[kictanet] Is Facebook biased on its newsfeed?

Thu May 12 17:20:30 EAT 2016

There are a number of elements at play here:

   1. Obviously to a great degree this algorithm has massively helped
   Facebook. Not that I am totally on their side, what I mean to say is that
   lets give credit where its due. Without this algorithm we would have seen
   massive fallout and loss of klout. This is something Twitter did not figure
   out so well. LinkedIn is still the place professionals like to hang out,
   but its not the place professionals like to stay. Just stating how it came
   to be that Facebook is air and air is life (so to speak).
   2. If truly there is a bias to all this (which I am yes, yet to
   comprehend how this bias is visible) it can mean 2 things:
      1. Either content producers are not building influence better than
      those who rank at the top. Or
      2. If not, there is a genuine market opportunity in this gap.

But algorithms are algorithms, and my experience developing algorithms
tells me computer algorithms can not easily be twisted to lie, especially
in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

But these are all books on their own anyway.

Just my 2 cents.

On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 4:52 PM, Ali Hussein via kictanet <
kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

> Listers
>
> This mail is coped from the Fortune.com <http://fortune.com> Data Sheet.
>
> The “Trending” topics section of Facebook seems such a trivial thing, and
> in many ways it is. It looks and feels like an afterthought—ironically, it
> started as an attempt to copy Twitter
> <http://link.fortune.com/click/6706588.20757/aHR0cDovL3RlY2hjcnVuY2guY29tLzIwMTQvMDEvMTYvZmFjZWJvb2stdHJlbmRpbmcv/55ba80258cc2b2e72d8b457aBf20eece1>—and
> many users probably don’t even notice it’s there. But now, it has triggered
> a national discussion around bias and the power of social platforms.
>
> In case you missed the brouhaha, it started with a report from Gizmodo that
> profiled
> <http://link.fortune.com/click/6706588.20757/aHR0cDovL2dpem1vZG8uY29tL3dhbnQtdG8ta25vdy13aGF0LWZhY2Vib29rLXJlYWxseS10aGlua3Mtb2Ytam91cm5hbGlzdHMtMTc3MzkxNjExNw/55ba80258cc2b2e72d8b457aB4ee70a20>a
> team of anonymous journalists working at Facebook who curate the news that
> shows up in the Trending section. A subsequent report quoted one of the
> journalists as saying the team routinely removed certain
> <http://link.fortune.com/click/6706588.20757/aHR0cDovL2dpem1vZG8uY29tL2Zvcm1lci1mYWNlYm9vay13b3JrZXJzLXdlLXJvdXRpbmVseS1zdXBwcmVzc2VkLWNvbnNlci0xNzc1NDYxMDA2/55ba80258cc2b2e72d8b457aBf141c2b3> right-wing
> political sites from the section, even when the social network’s data
> showed they were trending.
>
> The revelation seemed harmless enough, at first: Journalists hired to edit
> things were actually editing them! But the comment soon snowballed into a
> debate over Facebook’s role in news consumption, and whether its sheer size
> and influence brings with it some level of responsibility.
>
> Facebook responded to the story
> <http://link.fortune.com/click/6706588.20757/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZmFjZWJvb2suY29tL3RzdG9ja3kvcG9zdHMvMTAxMDA4NTMwODIzMzc5NTg/55ba80258cc2b2e72d8b457aBf49ae890> by
> saying that its policy is to remain as neutral as possible editorially, and
> that it will look into reports of misbehavior. Then it issued a second,
> even more heartfelt response, after the Senate Commerce Committee sent a
> letter
> <http://link.fortune.com/click/6706588.20757/aHR0cDovL2dpem1vZG8uY29tL3NlbmF0ZS1nb3AtbGF1bmNoZXMtaW5xdWlyeS1pbnRvLWZhY2Vib29rLXMtbmV3cy1jdXJhdGktMTc3NTc2NzAxOA/55ba80258cc2b2e72d8b457aB1d911177> asking
> the company to answer some questions around political influence and the
> Trending section.
>
> The real issue, of course, isn’t the tiny section of the Facebook home
> page that follows trending topics. It’s the fact that the kind of editorial
> selection those journalists engaged in is happening every minute of every
> day on the main news feed, courtesy of the Facebook ranking algorithm. And
> that algorithm, since it is programmed by human beings, inevitably contains
> biases of all kinds.
>
> The bottom line is that Facebook is more than just a social network where
> people exchange photos of their pets—it is the largest and most
> influential
> <http://link.fortune.com/click/6706588.20757/aHR0cDovL3d3dy52b3guY29tLzIwMTYvNS8xMC8xMTY0MDE0MC9mYWNlYm9vay1tZWRpYS1pbmZsdWVuY2U/55ba80258cc2b2e72d8b457aBca65e309> media
> entity the world has ever seen. The sooner Facebook acknowledges that, and
> becomes part of the discussion around how it can manage its social
> responsibilities, the better off we will all be.
>
> *Ali Hussein*
> *Principal*
> *Hussein & Associates*
> +254 0713 601113 / 0770906375
>
> Twitter: @AliHKassim
>
> Skype: abu-jomo
>
> LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim
>
>
> "Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking
> what no one else has thought".  ~ Albert Szent-Györgyi
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
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