How does Ven know left from right?

Featuring an FAQ at the end.

Ven Diagram

If you just started using Ven and haven’t read about what it’s trying to accomplish, you may want to start here first. Otherwise, read on.

Ven leverages data from a Facebook study which followed 10.1 million American users who self-identified their political leaning on the platform. Among other things, the study tracked the links that they shared over the course of six months. The researchers were ultimately able to compute an average alignment per news publisher on a scale of a liberal -2 to a conservative +2.

The actual study (free registration with Popular Science required to view) is worth a read, but I’ve also gone through and highlighted high level specifics here to save you some time.

The key highlight, which bears reiterating:

Alignment is not a measure of media slant; rather, it captures differences in the kind of content shared among a set of partisans, which can include topic matter, framing, and slant.

Put another way, the study is not classifying the political alignment of news publishers, it is indicating the average self-identified political alignment of those who shared stories from them. This is the definition of alignment as it is used by this study, and thus Ven.

Categories and cutoffs.

If you’ve read my post talking about why Ven is important, then you’ve already seen this chart from the study cited:

Hard news shares as a proportion of all Facebook shares during study, segmented by alignment. Source.

Researchers divided the population of shares during this study into fifths, and shaded the left-most and right-most portions blue and red — you can see this is a significant fraction of total news shares.

Ven takes this further and breaks publishers into the following categories:

1. Far Left
2. Left
3. Moderate Left/Right
4. Right
5. Far Right

Here is the same chart, with alignment cutoffs used by Ven overlaid on top:

Ven Cutoffs

The Far Left and Far Right cutoff points are placed such that every publication (with the exception of just three outliers) beyond the cutoffs were shared by someone with an alignment of -2 or +2 more than 50% of the time.

I am looking forward to receiving feedback on these cutoff points, and am open to moving them in the future if a strong case is made.

How does this differ from Wall Street Journal’s Blue Feed, Red Feed?

As some of you may already know, the dataset used by Ven is also used by the Blue Feed, Red Feed graphic. So how does WSJ’s use of the data differ? You can read their methodology here, but in a nutshell:

1. They, like Ven, started with the top 500 shared news domains in the mentioned Facebook study.
2. Any sources with less than 100k follows on Facebook and less than 100 shares during the study were thrown out. Ven does not apply this filter.
3. Articles appearing in the “Red Feed” are from domains where half of the sharers have an alignment score of +2. These are stories Ven would classify as “Far Right”.
4. Similarly, articles appearing in the “Blue Feed” are from url’s where half of the sharers have an alignment score of -2. These are stories Ven would classify as “Far Left”.
5. Any articles from sources that do not meet criteria from #3 and #3 above never appear in the Blue Feed, Red Feed graphic. This is not the case for Ven.

Ultimately, what Blue Feed, Red Feed and Ven are attempting to accomplish are completely different — one is a global side by side of comparison of shares by the Far Left / Far Right, while the other tries to categorize shared articles across the entire spectrum, on an individual basis.

If you don’t have it already, get Ven. Then send me feedback.

Want to get email updates? Want Ven for Safari? Let me know.

Data from: Bakshy, Eytan; Messing, Solomon; Adamic, Lada, 2015, “Replication Data for: Exposure to Ideologically Diverse News and Opinion on Facebook”, http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/LDJ7MS, Harvard Dataverse, V2

Charts from: Bakshy, Eytan, Solomon Messing, and Lada A. Adamic. “Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook.” Science 348.6239 (2015): 1130–1132.

FAQ

Is Ven changing any of the content in my Facebook feed?

The only content that Ven explicitly changes is the header of the “Trending” section:

After Installing Ven, it is renamed to “My Filter Bubble”:

This serves as a reminder that the topics in this section are not what is objectively trending across all of Facebook, but trending topics Facebook thinks you want to see.

Aside from that, Ven only adds to your existing feed content — by shading the background of shared news, and suggesting publishers shared by the other side below it.

