It’s easy to assume “former employees” / “former members” are likely to give you the dirty inside scoop of an organization.
But consider: Why are they former? Fired? Why might they have been fired?
People who leave an organization: Do they do so on friendly terms with wonderful things to say about their former employer?
Hm.
Of course it might be true. It wouldn’t surprise me. But still: they’re somewhat less credible: it’s like asking an ex-girlfriend the opinion of a guy who left her or the ex-husband who is paying child support his opinion on his ex-wife.
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Oh I agree. It’s quite real. I’m sorry you had gone through those experiences: FB gives the impression of being “for all” but, like most things, it’s “for some”.
FB flies by the seat of their pants, like most organizations. In the end, it’s a website. It’s big, but.. it’s a website. Lots of things that appear automated are actually manual.
The fact that I saw this ON Facebook is a decent sign: perhaps they realize they ought to be a little more fair instead of biasing their news. Of course unbiased is unlikely anywhere, but they could certainly try harder than how they had been.
I’ve seen the anti-right trend whenever they do the voting stuff. It’s subtle:
The colors of the voting buttons and things: There’s subtle psychology in colors and patterns… which colors surround, which colors are touching, and we know FB likes playing psychology games already, and I see no reason for them to stop.
So it’s good to be cautious and wary.
I just mention the “disgruntled employee” thing because source bias matters, even if the gist of what they’re saying is true, or even all of it. It doesn’t take away from their arguments, just places it in a more human context.
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It’s healthier I think. Few things do I actually hold as absolutes but many thing are “rather firm”. I don’t like getting caught off guard, where my certainties get pulled out from under me. There’s always the corner of doubt, even if there’s a 99.999% certainty. Certainty is an emotional state anyway, and the reliability of emotional states, no matter how rationally justified, can lead one into problems.
In any case, I believe them. I suspect they’ll just pick ‘safe’ right articles, perhaps part of a continuing social experiment and test the clicks, the likes, the emotional and semantic content of the comments, etc, and I’m sure they’ll cull it all together to try to predict something or another as part of a future marketing campaign.
It’s the same company that boasts Billion+ users, when you and I both know a large portion of those accts are dead, sock puppets, etc. But I guess they gotta keep the marketing up. Brings in the advertisers. Advertisers bring in the $, etc, ’cause we sure ain’t paying anything. [well, I use them to advertise for my business ’cause FB is where the ppl are… but I try not to tie myself TOO fnancially to FB if possible]
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