In the wake of reports that Facebook censors conservative voices, media figure Glenn Beck met with company chairman Mark Zuckerberg and emerged from the meeting, as he put it, "convinced that Facebook is behaving appropriately and trying to do the right thing." Nothing to see here, move along. Unfortunately, this is nonsense.
Beck admits in his article on this subject, "I am not an expert on data or AI or algorithms." Neither am I. But the Facebook censorship in the news isn't about artificial intelligence but human intelligence--and its biases. In fact, the focus on technology could be (I'm not implying this is the case with Beck) an effort at Machiavellian misdirection: "Watch what the machine is doing, watch the machine, so you don't see the man behind the curtain."