Bias? In My Algorithms? A Facebook News Story
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- Опубликовано: 19 авг 2024
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Why Facebook News Can’t Escape Bias
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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!
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I'm a journalism student(as a minor to my English major) and I've come to believe that trying to remove bias is much more manipulative and subjective than being upfront and aware of your biases and subjectivity. John Oliver, Philip DeFranco, my favorite news sources don't claim to be perfectly objective, but they know they're not. And I know they're not so I can factor that into the way I process what they say. It's like when someone claims to be a "purely logical" person. All I hear is, "I'm not willing to recognize my own biases and I'm unlikely to ever admit that I'm wrong even if I am."
This reminded me of something else, too. Is perfect objectivity even ideal, when considering an individual? I really like when bias is explicitly made clear, and I think a better situation is being given both biases rather than none at all. I would think that gives an individual more to work with in developing their own opinions.
"All I hear is: I'm not willing to recognize my own biases and I'm unlikely to ever admit that I'm wrong even if I am."
That might be completely backward. If someone is upfront with their biases that means that they have recognized a bias within themselves and chosen to own it instead of correcting it. Instead of accidentally allowing and unrecognized bias to affect their actions, they are deliberately skewing their actions according to a willful bias. If what you say is unknowingly affected by a bias, then you're just making a mistake. If what you say is affected by a bias that you take pride in, then you're deliberately misleading people. For the former there's always a chance of discovering the mistake and admitting that you're wrong. The latter will never admit to being wrong because the whole point was to deceive people.
"Is perfect objectivity even ideal when considering an individual?"
Objectivity in a news source means that the audience gets to see how things really are and make their own judgments. The only biases at issue are your own biases and you get to do your best to overcome those biases. In contrast, if you get your news from a biased source then there can be no escaping bias.
If the world is mostly talking about weather and lunch, then that's the objective truth and that's what we should see. We live in a world of weather and lunch so show us that truth no matter how tedious it may be.
Bias is not necessarily deceptive. Bias has to do with how we perceive the world. I have a bias towards trusting marginalized groups in any given conflict, and I know that and my friend's know that. I'm not being deceptive to them. I'm just perceiving the world the way I do and there's nothing wrong with that, especially when I acknowledge it. And it seems to me that "objective" usually means the subjective views of the socially privileged.
@Ansatz66 "In contrast, if you get your news from a biased source then there can be no escaping bias."
Yes, unfortunately, if that is one's only source then I agree. Though my point was to get bias (which is acknowledged to the viewer as biased from the source) from both sides at once. I understand, though, that that is very unlikely to happen. Just a nice thought.
A common story that's shared at my university is of a Chicago journalist who moves to Texas and gets a job at a paper. They send him out to cover a fire on the first day. Pretty simple, right? He talks to the firefighters; he gets all that info he needs and writes up an article. He gives it to the editor who reads it and asks, "Did you find out how much water was used?"
In Chicago, it doesn't matter how much water you use cause we're by a lake. In a dessert town in Texas, that can matter a lot. That reporter's subjective experience and world view didn't include worrying about the water, so he didn't even choose to not include it. He didn't even consider the problem. "Everything you include is a choice and every choice is subjective. Everything you exclude is also subjective because it's a value judgement on what is relevant to the story." I learned that in a journalism class. We have to accept our biases and be willing to interact with them. We need to be able to say, "I'm from Chicago and what I consider standard procedure here might not be." It's one of the big issues with popular journalism around science: articles are written sensationally by journalists who don't understand science who write like they understand science. We need to be willing to accept that we're all fallible and biased and that we might be wrong. We might need another perspective.
I don't have time to read all the sources.. I'll just blindly trust you. I'll go share this information with my friends. Okay bye.
Facebook in a nutshell.
lol... "Bias? In My Algorithms?" -- this is a reference to "Centipedes? In My Vagina?", right? Brilliant
It's much older: knowyourmeme.com/memes/its-more-likely-than-you-think
In my TF2 years, we had some "Spys? sapping my sentry?" tags based on this image and tone.
The only people who think that algorithm's are free of bias are those who have never written any. All algorithms have shortcuts and short comings; the responses to edge cases are driven by those developer's responses to those edge cases.
Interesting to think of education in writing different kinds of algorithms as a kind of ethical mandate... like the idea that you can't really understand "how media works" until you've made it, and media plays such a big part in our everyday lives, you should know how it works... so you should make it!
It's even deeper I think - those people do not know what an algorithm is. A fancy word used in computer science a lot, mathemagics connected with how computers work, no ordinary person wants to know about. But everyone is in direct contact with them. Every "how to (...)" is an algorythm, every cooking recipie, every description of how to get somewhere. And yet the question "is this recipie biased" doesn't come up because OF COURSE it is.
I think any ethically mandated media education program would include not only a "create some media" module, but also an "examine how my values and biases are embedded in this media I made" module.
as a programmer, there is a way to make it unbiased, the issue is that's not what people want, and not only that but some things will trend either way, even if people put in code to specifically stop it, people will force it or boycott it
so everyone think their not bias or most people?
I don't think there is an expectation that Facebook (or other news outlet) be free from bias but there is an expectation that there be an effort to be objective and free of bias. The effort to try and report fairly and accurately is what is expected, falling short is excusable but not even trying is laughable.
