Facebook dropped algorithmic news curation "after criticism that it had not included enough coverage of unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, in users’ feeds".
Its current "agenda" is based on reputable news sources, plus Fox News (1):
"We measure this by checking if it is leading at least 5 of the following 10 news websites: BBC News, CNN, Fox News, The Guardian, NBC News, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Yahoo News or Yahoo."
I'd say that was a fair reflection of mainstream media.
If you object to those, what's your personal agenda based on, and how mainstream is it?
(1) Fox News has specifically said in court that it is not required to be truthful.
I was going to vote your comment up, but I refrained. I also didn't vote it down, and I want to mention why.
I don't see the need for you to put those digs in against Fox News.
I get people don't like Fox News. I'm not a fan. But everyone here (on the whole) seems to hold a similar opinion, so the digs aren't necessary.
They weren't even germain to your point. You were making a perfectly good argument that numerous sources from both sides of the spectrum were included. I felt your commentary and singling out of Fox News distracted me from that.
Pointing out that Fox News is not actually a reputable news source is simply stating a fact. It was germane because the other news sources are mostly regarded as legitimate news organizations. Pointing out that Fox News is not and yet is very popular is an important point and completely related to this discussion.
To me it seemed like your point was that they were including sources across the spectrum. Simply noting Fox is in there serves that point.
If you had editorialized about the quality of the other sources then the commentary on the quality of Fox would have fit in.
your comment seems like two disparate things in one. On the one hand it notes that Facebook appeared to try to balance things. On the other hand it felt like a slam at Fox News couched in the form of a comment that might fit in. Clearly you can't write "Fox sucks" as a comment because it wouldn't be in topic. But if you weave it in...
It just distracted me from what I took to be your point, harming the force/usefulness of your comment.
I think you're missing the parent's point. He's not saying that FOX News isn't uniquely bad, or that he wanted to see MSNBC there too. But that adding commentary on the quality of sources in the first place distracted from the already-established point of the post.
Secondly, I too won't claim that FOX News isn't uniquely bad. But the criticism of it that people toss around always feels kneejerk rather than pointing out they're leading the pack of disastrous "news" programming. After a decade of Jon Stewart vilifying FOX News, he didn't get actually people to think critically about news sources - just FOX. And it's not even critical thinking, he just managed to demonize the outlet away from being taken seriously.
What is the purpose of pointing out FOX is a bad news org to a left-leaning crowd? Or a mixed crowd that is smart enough to already know of the well-established criticism of the network? I can't help but see it as perpetuating demonization rather than elevating critical thinking applied to all news sources. In either scenario FOX News is trash, but only one scenario are you actually helping people become better news consumers.
I didn't think it was a dig or gratuitous. It's a matter of fact that Facebook includes Fox News in its news sources, and as EdHominem points out, it really isn't.
I agree that it's a reasonable list for U.S. news. Yahoo is a weird one to have on the list, do they do any original reporting (of real news, not entertainment)? Maybe they're a reliable source of AP or other newswire services.
Yahoo has a pretty strong sports reporting group. They have many of the heavy hitters in basketball media, for example. It makes sense to me that they'd be a common source.
(If you're gonna be That Guy and hurr about sports being entertainment, you can pass.)
Its current "agenda" is based on reputable news sources, plus Fox News (1):
"We measure this by checking if it is leading at least 5 of the following 10 news websites: BBC News, CNN, Fox News, The Guardian, NBC News, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Yahoo News or Yahoo."
I'd say that was a fair reflection of mainstream media.
If you object to those, what's your personal agenda based on, and how mainstream is it?
(1) Fox News has specifically said in court that it is not required to be truthful.