Apple News App Gains '2018 Midterm Elections' Section in the U.S.

[fairuz]

I just pulled it up and one of the first articles I saw was from Fox News so...

Yeah, actually a lot of my Apple News is opinions from Fox or other Republican-supporting sources. So it looks like they show at least two sides. I don't even click on them, so it's not that.'

Google News, on the other hand, has always been obviously biased when I read it, which I do when I'd rather not read on my phone (idk why there wasn't News for Mac to start). But they show multiple sources for each story, which makes it easier in many cases to see multiple sides. Apple should really do that too.

 

[centauratlas]

Confirmation bias.
People tend to read only the articles/sources that align with their beliefs.

I remember a speaker wisely suggesting that everyone should challenge their thinking by reading/watching news with the opposite political beliefs/bias to their own.. and be able to come up with a rational and rigorous critical appraisal, highlighting valid comment as well as misleading or mistruth.

Take a look at this:
http://www.readacrosstheaisle.com

It attempts to get people out of their comfort zone.

(And using it you can read the Wall Street Journal free among many others).

edit: not affiliated, just have used it.

 

[fairuz]

Yea, I don’t use it for that reason. AN is curated, and an appropriate question is “by whom?”

I’ll curate my own stories and sources, TYFM.

Ok, do you do that? Where do you find them in the first place? You can usually get stuff not targeted for dumb people if you go on certain Subreddits, but you usually have to sift through a ton of stuff as well.
[doublepost=1529946849][/doublepost]

I'm not even American, but Apple getting involved in politics (and even news) makes me feel uneasy.

Same, I miss it when they just made awesome devices each year, and they were too happy or too focused to care about politics. Oh well, it's not going to come back.

 

[Kaibelf]

As a side note, I dislike the sharp turn Apple has taken politically--not its institutional stance, which has always been liberal, but its attempt to jam it down the throats of its users. Every time I opened the app store this past weekend I was deluged with homosexual dating apps.

So? It's Pride, and you don't have to participate. All year I spotted featured listings for apps that weren't my thing also, but I didn't feel threatened or assaulted by them. I never accused Apple of trying to "jam fantasy sports apps down my throat." But then again, I'm not the only person on the planet and I accept that, and don't need to feel hostility toward others with different interests.

One note for you, however: gay people are not a political party and being gay is not a political movement. They are real people who have been wronged by this world in major ways for far too long. In fact, you can get on a ouija board and thank Alan Turing for laying a lot of the groundwork for the devices you use every day, even though that war hero was treated horribly by the state because he was gay. THAT was someone having political garbage jammed down his throat when all he wanted was to live his life, but your kind of hostility killed that man, and that man saved millions of lives.

 

[hagar]

I’m not sure this is curated by humans. They have algorithms in place to deal with selecting and showing articles. And maybe some final checks by an editor.

The result will not be slanted to the left. It will be slanted to facts. Which happen to offend the right most of the time.

Not that the right is always lying, but the GOP and Trump are. So do yourselves a favour America, get a new political party. It would change your dynamics and fix a broken political system. Imagine these politicians if a third party showed up. They would all wet their pants.

 

[fairuz]

I’m not sure this is curated by humans. They have algorithms in place to deal with selecting and showing articles. And maybe some final checks by an editor.

The result will not be slanted to the left. It will be slanted to facts. Which happen to offend the right most of the time.

Not that the right is always lying, but the GOP and Trump are. So do yourselves a favour America, get a new political party. It would change your dynamics and fix a broken political system. Imagine these politicians if a third party showed up. They would all wet their pants.

Any machine learning algorithm like this will not be unbiased. If anything it'll be worse because a few unknown devs will make it. Also, "slanted towards facts:" I see mostly opinion articles on my news feed, not that that's bad.

 

[That70sGAdawg]

Deleted, not worth it.

 

[djlythium]

Ok, do you do that? Where do you find them in the first place? You can usually get stuff not targeted for dumb people if you go on certain Subreddits, but you usually have to sift through a ton of stuff as well.
[doublepost=1529946849][/doublepost]
Same, I miss it when they just made awesome devices each year, and they were too happy or too focused to care about politics. Oh well, it's not going to come back.

