philosophically opposed to such government mandates of the press. Sadly, you r confusion has some merit given the number of RINOs in congress who campaign as "conservative" but then go to Washington and behave like big government Democrats who have no qualms about meddling with the press (hence the rise of the TEA Party which was a reaction to the Bush43 admin bailouts of banks and auto companies and then to Obama doubling-down on that cronyism).
For actual press and media manipulation, look to Obama who went after Fox News reporter James Rosen as a Terrorist in order to get at his phone records and e-mails to try to squash some leaks. Or you could look at Hillary for blaming her incompetence in Libya on a YouTube video maker and promising to jail him and then the dude amazingly being jailed for a year at a time when prisons in California were overcrowded and actual criminals were being let out. You could also look at the current scandal where Obama's man has explained how easy it is to fool stupid left wing journalists at places like the NYT into lying for Obama.
gigantic multi-billion-dollar companies with market dominance are doing nothing wrong when they mislead their customers and influence national politics in the process? I presume you've never been upset about Citizens United or the influence of money in politics and never been one of those people angered by the idea of corporations, and you would certainly never be upset if a big oil company, or an airline, or a big defense contractor (like maybe Halliburton or Exxon) lied to people, because they are all companies and therefore "free to publish whatever they want"....
Wow.
As a right winger, I'm fine with keeping the government's hands off of the media and answering bad speech with smarter opposing speech, but left wingers usually like to muzzle opposing opinions and are usually more careful to not be so explicit in their contradictory and situational completely subjective "standards". All the anti-Trump right wingers have written lots of miles of ink against him, but it's his left wing opponents who crash his rallies, and try to keep people from being able to see him or hear him. When guest speakers are blocked at universities, it's nearly always a right wing speaker being blocked by leftists. Nearly every American assassin or would-be assassin who was trying to (and sometimes succeeding at) silencing a politician has been a left winger. The so-called "fairness doctrine" was a policy of the left. Government-created and funded TV and Radio (PBS) is a creature of the left. The continual threats by the FCC to limit political speech on the web is from the left (the Democrats on the FCC and FEC committees). Most of the legal precedents that let groups sue corporations for communicating the wrong things or not communicating certain things were driven by the left. Now, suddenly, you are here saying that anything Facebook chooses to say, even if an outright fraud, is perfectly fine because they are a big rich powerful corporation.
Wow.
Most obviously, there is The View and the federally-supported (WTF!) NPR.
There is the TV news; all but Fox are full of liberal nut jobs.
If you think normal newspapers are right-wing, you're miscalibrated. There are a few toward the right (Wall Street Journal for example) but nearly all are liberal.
Pretty much all college media is crazy hard-core liberal. Maybe not Bob Jones or Brigham and Young, but those are exotic exceptions.
I'm a mainstream conservative, and again I'm appalled by the behavior of the GOP. Over the last two years they have sunk to new lows, and I'm surprised at how bad things are getting. There is no reason at all for any congress critters to look into this. Facebook's taste in trending news stories is not a thing. If the users don't like what Facebook offers, they can use different social networking sites.
Since the one guy I refuse to vote for is the only one left standing and the presumptive Republican nominee, I decided to help the libertarian party elect a nominee and I'm seriously considering voting libertarian in the general election. However, I just found out the libertarians didn't make the ballot in the State of Washington, so I don't have the choice to vote for them.
So, the only choices I have are Donnie, Hilary, and Bernie. I hate them all.
Donnie: I'm so awesome! Look at the women I surround myself with. I'll break the law and ignore the constitution just like Obama. Fugeddaboudit.
Hilary: Hi, I'm an angry, vindictive, evil bitch. I'm running for president to take revenge on Bill. I'll humiliate him on international TV just like he humiliated me.
Bernie: That Obama character is a rank amateur. Vote for me. I'll show you how socialism REALLY works!
I think I'm most angry at the nomination and election process. If I lived in Iowa I could have chosen between 14 different presidential candidates. I truly resent the fact that just because I live in the Pacific Northwest, I have no choice at all. I really think it's time for a constitutional amendment: all the states hold their primaries and/or caucuses on the same date, the people choose the nominees by popular vote without party involvement or any system of delegates, and the people elect their presidents by popular vote without any electoral college.
Is it really too much to ask to have the same choices on my national ballot as everyone else?
ONE PERSON, an ex-employee makes a claim (one that Conservatives want to believe anyway) and the entirety of the Right Wing goes apeshit. Meanwhile, these same people ignore the overwhelming majority of scientists who now say that Global Warming is real and that we're the cause of it. Not enough evidence they say. It could all be a hoax they say.
Political bias? They should get everything done to them that Fox News got done to it - political bias in a news organization is always unacceptable. I forgot though... how *did* the Fox News investigation go? Also: I had no idea Facebook was a news organization. This is why I come to Slashdot: the learnin'.
imagine a soft, buttery paw gently pressing down onto a sleeping soldier's face. forever.
No, really, I'm not. I'm just of the opinion that were the system working even close to how it should, that such law would cause any judge above the level of drooling moron to look at it and say "This law is ambiguous. Charges dismissed" rather than "I'll shoot from the hip here and legislate from the bench", which is, IMHO anyway, basically the act of someone trying to destroy the actual basis of law.
Yes. However, the ruling can be "this law does not cover this case because it is unclear. Case dismissed."
No, it really isn't. What it does is infest the legal system with a bunch of crap no legislator ever put on paper, crap coming from someone not elected to a position intended to create legislation.
The only people that consistently benefit from this are the lawyers. That ought to tell you all you need to know, too. The people, in the general sense, are abused by it.
When law is unclear, it ought to be sent back to the legislative body for a do-over. Not have some random judge's "interpretation" stuck to it like gum on your shoe.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.