
Journalists decry Facebook experiment's impact on democracy - guuz
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/oct/25/facebook-orwellian-journalists-democracy-guatemala-slovakia
======
cocktailpeanuts
This tells more about the journalists than Facebook. Facebook has always been
the same. It's journalists who sold their soul so that they can make money.

Furthermore, it's funny hearing this hypocrisy coming from journalists, since
they are the ones who are throwing away their "journalistic integrity" to make
money. It's impossible to come across a mainstream publication with unbiased
point of view nowadays.

They have to write polarizing articles to gain more eyeballs since otherwise
no one will have enough attention to read their articles. They should realize
there's a bigger opportunity here but instead all they're focused on is short
therm revenue and complaining about how Facebook (who focuses obsessively on
long term value) is being unfair.

~~~
Quanttek
> This tells more about the journalists than Facebook. Facebook has always
> been the same. It's journalists who sold their soul so that they can make
> money.

I'm not sure what your whole screed about journaists has to do with the
decision at hand. It's just a fact that one of the largest online audiences is
on Facebook and that newspapers & magazines have to be present on that
platform to get views. They can't really get around posting to Fb, can they?
If Fb suddenly cuts a major source of revenue for a whole industry without any
discussion, if that is Fb's power, then this is really unhealthy for our
market economy and our ideas of democracy

~~~
cocktailpeanuts
The Web is an open platform. Facebook is not some big brother who has power to
censor anything. People can type [https://nytimes.com](https://nytimes.com) to
go directly go to the new york times if they want.

From Facebook's point of view, these media sites are nothing more than
parasites that try to write sensational articles to mislead the public and get
people to fight online.

Users become unhappy because they get into unnecessary arguments with their
friends and family about things that ultimately have no right or wrong answer
(such as politics), and end up blaming Facebook for facilitating it.

Facebook is unhappy because their users are unhappy.

It's only these short-sighted media companies that "benefit" off of the
traffic (but in the long term not so much).

By cutting this party out of the equation, users are happier. Facebook is
happier.

And I would say it's a good thing even for the media because essentially they
are being cut off of access to the race to the bottom that's killing them. One
of the reasons why these publications had to write sensationalism articles and
disseminate them onto Facebook was because if they didn't, their competition
would.

Now that they are cut off, they are forced to compete in healthier ways. It's
kind of hilarious because it's like these self-important media companies are
some kids trying to get their hands on a cookie jar and fighting, and one day
their mom (Facebook) takes it all away so nobody gets the cookie jar. The kids
cry and bitch about it saying it's not fair. But soon something great happens.
kids no longer fight because there's nothing to fight over, but go out to earn
their own cookie in their own creative ways. They may even share the ones they
earned with one another if they're generous.

Anyway this has nothing to do with democracy, they're just doing the thing
they've become good at doing--spinning news to fit their interest--like kids
crying and complaining about how it's not fair that the free cookie jar is
gone.

~~~
marcus_holmes
>And I would say it's a good thing even for the media because essentially they
are being cut off of access to the race to the bottom that's killing them.

I would completely agree if it wasn't possible for a media page to pay to have
their posts back in the news feed again. Which it is.

If FB was genuinely trying to "make users happy" then I'd be more charitable.
But they're not. They're trying to monetise more.

As a publisher affected by this test, it was a nightmare. All our users are on
mobile, and use FB as their search engine. We saw a ~75% drop in engagement
for the main site affected by it.

Yes, people _can_ type a url into a browser. But they don't. they scroll their
newsfeed.

Our choices are: take FB head-on trying to get engagement with our users
outside FB, or pay FB to regain our old levels of engagement. Not fun.

~~~
peoplewindow
_Yes, people can type a url into a browser. But they don 't. they scroll their
newsfeed._

They don't ... for your site.

You know how often I see Hacker News on Facebook? Never. Yet I visit here
regularly. Same for reddit and many other sources of news.

You know how often Breitbart links appear in Facebook or Google News? Never.
Yet it's the 49th biggest site in the USA according to Alexa.

 _Our choices are: take FB head-on trying to get engagement with our users
outside FB, or pay FB to regain our old levels of engagement. Not fun._

Isn't that cookie-jar thinking, just like cocktailpeanuts says? You got large
amounts of free advertising and referral traffic for a long time. Very few
businesses benefit from that sort of thing. Now you're back to having to get
loyal users the old fashioned way, or you can pay for that traffic in the
manner of traditional advertisers.

~~~
marcus_holmes
HN, Reddit and FB are all aggregators, not journalists. They are not sources
of news, they merely link to it.

Producing quality journalism is expensive, the business model doesn't work to
pay for the journalists and also pay for our traffic.

Having been through this test, our only viable long-term choice here is to gtf
off FB. That's going to be extremely painful.

Let's hope a few good news sources survive the pain, eh? Otherwise all you've
got left on your lovely FB/HN/Reddit feed is the shite that's cheap to produce
and optimised for clicks...

