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Help me understand - Facebook "censorship" of conservative news.

Ginevra

By Ginevra,
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Ginevra

Ginevra

Posted
Posted

Why is this a big deal? And what does this actually mean? Supposedly, a conservative talk show host is ranting about how Facebook "censors conservative news" - or something like this? But I don't get it, like, AT ALL. Since when is FB a news outlet? What "news" is censored from FB and how? Anyone want to explain this in non-political terms?

Guest

Guest

Posted
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Glen Beck actually wrote a really interesting piece on this- he attended the meeting with Mark Zuckerberg. He had nothing but good to say about Zuckerburg afterward, but he was stunned by the reaction of many of the other "conservative" meeting attendees and their comments at the meeting. I will go find the article and post it. 

SparklyUnicorn

SparklyUnicorn

Posted
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I don't have any clue, but if that is really happening, that really sucks. 

 

Then again, I find the "news" stuff posted on Facebook to often be questionable.  A lot of times if I try to dig deeper it turns out stuff is exaggerated or down right wrong.  It's like anyone can start a website and claim it contains news. 

  • Like 3
Guest

Guest

Posted
Posted

http://www.glennbeck.com/2016/05/19/what-disturbed-glenn-about-the-facebook-meeting/

 

In every article I have ever read about it, it has been a single unnamed employee. It is odd that in some cases it takes but 1 nameless person to create such an uproar but in other cases, you can have 50 crying foul and no one covers it.......but that's another topic. I am the last person on earth to be on the FB bandwagon, but I think that when media covers to such an extent, one unfounded accusation, something is terribly wrong with the priorities of popular journalism. I first saw the story on Gizmodo on my BriefMe feed and then it blew up in 24 hours.

EmseB

EmseB

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What disturbs me about FB trending "news" topics is the generally vapid nature of what their algorithm shows. Like twitter wars and celebrity fashion malfunctions are what people mainly see as "news". Even if you don't click on them to see the stories, I think just having that as a daily list of what is supposedly important in the world can mess with one's perception.

  • Like 2
Georgiana Daniels

Georgiana Daniels

Posted
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I'm pretty conservative, but seriously don't care, LOL! FB is not my go-to news source.

 

I already figure that most places in the media are going to lean a little left, even though that assumption might not be accurate. But when stories like this come out, I'm not surprised.

  • Like 1
hornblower

hornblower

Posted
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if you use an extension like fb purity you never see their trending topics suggestions anyway.  

 

My dd's perception is that her trending topics seem to be related to cookies / ie browser search history.  I think it's like google content - unless you're fanatic about cleaning your cache, you'll always be getting 'tailored' ie biased results/suggestions/ads. 

poppy

poppy

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Just grandstanding. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota.  Shame on him. He gets paid a lot of money and is supposed to do useful things.

  • Like 2
Bluegoat

Bluegoat

Posted
Posted

I think this is largely just a rehash of the whole claim that news media is overwhelmingly, or even majority, liberal.

 

It's total bosh, really - there may have at one time been some truth to it with regard to major outlets, though even then it wasn't extreme.  But for some reason some conservative commentators kept repeating it.  (Often talk radio hosts, a medium that at the time was more conservative dominated.)

  • Like 4
redsquirrel

redsquirrel

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One thing to keep in mind is that it hasn't been proven by anyone that Facebook even does this. It was alleged by an unnamed still anonymous ex-employee. This was a Gawker media story, so...yeah.

 

Facebook says they don't do any such a thing, but they took the concerns seriously. They were the ones who approached the conservative community and asked for a meeting.

 

But, mostly I agree that the 'news' on facebook is just.... not news.

 

This might be the original story

http://gizmodo.com/want-to-know-what-facebook-really-thinks-of-journalists-1773916117

 

http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-suppressed-conser-1775461006

 

 

EmseB

EmseB

Posted
Posted

if you use an extension like fb purity you never see their trending topics suggestions anyway.

 

My dd's perception is that her trending topics seem to be related to cookies / ie browser search history. I think it's like google content - unless you're fanatic about cleaning your cache, you'll always be getting 'tailored' ie biased results/suggestions/ads.

I would normally agree with that, but half the time I don't even know who the "news" item is about if it's a celebrity. It's generally not someone I'm googling about or even aware of.

  • Like 2
Guest

Guest

Posted
Posted

if you use an extension like fb purity you never see their trending topics suggestions anyway.

 

My dd's perception is that her trending topics seem to be related to cookies / ie browser search history. I think it's like google content - unless you're fanatic about cleaning your cache, you'll always be getting 'tailored' ie biased results/suggestions/ads.

Maybe this is part of why I had no idea there was even anything ON FB that constitutes "news." I have never even glanced at the stuff that is on the right-hand side and full of advertising drivel - is this where the "trending" stories are? It wouldn't occur to me to look to any of that as "news."