I notice that there are some news shares that are not getting shaded by Ven. Why is that?

Ven uses the top 500 shared “hard news” domains during the mentioned Facebook study. This ends up encompassing a lot of the news shared on the network, but there will be some that Ven does not know how to categorize. For more details on how the list of hard news domains were compiled, I encourage you to read the mentioned Facebook study!

Where can I look to find the full list of 500 domains that Ven is categorizing?

The full list is categorized at the bottom of this post.

Does Ven store any data around what I’m reading?

No. In fact, Ven does not even ask you to make an account. It has no way whatsoever to associate any information with your identity.

How is Ven choosing the domains it is recommending from “the other side”?

Ven is randomly choosing a domain from each of the three categories on the other side of the political spectrum. For example, underneath a news article that is from a domain typically shared by the Left, Ven will recommend a random url typically shared by the Moderate Right, Right, and Far Right. This is so that when you do decide to sample the other side, it is always one click away for you.

I clicked on one of the url’s recommended by Ven, and it seems like the site no longer exists.

Let me know and I will remove it.

Does Ven work in Safari.

Not yet, but if this is something you would be interested in, let me know!

What about iOS or Android?

Unfortunately this is not possible at the moment — anything of this sort within Facebook’s mobile apps would need to be done by Facebook.

Where do I go to contact you?

Here.

Full list of domains used by Ven.

Running list of domains from study being excluded

(reasons: satire, social media, e-commerce)

theonion.com

twitter.com

youtube.com

m.youtube.com

vimeo.com

amazon.com

Far Left (average alignment)

readersupportednews.org (-0.9984)

act.weareultraviolet.org (-0.971)

commondreams.org (-0.9673)

thenewcivilrightsmovement.com (-0.9643)

jezebel.com (-0.9487)

ringoffireradio.com (-0.9472)

thenation.com (-0.9463)

rightwingwatch.org (-0.9407)

liberalamerica.org (-0.9387)

democracynow.org (-0.934)

advocate.com (-0.9276)

crooksandliars.com (-0.9218)

newnownext.com (-0.9097)

samuel-warde.com (-0.9095)

politicususa.com (-0.9037)

alan.com (-0.9009)

occupydemocrats.com (-0.899)

dailykos.com (-0.8972)

d.shpg.org (-0.8971)

ifyouonlynews.com (-0.8964)

share.credoaction.com (-0.8941)

truth-out.org (-0.8937)

aattp.org (-0.8936)

theeverlastinggopstoppers.com (-0.8928)

reverbpress.com (-0.8922)

addictinginfo.org (-0.8894)

bluenationreview.com (-0.8883)

leftaction.com (-0.8878)

lovebscott.com (-0.883)

alternet.org (-0.8804)

salon.com (-0.8753)

forwardprogressives.com (-0.8744)

globalgrind.com (-0.8729)

egbertowillies.com (-0.8701)

motherjones.com (-0.8663)

thinkprogress.org (-0.8615)

talkingpointsmemo.com (-0.8614)

madamenoire.com (-0.8568)

truthdig.com (-0.8565)

ecowatch.com (-0.8554)

rawstory.com (-0.8534)

sanders.senate.gov (-0.8528)

mediamatters.org (-0.8509)

lgbtqnation.com (-0.8501)

grist.org (-0.8452)

billmoyers.com (-0.839)

thegrio.com (-0.8326)

nationofchange.org (-0.8262)

msnbc.com (-0.8102)

upworthy.com (-0.8097)

barackobama.com (-0.8077)

electronicintifada.net (-0.8074)

newsone.com (-0.7794)

theroot.com (-0.7792)

tytnetwork.com (-0.7785)

boingboing.net (-0.7779)

blackamericaweb.com (-0.7772)

gawker.com (-0.7749)

attn.com (-0.7747)

nahadaily.com (-0.7746)

aclu.org (-0.7686)

farrahgray.com (-0.7616)

host.madison.com (-0.7585)

