Facebook as a so-called media org

it's their site. they, facebook, can do whatever it wants with their site. don't like it, move on and maybe start your own service.

may 9, 2016 - weird. i thought this story made the rounds two weeks ago.

this story was posted last week or so, and it's probably the one that I was thinking about.
http://gizmodo.com/want-to-know-what-facebook-really-thinks-of-journalists-1773916117

yeah, http://jothut.com/cgi-bin/junco.pl/blogpost/70163/03May2016/Facebook-and-its-media-operation

I had to log into Facebook to see the trending stories section. I never knew that it existed. It's located in the upper right corner of the screen when viewing the site in a web browser on a desktop/laptop computer. I never noticed the trending stories section before. I probably assumed it was garbage ads or sponsored content or notification crap.

new story but it seems similar to ... whatever
http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-suppressed-conser-1775461006

http://mediagazer.com/160509/p9#a160509p9

discussion began on may 8 about the mid-april story
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11655951

top HN comment about the journalists' whining:

Having worked with journalists, these sound like typical entitlement complaints. Frankly, a lot of writers have an attitude that they're "artists" who shouldn't be rushed and don't have performance requirements.

Frankly, it does not sound very hard at all. They have to write 20 posts a day, but each post is only a headline and a brief summary. A focused writer can finish that in 15 minutes.

Another HN comment:

When the employees of Facebook collectively ask "What responsibility do we have to stop the election of Donald Trump" at an internal meeting, it gives me Orwellian chills. Today, it's not governments we need to fear the most, it's data hungry, fascist internet corporations.

Two thoughts:

1. Facebook employees and technologists in general have a self-inflated importance, regarding their influence on culture.
2. Or the masses are easily manipulated, which means Facebook users are primarily dolts.

Either way, I'm glad that I don't "use" Facebook. I have no problem with the business existing. Zillions of us probably wish that we had invented it. But Facebook has no purpose in my life. I subscribe to the theory that all humans are unique, and that it's possible for some humans not to have an interest in the social aspects of Facebook.

But this story applies to Trending Topics and not the main news feed. I didn't know that this trending section existed until this story came out last week. I wonder how often Facebook users notice or access the trending topics area.

HN comment:

The Facebook echo chamber is a true effect, and echo chambers cause a feedback loop of encouraging radicalization.

That would be the hypersensitive, deranged, Facebook mob which does not believe in freedom of expression.

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/729670066808213504

Aside from fueling right-wing persecution, this is a key reminder of dangers of Silicon Valley controlling content

"Facebook’s trending stories leak shows that it isn’t too different from average news orgs: flawed, human, a little biased"

http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/05/facebooks-trending-stories-leak-shows-that-it-isnt-too-different-from-average-news-orgs-flawed-human-a-little-biased/

Facebook curators also said they were discouraged from posting trending stories about Facebook itself, often having to go through several layers of management to get posts approved. Facebook, in that respect, isn’t too different from some major news organizations. Bloomberg News, for example, has a policy against covering parent company Bloomberg LP and its founder.

Not too different "average" news orgs, eh. Maybe that's another reason why the public gives the media a 6-percent approval rating.

https://twitter.com/agolis/status/729667175288541184

They're [Facebook] trying to exercise good editorial judgment, about information sources and public interest. Good for them.

Yes, Facebook can do whatever it wants, but I'm guessing that Golis would have a different viewpoint if Facebook suppressed trending news from liberal media orgs.

It's Facebook. It's another form of entertainment. Whenever my wife shares a "news" story with me that she "found" on Facebook, I'm skeptical. On a few occasions, I did some checking, and I easily found info that refuted the claim or "news" found on Facebook, or I found information that placed the "news" story in more intelligent context.

An April 2016 "news" story "found" on Facebook said that we should boycott Burt's Bees products because the founder sold the company to Clorox. The Facebook "news" post made the story sound like the sale occurred in April 2016. Nope. Clorox bought Burt's Bees in 2007 for $925 million.

I will continue to buy and use Burt's Bees beeswax lip balm as I have done for several years now. I don't remember if I started using Burt's Bees before or after 2007. I don't care.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burt%27s_Bees