Bias? In My Algorithms? A Facebook News Story

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Viewers like you help make PBS (Thank you 😃) . Support your local PBS Member Station here: https://to.pbs.org/donateidea Why Facebook News Can’t Escape Bias Tweet us! http://bit.ly/pbsideachanneltwitter Idea Channel Facebook! http://bit.ly/pbsideachannelfacebook Talk about this episode on reddit! http://bit.ly/pbsideachannelreddit Idea Channel IRC! http://bit.ly/pbsideachannelirc Email us! pbsideachannel [at] gmail [dot] com In case you missed the news because it wasn’t trending on Facebook, Facebook’s Trending News Team has been… in the news. Not long ago the whole department got the axe after Gizmodo reported they’d been suppressing conservative news items and sources. This caused a stir. And perhaps rightfully so: facebook is used by all stripes of people with all manner of beliefs and politics and it is where those people go to get their news. It’d be dismaying, to say the least, to learn your news source suppresses topics most important to you. In light of this whole thing, there are, then, two questions I want to ask. The first is … why is there an expectation of zero bias from facebook? And second… what does facebook do in light of that expectation? Let us know what you think in the comments below! ---SOURCES--- Facebook Swaying Public Opinion http://www1.udel.edu/udaily/2016/sep/politics-social-media-092315.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/us/politics/social-networks-affect-voter-turnout-study-finds.html?_r=0 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/19/donald-trump-facebook-election-manipulate-behavior http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/10/can-voting-facebook-button-improve-voter-turnout http://mashable.com/2014/07/02/facebook-sandberg-emotions-experiment/#Riq1FvcMqsqT Bias in Language https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2016/08/24/language-necessarily-contains-human-biases-and-so-will-machines-trained-on-language-corpora/ Bias in Computer Algorithms https://socialmediacollective.org/reading-lists/critical-algorithm-studies/ ---FURTHER READING--- http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/technology/facebooks-bias-is-built-in-and-bears-watching.html?_r=0 http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-suppressed-conser-1775461006 http://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-refutes-criticisms-about-a-bias-against-conservatives-1462890206 http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/10/technology/facebook-news-senate/index.html http://digiday.com/platforms/former-facebook-trending-news-editor-just-going-get-rid-product-altogether/ http://technical.ly/brooklyn/2016/06/08/fred-benenson-mathwashing-facebook-data-worship/ http://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-trending-feature-exhibits-flaws-under-new-algorithm-1473176652 ---CHECK OUT OUR MERCH!--- http://bit.ly/1U8fS1B T-Shirts Designed by: http://artsparrow.com/ ---TWEET OF THE WEEK--- https://twitter.com/1212thedoctor/status/775409364207276032 ---ASSET LINKS--- 00:24 Gizmodo Article http://gizmodo.com/former-facebook-workers-we-routinely-suppressed-conser-1775461006 00:41 NY Times Article http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/12/technology/facebooks-bias-is-built-in-and-bears-watching.html?_r=0 00:57 The Facebook Effect http://www1.udel.edu/udaily/2016/sep/politics-social-media-092315.html 1:11 Sriracha http://theoatmeal.com/comics/sriracha 2:35 Idea Channel Serial Part 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT0yRXWo6UU 3:18 Billy on the Street https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz9HhVMAG8E&feature=youtu.be&t=106 3:40 Updated Beginners Guide to Facebook (2015) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMr4M4ponm8 4:53 Media Matters http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/11/03/fox-news-redefines-unbalanced-by-giving-romney/191118 5:58 Language Bias https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2016/08/24/language-necessarily-contains-human-biases-and-so-will-machines-trained-on-language-corpora/ 6:20 Mathwashing http://technical.ly/brooklyn/2016/06/08/fred-benenson-mathwashing-facebook-data-worship/ 7:52 Facebook Trending Illustration by Jim Cooke http://jimcookeillustration.tumblr.com/ 8:07 Wall Street Journal http://www.wsj.com/articles/facebooks-trending-feature-exhibits-flaws-under-new-algorithm-1473176652 ---MUSIC--- https://soundcloud.com/montone-2/minimalist ----------------------------------------­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­------------------------­-­-­-­- Written and hosted by Mike Rugnetta (@mikerugnetta) (who also has a podcast! Reasonably Sound: http://bit.ly/1sCn0BF) Made by Kornhaber Brown (http://www.kornhaberbrown.com)