Facebook Changes Are Starving Conservative Media
“algorithm changes have disproportionately harmed conservative publishers”
Facebook has been in the news for the last few days due to the fact that they allegedly shared user information with a company called Cambridge Analytica. There is another Facebook controversy, however, which is getting far less attention. Changes to their algorithm are starving conservative websites.
This is an issue which is affecting me personally. The other site I work for, American Lookout, has experienced a significant drop in traffic (and revenue) as a result of this change. Jim Hoft of the Gateway Pundit has had the same problem. Truth Revolt has closed its doors and John Hawkins’ Right Wing News is on its way out.
Under the old rules, you would decide which content providers and sources drove your news feed. Now Facebook has decided that they know what’s best for you. The social media giant has figured out a diabolical method for silencing conservative voices by starving them out of existence.
Peter Hasson of the Daily Caller, another site which has been affected by this change, notes that it is all happening under a blanket of secrecy:
Facebook Suppresses Certain Media Outlets In Your Newsfeed. It Won’t Tell You Which Ones
Within the span of eight days in January, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced two different key changes to Facebook’s newsfeed algorithm that together have boosted a “trusted” minority of news outlets while suppressing their competitors.
First, Facebook would slash news articles’ share of the newsfeed from five percent to four percent in the coming months, Zuckerberg said. Second, Facebook would boost certain “trusted” news outlets and suppress other, ostensibly less trustworthy sources.
The algorithm changes have disproportionately harmed conservative publishers, tech website The Outline concluded in a lengthy report earlier in March. Conservative and right-wing publishers “were hit the hardest” by the algorithm change, the report found, “while the engagement numbers of most predominantly liberal publishers remained unaffected.”
Conservative website Western Journalism reached the same conclusion in a similar data report last week. Conservative websites saw a significant drop in traffic from Facebook following the algorithm change, while comparable liberal sources saw a slight increase, that report found.
Last night, Tucker Carlson did a report on this topic. He noted that traffic is down at Breitbart News, Prager University, and even FOX News while liberal sources such as the New York Times, CNN, and the Washington Post have been unaffected.
Carlson spoke to Floyd Brown of Western Journal, who did a great job breaking down what is happening:
George Upper of Western Journal recently published some web traffic statistics which are quite eye-opening:
Confirmed: Facebook’s Recent Algorithm Change Is Crushing Conservative Sites, Boosting Liberals
Facebook’s much-publicized demotion of publishers’ content in users’ news feeds has negatively impacted conservative-leaning publishers significantly more than liberal-leaning outlets, an analysis by The Western Journal has revealed.
Liberal publishers have gained about 2 percent more web traffic from Facebook than they were getting prior to the algorithm changes implemented in early February.
On the other hand, conservative publishers have lost an average of nearly 14 percent of their traffic from Facebook…
To conduct this evaluation, The Western Journal selected 50 publishers known to receive a significant amount of online traffic from Facebook. These publishers include traditional print or television outlets such as The Washington Post, CNN and Fox News, as well as new media outlets like Salon, Vox and The Daily Caller…
The 12 most conservatives sites lost an average of 27.06 percent of their traffic from Facebook.
Of the 12 most liberal sites, six saw double-digit decreases in traffic, while four saw double-digit increases and two — The Washington Post and HuffPo — saw single-digit increases. CNN’s traffic increased 43.78 percent.
The left talks a good game about the importance of fairness.
This shows that’s all it is. Talk.
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
Chilling. Not a good omen at all.
It’s sad, as I enjoy getting to interact with friends I haven’t seen in ages. I think it’s time, passed time, that I delete my facebook account and never venture there again.
I swear everything that gets infected by the left is destroyed.
FascistBook….we know what is best for you.
re: “The social media giant has figured out a diabolical method for silencing conservative voices by starving them out of existence.”
Sooner or later this business model is going to have to be either torn down or made to follow the law. If they’re taking personal data from people without reimbursing them, while denying their rights to free speech…something is seriously wrong and out of balance. Being a business doesn’t give them the high-handed rights to do anything they want to do.
I disagree, I believe that a private entity should be able to conduct their business however they see fit. Ultimately, the consumer, in this case facebook users, are the ones who make that entity a success or not.
