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Celerity

(42,627 posts)
Thu Oct 31, 2019, 10:49 AM Oct 2019

Facebook Is Punishing Liberal Sites And Rewarding Conservative Ones

https://thebanter.substack.com/p/facebook-is-punishing-liberal-sites

I’ve always preferred Twitter to Facebook. In fact, these days, I prefer severe testicular injuries to Facebook, and if I could hastily abandon Mark Zuckerberg’s data-mining operation, I would do it. Unfortunately, I need to promote my work, so I hold my breath and deal with Facebook’s ongoing fuckery. Frankly, I envy those who can bail out whenever they choose. You might’ve heard that Twitter’s Jack Dorsey has decided to summarily ban all political advertising on his platform -- another reason why Twitter continues to be my thing. Yes, Twitter is screechy, obnoxious, and there are still too many trolls and creepazoids dodging the terms of service, but whenever I’m on Twitter, which is most of the day, I feel like I’m plugged into the hub, the nerve center of the political discourse, for better or worse. Nothing could be more educational, entertaining, and relentlessly infuriating on the internet than Twitter, and -- lord help me -- I’m happy to be there.

On the same day when Twitter took decisive action to thwart the blitzkrieg of paid propaganda, Facebook executives, on the other hand, announced they were banning eggplant and peach emojis whenever they’re posted with sexual intent. Put another way: One platform’s busily confronting a serious crisis, while the other platform is regulating dick-shaped produce. Remind me again which platform deserves our attention and which platform should be ejector-seated onto the social-network slagheap with the likes of Friendster and MySpace. As if that weren’t bad enough, Zuckerberg shrugged off the fact that, despite hiring fact checkers, political ads with known falsehoods are still being approved and posted by his corporate goons. Likewise, we just heard that Zuckerberg is allowing certain publications to flagrantly violate Facebook’s rules -- rules that Facebook more or less invented retroactively to punish hundreds of publishers a little more than a year ago in a mass-banning effort known colloquially as “the purge.”

On October 11, 2018, the platform Thanos-snapped around 800 U.S.-based accounts, disappearing the pages forever, presumably for uploading political propaganda. While some of the accounts could be shoehorned into the category of propaganda, many of the accounts were run by legitimate publications, with pages featuring links to the accompanying websites, as well as links to partner sites. My girlfriend and podcast partner, author and blogger Kimberley Johnson, was among the users who were purged that day, in addition to other liberal accounts like Reverb Press and Nation in Distress. Despite having spent hours per day for years posting content on Facebook, and despite following the terms of service as they existed at the time, she lost several of her pages, her personal profile account, and even her secret friends-and-family page.

The page run by the publication she worked for at the time, Liberals Unite, was also obliterated as was her ability to earn a living as a writer. All those years and years of effort, photos, ideas, connections -- lost in an instant. No warnings, no temporary suspensions, no three-strikes. Just vanished with the snap of Zuckerberg’s sweaty fingers, mainly because he screwed up royally, stupidly accepting Russia money in 2016 and was facing government regulations, but also because he’s a sociopath. Making matters worse, there was no one to whom she could appeal her removal. The only thing she heard back from Facebook was that she engaged in “inauthentic behavior.” Specifically, she would routinely post the same links across several pages -- links to articles she wrote or articles she thought were valuable or interesting. There wasn’t any rule against doing such a thing, but the A.I. bots or admins at Facebook decided that doing so was “inauthentic” even though it’s something many of us with several pages on Facebook often do. I know I promote my own work on both by podcast Facebook page and my personal one.

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Facebook Is Punishing Liberal Sites And Rewarding Conservative Ones (Original Post) Celerity Oct 2019 OP
Remember Campbell Brown? She's now a FB executive defending bringing on Breitbart. hlthe2b Oct 2019 #1
She was before my time, I was less than a year old when she joined NBC, 11 when she joined CNN, and Celerity Oct 2019 #2
In 2006 she married Dan Senor--big RWer and Fox contributor... hlthe2b Oct 2019 #3
here is a copy and paste of that section Celerity Oct 2019 #4
Thanks... yes, she used to be a good reporter/interviewer. hlthe2b Oct 2019 #5
+1 Celerity Oct 2019 #6

hlthe2b

(101,698 posts)
1. Remember Campbell Brown? She's now a FB executive defending bringing on Breitbart.
Thu Oct 31, 2019, 11:09 AM
Oct 2019

Don't forget her for this. No way back to the light, now, Campbell? Your "sell-out" will not be forgotten.

Celerity

(42,627 posts)
2. She was before my time, I was less than a year old when she joined NBC, 11 when she joined CNN, and
Thu Oct 31, 2019, 11:22 AM
Oct 2019

14 when she left telly. Plus I was living in London and Hong Kong for almost all of that time. I fully admit I know little of her political bias.

Campbell Brown (journalist)

there is this



hlthe2b

(101,698 posts)
3. In 2006 she married Dan Senor--big RWer and Fox contributor...
Thu Oct 31, 2019, 11:25 AM
Oct 2019

She's been very much turning RW since

BTW. that small font in your included passage is very hard to read, but yes, she once was a "straight-up" and unbiased journalist.

Celerity

(42,627 posts)
4. here is a copy and paste of that section
Thu Oct 31, 2019, 11:31 AM
Oct 2019
Interviews during the 2008 election season

On September 1, 2008, Brown conducted a controversial interview with Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for Republican Presidential candidate John McCain, concerning Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Brown questioned Palin's executive experience and asked for examples of decisions Palin had made as the commander-in-chief of the Alaska National Guard. Bounds did not name an example, but he stated that Palin had more executive experience than Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama. The McCain campaign later accused Brown of anti-Republican/anti-McCain bias, and said she had "gone over the line."

hlthe2b

(101,698 posts)
5. Thanks... yes, she used to be a good reporter/interviewer.
Thu Oct 31, 2019, 11:35 AM
Oct 2019

Then she started attacking planned parenthood and increasingly defending all the myriad of issues that Dan Senor promotes.

Too bad. I used to like her. I no longer trust her.

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