South Africa White Farmer Land Grabs Will Be Law After Change To Constitution Approved


But Trump…

Via Daily Star:

After months of talks, the country is set to go ahead with the proposals that will see farms seized without compensation – something critics have said will be devastating.

The country’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has been attempting to amend South Africa’s constitution for months, but has been met with stiff opposition.

But now the controversial seizures will become legal after the changes were approved by a parliamentary review committee.

South Africans have spoken loud and clear, and we listened to their cry,” said Lewis Nzimande, the co-chair of the committee.

Critics of the plans have previously warned the land seizures will lead to mass starvation and riots.

Ian Cameron, of South African trade group AfriForum, previously warned: “We’re really heading for a state of anarchy if something doesn’t change drastically.

“I’m convinced this year we’ll see between 21,000 to 22,000 people having been murdered in the past year.”

Keep reading…

HT: Wirecutter

via Weasel Zippers

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.weaselzippers.us

Federal Judge Blocks Trump Proclamation Suspending Asylum Rights for Illegal Immigrants


(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

BY:

A federal judge ruled Monday that the Trump administration must accept asylum claims from migrants no matter how they entered the country, in a rebuke to a proclamation the president made earlier this month.

Judge Jon S. Tigar of the United States District Court in San Francisco, a Barack Obama appointee, issued a temporary restraining order on the matter, the New York Times reports.

It blocks the proclamation President Donald Trump issued on Nov. 9, shortly before he left for Paris, suspending asylum rights for illegal immigrants if they didn’t make the request at a lawful port of entry. The proclamation was a response to the migrant caravan of Central Americans heading toward the border, which became a top issue in the weeks leading up to the midterms elections.

“The continuing and threatened mass migration of aliens with no basis for admission into the United States through our southern border has precipitated a crisis and undermines the integrity of our borders,” Trump wrote in the proclamation.

The Times reports:

As a caravan of several thousand people journeyed toward the Southwest border, President Trump signed a proclamation on Nov. 9 that banned migrants from applying for asylum if they failed to make the request at a legal checkpoint. Only those who entered the country through a port of entry would be eligible, he said, invoking national security powers to protect the integrity of the United States borders.

Within days, the administration submitted a rule to the federal register, letting it go into effect immediately and without the customary period for public comment.

But the rule overhauled longstanding asylum laws that ensure people fleeing persecution can seek safety in the United States, regardless of how they entered the country. Advocacy groups, including the Southern Poverty Law Center and the American Civil Liberties Union, swiftly sued the administration for effectively introducing what they deemed an asylum ban.

ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt argued the case and lauded the decision.

“We don’t condone people entering between ports of entry, but Congress has made the decision that if they do, they still need to be allowed to apply for asylum,” he said, according to the Huffington Post.

The ruling is a blow to Trump’s tough stance on illegal immigration, which was a cornerstone of his campaign and been one of the defining aspects of his presidency.

Immigration laws currently state any foreigner who reaches U.S. soil may apply for asylum, and they are eligible to speak to a credible fear officer, who generally approve them for release and a court date. The Times reports the backlog of cases before U.S. immigration courts exceeds one million, leading to the derisive “catch and release” term often used by the White House.

Trump often rips the country’s immigration laws as the worst in the world, and he has repeatedly said he wants people to come into the country, but they must do so legally.

via Washington Free Beacon

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://freebeacon.com

If Caravaners Are Fleeing Starvation, Isn’t It Odd This Migrant’s Calling Free Food Slop for ‘Pigs’?


Breathless, unbelievably heartbreaking coverage on the Honduran-centric caravan working its way up through Mexico from Time magazine, Oct. 21:

“Nelson Uribe, 20, told TIME how gangsters murdered his brother and then threatened him for being a witness in the city of Comayagua,” Time reported. “‘I was hiding in my house, terrified to go out. The caravan gave me a chance to leave,’ he said. However, others cite poverty and hunger, especially following recent price hikes. ‘We just can’t afford to live. It was a question of leaving or slowly starving to death,’ said Orisa Fernandez, 40.”

Time magazine didn’t have much, well, time to talk about the problems and externalities caused by the caravan or the precedent it would set, but there was a lot of prose so empurpled I swore I was watching a Colorado Rockies victory parade. (Opening line: “Lining up on the rocky bank of the Suchiate river, which runs along Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, a thronging crowd from the migrant caravan shouted to their companions squatting on the international bridge…”)

These individuals are starving to death, Time notes. Just don’t expect them to be wholly grateful when they’re given free food.