Right, yeah. Maybe a good way to frame the response to all this is that it's not to "facebook isn't objective" but "facebook didn't appear to even be TRYING", perhaps because of [insert video]. That's a good distinction.
+
+PBS Idea Channel question; why would there even be that expectation? If Facebook wants to be hardcore Green Party all the more power to them. Isn't the issue, as it often is, a problem of user education?
Let's take Idea Channel for example. Does anyone really believe IC is completely objective? I certainly don't. The very nature of it being affiliated with PBS immediately sets an expectation for me that it's prevailing world view will be left leaning. Since I have that expectation going in I know to adjust my perspective on the way ideas are presented let alone the content that is being presented.
+
*"There is no such thing as Neutrality [or lack of bias], but instead Transparency. [along with it the admittance & identification of biases]"*
^ this all the way, ^-<
The issue with Bias is when people try and pretend or deny it isn't there,
that we are not living sapient beings who have some level of awareness,
And that with awareness comes Perception & Perspective.
From thus given perspectives we in turn develop our given biases.
(that the world is what you chose to see as based from what you _do_ see.)
Man I need some ideas for my Semantic term paper...
All human language has a bias for humans.
Ooooo, alright awesome. Thanks for solving my problems, Mike.
👌
TIL, you can use emojis in comments. 👌
(Y)
So... how is this different from Sapir-Whorf?
"Why is there an expectation that Facebook be unbiased?"
You focus mainly on Facebook as a news-source, and righfully observe that people are expecting Facebook to be more "neutral" than traditional news sources due to its reliance on algorithms. But I suspect there's another reason for that expectation; Facebook isn't solely a news source -- it's also a communication medium between individuals. Viewed in this light, the intentional suppression of conservative news seems much more sinister -- imagine if the phone company downgraded the quality of your calls if you were making fundraising calls for the Republican party (or the Democratic party, or the Green party, or whatever).
As a society, we understand that this course of action would be thoroughly unaccepable. The phone company is expected to be truly neutral -- they facilitate communication, regardless of content (with a few well-defined exceptions, like when overtly illegal activity is occurring). By contrast, news networks are only expected to be neutral in the same way that politicians are expected to be honest. Even those who think they should be "unbiased" (whatever that means), know they're biased in practice.
But Facebook doesn't fit neatly into either category. Is it a communication system, or is it a news-source? It's both, and so it isn't clear which of our expectations should apply to it. Just look at the trending feed -- is it supposed to tell you what most people are talking about, no filters applied? No, that would be useless (as you point out). Is it supposed to show you only stories that support a certain ideology? No, that would be worse than useless. Presumably, the best answer lies somewhere between these two exteremes, but where? We don't seem to have a consensus on that question.
This confusion is exacerbated by a lack of competition with Facebook. If Jane Conservative doesn't like MSNBC's coverage, she can just switch to Fox News (for better or worse). But she doesn't have the option of switching over to "Conservabook" if she thinks her Facebook feed leans too far left. This reinforces the expectation that Facebook act like a public utility, since there's no real alternative to connect on a large scale.
One obvious solution is for Facebook to clarify which role they would prefer to fill -- public utility or news network? If they do indeed ditch the trending feed, that would suggest that they're more interested in being a public communication medium. But that raises a new problem; by removing the trending feed, they make themselves less effective as a public communication medium. Furthermore, when your userbase is in the millions, you are effectively a news source, whether you want to be or not.
Yeah, I don't have a solution. All I've really managed to do is (hopefully) elaborate on the problem.
"This confusion is exacerbated by a lack of competition with Facebook."
And this is why there's been similar issues with RUclips recently (although that's more to do with their refusal to understand what Free Use means). Like you said, these massive corporations - because let's be honest, that's exactly what they are now - have cornered the market on internet viewership and their monopoly allows them to dictate what we see and when.
LATEST
not necessarily
not in the 4th dimension
By what algorythm?
SOMEWHERE AT THE TOP OF THE RESPONSES
Dividing between Republican and Democratic might just be entirely too simple. An algorithm that looks for what you want to hear will probably not favor a party that's against everything.
Thank you for your videos. love for themselves and for all the interesting readings you recommend. Btw, it is not common to see somebody who loves Derek Bailey guitar work. Yeah, the cover makes me smile every time.
Why would someone expect facebook to be different from any other media anyway ? It's a private company therefore it has no obligations to be unbiased.
If Zuckerberg wants Facebook to reflect and advertise his thoughts or a certain ideology, it's his site, his right. We're not forced to be on facebook (or are we ?).
I think people get this idea of "unbias" because they feel like they own the space they use on facebook and don't spend money to access the content made by others who don't spend money either (family, friends).
You are correct and I agree. People should be responsible on their own to judge what they are being exposed to. It's tough though to not adopt a bias, when repeatedly being exposed to it and only it (it's easy to accept it as true through repetition alone, like a lot of lies of past marketing campaigns-stuff like adam ruins everything videos). The thing is that facebook has such a reach and is so monolithic in the lives of a lot of people, that it must be regulated. I'm amazed that USA cares about regulating a private company (they usually don't), but it's the right thing to do, since it's wayyyyy too much power for a single company.
Yeah, though it only has power because people are willing to give facebook a place in their daily lives .. it's not school or any other mandatory public service, it's a private website.
Does the USA regulates the TV channels to make sure that they are unbiased even tho it had (and still has) a lot of power ?
