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Facebook Accused of Political Bias
First, let me say that I am a total supporter of the internet. It needs no changes. Let it continue to grow and thrive. However, one of my fundamental assumptions has always been that there is really no incentive for internet providers to be biased. Any such suggestion of real bias would immediately lose them a huge market share. Their own self-interest is in maintaining a completely unbiased mode of operation. Actually, this is the least expensive, least complex form of online operation so why not do it purely from a business standpoint?
We have reached the day that my fundamental assumption must be tested. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The Social Justice Warrior environment is so mindlessly one-sided that it doesn’t realize that it is itself the threat to social justice. Brendan Eich, a very hard working, personally hands-on tech entrepreneur, believed that marriage was between one man and one woman. He quietly donated $1,000 to an organization that supported his point of view. He was outed by the SJWs as not being politically correct and driven from his own company.
In this insane environment, we shall now look at another high-tech phenomenon. Mark Zuckerberg is no technical genius. I don’t think he can write a line of code himself. He is, however, a marketing genius. He created a fabulous marketing scheme called Facebook. He gave people free access to their own easy-to-use personal website. He pitched keeping in social contact with others. By selling advertising on top of this model, Facebook took off and has made Zuckerberg hugely wealthy. With wealth has come fame, power, and influence.
This would all be fine because that is what America is all about. Unfortunately, absolute power does corrupt absolutely and Mr. Zuckerberg needs to be called to task. From many different sources, there have been complaints of full-scale content bias manipulations by Facebook. Zuckerberg blows it off and sticks to a story of total innocence. This has held back the tide of anger in the past, but no more. The Senate is investigating claims that Facebook censors conservative news.
One odious example of this censorship occurred last year. In the midst of knife-wielding terror attacks in Israel, Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center received information that many of the terrorists were being recruited on Facebook. So they decided to do an experiment, placing two Facebook pages online simultaneously. One page was full of real hate speech against Palestinians. The second page used the exact same language as the first but with one change: “Israeli” was substituted for “Palestinian.” They immediately reported both pages to Facebook. Immediately, the page that had hate speech against Palestinians was taken down. The page that had hate speech against Israelis was left up with Facebook claiming that they couldn’t determine if it constituted hate speech. Shurat Hadin tried to contact Facebook and Zuckerberg directly but were given no hearing. The result was Lakin v. Facebook.
The Complaint was filed in response to a wave of terror attacks beginning in October 2015 by which Palestinians attacked people with knives, axes, screwdrivers, cars and Molotov cocktails for no reason other than a perception by the attacker that the victims are Jewish. Many of these attackers were motivated to commit their heinous crimes by incitement to murder and the glorification of violence against innocent civilians they read on Facebook.
Zuckerberg did not respond.
The Complaint alleges that Facebook is much more than neutral internet platform or a mere “publisher” of speech because its algorithms connect the terrorists to the inciters. Facebook actively assists the inciters to find people who are interested in acting on their hateful messages by offering friend, group and event suggestions and targeting advertising based on people’s online “likes” and internet browsing history. Additionally, Facebook often refuses to take down the inciting pages, claiming that they do not violate its “community standards.” Calling on people to commit crimes is not constitutionally protected speech and endangers the lives of Jews and Israelis. Shurat HaDin will pursue the claims against Facebook on behalf of its 20,0000 clients until Facebook makes it (known that it) will not allow itself to serve as a tool for terrorists to transmit their rabble rousing messages to their followers and that incitement to anti-Semitic violence will not be tolerated on its website.
G-d will be watching and all the money and fame in Silicon Valley will not excuse Zuckerberg’s conduct if he continues to ignore this.
I like the internet but not that much.
Published in Islamist Terrorism, Politics, Technology
The market is so fractured there is no need to serve the broader market. We have made a science of slicing things up and selling the slices.
Facebook or Twitter do not care to service conservatives. And they have calculated (correctly) that the youth have been successfully indoctrinated and the future is state control.