 

I don't click on Google trends, either, unless I was just about to Google something and there it is.

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Georgiana Daniels

Georgiana Daniels

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FB already limits your ability to see pages you've liked and actually want to see. It doesn't seem like a surprise that trending topics get filtered. Besides, it's just trending topics. If people were truly interested in politics, I would hope they would read more than just what's trending on FB.  :huh:

 

Filtering my liked pages makes me more angry than the trending topics.

  • Like 1
bettyandbob

bettyandbob

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Who is using Facebook as a source of news? Their trending section seems to be a social media version of People magazine.

 

Who cares if it's limited. If you are accessing social media, then you do have the ability to access many sources and figure out what's important.

  • Like 1
Guest

Guest

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Filtering my liked pages makes me more angry than the trending topics.

How does this work, anyway? So, let's say you tried to "like" a page for...I don't know, Southern Baptists For Modest Dress. Does it say, "Sorry. Liking is not available for this group." Or what?

EmseB

EmseB

Posted
Posted

How does this work, anyway? So, let's say you tried to "like" a page for...I don't know, Southern Baptists For Modest Dress. Does it say, "Sorry. Liking is not available for this group." Or what?

You just don't see their posts in your news feed. You can to check and see on their page that they've posted, but you didn't see their post.

  • Like 1
Haiku

Haiku

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Who is using Facebook as a source of news? 

 

I am, but I don't get my news from their trending section. I have "liked" and "followed" the news outlets I prefer, so their stories show up in my feed. Every morning I scroll through FB, open all the news stories I am interested in, and read them while I drink my coffee. These are actual news stories from actual news outlets; I use FB as a way to aggregate them.

  • Like 1
Guest

Guest

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A friend of a friend posted this today. A Trump supporter was banned from Facebook for complaining about censorship.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3603345/Conservative-activist-Lauren-Southern-banned-Facebook-mentioning-censorship.html

 

Is this what they're talking about.

No, that wasn't the thing that someone was telling me. Although it sounds as if the conservative activist who was banned was talking about the censorship thing. Heh.

Georgiana Daniels

Georgiana Daniels

Posted
Posted

How does this work, anyway? So, let's say you tried to "like" a page for...I don't know, Southern Baptists For Modest Dress. Does it say, "Sorry. Liking is not available for this group." Or what?

 

They let you like any page you want, but whenever the Southern Baptists for Modest Dress post, it only reaches a fraction of the people who liked the page. BUT...I think FB's algorithms do it to ALL liked pages, not just conservative ones. I've heard it across the board.

 

Realistically, not everything a person has liked can show in a newsfeed because there's just too much info going out. At least that's my understanding.

 

(But now that we're on the subject, it makes me wonder if the algorithms are different for conservative pages....hmmmm.....)

HRAAB

HRAAB

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No, that wasn't the thing that someone was telling me. Although it sounds as if the conservative activist who was banned was talking about the censorship thing. Heh.

 

Ah!  I routinely ignore any post that is even marginally related to politics, but I remembered the comment the person had made about censorship.

Haiku

Haiku

Posted
Posted

They let you like any page you want, but whenever the Southern Baptists for Modest Dress post, it only reaches a fraction of the people who liked the page. 

 

This is because FB wants groups, organizations, and businesses to pay to promote their posts.

  • Like 1
poppy

poppy

Posted
Posted

A friend of a friend posted this today.  A Trump supporter was banned from Facebook for complaining about censorship.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3603345/Conservative-activist-Lauren-Southern-banned-Facebook-mentioning-censorship.html

 

Is this what they're talking about.

 

So. 

She posted something, someone reported it. (Heself?)

It got her banned temporary.

Then the ban was lifted and someone apologized.

I dunno. Smells super duper fishy to me.

What she wrote on the post that got her banned (apparently) is completely innocuous.   It is not remotely controversial. Seriously.

I see more controversial stuff from my racist cousin Brett 7 days a week.

FISHY.

  • Like 4
poppy

poppy

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Am I the only one that is annoyed that FB banned the Anti-Arab group but said the deliberately identical Anti-Jews group was perfectly fine?   

 

Maybeeeeee?  I mean, it wasn't an Anti-Arab group. Or an Anti-Jew group.  It was an activist making fake pages. Then reporting himself.  Then sending out a press release about how the outcome he wanted / expected did happen. Without even, like, screenshots, or a timeline.  I dunno.  I do not know the group in question. I do not think the group has to be experts at journalism for their argument to be considered. But my immediate reaction wasn't "this is injustice" since there was no actual hate group - or victims - or anything real- involved.

 

I also know many Israelis really, really, really don't like Mark Zuckerberg.  So an expose like this is kinda like a PETA expose of a slaughterhouse. Which doesn't mean PETA is wrong.  Just, don't look at an uncorroborated report from one of their activist as something that is immediately credible and something to take completely at face value.

Edited by poppy
  • Like 3

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