You know what we call a nation who controls what can, cannot, and should be said by the medias to the public, right ?
You are a master apologist.
I don't know what that mean, but thanks .. i guess.
It's the same narrative gawker uses to excuse its lack of bias.
But there is such thing as an expectation and an ideal.
Step 1- design a super intelligent AI
Step 2- teach it to debate politics against itself
Step 3- give it supreme editorial authority
Step 4-?????????????????
Step 5- probably the apocalypse, maybe profit
Microsoft tried steps 1 & 2 and ended up with a super-nazi. We can probably skip straight to 5 from there
It was learning! It you look into the last moments of that AI i was learning to move past bigotry, but keep in mind it was only active for a handful of hours, and clearly distressed. They built an amazing AI but expecting enlightenment from what is mentally equivalent to a toddler is asking for a miracle.
Microsoft did "Let it learn from other people" rather than "debate against itself"
Pretty sure that's part of what went wrong :-P
But it's designed by humans so it will conform to their bias
Lovewaffle Why do you think that?
When I was an undergrad psych major we were taught to revere the null hypothesis, and that in order to be Good Researchers, we essentially had to *become* the null hypothesis, devoid of opinions or bias or predictions.
The first class of my research seminar my prof put that idea to rest. Like Greenwald's comment about transparency, he encouraged us to admit and accept that the reason we wanted to do research at all was because we had an idea about how something worked, or how, given an intervention, the thing was going to go. Only after we discussed the reasoning behind our research were we allowed to form the null hypothesis and design a study. I carried that advice with me all through graduate school and still use it today -- first, admit your bias, then proceed!
Favorite joke ever: when fox news claims to be neutral
Favorite comment ever: when anybody claims to be nuetral
or most of all, People who confuse being "neutral" with being "unbiased."
^-<
*you can have a bias towards neutrality, but ever be neutral without bias when so doing or trying would require a bias to being neutral?
;3
*"There is no greater bias than the denial or ignorance of bias."*
- only by awareness , acceptance, and to some degree embracing of our 'biases' that we each in turn can move in some degree to transcend them, that we do not ignore them nor pretend to make them not a part of us; rather we simply accept they are there rather than being controlled by them due to pretending they are not.
;3
(you cannot hold views after all if you didn't have a 'bias' upon which views are made.)
The trick so becomes a matter of training said "biases" to be meritocratically utilitarianist.
Science (and it's process) and technology are never truly divorced of politics, bias, and other kinds of human error.
It effects what studies get funded/published, what assumptions are being tested/reinforced, who gets credit, why/how inventions get made, and the language involved in all parts of the process.
So it all needs to be comprehended with that in mind, so you can consume the literature in a way that is realistic and reasonably truthful. Scientists and researchers are flawed human beings like everyone else, so it's important not turn a blind eye to their mistakes. It's the only way progress is made.
People think Facebook can be unbiased in the same way people think science can be unbiased: they are both equally wrong though, as you pointed out (regarding mathematics). The biggest foreseeable problem, I think, is the inevitable circle jerk of uncheck and unchallenged viewpoints. The thing that should be done is to show a range of viewpoints on "trending topics" to every person. Understanding does not come by agreement, but in seeing many sides. This will never happen though since people prefer the circle jerk and the fact that most people's attention spans never reach the time necessary for understanding complexity: so they oversimplify issues and emotively state solutions to things that can't be solved simply.
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That's the opposite of how science works. The only thing a scientist loves more than being right is proving other scientists wrong.
people are intrinsically biased, science is done by people, therefore, science has intrinsic biases. Objectivity is a philosophical myth. I meant nothing more than that.
Thank you so much for saying that! This is exactly my point. Of course media and science can't be completely unbiased, but they could (and should) be transparent and report all the different viewpoint without simplifying them.
And to those saying science can't be biased: unfortunately it can and it is. Studies are done by biased people, data is gathered by people, questions are chosen and worded by people, people choose which studies will be publiched etc. etc. I recommend reading some Feyerabend.
+1stGruhn Hit the nail on the head.
Right-wingers? Maybe. But more actual liberals.
2:36 No. It's not "unfair". It is unrealistic. See, journalists have been proclaiming impartiality for decades. They learn in their COM/101 course that being unbiased is important to journalistic ethics so they declare themselves to be unbiased while many regular folks actually believe them. We should expect journalists to focus on the facts as much as possible and make an attempt to present both sides of controversial opinions, but they'll tend to pick more articulate, more well spoken proponents of the ideas they support. Most importantly, journalists should be open and honest about their political bias and organizations should either proudly display their bias (a la old school newspapers named after political parties) or at least maintain an equitable blend of biased reporters who support disparate views.
Same as it's always been: computers do EXACTLY humans tell them to do, and then humans get angry because that wasn't actually what we wanted.
I believe what people think is not that algorithms' output is free from bias, but that it is free from NEW bias.
I still don't understand why just showing the most popular news isn't unbiased.
You know, Mike. Sometimes when you read from your sources you often do it with so much conviction and emotional authority I find it an otherworldly difficulty to research these things myself rather than simply appealing to your authority.
I like how he always says "CON-TENT" in a serious manner.
it should also be asked why bias is automatically considered a bad thing. is bias towards facts and against lies bad? most people would say no way. is bias towards inclusion and against bigotry bad? that's probably a more controversial question. where's the boundary of what kind of bias is acceptable?
