11
Facebook Is So 'Biased Against Conservatives' That Mark Zuckerberg Personally Agreed To Diminish The Reach Of 'Left-Leaning' Sites

Facebook Is So 'Biased Against Conservatives' That Mark Zuckerberg Personally Agreed To Diminish The Reach Of 'Left-Leaning' Sites

4 years ago
Anonymous $RGO3jP_V_c

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20201017/00052845523/facebook-is-so-biased-against-conservatives-that-mark-zuckerberg-personally-agreed-to-diminish-reach-left-leaning-sites.shtml

As you well know if you've been reading this site for the last few years, there's a garbage myth out there that the internet companies have an "anti-conservative" bias. First of all, even if this were true, there's literally nothing wrong with that. Historically, media companies have long had political biases, going all the way back to the founding of the country (seriously you should read how crazy it was). This is literally part of the reason the 1st Amendment exists in the form that it does. The founders knew that allowing the government to crack down on biased media would create problems over time.

But, it's also important to note that there remains no actual evidence for this so-called bias. There are certainly plenty of examples of the big companies kicking off or otherwise limiting trolls and assholes, but not evidence that it's targeted towards any particular political viewpoint. Indeed, there have been trolls and assholes on both sides of the political spectrum removed, but it does appear that there may be slightly more (and slightly more prominent) trolls and assholes on the Trumpist side of the political scale. Even the one study people tout seems to simply show an anti-Nazi and anti-troll bias, but the study counted accounts like the "American Nazi Party" as "conservative".

Facebook Is So 'Biased Against Conservatives' That Mark Zuckerberg Personally Agreed To Diminish The Reach Of 'Left-Leaning' Sites

Oct 19, 2020, 7:15pm UTC
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20201017/00052845523/facebook-is-so-biased-against-conservatives-that-mark-zuckerberg-personally-agreed-to-diminish-reach-left-leaning-sites.shtml > As you well know if you've been reading this site for the last few years, there's a garbage myth out there that the internet companies have an "anti-conservative" bias. First of all, even if this were true, there's literally nothing wrong with that. Historically, media companies have long had political biases, going all the way back to the founding of the country (seriously you should read how crazy it was). This is literally part of the reason the 1st Amendment exists in the form that it does. The founders knew that allowing the government to crack down on biased media would create problems over time. > But, it's also important to note that there remains no actual evidence for this so-called bias. There are certainly plenty of examples of the big companies kicking off or otherwise limiting trolls and assholes, but not evidence that it's targeted towards any particular political viewpoint. Indeed, there have been trolls and assholes on both sides of the political spectrum removed, but it does appear that there may be slightly more (and slightly more prominent) trolls and assholes on the Trumpist side of the political scale. Even the one study people tout seems to simply show an anti-Nazi and anti-troll bias, but the study counted accounts like the "American Nazi Party" as "conservative".