The Wall Street Journal published a single slide from an internal Facebook file claiming to determine “trust” in news publishers on the platform, however the source who passed it to the newspaper consisted of no information about the methodology utilized to collect the information, which users were surveyed, or who carried out the study.
The slide shows a chart with news publishers dotted around in 4 quadrants: “false negatives, “real negatives,” “incorrect positives,” and “real positives,” although there is scant description of what each of these categories imply.
“We do not have access to the underlying method,” stated a Wall Street Journal press reporter.
“Wish we did,” the press reporter included.
The chart was pointed out by Facebook leftists as part of a broader internal effort to suppress Breitbart News. In among the conversations dripped to the WSJ, one Facebook staff member revealed issue that utilizing “trust” as a reason to censor Breitbart News might lead to publishers like CNN being censored too, as CNN’s “trust” score had previously decreased.
Via the Wall Street Journal:
The graph reveals Breitbart News with a middling score in “normalized avg. surveyed trust,” equivalent to left-wing publishers like BuzzFeed and Vice, and the lowest rating in “forecasted trust.”
It’s highly unlikely that the chart represents the bulk viewpoint of Facebook users. According to the Facebook-owned analytics business Crowdtangle, Breitbart News is far ahead of its business media rivals in generating engagement from Facebook’s users.
The Crowdtangle information revealed Breitbart News creating more engagement than the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and HuffPo integrated. According to this information, a much larger section of news customers on Facebook trust Breitbart News and regularly engage with its content compared to its leading rivals.
The mystical, Facebook-produced graph paints a various image. On it, facility news organizations like CNN, The Atlantic, The Economist, Time, and the BBC delight in the greatest trust ratings amongst those surveyed. Presumably, this suggests that the people surveyed are fans of the Atlantic but are not fans of Breitbart News– an unsurprising combination of opinions.
Without the method — in specific, the all-important information on who was surveyed, and what their demographics and political leanings were, all readers can do is presume.
Readers are likewise left guessing regarding what “forecasted trust” is, how the forecast is made, and how it varies from “stabilized avg. surveyed trust.” Which one is more crucial?
Breitbart News connected to Facebook to learn more on the “trust” survey and the methodology behind it, but got no reaction.
Allum Bokhari is the senior innovation correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Fight to Eliminate the Trump Motion and Steal The Election.