Марк Дайс - The True Story of Fake News - How Mainstream Media Manipulates Millions

“In other words,” Gizmodo reported, “Facebook’s news section operates like a traditional newsroom, reflecting the biases of its workers and the institutional imperatives of the corporation. Imposing human editorial values onto the lists of topics an algorithm spits out is by no means a bad thing◦— but it is in stark contrast to the company’s claims that the trending module simply lists ‘topics that have recently become popular on Facebook.’” 422

They also called the news section “some of the most powerful real estate on the Internet” that helps dictate what hundreds of millions of people are reading. One of the news curators said they used a notebook to document stories that were censored which included ones about Lois Lerner, the IRS official who targeted conservatives for audits; stories about the Drudge Report, Ted Cruz, Steven Crowder, and more.

A second curator said, “It was absolutely bias. We were doing it subjectively. It just depends on who the curator is and what time of day it is. Every once in a while a Red State or conservative news source would have a story. But we would have to go and find the same story from a more neutral outlet that wasn’t as biased.” 423

If a story was on Breitbart, The Washington Examiner , Newsmax or other conservative sites and was going viral and qualified to be included in the trending module, curators would wait until an outlet like CNN or The New York Times covered the story before it would be allowed to show up as a trend. One insider revealed that Facebook injected the latest Black Lives Matter protests into the trending module, giving them special preference to further their cause. The editors also prevented negative stories about Facebook itself from showing up in the trending section.

The very next day after the story broke about Facebook manipulating the trending topics list, the US Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees interstate commerce and communications, sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg with a list of detailed questions demanding answers about who determines which stories are included in the Trending Topics section. They also wanted to know details about the process of selection, oversight, and wanting answers to the allegations of politically motivated manipulation. 424

Mark Zuckerberg then invited several conservative media figures including Glenn Beck, Fox News host Dana Perino, Tucker Carlson, and others to Facebook’s headquarters to try and save face, prevent conservatives from abandoning Facebook, and to ‘talk about their concerns.’ But since our world moves so fast most people quickly forgot all about the scandal and continue to blindly believe that what they see trending is what people are talking about most, not even giving a second thought about the legitimacy what they are seeing.

Most people think that what they and their friends post (and what news sites they follow post), shows up in their feed unless they choose to hide posts from a user they are still following, but Facebook openly admits limiting the distribution of posts unless users pay them (in most cases hundreds of dollars for each post). It’s called “boosting” a post, and is mostly for people like me who have a “fan page” which is what all public figures, TV shows, news outlets, and bands use. It has a few more features than standard Facebook pages, such as not having to approve friend requests every time someone follows the page.

My page, at the time I’m writing this has about 500,000 followers. But each status update I post only shows up on a few thousand people’s news feeds. This isn’t some conspiracy, it’s just a method Facebook uses to generate money by encouraging administrators of fan pages to “boost” their posts, or pay to have them actually show up in the feeds of people who are following the page. For administrators of “fan pages,” when we post something, we are alerted with a button that says “boost this post” which takes us to a checkout page showing various prices and the corresponding number of people Facebook will then allow to see the post.

For example to boost a post so that it will reach at least 100,000 of the 500,000 people following my page, the cost is $4,000. 425That’s for one status update. I mention this because a lot of people wonder why they miss posts from pages they follow, and this is the reason. You may only be seeing one out of every four posts because of the limitation Facebook puts on the posts that aren’t being “boosted.”

Aside from the previously mentioned secret study into Facebook’s effectiveness of getting out the vote in the 2010 midterm elections by using 60 million users as unknowing guinea pigs, 426Facebook has conducted other experiments on its users as well. In 2012 they manipulated the news feeds of 700,000 people by both limiting and boosting the number of positive and negative posts showing up in some people’s feeds to determine whether they could alter their moods. They then monitored what those users posted to see if they were either more negative or positive as a result of what they were regularly seeing in their own feeds. 427All Facebook users actually consent to this kind of manipulation by agreeing to the terms of service when they sign up. 428

Leaked documents also revealed that Facebook experimented on what they considered to be emotionally vulnerable teenagers who felt “useless.” 429The documents show that the company’s algorithms can determine which users are feeling “worthless,” “insecure,” “useless,” “overwhelmed,” and other depressed feelings, and then they use this assessment to allow advertisers to target those people with ads for products they think they will be able to get them to buy. 430

Because of the continued instances of people committing horrific crimes while broadcasting them using Facebook’s ‘Live’ feature, the company is developing an artificial intelligence system to watch live streams in real time, and monitor people’s posts in order to remove any ‘offensive’ or violent content. 431If their A.I. is able to monitor all posts and live streams in near real time, it opens the door for Orwellian censorship straight out of a science fiction film, because those who control the parameters for having content removed could choose to use the system to prevent the spread of certain political views, as we have already seen with the Trending Topics scandal.

In May of 2017, Facebook hired another 3000 people to monitor live streams, and other posts that are flagged for potentially violent or ‘hateful’ content in attempts to have such posts removed more quickly. 432So there is now a virtual army of moderators ready to not just delete posts or videos, but to shut down livestreams if someone is talking about an issue in a way Facebook deems ‘sexist,’ ‘racist,’ ‘homophobic,’ or any number of buzzwords that indicate ‘Thought Crime.’

Relying on Facebook to communicate with friends and family has become a threat to free speech around the world as fewer people actually talk on the phone (let alone meet face to face). People are now being arrested for ‘hate speech’ for posting criticism about their government’s policies on Facebook. 433This isn’t just happening in Third World countries or Orwellian dictatorships like Communist China or North Korea; it’s happening in England, 434Scotland, 435Germany, 436Canada, 437and other supposedly ‘free’ countries. Facebook also frequently deletes users’ posts and locks people out of their accounts (or deletes their accounts entirely) for posting statements critical of illegal immigration, the LGBT agenda, and other policies Leftists are pushing.