Facebook Disputes Gizmodo Report, Says It Never Built and Withheld Any News Feed Changes Based on Their Political Impact (slate.com)

Tech news site Gizmodo reported Monday that Facebook planned a News Feed update that would have identified fake or hoax news stories, but "disproportionately impacted right-wing news sites by downgrading or removing that content from people's feeds" so it chose to never release the update. Facebook has denied the claims in the report. A spokesperson told Slate: "The article's allegation is not true. We did not build and withhold any News Feed changes based on their potential impact on any one political party. We always work to make News Feed more meaningful and informative, and that includes examining the quality and accuracy of items shared, such as clickbait, spam, and hoaxes. Mark himself said, "I want to do everything I can to make sure our teams uphold the integrity of our products." This includes continuously review updates (sic) to make sure we are not exhibiting unconscious bias.

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The Liberal Search for Scapegoats Continues!

[Nova Express]

The was the most unbalanced election news coverage in history, with major outlets (NYT, WP, ABC, NBC, CBS) so far in the tank for Clinton and against Trump that it embarassed many old time journalists:

This is all symptomatic of modern journalism’s great moral and intellectual failing: its unbearable smugness. Had Hillary Clinton won, there’s be a winking “we did it” feeling in the press, a sense that we were brave and called Trump a liar and saved the republic.

So much for that. The audience for our glib analysis and contempt for much of the electorate, it turned out, was rather limited. This was particularly true when it came to voters, the ones who turned out by the millions to deliver not only a rebuke to the political system but also the people who cover it. Trump knew what he was doing when he invited his crowds to jeer and hiss the reporters covering him. They hate us, and have for some time.

And can you blame them? Journalists love mocking Trump supporters. We insult their appearances. We dismiss them as racists and sexists. We emote on Twitter about how this or that comment or policy makes us feel one way or the other, and yet we reject their feelings as invalid.

It’s a profound failure of empathy in the service of endless posturing...We diagnose them as racists in the way Dark Age clerics confused medical problems with demonic possession. Journalists, at our worst, see ourselves as a priestly caste. We believe we not only have access to the indisputable facts, but also a greater truth, a system of beliefs divined from an advanced understanding of justice.

And, after all that, Trump still won. So now liberals will look everywhere for a scapegoat to pin this "inexplicable" failure on. Everywhere, that is, except their own attitudes and actions.

The left is responsible for this result, because the left has now decided to any other opinion, any other way of looking at the world, is unacceptable. We don't debate anymore because the left won the cultural war, so if you're on the right you're a freak! You're evil! You're racist! You're stupid! You are a basket of deplorables! How do you think people are going to vote if you talk to them like that? When has anyone ever been persuaded by being insulted or labeled? So now if you're on the right or even against the prevailing view you are attacked for raising your opinion. That's why people wait until they're in the voting booth, where no one's watching anymore, there's no blame or shame or anything, and you can finally say what you really think, and that is a powerful thing.