Facebook Changes Trending Topics Amid Accusations Of Bias Against Conservatives

[Deleted]

Posting this as a followup to this thread: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...servative-Bias

Looks like the investigation has wrapped up and Facebook is making some changes to help be more neutral in the way it presents news:

Facebook said it will stop looking to a small list of news outlets like The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post and Drudge Report to automatically nominate topics for its trending feature - and improve staff training.

The report led the US Senate Commerce Committee to write a letter, signed by Republican Sen. John Thune, demanding that the company explain how it selects news articles for the list.

Two days after Senator Thune's letter, Facebook published a lengthy blog post detailing how Trending Topics works even though it rarely discloses such practices. It had previously never discussed the inner workings of the feature

It said it was unable to substantiate any allegations of politically motivated suppression of particular subjects or sources.

But it said it was introducing several changes, including the elimination of a top 10 list of approved websites, more training and clearer guidelines to help human editors avoid ideological or political bias, and more robust review procedures. Facebook did not rule out human error in selecting topics.

"Our investigation could not fully exclude the possibility of isolated improper actions or unintentional bias in the implementation of our guidelines or policies,"

I don't really have anything to add other than it's kind of sketchy they had a "top 10" list of news websites and that individual human editors could assign an "importance level" to a trending topic based on how prominent the story was on those top 10 sites. If the feature is supposed to reflect the most popular/talked about stories across the web then I'm not clear on why it was being tampered with at all... but it's good that they are removing those influences (for/from any ideological bent) and allowing it to be more neutral.

http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/05/...ending-topics/
http://news.sky.com/story/1701253/fa...after-bias-row
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/16...servatives.htm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ensorship.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-fa...-idUSKCN0YE2R9

[Deleted]

For once there are good news on this sub-forum.

[PC2]

Good job Facebook for seeking neutrality!

[TZucchini]

So Conservatives were triggered, sought equality, and forced a substantive change within a private organization.

How progressive.

[Deleted]

So Conservatives were triggered, sought equality, and forced a substantive change within a private organization.

How progressive.

I hope the irony of your signature isn't lost on you, friend.

[Gib Lover]

I'm pretty sure Kotaku was on that top 10 list. Every article they wrote seemed to end up trending

[Endus]

but it's good that they are removing those influences (for/from any ideological bent) and allowing it to be more neutral.

Except that Facebook's internal investigation showed that they were being neutral, already, and that there was nothing to support these claims of bias. The changes they're making are to be more open, not to correct any supposed bias, which their investigation failed to find any evidence of.

[TZucchini]

I hope the irony of your signature isn't lost on you, friend.

That doesn't make any sense.

[PC2]

Except that Facebook's internal investigation showed that they were being neutral, already, and that there was nothing to support these claims of bias. The changes they're making are to be more open, not to correct any supposed bias, which their investigation failed to find any evidence of.

Unless they record their employees every decision constantly it would be difficult to implicate them.

[Endus]

Unless they record their employees every decision constantly it would be difficult to implicate them.

There'd be observable bias in their selections.

Facebook's investigation failed to find any such bias. Meaning they were already pretty balanced. The entire thing was a persecution complex.

[zenkai]

Except that Facebook's internal investigation showed that they were being neutral, already, and that there was nothing to support these claims of bias. The changes they're making are to be more open, not to correct any supposed bias, which their investigation failed to find any evidence of.

It's pretty amazing that anyone who investigates themselves almost always never finds they did anything wrong.

- - - Updated - - -

That doesn't make any sense.

It did to me, sad it didn't for you

[Deleted]

Except that Facebook's internal investigation showed that they were being neutral, already, and that there was nothing to support these claims of bias. The changes they're making are to be more open, not to correct any supposed bias, which their investigation failed to find any evidence of.

Don't reply to me if you're not even going to read the posts. Facebook obviously isn't going to investigate themselves and find "actually, yeah, our system is biased and we like it that way!". What they have found is that the feature isn't as free from the bias of the humans operating it as it could be. Facebook is now seeking to correct that by taking those powers and privileges away.

At the same time, our investigation could not fully exclude the possibility of isolated improper actions or unintentional bias in the implementation of our guidelines or policies. As part of our commitment to continually improve our products and to minimize risks where human judgment is involved, we are making a number of improvements

If individuals can tamper with the list, and some outlets are given more weight than others, then the feature isn't free from ideological or political bias. Call it "open"if you want; I have better things to do than play word games.

[BuckSparkles]

It's pretty amazing that anyone who investigates themselves almost always never finds they did anything wrong.

It's almost like people investigating themselves are dishonest or have a bias to what they find right and wrong thus never see themselves as wrong :P

[Gheld]

I honestly rarely find the trending topics to be political at all

Usually it's dumb shit like

"BUZZFEED INTERPRETATION OF LATEST SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH THAT MAKES IT SOUND LIKE WE ALIENS ON MARS WILL CURE CANCER"

[Endus]

It's pretty amazing that anyone who investigates themselves almost always never finds they did anything wrong.

Considering that if there had been any such bias, there still wouldn't have been grounds for any legal investigation or any form of legal wrongdoing, who the heck did you expect to investigate this? It's an internal matter, about internal Facebook policy. That's it. Even if it had turned out that there was massive bias, Facebook could have just responded with a "shucks, sorry" and gone about their day; that's where this would have ended.

[PC2]

There'd be observable bias in their selections.

Facebook's investigation failed to find any such bias. Meaning they were already pretty balanced. The entire thing was a persecution complex.

And you're against all people having a persecution complex?

[Deleted]

Well, good on Facebook to strive for neutrality, an admirable goal.

[Endus]

And you're against all people having a persecution complex?

Not so much against them having it. But I'd rather point it out for what it is than let them run around waving their hands in the air and shouting about how everyone's against them.

[Saucexorzski]

Considering that if there had been any such bias, there still wouldn't have been grounds for any legal investigation or any form of legal wrongdoing, who the heck did you expect to investigate this? It's an internal matter, about internal Facebook policy. That's it. Even if it had turned out that there was massive bias, Facebook could have just responded with a "shucks, sorry" and gone about their day; that's where this would have ended.

You sound upset that Facebook is trying to ease tensions and unify its user base...do you have a problem with right wing ideology being in the public eye?

[Deleted]

I honestly rarely find the trending topics to be political at all

Usually it's dumb shit like

Not quite that dumb on mine atm :P But 3 of the top 10 are about sportsball.