Posted on 05/19/2016 5:12:15 AM PDT by Kaslin
There’s a lot of pearl clutching on the political right this week, so much so you’d be hard-pressed to differentiate it from the constant pearl clutching on the left. Facebook, it is alleged, “censors” conservative news. But does it really? And does it matter?
There are not many people in the United States younger than 50 who don’t have a Facebook account. Exactly none of them were forced to open one. When they did they accepted the fact that they were playing in someone else’s backyard.
Facebook owes the government no justification as to how it conducts its business as long as it is legal. And no one is alleging Facebook’s supposed activity is illegal. Unseemly, yes, but not against the law. It owes users even less.
Facebook, of course, denies the allegations. But what does it matter, and who cares if it is true? If you thought Facebook, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg backing and funding left-wing causes, was neutral ground, you’ve been lying to yourself. That’s not Facebook’s fault; that’s yours.
Facebook is accused of manipulating its “trending” section, which purports to show which stories are being talked about most on the social network. Frankly, I didn’t even know it was there until this story broke.
It’s small, underneath many other things and contains nothing to catch the eye of a user. To be honest, in a page full of pictures, videos, and names of people you know, it’s boring.
Sure, some people click the links. But this doesn’t drive conversations or affect the zeitgeist, and anyone who thinks otherwise is according Facebook way too much power.
And even then, so what? Facebook is not your website. You’re playing on someone else’s property. That Facebook lets you do so free of charge does not obligate it to you. In fact, it’s just the opposite.
When you set up your account you voluntarily surrendered a lot of personal information and clicked “OK” to a user agreement we all know you didn’t read. That personal information, coupled with every post you or your friends make and every link you click on feeds Facebook more information about you than your friends probably have on you.
Facebook uses that information you’ve voluntarily turned over to target paid ads to you. That’s the deal; the price of “free.” We all know it, we all accept it. Why should anything on the section of that page it reserves for itself be any different?
The “trending” section isn’t ads; it’s news. But there’s really no difference. They choose which ads you see and the companies from which they accept ads. If they decide they’ll accept ads only from Super PACs supporting Hillary Clinton, that’s all you’ll see. You can choose not to click on them, but it’s up to Facebook whether you see them because you're playing in their backyard where they set the rules.
So why get upset a liberal company in a liberal industry headed by a liberal might have a liberal bias? It’s like being surprised water is wet.
That Facebook denies it doesn’t make it untrue. But it’s not malicious either way. A liberal bias conforms with the world view of the people charged with populating the section, just like a conservative bias colors the world view of many of the websites you most likely visit. It’s unclear why Facebook was expected to be immune from what infects everyone else.
Many conservatives have feigned outrage over this revelation, crying as though they have some infringed-upon right to something they don’t – equal access to someone else’s property.
To quell the storm, Zuckerberg has convened a meeting with conservatives, most of whom have nothing to do with journalism. Radio hosts, TV pundits, campaigns – the loudest voices of a pearl-clutching chorus demanding redress of their supposed grievances – got their audience. But they’re not aggrieved. They’re just seeking attention. Which was why they clutched their pearls in the first place.
Having self-appointed representatives of conservatism elevating themselves to a status demanding a meeting was bad enough, but when Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., started demanding answers, that crossed the line. Both groups are acting like progressives, using indignation as a weapon.
Facebook owes you nothing, and you owe nothing to Facebook. If your only or main source of news is an obscure feature on a social media website, you deserve the perverted worldview you get – just like if you get your news only from conservative or liberal sources. Rather than expressing anger that an obscure section of a social media website might not have been giving you an unvarnished view of the world, maybe you should ask yourself why you're expecting to find it there in the first place.
“Breaking News on this site leans right.”
No. It leans to stuff like: What are the top 10 tunes about pets, and similar.
So if progressives do something conservatives should disenpower themselves and not do the same thing if it’s a useful tactic.
Said every liberal republican.
Yes we should boycott, yes we should hold demostrations, yes we should stand up for our liberty.
They claim to be all for fairness and diversity. Diversity of thought includes a conservative point of view. Do they “owe” us a conservative voice. No of course not. The whole article was shooting fish in a barrel. Will they provide more of a conservative voice so they appear more fair to conservatives? Maybe so, just to deal with their own internal desire to promote diversity, or to enhance their reputation? This is why pressure on them to show more of a conservative point of view is good. Not because they legally “owe it” to anyone, but because it may be in their own best self interests.
Not exactly. Not at all. The pearl-clutching Derek refers to constantly is a red herring.
The truth of it is that Suckerberg is a NPD multi-billionaire whose political dollars align mostly with Soros/Sanders. Thus disrupting is acceptable, including Thune subpoenas, whatever.
I use the old method of teaching bank tellers how to spot counterfeit bills as an example ...
When your eyes, hands and brain are so thoroughly saturated with what a real bill is, the moment a counterfeit shows up, you kust know something's wrong
You may not be able to identify what element is counterfeit, but your training and conditioning kicks in and you spot the counterfeit
Proper and good language instruction minimises the ability to be fooled but what or how people say things
It doesn't matter whether you leave politics off FB or not - Facebook knows every single preference you have, they know what you are most likely to click on, they know where else you go on the internet, and they sell every scrap of this information to any buyer who wants it (and give it to the government for quid pro quo).
If you think Facebook is "free", it is because you are the product being bought and sold...
It’s a sleazy, irresponsible company run by greedy liberal hacks who deserve to rot in Hell for all eternity.
But no, they don’t owe me anything.
The only people I know who are really, really into Facebook and other social media are all either former 60’s era hippies or former 70’s era punks who are all screaming, raging libs.
Everyone else I know is quiet, conservative, has a life and is living it w/O social media.
This might explain why these nuts think “everybody” agrees with them on extreme left issues and why they have such a bizarre view of the world.
By far the easiest way to get off Facebook is to watch this movie.
My conservative friends that have been told FB is quietly warping things to the left and say they don’t really care as they avoid politics on FB tend to be RINOs. The same with the schools teaching sex ed to 6 year olds and the RINOs who say, ‘hey, I don’t care because we have the choice of opting our kid out of the classes, only to find out the following year that that option is no longer available. Then the bleat is, ‘hey what can ya do?’
This is the front line of a war on our values. It is sneaky how FB and Google are doing it. So sneaky that most RINO’s see no big deal here. It is more important to share snapshots of their lives than to worry about how millions are being manipulated into thinking the world is more to the left than it is...
I feel so left out.........../s
Facebook will give a leftist administration anything they want, quietly, to help stem rebellion by lovers of America. A conservative administration trying to preserve and protect the Constitution, not so much.
If you wish to make comments on the website of our local Gannett newsrag you have to use Facebook. Needless to say, since that was instituted a few years ago, discussions on topics that used to get hundreds of responses now get a few dozen at most and others get very few. And they are skewed farther left than before, too, since more conservatives reject Facebook than liberals do.
Old Zuck’s smart enough to know have the people in the United States are conservative...
He’s not stupid.
“Many conservatives have feigned outrage over this revelation, crying as though they have some infringed-upon right to something they don’t – equal access to someone else’s property.”
Being lied to is reason to be outraged.
It sure is.
Excellent point.
The better alternative to “regulating Facebook” is to come up with a Right alternative, and let Facebook lose half its users.
After this election cycle, ClownHall.com is must don’t-read material.
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