May 9, 2016

"Facebook workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network’s influential 'trending' news section..."

"... according to a former journalist who worked on the project," Gizmodo reports.
This individual says that workers prevented stories about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, even though they were organically trending among the site’s users.

Several former Facebook “news curators,” as they were known internally, also told Gizmodo that they were instructed to artificially “inject” selected stories into the trending news module, even if they weren’t popular enough to warrant inclusion—or in some cases weren’t trending at all....

These new allegations emerged after Gizmodo last week revealed details about the inner workings of Facebook’s trending news team—a small group of young journalists, primarily educated at Ivy League or private East Coast universities, who curate the “trending” module on the upper-right-hand corner of the site....

60 comments:

Geneo said...

They would not do this, would they!! So much coming out due to the free internet social sites. I love it!!

JHapp said...

Facebook - the worlds best funded super PAC.

mccullough said...

Can't handle the truth

Mark said...

Does anyone look or click on any of that crap they have on the right side of the screen?

Outrage about a feature no one I know ever pays attention to.

Conservatives are just so outraged about everything. I think they need a safe space

Nonapod said...

I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you!

Suppression of information is an art with a long and dismal history. In this age of bountiful, limitless information it's becoming an increasingly difficult proposition. At some point it realistically becomes impossible, I just don't know where or when that point is.

eric said...

So what's new? NBC, CBS, ABC, The New York Times, the Washington Post, LA Times, Time Magazine, the list is nearly endless. They all surpress conservative news stories all the time. At least, positive ones. And they turn nothing stories into something.

I first realized this when Clinton wasn't driven from office as he should have been. I remember someone said there was a blue dress. And the entire panel was so discusted. We don't talk about such file rumors like that! There is no blue dress.

Months later, there was a blue dress. And vile rumors became, so what? Every president does it.

eric said...

Disgusted.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Mark said...

Does anyone look or click on any of that crap they have on the right side of the screen?

I don't have any idea how many people do. You don't have any idea how many people do. Facebook knows exactly how many people do. And Facebook thinks enough people do that they run a computer algorithm to generate it then pay people to curate it.

LYNNDH said...

Educated? More like indoctrinated.

prairie wind said...

Top-trending right now: Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook COO, wrote something inspirational about single moms.

Inserted or organic??

Phunctor said...

Mark pretends he thinks Zuckerberg is wasting his money paying these curators. Because conservatives. He and his paymasters have no idea how much they're helping those they hate with this increasingly desperate trollcraft.

n.n said...

Facebook will do what Facebook will do. I imagine that who they serve also influences who they will employ.

Anyway, as far as truth wielders, the gold standard, the traditional standard is multiple, independent sources.

Mark said...

Phunctor, given the amount of projects Facebook has tried and later jettisoned, your outrage is overblown.

It's like conservatives think liberals are such media jedi that they have to constantly cry about it.

What a joke.

bbkingfish said...

Mitt Romney? Is he conservative this week?

damikesc said...

Wonder why the FEC hasn't looked into this campaign contribution?

David Begley said...

Yahoo is a Leftwing sewer. Unreadable.

But Yahoo CEO to be paid $ 30m for failure after she sells the company.

Etienne said...

Since the advent of Radio and TV, Americans are dependent on getting their news spoon-fed.

I used to deliver the Oregonian when I was a teen, and the papers were so full, that I had to divide my route in half, because my bicycle couldn't carry a full load.

The Free Press, and Communist Press were not as big, but their readership was much smaller. I did like reading them at the library though. Not the school library though, as they were banned, but at the public library.

Once the newspapers died, I knew it was all over...

knox said...

Can't be curated and trending. One or the other.

Gusty Winds said...

If you follow FB trends you can tell that the subjects list are not from some organic algorithm. The surprise isn't that this is what Dorky Mark Zuckerberg is doing, it's that somebody opened their mouth.

Companies pay a lot of money to market on FB, and to have their companies marketed by other companies on FB. Understanding the algorithm on Google is important to get hit when topics relative to your business are searched.

Wonder if there is a class-action law suit that could start brewing.

campy said...

This is appropriate, because what most interests conservatives is bigotry and hate.

Gusty Winds said...

I'll be if Donald Trump referred to Mark Zuckerberg as a dork, it would still hurt his feelings despite his billions.

Dorky Mark Zuckerberg. Once a dork, always a dork.



Sebastian said...

New York Times routinely suppressed news of Russian starvation. MSM routinely suppressed news of JFK and WJC shenanigans. FB routinely suppressed . . . Oh, well.

tim in vermont said...

This is unbelievably shocking. See, here's my shocked face :^O

tim in vermont said...

This is appropriate, because what most interests conservatives is bigotry and hate.

That's a pretty bigoted and hateful thing to say about your fellow Americans.

virgil xenophon said...

This wasn't already intuitively obvious to anyone with an IQ marginally in double digits even if no one had broken ranks and spilled the beans?

Ficta said...

@coupe: OMG! Another former Oregonian paper carrier. I'm having all sorts of flashbacks now. My mother wrote to me a couple weeks ago that she had finally used up all the leftover rubber bands from that time in our lives! (circa 1977)

tim in vermont said...

Conservatives are just so outraged about everything. I think they need a safe space

Obviously Zuckerberg is spending good money to ensure that liberals have a safe space. You guys are never confronted with the tiniest criticism of your thinking, which is why you guys almost completely lack awareness of how transparently ridiculous your arguments are. There are two and a row that were pure projection.

tim in vermont said...

