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by schoen
3577 days ago
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> What does it mean for society when Facebook can demote a challenging but important article (say, of war reporting) in your newsfeed so it can promote your friend's Wedding photos, because an algorithm says that challenging articles cause people to leave FB, reducing page views and ad revenue? Couldn't a newspaper that uses algorithmic metrics (or any kind of metrics or surveying) end up making a similar editorial decision for similar reasons? Journalists have worried about independence of editorial and advertising for somewhat analogous kinds of reason for a long time, and also about whether their news outlets were doing the most important journalism vs. journalism with the greatest mass appeal. |
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When there were two reasonably good newspapers in virtually any city (or 3, or 9, or in some cases 30 or 40), there was a readily available local alternative to the editorial decisions of any one paper, though other factors (political machine, major advertiser, mob) might have similarly restricted what was covered.
But those days are gone -- many cities in the US have only one major daily, and it's often stopped trying. Local radio and television, as well as national broadcasts, are abysmal.
What I'm noticing today, at least in print media, is a staggeringly widespread mediocrity and lack of relevance. Actually, that goes beyond print to broadcast (radio and television), and many mainstream online sources.
The saving grace, at least for now, are competing, largely non-mainstream sources, which carry information that is less likely to be carried. Yes, some sites cater to eyeball-attracting, outrage-inducing bogosities, but others actually contain solid content.
My local paper has had little if any coverage of international trade pacts which treaten to rewrite major elements of laws across multiple countries, but I can find detailed information at, of all places, Buzzfeed. Or The Intercept. Or The Guardian. Or Pro Publica. Or your EFF article -- one of the best explainers I've found, and some colourful infographics to boot (they've been in heavy play, and largely my only content, at Google+, as Google are among the sadly far-too-many tech companies promoting the TPP, TTIP, BITS, and TiSA).
Something is badly wrong with media, though, and globally. It's not a whole lot that's not been warned about for a long, long time -- Eric Blair (George Orwell), Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), Neal Postman, Jerry Mander, I.F. Stone, and others cautioned about it. Oh, and Walter Lippman and Noam Chomsky. But is it ever getting flagrant.
I'd even be modestly satisfied with algorithmic placements, so long as they were different algorithms, possibly rotated, and with some sortition blended in for random perterbations.
Facebook's a problem, and a large problem, but not the only problem.