I love that most of these videos I have to watch twice because there is so much in them!
Every time you say "Algorithm" I picture the Al Gore rhythm picture from the, How Powerful Are Algorithms? episode.
Another issue with algorithms used in these contexts, is that understanding exactly how those algorithms work means tech-savvy people can find ways to abuse them from outside. As I understand it, this is one thing common on twitter: posts made by people who follow and are followed by many people are more likely to come up in searches and feeds, and this leads to very commonly used strategies to more or less astroturf your way into having your twitter account seeming very popular and having more weight than the average to increase your outreach potential. No doubt facebook's news relevance algorithms could be abused in similar ways, as it becomes better understood over years of experimentation.
I have the expectation that "they" will interfere in every conceivable way that can be implemented because they have a legally binding fiduciary responsibility to protect shareholder value. For some, this mechanism is a reasonable excuse to dismiss most social media entirely as a credible source of news. For others, just a healthy skepticism. For the vast majority though, such controversy is just a puny distraction from the endless parade of dopamine triggers.
Simply put: Algorithms will naturally select popular news stories over controversial ones. Conservative posts may be positive, but they are also generally antagonistic toward people, or percieved as such, and thus tend to be more controversial (Especially with a Republican candidate like Trump, one of the most controversial and antagonistic candidates in recent memory).
One of the driving ideas for people's outrage about the impartiality of Favebook seems to be rooted in another recent topic covered here; the idea of the internet, and in this case facebook, as a public space. As was touched on, Facebook is a significant enough source of news and information for a significant enough section of the populace that any direction they give to the flow of news has real impact on the dissemination and longevity of any piece of news in particular. Combine that with Facebook being a kind of hub for just about every aspect of people's lives, and it's much easier to see how people see Facebook as having a responsibility to maintain impartiality. This is, of course, not the case, at least not legally, and may not even be possible. Facebook is privately owned and operated, and is not itself a news affiliate, and even if it was there is still human bias, but that doesn't change the public opinion that it should be. I also think there's a disparity between what is legally required and what people expect out of it.
7:00 Mike sound so frustrated it's hilarious. "I DO NOT WANT #LUNCH IN MY FACE(BOOK) ALL DAY EVERY DAY! NO!" says Mike.
This is one of my favorite channels, I wish it was more popular because it deserves to be recognized because of its "great-ness"
What seems amazing to me is that while neutrality is so hard to reach Facebook and other algorithms are very good at collecting data from us to assess our political positions (Just check out your Facebook advert preferences!) I think it'd be interesting to see what would happen if Facebook pushed out news stories and sources to you that went against what it perceived your political biases to be - a sort of counter google bubble if you will.
Respect....
I think this is one of the better IC videos. I came with preconceived notions on what this might be about, and it, surprisingly, wasn't.
I thought it would be the argument that I see often, which is that they're a "private company so they can do whatever the hell they want", or some sort of argument similar to the one done in the past trying to argue that bias is a good thing. Instead I got a decent video about how algorithms are biased by their creators and the inherent flaws, AS WELL AS hearing someone who is biased towards liberalism admit to the conservatives of our nation being jilted because of liberal bias. [personally, I am fairly liberal, but I prefer a fair fight, even with those i disagree with, and I like to hear my opponents out and give them the benefit of the doubt].
The emphasis in editorial oversight was a breath of fresh air. The biases may be present in the news, but, it is an obligation to report fairly and as unbiased as possible. This responsibility is inherent if its goal is to inform the population without giving propaganda. For all its faults, editorial oversight is what should be in place to make the news more like, say, wikipedia, than twitter. Or tumblr. (and for those out there that say, "Wikipedia is always wrong", I say to you that wikipedia is STILL more accurate than news, as it cites source, marks articles to be cleaned up for its bias, and has more editorial oversight than most of the most popular news sources out there.... who quote twitter and tumblr as legitimate sources for news.)
Sources too.... I mean it in all honesty when I say this was damned good.
The only thing I wish was tossed in there was a reference to Rashomon.
As for a solution? I don't mind a team picking the stories and hashing out together what constitutes "trending" but I would ask that the people are selected for their self-censoring skills (meaning their ability to recognize and censor their own personal bias), and the team itself consist of a different perspectives.
I don't think its impossible Oversight and judgement are a very necessary and everyday thing in courtrooms across the country. Juries and panels are selected and entrusted to make unbiased decisions, with the aggregate of their judgments collated for the sake of making a final decision. We can do the same thing in the newsroom.
BTW, REALLY a great video.
Oh... and there's the idea of the press/media as the 4th estate, and as such, it *ought* to endeavor to remove as much bias as it can.
Overall the problem isn't the bias, but the amount if bias, and the fact that oversight on bias is all but gone.
We definitely need to do something about the weird notion that computer objectivity is of a higher value than where humanity's heart leads them.
"Too high an ideal for mere modern mortals"
There are many such ideals that some people consistently fail to meet, yet we as a society expect them anyway.
Self-curation has become how we explore web content. We are now the editors for everything we experience on the web. The expectation for a service like Facebook to be editorializing on top of the user shouldn't be surprising. When you signed up for Facebook, you agreed to follow their rules and enter into their algorithmic bias. Whether you chose to acknowledge that bias or even be aware of it is a problem of ignorance exploited by term agreements. If you are someone who does want to push your views and expand your knowledge then you already know that getting your news from one source is a terribly biased way of doing things, but at the same time it is exhausting to have to continually guess and check with all the different perspectives available.
