Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Senate GOP Launches Inquiry Into Facebook's News Curation (gizmodo.com)

Posted by msmash on from the drawing-the-line dept.

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.

9 of 357 comments (clear)

  1. So what? by PublicSchill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:So what? by pak9rabid · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Well, if Facebook is smart, they'll bring this up and drag the rest of the fuckers through the mud with them.

    2. Re:So what? by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Because it made the headlines that Facebook may have a policy to suppress conservative views as a company strategy. The confirms the Republican narrative that only their views are being censored by the mainstream media, giving politicians the opportunity to play the victim game. Never mind all the free press given to Donald Trump during this election cycle.

    3. Re:So what? by Mycroft-X · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Because if something is being presented as being strictly based on popular interest, but is actually based on private interests, then that is misleading consumers. The other "news" organizations haven't been accused of advertising one methodology for presenting stories but actually using another.

      It would be like a polling organization saying it took a random phone survey of 1,000 likely voters to get its results, but then was caught manipulating their definition of the term "likely" to distort their resulting data. They generally like to leave the distortion to the data interpreters, not bake it into the data itself.

    4. Re:So what? by ausekilis · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Why investigate Facebook for keeping with the low standards of everyone else?

      Because millions of people don't sign into the websites of those news agencies each day to be fed the agenda of those organizations.

      Advertising works. The message being sent to millions of people worldwide is curated by a handful of people under one organization that isn't the gov't. This is them saying "Bullshit! that's our job!"

    5. Re:So what? by Spy+Handler · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Because it's well understood that the stories reported by Fox News and NBC News are whatever Fox and NBC deem newsworthy. They don't pretend that the stories they've picked are "Trending" or "Shared" amongst regular users.

      Basically they're being dishonest. If Facebook wants to push its political viewpoint then they should just come right out and say so. Don't pretend it's all done by an algorithm based on only popularity.

    6. Re:So what? by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Even if it's true though, it isn't corruption. It's not illegal for a company to decide what to post on their own website, or to manually adjust their algorithms in real time. I'm sure facebook would do that at a minimum to prevent embarassing topics from hitting the top, like openly racist columns or conspiracy theories.

  2. False advertising? by mi · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why does it matter if Facebook does it?

    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.
  3. Are you serious? by ilsaloving · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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?