~~~
peoplewindow
HN/Reddit being aggregators isn't relevant to my point - I derive value from
these sites and browse to them directly. If your site was that valuable,
people would do the same. Besides, much news in newspapers is also just
aggregations of AP/Reuters stories.

The vast majority of news sources are actually worse than "shite that's cheap"
and optimised for clicks - they're stuffed with lying, manipulation and
nonsense designed to bring about political outcomes preferred by the
journalists. See my other post in this thread about the FT. If we end this era
with most current journalistic outlets going bankrupt and disappearing, fine!
There will always be news. If it comes from other people who see journalism as
a way to aggregate timely facts rather than push agendas, so much the better.

~~~
matt4077
Does reading stuff like this make anyone else weep for the future of humanity?

And, since this sort of thinking seems to be quite prevalent on HN: does
anyone subscribing to this dystopian view of today's journalism care to
provide a single example of a for-profit publisher that they consider high
quality?

Because all I can think of when I read about "aggregate[d] timely facts" is
the phone book.

~~~
peoplewindow
Ah, insults. The last refuge of the pointless.

Technical and scientific journals, for example, are higher quality than
newspapers.

------
malvosenior
Why don’t these publishers band together and launch their own news aggregator
if they think that’s something people want? I don’t see Facebook owing them a
platform here and from a personal perspective politics can’t be removed from
my _social_ feed fast enough.

~~~
medfok
If you construct a community resource, you have a responsibility to the
community. This transcends business interest, which is illegitimate and
immoral. If you want to be a part of my life you need to be responsible.

~~~
gt_
As things stand, Facebook has no responsibility beyond those required by law
and market. This is not an endorsement of anything, but a reminder of the
reality.

~~~
jeffdavis
No, they have no _legal_ responsibilities beyond those required by law.

If they behave unethically we can certainly complain about it, and possibly
take some kind of action if we feel strongly enough (e.g. boycott).

~~~
gt_
Like I said, they have a responsibility defined by the market. I’m not sure
how your argument extends their responsibility any more than I did.

You comment concerning the users’ freedoms is, sure, correct; that’s the
_market_ I’m talking about.

Please clarify your argument if you have one.

------
dillondoyle
I assume probably a response to decreased engagement metrics. My 'sample of
one': I don't look at FB anymore, going from a daily user to maybe once a
month if that. I would likely re-engage if only 'human social' posts were in
my main feed. Sounds like I could still find public page posts and meme video
shit if I want in the second feed. I could manually attempt to manipulate this
outcome but the time and effect would pale in comparison to what FB could do
fairly simply.

As an advertiser, I would love this change if it does in fact bring daily
users back to engaging on FB. I already pay for reach, but much of it is
mobile and off FB news feed.

I wonder what their metrics for ad engagement would show though: does ad
engagement increase if the ad is the only non 'human social' post in view, or
does the mixed content that 'blends' an ad into similar looking content
produce more engagement (perhaps through engagements that users don't realize
are on an ad)? And if engagement is higher because of this blending 'trick'
engagement, do I actually want to pay for it or do I want to pay maybe a
higher price for more 'authentic' engagement? Probably very hard to measure,
which is why in my business we use polling to look beyond metrics FB
reports...

~~~
frank_abagnale
I think FB only cares about maximizing impressions (if the ad is CPM) and
clicks (if the ad is CPC).

Maximizing user's time by decreasing efficiency with dark patterns seems to be
the name of the game.

~~~
dillondoyle
Simplistically yes. I am not an engineer there so I don't know for sure, but
my experience says its a bit more complicated since you can have a more
complex bid that might be bidding CPM but uses LTV or CPA or some other metric
(ie for us we are happy to pay $50 CPM to reach certain voter who donate to
campaigns). Increasing impression load might work short term (or maybe even
might work in majority of cases so my point might be moot) - until the end
metric that ad buyers care about takes a hit (which in itself is a balance of
quality/cost so again, it's complicated).

I mean it's harder to measure for brand advertising, but we track very closely
lifetime value and persuasion through surveys, so the bid method doesn't
matter as much to us - and FB is probably the best IMHO at letting us bring in
whatever value data we want and optimizing for that.

------
josephwegner
This reads pretty similar to the cries that come out whenever Google updates
their search algorithm. It's as if people believe there is some code big
internet companies must live by, that ensures they never change.