newyorker.com (-0.7584)

gothamist.com (-0.7415)

america.aljazeera.com (-0.7362)

mondoweiss.net (-0.7135)

mic.com (-0.7083)

atlantablackstar.com (-0.7055)

worldstarhiphop.com (-0.7047)

takepart.com (-0.7045)

app.actionsprout.com (-0.6993)

thecolbertreport.cc.com (-0.6937)

indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com (-0.692)

slate.com (-0.6813)

firstlook.org (-0.6805)

thedailyshow.cc.com (-0.6704)

newrepublic.com (-0.6695)

news.kron4.com (-0.6604)

vox.com (-0.6591)

secure.nrdconline.org (-0.6553)

middleeastmonitor.com (-0.6544)

rollingstone.com (-0.6487)

secure3.convio.net (-0.6422)

vice.com (-0.6267)

io9.com (-0.6232)

huffingtonpost.com (-0.6176)

npr.org (-0.6103)

trueactivist.com (-0.6032)

thepetitionsite.com (-0.6)

dailydot.com (-0.5961)

aljazeera.com (-0.5895)

student-debt-forgiveness.com (-0.5858)

sfgate.com (-0.581)

theguardian.com (-0.5723)

pix11.com (-0.5719)

battleforthenet.com (-0.5612)

alternativemediasyndicate.com (-0.5579)

countercurrentnews.com (-0.556)

nytimes.com (-0.5469)

theatlantic.com (-0.5424)

pbs.org (-0.5393)

whitehouse.gov (-0.5325)

hemp.org (-0.5268)

buzzfeed.com (-0.5242)

hightimes.com (-0.5232)

fivethirtyeight.com (-0.5225)

haaretz.com (-0.504)

6abc.com (-0.5037)

abc7chicago.com (-0.503)

nbcbayarea.com (-0.5023)

ted.com (-0.4859)

politifact.com (-0.4802)

tampabay.com (-0.4745)

qz.com (-0.4713)

earthweareone.com (-0.4698)

huffingtonpost.ca (-0.469)

freep.com (-0.4596)

thedailybeast.com (-0.4561)

iflscience.com (-0.4537)

uproxx.com (-0.4468)

wusa9.com (-0.4447)

bostonglobe.com (-0.4446)

cleveland.com (-0.4428)

hightimes.com (-0.4301)

nbcwashington.com (-0.4291)

news.vice.com (-0.4284)

investigations.peta.org (-0.4281)

huffingtonpost.co.uk (-0.4205)

huzlers.com (-0.4188)

presstv.ir (-0.4142)

mashable.com (-0.4106)

anonhq.com (-0.4102)

7online.com (-0.4067)

jsonline.com (-0.4045)

wired.com (-0.4027)

kansascity.com (-0.4023)

themindunleashed.org (-0.4008)

Left (average alignment)

latimes.com (-0.3995)

filmingcops.com (-0.389)

dailycurrant.com (-0.375)

nbcnewyork.com (-0.3704)

philly.com (-0.3668)

clickondetroit.com (-0.3654)

thefreethoughtproject.com (-0.3618)

independent.co.uk (-0.3598)

wgntv.com (-0.3593)

theantimedia.org (-0.3584)

local10.com (-0.3545)

wxyz.com (-0.3539)

myfoxdetroit.com (-0.3483)

change.org (-0.3442)

myfoxchicago.com (-0.342)

miamiherald.com (-0.3418)

nbcchicago.com (-0.3416)

time.com (-0.3336)

bbc.co.uk (-0.3313)

nbcphiladelphia.com (-0.3285)

oregonlive.com (-0.3203)

briefly.today (-0.3198)

wjla.com (-0.3195)

mlive.com (-0.3186)

economist.com (-0.3173)

chicagotribune.com (-0.3117)

abc7.com (-0.31)

stltoday.com (-0.309)

collective-evolution.com (-0.3014)

gizmodo.com (-0.3002)

nj.com (-0.2969)

nbcnews.com (-0.2735)

newsweek.com (-0.2726)

cnn.com (-0.2705)

patheos.com (-0.2624)

edition.cnn.com (-0.2615)

businessweek.com (-0.2615)

bbc.com (-0.2609)

theverge.com (-0.2609)

yournewswire.com (-0.2572)

chicago.cbslocal.com (-0.2568)

washingtonpost.com (-0.2568)

money.cnn.com (-0.2565)

elitedaily.com (-0.2558)

globalresearch.ca (-0.252)