Deutsche Welle’s Spanish-language service, DW Español, traveled to Tijuana, Mexico. The border city has become ground zero for caravan coverage over the past few days as the first wave of members arrives, and some of the locals were enraged.

TRENDING: Watch: Crazed Antifa Woman with Purple Hair Punches, Spits at, Tries To Assault #HimToo Activist

Upon reviewing this report, The Daily Caller’s Benny Johnson noticed something curious. (Note: The video is in Spanish. The relevant part is translated below.)

In one of the segments, DW reporters interviewed caravan members inside migrant camps in the city. A woman complained about the food being given to them, comparing it to slop.

Do you think that the caravan should be stopped?

“The truth is, the food that they’re handing out here is terrible,” the unidentified woman said, holding up the container of food.

“Look at what they’re giving us. Refried beans, as if they were feeding the pigs. And the truth is, we don’t have any other options. If we don’t eat this, we will die of hunger.”

OK, first, we must note that this is an incredibly limited sample size. Last we reported on this, roughly 3,000 people had already arrived in Tijuana from the caravan. That makes this officially the opinion of 0.03 percent of the caravan members in Tijuana. Up to 10,000 caravan members are expected, so that sample size is going to be further diluted.

Yes, the food in refugee camps is generally terrible, especially when those refugee camps can’t be planned. Most major cities, no matter what their size, cannot just absorb 10,000 individuals with limited resources. In addition to food, there are concerns over shelter, security, sanitary facilities, those sorts of things.

If fleeing starvation and arriving in Tijuana on a moment’s notice in order to hope the free food to be of a high culinary caliber is your plan A to escape malnutrition, I hesitate to even wonder what plan B was.

RELATED: ‘No Climbers’: Trump Tweets Wall’s Brutally Efficient Upgrade

There is an incongruity here, and I’d just as soon as not point it out, but point it out I will: People dying of starvation with no other options in their home country because of persecution generally aren’t seen making these complaints.

There are several interpretations one can infer from this. I will leave them to you to infer. I will merely say that I tried to give her the ultimate benefit of the doubt here — that all of this woman’s motives in participating in this caravan and asking for asylum were pure in toto — and found it eminently difficult to do so based on this clip.

This is the smallest sample size you can ask for — a solitary woman. As conservatives, it confirms our in-built biases, which means we should be careful into making her a synecdoche for the entire caravan. However, in a pointillistic narrative of the caravan, this is yet another dot of paint that reveals a picture wholly different from the stock narrative.

This was supposed to be a fake political narrative only hypernationalistic conservatives cared about — namely, the Trump administration, which got taken to task by Jim Acosta for even using the word “caravan” in a very, very infamous clip.

To liberals, this interpretation was pure racism against Central and South Americans — except for the residents of Tijuana, who are Mexican and not particularly jazzed over how this has progressed.

This was said to be spontaneous — except for the anti-American Honduran socialist leaders who have openly said they’re behind it. This was all about ordinary people fleeing unbearable conditions and asking for asylum — except for those with criminal backgrounds, and those who admitted they were fleeing because of economic reasons, and those who said they were asking for asylum for other reasons not covered under asylum law.

This, in short, is complicated. We won’t hear that over the next few days. What we’ll hear is stories of heartache, juxtaposed with stock footage of Donald Trump looking angry.

Anger over refried beans doesn’t refute this, but it’s a sign that this — like so many other things in our political life — is messy. It needs to be covered as such.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

via Conservative Tribune

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.westernjournal.com/ct

Vet Tweets He’s Going To Kill Himself. Then James Woods Launches Effort To Save Him.


On Monday night, actor James Woods went all-in to help save a suicidal veteran who had tweeted that he was going to kill himself. Although the vet deleted his tweets, a look at Woods’ tweets gives a pretty clear idea of the dialogue Woods initiated and Woods’ efforts to help keep the vet talking while Woods launched a search to find him. In the process, Woods showed his empathy by acknowledging that he, too, like most people, had experienced some depression at one time in his life, and encouraged the vet to hold on so that he could be an inspiration to other vets who experience the same feelings.

