Facebook Censoring News?

Facebook's War on Conservative News

The unspoken irony here, of course, is that by pitting "conservative news" against "mainstream liberal-bias news like CNN" the conservatives are admitting that their "news" is unverified, un-noteworthy or flat-out discredited by the major news organizations -- that aren't trying to push a conservative agenda.

An agenda which is, increasingly, untethered from reality.

More bullshit from the right.

Fairness Doctrine

Quote :

The demise of this FCC rule has been considered by some to be a contributing factor for the rising level of party polarization in the United States.

I doubt that the death of the fairness doctrine has played a significant part in the problem. I believe that the problem comes from attitudes deeply rooted in the American psyche.

The "problem comes from attitudes deeply rooted in the American psyche" because since 1987 Fox News (and Rush Limbaugh and the right-wing echo chamber that arose after this change) has been free to pander to "deeply rooted" beliefs that bear no resemblance to reality.  Previously, such beliefs had to be put in context by beneficiaries of the public airwaves and these beliefs would have been shown to be baseless.

Since 1987, fact-checking is no longer required.

If Fox and Rush and the rest had no audience, they would not exist.
They are symptoms of the underlying problem.

This article proposes some insight as to why the seeming polarization has occurred.

Interesting -- but the author could have the cart before the horse. Instead of continuing education making people more liberal, how about the idea that liberal people value advanced education more?

The author doesn't claim that higher education tends to makes people more liberal. It is offered as a possibility which some people (myself included) believe.

Quote :

It's a well-worn (if not-entirely-agreed-upon) idea that college makes people more liberal. But a new report adds a twist to this: the most educated Americans have grown increasingly liberal over the last couple of decades.

Quote :

"There's some pretty good evidence that going to college leads people to have more liberal attitudes on social issues, in particular on issues of tolerance, of difference and issues of gender equity," said Neil Gross, sociology professor at Colby College, who has studied liberalism at colleges.

But then, Gross has also written about evidence that college really doesn't move people's broader political beliefs (about, for example, the size of government) that much.

This is getting really stupid.

Quote :

The Commerce Committee, led by Republican John Thune of South Dakota, asked CEO Mark Zuckerberg to respond to anonymous allegations that former contractors suppressed news about conservatives and links to right-leaning websites. The controversy, first published by Gizmodo, is now trending on Facebook.

In a letter on Tuesday, Thune demanded to know who is ultimately responsible for approving stories for the "trending" box on the Facebook home page; what steps Facebook has taken to investigate the claims of bias; and how Facebook keeps records of its editorial decisions.

Why does Thune think that he or any agency in the government has the right to know how Facebook makes such decisions? And why is such a tiny, insignificant  non-matter being considered when there are so many actual problems that Congress needs to address?  Holy shit, folks. This is fucking silly.

Quote :

"Facebook is free to reveal what information it chooses about its decision-making process and to defend its editorial process as it chooses," First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams told CNNMoney. "Members of Congress and others may take issue with those decisions. But the First Amendment leaves no room for Congress to investigate or otherwise insert itself into Facebook's editorial decision-making."

The fact that the matter even comes up astonishes me. It's fucking Facebook, for crying out loud. It's a toy website for bored people. Why the fuck would Thune think that he has any right to interfere, and why does he care?  Yes, I know that the right wing really gets off on playing the "poor oppressed conservative," but isn't there a limit to how trivial the matter? Don't these people know how silly they look?

In a word... no.

Found this tidbit on Facebook - don't know if it's real.

richard09 wrote:

don't know if it's real.

Um, seriously?

_Howard wrote:

If Fox and Rush and the rest had no audience, they would not exist.
They are symptoms of the underlying problem.

But they are fond of telling their audience that they give viewers/listeners "news they can't get anywhere else" ... which is absolutely true. The only falsehood is that it's "news."

It's not. It's tabloid fodder, like alien babies and Elvis sightings.

If the Fairness Doctrine required that they vet their stories they'd lose their audience of gullible hillbillies.

NoCoPilot wrote:

If the Fairness Doctrine required that they vet their stories they'd lose their audience of gullible hillbillies.

But the Fairness Doctrine never required that any story be accurate. It just provided the opportunity for someone else to appear on that same medium and call bullshit. And it did not require that the bullshit caller be given the same position on the medium. A front-page story might relegate the correction to the back page, or a prime-time news program may be corrected at a 10 p.m. program break.

No, you're confusing the Fairness Doctrine with the Equal Time rule.

No. I'm not. The Equal Time rule was strictly for politics.

NoCoPilot wrote:

richard09 wrote:

don't know if it's real.

Um, seriously?

Well, on the one hand, it's a spoof site. But on the other hand, it's Dan Coulter...

Maybe they should bring back the Mayflower Doctrine.