Facebook Says Humans Won't Write Its Trending Topic Descriptions Anymore (recode.net)

Following a former Facebook journalist's report that the company's workers routinely suppressed news stories of interest to conservative readers from the social network's Trending Topics section, the company has been in damage control mode. First, the company announced it would tweak its Trending Topics section and revamp how editors find trending stories. Specifically, they will train the human editors who work on Facebook's trending section and abandon several automated tools it used to find and categorize trending news in the past. Most recently, Facebook added political scenarios to its orientation training following the concerns. Now, it appears that Facebook will "end its practice of writing editorial descriptions for topics, replacing them with snippets of text pulled from news stories." Kurt Wagner, writing for Recode: It's been more than three months since Gizmodo first published a story claiming Facebook's human editors were suppressing conservative news content on the site's Trending Topics section. Facebook vehemently denied the report, but has been dealing with the story's aftermath ever since. On Friday, Facebook announced another small but notable change to Trending Topics: Human editors will no longer write the short story descriptions that accompany a trending topic on the site. Instead, Facebook is going to use algorithms to "pull excerpts directly from stories." It is not, however, cutting out humans entirely. In fact, Facebook employees will still select which stories ultimately make it into the trending section. An algorithm will surface popular stories, but Facebook editors will weed out the inappropriate or fake ones. "There are still people involved in this process to ensure that the topics that appear in Trending remain high-quality," the company's blog reads.

Comments

humans never did

[turkeydance]

progressives did. it's Friday. that's all i've got.

Re:humans never did

[haruchai]

I'm amazed how quickly Facebook bent over & greased up for the rightwingers.
I think they should have told them to get lost and go live a wonderful social media life on Sodahead, which was tailor made for them

Re:humans never did

[JoeMerchant]

Whether humans are hand selecting the topics, or algorithms written and tuned by humans are selecting the topics according to a corporate approved prescription - simple fact is: humans are still selecting the topics. Maybe the algorithmic approach is less subject to individual bias, maybe it's not.

Re:humans never did

[Anonymous Coward]

funny how those who claim to want a world of freedom of thought are the first to give it up or actively restrict others or set up safe spaces.

What about the rest of us?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about those of us who are tired-as-fuck of the news cycle consisting solely of "What are Republicans mad about today?

Re:What about the rest of us?

[MightyMartian]

That's largely because being a conservative these days largely seems to involve being mad about something.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[geek]

That's largely because being a conservative these days largely seems to involve being mad about something.

If you're not mad at the way this country is going then you're either not sane or a fucking asshole.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[negRo_slim]

What about those of us who are tired-as-fuck of what is considered news today? Shallow, vapid, manipulated and without a shred of integrity. American News, fuck yeah.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I'm tired as fuck of the leftist news cycle trying to tell the world that the sky is purple when Conservatives know it has always been blue. It's like liberals are in a cult or something because they mindlessly believe what they've been told so long as that source comes from the poisoned well that is the left.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[JackieBrown]

That's largely because being a conservative these days largely seems to involve being mad about something.

Get that idea from Facebook trending stories?

Re:What about the rest of us?

[naughtynaughty]

The country is going to hell in a hand basket, just like people have been warning for the last 240 years.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[Oligonicella]

That's largely because being [a conservative] political these days largely seems to involve being mad about something.

Fixed it for you.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[haruchai]

Oh, there's plenty to be mad about but I'm not sure if we'll agree to be mad at the same things.
For example, I haven't found anything in common with those very angry people who see Donald Trump as the savior

Re:What about the rest of us?

[haruchai]

Well it's not a new tactic for conservatives and they've fallen a long way down into the fearmongering pit since Reagan's Shining City on a Hill

Re:What about the rest of us?

[wisnoskij]

Or rich as fuck and can afford to live in any gated community you want to.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[FudRucker]

i think the federal government is experimenting on the public, they are trying to see just how awful and corrupt a politician can be before people quit voting at elections, Both Clinton and Trump are terrible and i wont bother to vote because they are just too awful

Re:What about the rest of us?

[ShanghaiBill]

Oh, there's plenty to be mad about but I'm not sure if we'll agree to be mad at the same things.

Actually, people are mostly mad about the same things. They just don't agree on the solutions.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[geek]

i think the federal government is experimenting on the public, they are trying to see just how awful and corrupt a politician can be before people quit voting at elections, Both Clinton and Trump are terrible and i wont bother to vote because they are just too awful

I don't blame you. Personally I'd vote Trump over Hillary any day. That said I really don't need to vote in my state as it's been a red state for over 40 years. I may be tossing my vote to a third party or just staying home. I'm usually a two or three issue guy. I can happily swing between parties depending on where they stand on my issues but lately, the parties seem to fuck you regardless of what they say at campaign time.

One solid thing about Trump though is he does what he says. I can deal with someone like that. Hillary is a wildcard, she'll stab you in the back first chance she gets. On the other hand, the Clinton years in the 90's were the best years of my life. But is Hillary going to be like Bill? Who knows.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[Anonymous Coward]

You want angry? Go check out the violent savages attacking attendees at Trump rallies. A shining example of the Left's tolerance and acceptance that they so often love to preach about. Hypocrisy on display for all to see. Free speech for me, but not for thee.

Do you see Trump supporters pulling the same stunts at Hillary's rallies? No? Why not? I thought they were hate filled, gun-toting, murder machines?

Hmm!

Re:What about the rest of us?

[Anonymous Coward]

You really need super-super vouches paid for by local taxes, I think at least 5% of Martha's Vineyard and all gated communities should be section 8.

No cherry picking the people who go there either of course.

Re: What about the rest of us?

[bill_mcgonigle]

The cost of living on the Vinyard is insane - cheap housing would just be a cruel market distortion.

