Posted on 05/10/2016 11:58:34 AM PDT by Kaslin
I think Twitter is genuine trending. I use Twitter without “reading feeds,” like when the terror attack happened last night or when the Preds won game 5. I think Twitter is just what things are actually popular at the moment. Sure, it’s filled with libs, but all conservatives post there too. It seems to be more of a neutral vehicle and not a tricky scam like FB.
“What’s the general consensus? Does anybody care?”
I don’t care, sarasota.
I was on Facebook once, my wife’s account, and was startled by the venomous lefty comments left by a couple of her old college friends and I raised some hell with them, (they thought I was her?). Anyway, I’ve never had a Facebook account.
I stopped going to Target a long time ago, before they went pervert. JC Penneys a long, long time ago. And I don’t listen to those windbags Limbaugh or Levin. They’re just trying to jack their flagging ad revenues with stuff like this.
Anyone flustered over Facebook, or over retailers committing seppuku—over the way any private company conducts itself—I can only conclude that you want to keep patronizing them.
Zuckerberg is a young, lefty tool. He’ll prolly be a neo-con in twenty years.
If they offend you that much, then just cast them from your life. Turn your back on them. Don’t obsess, you’ll make yourself sick.
I have a Facebook account with just the basic info.
Every few months I get pestered with requests to upgrade my service if I furnish more info like phone # etc. Never do.
bump
I usually go here and a number of other sites before I go to Facebook.
Never look at the trending stuff because by then it’s old news to me.
Also, when people posted conservative information FB would delete or edit the post so as not to allow sharing or liking
Actually, there WAS a conspiracy by journalists across multiple organizations to influence and direct news reporting.
It was called JournaList.
It got out’ed and was shut down. I am sure there is at least one other like it, but is guarded much more carefully.
I think people should avoid these types of claims. It just isn't flattering for someone to claim that he thinks his thoughts are being controlled or manipulated by a website. People should take pride in their ability to think for themselves.
But, it seems like everyone wants to be a victim these days.
It’s important because the heading “Trending” at the upper right of the FB user’s homepage makes the user think that these (listed topics and headlines) are the “objectively” trending issues of the day. When FB management manipulates this feed to alter the reality, the hundreds of millions of FB users get an altered reality...
It’s not relevant to dismiss this as FB’s “right” (it is their right as a pvt business entity but people should know about it and choose alternatives), or as reflecting the stupidity of FB users etc. The relevant fact, previously undocumented, is that the largest “social media” site in the world is providing a carefully scripted “reality” to further liberal biases.
Sure, this should not surprise anyone, but it is always important to document and combat the ways in which Orwellian elites are working to re-shape our world.
I read the story that underlies all these claims about Facebook. Apparently, some old Facebook employees said that some employees at Facebook were actively selecting which news stories about a topic and which topics would be displayed with what prominence. They said that what stories were picked might depend on who was working on a particular shift. So, what? That's true of every single website on the planet.
The idea of an altered reality suggests incorrectly that human beings can somehow project a perfectly accurate reality with a website. That is a total pipe dream.
Persons with any kind of self-respect should be reluctant to claim that their minds and thoughts are being controlled and manipulated by a website. Of course, they never claim that. Instead, they claim that everyone else's thoughts are being controlled or manipulated, but that they are personally immune.
It's all baloney. It's just a pathetic effort to cast oneself as a victim of malignant forces. There seems to be a need by many people to find an external excuse for what is happening in their lives.
Much closer to an objective reality is the view that we live in a country that is bathed in conflicting information and opinion from which to choose. In fact, there are people who have suggested that we receive too much information and that it has become very difficult if not impossible for us to even sort through all of the conflicting information that surrounds us. We are not victims here.
Amazon.com
Apple
eBay
Facebook
Google
LinkedIn
Microsoft
Pinterest
SnapChat
Twitter
Yahoo!
...are going soon be asked questions in front of Congress to find out if the data algorithms for searching and discovery were subtly "tweaked" to favor anything Leftist. This is a simmering scandal that will boil over quickly and will cause tremendous damage to the technology industry.
I don’t need to be told by Rush that what Facebook has done is wrong...
But I do have to wonder... who the hell gets their news from Facebook anyway..?
And... are we actually shocked that this was happening..?
Seems to me that there are more important things to be upset about...
I suspect that there may be people who read nothing but Facebook, but the important thing is that they have the freedom to read what they wish.
How are Trending Topics determined? By whatever topic has the most articles? If that is the case, doesn't it depend upon how specific a topic must be to be a topic? For example, at any given time, there are probably more worldwide articles about the weather than any other topic unless we choose to decide that weather is too broad a topic to count as a topic. Is "politics" in general too broad a topic to be a topic to count? Should we choose to count all stories about Trump separately from stories about how Trump has chosen someone to help pick his VP? How narrow must a topic be before we start counting it as the topic to be measured by articles?
Those are all choices that have to be made in order to determine what is "trending" in terms of having the most articles. And, machines cannot make those choices. Human beings have to make those choices. And, no matter how they choose to make those decisions, there exists an argument that by making the choices that they made, they have altered reality.
This is really all baloney.
Haven't seen that word in a while.
ragamuffin:
NOUN
1. a person, typically a child, in ragged, dirty clothes.
synonyms: urchin · waif · guttersnipe · street kid
By purposely misrepresenting their business practices, thus gaining users or keeping them, who otherwise may not use Facebook, they are committing fraud.
Yes!
It infuriates me when I read pseudo-conservatives snidely writing that this the free market at work.
Deceiving your clientele is not the free market!
Facebook commits the media equivalent of bait and switch: Come to us for freedom of speech, but we will give you covertly selected propaganda instead.
The assumption was that "trending topics" were chosen by some kind of algorithm that statistically determined what people were searching and sending. It would not be a 100% "objective" determination, but the assumption was that it would be free from manipulation. Now the allegation is that it isn't.
This story strikes a chord because of the history of the company, which has involved fraud and manipulation from the beginning (see The Social Network). If you don't see that, then you don't see it, but other people do.
I think it is a lack of self-esteem that causes people to believe that Facebook is controlling their own thoughts. I think it is arrogance that causes people to think that other people are more susceptible than themselves to manipulation by Facebook. I don't think either is healthy. And, I don't want to pretend that the world is victimizing me.
The assumption was that "trending topics" were chosen by some kind of algorithm that statistically determined what people were searching and sending. It would not be a 100% "objective" determination, but the assumption was that it would be free from manipulation. Now the allegation is that it isn't.
A machine cannot count articles relating to a topic until a human being tells the machine what subjects are sufficiently specific to qualify as a topic that warrants counting. Only people can define the "topics" to be counted. And, that is inherently subjective.
This story strikes a chord because of the history of the company, which has involved fraud and manipulation from the beginning (see The Social Network). If you don't see that, then you don't see it, but other people do.
I don't spend much time at Facebook and I can't say that the company has ever victimized me. And, it really would't matter if it had. The important thing is that people should understand that there isn't any computer that can do what some people wish that Facebook computers could do (project for them a perfectly accurate view of public opinion and interest unfiltered by human input). Like all websites, the content is ultimately determined by human beings. And, like all websites, it will matter which human beings are making the decisions.
EVERY publisher CHOOSEs what it wants to publish.
Does ANYONE think that the Indianapolis Star prints an accurate sampling of it's Letters to the Editor?
So does the Star...
Where's the profit in that?
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