
Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against conservatives - sergiotapia
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/may/23/facebook-admits-rogue-employees-may-have-shown-bia/
======
nostromo
It's interesting how media outlets are spinning this news. People that read
conservative media are left thinking that Facebook has admitted bias. People
that read liberal media are left thinking the opposite.

Washington Times: "Facebook admits rogue employees may have shown bias against
conservatives"

LA Times: "Facebook investigation reveals no evidence of bias against
conservative topics, company says"

NY Times: "Facebook Says an Investigation Found No Evidence of Bias in a News
App"

WSJ: "Facebook to Revamp 'Trending Topics' Feature to Reduce Bias Risk"

NY Post print edition (my favorite): "You won't read this on Facebook; Site
censors the news"

~~~
kailuowang
I am curious how many of these medias actually admit that they are biased
themselves?

~~~
redthrowaway
My anecdata suggests conservative outlets tend to acknowledge their bias, as a
counterweight to liberal bias in the "mainstream" media, whereas liberal
outlets tend to believe themselves to be unbiased.

Given how much liberal outlets scoff at the notion of there being a pervasive
liberal bias in the MSM, I suspect they legitimately just don't see it as
they're surrounded by people with the same political views and so are
predisposed to believing that's what "normal" is.

~~~
howlingfantods
Reality has a notorious liberal bias. Look at climate change, which went from
scientific position to liberal position.

~~~
jerf
Just so you know, I read "Reality has a $MY_POSITION bias" as "I've completely
epistemically closed myself by reading only what I agree with". Perhaps not
something you really want to advertise quite so loudly.

------
rm_-rf_slash
I suspect this may be an unpopular opinion, but given that in my experience,
the Trending tab tends towards garbage and clickbait instead of real news, one
would imagine Fox News hysteria and Facebook's Trending news would be a match
made in heaven, and if it weren't for personal curation, we would see even
more garbage as a result.

~~~
unlinker
It's funny how BuzzFeed or Vox shit is deemed reasonable by the left while Fox
News shit is treated as, well, shit.

No. Both are shit.

~~~
untog
I'm not sure when I've ever seen someone deem Buzzfeed's shit "reasonable".

~~~
rm_-rf_slash
To be fair buzzfeed does have some decent long-form journalism. Just like any
media company, they want as many eyes as they can get, whether they're reading
intently or glazed over during a commercial break.

------
aerlinger
You can't give employees the power to filter content then label them as
"rogue" when a bias inevitably emerges. Obviously any innate biases (overt or
not) will influence what gets filtered.

~~~
MichaelGG
Exactly. This outcome was clear. FB handled this astonishingly poorly and now
it looks like they were lying the whole time. Which honestly I'd probably true
since it's so obvious that personal bias would enter.

------
Aelinsaar
"But with nearly two-thirds of Facebook users saying they get at least some of
their news from the online platform, conservatives said any chance of bias
could skew political conversations."

Two-thirds... get at least _some_... Ooookay? I'm not sure at what point we're
all supposed to start running around with our hair on fire. Am I supposed to
pretend that the much smaller number of people who _rely_ on Facebook for
their news were ever going to be great in a political (or any other)
conversation?

~~~
MisterBastahrd
They still haven't shown that there's any sort of anti-conservative bias.
Finding a trending topic and using the best source available to represent the
information is not the same thing as bias. Conservative sites are, by
definition, not the best sources available.

~~~
talmand
Well, other than Facebook admitting to the possibility of bias.

~~~
MisterBastahrd
Well, that's why everyone who's ever been on trial for murder is a murderer.

Wait, that isn't correct? Neither is the Washington Times headline... but
then, the Times is about as mainstream as it gets for the right-wing fringe.
The content of the article disagrees with their headline.

Saying that there's a possibility is not the same as saying that there's a
certainty. Except when it comes to political nonsense.

~~~
talmand
I honestly have no clue what you are going on about.