Woods’ persistence may well have saved the vet’s life. Here’s how events unfolded:

One veteran, moved by Woods’ efforts to save a fellow vet, tweeted his appreciation:

Woods responded:

Then, some possible good news:

USA Today reported:

Maitland Police Public Information Officer Lt. Louis Y. Grindle informed USA TODAY Tuesday morning that authorities were able to reach MacMasters, though his whereabouts are unknown.”Our agency was able to make contact with him by phone earlier this morning, where he advised he was OK but did not wish to have contact with law enforcement,” the emailed statement read. “Our officers are still working to try and physically locate him to determine his well-being.”

Woods’ father, Gail Peyton Woods, was an army intelligence officer. The protean actor’s first film break came in the legendary director Elia Kazan’s 1972 film, “The Visitor,” in which Woods played a Vietnam veteran, a role that was the beginning of his long and storied career.

In September 2017, Woods tweeted, “So long as a single veteran is homeless, I’m only interested in spending tax $$ on the needs of American citizens. After that, we’ll see..”

Stars and Stripes reported in June:

The VA released its newest National Suicide Data Report on Monday, which includes data from 2005 through 2015. Much in the report remained unchanged from two years ago, when the VA reported suicide statistics through 2014. Veteran suicide rates are still higher than the rest of the population, particularly among women.

In both reports, the VA said an average of 20 veterans succumbed to suicide every day. In its newest version, the VA was more specific. The report shows the total is 20.6 suicides every day. Of those, 16.8 were veterans and 3.8 were active-duty servicemembers, guardsmen and reservists, the report states. That amounts to 6,132 veterans and 1,387 servicemembers who died by suicide in one year. The VA’s 2012 report stated 22 veterans succumbed to suicide every day – a number that’s still often cited incorrectly. That number also included active-duty troops, Guard and Reserve, VA Press Secretary Curt Cashour said Wednesday.

Acting VA Secretary Mr. Peter O’Rourke said in June , “Suicide remains a top clinical priority. One life lost to suicide is one too many. Suicide is a serious public health concern in the Veteran population and across all communities nationwide. These data offer important insights to help VA to build effective networks of support, communication and care that reach veterans where they live and thrive.”

via Daily Wire

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.dailywire.com/rss.xml

Thanksgiving Meals Delivered to Troops Serving Overseas and at Southwest Border


The Pentagon’s Defense Logistics Agency has worked for months get Thanksgiving meals sent to U.S. troops serving overseas and at the Southwest border this year.

The agency sent more than 300,000 pounds of traditional Thanksgiving food to field kitchens, dining facilities, and galleys throughout the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and those serving on the border.

This year, troops received:

• 9,738 whole turkeys
• 51,234 pounds of roasted turkey
• 74,036 pounds of beef
• 21,758 pounds of ham
• 67,860 pounds of shrimp
• 16,284 pounds of sweet potatoes
• 81, 360 pies
• 19,284 cakes
• 7,836 gallons of eggnog

Troops serving at the border will also have a light-duty day.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis was asked by a reporter last week what he would tell troops’ families about them serving at the border over Thanksgiving. “We’re a 365-day-a-year military. Rain or shine, light or dark, cold weather or hot weather — we have an all-weather force that’s on duty 24/7,” he replied.

“Drive around the Pentagon on Thanksgiving Day, and look at the number of cars in the parking lot of people who work right through the holidays. Some of you were with me when we were at Guantanamo Bay last Thanksgiving timeframe. Troops were down there,” he added. “All I can say to the American people: Welcome to your military. It’s on duty.”

DLA began planning for the deliveries in May, working with regional and local vendors to ensure that military chefs had what they needed to prepare a festive holiday meal for those away from home this Thanksgiving.

“The Troop Support Subsistence team is a dedicated group of employees who take pride in ensuring that deployed service members can experience an enjoyable holiday meal each Thanksgiving,” said Rich Faso, deputy director for DLA Troop Support’s Subsistence supply chain in Philadelphia.

“Many of America’s military men and women are away from home this Thanksgiving, making sacrifices to secure our freedom and to protect our southern border,” said Army Brig. Gen. Mark Simerly, DLA Troop Support commander.

“The DLA Troop Support staff and I are excited about this amazing opportunity to provide them the very best Thanksgiving meal our country has to offer.”

via Breitbart News

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.breitbart.com

Top Dem Donors Hosted Director from Group that Registered Dead People to Vote

The left’s largest network of wealthy donors tapped an individual for a discussion on "expanding the electorate" at its fall investment conference from a group that was caught submitting fraudulent voter registration forms—including registering dead people to vote—and saw one of its employees go to prison for the crime.

