Fear of 'Liberal Media' Label, Pushes Twitter/Media to Help Right Wing

[Milchshake]

For people that understand sports, this concept is called "working the refs". Basically referees, moderations, or NYT editors are so afraid of the "liberal bias" label.
They call needless penalties on the liberals to "prove their neutrality". Or they call a bunch ticky tack offsides to make up for the personal foul when the quarterback was speared.


Twitter admits bias in algorithm for rightwing politicians and news outlets
Twitter has admitted it amplifies more tweets from rightwing politicians and news outlets than content from leftwing sources.

The social media platform examined tweets from elected officials in seven countries – the UK, US, Canada, France, Germany, Spain and Japan. It also studied whether political content from news organisations was amplified on Twitter, focusing primarily on US news sources such as Fox News, the New York Times and BuzzFeed.

The study compared Twitter’s “Home” timeline – the default way its 200 million users are served tweets, in which an algorithm tailors what users see – with the traditional chronological timeline where the most recent tweets are ranked first.

https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topic...liticalcontent



Facebook Management bend rules to protect Right Wing Sites

In June 2020, when America was rocked by protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer, a Facebook employee posted a message on the company’s racial-justice chat board: “Get Breitbart out of News Tab.”

News Tab is a feature that aggregates and promotes articles from various publishers, chosen by Facebook. The employee’s message included screenshots of headlines on Breitbart’s website, such as “Minneapolis Mayhem: Riots in Masks,” “Massive Looting, Buildings in Flames, Bonfires!” and “BLM Protesters Pummel Police Cars on 101.”

The employee said they were “emblematic of a concerted effort at Breitbart and similarly hyperpartisan sources (none of which belong in News Tab) to paint Black Americans and Black-led movements in a very negative way,” according to written conversations on Facebook’s office communication system reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Many other employees chimed in to agree.

In the same chat, a company researcher said any steps aimed at removing Breitbart—a right-wing publisher popular with supporters of former President Donald Trump —could face roadblocks internally because of the potential political blowback. “At best, it would be a very difficult policy discussion,” the researcher said.

Facebook chose to keep Breitbart on News Tab. A spokeswoman for the tech giant said the company makes a judgment based on the specific content published on Facebook, not the entire Breitbart site, and that the Facebook material met its requirements, including the need to abide by its rules against misinformation and hate speech.
...

The reality is that all the mainstream outlets are terrified of this. NYT is the worst example. Dean Baquet has seemingly convinced himself that if they just run enough Trump voter stories & muck up some both-sides coverage, then they'll stop being accused of Lib'rul Bias.

[tehdang]

The poor NYT, being forced to have a right-leaning opinion column in its op-ed section from time to time, and presenting both sides in biased coverage, when people wish it’d only present one side of news. Zero sympathy.

Facebook being worried about negative coverage is typical corporate fear of controversy. This same impulse drives every cancel movement, since they know most corporations would rather fire somebody than survive through constant negative press.

Twitter tweaking their algorithms after they find political posts were too boosted from both parties, and the right benefited marginally more, is just fine. I follow too many Twitter accounts to find much use in the Home sorting, so I go to lists and searches and advanced search words to get local, state, national, international, or just breaking news.

[Edge-]

The poor NYT, being forced to have a right-leaning opinion column in its op-ed section from time to time, and presenting both sides in biased coverage, when people wish it’d only present one side of news. Zero sympathy.

I mean, when they can find one that's not dog whistling for genocide and shit, yeah. Problem is that it's tougher and tougher nowadays, and conservatives expect that they owed a platform to shout their racist claptrap from.

Facebook being worried about negative coverage is typical corporate fear of controversy. This same impulse drives every cancel movement, since they know most corporations would rather fire somebody than survive through constant negative press.

Irrelevant to the point that Facebook is specifically violating their own rules and allowing a site that shouldn't be allowed on the site, on the site, purely because they're worried that conservatives will unfairly and dishonestly target them with arbitrary and punishing regulations for daring to enforce their rules equally.

