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Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News
Gizmodo.com ^ | 9 May 2016 | Michael Nunez

Posted on 05/09/2016 6:40:48 AM PDT by Rockitz

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.”

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. As we reported last week, curators have access to a ranked list of trending topics surfaced by Facebook’s algorithm, which prioritizes the stories that should be shown to Facebook users in the trending section. The curators write headlines and summaries of each topic, and include links to news sites.

(Excerpt) Read more at gizmodo.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: conservatives; cpac; facebook; fbcensorship; ignorance; liberalfascism; liberalmedia; newmedia; spiked; zuckerburg
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To: golux

Or on god.net etc LOL


21 posted on 05/09/2016 7:04:06 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: Rockitz
I have a number of liberal friends and former coworkers who are "friends" with me on Facebook. I post a lot of conservative articles and cartoons on my Facebook page, mainly because I know it drives them crazy. Some of them will try to debate with me, but most can only repeat the talking points that the left puts out. Once you shoot those down, they quickly back away from the debate. Some have "unfriended" me, which I count as a victory.

A number of them are Bernie Sanders supporters, and most despise Hillary. I purposely take it easy on Bernie, pointing out to them how Bernie is much more principled than Hillary, but is getting screwed out of the nomination by the DNC.

22 posted on 05/09/2016 7:08:13 AM PDT by GreenHornet
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To: HiTech RedNeck

If Facebook is artificially altering the ‘trending’ data...

and Facebook sells ad space based of this data...

Is it fraud?


23 posted on 05/09/2016 7:10:51 AM PDT by lacrew
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To: GreenHornet

I’d grant that about Bernie myself.

Bernie is an honest-to-God socialist. He means it from the heart. It might kill America to do it, but he fervently believes in it.

Hillary doesn’t seem to believe in anything past her pantsuit.


24 posted on 05/09/2016 7:12:58 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: lacrew

I wasn’t aware that the ads are tied to what is trending, or even to what Facebook staff is artificially pumping to be astroturf trending.


25 posted on 05/09/2016 7:14:35 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: Rockitz

Of course they did. They are communist propaganda ministers. American Founding Principles are something they dispise and hope to eradicate.


26 posted on 05/09/2016 7:15:51 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: pepsionice

I see that happening. Most of the people on FB are older women and housewives showing little Biffy to grandparents. My kids don’t go near it. Neither do their friends.


27 posted on 05/09/2016 7:16:55 AM PDT by Chickensoup (Leftist totalitarian governments are the biggest killer of citizens in the world.)
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To: Rockitz

I have zero doubt that Twitter does this as well.


28 posted on 05/09/2016 7:18:06 AM PDT by stonehouse01
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To: stonehouse01

...as well as most other “news” sources. You only have to look at the stories covered on the nightly ABCNBCCBS television news boadcasts.


29 posted on 05/09/2016 7:23:11 AM PDT by Rockitz (This is NOT rocket science - Follow the money and you'll find the truth.)
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To: pepsionice

Let me know when. I want to be a part of that short.


30 posted on 05/09/2016 7:24:17 AM PDT by Rockitz (This is NOT rocket science - Follow the money and you'll find the truth.)
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To: Rockitz

Anybody who gets their news from Facebook is an ignoramus to begin with.


31 posted on 05/09/2016 7:24:18 AM PDT by Catmom (We're all gonna get the punishment only some of us deserve.)
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To: Catmom

LOL

we call them Farcebook, Tweater, and InstaSpam


32 posted on 05/09/2016 7:25:46 AM PDT by nascarnation
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To: Rockitz

So many people have freely and willingly given up so much personal, private info, and info about others, To Facebook. It makes me cringe. Both for giving up their info, and for giving it to a thing like Facebook and its proggie creator. Simply stupid.


33 posted on 05/09/2016 7:26:11 AM PDT by polymuser (Enough is enough!)
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To: GreenHornet
A number of them are Bernie Sanders supporters, and most despise Hillary. I purposely take it easy on Bernie, pointing out to them how Bernie is much more principled than Hillary, but is getting screwed out of the nomination by the DNC.

I like to play mind games with them, I've been pretending I'm a generally non-political "middle of the road" person, while subtly undermining Hillary and promoting Trump. At first I would make statements like I was mildly pro-Bernie (because I knew he would be defeated) now I'm "disgusted" at how Hillary is treating Bernie and every time Hillary does or says something to move to the center, I point out how she flip flopped on the issue. All the while I'm slipping in a, "You know, for all his bluster, Trump makes a lot of sense..." By election day I will have gone full pro-Trump (and hopefully brought some converts along with me).

34 posted on 05/09/2016 7:26:40 AM PDT by apillar
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To: Rockitz

Dog bites man story.


35 posted on 05/09/2016 7:28:48 AM PDT by steve8714 (OK, it's over.)
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To: Rockitz

So Conservatives can’t post because they are radical. Yet, someone can post hate messages against Conservatives with impunity. Stopped posting over a year ago when NSA started reading postings. Now another reason not to post.


36 posted on 05/09/2016 7:29:28 AM PDT by NTHockey (Rules of engagement #1: Take no prisoners. And to the NSA trolls, FU)
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To: Rockitz

We are all Chi-coms now. Globalism is great.


37 posted on 05/09/2016 7:31:07 AM PDT by SaraJohnson
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To: Rockitz

In a related Hot Breaking Stories: The Sun will come up in... the East. Water... is wet


38 posted on 05/09/2016 7:34:59 AM PDT by GOPJ (“What the hell is “conservative” about uncontrolled immigration and corporate trade pacts?”)
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To: GOPJ

Hence, my “Shocker....NOT!” post #1.


39 posted on 05/09/2016 7:36:44 AM PDT by Rockitz (This is NOT rocket science - Follow the money and you'll find the truth.)
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To: Rockitz

Yahoo is worse than Facebook in continually featuring anti-Trump stories in its line of featured stories at the top of their homepage.


40 posted on 05/09/2016 7:39:07 AM PDT by Ciexyz ("You know who gets hurt? The people who worked hard, lived frugally, and saved their money."- Trump)
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