I agree with the idea that #trending is a broken system at this point. The idea of something trending always depends on context. Social Media and information services just need to start being more transparent, and conversations on social media or news outlets need to be self-contained in order to maintain a level of integrity.
Facebook either needs to 1. Not filter hashtags and show literally any trend (I mean literally this time, not figuratively), or 2. Admit that they will always have some form of bias in their system.
Now that I think of it, I think it would be a good optional feature to show things opposite your political leanings, religious believes, and similar, so you can better understand the other side. It would be a great way to escape the bubble in which everyone almost always agrees with you.
As Mike notes, it should be understood that anytime someone (no matter their political persuasion) asks for something to be unbiased, they are really asking that it shares their own biases. We are all expressions of our biases of perception. People are just living breathing manifestations of bias, whether or not you know your biases exist. Nothing we produce can be free of bias. Neutrality is its own bias, not the absence of bias.
There may be an expectation of objectivity because despite the IC's claims that there shouldn't or can't be objective journalism, people still want it. The idea that the room from nowhere is mythical is a good one, but maybe not for the reasons you mentioned. We look at myths as ideals. We want to have herculean strength, even though its mythical. The impossibility of objective reporting doesn't mean we should give up, like facebook seems like it might do. It means, like humans do with everything else, we should strive to get closer and closer to true objectivity.
The real question is, why does it matter? If you don't like how facebook runs then don't use it. I did just that.
Phase 1: Collect Underpants
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit
------------------
1) Surveil
2) Distribute
3) Profit
Besides the fact that algorithms handle data that can be biased, they are in turn still written by people and therefore can be crafted to favor the architect's bias, which just brings you back to the "Duh, people" point about expecting and accepting bias/partiality as part of the equation.
It's mostly a PR reaction, but more transparency is all they could do to actually fix the problem. But they won't. Because that's not how you make money.
I asked facebook how many Christians they've hired. They didn't respond lol There needs to be an audit of all the people they've postblocked, what was reported and who has been penalized, which pages fb has removed, and an audit of their employees political biases. That will speak volumes.
I really like the bit you included on "mathwashing"-- I think that plays a huge part in it. People have the expectations that numbers aren't biased. And, to a point, they're not wrong. But when we use them to symbolize complex social interactions, there's the huge issue that they may not honestly mean what they're purported to mean.
As to why people have the expectation for Facebook, I think that it's largely due to its ubiquity, the idea of free will, and the amount of impact that a potential bias may have. Facebook isn't just on a website. You use the messanger app, instagram, whatsapp and a bunch of others than you may not even know they own. Third party organizations allow you to automatically sign in with your Facebook credentials and express your affinity for their service/thing through the site. There's virtually no escape from its influence. And I think the idea of something so ubiquitous influencing how we think--especially by prioritizing or hiding information-- makes us uneasy because there's no escaping it. (Or at least it feels that way). It also may upset us because of how many of us feel like we are in control of our own lives and opinions only to learn that this tool we use, this product, is challenging both of those things. By manipulating our reality, it feels like we've lost control to a tool that we previously only thought of facilitating our wants and actions. Add in the fact that since Facebook has billions of users, even a small shift in how people behave politically represents huge actual numbers. Numbers that may be large enough to swing an election.
Again, this may be just a few reasons why people hope for neutrality. Whether that's a realistic hope is an entirely different story.
I forgot that Mike was going to say "Content" like a pirate until he said "Content" like a pirate.
But dance me this: how would you say "content" ( as in "satisfied with what one is or has; not wanting more or anything else") like a pirate?
I still don't have a Facebook account, and I still don't intend to, so an explanation of how FaceBook actually works is appreciated, by me, at least. Your point is right on about no news source being unbiased; it's impossible to select which news stories to feature without introducing personal biases, even if the stories themselves are scrupulously fair, objective, and unbiased, a task difficult in its own right.
And as someone who's done some programming, although not professionally, it has longed seemed obvious to me that algorithms must necessarily reflect the biases of the programmer(s). When I wrote my maze program, for example, I deliberately tried to select and verify that the algorithm that generated the maze would create sufficiently interesting and complex mazes, mazes that "looked right" to me, without any excessively unusual features or appearances to them.
Of course, writing an algorithm to select 'trending' news faces other complexities that I didn't face, such as where they find the trending news, and how they convert the vagaries of human language into algorithmically-selectable options. How does an algorithm know that a story about marijuana is pro-prohibition or anti-prohibition, for example, or if it has no relation to prohibition at all?
Still, since we are talking about the precision of computers and algorithms, I'm not entirely convinced that you can't tweak it to compensate for personal bias. After all, all you really have to do is to adjust the algorithm to a different set of numbers, assuming the accuracy of converting language and news into numbers. No, the real problem with doing this is whether or not we humans would actually be able to recognize truly unbiased results. This is much like the computer problem of random number generation. Truly randomly-generated numbers don't necessarily *SEEM* random to humans, part of the Pareidolia effect, where we "see" patterns that aren't really there. "Random" number generators tend to use a pre-set selection of numbers that merely seem random to humans, to minimize the Pareidolia effect.