These companies live by the code of the market - they will happily make
changes that make them more profitable. It does not make them evil if a small
customer gets caught in the crosshairs - it just means that small customers
need to be resilient to change.

~~~
cisanti
And if you complain about low internet speed pick up a showel and start
digging that fiber. I don't see a reason why cable companies need to cater
your need for Netflix.

~~~
icelancer
Was Facebook granted a government-sanctioned monopoly like Comcast was?

~~~
girvo
Does it matter where the monopoly came from? Honest question, I’m genuinely
unsure myself

~~~
dingo_bat
Easy answer: yes it does.

Think of something else like monopoly: money. Does it matter where your money
came from? A drug network killing teenagers across the country or selling
iphones to rich people. One makes you a criminal, the other makes you Steve
Jobs.

------
delhanty
Have no love for Facebook but: The Guardian would publish this wouldn't they?

This is a good idea by former editor (1975-95 [1]) Peter Preston: move The
Guardian back to Manchester from London and trim the wage bill in the process.
[2]

Perhaps then they might slow the cash burn of their Scott "Trust" endowment
(£838.3m 2015) ... [3]

Also, if they weren't quite so London centric they might be less surprised by
"events" outside their Facebook bubbles like Brexit and Trump.

I write the above as someone born in London, but now an expat (Japan) who
voted against Brexit, but wasn't surprised or offended that others didn't.

[1]
[https://www.theguardian.com/profile/peterpreston](https://www.theguardian.com/profile/peterpreston)

[2] [https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/apr/09/guardian-
manch...](https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/apr/09/guardian-manchester-
move-rumour-london-media)

[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Scott_Trust_Limited](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Scott_Trust_Limited)

~~~
peoplewindow
The Guardian has been pushing the line that non-Guardian news sources are
'dangerous for democracy' for a long time now. Other similar publications like
the NYT have the same viewpoint.

It's impressive double think: what they mean is, exposure to views they
disagree with might cause people to vote against things Guardian writers like
and for things Guardian writers dislike, therefore, it's important that such
people are not exposed to "wrong" views. The assumption that the Guardian
can't or shouldn't argue against those views is held very deep - if they took
opposing views seriously and tried to engage in debate, that would
"legitimise" such views or worse, they might lose the argument.

I used to be a Guardian reader. I read it religiously around the time
Snowden's stuff was getting published there. But I came to find it
manipulative and extremist. The amount of vitriolic hate they publish in their
comment is free section is very disturbing. If they go bankrupt I won't miss
them.

~~~
delhanty
This.

The publishing that they did concerning Snowden was important for journalistic
freedom.

All that stuff stopped after Katherine Viner became editor in 2015.

I do read it occasionally - just have uBlock Origin picker handy each time her
face pops up begging for funds ...

~~~
peoplewindow
Yes, I noticed a sharp drop in quality after Rusbridger left too.

Likewise at the Economist. Once Micklethwaite left and was replaced by Minton
Beddoes the stories became much less neutral.

------
return0
The journalists should really blame themselves for using facebook in the first
place. They knew what they were buying into.

~~~
surge
Sadly, it's where their audience is.

~~~
return0
i dont know. it didn't have to be. journalists embraced social media so
tightly both for getting input for their work as well as for audience. They 'd
hate to admit it but they became lazy. Partly, they made facebook (and
twitter) as mainstream as it is now.

~~~
dredmorbius
Facebook has over a billion daly actve mobile, and over two billion monthly
active users. It is the biggest single media platform in the history of the
planet. If you're in the audience business, it's simply a fact of life.

[https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-
statistics/amp...](https://zephoria.com/top-15-valuable-facebook-
statistics/amp/)

Media tends to winner-take-all dynamics for various reasons. Zipf's law means
that at best a small number of outlets will be significant. These are
characteristics of media platforms, period. Not journalists' or publishers'
fault.

------
Inception
This is why you don't put all of your eggs into someone else's basket.

------
c3534l
> The experiment, which began 19 October and is still ongoing, involves
> limiting the core element of Facebook’s social network to only personal
> posts and paid adverts.