Having said that, I would LOVE to see a viable alternative to facebook spring up. One that does not suppress opposing views and allows me to see all posts from friends and sites that I am following, in the order that they post.
Oh? Baked a cake lately?
I agree with you, but that is not the law in this country. Business people have to serve anybody, and we have the bakers to prove it.
I find it interesting that the Democrats are so hell-bent on ending Zckerberg’s political career. I suspect he is too open about his oppression.
Actually, this is not true.
Except for certain protected groups, businesses do not have to serve everyone. The problem is that liberal politicians keep expanding the number of these protected groups in a manner which only benefits them. It is a totally unwarranted intrusion into the lives of the citizenry by the government.
In the case of bakery which refuses to produce a wedding cake for the wedding of a homosexual couple, it should be entirely free to do that. In a free society, another bakery would simply take advantage of this developing niche market. The same should be true for private entities which provide a subscription service to internet users.
No, they do not. Businesses are free to refuse service to anyone, for any reason except those specifically prohibited by law. In many parts of the USA it is perfectly legal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation; in some it is not. In most of the USA it is legal to discriminate on the basis of political opinion; in some it is not, and if the relevant concern is in one of those places conservatives can sue for equal treatment. I’m not sure where Facebook is legally located, but if it’s in CA then you could get a case going, because as I understand it CA is one of the few places that bans such discrimination.
I don’t “do” social media, never have and never will. Just not interested.
But I am curious why the right, supposedly the ones with all the money, don’t have social media sites of their own. Or do they and in my disinterest I just don’t know about them?
Because all that ever seems to be mentioned, or mostly, is Facebook and Twitter.
I don’t do social media either – twitter is a cesspool, especially.
If you’ve noticed, FB is suddenly getting less trendy on the left as well, with many publicly deleting their accounts. I believe the hard truth is that FB is dying, due to their own mistakes, but this also means that any website that has a business plan based on FB is also going to die. It was a bad bet that depended on using an unreliable partisan platform to put across the message. It isn’t going to work.
As far as why there isn’t “conservative” social media – Facebooks dirty little secret has always been that it doesn’t make much money at all on it’s basic business, nor from ad revenue directly. Facebook makes the bulk of its money by selling its data to targeted marketing. That’s why the Cambridge Analytica accusations are hurting them, not because that was something unusual, but because it exposes Facebooks underlying business plan which it sells to hundreds of companies constantly, without its users knowledge.
Without that, the entire business plan goes bankrupt. That’s a big reason whey there isn’t a “conservative” alternative such as you wish for – the concept cannot possibly be profitable if its done honestly.
“Secret”? It’s always been the case with any free-to-user model like this that if you’re not the customer, you’re the product.
Facebook’s users are not Facebook’s customers. Facebook’s customers are the companies they sell their users’ data to. FB users, you and the data you voluntarily hand over are the product FB makes money from marketing and selling.
I am on Gab.ai which is an open-forum Twitter alternative. I use mute a lot there,but it’s good.
My handle? @CloseTheFed :^)))
I could careless about Facebook. Never post on it and only use it to research something. The older Trump votes I know don’t use Facebook or only use it to keep to update with their kids. The younger crowd thinks Facebook is for older people. Let keep telling everyone how important Facebook really is. Facebook is so over rated. I think it has zero impact.
I don’t use any of these social disease media outlets. They are nothing but weapons of mass distraction.
“The left talks a good game about the importance of fairness.
This shows that’s all it is. Talk.”
Exactly. The “social justice” trend is the very antithesis of fairness or fair play. Look at political “correctness” on campuses or in the media. Fair means “agree with me or I will shout you down or shut you down.” And this is on our vaunted centers of learning!! Lefties have been infiltrating academia and the media in a way that China and Russia have to admire (and likely are supported by).
Have the same fun I do: ask a liberal to define “fair.” Watch the contortions and eye rolls. Bring popcorn.
We need an analog of Fox News in social media. Much like Fox, it would overwhelm Facebook in short order.
BTW, Fox News sucks and it always has. Glen Beck? O’Reilly? Meagan Kelly…..
AS for competition, we need something better than Drudge. Breitbart was an answer, but they are slipped.