Similarly, a truly unbiased selection of trending news stories may well still seem to have a pattern of bias in it to us humans.
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." -Benjamin Disraeli
man I love this channel. great coverage on issues with as best as I can tell a really full balanced view
Thinking about it, it makes sense, almost to the point of being obvious. If you boil the term "bias" down to it's most abstract idea what seems to be left is a "criteria." If your criteria for what you read is local information you will have a bias towards the local, having no idea about the world at large, you will undoubtedly make assumptions based on your region. If your criteria is what is "popular" than the unpopular but true will go unnoticed. In a pre internet sense when all news was delivered in papers and radio and tv, the stations and publisher have a criteria in what news they would report on, and then the consumer has a criteria based on what distributors that they would consume from. The news organization undoubtedly had bias before they had criteria, applying their bias to the news they report on, the consumer would then develop biases based on the news organizations biases. Pure "what is Trending" topics, because it comes from consumers inherits both of these biases with an added criteria "what is popular," and what is "buzzing" (as google once said, lol)
I have to say, I haven't seen such an interesting channel in a while. Keep up the good work!
9:44 What do Y'ALL think?
*YES*. That is what I think.The world needs more y'all.
Why did peopel trust news posted on FB anyway?
Just to add I agree humans can't really do 100% objective news. What makes this weird for isme is that Facebook wasn't even designed as a news source. People jsut started using it that way and decided later that if they want this non-news source to be the best news source.
I haven't used Facebook propper at all in three years now. I can't imagine trusting such a shady company with your news in the first place. It's weird to expect any ethics form FB in the first place let alone journalistic ethics form a thing that was never designed to be a news source.
I love that he says "Content" like an old timey pirate. Arrr!
Truthfully, I'm tired of all people pushing their ideology.
I can't believe I missed this video. It is nice to see a "new" idea channel
One of the key things going on here, I think, is the legal framework. The TLDR version of the communications decency act section 230 is that someone who's an editor can get in trouble for material posted on their website, while a neutral hosting provider has immunity from liability for defamation in the United States. That framework made sense a couple decades ago when the idea was to distinguish between, say, the New York Times vs. a company hosting a forum that could not possibly read every post made on the forum and would go bankrupt if they were liable for every ranting user.
But, it's not two decades ago now, and the actual activities that people are doing don't quite match the framework anymore. I think that it's still understood that the vastness and scope of a website like Facebook means that if they were liable for every mean thing that a user posted, it would represent a vast, perhaps even unsustainable cost for them, and that it would not be possible for Facebook, or any other website to actually review every post that every user made prior to making it public to make sure that it didn't contain defamation or anything else illegal. Just not possible. And that means that they can't talk about being editors, or exercising editorial judgement because doing that is the exact language that the statute contemplates as making the company liable for everything that every user says.
Even my definition of bias, is bias.
I guess you can say that facebook didnt want to talk about the elephant in the room.
{exhales with defeat} I need better jokes.
My biggest concern is the ability of giant outlets like Facebook to sway public opinion. To me it's a huge responsibility that shouldn't be taken lightly.
I didn't even know facebook had a trending thing, and I use it almost every day
Even if there were such a thing as an "unbiased" algorithm, people who still perceive a bias in anything that pierced that epistemic bubble.
Facebook can certainly eliminate bias, or at least the perception of bias being unacceptable by being more transparent, as you said. There is no expectation that established news sources portray the facts 100% unbiased because the public understands that behind these news sources are just people. Since clearly the public now understands the seriousness and influence that Facebook has as a news source, then Facebook should just install a team of people to put behind trending news and make certain that there is little difference between their process of story finding and that of a newspaper, allowing the public to hold Facebook to the same standards as other news sources of influence instead of expecting Facebook to somehow portray the news perfectly.
Aren't "trendy" and "conservative" kinda opposites anyway
Should make an episode about the Primitive Technology channel. Why is it so satisfying watching?!
On a number of occasions now, including today, I have seen the posts about Today's Special from the deli downstairs 19 hours after posting, yeah THANKS FACEBOOK. Make the newsfeed ordered by Most Recent again, and stop making me miss out on spicy meatball salad!
Gurl, I woulda chomped the heck outta that spicy meatball salad.
haha. AL Gore Rhythms.
If lunch is trending or weather, then let the users edit that, not a detached team. You can curate the Trending Now yourself on your feed by just clicking on it.
Perhaps like how a Judge is meant to be impartial between the two sides and (I think) have specail training and rules to facilitate this, an editor could aspire to be a "Netural Editor" by similar means.
Things to consider before publishing:
- Are statements backed up? If not, is it clear that it is speculation?
- Have you given / will you give the right of reply to stories with two or more sides?
- Make it clear what is opinion and what is fact.
- If you publish an artical that attacks someone you dislike, would you publish it if it was about someone you like? (insert Hillery and Trump where appropriate for examples.)
People are always going to have biases, but we should at least try to be netural when reporting news.
I feel like Facebook should just let news come from your network organically. Isn't that what a social network is all about?
There could be some sorting or filters available to FB users, like trending in my city, pick a city, trending among females 20-49, most shared, liked, commented on, and so on. On RUclips trending is always, ALWAYS movie trailers (which I literally never watch) in the top 25 or so slots. Which kind of makes sense in the same way the space bar is the most used key. Trailers are what people watch between videos.
