Gas Bandit's Political Thread V: The Vampire Likes Bats

My issue is that since Facebook effectively functions as a news aggregator for a significat portion of its users, they shouldn't actively be suppressing either viewpoint, and they alleged have been selectively removing conservative sources from their trending lists.
 
Maybe it should be the Charlie Response Bingo game?
When you think about it, his reply could be taken as a parody of the typical Brietbart fan we were just discussing. But since it's him, we treat like any of his other trolling.

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
 
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/05/07/donald-trump-debt-crisis_n_9862558.html

Trump's plan for the national debt shows he has absolutely no understanding of the global economy.

Asked if the U.S. had to pay its debts in full or whether it could negotiate, Trump said, "I've borrowed knowing that you can pay back with discounts ... I would borrow knowing that if the economy crashed, you could make a deal."
He added, "and if the economy was good, it was good. So therefore, you can't lose."
However, the US Treasury does not operate under the same rules as a real estate development firm, which usually creates a special purpose company that borrows money at high interest rates, and if it fails, can declare bankruptcy to absolve the debt without harming the rest of one's holdings - as Trump has done 4 times. The US Treasury bonds that make up our national debt borrow at incredibly low interest rates because, globally, it's considered an extremely safe investment - ie everyone knows "we're good for it". Attempting to renegotiate that debt would destabilize it, jacking up interest rates and exponentially increasing the debt to a point where it would collapse the market. Treasury bonds are a part of investment portfolios across the world, so that means not only would the US market get hit, but other governments, international investors, and banking conglomerates would suffer from it. And if the "safest investment in the market" suddenly collapses, that means all the others become way riskier. Essentially, the house of cards that is the global economy would crash.
 
Yeah. I don't think I've ever resorted to "STFU Charlie", but I have repeatedly said his own over-eagerness and tone scare away most of his potential supporters.
 
I just wanted to point out that Huffington Post is blocked at the high school I work at because it is classified as "adult."

Because kids don't need news from anywhere but Yahoo and MSN, apparently.
 
I'm surprised at some of the stances I'm seeing. People I thought would have the opinion of "Facebook owns the site, they can run it as they please" seem to be the ones taking an issue with Facebook doing things this way.
That's an interesting point, I'm going to have to think about that a bit. Do notice that my posts are mainly, "Keep in mind that this is what facebook is doing" more than "Facebook needs to change/be punished for doing things this way."

However, I do feel that they are in a different class than a fast food restaurant or computer parts company in terms of audience engagement and information delivery, and so while I wouldn't say they should be regulated or forced to comply with some arbitrary code of conduct, I would suggest that we all should be aware of their biases, and if possible encourage them to be open and transparent.
 
I just wanted to point out that Huffington Post is blocked at the high school I work at because it is classified as "adult."

Because kids don't need news from anywhere but Yahoo and MSN, apparently.
Huff has a lot of NSFW content, compared to other news sites. I mean, scroll through their aptly-named The Pornography Industry section. Other sites with such a section are usually much less... Garbage-y? Compare to NYT's Pornography Subject (one of the few other news sites that came to mind and did have a pr0n section).
 
That's an interesting point, I'm going to have to think about that a bit. Do notice that my posts are mainly, "Keep in mind that this is what facebook is doing" more than "Facebook needs to change/be punished for doing things this way."

However, I do feel that they are in a different class than a fast food restaurant or computer parts company in terms of audience engagement and information delivery, and so while I wouldn't say they should be regulated or forced to comply with some arbitrary code of conduct, I would suggest that we all should be aware of their biases, and if possible encourage them to be open and transparent.
I suppose they are, but I question if that's the fault of Facebook or of Facebook users. I do recognize the difference between this type of bias occurring on Facebook vs it occurring on The Daily Show.
 
What I mean specifically, and what I have meant by all these examples, is getting all of one's news from a single source is a bad idea. Facebook, Fox News, Daily Show, Halforums :p--no one single place should be a person's source of information. I know Facebook isn't being transparent and isn't doing what they say they do, but neither does Fox News.

I'm not saying what they're doing is best.
 
As for Facebook, like any other company, I think they have the right to their own POV/slant/bias/whatever. Like a newspaper or TV channel, they're not in any way bound or obligated to show their biases. However, Facebook has repeatedly claimed it's completely neutral, though, and lots of people believe that.
As such, we do need to create awareness that Facebook isn't just "showing us what our friends are talking about" or "showing us things that might interest us", but "things they want us to talk about". That may seem obvious to the more tech-savvy amongst us - Facebook earns its money by manipulating us, after all - but it isn't to most. People for whom Facebook IS the Internet need to know they're looking at the world through a specific lens, so that they can choose to leave or change that lens if they wish to.
 
