Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Internal Docs Show Human Intervention at Almost Every Stage Of Facebook's News Operation (theguardian.com)

Posted by msmash on from the facebook-and-how-it-works dept.

More evidence has surfaced to support Gawker's two recent reports that claimed editors manipulate the trending news and a few other aspects on Facebook. The Guardian, citing leaked documents it obtained, reports that the topics one sees on Facebook are determined on a number of factors including "engagement, timeliness, Pages you've liked and your location." From the report: But the documents show that the company relies heavily on the intervention of a small editorial team to determine what makes its "trending module" headlines -- the list of news topics that shows up on the side of the browser window on Facebook's desktop version. The company backed away from a pure-algorithm approach in 2014 after criticism that it had not included enough coverage of unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, in users' feeds. The guidelines show human intervention -- and therefore editorial decisions -- at almost every stage of Facebook's trending news operation, a team that at one time was as few as 12 people.Sam Biddle of Gawker, wrote: Never trust what a company tells you, on/off record -- FB straight up lied to Recode last year. He adds: unless they're under oath a company like Facebook has every incentive to lie about how it operates. It's not illegal to lie to a reporter!"

Update: 05/12 20:49 GMT by M : Facebook has published a blog post in which it explains how Trending Topics on its platform works. The company insists that there is no discrimination against sources of any political origin.

9 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. Bad headline: "Its News Operation"? by tepples · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Whose internal docs, and whose news operation? The Slashdot headline lacks any clue that the subject is Facebook.

    1. Re:Bad headline: "Its News Operation"? by msmash · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Fixed! Was editing some other story, saw this breaking news -- had to quickly get it up.

    2. Re:Bad headline: "Its News Operation"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Kudos for fixing it when it was reported! Another good sign that the new owners are a lot more diligent than Dice ever was.

      Thanks manishs, as a Slashdot oldtimer, it makes me happy. :-)

  2. Well, Gawker would know by RevDisk · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They're not exactly the highest professional or unbiased quasi news entity either.

    1. Re:Well, Gawker would know by Tailhook · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yeah, but they did this one right. They broke the story but held back evidence; just enough to make headlines but leave room for plausible denials. Naturally Facebook categorically denied everything. Boom; leaked editorial guidelines published; oh look, editors everywhere. "Blacklists." "Injection."

      It will be interesting to see their response to the Senate. Particularly if they maintain records of what got blacklisted and injected.

      And there has never been as much love for the `rights' of private corporations — or Fakebook in particular — on Slashdot. Watching you people scatter in the light is really amazing.

      --
      Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
    2. Re: Well, Gawker would know by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      All news sources are biased. If FB had said Trending Topics was really just news articles selected by some Ivy League trained journalism majors there wouldn't be a scandal. The problem is that they claimed their news reflected user interests, when it actually was more like the New York Times

  3. Napoleon by SeattleLawGuy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Napoleon was the best general in the world because he bought the Newspapers. Propaganda is a weapon of war and a way to shape society and opinion.

    Manipulating trending topics is essentially a violation of the neutrality that people expect from their data providers. (And that we require from common carriers. Facebook is basically a common carrier at this point--how many hundreds of millions of messages, articles, advertisements, events, etc... go through Facebook?)

    --
    Real lawyers write in C++
  4. Re:HU-Man? by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    This all started because not enough FB folks were upset about Ferguson and posting about it....???

    Who was deciding that not "enough" people were posting about it to make the newsfeeds....?

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  5. Tech can have a political dimension by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Slashdot is News for Nerds. Yet often has political articles because of editors and votes.

    Every now and then, technology intersects strongly with politics, such as when restrictions on information or technology or abuse of either are enshrined in law. Such is the case with surveillance, global warming, GMO labelling, workplace non-discrimination, and many other topics that hold huge interest among a large number of technology-oriented people.

    When there is news in such areas, Slashdot would be remiss not to report on them. You may not like the majority opinion in such threads (and indeed the majority often has it ass backwards), but the reports are often right on topic as News for Nerds.

    The solution for your lack of interest in such topics is so simple that I'm surprised that it didn't occur to you: just don't read them.