EJ,
I disagree. Facebook relies on a presumption of non-bias. As people become more sophisticated they see that this is not true. Because the net is an interactive media, testing for bias doesn’t require Tim Groseclose to get another grant and spend a year in research. Any organization can and will test if they think they are consistently getting a raw deal.
I think Facebook won’t want to lose the market share nor the presumption of the lack of bias. I think Zuckerberg will respond to pressure. He just looks like a daffy millennial idiot. In reality, he’s a daffy millennial idiot with his eye consistently on the bottom line.
Regards,
Jim
a) I’ve never even noticed that Facebook posts “trending stories” in the corner of the page. It’s hardly a high-priority part of the services they provide. I get lots and lots of news from conservative outlets on Facebook, because I subscribe to their pages.
b) There is no substantive difference between what Facebook does and what Drudge does. They both aggregate news stories according to their own biases.
Mis,
As far as the Facebook trending stories there is a slight difference. Facebook is presenting this as if an unbiased count of clicks is making these stories appear not an editor (Matt Drudge) sitting there and deciding what stories he wants to put on The Drudge Report page.
This is just deceptive advertising. Of course, once widely known the presumption of unbiased trending information is blown. I think people don’t like being lied to. Drudge isn’t lying. He makes no claim that the stories on his page are anything other than what he thinks is important. If Facebook presents those stories as unbiased trending stories and they aren’t this will cause even 15-year-olds to look elsewhere for news.
Regards,
Jim
I quit Facebook long ago when they began censoring gun posts. There is enough government censorship and propaganda I can’t quit. Quitting this was easy. I have not missed it.
I can’t believe Thune is getting on Facebook’s case. I guess he believes in something like the fairness doctrine? Media is mostly liberal John, and the government isn’t supposed to try to change that. You should be ashamed of yourself. Will you next be demanding that Daily Kos make its views more mainstream?
Civ,
I can understand your frustration. Zuckerberg’s marketing brilliance was to give away a free mini-website that was super easy to use. Because of this, it is a great temptation and very useful to organizing any kind of political or social movement. However, when their bizarre left-wing bias becomes evident such as suppressing gun rights advocates while allowing Jihadist recruiters free range, one recoils in disgust. Shurat Hadin is one tough outfit. They aren’t kidding because people are getting knifed on the street in Israel every day and the Facebook connection is very real.
I think Mr. Groseclose ought to get involved. We need to have on-line social media bias watchdogs. I want to know what issues and opinions are being systematically knocked off of any social media provider. Just turning on a small light can make all the darkness go away. People don’t like being censored. That includes the kids. If Zuckerberg keeps it up Facebook will go down and somebody else will eat his lunch.
Regards,
Jim
You get all that from one word?
Bob,
Again I’d go after the deceptiveness aspect of this. After all, Facebook isn’t putting up any content at all of their own. However, they are implying a lack of censorship as far as the content that is available, readily searchable, and trending. I think “fairness” would be that people at least know what is going to be in play and what will be out of bounds. In other words, their censorship policy should be explicit. If not by government regulation, then by third parties that will monitor their bias and make the results known on a regular basis.
Regards,
Jim
As long as govt isn’t involved in taking them to task, I’m fine with it. But if I were Zuckerberg, I would tell Thune to buzz off and ignore his May 24 deadline for FB to answer his questions.
If govt is allowed to censor “deceptive” political content… With “deceptive” defined by the govt of course… it’s all over.
Jim how is this any different than the old news media? The mainstream press benefits off of an air of objectivity while peddling a subtle Leftwing perspective. It has always been the case in the news biz that Conservatives are up front about what we are doing while the Left has to lie and obfuscate who they really are. Facebook is just another in a long line of propaganda outlets.
A few years back I sent a PM to a friend and used the term “illegal alien”. The PM vanished immediately.
I have heard a few other anecdotes like this. Has anyone done more experimenting with facebook, like the one described in the original post?
I do not doubt that they are Leftists. It would be good to have evidence to share.
Thanks, Jim. I’ll use this to update my own blog post as to why I’m not on Facebook or Twitter. One more reason.
Zuckerberg is Jewish. This issue is one more demonstration that most Jews (not the Orthodox), are Liberal first and everything else later.