We are not outraged, BTW, I don't know where you get that from, we are just confirmed in our thinking about the nature of the media. What outrages people is when they discover they have been deceived. FB deceived exactly nobody.

Dr Weevil said...

Poor Mark thinks informed contempt politely expressed is 'outrage', and the expression of it is 'crying'. Even we Mountain Williams (still sometimes called "hillbillies" by ignorant bigots) know that that's not true.

Mark Nielsen said...


My favorite comment at the Gizmodo article: “Honestly? Conservative new/views should be suppressed. I am against censorship but do think that if you have a conservative viewpoint you shouldn’t be allowed a platform that could be used to influence others.”

Freeman Hunt said...

Charles Murray's Facebook page has recently disappeared. I don't know if this ideological intolerance is related.

Balfegor said...

Re: Nielsen:

My favorite comment at the Gizmodo article: “Honestly? Conservative new/views should be suppressed. I am against censorship but do think that if you have a conservative viewpoint you shouldn’t be allowed a platform that could be used to influence others.”

I'm surprised the commenter didn't call for conservatives to be clapped in irons. Beneath Gawker's facade of casual cheer beats the black heart of a Che or a Beria.

Real American said...

leftist ideas cannot withstand debate, logic and scrutiny, which is why wannabe Nazis are always trying to shout down, censor, and even criminalize opposing points of view. But it certainly emphasizes the point that ideas that depend on being the only ones heard aren't very good and are probably evil.

William said...

I wonder how much the Koch brothers would have to pay Zuckerberg to get him to do this for conservative views. This is why we need to get big money out of politics. There's always the outside chance that someone might be exposed to a conservative viewpoint.

pm317 said...

Fuck Facebook. How about a massive boycott?

campy said...

"That's a pretty bigoted and hateful thing to say about your fellow Americans."

It's okay to hate conservatives because they're not a birth group. Every conservative has chosen to be that way.

Dr Weevil said...

And every bigoted hater of conservatives who says hateful and untrue things about them has chosen to be that way, and do those things, campy.

Michael K said...

I would be happy if facebook would stop spamming my cellphone asking me to "friend" people I never heard of.

tim in vermont said...

I'm pretty sure that conservative tendencies have a genetic and cultural component and am certain that you can not prove it doesn't.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Manufactured consent and false consciousness-creation are only bad when those OTHER people do it.

tim in vermont said...

What you mean to say is that we are not a protected class. We know.

eric said...

Blogger campy said...
"That's a pretty bigoted and hateful thing to say about your fellow Americans."

It's okay to hate conservatives because they're not a birth group. Every conservative has chosen to be that way.


Which means it's OK to hate Muslims, gay sex, SJWs, Democrats, the list goes on.

Bill Peschel said...

I love hearing all the Captain Renaults on this list who are so bored, bored, bored about the same-old same-old. "Why bother saying anything critical about Facebook? Is this a big surprise? Everybody does it!"

Is there anything evil or unethical happens in this world that rouses you to say you won't stand for it? I mean, apart from last episode of "Game of Thrones" where not much happened?

tim in vermont said...

What can we do but point out to liberal hothouse flowers how thoroughly unexamined their arguments are because they are. We can't save them, the Enlightenment sure looks to be in trouble though with the end of free inquiry into the issues of the day.

exhelodrvr1 said...

but, but. but ... Fox News!!!!

tim in vermont said...

Look how stupid they are. The best any of them can do is open a firehose of insults. Only Robert Cook tries to honesty debate.

Howard said...

Jesus, look at all of you on Friendface. That's creepy.

tim in vermont said...

See what I mean?

RMc said...

NBC, CBS, ABC, The New York Times, the Washington Post, LA Times, Time Magazine...all suppress conservative news stories all the time.

That's just not true. Whenever a conservative screws up, they're all right there!

Howard said...

tim: any male on facebook is insulting the entire sex (or do you prefer gender?), so don't blame me, I'm just point out a fact.

Scott said...

I only access Facebook on my iPad app, so I don't get any of that recommended news feed. I really don't care what they do.... I bought 1k shares at under 20 in November of 2012. It closed at 120+ today.. Not quite Hillary Cattle Futures Trades level, but I'm happy....

Bob Loblaw said...

Surely this isn't a surprise? All you had to do is glance at the headlines to realize half of the stories were being filtered out.

rcocean said...

One reason liberals do so well is that they always know how to manipulate stupid people.

Who gets their news from facebook?

Answer: Dummies.

Known Unknown said...

This is my shocked face.

Known Unknown said...

Whoops. I missed Tim in VT's shocked face. It's like looking into a mirror!

m stone said...

The conventional thinking a while back was that the internet, including social media, would bypass the traditional gatekeepers and let readers decide for themselves.

Not a chance. Everyone in power has a stake--and an ego.

Phil 314 said...

"Is there anything evil or unethical happens in this world that rouses you to say you won't stand for it?"

Yes, Donald Trump as Presidential Candidate.

Mick said...

And this is a surprise? Zuckerberg is CIA, and all of you idiots on FaceF#*k are giving the Globalist government, NSA, and CIA all of the info they want about you, your children and your associates. Amazing how the chains of Tyranny are being put on willingly.

tim in vermont said...

Yes, Donald Trump as Presidential Candidate

Shill for Hillary then. I am more practical. What we have in the wreckage is Trump and Hillary. I will avoid the proven disaster for the one that so far some people only think will be a disaster.

damikesc said...

Just checking, the same group who felt Armstrong Williams was a national scandal under Bush is peachy with this?