Facebook Wants To Let The Heritage Foundation Decide What's News

One of these men is full of shit, and the other is a robot.

Yesterday, Axios reported that Facebook was reaching out to some groups in an effort to keep the social media giant from hemorrhaging any more trust, by which we mean money. Worried that they might be the catalyst for degrading public discourse, and to make it seem like Mark Zuckerberg actually gives a fuck, Facebook is bringing in a super powerful law firm and ... the Heritage Foundation.

Facebook will be holding a conservative-only bias review led by former Arizona Republican Sen. Jon Kyl. Kyl has a famously loose interpretation of "facts," once questioning the definition of middle class, and walking back lies about Planned Parenthood made on the Senate floor by saying his comment was "not intended to be a factual statement."

Klon Kitchen, the Heritage Foundation's resident right-leaning techie, has already been brought in to lecture Facebook on how to make safe spaces for conservatives on the Internet. Kitchen told USA Today that conservatives deserve to be treated just like every other asshole on the internet (please, don't send him dick pics or death threats).

If Facebook is doing a reasonable job of that now, it’s up to Facebook to make that case. If there are systemic problems, they should deal with that...

This is all part of the fallout from Mark Zuckerberg coming to DC and pretending to be human. Hardcore conservatives bemoaned a perceived bias against the crackpots and conspiracy theorists they call a constituency. Ted Cruz whinedabout Silicon Valley "censoring" people who support his brand of hyperbolic malevolent newspeak. A few days later, House Freedom crazies grilled Zuckerberg about "Diamond and Silk," two pro-Trump windbags who fancy themselves pariahs aftertheir Youtube channel was demonetized for violating Terms of Service. The duo testified before Congress and all but perjured themselves, leaving several members giggling and deriding the hearing as farce.

Facebook might be a horrific shitshow for political speech, but conservatives don't seem to understand that moderation is increasingly crowd sourced.   Earlier this year Facebook tried to control the spread of "fake news" by asking people only two questions about the trustworthiness of a source, and it's been over a year since it partnered with Snopes and Poynter (a journalism industry ethics org) to fact-check news. Facebook then added the Weekly Standard to the corps. One of those things is not like the others!

And now the Heritage Foundation will be investigating "bias" at Facebook, for Facebook. Sure, our post-truth nation got its kickstart when Facebook kowtowed to Republicans who were mad at its "bias" because the humans who worked there made sure Facebook's "trending topics" weren't all Gateway Pundit blowing a goat. So Facebook fired the humans who worked there who kept pointing out Gateway Pundit had a mouth full of goat dick. Get ready to like and share Hillary Clinton murdered Seth Rich with a pizza child sex slave, because you're about to get Gateway Pundit's sloppy mouth seconds, again.

[ Axios / Media Matters / Thinkprogress / Ars Technica ]

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