Trump campaign selects, by coincidence I am certain, a white nationalist as a California delegate via Popehat.
Excerpt said:
Long-time Popehat readers probably remember good ol' Bill Johnson.

I first wrote about Mr. Johnson in 2008, when he ran for a seat on the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Mr. Johnson used to go by the name James O. Pace, under which name he advocated repealing the 14th and 15th Amendments and replacing them with the "Pace Amendment":
No person shall be a citizen of the United States unless he is a non-Hispanic white of the European race, in whom there is no ascertainable trace of Negro blood, nor more than one-eighth Mongolian, Asian, Asia Minor, Middle Eastern, Semitic, Near Eastern, American Indian, Malay or other non-European or non-white blood, provided that Hispanic whites, defined as anyone with an Hispanic ancestor, may be citizens if, in addition to meeting the aforesaid ascertainable trace and percentage tests, they are in appearance indistinguishable from Americans whose ancestral home is in the British Isles or Northwestern Europe. Only citizens shall have the right and privilege to reside permanently in the United States.
He lost, despite some woefully clueless press coverage. But you can't keep a white nationalist down. (...)
Gosh, golly, gee.
 
Those were regular recessions.

Hmm... that's not enough...

That should do it.[DOUBLEPOST=1462940069,1462939673][/DOUBLEPOST]The only thing keeping me in this state is not having the means to get out. And tonight the people of WV, in their infinite stupidity (it's been scientifically proven, we're the dumbest. 50th out of 50.), have chosen to keep the albatross of coal around their necks for another four years.

When a candidate's answer to the problems of domestic violence or prescription drug abuse is "coal jobs," and he STILL wins his primary (at least he wasn't unopposed like the GOP candidate was), yo know the stupid is too strong to stick around any longer.

If not for past self-inflicted fuckups, and finances in complete tatters after the fire, I'd suggest to my mom we pack up and leave... maybe for Queens. At least the food is good. :)
 
Maybe if it was called Facebook News or it purported to be a news site I'd equate the two, but I really don't find it to be the same. I understand why you do, though.

But that's neither here nor there, really. This is about some of us being surprised that the free market people are upset a private company is being biased in their distribution of what they share on their platform.
It's similar to how whenever somebody points out the Google Motto of "Don't be Evil" when they are being VERY evil. Same thing here, in that they have "this is what's trending!" when really it should be "This is what's trending that we approve of! And some other stuff we want you to see!"

I guess it's from the perspective that people see things morally differently if "it's an unbiased algorithm" is promoted, versus "we're an editorial board, and what we say is front-page-news, is what we determine." Anytime you make anything resembling a claim to unbiased, it's OK to call them out on that when they're not. Similar to how it's OK to call out Fox News, it's OK to call out Facebook on this type of thing. If Facebook called it "Promoted Stories" it'd be different.

Think of it from the opposite side if it helps with an example: google's auto-complete. There's plenty of examples of "wtf are they thinking?" suggestions that are not blamed on the company because it's an algorithm. It's not chosen by people trying to introduce bias, but by actual results of searches. People laugh, or are horrified, but either way little blame goes to the company because it's (probably) a genuine result. When you start tampering with it, then you introduce blame. And that's what Facebook is doing.
 
If not for past self-inflicted fuckups, and finances in complete tatters after the fire, I'd suggest to my mom we pack up and leave... maybe for Queens. At least the food is good. :)
Not to burst your bubble, but you don't want to know what it might cost to live in Queens nowadays. Unless you want a studio apartment. For you both. And maybe another roommate. :(
 
Facebook found to be deliberately injecting news it wants to see popular, and blacklisting that it doesn't: http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-...uppressed-conser-1775461006?rev=1462799465508

News flash: conservative bad, liberal good with regards to what went in, despite the algorithm saying it should/shouldn't depending on how popular it actually was according to users.

Good reporting. Something tells me this story will NOT be trending on Facebook, due to exactly the topic covered.
Well, Facebook has denied the anonymous allegations. http://n.pr/1T4bfR8
 
Not to burst your bubble, but you don't want to know what it might cost to live in Queens nowadays. Unless you want a studio apartment. For you both. And maybe another roommate. :(
There's always moving to Pittsburgh and taking Amtrak whenever I get a 3-day weekend. [emoji56]
 
Wired puts it well:

...Silicon Valley itself thrives on the impression that its software and hardware are inherently disinterested arbiters of information.

When that turns out not to be the case, people feel betrayed. If tech companies are now playing the role that traditional publishers have for centuries, then they need to begin having the same conversations about transparency and disclosure, ethics and fairness. With election season pressure rising, it looks like those conversations may happen sooner than later.
from http://www.wired.com/2016/05/course-facebook-biased-thats-tech-works-today/?mbid=social_fb
 
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