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Facebook Offers Political Bias Training In Wake Of Trending Controversy (gizmodo.com)

Michael Nunez, reporting for Gizmodo:Facebook is adding political scenarios to its orientation training following concerns, first reported by Gizmodo, that workers were suppressing conservative topics in its Trending news section. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, announced the change during an interview with conservative leader Arthur Brooks, president of the prominent conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute. Brooks also attended a private meeting between Facebook executives and prominent conservative leaders following the controversy. "We had an ex-contractor on that team who accused us of liberal bias," Sandberg said during the interview. "Frankly, it rang true to some people because there is concern that Silicon Valley companies have a liberal bias. We did a thorough investigation, and we didn't find a liberal bias."

19 of 206 comments (clear)

  1. Thorough Investigation by sexconker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    We did a thorough investigation, and we didn't find a liberal bias.

    Biased group looks at self, finds no bias.

    1. Re:Thorough Investigation by Hylandr · · Score: 4, Insightful

      +1

      If anything I have found most tech centers to be thoroughly disgustingly overwhelmingly liberal to the point where you question whether or not these people actually have brains. Don't you dare ask some of these nuts to fact check and follow the money train or they start the ad-hominem attacks and petition to have you fired from your job.

      I am 40+ to there's likely a LOT of 'Get off my Lawn' in there but please, lets get some balance going at least in the political / activist spectrum.

      --
      ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
  2. Why? by slapout · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If they found no bias, why are they adding the training?

    --
    Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
    1. Re:Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      That is old History. Your statement has been wrong since 1983. Even before then those laws only dealt with analog broadcasts on limited spectrum licensed for station usage.

  3. Everyone knows... by SeattleLawGuy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Everyone knows that the truth has a strong bias toward whichever political party we happen to support. Any investigation of bias can also take this into account and therefore show it does not exist. However, it also means we can perceive bias and there can be actual bias where others do not intend to be acting in a biased way.

    Real communication is about getting past talking points and ad hominem attacks, of course. About questioning our own beliefs and those of our fellow human beings, and building compromises that drive society forward. About questioning our own biases and being able to work with those whose biases are different. The best is almost always the enemy of the good, in large part because we will always find much more disagreement over what is best.

    --
    Real lawyers write in C++
    1. Re:Everyone knows... by Tablizer · · Score: 2

      I suspect it's "realistic" for conservatives to accept that 90+% percent of climatologists lie for money because most conservatives themselves do and believe that's normal in the work-place: it's a "salesy" world, after all. That's the only coherent explanation I can find for believing such a huge portion of scientists would flat out lie. You are welcome to offer another explanation.

  4. Re:No liberal bias? by GLMDesigns · · Score: 2

    If you mean that both liberals and conservatives are hypocrites and self-contradictory when it comes to individual rights - you're correct (look at liberals who think they have a right to an abortion (based on the fact that you own your own body) but then pass laws requiring that people wear seat belts. (Hey I thought you owned your own body. You can have an abortion but can't decide whether or not to wear a seat belt while on the way to aborting a fetus? Yeah. Good logic there).

    But if you're noticing that Trump and Bernie have a lot of overlap in their supporters you're correct.

    --
    If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
    Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
  5. Re:In other news... by Woldscum · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...the NRA did a thorough investigation, and didn't find a conservative bias.

    National Rifle Association founded in 1871. Are you referring to the the oldest civil rights group in america?

  6. Re:In other news... by ganjadude · · Score: 4, Insightful

    in other other news the obama DOJ investigated itself and found no wrongdoing

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  7. Facebook users should be the ones trained by QuietLagoon · · Score: 2

    It is the people who look to Facebook for valid news who should be trained. Why in the world could they possibly consider Facebook to be a news outlet for anything more significant than cat videos?

  8. Re:No liberal bias? by William+Baric · · Score: 2

    Do you have any statistics on the number of people who were hurt or killed because of someone else not wearing his or her seatbelt? I think I remember one case in the city where I live in the 70s when a mother was killed by one of her children in the backseat who was not wearing his seatbelt (in the 70s, no one in the backseat were wearing their seatbelt), but other than that, I must admit my ignorance.

    Since you raised the argument, I'm sure you have valid data to support your argument, right?