I go to a variety of both MSM sites, and Alt-Media sites, in order to get a more wholistic picture of regional and world news. It’s like trying to take the conceptual average across sites, see which are simply regurgitating facts, which are providing new insight, and which are providing a perspective the Powers That Be would rather not have you see.

 

[MDF314159265]

Surely this will be full of biased fictional speculation as the entire news app has been. I deleted the news app for this reason. Apple is just another pusher of liberal media; liberal media is worthless. Fox isn’t any better either. American media is bought and they only tell you what their sponsors want you to hear/read. Google and Apple will only actively push these outlets as well, since they’re sponsored by the same people.
I won’t tell you something stupid like “you should vote this way or that,” but I will say: don’t trust these sources. They’re distractions and feed misinformation. They spoon feed “sound bites” and report speculation instead of information. Your best bet, and (really) every American’s responsibility, is to investigate and understand for oneself the issues of the day. I’d go as far as to say we might become “united” again if people turned off the liberal media.

 

[ksnell]

It’s an aggregation feed. Do you think the manpower used on it would make ANY difference on MacOS base code?
[doublepost=1529925141][/doublepost]

If only this subsection of the specialized news app wasn’t compulsory!

You're thinking at a micro level instead of macro. The collective releases of a company do show a direction and where their priorities lie. This is about allocation of dollars toward manpower, not the actual manpower currently under employ.

 

[fairuz]

Surely this will be full of biased fictional speculation as the entire news app has been. I deleted the news app for this reason. Apple is just another pusher of liberal media; liberal media is worthless. Fox isn’t any better either. American media is bought and they only tell you what their sponsors want you to hear/read. Google and Apple will only actively push these outlets as well, since they’re sponsored by the same people.
I won’t tell you something stupid like “you should vote this way or that,” but I will say: don’t trust these sources. They’re distractions and feed misinformation. They spoon feed “sound bites” and report speculation instead of information. Your best bet, and (really) every American’s responsibility, is to investigate and understand for oneself the issues of the day. I’d go as far as to say we might become “united” again if people turned off the liberal media.

I never thought I'd say this a few years ago, but I've noticed it's as bad as you say. My feed is now dominated by one-sentence quotes that are out of context (usually from Trump or anyone who's shown support for him), and I feel like it's gotten worse lately.

And as always, lots of news is "regurgitated" as you say, so it's like hearing a rumor that's been altered many times, filled with maybe honest mistakes. It's most obvious when there's local or tech news I have unusual knowledge of, and I see it totally misrepresented in national or world news (my old city used to be featured there a lot). The best I have time to do is look at multiple sources. Better would be to read original sources.

 

[DrewDaHilp1]

I’m not sure this is curated by humans. They have algorithms in place to deal with selecting and showing articles. And maybe some final checks by an editor.

The result will not be slanted to the left. It will be slanted to facts. Which happen to offend the right most of the time.

Not that the right is always lying, but the GOP and Trump are. So do yourselves a favour America, get a new political party. It would change your dynamics and fix a broken political system. Imagine these politicians if a third party showed up. They would all wet their pants.

They would all wet their pants with excitement when a third party shows up just because it’s going to pull votes from one of the two Parties that actually have a realistic chance at winning an election.

 

[Glockworkorange]

So? It's Pride, and you don't have to participate. All year I spotted featured listings for apps that weren't my thing also, but I didn't feel threatened or assaulted by them. I never accused Apple of trying to "jam fantasy sports apps down my throat." But then again, I'm not the only person on the planet and I accept that, and don't need to feel hostility toward others with different interests.

One note for you, however: gay people are not a political party and being gay is not a political movement. They are real people who have been wronged by this world in major ways for far too long. In fact, you can get on a ouija board and thank Alan Turing for laying a lot of the groundwork for the devices you use every day, even though that war hero was treated horribly by the state because he was gay. THAT was someone having political garbage jammed down his throat when all he wanted was to live his life, but your kind of hostility killed that man, and that man saved millions of lives.

