[WisNorCan]

Sure and that happens. Journalists will cherry pick data to tell the story they want. But there is a difference.

If the data is out there someone can dispute the journalists characterization. If Facebook controls all the data and presents the story, there is no way to verify their characterization.

[minorityreport]

>> Sure and that happens. Journalists will cherry pick data to tell the story they want. But there is a difference. If the data is out there someone can dispute the journalists characterization.

Does it actually happen though? The media controls most of the narrative, including what goes into legislative discussions. The "paper of record" becomes history while everything else goes into a vast firehose of tweets which get washed away by the dominant narrative.

Real recent example. NYTimes June 21, 2021:

"How Big Tech Allows the Racial Wealth Gap to Persist"

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/21/us/politics/big-tech-raci...

So according to the NYTimes, "big tech" allows a racial wealth gap. Consider that this is the only industry where Asians, Indians, and others are actually allowed to consistently and widely climb ranks into senior management.

The ultimate irony is -- this is coming from the NYTimes -- a small group of mostly white, rich, people in Brooklyn and the Upper West Side of Manhattan -- with almost zero diversity at the executive ranks -- is saying this.

Further, there is no discussion about the FAANG exams, hiring committees, etc -- or the fact that the authors hire on no objective measures themselves -- they are mostly hired based on which elite private school they attended.

So what happens? We end up with congressional investigations on big tech monopolies (worth looking into) but ignore obvious monopolies like my mobile phone provider, my healthcare providers, etc -- places that charge a pound of flesh and have no competitors.

[CarelessExpert]

> Does it actually happen though? The media controls most of the narrative

You can't be serious.

I can list a litany of topics--the dangers of sugar, smoking, carbon emissions--where corporations, through their vast war chests, lobbying connections, and pliant journalists, have more than successfully controlled the narrative.

Facebook isn't the victim here. Not by a long shot.

[ma2rten]

The problem that Facebook has compared to those other industries is that journalists blame Facebook for the decline of journalism and view Facebook as a gatekeeper. Those other companies on the other hand are valuable advertisers.

[stirfish]

>So according to the NYTimes

Here's the report that the NYTimes is reporting on.

https://www.conference-board.org/press/mind-the-gap-June2021

>The ultimate irony is -- this is coming from the NYTimes -

>with almost zero diversity at the executive ranks

>the authors hire on no objective measures themselve

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

[ipsum2]

It's not whataboutism because, from your link:

> attempts to discredit an opponent's position by charging them with hypocrisy without directly refuting or disproving their argument

but the parent has addressed the argument:

> Consider that this is the only industry where Asians, Indians, and others are actually allowed to consistently and widely climb ranks into senior management.

[stirfish]

>How can the nyt report on a wage gap when they too have a wage gap?

>I didn't read what they were actually reporting on, but I assume that's checkmate.

[mdoms]

No one considers NYT a "paper of record" anymore. That may have been the case 8 years ago, but they have gone totally off the rails since, and everyone knows it.

[hairofadog]

I find 'everyone' to be a pretty dubious source. But I am sincerely curious: is there a publication you consider to be a "paper of record"?

[jonfromsf]

There isn't one anymore. It's one of the great tragedies of the last several years of hyper-polarization.

[intended]

I'd argue that the NYT remains a paper of record, but there is no way to perceive it as such for all groups present in the US.

I emphasize the reduction in common ground, over any real change at the NYT.

[jsemrau]

Up to this day I am wondering for most social media sites how much of their daily active users is actually bots. I'd like to find a way to verify that.

[stirfish]

They will never tell you how many bots are on a platform because advertisers don't want to show ads to bots

[yuliyp]

They do reveal how many fake accounts they think they have.

From Facebook's 2020 Annual Report (https://investor.fb.com/financials/sec-filings-details/defau... page 4):

> In the fourth quarter of 2020, we estimated that duplicate accounts may have represented approximately 11% of our worldwide MAUs. We believe the percentage of duplicate accounts is meaningfully higher in developing markets such as the Philippines and Vietnam, as compared to more developed markets. In the fourth quarter of 2020, we estimated that false accounts may have represented approximately 5% of our worldwide MAUs. Our estimation of false accounts can vary as a result of episodic spikes in the creation of such accounts, which we have seen originate more frequently in specific countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam. From time to time, we disable certain user accounts, make product changes, or take other actions to reduce the number of duplicate or false accounts among our users, which may also reduce our DAU and MAU estimates in a particular period. We intend to disclose our estimates of the number of duplicate andfalse accounts among our MAUs on an annual basis.

[schuyler2d]

I believe Zignal (which is sort of CrowdTangle for Twitter) provides a variable in their API for "likelihood they are a bot" which is direct from Twitter -- so Twitter often knows the account is a bot, but much less often takes action.

[jsemrau]

Interesting. Let me check it out.

[mateo411]

Well, that's pretty easy to do.

1. Get a job on a social media site.

2. Join the bot detection team.

3. Create algorithms that measure if a user is a bot.

4. Create daily reports on the number of bots detected.