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Comment by kevingadd | Hacker News Reader

So biased that they team up with major conservative news outlets and regularly consult with high profile conservative politicians and lobbyists, you mean?

On an ongoing basis, conservative news sites tend to rank highly on FB's highest-traffic posts.

If you want to live in a fantasy world that's fine, but please don't spread nonsense. FB has teamed up with Breitbart - a news outlet explicitly described as a platform for the alt-right, with a Black Crime vertical - for their new Journalism work, and Zuckerberg sits down with conservatives on a constant basis: https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/10/14/deletefacebook-...

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The fact that Zuckerberg is getting in trouble for having meetings in “his home over the summer with conservative figures, including talk show hosts, journalists and at least one Republican” proves the biased context within which Facebook and Zuckerberg must operate. Zuckerberg is surrounded by people who are so partisan that the fact that he had dinner with “at least one Republican” is casus belli.

Note that your own article discredits your premise that it is “nonsense” to suggest that Zuckerberg is in league with conservatives. Quoting a “normal“ Facebook user, it states:

> “I think that it would be leveling the playing field if he reaches out to Conservatives because he surely reached out to Liberals,” she said.

Fun how he "surely reached out" when news outlets tried to find a record of this and couldn't find anyone willing to confirm that he met with them, and his representatives refused to provide any examples.

I mean yes, in a sensible world, he would be reaching out to both groups - that'd be fine! He's not.

Also: if you want to give conservatives ideological representation, you can make better choices than Breitbart and Tucker Carlson.

Are you really calling letting a website be shown as “teaming up”? Breitbart isn’t even one of the 200 paid news websites and you're acting like they’re best buds with Zuckerberg. It’s this kind of foaming-at-the-mouth hyperbole that makes all of this so dangerous.

We're not talking about banning Breitbart, Facebook explicitly partnered with them in a new effort to promote "trustworthy" journalism: https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/10/facebook-launches-its-test... In my original post I clearly stated this, so I'm not sure why you're confused.

They can simply not partner with them and they will retain their existing access to the service. Partnering is an endorsement and adjacent to moderation.

Worth pointing out that there are other conservative outlets on their list, ones with a good reputation (at least compared to Breitbart).

I’m not confused at all. They partnered with hundreds of sites, and excluded Breitbart from getting paid. Some partnership.

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