Much like the Twitter data, Facebook data has shown that rather than "censor" conservatives, their algorithms absolutely favor and help boost their content in comparison with all left leaning content.

Twitter tweaking their algorithms after they find political posts were too boosted from both parties, and the right benefited marginally more, is just fine. I follow too many Twitter accounts to find much use in the Home sorting, so I go to lists and searches and advanced search words to get local, state, national, international, or just breaking news.

No, it's not "both parties", yet it's not surprising that you're constantly still pushing "both sides".

Remember that time Twitter was going to try to combat white supremacy and far-right extremism more domestically, but they didn't end up pulling the trigger because they realized that their algorithm would ALSO pull down content from Republican officials - https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3xg...oliticians-too

Sure it was just one internal employee, but looking at the Twitter feeds of many Republican officials in years after this article man...it was spot fuckin on. Especially considering that Twitter has had to manually take action against many of these rule violating posts anyways.

[Endus]

It's an appeal to a false middle, because when your two "sides" are "reasonable progressives and conservatives working together" and "race-baiting fascist propagandists", if you want to "not take a side", you end up endorsing a fair bit of the propagandists' bullshit. Rather than taking a stance based on objectivity and reason, which is where you should be setting your standards.

This shit isn't equitable treatment. It's inherently an endorsement of the irrational and harmful positions they choose to boost under a false guise of "equal treatment". "Both sides"ing a discussion is, inevitably, always going to be a demonstration of bad faith and malicious intent. If you're operating from an objective fact-based standard with an eye for justice, you'd have no such need to appeal to bad-faith manipulators, and indeed, would see that your ethical obligation is to expose their malice, not endorse it.

[Lenonis]

So...the rabid right wingers were right after all -- social media is biased. But, as usual, they were wrong about it -- conservatives are the ones who benefited, not "leftists".

And the very first post in this thread is someone trying to twist this around into the media being biased towards the left...in an thread about media being biased to the right.

Can't make this stuff up.

[caractacus]

And so the pendulum swings...... The Right wing kick up a fuss because they feel they are being leaned on which forces these companies to lean harder on the left which then makes them kick up a fuss and creates more separation and division. Meanwhile the shareholders are rubbing their hands with glee that they are cashing in and nobody is looking at them.

[s_bushido]

And so the pendulum swings...... The Right wing kick up a fuss because they feel they are being leaned on which forces these companies to lean harder on the left which then makes them kick up a fuss and creates more separation and division. Meanwhile the shareholders are rubbing their hands with glee that they are cashing in and nobody is looking at them.

When was the last time the right wing wasn't pretending to be persecuted?

[Endus]

And so the pendulum swings...... The Right wing kick up a fuss because they feel they are being leaned on which forces these companies to lean harder on the left which then makes them kick up a fuss and creates more separation and division. Meanwhile the shareholders are rubbing their hands with glee that they are cashing in and nobody is looking at them.

1> The right wing "kicked up a fuss" about something they were objectively wrong about, because they hold a counterfactual persecution complex; in fact, social media was biased in their favour. They were being privileged, not "leaned on".

2> The left wing didn't "kick up a fuss".

3> The only people pushing "more separation and division" is the right wing. That's the purpose of their false claims of media bias, and why they wanted their own separate media.

4> Sure, shareholders are cashing in, but that's because they're staunch capitalists, for whom human suffering is just more grist for the mill. Which itself is a right-wing point of view. So not really helping you establish your "both sides" misframing.

[Milchshake]

When was the last time the right wing wasn't pretending to be persecuted?

I think the current form stARTs with Nixon.

William F Buckley felt some media (((liberals))) stole the presidency from Nixon by reporting on Watergate.

[NED funded]

Is amplification taking into account like initial interactions?