Moderate Left (average alignment)

nbclosangeles.com (-0.2456)

newjersey.news12.com (-0.2447)

kgw.com (-0.2359)

m.nydailynews.com (-0.2295)

ktla.com (-0.2287)

wpxi.com (-0.2221)

hlntv.com (-0.2211)

nola.com (-0.2175)

wftv.com (-0.2162)

wikipedia.org (-0.2145)

nydailynews.com (-0.2139)

kctv5.com (-0.2071)

people.com (-0.2034)

bigstory.ap.org (-0.2022)

newyork.cbslocal.com (-0.2017)

ora.tv (-0.2014)

denverpost.com (-0.2012)

petitions.whitehouse.gov (-0.2005)

nbcconnecticut.com (-0.1992)

courant.com (-0.1968)

foxbaltimore.com (-0.1907)

kirotv.com (-0.1907)

abc11.com (-0.19)

wcvb.com (-0.185)

theweek.com (-0.1809)

pittsburgh.cbslocal.com (-0.1747)

bangordailynews.com (-0.1732)

azcentral.com (-0.1731)

wfsb.com (-0.1726)

fox8.com (-0.1676)

today.com (-0.1668)

komonews.com (-0.1643)

sacramento.cbslocal.com (-0.1622)

abcnews.go.com (-0.1605)

bloomberg.com (-0.1565)

kmov.com (-0.1538)

foreignpolicy.com (-0.1516)

topinfopost.com (-0.1502)

rt.com (-0.1488)

ibtimes.com (-0.1405)

fox2now.com (-0.1395)

politico.com (-0.1334)

mediaite.com (-0.1326)

baltimoresun.com (-0.1321)

cbsnews.com (-0.127)

myfoxtwincities.com (-0.1171)

nbcsandiego.com (-0.1038)

ksdk.com (-0.1001)

10tv.com (-0.0984)

wfmz.com (-0.0973)

reuters.com (-0.0945)

fox6now.com (-0.0939)

wsbtv.com (-0.0872)

msn.com (-0.084)

blogs.wsj.com (-0.0746)

wtvr.com (-0.0734)

myfoxny.com (-0.0713)

kptv.com (-0.0685)

wral.com (-0.0685)

usatoday.com (-0.0635)

silive.com (-0.0627)

news.msn.com (-0.0623)

businessinsider.com (-0.0585)

worldtruth.tv (-0.0491)

brainfall.com (-0.0483)

gma.yahoo.com (-0.0472)

c-span.org (-0.0442)

usnews.com (-0.0392)

kxan.com (-0.039)

jrn.com (-0.0377)

wnep.com (-0.0328)

9news.com (-0.032)

wbaltv.com (-0.0221)

myfox8.com (-0.021)

empirenews.net (-0.0158)

q13fox.com (-0.0132)

thedenverchannel.com (-0.012)

policestateusa.com (-0.0106)

patch.com (-0.0102)

what-character-are-you.com (-0.009)

wtsp.com (-0.0038)

whio.com (-0.0029)

quizony.com (-0.0018)

Moderate Right (average alignment)

al.com (0.009)

abc13.com (0.0097)

aol.com (0.0133)

nationaljournal.com (0.0191)

fox59.com (0.0195)

kdvr.com (0.0225)

ibtimes.co.uk (0.0264)

telegraph.co.uk (0.0269)

wfla.com (0.041)

azfamily.com (0.0439)

fox4kc.com (0.0444)

news.yahoo.com (0.0493)

cnbc.com (0.0503)

fox13now.com (0.0538)

forbes.com (0.0563)

baynews9.com (0.0586)

valleycentral.com (0.0592)

secretsofthefed.com (0.0666)

