There is no denying they may be, infact, as I will later explain, there are flaws in the facebook campaign model itself. However, lets also look at these statements this way:

"We have found no evidence that this report is true..." (Means as of now)
"conducting a full investigation" (Means investigations are still on going).

Regarding the flaws, there have been obvious double standards as to how facebook has treated significant events in the near past, including the Paris / Brussels solidarity campaigns, which have to some degree been criticized as focusing on only problems particular in the western block. Significant human rights violations have happened which have deserved a similar amount of attention or interest in the global arena (simple example - the refugee crisis) which have not been given any particular attention. But to understand this particular bias we need to remove biases or color, race, and religion.

If the leadership can do that at facebook, well, that is a statement to the rest of the team. The statement made on the culture in an organization like facebook starts from the top.

On Sat, May 14, 2016 at 9:05 AM, Ali Hussein <ali@hussein.me.ke> wrote:

Ahmed

Great explanation. To put it into perspective answer this for me:-

Do you think Facebook is culpable in trying to influence people with the way they use Data Science, Algorithms, machine learning or other tools?

Ali Hussein
Tel: +254 713 601113

On May 14, 2016 7:57 AM, "Ahmed Mohamed Maawy" <ultimateprogramer@gmail.com> wrote:
I will explain why I am really passionate about this issue. Granted, there are algorithms that Facebook have developed that we (not I) believe have caused this mess. Personally, being a person who has worked on Data Science I am a strong believer in the power of algorithms. And if the algorithm is scewed from its own logic, it simply wont give people the content they need - so we create perfect algorithms to get the job done. What screws things up?

According to the Gizmodo article:

These new allegations emerged after Gizmodo last week revealed details about the inner workings of Facebook’s trending news team—a small group of young journalists, primarily educated at Ivy League or private East Coast universities, who curate the “trending” module on the upper-right-hand corner of the site. As we reported last week, curators have access to a ranked list of trending topics surfaced by Facebook’s algorithm, which prioritizes the stories that should be shown to Facebook users in the trending section. The curators write headlines and summaries of each topic, and include links to news sites. The section, which launched in 2014, constitutes some of the most powerful real estate on the internet and helps dictate what news Facebook’s users—167 million in the US alone—are reading at any given moment.

My point here is that if the Algorithm was flawed it wont be able to make sense of trending news in the first place. The points underlined (as earlier stated) are a result of "data flaws" in the process, and the process of tampering with the Machine Learning process.

So if facebook investigates this, they will:
  1. Assess the activity log.
  2. Try see who accessed what content and suppressed which content.
  3. Try find out why.
  4. Deal with the human element / issues.

There is also one major issue here. If the trending team is based in the US for instance and the typical US citizen controls this content who has a bias to what views should be aired. Well.. what should we expect?


On Sat, May 14, 2016 at 7:39 AM, Ali Hussein via kictanet <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
So listers

As a follow up this story Zuckerberg posted a response. Excerpts below:-

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg's Thursday night post, in which he belatedly addressed a Monday Gizmodo report alleging that Facebook has an anti-conservative bias -- see "Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative News" -- is a rather curious display of damage control.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Credit: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

It's a short post, just 309 words, and it mostly says nothing -- opening as it does with "I want to share some thoughts on the discussion about Trending Topics" and quickly swerving into boilerplate Facebook Utopianism: "We believe the world is better when people from different backgrounds and with different ideas all have the power to share their thoughts...." And 62 words into the post he even pulls out the mom card, as in, "We are one global community where anyone can share anything -- from a loving photo of a mother and her baby to intellectual analysis of political events."

Moms. Moms are the best, aren't they? Wait, where were we?

Oh right. Here, halfway into Zuckerberg's gentle musings, is where it gets a bit slippery and weird:

This week, there was a report suggesting that Facebook contractors working on Trending Topics suppressed stories with conservative viewpoints. We take this report very seriously and are conducting a full investigation to ensure our teams upheld the integrity of this product.

We have found no evidence that this report is true. If we find anything against our principles, you have my commitment that we will take additional steps to address it.

So... "We have found no evidence that this report is true..." but Facebook is "conducting a full investigation" -- "conducting," present-tense. So Mark Zuckerberg is jumping to conclusions and making pronouncements ("We have found no evidence that this report is true" plants the seed that the Gizmodo report is false) while an investigation is ongoing -- without revealing how the investigation is being conducted, who's runnng the investigation, etc.

Quick, look over here -- at the next paragraph!

Read the rest:-

http://adage.com/article/the-media-guy/mark-zuckerberg-ju/304000/

The age old question on how much influence media should be allowed to have on people's social and political thoughts is now coming to the fore for this most influential platform. The critical part is the use of Algorithms to suppress 'undesirable' content.

What do you think guys?