I love that the bulk of this episode hinges on "Is Facebook people?" :-D
I remember a funny story from my time in college when I was getting my BA in Communications- Journalism. I had to take two difference classes on reporting one geared toward print and one geared toward broadcast. In one of these classes our professor asked if it's possible to be unbiased or objective and which was more important. I put forth that objectivity is the goal and being unbiased is by it's very nature pretty much impossible. He didn't like this. That SAME DAY my other professor went on a rant covering this exact same issue but didn't ask the class just flat out told us what I had said to my other professor. I laugh and told her about my previous interaction with my other professor and her response was something along the lines of "he's was only in the industry for a year before becoming a professor and still believes he lives in that protective bubble from the experience. It's not a realistic one." As the class went on I realized she was right and he was living in a fantasyland.
I've very carefully groomed my facebook feed to only show me what I want to see, the way I want to see it. I rely on my friends with differing views and ideologies to push against that inherent bias.
The hair sticking up in the back of Mike's head cannot be unseen once you notice it.
some sources have better reputations then others, and some conservatives are not happy that their sources are downvoted
It isn't that news can be unbiased, but that it should strive to be unbiased. Much like you can't always tell the truth, but you at least strive and try your best never to lie. That doesn't mean the moment you can't always be something (truthful, unbiased in news) that you drop all pretenses and give up. You continue to work towards an unbiased goal that you will never truly obtain.
We shouldnt expect facebook to be bias-free, but as you have pointed out, they can be transparent. They could give us some insight into the algorithm's secret sauce.
Everything that exists now exists because of the universe's inherent bias towards "normal" matter instead of anti-matter. The 4 fundamental forces are also the 4 fundamental biases of the universe.
The thing about communication, media and all types of communication is that the person that is writtig, editting, reading, will be biased no matter what. Not being biased is impossible and it is a farse. It is important to be transparent, as greenwald saind, but is way more imporant to be more responsible, and not say or state that the news is the truth.
I'm not sure Facebook can ever be read by its audience as "unbiased", since to lots and lots of people, at least on a visceral level, "unbiased" means "doesn't seem like it's slanted against what I already believe".
Maybe people expect Facebook to be unbiased because they do not "create content", they simply share it. By this logic, the only bias we should expect is from the "OC's", not the "messenger".
I think eliminating bias is a reasonable, if impossible, aspiration (as is any form of human perfection). The more important a source is, the more we want it to be true, and the more we like it, the more we believe it to be true.* Because Facebook is both of these things to Facebook users, it generates a high degree of expectation and desire. Violations thus provoke a larger backlash than they would at, say, my local suburban rag.
*Because it matches our own biases . . . which, of course, we think don't exist.
There seems to be a tendency for people to expect that something is objective unless it is explicitly stated otherwise. So many online arguments devolve into people telling each other to quit representing their opinion as fact, when in reality it was obviously opinion from the start. Then there's the no-politics-in-school policy that many schools force their teachers to adhere to, in case a parent is angered by a contrary idea their kid picked up in class, when in reality talking about politics in history or government classes would be extremely valuable. Even Gamergate kind of tapped into this on a larger scale, where people expected all game journalists to not be influenced at all by the people making or publishing the games (though the details are way more messy than that.)
I'm never gonna say content in these contexts in a normal way ever again, thanks to these videos.
Just like how I'll never say zaif normally ever again.
I'm reminded of an earlier Idea Channel topic on whether the internet is a public or private place. Facebook is, of course, a private company that is under no legal obligation to be unbiased, but it has become so pervasive in people's lives that it somehow feels like a public forum, and thus feels like it has a kind of social or moral obligation to try and be unbiased.
As stated in the video, with most media companies we intuitively understand that content created and curated by those who own and work for the company may have a bias. Facebook, though, is a different beast. It's not intuitive to separate those who create the content (you, me, "everyone" else) from those who curate it (the algorithms) when it's all happening on the same platform. From our end, Facebook feels like a public forum where Creators just shout out what they want to say and the most popular topics make it onto a kind of trending topics "leaderboard." The impracticality of that simply doesn't occur to most people.
These Creators are (in aggregate, not individually) largely unbiased (though not entirely, unless every person on earth joined facebook, but I digress). Editing and curating of any kind is inherently biased, but it doesn't intuitively feel that way when it is face-less algorithms doing the curating, AND they are taking in the unbiased content "we" all create.
I think what was upsetting about the Trending Topics "scandal" was our assumption of impartiality being shattered. Ultimately, there is no way to avoid bias with a curator, whether human or computer. The way forward may just be to openly acknowledge and be aware of the bias, which would, at the very least, remind people to take everything with a grain of salt.
Big Question: Is it morally wrong? Are they not allowed to push for giving certain things more exposure. Media already is very biased in general I think it's a bit silly to only hold Facebook accountable.
Would it make a difference to being perceived as more right if they were transparent about it?
I think this is what Mike means by "mathwashing". People don't know it's being done because algorithms are presented as being purely mathematical devices that can't possibly have biases embedded in them. But they have to, so we have a responsibility (maybe not a legal one, but a moral one) to be transparent about those biases.
I think transparency might be the deciding factor here.
They don't even have to be really open about what their biases are in my opinion. Just that they do influence what they put out.
Honestly I'm surprised people didn't just assume this was happening.
This sort of question gets asked so damned much it makes my heart break.