------
adamnemecek
To be honest, I'm a.) somewhat surprised that people are surprised by this b.)
not sure why there is a government probe into this. Also the irony of Glenn
Beck bitching about bias in media is definitely not lost on me.

~~~
bpodgursky
Glen Beck actually wrote a piece after the meeting saying he took Mark at his
word, and complained about the tenor of the other conservatives in the
meeting: [http://www.glennbeck.com/2016/05/19/what-disturbed-glenn-
abo...](http://www.glennbeck.com/2016/05/19/what-disturbed-glenn-about-the-
facebook-meeting/)

> But until then, based on our research and my personal experience with
> Facebook, I believe they are acting in good faith and share some very deep,
> fundamental principles with people who believe in the principles of liberty
> and freedom of speech.

~~~
Kalium
I was quite surprised at the very reasonable position Glen Beck took. Very
interesting.

~~~
talmand
There are accusations that he's sucking up to Facebook for more exposure to
save his failing web enterprises. I don't know enough to say which is which,
but there's almost always another side to the story.

------
siegecraft
If Facebook et al are going to replace the dying traditional print and
broadcast media, maybe they need to be subject to the equal-time rule as well?
Pushing "Don't forget to vote!" reminders only to Facebook users who are
likely to vote in favor of facebook-friendly policies and candidates is one
interesting anecdote I've seen. I take it with a grain of salt but it's
nevertheless illustrative of the power that can be wielded with such a
platform/network. It definitely _can_ be done, so why wouldn't it?

~~~
jameshart
What equal-time rule are the traditional print and broadcast media in the US
subject to?

~~~
Terr_
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairness_Doctrine)
(defunct)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-
time_rule](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule)

------
randomgyatwork
It's always a "rogue employee"

~~~
wmccullough
There are phases to big corporate press releases for these things.

1\. My dog doesn't bite 2\. My dog does bite but it isn't my fault 3\. My dog
wouldn't have bitten if consumers had more personal responsibility (I don't
see how they could ever make the leap to this one)

~~~
kps
4\. That is not my dog.

¹ [http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-
bosch...](http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-bosch-
idUSKBN0TK5OK20151201) ²
[https://youtu.be/SXn2QVipK2o?t=52s](https://youtu.be/SXn2QVipK2o?t=52s)

------
karmakaze
It seems to me that the same system that dialled in the ratio of happy to sad
news was used here as well. Given that it's a configured system, hard to see
how no one in charge was aware of the conservative misconfiguration.

------
atf104
I'm still waiting for the Fox News bias probe.

~~~
nickff
Evidence seems to indicate that MSNBC is actually the most biased news
network.[1]

[1] [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/14/five-
facts-a...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/01/14/five-facts-about-
fox-news/)

~~~
westernmostcoy
I think you're referring to this part of the linked article:

> In the final stretch of the campaign, nearly half (46%) of Obama’s coverage
> on Fox was negative, while just 6% was positive in tone. But MSNBC produced
> an even harsher narrative about the Republican in the race: 71% of Romney’s
> coverage was negative, versus 3% positive.

I am unsure it supports an argument for being the "most biased news network"
outside of a specific election.

Also, it does not appear to account for reporting on a sitting president (who
is also running for reelection) and will generate non-election news as well as
election news versus a candidate who is not currently generating much news
outside of their election.

------
wry_discontent
Why am I supposed to care? Facebook isn't a news source. They're a software
company. They're under no obligation to be fair and balanced.

