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- Lots of Bias Monitors Coming
Meta Platforms has settled a defamation lawsuit with conservative activist Robby Starbuck, who alleged the company’s artificial intelligence chatbot falsely asserted he participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.
Under the settlement, Starbuck will advise Meta, the owner of Facebook, on efforts to curb what they describe as political bias in its AI tools.
“Since engaging on these important issues with Robby, Meta has made tremendous strides to improve the accuracy of Meta AI and mitigate ideological and political bias,” Meta and Starbuck said in a statement.
Since reality has a known liberal bias, I’m sure Mr Starbuck will be sure to keep Meta’s AI leaning as right as possible. Of course, we’ve all probably heard about this:
As bad as it is that CBS’s parent company was extorted by Donald Trump for $16 million, that wasn’t the worst of it.
In the final merger deal, New Paramount has agreed to appoint a “bias monitor” who will report directly to Donald Trump, says the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This person will work with the company’s new president to review “any complaints of bias or other concerns.” In other words, Paramount is installing a censor at CBS News with a direct line to the president.
Margaret Sullivan has some good commentary on this.
In the almost 20 years (!) that I’ve been blogging, I’d say that at least 1/3 of everything I’ve written has been press criticism. But I don’t do much of that anymore, because it’s pretty much a pointless exercise, plus it’s an anachronism. There isn’t much news left, especially in smaller markets.
Just this week, News Media Corporation, a company running dozens of small town newspapers, abruptly ceased operation. Here’s a story about the impact of those closings in South Dakota. The impact is similar in Arizona, Illinois, Nebraska and Wyoming, where News Media operated local papers. These were all at least reality-based publications. They’ll be replaced by people browsing Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and other socials. And the bias monitors will make sure that the news on at least some of those sites has a right-wing bias.
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