Like its kind of common for deranged leftists in twitter to "ratio" everything they disagree wtih so the content of conservatives get more comments and retweets than content they find agreeable. It picks up at the start and it explodes later on.

[Lenonis]

Like its kind of common for deranged leftists in twitter to "ratio" everything they disagree wtih

Ah, I see we're going to continue to pretend the right wing isn't a big fan of cancel culture. Carry on.

Also you could just read the information to answer your question instead of sea-lioning.

[Milchshake]

Is amplification taking into account like initial interactions?

Like its kind of common for deranged leftists in twitter to "ratio" everything they disagree wtih so the content of conservatives get more comments and retweets than content they find agreeable. It picks up at the start and it explodes later on.

That's you just Projecting again. The power of "deranged leftists" pale in comparison to Right Wing management in Silicon Valley.

Also you might want to talk to a doctor about this constant need to project.

[Endus]

Is amplification taking into account like initial interactions?

Like its kind of common for deranged leftists in twitter to "ratio" everything they disagree wtih so the content of conservatives get more comments and retweets than content they find agreeable. It picks up at the start and it explodes later on.

Why are you pushing an imaginary persecution complex?

[tehdang]

I mean, when they can find one that's not dog whistling for genocide and shit, yeah. Problem is that it's tougher and tougher nowadays, and conservatives expect that they owed a platform to shout their racist claptrap from.



Irrelevant to the point that Facebook is specifically violating their own rules and allowing a site that shouldn't be allowed on the site, on the site, purely because they're worried that conservatives will unfairly and dishonestly target them with arbitrary and punishing regulations for daring to enforce their rules equally.

Much like the Twitter data, Facebook data has shown that rather than "censor" conservatives, their algorithms absolutely favor and help boost their content in comparison with all left leaning content.



No, it's not "both parties", yet it's not surprising that you're constantly still pushing "both sides".

Remember that time Twitter was going to try to combat white supremacy and far-right extremism more domestically, but they didn't end up pulling the trigger because they realized that their algorithm would ALSO pull down content from Republican officials - https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3xg...oliticians-too

Sure it was just one internal employee, but looking at the Twitter feeds of many Republican officials in years after this article man...it was spot fuckin on. Especially considering that Twitter has had to manually take action against many of these rule violating posts anyways.

I love the banter.

I still don’t really see Facebook as doing anything more than weak-kneed corporate avoidance of controversy, like the example I cited and you chose to ignore.

Twitter’s paper showed it boosted both: it’s literally mentioned as a primary conclusion. It goes on to say that the right wing outlets benefited more. Reread the summary bullet points and paper.

- - - Updated - - -

So...the rabid right wingers were right after all -- social media is biased. But, as usual, they were wrong about it -- conservatives are the ones who benefited, not "leftists".

And the very first post in this thread is someone trying to twist this around into the media being biased towards the left...in an thread about media being biased to the right.

Can't make this stuff up.

Literally the original post was whining about the NYT. Like, be more honest about the debate. Maybe you even have an opinion to share!

- - - Updated - - -

Is amplification taking into account like initial interactions?

Like its kind of common for deranged leftists in twitter to "ratio" everything they disagree wtih so the content of conservatives get more comments and retweets than content they find agreeable. It picks up at the start and it explodes later on.

It’s going to be hard to disentangle why amplification happened by an algorithm in machine learning. Why it chose to highlight certain posts on user’s filtered stream is rather opaque.

[Edge-]

I still don’t really see Facebook as doing anything more than weak-kneed corporate avoidance of controversy, like the example I cited and you chose to ignore.

If you ignore the leaked internal reports and whistleblowers showing how Facebook knew their algorithms are actively causing harm and their ability to properly address violations is in the low single digit %'s, and that's just for English content alone, not their international content.

If you ignore that it's not "corporate risk avoidance" necessarily, but more that you have conservative lawmakers repeatedly and openly threatening the company for perceived "censorship" despite the very real data that repeatedly shows that not only are conservatives not censored, but Facebooks algorithms very much favor their content over similarly style "leftist" content or even neutral content.