The Democracy Alliance, a dark money donor club that consists of more than 100 millionaires and billionaires who each vow to pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into the coffers of progressive groups every year, held its fall investment conference last Thursday and Friday at the Capital Hilton hotel in Washington, D.C., where donors and progressive activists huddled to begin plotting their upcoming strategy for the 2020 elections.

Among the events was a strategy briefing on "expanding the electorate," according to documents obtained on site by the Washington Free Beacon.

"The 2018 elections presented organizations and communities with an opportunity to truly transform and expand the electorate and elect the next generation of our country’s progressive leadership," the agenda says of the discussion. "The state of American politics provided an environment conducive to mobilizing a new coalition of voters, inspiring them to vote, and persuading them that by investing their energy and resources into civic participation they can create positive change."

"We will share direct experiences and learnings from our programs, including Win Justice and others led by local organizations around the country," it continues. "Hear how they delivered new, infrequent and drop-of voters to the polls, while building an organization and creating a lasting culture of activism among voters of color, union households, and other base voters."

DaMareo Cooper, director of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative, a progressive nonprofit that works on direct advocacy and engaging voters throughout the state of Ohio, sat on the panel alongside representatives from the New Florida Majority, Center for Community Change Action, and Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

The Ohio Organizing Collaborative raised red flags in 2015 after the vice-chairman of a local board of elections in Ohio began noticing frequent problems with registrations submitted by the group, the Washington Free Beacon previously reported.

"They have turned in roughly 530 voter registrations, of which five of them were dead people," the vice-chairman said at the time. "They actually had the dead people’s drivers license numbers and Social Security numbers, and of course they forged the signatures of these dead people."

"The forms were riddled with errors and all tied to this group," an election chairman told a local publication. "You can tell the same person filled out some of the same forms and forged signatures. There are wrong dates of births and wrong addresses on others. It became a pattern."

The group told the Free Beacon at the time that they had terminated the worker who submitted the registrations.

"Unfortunately, it has come to our attention that a number of voter registration cards filed in Columbiana County appear to have been fabricated. The canvasser suspected of fabricating these cards is no longer employed [by the group] and her supervisor has been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation," the group said.

That individual ultimately pled guilty to numerous felony counts of making a false registration and election falsification and was sentenced to six months in prison.

The Ohio Organizing Collaborative did not respond to inquiries by press time. The Democracy Alliance could not be reached for comment.

Prior to the fraud investigation, they were listed on a lawsuit that was submitted by a top Democratic lawyer who was working with Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

Marc Elias, a partner at the D.C. office of the Perkins Coie law firm, submitted challenges in a number of states in an effort to go after voter identification laws. Elias was working on the challenges in his personal capacity as an attorney at Perkins Coie and not directly on behalf of the Clinton campaign, although Clinton publicly backed the effort.

Elias originally had the Ohio Organizing Collaborative as a plaintiff on his lawsuit in Ohio. The group was later replaced by the Ohio Democratic Party and a source close to Elias at the time said he had not been involved with the group since it was swapped out.

The New York Times reported that the voter ID challenges from Elias were quietly bankrolled by millions of dollars from liberal billionaire George Soros, who has a personal goal of expanding the electorate by 10 million voters, according to internal documents from his Open Society Foundations.

Soros is a partner in the Democracy Alliance and has fueled campaigns in both the 2016 and 2018 election cycles that sought to expand the electorate and push voters to the polls.

One such effort—called "Win Justice"—was referenced in the description of the talk at the group’s fall investment conference. That campaign took place this past election cycle and was financed on the federal level almost primarily by Soros. It featured a coalition of groups including Planned Parenthood Votes, the Center for Community Change Action, Color of Change, and the SEIU.

Representatives from the Center for Community Change Action and SEIU were also on the panel on "expanding the electorate" at the alliance’s conference.

The Democracy Alliance has facilitated more than $600 million in funds being pushed to approved groups of the network since its founding in 2015.

The post Top Dem Donors Hosted Director from Group that Registered Dead People to Vote appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

via Washington Free Beacon

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://freebeacon.com

USA Today: Donald Trump Must Break Up Big Tech Monopolies


A column in USA Today this week argues that President Trump should break up Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Netflix in the same vein as President Teddy Roosevelt.

USA Today opinion columnist Glenn Harlan Reynolds explained his feelings on Monday about the increasing power of technology companies like Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Netflix. Reynolds specifically pointed out how President Teddy Roosevelt broke up big businesses when he was president.