Ali Hussein
Principal
Hussein & Associates
+254 0713 601113 / 0770906375

Twitter: @AliHKassim

Skype: abu-jomo

LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim



"Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought".  ~ Albert Szent-Györgyi

Sent from my iPad

On 12 May 2016, at 6:04 PM, jude mwenda via kictanet <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

There is some substantial amount of literature pointing to biases in algorithms. Some good case in point is the use of recruitment algorithms by tech firms based in the valley[1] or Google's photo service that misrepresented people of color. These are basically societal and implicit biases taking up digital forms imo. There is also the other case where false positives are introduced by design to provide some semblance of pseudo-privacy. i.e when someone who has been receiving online baby recommendations on a service like Amazon finds motor oil embedded as one of the highly recommended picks. So yes they could be twisted to lie.


On 12 May 2016 at 10:43, Nanjira Sambuli via kictanet <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:
Ali, response to that…of course there’s biased, no such thing as ‘algorithmic neutrality’: http://www.wired.com/2016/05/course-facebook-biased-thats-tech-works-today/  

On 12 May 2016, at 16:21, kictanet-request@lists.kictanet.or.ke wrote:

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Today's Topics:

  1. Is Facebook biased on its newsfeed? (Ali Hussein)
  2. Re: Is Facebook biased on its newsfeed? (Ahmed Mohamed Maawy)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Thu, 12 May 2016 16:52:08 +0300
From: Ali Hussein <ali@hussein.me.ke>
To: kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke
Subject: [kictanet] Is Facebook biased on its newsfeed?
Message-ID: <94EF7EBE-92E4-43E7-BE18-3865ABC08F9C@hussein.me.ke>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Listers

This mail is coped from the Fortune.com Data Sheet.

The ?Trending? topics section of Facebook seems such a trivial thing, and in many ways it is. It looks and feels like an afterthought?ironically, it started as an attempt to copy Twitter?and many users probably don?t even notice it?s there. But now, it has triggered a national discussion around bias and the power of social platforms.

In case you missed the brouhaha, it started with a report from Gizmodo that profileda team of anonymous journalists working at Facebook who curate the news that shows up in the Trending section. A subsequent report quoted one of the journalists as saying the team routinely removed certain right-wing political sites from the section, even when the social network?s data showed they were trending.

The revelation seemed harmless enough, at first: Journalists hired to edit things were actually editing them! But the comment soon snowballed into a debate over Facebook?s role in news consumption, and whether its sheer size and influence brings with it some level of responsibility.

Facebook responded to the story by saying that its policy is to remain as neutral as possible editorially, and that it will look into reports of misbehavior. Then it issued a second, even more heartfelt response, after the Senate Commerce Committee sent a letter asking the company to answer some questions around political influence and the Trending section.

The real issue, of course, isn?t the tiny section of the Facebook home page that follows trending topics. It?s the fact that the kind of editorial selection those journalists engaged in is happening every minute of every day on the main news feed, courtesy of the Facebook ranking algorithm. And that algorithm, since it is programmed by human beings, inevitably contains biases of all kinds.

The bottom line is that Facebook is more than just a social network where people exchange photos of their pets?it is the largest and most influential media entity the world has ever seen. The sooner Facebook acknowledges that, and becomes part of the discussion around how it can manage its social responsibilities, the better off we will all be.


Ali Hussein
Principal
Hussein & Associates
+254 0713 601113 / 0770906375

Twitter: @AliHKassim
Skype: abu-jomo
LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim


"Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking what no one else has thought".  ~ Albert Szent-Gy?rgyi

Sent from my iPad
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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 12 May 2016 17:20:30 +0300
From: Ahmed Mohamed Maawy <ultimateprogramer@gmail.com>
To: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Is Facebook biased on its newsfeed?
Message-ID:
<CAPZHszN5Wt3M2g0OzRrc0+AEAOaVNYy1T9PNnD0aom2rAm-4yA@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

There are a number of elements at play here:

   1. Obviously to a great degree this algorithm has massively helped
  Facebook. Not that I am totally on their side, what I mean to say is that
  lets give credit where its due. Without this algorithm we would have seen
  massive fallout and loss of klout. This is something Twitter did not figure
  out so well. LinkedIn is still the place professionals like to hang out,
  but its not the place professionals like to stay. Just stating how it came
  to be that Facebook is air and air is life (so to speak).
   2. If truly there is a bias to all this (which I am yes, yet to
  comprehend how this bias is visible) it can mean 2 things:
      1. Either content producers are not building influence better than
     those who rank at the top. Or
      2. If not, there is a genuine market opportunity in this gap.

But algorithms are algorithms, and my experience developing algorithms
tells me computer algorithms can not easily be twisted to lie, especially
in the field of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

But these are all books on their own anyway.

Just my 2 cents.

On Thu, May 12, 2016 at 4:52 PM, Ali Hussein via kictanet <
kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> wrote:

Listers

This mail is coped from the Fortune.com <http://fortune.com> Data Sheet.