This is the Orwellian outcry? I'm much more concerned about the idea of
everyone getting their news (especially passively) from Facebook and making
Facebook some sort of "social network" instead.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
The Orwellian part is that they rolled it out in Guatemala, where:

> _Soy502 is a new site in an unstable democracy where journalists and civil
> society groups already face an uphill battle to be heard. “We currently have
> a smear campaign that is targeting journalists, which is really vicious,
> fuelled by interest groups who are against the anti-corruption drive in our
> country,” she says. “We are regarded in the region as a success story on new
> media for the digital age. This can destroy us.”_

~~~
ComodoHacker
If I understand the problem correctly (I'm not a Facebook user) their
articles, which were being stuffed into users' feed, now require _one more
click_ from the user to be seen. And if their audience don't do that click
now, they overestimate importance of their work.

------
interfixus
My visits to Zuckerberg-land are few and getting fewer. Mainly to pick up the
occasional personal message and redirect it to a more civilized channel. And
_when_ I visit, I am heavily insulated by various sorts of filters - I never
see ads or silly recommendations.

So clearly, I'm in a bubble, and my ignorance is self-wrought, but honestly, I
never get it when there's talk about people reading _news_ \- fake or
otherwise - on Facebook. How do you even do that? Why would anyone? What am I
missing? If I ever _did_ see a news item there, my first instinct would be
distrust, my first potential reaction would be seeking out some external
source, and if none could be found, absolute dismissal.

Two billion users _do_ realise FB is nothing but a cheap, tacky marketing
ploy, yes? They do, don't they? Please!

~~~
remarkEon
Narrator: they do not.

~~~
interfixus
And apparently, neither do several downvoters here.

------
saas_sam
Maybe the problem is trying to centrally control vast and varied resources to
reach some kind of "fair" outcome.

Wait, Silicon Valley techies wouldn't be in favor of anything like that, would
they?

Ohhh....

------
SonicSoul
it's the old Facebook honeypot. So easy to share your content with users,
until FB decides what will and will not be shared.

[http://theoatmeal.com/comics/reaching_people](http://theoatmeal.com/comics/reaching_people)

------
nofilter
I don't get it, in the olden days where forums were popular everyone knew that
the final say of the content in that forum was of the administrators. Now,
however, we join a website we do not own, run by people we do not know, and
expect them to what, do as we say? Yeah, doesn't work like that. I'm not
supporting what Facebook does, but I'm not against it either. Like it, use it,
don't like it, don't use it.

~~~
guuz
The forums were/are usually catering to niches. Facebook is a behemoth. To
many people, the internet is basically it.

------
guuz
FB is not obligated to listen to every media outlet in the world when it
decides to change its product, but certainly it's ethical to estimate the
impact a change will cause on society, how small it can be. Remember: they are
not testing the new feed in established and healthy democracies, but in places
where independent journalism needs to gain traction

------
known
"Media does not spread FREE opinion; It GENERATES opinion" \--Oswald,1918
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_West](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decline_of_the_West)

------
PakG1
In David Kirkpatrick's book _The Facebook Effect_ , which was basically the
positive counterpart book at the time to Ben Mezrich's _The Accidental
Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook_ , Kirkpatrick talks on the first few
pages how Facebook's viral and collaborative social network allowed for
protests and eventually political revolutions to be organized in various
countries. He says that one guy was so thankful for Facebook that he named his
own child with the name Facebook.

If Facebook back then was lauded for enabling online communication in a way
that wasn't possible before that led to political revolution for certain
nations, it is ironic that these journalists are complaining about Facebook
killing their click count by taking their official pages out of the mainstream
feed. Taking their official pages out of the mainstream feed perhaps brings
Facebook closer back to the Facebook that Kirkpatrick wrote about. This leads
me to wonder whether the journalists are worried about political freedoms or
really their income while raising the banner of political freedoms. The fact
of the matter is that if Facebook indiscriminately removes these pages from
the mainstream feed, they'll remove "good" pages, but they'll also remove
"bad" pages (and let's not even get into which news media are "good" and which
are "bad").

Today, we can see that Facebook is like any other technological product: it is
amoral and can be used for "good" and "bad". Even though Zuckerberg now
concedes that Facebook may have had a part to play in Trump's election, an
idea he at first thought was nonsense, and even though he now makes overtures
of wanting to help ensure elections around the world are fair (where a private
American organization may or may not even be the right party to do this),
Zuckerberg in fact does not have much ability to control what happens on his
network. At a fundamental level, Facebook is about online social activity.
Even if he manages to successfully ban politically manipulative ads (and which
ads aren't?), bans fake accounts with amazing accuracy, and gets reviewed by
government committees for political ads the way television and radio get
reviewed, Facebook cannot survive without the lifeblood of its members
engaging in online social activity. It would not be easy to ban all the "bad"
people if there are a lot of "bad" people who still "deserve" their freedom of
political speech. So there will likely always be an attack surface for some
smart strategist to take advantage of Facebook and spread ideas maliciously
and manipulatively.