Roosevelt built a strong reputation by going after the trusts, huge combinations that placed control of entire industries in the hands of one or a few men. He broke up John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, the Google of its day. He shut down J.P. Morgan’s Northern Securities Co., which would have monopolized rail transportation in much of the United States. And he pursued numerous other cases (45 in all) that broke up monopolies and returned competition to markets.

Reynolds goes on to argue that monopolies are an economic threat due to their overwhelming influence on certain industries.

Big monopolies aren’t just an economic threat: They’re a political threat. Because they’re largely free of market constraints, they don’t have to put all their energy into making a better product for less money. Instead, they put a lot of their energy into political manipulation to protect their monopoly.

Monopolies of the 21st century are even more powerful than those in previous generations. Why? Because modern monopolies, especially those in the social media space, wield tremendous political power as a result of their ability to control mass communications.

And these new tech monsters have a one-two punch that Standard Oil lacked: Not only do they control immense wealth and important industries, but their fields of operation — which give them enormous control over communications, including communications about politics — also give them direct political power that in many ways exceeds that of previous monopolies.

You can read all of Reynolds’ column here.

via Breitbart News

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.breitbart.com

Poll: Americans Believe Social Media Harms Free Speech


Conservatives are having a difficult time trusting that social media companies will protect the First Amendment.

In a new poll released by Axios, the general sentiment towards big tech companies such as Google and Facebook was negative. A majority of those polled said that they felt tech companies were harming both democracy and free speech. Republicans weren’t alone in their concern: independents and Democrats had also lost faith in tech companies. Overall, 57% of those polled felt that social media was destroying democracy and free speech, while only 40% still retained faith in those companies.

Trust in tech companies dropped significantly from November 2017. As of November 2018, only 30% of Republicans, 39% of independents, and 50% of Democrats trust that social media has the safety democracy and free speech in mind. According to Axios, there has been a 15 point spike in the number of people who worry that the government won’t regulate big tech. There has been a 14 point increase in general distrust towards these platforms.

Much of this could be attributed to the YouTube terrorist video scandal, which showed how easy it was for actual criminals and terrorists to use big tech toward their ends. Censorship among big tech has also become part of the national conversation, from President Trump’s political ad being taken down on Facebook to NRA gun pages being banned on YouTube. Even though in all the congressional hearings, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and YouTube have all denied any censorship, their actions speak louder than their words. Conservative content is not welcome on these platforms.

New regulations on hate speech, the outcry from conservative employees at Google and Facebook, as well as a lack of transparency when it comes to taking content down is taking its toll among social media users in the United States. 67% of Republicans have said that Google Search is biased against them.  49% of conservatives don’t trust Twitter, and 66% of conservatives don’t trust Twitter.

 

via NewsBusters – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.newsbusters.org/

Venezuelans fleeing starvation have created a migrant crisis in Colombia

Here’s an old hard and fast rule for you. The collapse of each experiment in socialism is never contained to the country where it began. That law is being proven yet again in Venezuela, where the turbulence and violence spreading across the imploding nation is now negatively affecting its neighbors, particularly in Colombia. So many sick and starving people are fleeing the tyranny of Nicolas Maduro that Colombia’s available resources to assist them are being overrun. USA Today has a few of the chilling details.

Venezuelan refugees and migrants who have fled their South American homeland has topped 3 million people. More than 1 million are in Colombia and almost 500,000 are in Peru, while the rest are in Ecuador, Argentina, Chile and Brazil. Venezuela is home to about 32 million people.

UN officials said the flood of Venezuelans have “strained” these countries and that UN refugee agencies are planning to launch a humanitarian response to the crisis next month.

As one of the Western Hemisphere’s worst humanitarian crises in decades worsens, the Trump administration has also taken notice, imposing sanctions earlier this month and even considering a potential military intervention.

The interviews with some of the refugees tell a horrifying tale. Young women with children are reduced to begging in the streets and some have abandoned their babies in the hopes that churches or the state will take them in as orphans and feed them. Groups of young women, some underage, gather at night in some of Colombia’s cities to work as prostitutes just to survive. Most of them came into the country illegally and have no papers so they can’t get legitimate work.

The United States has sent $48M in aid to relief organizations there and the United Nations also established a fund to help out, but with more than a million Venezuelan refugees in Colombia alone, there’s not nearly enough money to even provide basic food and shelter for that many.

