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Facebook Is Tweaking Trending Topics To Counter Charges of Bias (recode.net)

Posted by BeauHD on from the nothing-to-see-here dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Facebook has said once again in an open letter to Sen. John Thune, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, that its Trending Topics section is free of any political bias or manipulation. But in response to Gizmodo's report that Facebook employees were suppressing conservative news stories, Facebook is revamping how editors find trending stories. "We could not fully exclude the possibility of isolated improper actions or unintentional bias in the implementation of our guidelines or policies," Facebook general Counsel Colin Stretch wrote. Of course, Facebook is going to train the human editors who work on their trending section; they're also going to abandon several automated tools it used to find and categorize trending news in the past. Recode provides some examples, writing, "[Facebook] will no longer use its "1K list," a group of 1,000 websites it used to help verify headlines." Facebook will also get rid of several top publications, including the New York Times and CNN.

9 of 157 comments (clear)

  1. Biased by mwvdlee · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So in summary, Facebook is going to become biased in order to prevent being labeled as biased.

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    1. Re:Biased by mfearby · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Which is why I don't use Facebook as a source of news. I only use it to keep in touch with people I know, and ignore the rest of whatever else it offers.

    2. Re:Biased by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yup, that's pretty much what everyone uses it for. Check out what your friends are doing/baby pictures/cat pictures, ignore everything else.

      Twitter is where everything is, if you're into Twitter.

      Nobody bothers, or cares about most online publications as a whole, but piecemeal they are still considered primary sources of news, and unlike facebook, Twitter doesn't promote articles, it promotes "trending hashtags" and that is an entirely human driven mechanic. Twitter's platform is also a lot harder to manipulate with sockpuppet accounts.

      Facebook's "verification" is what ultimately harms it, same with google+ and various "real name policies" like that used for HuffPo, CBC.ca and such. All it does it discourage posting on controversial topics and just comment on local news instead.

    3. Re:Biased by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Unfortunately that's not right. The left does actually NOT say "mind your own fucking business". It says "I tell you what fucking business you should mind!" and more important "I also tell you what business you MUST NOT mind".

      And that's where I had to detach myself from being "left". I do not feel that I have the right to tell people what they are allowed to fucking THINK.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:Biased by Karl+Cocknozzle · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't know what "left" you were a part of, but I've never in my life wanted (or intended) to control how anybody thinks. Be as prejudiced as you like! But god so help you if you attempt to act on your prejudice, say by enacting laws to enshrine that prejudice into statutes that we all have to follow. Then I will come down on you like the hammer of Thor.

      So: Think, whatever you want. Be as prejudiced and hateful as you like! But if you choose to act on that, yeah, I've got a huge problem with that.

      Thoughts don't really matter. Actions? They matter.

      --
      Who did what now?
    5. Re:Biased by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm not really a friend of that false "left-right" dichotomy. "You're left? So you're a commie!" No. For the same reason that someone who's right leaning isn't a Fascist.

      What I despise is those "new left", that's about as despicable as the "new right" we had a while ago now, that emerged, which are religiously fanatic do-gooders. PC-bullshit spewing, safe-space needing special snowflakes that come up with solutions trying to find a problem. Who ensure that you can't tell no joke anymore because someone, somewhere could maybe somehow be offended by it.

      "What's the opposite of Christopher Reeves?"
      "Christopher Walken"

      But you can't tell that! That's offensive! To cripples. No, wait, you can't say that word anymore either. They're disabled. No, wait, they're not, they're "differently able" now. Or maybe they are not anymore and we have a new bullshit word now for it, sorry, I don't really waste my time keeping up with bullshit.

      Fuck that. And the PC snowflakes while we're at it.

      That's what I'm talking about. These bullshitters are not about "mind your own buisiness", they are EXACTLY the same ilk as the other religious idiots from the right side of the spectrum trying to dictate what I may or may not say, think or do, not based on some real requirements for coexistence. One take their moral high ground from the whims of their imaginary buddy, one from the imagined "offense" someone MIGHT feel when he's told that reality doesn't conform to his (or her, their, hir or whatever fucked up mangled pronoun is now correct to use so I don't "oppress" someone by assuming his, her, its, whatevershit's gender) whims.

      Fuck them both. Lock them in a room and hand them enough ammo to shoot each other.

      Whoever loses
      We win.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. Time to apply antitrust on FB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    FB has become too big and too powerful, and their arrogance is increasingly as well

    Witness their reply

    ... We could not fully exclude the possibility of isolated improper actions or unintentional bias

    They can go "unintentional" all fucking day long and I still ain't gonna buy their motherfucking lie

    Those fuckers have become so blatantly arrogant it is time to break FB into seperate companies, like what the court did to Standard Oil

  3. Re:FB as news source by Feyshtey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unfortunately it seems an appreciable number of US youth do get their political information from FB, Twitter and other such apps. They get a snarky 200-ish character post about an important issue and act as if they are actually informed. What's worse, they act on it with passion, and charge off to the voting booth or a protest or a boycott.

    --
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  4. Why? by Fuzi719 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    WTF is congress getting involved in what a PRIVATE company is doing? Are they going to investigate Fox News? Or Brietbart? Or Newsmax? So-called "conservatives" can be the most whiny bunch of children in the universe. They spend all their time dictating how people can go to the bathroom or what devices can be shoved up a woman's hoohaa, then whine that the big bad liberals aren't letting them speak.