We have conservative voices all over the internet. This site is one example of it. New sites pop up everyday. The old bulletin board concept has been around since the early 90’s. What do you think Reddit is all about.
Facebook has zero, I repeat zero impact to getting the word out. It is the pet rock of social technology.
What is scary is googles control of content. That is were the focus needs to be. Same with Amazon. They are the ones we need to be scared of. They have so much information on us they can impact us and what we see.
Don’t be distracted by this. The elephant is in the room.
So down vote but no comments? Wimps:)
So what is it that you disagree with?
Fox Sucks?
Drudge Sucks?
Facebook is of little value?
Google and Amazon are serious problems?
Fox lost me with Hurricane Katrina coverage and the fact that Shep is still there.
Drudge has been chasing the more liberal feeds lately.
Facebook has lacked interest for me and never really connected with it. Why care about a liberal social media service? None of the conservative I know use it
Google and Amazon are doing what everyone is claiming Cambridge Analytics was doing but a huge scale.
Left facebook and I come here every day pretty much. I know I’m just one dot, but I hope more do the same.
It’s amusing to see putative conservatives outed for being members of the Free Shit Army complaining that they’re no longer getting their Free Shit.
If like Steven Crowder these outlets paid for ad space on Facebook, then they likely have a breach of contract issue. Otherwise – well, you hitched your business model to a free service provided by a third party you had no leverage over and that you knew was ideologically hostile to you. WTF were you expecting?
You’re a damn Leftist liar — BIRM.
What we are complaining about is “equal treatment under law.” We are talking about companies that pose as “common carriers” to avoid liability. We are talking about Christian bakers having the same right to refuse service as YouTube.
This is the best, The Onion strikes again
https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2018/03/22/watch-that-little-fcker-squirm-the-onion-just-nailed-facebook-and-mark-zuckerberg-and-o
#kiLlthEmaChinEs
I’m sorry, why is this a surprise to anyone who is a conservative?
For the last 75 years, conservatives have had to search for conservative content. Since the 1940’s, Progressives have controlled the major media outlets in this country and they have been moving steadily further left ever since. There were few notable conservative media sites available. Then, in the 1980s, the internet became a viable platform for Americans. It became possible for conservatives to easily find conservative organs from their offices or living rooms. The internet was free and that was never going to change.
What conservatives did not understand is that conservatism is hard work. A conservative has to think for himself. Liberalism is easy. Liberals let someone else think for them. And, most people are inherently lazy. So, which discipline is more attractive to most people?
Enter the rise of the digital information society, aka Lazyville. People allowed electronic devices and their programs nd apps to think for them. Want to get to Grandma’s house? As your GPS app. Which restaurant should I eat dinner at? Ask you dining app. Who should I vote for, for President? Ask your political app. What did this open the door for? You guessed it, an easy way to CONTROL masses. And, who is far more likely to want to control the masses? Liberal/Progressives.
I manage to find conservative websites all on my own. I have no presence on Facebook. I do not use Google to search the web. And, I ignore Twitter. Yahoo is my homepage, but it id far from my only source for news. If I can do this, then anyone can. But, then, I don’t live in Lazyville.
Mac, you’re usually smarter than this.
It’s not about whether you can find conservative content you know is there. It’s about the uncommitted who get content brought to their attention automatically, and won’t see everyone in the “public square”.
Internet argument isn’t about arguing. It’s making sure that the casual reader knows there’s an argument with more than one side.
Wrong. This is about the fact that our culture is becoming lazier and lazier. Casual readers are, by definition, lazy.
Google became as powerful as it is because people, including conservatives, allowed it to. Facebook started out as a coffee klatch site where people could keep up with their friends without leaving their homes. And, society allowed it to become what it is today. Why? Because they are lazy. Television supplanted reading, not because the content was better, but because it was easier to watch television than it was to read a book. In fact, the viewing public was so lazy that most television content runs 30 minutes to an hour. Most politicians no longer give long orations, but speak in sound bites. People are lazy and the liberal/progressives simply took advantage of that.
All that conservative pundits, like Carlson, are doing now, is pointing out that the behemoths that they allowed to develop, largely unopposed, are nothing more than liberal/Progressive media organs. In a free society, th conservatives will simply have to get off their butts and start some serious competition.
