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Internal Docs Show Human Intervention at Almost Every Stage Of Facebook's News Operation (theguardian.com)
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.
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.
They're not exactly the highest professional or unbiased quasi news entity either.
Facebook can place on their website whatever the hell they like. They are not a monopoly subject to government oversight. Facebook will not be testifying before a committee on this manner.
Fixed! Was editing some other story, saw this breaking news -- had to quickly get it up.
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++
If you think FB is unfairly biased, just buy myspace and turn it into Fox News.
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.........
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Facebook is an entertainment company, not a news company. Facebook's business goal is to ~encourage~ its users to visit the site as often as possible and stay as long as possible.
It is completely and wholly Facebook's prerogative how Facebook accomplishes its business goals, with legal parameters, of course.
So long as Facebook is not breaking the law, I say that the complainers should take their whining somewhere else.
And to those idiots in Congress who are wasting public money on this, why in the world are you messing with facebook when the good people of Flint, MI still cannot drink the water?
Are you attempting to imply that they lied about Facebook? Are you attempting to claim that Facebook lying to customers has no impact? Are you trying to claim that because one person did something wrong they can never point out that another did something wrong? Are you trying to claim that Facebook is innocent? What is the point, perhaps simply a cheap attempt at karma whoring?
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
a public company has an obligation to its shareholders to make as much money as possible.
That is completely wrong, and it's sad that so many people like yourself think that is at all what the shareholder/company relationship is about.
The company only has a duty to run the company well, which means whatever the company wants it to mean. You could have a company whose primary goal is, for example, to use only recycled material to build birdhouses. They would make more money by using cheaper material, but that is against the company goal...
The shareholder, meanwhile, may invest for a thousand different reasons. Sure they would like to make money but often they are investing in a company whose mission they agree with, even if possibly they could make more money investing elsewhere.
Regardless, again the company does NOT HAVE A DUTY to make "as much money as possible". They can do whatever they like, and larger issues they put up for a vote for shareholders to help decide - but that means if the motivations of the shareholders align with those running the company, the choices could very well be ones that do not "make the most money". Since most public companies have the majority of stock held by a few key people, in fact MOST choices companies make are not "to make the most money", they are about strategic positioning to help the company grow or better do what the company was built to do.
Until you understand this core fact, you will never understand the actions of companies nor indeed make much money in the market.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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. :-)
The outrage here is humans taking the jobs of algorithms?
Anyone who uses Facebook as their primary news source deserves all they get.
"Who was deciding that not "enough" people were posting about it to make the newsfeeds....?" That would be the black lies matter cabal.
Oh, hey Anonymous Coward! You have been around a long time!
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.
The real world and news is not purely black or purely white, and your claim that it can always be true/false is simply ludicrous. Just as ludicrous as your misrepresentation of what Facebook did and does with "news". Facebook does not make news, they provide stories to people allegedly based on what people are interested in. That is their sales pitch for people to use their aggregate service, and it's even named "WHAT'S TRENDING". Quite different from "WHAT WE WENT TO TREND PRETEND IT DOES".
That said, when I looked at your post history I started to smell a sockpuppet.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Republicans don't care what you do with your reproductive organs. But when you're hosting another human being, we think that human being deserves some legal protection. Yes, that literally is to "protect the children".
And actually, if Norway were a US state, it would not add to either total as it would be larger than Montana in area and larger than half the population of NYC.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.