Homosexuality is mainstream. Corporations are falling all over themselves to put rainbows in their marketing material. Gay marriage is legal in all 50 states. The Republican Party had a gay keynote speaker and unfurled the rainbow flag, for heaven's sake. We're not in 1981.

What are the "wrongs" you are fighting? Those battles are largely decided. Please, enough with the "courage," or "fighting" or "fierce pride." Being gay is as corporate and establishment as apple pie. It's one of the main reasons the gay lobby has had to move on to other "civil rights," like bathrooms and the sanctity of voluntary gender mutilation.

 

[glindon]

I just pulled it up and one of the first articles I saw was from Fox News so...

A lot of stuff from Fox News is neocon/RINO garbage though. There should be at least a 50/50 ratio of Left/Right leaning publishers.

 

[fairuz]

A lot of stuff from Fox News is neocon/RINO garbage though. There should be at least a 50/50 ratio of Left/Right leaning publishers.

Well also Fox News is just poorly written and overall ghetto. They're even worse than CNN. I wish there were a better mainstream news org to support that side.

 

[Kaibelf]

Homosexuality is mainstream. Corporations are falling all over themselves to put rainbows in their marketing material. Gay marriage is legal in all 50 states. The Republican Party had a gay keynote speaker and unfurled the rainbow flag, for heaven's sake. We're not in 1981.

What are the "wrongs" you are fighting? Those battles are largely decided. Please, enough with the "courage," or "fighting" or "fierce pride." Being gay is as corporate and establishment as apple pie. It's one of the main reasons the gay lobby has had to move on to other "civil rights," like bathrooms and the sanctity of voluntary gender mutilation.

Get back to me when one of the two major political parties still has as part of their platform that gay people don't have real marriages, and when it's illegal to fire someone for being gay in this entire country instead of it being perfectly legal in 28 out of 50 states. Or do you think it's right to be able to fire someone because he happens to put a picture of himself and his husband on his desk instead of him and his wife? Here's a citation for you:

https://www.fastcompany.com/4045693...ou-can-still-get-fired-for-being-gay-or-trans

Also, didn't the current Attorney General of the US instruct the DOJ to side against a skydiving instructor who lost his job after 20 professional years because a customer complained about having to work with a gay person? Yes, yes he did. That case destroyed a man's life, and he ultimately took up reckless thrill seeking and BASE jumping and died as a result. Another body for your count.

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc...enter-major-gay-rights-case-never-got-n852846

Leave gay people alone. The days of backing down from your interference are finished. If you have a problem with them, deal with it. No one needs your permission, and no one wants you to like them, but you will respect them as people.

 

[hagar]

Homosexuality is mainstream. Corporations are falling all over themselves to put rainbows in their marketing material. Gay marriage is legal in all 50 states. The Republican Party had a gay keynote speaker and unfurled the rainbow flag, for heaven's sake. We're not in 1981.

What are the "wrongs" you are fighting? Those battles are largely decided. Please, enough with the "courage," or "fighting" or "fierce pride." Being gay is as corporate and establishment as apple pie. It's one of the main reasons the gay lobby has had to move on to other "civil rights," like bathrooms and the sanctity of voluntary gender mutilation.

Your ignorant, insulting post is proof enough the battle is far from over.

 

[batchtaster]

Watching from the outside as the U.S. implodes and burns itself to the ground is a real trip.

 

[hagar]

Watching from the outside as the U.S. implodes and burns itself to the ground is a real trip.

It sure is entertaining. And they did withdraw almost completely from the world stage because apparently you can't MAGA and police the planet at the same time ;-) Not sure if they will implode but Trump definitely is working hard to turn back the clock 50 years. But sooner or later they will have to realise they need allies and business partners.

To be honest: I really don't care. They got the president they deserve. Wouldn't be surprised if they re-elect him in 2 years. The only sad thing is that they pulled from the Paris agreement and as a climate scientist I fully realise climate change is one of the biggest threats facing the planet and humanity. And with all his crazy sh*t going on, nobody is talking about it anymore. He might very well have sealed the deal because it's going to get rough. Luckily companies like Apple realise the urgency of the matter and at least do something, even if it's not enough. By a long shot.