Saturday, January 13, 2018

Newsfeeds

There has been a great deal of discussion of Facebook and its newsfeeds. First I have to admit I had Facebook when I was at MIT a few years back, when it first came out, my grad students told me I had to, but soon saw it as a waste. Second, I use my own news feeds on Feedly, and go directly to a mass of various opinions.

I see China Daily, RT, Guardian, BBC, Jerusalem Post, NY Times, Breitbart, a bunch of Progressive Sites, Rand reports, Deutsche Welle, Le Monde, Vatican, and tons of other stuff. Thus I rely upon no one to "feed" me news. I try to get to see all sides. 

I recall back in High School, as a Freshman, we had to get the NY Times every day, cut out a news story, paste it to a piece of paper and then write a commentary on it. After a year of that, and sneaking a look at opposing views, I learned the the NY Times was an opinion piece, not completely transparent. It loved Castro, really did, until he had those nukes aimed at New York. 

So if one wants to get news, try not to read what you agree with, and definitely do not rely upon an entity like Facebook, please.