11alive.com (0.0686)

finance.yahoo.com (0.0777)

myfoxal.com (0.0788)

inquisitr.com (0.0977)

wmur.com (0.098)

koco.com (0.1027)

scgnews.com (0.1063)

kfor.com (0.1097)

wsfa.com (0.1107)

nationalreport.net (0.1168)

khou.com (0.1182)

wfaa.com (0.1198)

nbcdfw.com (0.1204)

okcfox.com (0.1296)

click2houston.com (0.1329)

news9.com (0.1417)

myfoxtampabay.com (0.1475)

myfoxdfw.com (0.1633)

thehill.com (0.1661)

firstcoastnews.com (0.1755)

latino.foxnews.com (0.2312)

fox10phoenix.com (0.2386)

nypost.com (0.2497)

whnt.com (0.265)

opposingviews.com (0.2685)

wsj.com (0.2754)

online.wsj.com (0.2764)

dailymail.co.uk (0.286)

quiznatic.com (0.2979)

liveleak.com (0.3231)

foxcarolina.com (0.3233)

washington.cbslocal.com (0.3279)

ynetnews.com (0.3335)

navytimes.com (0.3365)

reason.com (0.3502)

stripes.com (0.3658)

timesofisrael.com (0.3685)

examiner.com (0.3807)

warrior.scout.com (0.3947)

military.com (0.4081)

jpost.com (0.4149)

armytimes.com (0.4171)

voicesofliberty.com (0.4358)

algemeiner.com (0.4456)

militarytimes.com (0.4459)

popularmilitary.com (0.4461)

Right (average alignment)

zerohedge.com (0.4721)

naturalnews.com (0.4837)

benswann.com (0.4846)

policeone.com (0.5063)

virtualjerusalem.com (0.512)

duffelblog.com (0.5205)

catholicnewsagency.com (0.5209)

marinecorpstimes.com (0.5372)

healthimpactnews.com (0.5548)

jewishpress.com (0.5559)

unitedwithisrael.org (0.5564)

hosted.ap.org (0.5827)

beforeitsnews.com (0.5876)

odmp.org (0.5967)

funker530.com (0.5984)

infowars.com (0.5997)

newsiosity.com (0.6111)

thepolicewifelifeblog.com (0.6271)

rare.us (0.6386)

Far Right (average alignment)

realclearpolitics.com (0.6616)

christianpost.com (0.6722)

againstcronycapitalism.org (0.6857)

jewsnews.co.il (0.6922)

thetruthaboutguns.com (0.6965)

radio.foxnews.com (0.6973)

washingtontimes.com (0.6975)

israelvideonetwork.com (0.706)

breakingisraelnews.com (0.7086)

guns.com (0.7536)

endtimeheadlines.org (0.7572)

israelnationalnews.com (0.7646)

newsmax.com (0.7697)

bearingarms.com (0.77)

foxnews.com (0.7754)

tellmenow.com (0.7818)

controversialtimes.com (0.7836)

gunssavelives.net (0.7862)

truthandaction.org (0.7952)

thenewamerican.com (0.7993)

endtime.com (0.8043)

dcclothesline.com (0.806)

christiannews.net (0.807)

tacticalshit.com (0.8118)

washingtonexaminer.com (0.8124)

viralsurvival.com (0.813)

next-genpatriots.com (0.8144)

thepcmdgazette.com (0.8222)

politicalears.com (0.8225)

insider.foxnews.com (0.8239)