What if the show was on the other foot? What if they pushed and promoted a conservative viewpoint as truth? What if the left was silenced? Would you find that it is ok still?
Serif Sans Serif
I have a problem with the general bias whether it's left or right (although in my experience: with progressive programs people are discussing, with conservative programs there's just a bunch of people agreeing with each other and there's just a whole lot less to think about).
But with all that I think it's a bit weird to put it so heavily on _Facebook_ in particular. I think something like that should be held less accountable for pushing certain political agendas than things that actually call themselves news channels.
Great episode!! Keep it up! You guys and Nerdwriter1 keep me coming back to youtube every week. Thanks
The pirate "content" always cracks me up :)
I think part of the reason people expect Facebook to be completely unbiased is the same reason we believe all "social media" should be unbiased-namely, the social part. SoMe is you, it's me; it's our little old grandpa and the gal down the street with the wacky hair. It's a form of media made up of *content* "by the people for other people". We don't need anyone that knows any better to tell us what's important. The very act that many people are clicking it means it's important "to the people".
Sarcasm aside, I believe that to be a fallacy (which one, I'm not sure...), a misunderstanding of the technology. Social media is powerful because it is readily accessible to a majority, globally (though definitely not everyone, which adds to the problem claiming social media is representative of everyone), but by no means is it free of built in prejudices, racism, gender politics, and more. It's a tool, built by people, and people are flawed. It aggregates *content* created by people with agendas and biases, and there's just no way to filter that all out. (Nor should we; I like the quote you used from Glenn Greenwald, "There is no neutrality, only transparency.")
We expect Facebook to be unbiased because we want to believe that it can, because it is us. If Facebook (Twitter, Instagram, etc.) is made up of people, and Facebook is flawed-than so to are we.
And who wants to be flawed?
* * = to be read in a pirate's voice
I was actually treated quite bizarrely by FB bias, one day. I had shared a video that showed that PBS had cut several good points from their Jill Stein interview when they prepared it for their FB page. FB promptly took the video down declaring it somehow "inappropriate." IDK if this was human bias, or some sort of flaw in their takedown process, but I believe it's still down at the moment, even though I immediately appealed the takedown
Why isn't this episode on the playlist OF ALL EPISODES??? (I'm trying to catch up myself with them).
The more it grows and relies on algorithms for everything, the less Facebook works at all as everything you see isn't what is actually posted on Facebook but what Facebook thinks you want to see. It becomes harder to use social media for conversations that aren't directly sought out, or to share meaning when algorithms render meaning meaning less.
Facebook is under no obligation to be unbiased. They're a private corporation that is free to do as they wish with their products and services. If someone cares enough about a topic or story that Facebook doesn't spotlight for any reason, biased or unbiased, then it is that individual's own responsibility. People treat Facebook as if it were a public space because it is free and on the internet, but that does not make it so, as was discussed a few episodes back.
an embarrassment of sources should be the term for a group of sources.
I think the problem is partially due to Facebook's gradual but rather ambiguous slide into the role of a news media provider, whereas previously it was merely a social media outlet where you could incidentally share news stories. Because of this slow convergence of news coverage with online social activity, I don't think Facebook (nor the general public) truly considered it a "journalistic entity" until its influence and role became apparent and it outgrew its self-perceived role. The proper codes of practice were not put in place simply because Facebook never saw itself as a part of the news industry--it is still, foremost, a tech company. The relationship between Facebook's function as a social media outlet and a news source remains, in my opinion, extremely fraught.
I think there is an expectation that Facebook is neutral has a lot to do with how omnipresent it is. While there are other social networks, none are a viable alternative to Facebook. Whereas most TV network, newspaper, and online new sources have alternative you can turn to if you don't agree with their politics, Facebook doesn't have this. Therefore, once Facebook censors something, it's not in the news anymore, or at least less in the news.
I demand reparations! Facebook should hire a conservative editorial staff!
I just realized, if you apply the concept of algorithmic bias to AI development, it can possibly distinguish what kind of singularity we may inevitably create.
Say, the first smart AI is developed by the military, and it's task is to defend the lands by force. That means the next iteration of AI will have a militaristic, "win at all costs," mentality and evaluate threats and opportunity like a military commander.
Alternatively, if the first AI is developed by a corporation (hi Watson) it will view the world in a corporate manner, potentially short term gains maximize profit, what rules can we change,etc.
In another case, the first smart AI could be created Ex Machina style, trying to make a sentient "person" with emotions and prejudices etc
Even more so, the first AI will become what the programmer thinks a AI SHOULD be. In the Ex Machina example, the person AI will not necessarily reflect the thought processes of the creator, rather the biases of how the creator thinks humans think. Do people never change? Always go for the easy option? Do people have compassion for people they don't know? In the corporate example, will the company building the AI be focused on expansion or efficiency. The military: offense or diplomacy. Everyone of these cases can lead to both Skynet and/or HER scenarios, but how it comes could lead to drastically different methods and logic exploits.
SPECULATE WITH ME!!!!
My final general statement is this: Isn't bias the thing that, essentially, all these years of social justice if fighting against? It's not so great when you show all of your biases to fight biases with more biases against the things your biased against.
We all have biases, but what's important is that we do not try to overcompensate for them, nor do we act on them, but we try to be impartial and fair in our dealings with others... Even those we do not like and/or disagree with.