The "controversy" being entirely fictitious and manufactured is the point, dude.

Twitter’s paper showed it boosted both: it’s literally mentioned as a primary conclusion. It goes on to say that the right wing outlets benefited more. Reread the summary bullet points and paper.

According to a 27-page research document, Twitter found a “statistically significant difference favouring the political right wing” in all the countries except Germany. Under the research, a value of 0% meant tweets reached the same number of users on the algorithm-tailored timeline as on its chronological counterpart, whereas a value of 100% meant tweets achieved double the reach. On this basis, the most powerful discrepancy between right and left was in Canada (Liberals 43%; Conservatives 167%), followed by the UK (Labour 112%; Conservatives 176%). Even excluding top government officials, the results were similar, the document said.

Some examples. If a system is grossly favoring one side over the other, it's not "both sides". If only "one side" complains about how they're unfairly censored and victimized, and that's the side that benefits more, that again goes back to the central point that they're bad faith, dishonest actors that social media companies need to dance around for fear that they'll be capriciously regulated for purely political purposes to satiate the rabid right wing fanbases that demand their online safe spaces where they can talk about how they want to murder libs without getting banned.

[Xyonai]

"Data shows that Social Media Platforms have a bias towards Right-Wing posters and information..."

"YEAH BUT THE LIBTARDZ CALLED ME MEAN WORDS ON TWITTER WHICH MEANS SOCIAL MEDIA IS CONTROLLED BY THE DEMOCRATS!"

Fuckin' lmao. Some people are way too high on the Persecution Complex.

[Yadryonych]

According to a 27-page research document, Twitter found a “statistically significant difference favouring the political right wing” in all the countries except Germany. Under the research, a value of 0% meant tweets reached the same number of users on the algorithm-tailored timeline as on its chronological counterpart, whereas a value of 100% meant tweets achieved double the reach. On this basis, the most powerful discrepancy between right and left was in Canada (Liberals 43%; Conservatives 167%), followed by the UK (Labour 112%; Conservatives 176%). Even excluding top government officials, the results were similar, the document said.

Some examples. If a system is grossly favoring one side over the other, it's not "both sides". If only "one side" complains about how they're unfairly censored and victimized, and that's the side that benefits more

So according to the bold part an average libtweet after being tweaked by the dreaded Al Gore Rhythm receives 143,000 users instead of 100,000 in notoriously left-wing Canada while an average conservatweet receives a whopping 2,670 instead of 1,000? I can barely stand that gross favouring, literally shaking here. How dare they benefit so much more

[Edge-]

So according to the bold part an average libtweet after being tweaked by the dreaded Al Gore Rhythm receives 143,000 users instead of 100,000 in notoriously left-wing Canada while an average conservatweet receives a whopping 2,670 instead of 1,000? I can barely stand that gross favouring, literally shaking here. How dare they benefit so much more

That's a nice strawman you've built there.

[Xyonai]

So according to the bold part an average libtweet after being tweaked by the dreaded Al Gore Rhythm receives 143,000 users instead of 100,000 in notoriously left-wing Canada while an average conservatweet receives a whopping 2,670 instead of 1,000? I can barely stand that gross favouring, literally shaking here. How dare they benefit so much more

Again, I say:

Fuckin' lmao. Some people are way too high on the Persecution Complex.

[Elegiac]

"Data shows that Social Media Platforms have a bias towards Right-Wing posters and information..."

"YEAH BUT THE LIBTARDZ CALLED ME MEAN WORDS ON TWITTER WHICH MEANS SOCIAL MEDIA IS CONTROLLED BY THE DEMOCRATS!"

Fuckin' lmao. Some people are way too high on the Persecution Complex.

Or they're scared because they actively post and promote the sort of content that wouldn't be permissible if the algorithms exercised even moderation.