
Facebook head of news cofounded site critical of Elizabeth Warren - sandmansandine
https://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-news-chief-cofounded-site-that-has-attacked-elizabeth-warren-2019-11
======
rayiner
I feel like this is grasping at straws. Facebook’s head of news co-founded a
site _in 2015_ that promotes school choice, something supported by a majority
of people and a super majority of people of color:
[https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/school-choice-
strong-...](https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/school-choice-strong-voter-
support-for-expansion).

The articles posted on this site were critical of Warren because of Warren’s
opposition to school choice, but has also criticized the other Democratic
candidates for taking the same position:
[https://www.the74million.org/article/stewart-the-
democratic-...](https://www.the74million.org/article/stewart-the-democratic-
presidential-candidate-have-something-for-everyone-except-classroom-students).

The attempt to make it seem like the criticism of Warren on this site has
anything to do with Facebook is pretty weak. The site was started long before
Warren said anything critical about Facebook. The site also has a good faith
basis for being critical of Warren in this front. Warren’s opposition to
school choice highlights a distressing fissure within the Democratic Party:
[https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/19/08/ednext-poll-
democrats...](https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/19/08/ednext-poll-democrats-
divided-over-school-choice)

> African American Democrats support targeted school vouchers, universal
> vouchers, and charter schools at 70%, 60%, and 55%, respectively. Among
> Hispanic Democrats, support for the three policies is at 67%, 60%, and 47%.
> On the other hand, just 40% of non-Hispanic White Democrats support targeted
> vouchers, 46% support universal vouchers, and 33% support charter schools.

The site is addressing a real debate within the Democratic Party, consistent
with its founding principles, not using some contrived pretext to attack
Warren for her comments about Facebook.

~~~
alecb
Ah yes, "school choice", a nice rebranding effort for privatizing another
industry so Betsy Devos and other aspiring oligarchs can destroy a public good
for their profit.

~~~
EpicEng
Tell that to the kids going to schools with massive gang problems. Even if
they want to succeed it's a constant battle. My wife teaches at one of these
schools and she has no problem understanding why kids would want out.

~~~
Barrin92
the correct response would be to one 1. fight the gang problems 2. stop tying
school funding to localities which perpetuates poor districts being poor and
underfunded.

Clearly the solution can't be privatized 'school choice' because the people
who need it the most will probably not be able to afford it, and it segregates
society further, giving everyone even less stake in repairing their
communities. It's a self-defeating cycle.

~~~
macspoofing
>the correct response would be to one 1. fight the gang problems 2. stop tying
school funding to localities which perpetuates poor districts being poor and
underfunded.

Don't be dense. Those are generational issues to solve. There is enough
inertia in the system that solutions if there are any, will take decades to
manifest. You know this. And nobody will sacrifice their children at the altar
of 'social justice' as espoused online by 20something who doesn't know any
better. No, they want their children to be safe, and get a quality education.

------
CoolGuySteve
A similar article seems to have gotten de-prioritized pretty quickly
yesterday:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21504985](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21504985)

What is the hnews policy for when "politics" collides with "tech"? These
articles are only going to be more common as the election approaches.

~~~
dang
Have a look at these links:

[https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...](https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=by%3Adang%20%22political%20overlap%22&sort=byDate&type=comment)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19769679](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19769679)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869)

If you still have questions they don't answer, let me know what they are and
I'll add to the set.

------
r00fus
To those who downvote and think this kind of discussion is "off-topic" for HN:
When and how do we hold our titans of industry accountable for their actions?

Many here either work at FB or are reliant on their network for work related
activities.

All of this would be a whole lot less critical if Facebook did what Twitter
did and bowed out of taking political ad money.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
> When and how do we hold our titans of industry accountable for their
> actions?

We don't even hold ourselves accountable for our actions in this industry.

------
SN76477
Politics is full of bad actors, I do not think Warren is one of those people.
You can disagree with her, sure, but she just wants to create fairness for all
in my opinion.

Facebook is the opposite of this, with their closed systems, back door
dealings and often shady business practices it makes perfect sense that they
are opposed to her.

~~~
gadders
You don't think the whole debacle about claiming to be native american has
hurt her credibility somewhat?

~~~
murph-almighty
I'll bite even though I'm a bit uninformed here:

I think it's plausible to be told something about your heritage and not
question it, especially if it's something spanning multiple generations where
the paperwork validating the claim is either nonexistent or otherwise hard to
reach. At varying points I've been told by relatives that I'm part Scottish,
and told by others that I'm not, and I don't really have a straightforward way
of validating this aside from engaging in some intensive research.

I can reasonably extend the benefit of the doubt to Elizabeth Warren that she
didn't know if she was actually some fraction Native American or not until the
DNA test.