~~~
solipsism
News organizations also are under no obligation to be fair and balanced
(obviously). They don't even have to pretend they are if they don't want to.
Some think they should be obligated, but that's a different discussion.

~~~
tremon
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11764095](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11764095)
seems to suggest that at least political candidates can "enforce" some
fairness if they'd care to do so.

------
cowpig
I don't think this is a problem that's specific to any one bias, nor will it
go away when "rogue employees" are dealt with. I think this is an issue that's
inherent to turning dials to tune what you want people to see in any kind of
content-aware way.

I also don't think that's necessarily problematic, but it probably is for
Facebook because it has a near monopoly on its particular type of service, and
because it gives the appearance of being content-neutral.

------
mixmastamyk
I don't know if it made any difference in this story, and I hate both parties
in the US, but I notice that the "right-wing" posts on FB are normally a notch
or two uglier than those from lefties. I've got quite a wide range of friends
from my travels from the fox news contingent all the way to real communists.

I speculate that it's because those on the right are more "ends justify the
means" type of people. Curious what others think.

~~~
talmand
If you can generalize all people in a wide-area political spectrum as all are
"ends justify the means", then I would suggest you meet more people in that
spectrum before denouncing them as a group.

~~~
mixmastamyk
I know dozens, and do not denounce them. It's a valid philosophy.

~~~
talmand
Well then, if you know _dozens_ then I stand corrected.

------
nitroxxls
Facebook also known to use bots to increase their ads revenue. True evil
company.

------
firasd
I started using this Chrome extension to block Facebook trends:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-facebook-
tre...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/block-facebook-
trends/khokbojephkhaaipdpbmmkgammfbjkgj)

I checked the source and it just seems to grab the div and set the style to
hidden. It's not perfect, because when I open Facebook sometimes Trends are
visible for a second, but it's much better than glancing at the section and
being drawn into clicking on whatever celebrity news or other headline-of-the-
moment is trending.

It's kinda insidious--I don't watch TV or read celebrity gossip sites, but
when the Trend says some Kardashian posted a selfie that people are talking
about, I'm tempted to click and see the photo just to see what the discussion
is about.

~~~
el_benhameen
I use ublock origin and created a rule to block the trends feature. Just
right-click the element and then select "block this". I suppose it would be
optimal to create a rule to block the whole damn site, but baby steps ...

------
heisenbit
The concept of unbiased news is in my mind troubling. How can one have editors
that won't make judgment decisions?

The more tightly one boxes the editors in with rules the more predictable the
enterprise becomes. And a predictable huge enterprise is a standing invitation
to be gamed. There is a whole industry of marketeers and political hacks
searching for new ways to leverage others infrastructure and social assets to
get their message out. The human element so far seems vital to protect against
spam. Even Google can't stand still and constantly tweaks their rules - and
gets taken to court for it too.

And if one has editors making decisions and they are all young they tend to be
on average more left than the general population.

It is hard for Facebook to win here. The best move may be not to play.

------
siegecraft
Maybe one could let organizations register with social media platforms as a
political speech organization. This would opt them out of algorithmic
timelines and ensure that their followers always see their broadcasts. There
would have to be some sort of downside, though, otherwise everyone would sign
up as a political entity. Maybe if you're political you never show up in
suggestions/organic recommendedations? The decision to self-identify as
political speech would have to be in the hands of the indivudual orgs,
otherwise you'd have the same filtering problem where people would just make
speech they don't like as non-political.

------
mrcactu5
Is this the Washington Post? or the Washington Times?

the Washington Times strikes me as having "conservative bias" as shown in
their piece on the Democrat's War on Piece.

------
makecheck
Or in other words: “people who chose a _single source_ for news complained
that this one source is biased”. Let’s not learn the lesson that perhaps it is
a _good idea_ to seek multiple sources so that biases are kept in check and
accuracy is improved. Oh, and let’s make sure to demand that Facebook do
exactly what we want since we’re not even paying for access to Facebook.

------
SpikeDad
Haha. An article on conservative bias in a newspaper that is the epitome of
conservative bias. Stand by for the "truth" as Fox News reports on the
Washington Times report.

------
sawthat
The irony of the Washington Times complaining about bias...

------
jklinger410
"News" organizations who can barely report on the temperature outside without
it dripping with bias who use their platform to push their agendas are stoking
anger against another platform for being biased?

It's very beneficial for news media to oust social media as bias. This was a
con job from the beginning.

I've never even looked at the "trending" section, anyway. So I guess this is
yet another happening in modern American society which is generalized to imply
societal importance but that really boils down to idiots yelling at other
idiots.

------
amaks
Now it's employees' fault. It's nice to be able to blame grass roots, not the
processes.

------
rajahafify
Why would they be able to filter that has been represented at all?

------
known
"Man is by nature a political animal." \--Aristotle

------
puppetmaster3
Here is an example of recent FaceBook censorship:
[http://youtube.com/watch?v=25tYyAgejA8](http://youtube.com/watch?v=25tYyAgejA8)

------
Overtonwindow
This just in: people have personal opinions!

------
scrame
Reality has a strong liberal bias.

------
wnevets
Now if only we could get crazy conservatives to boycott facebook.

------
horpulous
I'm totally fine with this. If you want to advocate for a world in which _all
resources_ are privately-owned (leaving no commonly-owned space for discourse)
and that a global, multi-billion-dollar social media service has the same free
speech rights as a mom and pop grocery, then you deserve to reap the rewards
of your own ideology.

