there<u+2019>s a conceit that says everything at facebook is run by data, not people. and we prefer it that way.









for the site<u+2019>s billion users, believing there<u+2019>s no human puppet master behind the scenes makes its growing control over life more palatable. it<u+2019>s just a clever machine, reflecting our desires better and better with every interaction, right? for news producers, we have to believe that the platform treats everyone equally: that it<u+2019>s a publisher not an editor.









in retrospect, this was always naive.









a conservative whistleblower at facebook yesterday claimed in a report that the influential <u+201c>trending news<u+201d> tab was deliberately biased toward liberal news <u+2013> something the social network denies.









<u+201c>i<u+2019>d come on shift and i<u+2019>d discover that cpac [conservative political action conference] or mitt romney or glenn beck or popular conservative topics wouldn<u+2019>t be trending because either the curator didn<u+2019>t recognize the news topic or it was like they had a bias against ted cruz,<u+201d> the former news curator told the tech blog gizmodo.









silicon valley loves using the word algorithm to cover the word judgment, but any platform built by humans is always political. the engineers building the products want to skew them toward <u+201c>quality<u+201d> content, but it<u+2019>s hard to determine what quality is, exactly, without making a choice influenced by values.









when i read suggestions that facebook might be skewing its trending bar, my first reaction, as a san francisco liberal, was to be slightly pleased (any help we can get against trump, right?). but what if the tables were turned? 



















<u+201c>i wonder what the psychological effects of it are,<u+201d> said vince coglianese, editor of the conservative news site the daily caller. <u+201c>millions of facebook users now have no idea that the things they<u+2019>re concerned about are the concerns of a lot of people. it<u+2019>s scary to think facebook<u+2019>s intentionally isolating vast swaths of the country.<u+201d>









facebook<u+2019>s in a tricky spot because curation is necessary. truly viral news content tends to be terrible. the front page of reddit<u+2019>s <u+2018><u+201d>hot<u+201d> section, an imperfect but useful barometer for the viral stories of the day, currently has headlines like: <u+201c>chameleon unsure bug is food or not<u+201d> and <u+201c>these condoms are around 60 years old. (found in my basement)<u+201d>. meanwhile my facebook trending bar has: <u+201c>federal trade commission: judge rules against agency<u+2019>s bid to block health care systems merger<u+201d>. it<u+2019>s probably fair to assume that the ftc news was not going as viral as that old condom, but a facebook employee decided it was more important.









facebook is the dominant player in the media today. as news websites lose relevance to readers who find content socially, and as stories are published directly onto facebook as instant articles, the company<u+2019>s power will only grow. to turn facebook<u+2019>s trending bar into a reddit page is not the answer. but facebook has to be more honest about how it operates as an editor.









<u+201c>just be transparent about how the words on the screen are getting there,<u+201d> coglianese said.









if there<u+2019>s one thing silicon valley loves more than the conceit of an amoral algorithm, it is secrecy. and as a social network with a newsfeed of vacation pictures, facebook could get away with being secretive about their curation.









as the most powerful publisher and now editor in the world today, facebook owes it to its billion users to be clear about how the site plans on distributing news.










think facebook isn't political? think again | nellie bowles
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