Good day all. In news that doesn’t surprise anyone, former Facebook employees are spilling the beans on how they block any conservative topics from appearing in the Facebook “Trending” section.
Not only were they blocking conservative stories, sites and opinions, they were artificially boosting liberal sites and stories. Here are some of the details from The Hill:
Contractors who worked as “curators” for Facebook’s trending topics section, which can bring significant attention to news stories, regularly didn’t include stories trending among political conservatives, according to a Monday report from Gizmodo.
Gee, what a surprise. Not. I’ve noticed that a lot of stories are buried in the trending section on Faceplant. Considering what a totalitarian twerp Zuckerberg is, I’m only surprised at how long it took for this to come out. Hopping over to Gizmodo:
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. 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. The former curators, all of whom worked as contractors, also said they were directed not to include news about Facebook itself in the trending module.
In other words, Facebook’s news section operates like a traditional newsroom, reflecting the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation. Imposing human editorial values onto the lists of topics an algorithm spits out is by no means a bad thing—but it is in stark contrast to the company’s claims that the trending module simply lists “topics that have recently become popular on Facebook.”
Gee, so Zuckerberg and his band of merry Marxist totalitarians lied? Why am I not surprised? So, how was this actually done? Who was involved? The answer probably won’t surprise you.
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.
So, we have “The usual suspects” so to speak? A bunch of left-wing moonbats who have just gone through 4+ years of political indoctrination and reeducation. Somehow, I don’t think this story is going to end up in the Trending section on Faceplant.
“Depending on who was on shift, things would be blacklisted or trending,” said the former curator. This individual asked to remain anonymous, citing fear of retribution from the company. The former curator is politically conservative, one of a very small handful of curators with such views on the trending team.
How did he or she get past the HR screening process? One of the first things they do is screen out anyone who doesn’t have the “Correct” political views. And as to the person’s fear of retribution? I think it’s a very well grounded fear. Just look at how the SJW’s have been acting at all the Trump events. Assaults, intimidation, threats. Just the standard fare for the Warriors of Social Justice.
The curator who broke the story to Gizmodo noticed how anything conservative seemed to be getting the heave ho from the trending section and started keeping notes.
The former curator was so troubled by the omissions that they kept a running log of them at the time; this individual provided the notes to Gizmodo. Among the deep-sixed or suppressed topics on the list: former IRS official Lois Lerner, who was accused by Republicans of inappropriately scrutinizing conservative groups; Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker; popular conservative news aggregator the Drudge Report; Chris Kyle, the former Navy SEAL who was murdered in 2013; and former Fox News contributor Steven Crowder. “I believe it had a chilling effect on conservative news,” the former curator said.
Of all of these, the only one I might question was the murder of Chris Kyle. Granted, it was an important story, but I can see someone thinking it wasn’t all that big a deal outside of the people affected. All the rest however? Yeah, they were trying to bury them. Oh, if you think this is just a “Disgruntled former employee” think again. Gizmodo did their job and found corroborating sources.
Another former curator agreed that the operation had an aversion to right-wing news sources. “It was absolutely bias. We were doing it subjectively. It just depends on who the curator is and what time of day it is,” said the former curator. “Every once in awhile a Red State or conservative news source would have a story. But we would have to go and find the same story from a more neutral outlet that wasn’t as biased.”
Now, I’m also guilty of looking for other sources when I write about an event, such as this one. However, I’m usually trying to track down the source of the story so I can provide the links back to them as well as see if it’s just someone blowing smoke. (See WND.com or the National Enquirer)
Stories covered by conservative outlets (like Breitbart, Washington Examiner, and Newsmax) that were trending enough to be picked up by Facebook’s algorithm were excluded unless mainstream sites like the New York Times, the BBC, and CNN covered the same stories.
Obviously, I have no idea how those algorithms work. It does appear that they pick up a story that is being liked and shared and automatically move it into Trending. That makes sense and, again without knowing the parameters of the algorithm is configured, seems to be fair. I would also say that the Curators were there in case the algorithm missed something or they spotted some sort of fraud or click bait.
Other former curators interviewed by Gizmodo denied consciously suppressing conservative news, and we were unable to determine if left-wing news topics or sources were similarly suppressed.
I would tend to believe that they, in general, didn’t actively suppress conservative sites and stories. That’s what political reeducation is supposed to do. Reduce any thought processes and just have people do things by rote. Since most colleges and universities are just to the left of the Soviet Union, the young skulls full of mush are generally well stirred by their instructors to stay nice and mushy.
The conservative curator described the omissions as a function of his colleagues’ judgements; there is no evidence that Facebook management mandated or was even aware of any political bias at work.
That they didn’t see a problem tells me all I need to know. Everything was working just the way they liked. The only saw stories from sites and people they agreed with. This is going to cause a big problem for Faceplant management. Returning to the article on The Hill:
The story is likely to cause a headache for the mammoth social network.
Facebook has always insisted that its platform is politically neutral when critics have speculated that it could use its power over the flow of information to influence users. That claim has come under increased scrutiny in light of two recent stories.
Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg criticized “fearful voices calling for building walls” in a shot a Donald Trump, now the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, during a conference last month.
Gizmodo later reported that a Facebook employee had submitted a question for a discussion with Zuckerberg asking what responsibility the company had to “prevent President Trump in 2017.”
Zuckerberg is an open borders, pro-amnesty Progressive. He’s als a big supporter of the H1B visa program, which he uses to suppress salaries of American workers. (He will deny this of course) Donald Trump would be the worst thing possible for him if he is elected. He’s going to secure the borders, which means he won’t be able to get those cheap maids, babysitters and gardeners he’s grown accustomed to, and he’s probably going to kill the H1B visa program, or at least seriously restrict it. Considering all the news on how companies like Faceplant have been firing American workers and replacing them with cheap foreign labor, there might be a few prosecutions of CEO’s down the road too.
There is also another problem for Faceplant with this story. They are driving traffic away from the sites they don’t like, and pushing it to sites they do. This is a problem because…money. If these curators were abusing their power, either consciously or subconsciously, Zuckerberg and his Board of Directors are going to be on the receiving end of some very pointed questions. Frankly, it couldn’t happen to a nice bunch. Now if you will excuse me, I need to get ready for the Facebook Ban Hammer falling on me.
Thatisall
~The Angry Webmaster~
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