Quote:
Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby
The media itself (Facebook and twitter) I don't feel have nefarious purposes in any of this. There's no conspiracy backed by Facebook to twist the minds of its members. However, their system works such that we are provided with content that we choose to prefer. So if I like reading things about puppies, the system will provide me with more puppy content to enjoy. If I prefer reading things that are pro-blue, I will be presented with more pro-blue things to read. And within that group of pro-blue things, will be anti-red things. Because pro-blue is not happy with red. They don't get along, the system knows this because the system exists to keep track of that kind of thing.
It's not any person in Facebook that says "hey let's make these people hate each other!" But rather, it's people hating each other, being provided with more ammunition to continue their hatred, because it's simply what floats their boat and the system has no emotional investment in either of them being right or wrong. It knows only that Joe likes Red and doesn't like Blue, and Sue likes Blue and doesn't like Red. It gives them what they want. That is its function.
If you don't want to be influenced by any one or other thing, then don't focus your interest on any one or other thing when you visit these media sites. If you want to very specifically avoid any one or other thing, it's very easy to do, on all of those media sites. You can put up an adblocker, AND on Facebook there's a thing called FBP, which stands for Facebook Purity. It's a very sophisticated totally independent filtering add-on, it's free, it's supported and updated regularly, and it does a great job.
The only political stuff I ever see on Facebook, is political stuff I WANT to see. And I can shut -that- stuff off with a click of the mouse, any time.
|
I have both conservative and liberal friends on Facebook. I can tell you that I have seen a number of posts from conservative friends that were "blocked" by Facebook (they will not let you click through to the link). I have never seen any posts blocked by my liberal friends (and that includes a liberal friend that wanted our President to die).
I believe that if Facebook feels that a link is "false" that they should add a "bubble" that says there are alternate views of this link. But I don't think they should ever censor or determine what I should see. Isn't that what the first amendment is all about?