Gotta agree with you completely on this one Mac! There’s another related risk that the websites that have been free-riding on Facebook haven’t realized – if Facebook collapsed in popularity, their entire business model is going to collapse with it, and there’s nothing they can do about it.
that’s a damned piss-poor business plan.
Free-riding on FB has been easy money for some, but it was bound to fall apart sooner or later. So its falling apart now. Deal with it and do something different.
Personally, I think the entire marketing theory of making money through advertising links is deeply flawed to the core, and any website that depends on that as its primary source of revenue does not have more than a couple of years of life left in it.
(other funding options – dedicated hobbyists, wealthy patrons, a very cohesive group which finances its own sites, that kind of thing)
Yea, kinda stupid for a conservative website to ride on liberal enemy FB coat tails.
I can’t think who it is, but there is one politician who communicates almost exclusively in tweets. When he has to go longer, he needs speech writers, handlers and teleprompters. He always needs spokespeople to ‘walk back’ or explain what he really meant.
Besides as Mark Twain might have put it: If you don’t like his position, wait a while and it will change. Not noticing that takes a powerful lot of thinkun’
He was going to fix healthcare costs. He said it was easy. All the thinking conservatives voted for him. When in office, he said:
I’ll bet all those hard thinking conservatives realized they had elected a grifter.
No? I guess most of them didn’t do the hard work, thinking and researching, either.
“I cant think…”
FINALLY you say something credible.
How can you possibly believe that you are ‘thinking for yourself’ when you stereotype in the most ridiculous fashion?
While you are at it, NPR & Limbaugh are not opposite poles. NPR, at least tries to be middle of the road.
Come to think of it, most conservatives don’t do the hard work, either. They tune in Limbaugh, Levin, Fox News, etc. What exactly is the difference? /rhetorical
NPR, at least tries to be middle of the road.
ROFLMAO
Middle of a one-way street, maybe.
Crawl back in the woodwork.
Thanks for proving my point – Again
The funny thing is you’re 100% right. They actually do honestly try, and they think they succeed most of the time. The problem is their understanding of where the road’s edges are. It would be cute if it weren’t so sad.
As I once put it of another outlet that tried to be nonpartisan, it covers the entire political spectrum, from the Democratic Party on the right to the Socialist Workers Party (Marxist-Leninist) on the left.
The time has come for a new “google” and “facebook”. For the sake of “diversity” of course.
DuckDuckGo.com is my search engine.
I use Gab.ai instead of twitter.
I have a ‘blank’ linked in page that until yesterday contained only my current employer (a tech giant) and a notice that I don’t post info on social media due to privacy concerns.
Earlier this week there was a connection request from a FB recruiter.
The jokes write themselves. Gotta wonder what spastic events Zuckerburg is putting in motion per current events. Though I debate about whether it would be better to get in there or a place like Google and be part of the solution (hopefully the pendulum has swung as far is it will go) I’m more favorable to seeing the invisible (pimp) hand punish these companies for their full frontal embrace of bigoted ideologies.
I quit fb within a few months of joining back when it was getting started. Well, I tried to quit. This was back when they were trying to build numbers for funding and they simply would not let anyone leave. I would get a constant stream of emails “you’re friends miss you” etc. I finally deleted 99% of the info, falsified what I couldn’t, and changed my user name to Batt Guano. The monthly emails “Dear Batt” did bring a smile to my face. I think the user name is still taken, sorry. Anyhoo, it will be interesting to see how a decrease in users, and data, translates into market value, for a company whose business model seems to be based on “promise of a brighter future.” I hope that Mike Judge is paying attention and that they incorporate some of this into the upcoming season of Silicon Valley, which is usually spot-on about douchebaggery in the Valley.
For those who know the history, we call this “Hechinger’s Law” where an idiot too full of themselves just blows it all for no particular reason. John Hechinger joined up with the gun control people in Maryland, oblivious to the fact that 90% of his customers were blue-collar tradesmen who hunted on the weekend. Oops!
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-09-10/news/9909100125_1_hechinger-bankruptcy-chapter-11
Funny how no articles mention the real reason that the chain went “tits-up” in just about a year.