Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

Gizmodo.com ^ | 9 May 2016 | Michael Nunez

[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.

[stonehouse01]

“...Most of the people ... my kids don’t go near it ...”

Same here and I am sure you are correct on this - I don’t have a FB account and never have.

However, as in my post #28, no doubt Twitter, Instagram and other “news” outlets do this as well and have the ability to manipulate trending news in favor of liberal democrats. The ability for the news to be manipulated via social media is disturbing.

[GingisK]

Stopped posting over a year ago when NSA started reading postings.

That is just when you learned about their monitoring. They have collected 100% of electronic traffic since the 1970s.

[DAC21]

Now you know why that punk phukerberg has built his home into a Prison. He is the enemy of the State.

[Foundahardheadedwoman]

I joined facebook for a month and that was to get in touch with relatives I hadn’t spoken to or seen in years. I thought it was a waste of time and quit.

[Chickensoup]

I absolutely agree. We live in a manipulated time.

Nothing is real.

Nothing is true.

News stories change constantly.

[5th MEB]

So; I have been right since 1962, TRUST NO ONE - BELIEVE NOTHING, until you have proven it to your own satisfaction.

[sarasota]

Sarah Palin is trending today.She’s saying that Paul Ryan’s career is over.

[sparklite2]

The last bastion of freedom on the internet was Usenet. No moderation, anyone could post anything, and no one could be banned. All moderated/restricted forums are authoritarians with training wheels.

[nascarnation]

Perhaps in Congress it’s over.
But he’ll just transition into one of those low 7 figure lobbying jobs in DC.

[The Great RJ]

Just another example of how the media is utterly corrupt tools for the liberal elites. That young people are sadly getting their news from Facebook Twitter etc. it should be no surprise that the liberal elites have moved their manipulation of truth to these media sources. We are rapidly moving to a1984 like world where the truth is routinely changed to fit whatever Big Brother wants.

[TauntedTiger]

We’ve been under the liberal thumb from the get-go. #shadowbanned #shadowlisted

[jarwulf]

I noticed this ever since the trending section started up..

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3293822/posts

Facebook has over a billion users. The effect of a subtle shift in the Trending section (which is on by default and there is no easy way to turn off) if even a fraction simply run their eyes past it for a millisecond is absolutely staggering. This should be on the front page of every news site, show, and paper.

[thulldud]

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

Well, whatever else you call it, that wouldn't qualify as "narrow-mindedness".

[BuckeyeTexan]

I’d ask, “Who gets their news from Facebook?” but I guess plenty of people do.

[nascarnation]

When the internet sprung up, I hoped it would foster a better variety of news viewpoints.

Sadly, almost all major internet portals are controlled by statists.

1. Google.com
Enables users to search the world’s information, including webpages, images, and videos. Offers…More2

2. Facebook.com
A social utility that connects people, to keep up with friends, upload photos, share links and …More

3 Youtube.com (owned by Google)
YouTube is a way to get your videos to the people who matter to you. Upload, tag and share your…More

4 Amazon.com
Amazon.com seeks to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and disc…More

5 Yahoo.com
A major internet portal and service provider offering search results, customizable content, cha…More

6 Wikipedia.org
A free encyclopedia built collaboratively using wiki software. (Creative Commons Attribution-Sh…More

7 Ebay.com
International person to person auction site, with products sorted into categories.

8 Twitter.com
Social networking and microblogging service utilising instant messaging, SMS or a web interface.

[RayChuang88]

This is SERIOUS. With good reason: if we find out Facebook was in cahoots with the White House, the Democratic National Committee and/or the Hillary Clinton campaign, this now becomes a Federal First Amendment case because the Federal government is actively suppressing free speech.

If I were Jack Dorsey (the CEO of Twitter), Larry Page/Sergei Brin (the co-founders of Google), and Satya Nadella (the CEO of Microsoft, who runs the Bing search engine), there's also going to be a LOT of questions asked whether Twitter posts and search results were biased against the political Right, working in cahoots with powerful people on the political Left.