The Social Media giant is going to use a small team of journalists instead of an algorithm to decide what is “news.”
What could possibly go wrong?
Well, now that we have the “newspaper of record” clearly stating that they must insert their bias into reporting in the Trump era, having journalists select what is and is not news is dubious.
It won’t be many of them, either. The team of journalists that Facebook plans to use is quite small, reportedly fewer than 10 at the launch of the feature. According to the New York Times, these “seasoned reporters” will be from “various outlets” across the country, with one from the United Kingdom. Does that mean that there will be ideological balance, though? Possibly, but…
We know that most career journalists tilt pretty left. Lara Logan made that pretty clear in an interview. Studies have confirmed that there are more journalists that identify as Democrat than Republican. That’s not really a surprise, though. Politico reported that the “Media Bubble” is real and that more journalists live in “blue” districts than “red” ones.
This is why ClashDaily speaks of the mainstream media as The Media(D). That’s who most of them are.
And yet, as a part of the attempt to restore faith in Facebook as a trusted news source, the social media site has decided that they’re going to allow reporters — who now think it’s their duty to insert their bias — to curate the news.
The journalists on staff will be selecting the “breaking” and top stories in order to “highlight real-time journalism and news” but other content will be sorted and ranked by an algorithm.
“Our goal with the News Tab is to provide a personalized, highly relevant experience for people,” Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships, said.
“To start, for the Top News section of the tab we’re pulling together a small team of journalists to ensure we’re highlighting the right stories.”
Source: Western Journal
Do you remember the hullabaloo over Facebook’s “Trending Topics” back in 2016?
It seems that Facebook doesn’t seem to, either.
This was a feature that allegedly amplified the spread of “fake news” on social media. In response, Facebook moved to focus on individual interactions rather than news. That move was hurt many conservative publishers, but the Media(D) was largely unaffected.
Here’s a quick refresher of the issue by DIGIDAY:
Defining the “right stories” will be fraught for Facebook. In 2016, Facebook’s Trending Topics module was plunged into scandal when a Gizmodo story revealed that the module’s contents, instead of being surfaced algorithmically, were regularly altered by a small team of independent contractors, who were frequently asked to suppress stories about conservative news, as well as news about Facebook itself.
After months of awkward pivoting, public apologies and intense scrutiny from both conservative lawmakers, Facebook announced it was getting rid of the module last year.
Source: DIGIDAY
In the reporting of this News Tab story, check out the bias from the New York Times.
Facebook has been under pressure for spreading misinformation and disinformation to millions of its users. In 2016, Russian operatives manipulated Facebook and disseminated false news stories across its network to influence the outcome of the American presidential election. On Monday, Facebook also revealed that China was behind Facebook pages and groups that were sowing disinformation about the protests in Hong Kong.
Source: New York Times
The New York Times states that $100K in Facebook ads influenced the Presidential election, but Google manipulating search results in favor of Hillary didn’t do a thing.
To the NYT, one is very obviously true, but the other isn’t.
Are these the overtly biased folks that are going to decide what needs to trend and what doesn’t?
If that’s the case, then get ready for more biased stories trending like the Covington “smirk” fiasco, the Jussie Smollett hate hoax, and how Trump and his supporters are racist.
So, it’ll just be more of the same.
- ‘HORSESH*T PROPAGANDISTS’: CBS’s Lara Logan Commits ‘Professional Suicide’ By BLASTING The Press
- Congressional Testimony: Google Gave Hillary Millions Of Votes, 15 Million More At Risk in 2020 (Video)
- Facebook’s ‘War Room’ Fights ‘Election Interference’ To Make CERTAIN Liberals Get Elected
- Facebook Hypocrisy: Social Media Giant Donated Big Bucks To Scandal-Plagued Virginia Dems — While Policing Conservative Speech
- WATCH: Investigative Video EXPOSES Facebook ‘Deboosting’ Conservative Facebook Pages
- Facebook BANS Conservatives Voices But Lets Anti-Christian Nutjobs Spew Hate
- Facebook’s Co-Founder Says It’s Time To BREAK UP Facebook – ‘It’s Dangerous’
- Guess How Much Sen. Elizabeth “Break Up Big Tech” Warren Spent On FACEBOOK Ads — $500K? $2M? $5M?
