Facebook has become the social media ‘guru’, the one that made the huge splash, and still does. Very recently, Facebook was caught up in one of the most intriguing and surprising issue, where they are accused of intentionally filter and select news in the ‘Trending Topics” section, particularly removing politically sensitive contents (mostly conservative and republican Party related news), and injecting less popular news in the rank of this section.[1] The news also prompted reaction from the US Senate Commerce Committee, where he sent the Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg himself a letter, pointing out several questions regarding the site’s Trending Topics section.[2] The tech company has denied the accusation ever since. This provokes assumption that the tech-giant is manipulating political voices through its mass media-savvy prowess; and at the same time, raises questions over the evolution of mass media and democracy in general.

“Regardless of whether Facebook really manipulates information and virality, we have to put into realization that Facebook has the power to do so.”

Facebook has always been pulling out efforts on bringing up the very best experience of social media and virtual interactions to its users over the years, since its establishment roughly a decade ago. The introduction of News Feed and other important features (Like, Comments, Shares), has forever changed the game. Facebook has emerged to be the epicenter of information, ranging from updates from users, news, entertainments, and the likes, all wrapped in News Feed feature. This further put up the platform as a game-changer, and undeniably forces other traditional platforms, particularly mass-driven industry, to keep up with its updates. Little did everyone know, Facebook has been changing the way News Feed works, by evolving the algorithm it uses, to better give personal experiences to its users. Facebook quotes that the constant evaluation of their News Feed algorithm is to always provide things that matter the most to its users. Facebook wants to give personal touch to its users, where people only see things they want to see. However, in developing the algorithm, a crucial tool in determining which-to-publish news, human intervention inevitably is present, triggering possible biased decision. Incorporating people in picking important news and topics is off course raising eyebrows, as it opens rooms for manipulation and ‘editorialized’ News Feed; as what we see from the recent issue Facebook entangled in. The step is indeed acknowledged by the site, citing complexity of the patterns of human behaviors, making it very difficult to be translated to codes computer understand.[3]

Regardless of whether Facebook really manipulates information and virality, we have to put into realization that Facebook has the power to do so. Attracting more than 1 billion people, with over thousands of updates every seconds, Facebook is a very important platform to inform people, and potentially shape opinions. Business wise, Facebook has also emerged into the ultimate market, seen form billions of revenues Facebook earns from their ad section. Facebook is very (too) powerful, that we may forget that it has the capacity to drive us. In the defense of themselves, Facebook already took good step, by clouding whatever intentions they have with ultimate user experience to be developed with involving human touch in the process of making news and topics viral. On the other hand, as more and more people heavily utilize the site, people take and use the information provided in the site very much for granted. People casually take information they want to see (as provided by Facebook) as the thing that is believable, trustworthy, and democratic. However, from what we see from the current development of the issue, it is quite a different case, as democracy and freedom of speech might be challenged by this powerful resource Facebook possess. To make it even more dramatic, Facebook is not the only platform which such prowess.

This gives us sudden realization that information can easily be manipulated and amplified, for worse, even by the so called agent of democracy. Instead of rooms for free-speech, what people have might be rooms full of people to be influenced. Technology in communication and information does not necessarily ease the conduct of transparency and freedom of speech. Rather, it provides additional powerful weapon for monopoly of information, which, people already take for granted.

[1] Deepa Seetharaman, 11 May 2016, “Facebook Feeds Rely on Data, Human Touch”,  The Wall Street Journal, Accessed from <http://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-feeds-rely-on-data-human-touch-1463011560>

[2] Michael Nunez, 10 May 2016, “Senate GOP Launcher Inquiry Into Facebook’s News Curation”, Gizmodo, Accessed from <http://gizmodo.com/senate-gop-launches-inquiry-into-facebook-s-news-curati-1775767018>

[3] Jacob Kastrenakes, 10 May 2016, “Facebook admits its trending news algorithm needs a lot of human help”, The Verge, accessed from <http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/10/11649296/facebook-explains-human-role-in-trending-topic-selection>