Pandora's Box has been opened, and it's not going to get closed again. And if
people mute those they don't like, then all it does is increase individual
echo chambers, which in turn then increase political polarization.

If technology is amoral and can be used for both good and bad, depending on
the user, we should have seen this future coming from a mile away. But we
didn't, I certainly didn't. It's funny how all the lessons from _1984_ ,
_Brave New World_ , and all the other classics have come true in so many ways.
Not sure if there was a book that warned about _this type_ of future discussed
in these comment threads, but anyway. I should have seen it coming and not
sure why I didn't. So we'll live in an era where information and
misinformation seem to become one.

------
dingo_bat
Ah, poor "journalists"! But on point, I'd pay a small fee to make my FB feed
free of posts by any professional news outlet.

------
markyuckerberg
There was a time when patio11 was going through a phase calling out Zynga as
one of the shadiest companies around.

I remember thinking "If Zynga is that bad, then what about Facebook?"

Facebook's ability and willingness to manipulate just about everything in
sight - WhatsApp ad policies, privacy policy changes, arbitrary censorship of
content, providing clear misinformation to legal entities for e.g. the promise
to EU that they cannot infer/merge user profiles, the absolute shitshow that
is shadow profiles - in line with corporate profits is starting to make Zynga
look angelic in comparison.

~~~
dang
Substantive critique of Facebook is fine on HN. To illustrate the point, I
used a moderation mechanism to rescue the OP from being penalized, which is
why you see it on the front page now.

That said, you can't do this with an account named "markyuckerberg". We want
thoughtful conversation, not cheap shots or personal attacks. Perhaps
Zuckerberg needs no protecting when it comes to these things, but HN certainly
does, so I've banned this account. If you want to comment on HN, a good place
to start would be with a username that doesn't violate the spirit of the site,
re which please see
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html).

Btw, special-purpose accounts aren't allowed here either. We're hoping for
good conversation, not pre-existing agendas.

~~~
nkurz
_Perhaps Zuckerberg needs no protecting when it comes to these things_

Thanks, Dan! But regardless of one's feelings toward Facebook, I think Mark
Zuckerberg should be treated with respect here just like anyone else. Not only
is it good for the overall tone of the site, but there are enough "public
figures" in tech that use this site that a flat "no personal attacks" (without
exceptions for fame) seems like the best policy.

~~~
dang
I agree completely. But even for people who don't feel that way, there are
good reasons for HN to have this rule. Breaking it degrades the community and
oneself.

------
dustfinger
This was recently posted here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15552252](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15552252)

------
thrusong
I think there will be increasing scrutiny over Facebook's ability to wipe
their hands while claiming "it's free speech."

There's a reason the media were information gatekeepers: there's a
responsibility to be accurate and unbiased.

Facebook's product was manipulated and helped Donald Trump get elected by
swaying public opinion. There has to be consequences- sorry, but in my opinion
not every voice deserves to be equal.

~~~
cobookman
> and helped Donald Trump get elected

Do you have actual proof of that. For all we know if facebook didn't exist the
population might have voted even more towards Trump.

~~~
1337biz
Actually entertaining how some are manipulating their biased, subjective
opinion into some sort of truthieness.

------
B1FF_PSUVM
Old agents of disintermediation complain of new agents of disintermediation.

More news at 11.

~~~
jack9
Indeed, the usual as usual.

More speech from sources = goodright unless it's someone else's different
message to a wider audience. Then it's badwrong. As long as you have the money
to shout it loud enough and long enough you have the same equity of audience
as anyone else.

------
0xbear
Where by “impact on democracy” they mean impact on their ad revenues.

~~~
_rpd
Yes, but also impact on their ability to generate and wield political power.
Journalism is practically non-profit these days, but there'll never be a
shortage of journalists looking to marshal the Fourth Estate.

~~~
0xbear
That, too. Everyone is so eager to offer their “valuable” opinion and omit the
parts of the story that don’t conform to that opinion.

------
kelvin0
FB is like a big dumb blind elephant. FB users are people expecting to get on
the elephant for their daily commute ... and expect to get from A to B in a
timely fashion.

Fail.

------
diogenescynic
Facebook has gotten worse and worse to use. I’m still surprised it hasn’t gone
the way of MySpace. Most of my friends don’t post nearly as much. I’m sure
that’s partly getting older, but it also just didn’t seem fun anymore. Reading
about all the the scummy stuff Facebook has done doesn’t thrill me either.

~~~
_rpd
> it also just didn’t seem fun anymore

That's exactly why they are doing this experiment. To answer the question:
will people come back if they don't have to wade through all this stuff they
don't really care about?