I’ve got to disagree with Sen. Thune on this one. This is harassing your political opponents under a flimsy pretext. The Democratic state attorneys general persecuting Exxon and the American Enterprise Institute for disagreeing with the idea of a disastrous man-made global warming are doing something similar from the other side, and with a similar claim of fraud. I think Thune’s pretense is even thinner, although at least it seems less burdensome for the moment.
But if we start having these harassing investigations with such political motivations, we’ll all be less free.
I disagree. One key thing is if they are censoring, the Federal government must cease use of facebook. Thus, investigation is proper.
Shocking. Progressive fascists acting like….. fascists.
A fine oxymoron indeed.
Notice NASDAQ today as it dropped 1.01 points? FB held it’s own and continues to prosper because Zuckerberg at least helps conservative investors make the donuts. I couldn’t care less about his politics and neither should you.
If you peel back the onion layers of many powerful entities today, Facebook, Google, even Microsoft, you will find a strong left wing influence – Google spin off created a company specifically to get Hillary elected and CEO has been a regular visitor to Obama WH, Bill Gates was instrumental in creating Common Core, Zuckerberg’s influence in data gathering beyond what you would consider safe – yes these are companies that contribute a lot of good products to the world – but that is a lot of power in the hands of a few, and it has reduced our levels of privacy to zero. If you look at what started out as “simple search engines” or linking friends to what they are now creating in so short a time, it would make your head spin.
We need for Ricochet to thrive to the point it can own its own server farm. We will be in desperate need of a communication channel after Hillary’s FCC allows the Leftist social media masters to censor our hateful denying anti-science discriminatory hypocritical fearmongering messages to each other.
Bob,
You are probably right that Thune may be guilty of overreach. However, sometimes a shot across the bow can be very efficacious. The hearing may not produce much law (perhaps the best result) but it does put internet people on alert that their actions are under scrutiny.
We are entering a Presidential election. Putting the heat on social media to maintain a reasonable bias free environment is not a bad idea at this point. Police yourselves and we won’t find it necessary to bother you. Meanwhile, I think Zuckerberg deserves a little dressing down. Getting 14 year old to post too much personal information about themselves on the net is not exactly a social good. The business about Jihadists recruiting on Facebook because Facebook won’t take their pages down is very serious. This is not legal free speech in the USA or anywhere else. If Zuckerberg wants to get the reputation that genocidal terrorists are OK with him that’s his choice. He has been given ample warning. By the way, Shirat HaDin has a pretty good batting average. They win their law suits and their targets pay up. Zuckerberg would be well advised to make nice and self-adjust on this one.
Regards,
Jim
Facebook is not alone in this. Twitter has been known to “shadowban” conservatives.
One element of this that I find egregious is that Facebook has been one of the foremost proponents of Net Neutrality. So on the one hand, they believe ISPs should not be able to discriminate based on content — while on the other, they believe that they themselves should be completely free to do so.
Son,
Very good point. This is a new media and in some ways, it is the ultimate media. We must find our way in this uncharted vast new world. Of course, bias alway existed but when it is so cloaked by the new form of the media itself I think a special public interest is involved.
Regards,
Jim
I share your aversion to government action in this case, but I can see an argument that Facebook’s actions amount to fraud. That said, fraud is a matter for civil courts, not Congress.
Just in case anyone is interested, here’s the link to my now-updated post over at RushBabe49.com.
The answer is to avoid “social media”. What good is it? Guess I’m a Luddite. Want to exchange ideas? Call me.
One thing that surprises me about this story is that so far nobody has mentioned that Obama recently insisted on talking with these social media companies to get them to better support the fight against terrorism. Unless Obama has turned over a new leaf and brought the IRS to justice, I presume the main intention was to suppress dissidents, conservatives, and tea partiers. For many on the left there is no distinction between them and terrorists, anyway.
But how come this is never mentioned, not even by conservatives who should have their antennas up for such things?
The problem is not political bias. Of course Facebook is biased. Everybody is biased. The problem is political crusaderism and deception.
But Tom, Ricochet is a form of social media.