The most telling sign of how desperate Colombia is can be found in their recent decision to stop opposing US military intervention in Venezuela.

Colombia, meanwhile, ended its opposition to possible U.S. military intervention in Venezuela while its president accused Maduro’s dictatorship of human rights abuses.

“We are experiencing the most outrageous migratory and humanitarian crisis in the region’s recent history, because of a dictatorship that has annihilated freedoms,” [Colombian President Iván Duque Márquez] said before the United Nations.

Don’t expect to see United States troops heading into Caracas to overthrow Maduro any time soon, but it’s rather telling that Duque would make the suggestion in public. Unfortunately, the only realistic way to get rid of the tyrant would be for the people of Venezuela and/or their military to do it themselves. That would lead to a constitutional crisis and the possibility of a brutal military regime taking over the country, but at this point how much worse could it really be?

Behold the end of socialism, just as it almost always happens. And this problem will not be solving itself any time soon.

The post Venezuelans fleeing starvation have created a migrant crisis in Colombia appeared first on Hot Air.

via Hot Air

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://hotair.com

Facebook Details How It Will Penalize ‘Borderline Provocative’ Content


In a lengthy post, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed common concerns and detailed his plans for Facebook in the near future, which included penalizing “borderline” provocative content and stopping users from engaging with it.

In a section of the post titled, “Discouraging Borderline Content,” Zuckerberg declared, “One of the biggest issues social networks face is that, when left unchecked, people will engage disproportionately with more sensationalist and provocative content.”

“This is not a new phenomenon. It is widespread on cable news today and has been a staple of tabloids for more than a century. At scale it can undermine the quality of public discourse and lead to polarization. In our case, it can also degrade the quality of our services,” Zuckerberg continued. “Our research suggests that no matter where we draw the lines for what is allowed, as a piece of content gets close to that line, people will engage with it more on average — even when they tell us afterwards they don’t like the content.”

Zuckerberg then added that it “is a basic incentive problem that we can address by penalizing borderline content so it gets less distribution and engagement.”

“By making the distribution curve look like the graph below where distribution declines as content gets more sensational, people are disincentivized from creating provocative content that is as close to the line as possible,” the Facebook CEO explained. “This process for adjusting this curve is similar to what I described above for proactively identifying harmful content, but is now focused on identifying borderline content instead. We train AI systems to detect borderline content so we can distribute that content less.”

The category we’re most focused on is click-bait and misinformation. People consistently tell us these types of content make our services worse — even though they engage with them. As I mentioned above, the most effective way to stop the spread of misinformation is to remove the fake accounts that generate it. The next most effective strategy is reducing its distribution and virality. (I wrote about these approaches in more detail in my note on Preparing for Elections.)

Interestingly, our research has found that this natural pattern of borderline content getting more engagement applies not only to news but to almost every category of content. For example, photos close to the line of nudity, like with revealing clothing or sexually suggestive positions, got more engagement on average before we changed the distribution curve to discourage this. The same goes for posts that don’t come within our definition of hate speech but are still offensive.

This pattern may apply to the groups people join and pages they follow as well. This is especially important to address because while social networks in general expose people to more diverse views, and while groups in general encourage inclusion and acceptance, divisive groups and pages can still fuel polarization. To manage this, we need to apply these distribution changes not only to feed ranking but to all of our recommendation systems for things you should join.

One common reaction is that rather than reducing distribution, we should simply move the line defining what is acceptable. In some cases this is worth considering, but it’s important to remember that won’t address the underlying incentive problem, which is often the bigger issue. This engagement pattern seems to exist no matter where we draw the lines, so we need to change this incentive and not just remove content.

I believe these efforts on the underlying incentives in our systems are some of the most important work we’re doing across the company. We’ve made significant progress in the last year, but we still have a lot of work ahead.

By fixing this incentive problem in our services, we believe it’ll create a virtuous cycle: by reducing sensationalism of all forms, we’ll create a healthier, less polarized discourse where more people feel safe participating.

Zuckerberg also admitted that around one in ten removals on the platform are a mistake.

“Today, depending on the type of content, our review teams make the wrong call in more than 1 out of every 10 cases,” Zuckerberg claimed. “Reducing these errors is one of our most important priorities… It’s important to remember though that given the size of our community, even if we were able to reduce errors to 1 in 100, that would still be a very large number of mistakes.”

Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington, or like his page at Facebook.

via Breitbart News

Enjoy this article? Read the full version at the authors website: https://www.breitbart.com