Summary:
Facebook’s trending bar deliberately suppresses conservative news, according to a new report. Facebook, now arguably the most important distributor of news online, has cultivated the idea that its bar is an impartial algorithm that responds to “likes” and gives users only what they’ve indicated they want. But in a bombshell confession on the tech blog Gizmodo, a former editor says popular conservative news would be kept off the “trending news” sidebar.
Key data/statistical information:
- If five of the 10 put a story on the front page, it could be made to appear more often on Facebook Paper; if 10 put the story on the front page, it was added to the “trending” bar.
What's my view?
This can be seen as an attack on the elites through the use of social media. From a pluralist point of view, social media is given the people the power to express their opinions and potentially censor, if true, what they want people to consume as media. However, in my opinion, I think that the elites are realising the power that new and digital media is giving to the audience, and is trying to find a way to get back this power by making up such stories.
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