As IF Times

Source: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News

It’s incredibly ironic that at a time when communication to the larger world has never been more accessible, peoples’ exposure to it can actually be shrinking.  This doesn’t mean that people are unaware of things happening across the county or even across the globe.  Thanks to social media platforms such as the ubiquitous Facebook, people are able to snoop into the lives of people whom they would normally never hear from…and that includes relatives, from all over the world.

Now, you can be Facebook pals with any ‘celebrity’ who willingly leaves the door open for the public to ogle their lives.   This satisfies both the voyeur and exhibitionist elements of society.  Facebook has evolved from being a bulletin board of peoples’ actual activities, (essentially a year round Christmas letter), to one where people post cute cat and dog videos.  From this banal stage, Facebook is now moving to a more ambitious, possibly sinister stage, that of news dissemination.

Those of you who post or frequent Facebook regularly may have noticed the proliferation of ads and infomercials interspersed among the cat videos.  That is to be expected, since monetization of eyeballs is the raison d’etre of the company.  What is more subtle are the “trending” news stories that appear throughout the site which are then ‘liked’ and forwarded by your social network.  Since you are more likely to click on the referrals of your pals than to randomly read a story, the newsworthiness of the article gains exposure and by implication, veracity.

This is nothing different from the way that humans have long communicated: the tried and proven technique of gossip.  It’s the modern day equivalent of  “I heard from a reliable source that…”  This gets passed on throughout the community and the story becomes fact without regard to the validity of the story. Next thing you know, the neighbor is part of the JFK cover-up.

The problem is, as the linked story illustrates, the original sources of the story may have questionable facts and indeed may be promulgating a particular worldview.   If a story emerges about the plight of missing penguins caused by evil global warming (and especially if accompanied by doe eyed pictures of the little critters) is “liked” by Pamela Anderson, then every girl on that social net will ‘like’ and pass on that story on their sites and voila, global warming kills cute animals.  For some reason, they never use spiders or snakes.

It’s always good to be skeptical of the news stories foisted upon the public by the major commercial news outlets, but Facebook’s tack is much more powerful, because it creates a mechanism for people to get information from trusted sources, namely their friends, which may carry more weight than if they had read it from oh, let’s say, the unimpeachable Huffington Post.  People may appear to be more informed about things; until you find out that they are really just Facebook bots.  Deluding people with make believe friends is harmless: deluding them with make believe realities is not to like.

Source: Rob Kardashian Blac Chyna: Couple Grills Together After Engagement Reveal : People.com

Since the invention of the IPhone, an entirely new industry has sprung up dedicated to supplying the public with applications (apps) that enhance the experience of phone users.  While some have been quite useful, including navigational apps, or ones that point out the location of a restaurant, gas station or massage parlor,  there have been many more apps invented for all kinds of conveniences that we never knew we needed.  For amusement, take a look here, useless apps, to take in some training wheel  samples of human ingenuity.  For those too lazy to click on the link, they include such cutting edge human experiences as a tickle app; an app that measures how long you can hold your finger on a spot and an app that simulates the draining of a beer glass as you tilt the screen are among the gems.

Notwithstanding the improvements to the human condition that these apps represent, the reality is that for most people past the age of giggling when someone mentions boobies, apps that convey newsworthy information may be among the most useful of computer and phone apps.  The whole point of having a portable communication device is to be plugged in to the social world.  Here’s an idea for some smart app developer out there: create a filter that automatically deletes or blocks any reference to the inane revelations of most pop culture from a news feed.  Let’s assume that you don’t think that the gripping adventures of the Kardashians are newsworthy, or don’t find stories of Miley, or Justin, or Ben, or Jennifer, or Snoop Dog worthy of using up your bandwidth as you read about the latest Global Warming tragedy: you should  be able to filter out these cultural gems and only read about things that aren’t intellectual pablum and which threatens to cap your IQ.

It’s not that the lovable antics of the Hollywood prodigies aren’t interesting to some; heck they are the millennials’ version of the pet rock from another time.  But the embedding of their breathless exploits into real news feeds requires that you sift through them as if you were filtering junk flyers from your regular mail delivery.  Anyone who can develop such a filter app will not only be doing a service to the news business, they will also be helping to increase the general IQ level for all.