~~~
politil_throw93
> I can reasonably extend the benefit of the doubt to Elizabeth Warren that
> she didn't know if she was actually some fraction Native American or not
> until the DNA test.

But she didn't claim to be 'some fraction Native American'. She said her race
_was_ 'Native American', just full-on 'Native American', on an official form.

And she claimed to be Cherokee in a book. That's even more bizarre of a thing
to claim. No matter what anyone told her, she must have known she wasn't part
of the tribe?

People say she's apologised, but she hasn't really said 'I'm sorry that I...'
except that she's caused distress. What does she now admit she did? Lied?
Stretched the truth? What does she see it as? What was going through her head.
What would lead her to make such obviously ludicrous claims? Even if she did
have one recent ancestor, which it turns out she probably didn't, it's still a
nonsense claim that she _is_ Native American and Cherokee.

Does she still think she's Native American? Will she describe herself as the
first Native American president? If she doesn't, what does she say is the
difference between now and when she filled out that form? That's what I'm
missing - her explanation.

------
r00fus
It's pretty clear over the past few months that Facebook has decided that it's
going to support specific candidates and is abdicating it's role as a
"communications medium" (Trump on the right, Buttigieg on the left).

Their decision to accept paid lies (ads) by candidates (as opposed to Twitter)
should tell us everything we need to know that FB views the targeted
conspiracy-theory factually untrue bullshit - as a thing to be embraced (nay,
not to avoid) - all for profit.

Time will tell if they permit all such ads or only the ones that they prefer.

~~~
stevenwoo
Breitbart being a trusted Facebook news source was kind of jaw dropping.

~~~
JungleGymSam
What's your take on CNN and MSNBC? Mother Jones? The Daily Kos? HuffPo? etc.

~~~
mikeyouse
Breitbart is an explicitly white nationalist publication. There is no
comparison with standard news.

[https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/11/12/stephen-
mille...](https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/11/12/stephen-millers-
affinity-white-nationalism-revealed-leaked-emails)

 _Edit:_

Good lord people. SPLC has a cache of emails from Stephen Miller written to
various people at Breitbart about reporting their stories with explicit white
nationalist ideology. You don't have to like SPLC to believe the leaked emails
any more than you had to like Wikileaks to believe the leaked DNC emails.

Here's another source if you don't want to give them clicks:
[https://www.thedailybeast.com/stephen-miller-pushed-
racist-s...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/stephen-miller-pushed-racist-
stories-to-breitbart-leaked-emails-show)

~~~
refurb
SPLC is not an authority on what’s white supremacy and what’s not. They’ve
been known to cast a wide net.

~~~
mikeyouse
I'd encourage you to read the link instead of whatever kind of dismissal this
is. They have leaked correspondence between Stephen Miller and Breitbart
coordinating the latter's coverage with an explicit nationalist bent.
Breitbart relies on Camp of Saints and VDare for their sourcing on policy
stories. Have we already forgotten their "Black Crime" news tag?

~~~
DuskStar
> with an explicit nationalist bent.

If that's all, it's really interesting that it became _white_ nationalist in
SPLC's reporting...

~~~
mikeyouse
They literally had a section on their 'news' website called "Black Crime" \-
the terms are synonymous. It's astonishing to me that the crowd would rather
parse SPLC's phrasing or history rather than the documentary evidence that
there are white nationalists making policy at the highest levels of our
government and coordinating with one of Facebook's 'approved news sources'.

~~~
DuskStar
Well, taking the maximally-charitable view of things would point out that
"Black Crime" would cover ~half of violent crime in the US, and so deserve a
category. But somehow I doubt that they'd cover non-black crime to quite the
same extent. (Though the maximally charitable view _there_ would be that non-
black crime is better covered on other sites than black crime is, and so on)

~~~
mikeyouse
Gross.

------
lwb
I am shocked that this is news. A business person is critical of a politician.
Who cares? Would this be news if, say, the head of Apple News was critical of
Donald Trump?

------
seibelj
If she was on the board of a publication that promoted teacher's unions and
left-wing ideology this would not be news. However she promoted charter
schools and is anti-socialism, so therefore it's a big storm in the Twitter-
verse.

I for one love capitalism and would rather send my child to a charter rather
than the high school near my apartment, where the Dean of Peace Relations was
recently convicted for attempted murder of a student he recruited to deal
drugs.[0]

People without any means are forced to send their children to the monopoly
school if they can't afford private and there are no charters. School choice
is always preferable.

[0] [https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/05/31/shaun-harrison-
guilty-b...](https://www.wbur.org/news/2018/05/31/shaun-harrison-guilty-
boston-student-shooting)

