In response to the story that broke about Facebook curators censoring military, religious and conservative posts, I wrote this on FB this morning:
After the story broke about Facebook censoring posts, I have to re-think keeping my FB account. I had noticed a number of posts that I had shared simply disappearing, especially if they had a military or conservative slant. As a former journalist, and a patriotic American, I find this kind of behavior unacceptable.
I have enjoyed interacting with my friends and family on this site, but my continued use of it implies an endorsement of the curator’s behavior, as well as FB management.
In light of this information, as well as their past acknowledgement of manipulating feed posts for a study they did a year ago, I think it is time for me to focus my activities on other social media sites.
In my opinion, either Facebook doesn’t care about people with differing opinions leaving their site, or they are so arrogant they can’t see the forest for the trees.
For readers who were unaware, Facebook admitted to manipulating feeds over a year ago for a study they were doing. Readers were either overwhelmed with negative news or positive news in their feeds. Their timing of the study was horrible – the holiday season. I wonder how many people with depression were affected by this poorly designed and executed study. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2014/06/28/facebook-manipulated-689003-users-emotions-for-science/#791bdf3b704d)
Facebook is operating as if people cannot function without it, and that it doesn’t matter how badly they treat their users.
As with all people and entities with a God Complex, eventually they will fall, and fall hard. People don’t like being manipulated, no matter what their stripe is.