Within a fleeting studious environment plagued by an information overload and substantial news stories being furtively camouflaged as trivialities, the social networking conglomerates are perpetually engaged in an intense game of accuracy based musical chairs, as the choice between swiping here or swiping there is at the whim of the platform. In order to remove the cantankerous stigma of pawning “fake news” with a side of blatantly spicy bias to the lowest common denominator, the avian iteration of the digital communities fluttered towards legitimate media organizations in forging major partnerships to assist in disseminating information. Search engine giant Google deployed a similar plan of action. Apple, however, decided on a more cautious approach in offering end users an all-in-one subscription service to broad spectrum of news content publishers, leaving Instagram and the most extensive digital hangout in the universe to toil, brainstorm, and construct a suitable response to fend off electronic stagnation and widespread criticism.
The legacy of Mark Zuckerberg did not disappoint, nor satisfy, depending on the viewpoint of an individual, in announcing the launch of an innovative and cutting-edge directive to revamp the trending news stories of the day, reports the Verge…start the suspenseful drumbeat… by hiring team of journalists to police, moderate, and “curate” the information spigot. And the use of terms “curator” and curators” is highly suspect. The roster of hirees should be a jolting hoot, with the subtlety of a piercing and shimmering green lantern at the end of a pier transcending timelessness in spiting the perpetuity of forever.
The underwhelming and inexplicably shortsighted counterproductive move comes only three years after the company scrapped a controversial program of using news editors directed to sift through headlines and deliberately bury right-leaning content, ultimately leading to the implementation of the infamous algorithms, and the bot scandal marring 2016 election and sparking unscrupulous debate. The collective short-term memory has regressed to an alarming level with the addiction to the 15-second news cycle, but come on! Old habits die a slow and painful death.
The adoption of borderline journalistic philosophies by the tycoons of social media is not surprising considering a steadily growing audience, despite the poor reputation of news feeds, of Americans checking the latest headlines along with their profiles on their devices. According to a Pew Research Center poll, about half of US adults receive their news via social networks, even though 57% view the information as festively tainted and borderline scandalous. The political breakdowns between levels of trust are quite interesting. With the onset of time and the gradual disbanding of obsolete print and broadcast syndicates, the numbers are only expected to jump, as the younger generations find both fact and solace within the minuscule screens and apps of servitude.
F***book’s proclamation to join the fray of Silicon Valley companies interfacing with journalism in hiding a deviously effective political agenda arrives at the optimal time and provides the neural net conjoining force a comfortable window before the final stretch of the 2020 Presidential election. After information is leaked to the public that the ten member curator group has gone despondently rogue with the continuous presence of headlines admonishing nearly 60 million Americans as racists, the bots can again be unleashed and the vicious cycle of revisionism pervades. Already, the ambiguous community standards dictating political advertising protocol is stirring the pot. Toss in a third party vendor tarnished by the presence of Albanian cyber crooks piggy backing on servers in Antarctica harvesting the personal data of voters, a new privacy feature intertwined with facial recognition technology, and the social media monstrosity will continue a volatile trajectory of growth.
Paradoxically, the base fabric of social networking interaction promotes the concept of a forum aligned with facts and truth in the engagement of account holders practicing free market concepts in sharing dialogue. However, with the troubling downward spiral of moderation efforts morphing to damaging and disturbing Gestapo tactics, rather than the existence of a well-oiled machine of technological eloquence conducive to the ideals of the First Amendment, revolving door policy emanates from the corporate leadership. The simple solution for moderate to conservative users is simply to delete their accounts and engage in the exhilarating mundanities of life, and leave the dreams within a nightmare of a nightmare clearly distinguishable from any tangible manifestation of reality in sculpting the future. At the very least, the mass exodus would make a perceptible dent within the revenue model.
Read the Verge story here.
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