~~~
talmand
It's not always that. Most of the thinking I've heard about this is not to
control what Facebook may or not do. Many critics say that Facebook is a
private company and can do what they want. The complaint among them is that
Facebook lies about it.

~~~
solipsism
Why would "Facebook is a private company and can do what they want" not apply
to lying, as long as it doesn't become fraud?

~~~
talmand
Oh sure, they could lie. It's not that these people are necessarily demanding
laws about the company lying, it's more a suggestion that it's not a nice
thing to do. It is the outcry of people with little power to do anything other
than complain about an injustice they see. I hear it's quite a popular thing
to do on the left side of the political spectrum in the US.

------
thisargisARGH23
"But with nearly two-thirds of Facebook users saying they get at least some of
their news from the online platform, conservatives said any chance of bias
could skew political conversations."

I really don't understand this whole situation? How is this happening?

If the argument is "We don't like how you're skewing news about our kind", how
is this not seen as pure hypocrisy and laughed out of the room?

Can you imagine the uproar by Conservatives if a Liberal group demanded a
meeting with Roger Ailes over their manipulation of Liberal talking points,
skewing political conversations across the country for the last 30 years?

How can anyone on the Conservative side, especially pundits and politicians
that rely on Fox News to spin their very special brand of stupid, stand up and
say "Facebook is in the wrong?"

~~~
rhino369
A key difference between Fox News and Facebook is that Fox commentators are
pretty much advertising their bias. Bill Oreilly is clearly stating his
personal opinions.

Facebook is stating it's politically neutral but it wasn't.

Another thing to considers is that Facebook is a monopoly in the social
networking business. There are probably half a dozen news networks on a cable
plan, plus nearly infinitely online news outlets.

If you don't like Fox news, there is CNN, MSNBC, Bloomberg, etc. Facebook has
no direct alternative.

~~~
thisargisARGH23
Their tagline is "Fair and Balanced". In reality they're nothing of the sort.

Here is a link describing how Trending topics works:

[https://www.facebook.com/help/737806312958641](https://www.facebook.com/help/737806312958641)

Where does it state Trending topics is a neutral source for unbiased news?
They admit readily that an algorithm does much of the work, but that it also
relies on human intervention. And the Valley, including Zuckerberg, have worn
their "liberal" ideals all over their sleeves via their actions.

They sold people on a tagline, while never really being up front. Need I again
quote Zuckerberg's infamous opinion on people trusting him? Let's not forget
his shenanigans in India with "free" but hobbled internet.

They're as open about how things really work as Fox. Unless Fox is suddenly
inviting people into their meetings where editorial directives are discussed.
They put some friendly language on there, making a vague claim, then feed
people bullshit.

