I am an avid follower of several different Conservative websites and news pages on the internet. Many other people are as well. Apparently this isn't sitting well with Mark Zuckerberg, founder of social media monolith Facebook. The Chicks on the Right, a site that I visit more often than most any other, have been covering this event for the last few days, and it's their reporting along with some newly acquired free time that allows me to give my take on the situation.
Zuckerburg's actual words can be read at one of the links above, but in a nutshell, he said that Facebook users would see less ad and news traffic (honestly, I could do without the ads) in order to allow people to see more personal posts from family and friends. Doesn't sound too bad on the surface, right? Well, let's think about what this means:
1. This means that Zuckerburg is intentionally changing Facebook's algorithms to manipulate YOUR content on YOUR facebook wall. What this also means is that you might not necessarily see political pages or news pages that you yourself have liked. I and many others have already experienced this turn of events. Heck, just take a look at the COTR Facebook thread on the issue, and you'll see that DOZENS of comments on that thread alone complain about having the page involuntarily unliked or unfollowed.
2. This already starting to affect Conservative aligned news sources, as Right Wing News publisher John Hawkins has already announced that his site will be shutting down because of these changes. According to him, Facebook was and is his primary method for getting his content out, and with these changes that will make it virtually impossible for him to continue as he has done since his site was founded. He isn't the only one, either. James O'Keefe, the modern day Woodward who brought down ACORN, has broken a story about Twitter admins actively "shadow banning" Conservatives and thus preventing people from seeing the content they put out. No word on whether or not anyone is shadow banning liberals. I'm not holding my breath on that, though.
Now, those being my two cents on the actual issue, there is some good news. Apparnetly there is a page that informs its readers just how to avoid missing posts you would like to see that come up on Facebook. Here's the link to it if you want to check for yourself.
That page will come in handy, but it doesn't change the fact that my account unfollowed the page without my knowledge, or even that the Chicks themselves had their own likes taken away FROM THEIR OWN BLOODY PAGE thanks to the new algorithm.
Here's hoping that Zuckerberg either feels the pressure and backs off, or that enough Conservatives are on Facebook to make this a moot issue. Either outcome would be perfectly all right with me.
Zuckerburg's actual words can be read at one of the links above, but in a nutshell, he said that Facebook users would see less ad and news traffic (honestly, I could do without the ads) in order to allow people to see more personal posts from family and friends. Doesn't sound too bad on the surface, right? Well, let's think about what this means:
1. This means that Zuckerburg is intentionally changing Facebook's algorithms to manipulate YOUR content on YOUR facebook wall. What this also means is that you might not necessarily see political pages or news pages that you yourself have liked. I and many others have already experienced this turn of events. Heck, just take a look at the COTR Facebook thread on the issue, and you'll see that DOZENS of comments on that thread alone complain about having the page involuntarily unliked or unfollowed.
2. This already starting to affect Conservative aligned news sources, as Right Wing News publisher John Hawkins has already announced that his site will be shutting down because of these changes. According to him, Facebook was and is his primary method for getting his content out, and with these changes that will make it virtually impossible for him to continue as he has done since his site was founded. He isn't the only one, either. James O'Keefe, the modern day Woodward who brought down ACORN, has broken a story about Twitter admins actively "shadow banning" Conservatives and thus preventing people from seeing the content they put out. No word on whether or not anyone is shadow banning liberals. I'm not holding my breath on that, though.
Now, those being my two cents on the actual issue, there is some good news. Apparnetly there is a page that informs its readers just how to avoid missing posts you would like to see that come up on Facebook. Here's the link to it if you want to check for yourself.
That page will come in handy, but it doesn't change the fact that my account unfollowed the page without my knowledge, or even that the Chicks themselves had their own likes taken away FROM THEIR OWN BLOODY PAGE thanks to the new algorithm.
Here's hoping that Zuckerberg either feels the pressure and backs off, or that enough Conservatives are on Facebook to make this a moot issue. Either outcome would be perfectly all right with me.
