90 Zombie Media
from the late 1990s onwards. As Emily Bell remarks, increasingly “media organizations are ranked on their ability to pivot toward new formats
and revenue sources with decisive speed”,
42
but while this has resulted in
users of social media sites being able to receive information more quickly
than ever before, at the same time it means that the constant push to
break news continuously leads to less fact-checking and accurate detail,
even from respected sources. At the same time, Facebook itself finds
itself being pushed increasingly into the role of a sometimes- unwilling
gatekeeper: while Zuckerberg may have repeatedly emphasised the
user-generated aspect of the news feed, a kind of citizen journalism of
our daily lives and friendships, the indiscriminate use of that news feed
by Facebook users to share all kinds of news stories means that increasingly the company is seen as a media provider, with the responsibilities
that attend that position. As a number of commentators observed, by
the end of 2016, Zuckerberg was finally starting to admit that Facebook was a media company, although clearly not a conventional one.
43
Facebook’s eagerness to avoid being labelled a publisher was, as Ansgar
Koene pointed out, due to its desire to avoid the regulations and libel
laws constraining such organisations.
44
What is increasingly clear is that the role taken by more traditional
news organisations with regard to gatekeeping in the past has now
shifted decisively to technology companies such as Google and Facebook. Facebook in particular, as Nahon and Hemsley observe, exercises
gatekeeping through channelling news feeds: the power of traditional
gatekeepers such as CNN, NBC, and ABC has declined with the emergence of social media and thus “today’s gatekeepers are gatekeepers
partly because people pay attention to them”.
45
Increasingly, it has
faced criticism over the opaque techniques that it uses to monitor and
control the flow of information, such as the accusations of censorship
that followed the removal of the famous photograph of a young, naked
Phan Thi Kim Phuc, photographed by Nick Ut as she fled a napalm attack in Vietnam, because the image did not comply with child pornography guidelines, Similarly, outside of the United States, the company
has come under fire for failing to follow local regulations, as when it
was rebuked by the German government for failing to remove quickly
enough hateful or illegal materials. Where the experiment has been the
boldest, however, is in terms of Facebook’s attempt to automate the process of gatekeeping that, traditionally, has been the preserve of editors
and journalists.
As we shall see in the next chapter, the phenomenon of robot journalism is increasingly important in areas such as financial reporting, but
at the time of writing, it is perhaps robot editing or curation that has
a greater impact upon our consumption of the media. The process has
not been fully automated on Facebook by any means. Most notably, a
filter bubble study in 2015 sought to examine the effects of withholding
from the late 1990s onwards. As Emily Bell remarks, increasingly “media organizations are ranked on their ability to pivot toward new formats
and revenue sources with decisive speed”,
42
but while this has resulted in
users of social media sites being able to receive information more quickly
than ever before, at the same time it means that the constant push to
break news continuously leads to less fact-checking and accurate detail,
even from respected sources. At the same time, Facebook itself finds
itself being pushed increasingly into the role of a sometimes- unwilling
gatekeeper: while Zuckerberg may have repeatedly emphasised the
user-generated aspect of the news feed, a kind of citizen journalism of
our daily lives and friendships, the indiscriminate use of that news feed
by Facebook users to share all kinds of news stories means that increasingly the company is seen as a media provider, with the responsibilities
that attend that position. As a number of commentators observed, by
the end of 2016, Zuckerberg was finally starting to admit that Facebook was a media company, although clearly not a conventional one.
43
Facebook’s eagerness to avoid being labelled a publisher was, as Ansgar
Koene pointed out, due to its desire to avoid the regulations and libel
laws constraining such organisations.
44
What is increasingly clear is that the role taken by more traditional
news organisations with regard to gatekeeping in the past has now
shifted decisively to technology companies such as Google and Facebook. Facebook in particular, as Nahon and Hemsley observe, exercises
gatekeeping through channelling news feeds: the power of traditional
gatekeepers such as CNN, NBC, and ABC has declined with the emergence of social media and thus “today’s gatekeepers are gatekeepers
partly because people pay attention to them”.
45
Increasingly, it has
faced criticism over the opaque techniques that it uses to monitor and
control the flow of information, such as the accusations of censorship
that followed the removal of the famous photograph of a young, naked
Phan Thi Kim Phuc, photographed by Nick Ut as she fled a napalm attack in Vietnam, because the image did not comply with child pornography guidelines, Similarly, outside of the United States, the company
has come under fire for failing to follow local regulations, as when it
was rebuked by the German government for failing to remove quickly
enough hateful or illegal materials. Where the experiment has been the
boldest, however, is in terms of Facebook’s attempt to automate the process of gatekeeping that, traditionally, has been the preserve of editors
and journalists.
As we shall see in the next chapter, the phenomenon of robot journalism is increasingly important in areas such as financial reporting, but
at the time of writing, it is perhaps robot editing or curation that has
a greater impact upon our consumption of the media. The process has
not been fully automated on Facebook by any means. Most notably, a
filter bubble study in 2015 sought to examine the effects of withholding