The mental gymnastics people go through by blindly accepting such shallow
rhetoric like "Fair and Balanced" or "We're neutral" without really verifying
is bizarre.

Facebook has competition in the form of dozens of news aggregators; Apple,
Google, Microsoft, Pocket... This is about one feature of Facebook. Not the
entire enchilada.

My frustration is not with Facebook lacking competition. It's the
aforementioned obtuse behavior of the populace at large, the mind-boggling
mental gymnastics being employed, in thinking that these large, opaque
corporate machines are focusing on the end user. The phrase "if it's a free
service, you're the product, not the customer" comes to mind. Facebook sells
eyeballs to others. They have little interest in being neutral.

~~~
dang
Please don't create many obscure throwaway accounts on HN. This forum is a
community. Anonymity is fine here, but users should have some kind of
consistent identity that other users can relate to. Otherwise we might as well
have no usernames and no community at all, and that would be an entirely
different forum.

------
nametakenobv
You look confused. Probably because people want to call facebook "social
media" and Fox News is also called "media".

Fox News produces editorial content. They are entitled to their opinion thanks
to the first Amendment. Facebook is a delivery channel. They do not produce
editorial content so they are not allowed to have bias in the very same way
that your TV set is not allowed to receive only conservative news channels.

edited for a better analogy.

~~~
gnaritas
> Facebook is a delivery channel. They do not produce editorial content so
> they are not allowed to have bias

That's simply not true; they're allowed to do anything they want.

~~~
mason240
Literally no one is suggesting otherwise.

~~~
gnaritas
You are literally incorrect as I literally quoted someone suggesting
otherwise.

~~~
mason240
Where?

~~~
gnaritas
Try reading the post you replied to.

------
abhi3
It is hard for me to believe that one employee could show this kind of bias
for this long without being noticed. It had to be more systematic and
widespread. But good to see FB admitting it and taking corrective action.

~~~
sergiotapia
I also kind of rolled my eyes at the "rogue employee" angle. I hope Facebook
makes things right.

~~~
sergiotapia
@voku of course there is, otherwise this wouldn't be news.

~~~
vkou
This is manufactured outrage. As mentioned by abiox, in a free country, every
source of news is free to lie and distort things as much as it feels like.

Facebook having an anti-conservative slant (true or not) is about as
newsworthy as Fox News having an anti-reason slant. For some reason, though,
there aren't too many conservative senators wringing their hands and calling
for an investigation into the latter.

~~~
talmand
Actually, courts have established that the first amendment does not
necessarily allow anyone to lie and distort things as much as they wish. There
are limitations.

It's just that some people are better than others at skirting along that line.

~~~
vkou
Only in a very few select contexts.

1\. When you have a fiduciary duty. 2\. When you are on a witness stand. 3\.
When you are speaking to a federal agent. 4\. When you are committing fraud.
(See #1) 5\. ???

None of these are relevant to mass media.

~~~
talmand
There is libel and slander, which are relevant to mass media.

------
Torgo
Maybe this happens when your hiring process selects against ideological
diversity.

~~~
Torgo
I guess everybody forgot the "what is Facebook's responsibility to stop a
Donald Trump presidency?" internal messageboard question.

------
GFK_of_xmaspast
Having read the Washington Times before, I'm not inclined to believe a single
thing they publish without corroboration.

~~~
ProAm
Does the media outlet matter? They are all biased in direction or another...
The fact that facebook curates their timeline tells you it's manipulated and
biased. [1]

[1]
[http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everyt...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/06/everything-
we-know-about-facebooks-secret-mood-manipulation-experiment/373648/)

------
mrcactu5
This is not the Washington Post. It is the Washington Times.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Washington_Times)

    
    
      Founded in 1982 by Unification Church leader Sun Myung Moon, 
      the Times was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the church until 2010, in which Moon and a group of former executives purchased the paper. It is currently owned by diversified conglomerate Operations Holdings.[

