For more and more people, Facebook has become the number one source for news information. News articles and opinions of friends in peoples Facebook timeline are becoming increasingly more important for . But in contrary to regular news channels and other social media platforms like Twitter, which content the user will see in the Facebook timeline is determined by algorithms. This monopoly to-be does have some ethical problems.
Firstly these algorithms are based on many inputs, but in general; every topic the user likes or clicks on, is prone to pop up in their timeline more often. The danger in this system, is that the user only sees news of his liking. Potentially giving the user a very polarised view on the world.
Secondly, Facebook is applying censorship on the articles that are posted on their website. Most of the times this censorship is understandable, deleting pornographic and violence. But often Facebook crosses a line by censoring accounts or articles that are important for the public debate. Just this September there was a huge controversy about a post containing the iconic napalm girl photo, and especially the way Facebook used censorship in this case.
Fortune: “Not only did Facebook delete the original image after a Norwegian newspaper editor uploaded it as part of a series on war photography, but the site deleted the editor’s post about the deletion as well. It then blocked his account, and even deleted a post by Norway’s prime minister, who protested Facebook’s censorship of the image.”
Following up, a major difference with traditional news media is the lack of accountability. Where other news media tend to have to explain their decisions regarding editorial decisions, Facebook is stating it is not a media company and does therefor it’s not obliged to explain itself.
Maybe it is time for Facebook to understand just how important they in the business for news gathering and start to act as a professional news outlet.
The TV-program ‘Zondag Met Lucbach’ made an interesting video on this topic (in Dutch with English subtitles).
http://fortune.com/2016/10/21/facebook-newsworthy/
http://www.niemanlab.org/2016/05/pew-report-44-percent-of-u-s-adults-get-news-on-facebook/
https://www.engadget.com/2016/09/09/facebook-bans-then-reinstates-iconic-napalm-girl-photo/
http://www.theverge.com/2016/10/21/13361086/facebook-explicit-posts-newsworthy-violence-nudity
Dear Jeroen,
Thank you for your interesting contribution! I agree with you completely that Facebook does not have a solid censorship policy. They have also previously censored posts containing nudity that Facebook perceived to be ‘pornographic’. For instance, in 2015 Facebook deleted a French teacher’s Facebook post that showed Gustave Courbet’s “The Origin of the World”. All though this is considered to be a prime example of the French Realistic movement, Facebook argued it to be inappropriate. Not only did Facebook censor the post, they consequently suspended the teacher’s account ‘for violating the terms of use’. This is just one other example, proving that Facebook should better improve their censorship policy, so they will not censor war photographies or world famous paintings in the future.
Gustave Courbet’s “The Origin of the World” – (http://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/collections/oeuvres-commentees/recherche.html?no_cache=1&zoom=1&tx_damzoom_pi1%5BshowUid%5D=2406)
Kind Regards,
Arada (387292)
Dear Jeroen,
Thank you for this blog post. I remember watching this episode of ‘Zondag met Lubach’ a while ago and this topic led to an interesting discussion with my parents. What I found most scary about a platform that actively states it wants to become the “only news source” is not only that they censor things and thus show a biased view, but also that they are unreachable. Every news platform has a representative, Facebook is as you mentioned ‘unaccountable’. I remember Arjen Lubach trying to reach someone who knew just a little more about Facebook (from the other side), but every step reached a dead end. I can see it happening soon, I often scroll through social media and articles or videos that I see on Facebook can lead me to discovering news – I like to verify most articles, mostly because I want to read more on a topic. However, I know there are many people who blindly believe everything they read. An example of this is ‘De Speld’, a fake news-platform. People are getting more familiar with it, but there used to be many ‘shocked’ comments on some news items from people not understanding that it was fake.
I am curious to see how this will develop.