Joshua Coon
Christian. Student. Photographer.
2/10/2017 0 Comments Distributing News DishonestlyIn today’s world, the average person sources his or her news online. The immediate distribution of information across the web has changed our world drastically. In a matter of seconds and with little effort, we can read, hear, or even see exactly what is going on halfway around the world. The impact of this reality is huge. It has brought more awareness and competency to the masses. It has sprung rallies and riots. It has absolutely changed how our world thinks and operates. One of the most commonly used springs of information around the world is Facebook. Each day 1.23 billion people use Facebook. Yes, BILLION. Each of these people casually scrolling through their ‘news feed’ or awkwardly ‘poking’ their friends (nobody actually does that anymore). No matter how you look at it, Facebook’s scope and influence is incredible. Never before in human history have people been this connected. This unprecedented connectedness is powerful, but also potentially dangerous. Over the years, Facebook has migrated from simply being a social website, to being the world’s largest news aggregator. While this is not inherently a bad thing, the potential for an abuse of Facebook’s dominion is certainly a there. With the United States presidential election season having passed in a widely unexpected outcome and the French presidential election underway, the urgency of accurate and trustworthy news aggregation has never been greater. Recently, Facebook has implemented programs in the U.S. and Germany to curb the spread of fake news. It uses a variety of algorithms and tools to collect and verify the validity of an article. The system compares news articles with a pre-approved list of credible news sources. Although the effects of their efforts have yet to be seen, their ambitious system treds on a fine line. On one hand, the news that is being distributed on Facebook could become a lot more accurate and factual. People could become more informed, without the hazard of misinformation and misreporting. On the other, significant bias could be imposed upon what Facebook’s users interact with and are influenced by. The consequences of exploiting Facebook’s reach would be devastating to any possibilities of a fair and balanced conversation and debate. This danger is real and it could even be happening as you read. In May of last year, Gizmodo published an extensive article on how some of Facebook’s staff members were deliberately manipulating the “trending” news section of Facebook at that time. Former employees reported that their ex-coworkers were intentionally suppressing stories that had anything to do conservative politics. One former Facebook employee said, “depending on who was on shift, things would be blacklisted or trending…. I’d come on shift and I’d discover that CPAC or Mitt Romney or Glenn Beck or popular conservative topics wouldn’t be trending because either the curator didn’t recognize the news topic or it was like they had a bias against Ted Cruz…. It was absolutely bias. We were doing it subjectively. It just depends on who the curator is and what time of day it is.” Regardless of your political leaning, this should be of concern to you. The world’s largest new aggregator was caught and could still be twisting its influence with political agenda. What if they were doing it against your views? Would you then be concerned? Facebook is not the only social media company that is faced with this ethical issue. Snapchat, for instance, has the hearts and minds of hundreds of millions of generally younger people around the world. With the release of the app’s new “discover section, they now curate and distribute news to millions; much of it certainly with bias. Although neither Facebook nor Snapchat have broken any laws, the ethics of their news aggregating services have been questionable. The need for honesty, transparency, and accountability on this issue is absolute. With unprecedented connectivity in our world, influencers of Facebook and Snapchat’s sort face a considerable dilemma: how might they responsibly and effectively deliver news and information to our ever more so connected world?
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