The ?Trending? topics section of Facebook seems such a trivial thing, and
in many ways it is. It looks and feels like an afterthought?ironically, it
started as an attempt to copy Twitter
<http://link.fortune.com/click/6706588.20757/aHR0cDovL3RlY2hjcnVuY2guY29tLzIwMTQvMDEvMTYvZmFjZWJvb2stdHJlbmRpbmcv/55ba80258cc2b2e72d8b457aBf20eece1>?and
many users probably don?t even notice it?s there. But now, it has triggered
a national discussion around bias and the power of social platforms.

In case you missed the brouhaha, it started with a report from Gizmodo that
profiled
<http://link.fortune.com/click/6706588.20757/aHR0cDovL2dpem1vZG8uY29tL3dhbnQtdG8ta25vdy13aGF0LWZhY2Vib29rLXJlYWxseS10aGlua3Mtb2Ytam91cm5hbGlzdHMtMTc3MzkxNjExNw/55ba80258cc2b2e72d8b457aB4ee70a20>a
team of anonymous journalists working at Facebook who curate the news that
shows up in the Trending section. A subsequent report quoted one of the
journalists as saying the team routinely removed certain
<http://link.fortune.com/click/6706588.20757/aHR0cDovL2dpem1vZG8uY29tL2Zvcm1lci1mYWNlYm9vay13b3JrZXJzLXdlLXJvdXRpbmVseS1zdXBwcmVzc2VkLWNvbnNlci0xNzc1NDYxMDA2/55ba80258cc2b2e72d8b457aBf141c2b3> right-wing
political sites from the section, even when the social network?s data
showed they were trending.

The revelation seemed harmless enough, at first: Journalists hired to edit
things were actually editing them! But the comment soon snowballed into a
debate over Facebook?s role in news consumption, and whether its sheer size
and influence brings with it some level of responsibility.

Facebook responded to the story
<http://link.fortune.com/click/6706588.20757/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZmFjZWJvb2suY29tL3RzdG9ja3kvcG9zdHMvMTAxMDA4NTMwODIzMzc5NTg/55ba80258cc2b2e72d8b457aBf49ae890> by
saying that its policy is to remain as neutral as possible editorially, and
that it will look into reports of misbehavior. Then it issued a second,
even more heartfelt response, after the Senate Commerce Committee sent a
letter
<http://link.fortune.com/click/6706588.20757/aHR0cDovL2dpem1vZG8uY29tL3NlbmF0ZS1nb3AtbGF1bmNoZXMtaW5xdWlyeS1pbnRvLWZhY2Vib29rLXMtbmV3cy1jdXJhdGktMTc3NTc2NzAxOA/55ba80258cc2b2e72d8b457aB1d911177> asking
the company to answer some questions around political influence and the
Trending section.

The real issue, of course, isn?t the tiny section of the Facebook home
page that follows trending topics. It?s the fact that the kind of editorial
selection those journalists engaged in is happening every minute of every
day on the main news feed, courtesy of the Facebook ranking algorithm. And
that algorithm, since it is programmed by human beings, inevitably contains
biases of all kinds.

The bottom line is that Facebook is more than just a social network where
people exchange photos of their pets?it is the largest and most
influential
<http://link.fortune.com/click/6706588.20757/aHR0cDovL3d3dy52b3guY29tLzIwMTYvNS8xMC8xMTY0MDE0MC9mYWNlYm9vay1tZWRpYS1pbmZsdWVuY2U/55ba80258cc2b2e72d8b457aBca65e309> media
entity the world has ever seen. The sooner Facebook acknowledges that, and
becomes part of the discussion around how it can manage its social
responsibilities, the better off we will all be.

*Ali Hussein*
*Principal*
*Hussein & Associates*
+254 0713 601113 / 0770906375

Twitter: @AliHKassim

Skype: abu-jomo

LinkedIn: http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim


"Discovery consists in seeing what everyone else has seen and thinking
what no one else has thought".  ~ Albert Szent-Gy?rgyi

Sent from my iPad

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Ambassador - Open Knowledge
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(KE) +254 714 960 627
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KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.



--
Ahmed Maawy
Executive Director - SwahiliBox / M-Power (CBO)
Ambassador - Open Knowledge
Director - Startup Grind Mombasa
Software Developer - AJ+ / EveryLayer
(KE) +254 714 960 627
Skype: ultimateprogramer

swahilibox.co.ke
www.okfn.org
startupgrind.com
ajplus.net
www.everylayer.com



--
Ahmed Maawy
Executive Director - SwahiliBox / M-Power (CBO)
Ambassador - Open Knowledge
Director - Startup Grind Mombasa
Software Developer - AJ+ / EveryLayer
(KE) +254 714 960 627
Skype: ultimateprogramer

swahilibox.co.ke
www.okfn.org
startupgrind.com
ajplus.net
www.everylayer.com