  9. Re:In other news... by Crashmarik · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Nope.

    LOL if that isn't sad and twisted.

    So the right to defend yourself and to have the means to do so is not a civil right.

    By that reasoning there are no rights.

  10. Re: In other news... by lgw · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The bias doesn't disturb me. It's the intolerance of opposing views.

    As I've always said, if you can't argue the opposing view on any contentious topic, you don't understand the topic and shouldn't hold a strong view. It's so damn easy to attribute the opposing view to malice or trolling, as it takes no effort.

    This always pissed me off growing up, when some on the religious right would claim that gays were only have same-sex sex out of a desire to be evil, not a sincere desire for the same sex. Total lack of understanding. More recently I've seem the exact same ignorance in reverse, where people on the progressive left would claim that the only reason conservatives could oppose gay marriage was hatred of gays, and no other reason was sincere. Same total lack of understanding.

    Intolerance of opposing views comes mostly from ignorance of the rationale for those views, which is simple intellectual laziness. The worst part is, people seem proud of this ignorance.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  11. Re:defining terms like Conservative by tomhath · · Score: 3

    Nah.

    Facebook didn't have a policy of ignoring certain news sources or stories.

    But it did hire people to do the filtering, and most of those people were recent journalism graduates from liberal universities. It shouldn't surprise anyone that the end result was biased reporting, whether that was the stated intent or not.

  12. Re:defining terms like Conservative by ganjadude · · Score: 2

    "reactionary" hmmm???

    kinda like the reactionary attempted assault on the 2nd 4th and 5th amendments by democrats in congress because of a shooting that not a single proposal they want to push would have prevented it from happening???

    --
    have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
  13. Re:In other news... by AtariEric · · Score: 3, Informative

    The NRA will never "return to its roots as a promoter of firearms education and safety" - it is the purchase enforcement arm of the weapon manufacturer industry. What the "liberals" do has nothing to do with their behavior. They will stop at nothing to use guns to take money out of the hands of Americans - the only difference between the weapon industry and muggers is that the industry is willing to give you the whole gun in exchange instead of just the bullets.

    Mind you, this is coming from a gun *owner*, but let's call a flintlock a flintlock, okay?

    --
    Don't trust any concentration of power.
  14. Re:extremist by swb · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not going to defend UKIP, but do you see the irony in labeling them "an extreme neo-Nazi group" in the comment section of an article about political bias?

    I'll grant you they are a far right group with a lot of strong views towards migrants, but from what I can tell, there is no Nazi symbolism on their web site, no call for Jews or other "undesirables" to be exterminated, no stated desire to found a police state dictatorship or any other semblance of recreating the a German-style National Socialist movement.

    So they don't seem very neo-Nazi to me, but you seem awfully biased by labeling them as such.

  15. Re:In other news... by sycodon · · Score: 3, Informative

    He's right. It's not a "civil right" according to the definition in the link provided, as pedantic as that is.

    What it is is more important... it is a Fundamental Right, or a Civil Liberty. It is a Right that predates Governments and is not subject to Government infringement.

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  16. Re:In other news... by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

    Uh, gun ownership and use is a right. It applies to civilians. It's a civil right.

    Well, to be specific, the rtified second amendments states:

    A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

    Seing as how that is one sentence, it probably refers as much to the militia as to individual people.

    But here is the tough part - "A well Regulated militia". Does this mean that anything but the militias are to be completely unregulated". This is where I think some organizations go wrong.

    As a firearm owner and user, I do not see any issues with suspected terrorists not being permitted to own firearms. Why? Because I believe that the "well regulated militia" portion of the second amendment is rather important as it sets the framework for what comes afterwards.

    I suspect that if they wanted no restraints they would have made the second amendment as follows:

    "Congress shall enact no regulations denying fully free and unfetterd access to the public defense, and the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed upon."

    And this is why it is becoming increasingly difficult to support the NRA, and the Congresscritters that they own.

    And of course, knowing the rather over the top reactions in here that happen after anyone dares to suggest anything other than allowing anyone no matter their inclination, with free and full access to firearms, This might be the first time in Sashdot history that a person who is a gun owner and user quotes the Second amendment and then gets modded as a troll.

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