How Facebook and big media control the message

Special to WorldTribune.com

Spoiler alert: Actually, it’s no secret that Facebook makes clear to mostly left-leaning publishers what it wants on its mostly left-leaning News Feed.

Peter Kafka, writing for recode.com, presented the “real Facebook media influence story.”

Related: Former Facebook ‘journalist’: We routinely suppressed news favoring conservative values, May 9, 2016

facebook_0001-624x351The post included a 47-minute long video of “a walk through a New York City park. It exists because the New York Times created it, because Facebook told the New York Times to make it.”

“Let’s be clear: Facebook didn’t tell the Times to make that particular video,” Kafka wrote. “But Facebook told the Times to make stuff for its new Facebook Live video push. So the Times has assigned a team of seven full-time employees to make stuff for its new Facebook Live video push.

“Facebook is paying the Times to make Facebook Live video. It is paying other publishers, including Vox Media (which owns recode.com) to make Facebook Live video, too.

“But the truth is, Facebook doesn’t need to write publishers checks* to get them to do what it wants: All it needs to do is make it clear what kind of stuff it wants in its News Feed. It doesn’t need to tell us how high to jump — we’ll go as high as we can.

“So to sum up: Facebook’s managers have very specific ideas about the things they want to appear on Facebook. They communicate those ideas clearly to publishers, who do their best to accommodate them.

“None of this is secret, and you don’t need a Senate inquiry to get people to talk about it: They’re happy to tell you.”

* “We are still happy to take your money, Facebook!”

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