Social-Media
Facebook allegedly choked traffic on left-leaning news pages, including Mother Jones.
Facebook designed improvements to its news feed algorithm in 2017 to reduce the exposure of left-leaning news outlets like Mother Jones on its website, Wall Street Journal reported, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally backed the proposals.
But Mother Jones, Editorial Director for Development and Planning Ben Dreyfuss, wrote that in several meetings with Facebook executives in 2017 and 2018, he was told that although traffic could go down, no publication or publisher class will favor or disfavor.
According to the WSJ, several policy executives on Facebook expressed questions in 2017 about pending improvements to the news feed algorithm that they felt would have a stronger effect on right-wing news outlets like the Daily Wire. As a result , developers made improvements to the algorithm that would have a larger effect on visits to left-leaning pages.
A Facebook representative told the Wall Street Journal, We have not made any improvements with a view to affecting individual publishers.
In 2019, Mother Jones' editors wrote that the platform has experienced a sharp decrease in its Facebook following, resulting in a loss of around $600,000 over 18 months. CEO Monika Bauerlein tweeted Friday that the downturn meant that the company did not occupy vacancies or execute ventures. She added that she and others at Mother Jones didn't believe the site was being attacked specifically: "One reason this is so enraged is that I've been insisting so long on giving Facebook some benefit of the doubt. I was persuaded that we were a random victim to their wider course, a fly on their windshield. Yet it's still worse.
I'm in a @MotherJones board meeting today so it's going to take a while to fully process this infuriating news, but just briefly (because YOU, as a news consumer, should be furious): https://t.co/6vehZNIcdi pic.twitter.com/KUrJgGUHUd
— Monika Bauerlein (@MonikaBauerlein) October 16, 2020
It is an irony to say that Facebook has a tense relationship with the news industry. Its advertisement sector and the frequent shifts in its news stream have had a direct economic effect on the industry, especially local news.
Any of the efforts to work with the news industry were disastrous failures; there was the Google AMP rival Instant Posts and a massive drive for original video that culminated in mass layoffs at digital media firms. It turned out that Facebook had distorted its video metrics. In 2016, Facebook was accused of having anti-conservative bias in the posts it featured in its Trending Topics feature, which led to the full disappearance of the feature, which opened the door to all sorts of controversial news from unreputable outlets.
Mother Jones, an international non-profit organisation founded in 1976, has led a series of inquiries into government corruption, private prisons and the environment. In September 2012, it was Mother Jones who broke the news of Mitt Romney's "47 percent" remarks. A video shows the GOP presidential candidate appearing at a private fundraiser claiming that 47% of the people who backed President Obama pay no income tax and would support Obama no matter what. Romney said the people were focused on the government, who believe they are victims, who believe the government has a duty to take care of them. Romney later said his remarks were "absolutely false."
Facebook did not respond immediately to The Verge 's request for feedback on Saturday.