800whistleblower.com (0.8268)

washingtonexaminer.com (0.8285)

judicialwatch.org (0.8287)

patriotnewswire.com (0.829)

americanoverlook.com (0.8311)

foxnewsinsider.com (0.8334)

video.foxnews.com (0.838)

jihadwatch.org (0.839)

truthuncensored.net (0.8463)

threepercenternation.com (0.8465)

prepperchimp.com (0.8496)

americasfreedomfighters.com (0.8523)

teapartycrusaders.com (0.8525)

nraila.org (0.8529)

nowtheendbegins.com (0.8533)

numbersusa.com (0.8549)

legalinsurrection.com (0.8557)

thefederalist.com (0.8559)

100percentfedup.com (0.856)

theuspatriot.com (0.8568)

barenakedislam.com (0.8589)

madworldnews.com (0.8609)

qpolitical.com (0.861)

woundedamericanwarrior.com (0.8614)

pamelageller.com (0.8632)

mrctv.org (0.8636)

personalliberty.com (0.8637)

universalfreepress.com (0.8641)

americannews.com (0.8651)

thefederalistpapers.org (0.8659)

m.cnsnews.com (0.8665)

conservativeoutfitters.com (0.8686)

dailycaller.com (0.8697)

shoebat.com (0.8703)

charismanews.com (0.871)

cruz.senate.gov (0.8733)

dcbeacon.com (0.8735)

freebeacon.com (0.8778)

toprightnews.com (0.8796)

truthrevolt.org (0.8805)

rightwingnews.com (0.8824)

dcgazette.com (0.883)

conservativetribune.com (0.8866)

joeforamerica.com (0.8878)

reagancoalition.com (0.8878)

theblaze.com (0.8887)

patriotupdate.com (0.8892)

defund.com (0.8898)

headlinepolitics.com (0.8898)

ijreview.com (0.8901)

allenbwest.com (0.8918)

rightwingnews.com (0.8935)

libertynews.com (0.8947)

news.investors.com (0.8955)

conservativepost.com (0.8962)

newsninja2012.com (0.8971)

cnsnews.com (0.8979)

westernjournalism.com (0.8991)

cnsnews.com (0.8994)

thepoliticalinsider.com (0.8998)

nationalreview.com (0.9009)

nation.foxnews.com (0.9012)

wnd.com (0.9013)

eaglerising.com (0.9018)

theminorityreportblog.com (0.9026)

freedomoutpost.com (0.9042)

capitalisminstitute.org (0.9044)

conservativebyte.com (0.9063)

weeklystandard.com (0.9074)

nationalprolifealliance.com (0.9108)

americanthinker.com (0.9112)

pjmedia.com (0.9125)

downtrend.com (0.9136)

breitbart.com (0.9136)

bizpacreview.com (0.9142)

redflagnews.com (0.9163)

newsbusters.org (0.9168)

viral.buzz (0.9176)

dailysurge.com (0.9195)

clashdaily.com (0.9218)

liveactionnews.org (0.9228)

hotair.com (0.9247)

nrcc.org (0.9257)

townhall.com (0.9263)

aclj.org (0.9268)

gop.com (0.9268)

therightscoop.com (0.9275)

frontpagemag.com (0.9284)

sonsoflibertymedia.com (0.9286)

humanevents.com (0.9303)

conservativeinfidel.com (0.9306)

dailysignal.com (0.9319)

tpnn.com (0.9323)

caintv.com (0.934)

lifesitenews.com (0.9366)

dineshdsouza.com (0.937)

twitchy.com (0.9375)

barracudabrigade.net (0.9381)

gopthedailydose.com (0.9386)

thegatewaypundit.com (0.9389)

video.lauraingraham.com (0.9419)

allenwestrepublic.com (0.9423)

teaparty.org (0.9423)

hannity.com (0.9444)

ulstermanbooks.com (0.9456)

conservativerefocus.com (0.9457)

youngcons.com (0.9588)

redstate.com (0.9624)

lifenews.com (0.9664)

glennbeck.com (0.969)

nationalrighttolifenews.org (0.9739)

buzzpo.com (0.976)

youngcons.com (0.9782)

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