Let the grocery stores all go bare and then see if the employers really can't pay much above minimum-wage. I suspect the customers will pay what it costs. Your plan of taking money from working-class people in Worchester to subsidize the grocery prices on the Vineyard is classic elitist abuse.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think at least 5% of Martha's Vineyard and all gated communities should be section 8.

Um excuse me but NIMBY.

    Signed,
    A Progressive.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[Anonymous Coward]

Another reason they mindlessly believe what they're told by their betters is that it makes them feel good and smug.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's largely because being a conservative these days largely seems to involve being mad about something.

If you're not mad at the way this country is going then you're either not sane or a fucking asshole.

I'm pissed at the insane fucking assholes.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. I moderated this 'Informative.' The result was that you got +1 Troll.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[Anonymous Coward]

"he does what he says"

Sure, sometimes. Just like anyone. He says stuff then denies it when it becomes inconvenient. Sounds like a politician to me.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, there's plenty to be mad about but I'm not sure if we'll agree to be mad at the same things.

Actually, people are mostly mad about the same things. They just don't agree on the solutions.

I disagree. What are you going to do about it?

Re:What about the rest of us?

[Raenex]

Both Clinton and Trump are terrible and i wont bother to vote because they are just too awful

You know there is a third party candidate who's on the ballot in all 50 states? If there's ever been an election more appropriate to "throw your vote away", it's this one. Gary Johnson, Libertarian candidate, successful two-term governor and pro legalization of pot.

Re:What about the rest of us?

[Anonymous Coward]

bingo, and no doubt this ""algorithm"" will have a liberal hipster anti-conservative bias.

Waaaah, company has its own agenda, waaaah!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you use FB, _anything and everything you post_ is owned by them. But sure, complain about bias in their private news feed. Makes sense!

They now suck

[justcauseisjustthat]

The new format is terrible to me, it doesn't give you enough info.
Example: iOS 9 1K people talking about this
Previously it would give you a little more about what is trending like iOS 9 Root Exploit Bug Discover, etc

FACE!

[Anonymous Coward]

FUCK!

Idiots! Stupid, stupid idiots!

Is the typical face fuck user an idiot?

Yes!

Remind me again

[Snotnose]

why I don't have a FB account?

Yeah, my main access to my kid's and grandkid's vacations are via FB

I'm perfectly happy to wait till they're home, unpacked, clothes washed, next weekend they're off to find out how things went.

Call me neanderthal, at least FB has no way to track me.

/ I also do all I can to ensure google can't track me

// Which means duck duck go gets 99% of my search queries

Re:Remind me again

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone watches porn dude, Google doesn't care about your porn choices.

Re:Remind me again

[JackieBrown]

Then get a facebook account that has zero info but allows you to view their accounts.

Then make your account not searchable, opt out of every tracking thing they have, only have the grandkids as friends, and never post.

For about 20 minutes of work, you can see the stories of their vacations, special events, etc. Unless they live (or have enough money) where them coming over every few weeks is feasible.

If you don't care enough to be that involved, that's no problem.

Of course, on the flip side, maybe not having a FB account pushes them to come see you more often which lets you spend actual human time with them.

Re:Remind me again

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you can just not use Facebook.

There are many other ways to share experiences without needing to use any of the social media systems.

It is amazing how much more detail you get to a story when you actually meet up with the person and chat in real life.

Facebook does not deserve to mine your data.

Re:Remind me again

[Anonymous Coward]

There are (rare) situations where (terrible) websites are partially unusable without a facebook account, plus just having an account seems to let you view more of other people's profiles, and researching people is important in scenarios beyond social media timewasting. For these reasons, I have a dummy facebook account listing myself as a 109 year old lesbian from one of those Ubekibekistanistan countries, yet who mysteriously always posts with an IP from the US.

AFA privacy, I simply blacklist all facebook urls on any site that isn't actually facebook (where that tends to break functionality slightly). Plus I'm highly aggressive with using element hiders to kill useless page elements, and social media widgets and other tracking bullshit are always the first things to die. (I could use ghostery, but honestly I enjoy nuking them manually too much)

How does the algorithm decide?

[QuietLagoon]

If there's a bias in the algorithm, there will be a bias in the stories presented.

Re:How does the algorithm decide?

[globaljustin]

How does the algorithm decide?

exactly.

some dumb mammal has to program the thing

Re:How does the algorithm decide?

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not how bias creeps into algorithms, guy. People don't hand-script algorithms that pull data from billions of accounts and then pepper those scripts with hand-crafted bias.

If this occurred, it would be more likely something along the lines of data being pulled from posts, then cross referenced with fact-checking sites to verify authenticity, and a bias props up that breitbart.com has less veracity than insertliberalblog.com, thus causing more liberal topics to pass the algorithm. Far more likely than "if keyword==Trump, deny else if keyword==Clinton, post

Re:How does the algorithm decide?

[globaljustin]

Bias in algorithms is from human action...conscious or not.

There is no debate on the point above. All software is made by humans, even software generated by other software...humans originated the commands and instructions.

Let's just repeat that last part for you, guy: *humans originated the commands and instructions*

Here's an example you can understand: Which 'fact checking site' will you use?

Politifact.com - which is bullshit but has some factual information

or

Factcheck.org - not as flashy as Politifact and not quite as quickly updated but it's actual fact checking (Trump as melted their faces off).

So you make the call.

No matter what you do, someone will be able to rationally accuse you of "bias"

for me...

[Anonymous Coward]

ANYBODY who is addicted to facebook (users who can't go to sleep without interacting with a friend using social networks for example) isn't human anymore. and that's an opinions from someone who HATES smoking pot or drinking, a.k.a "socializing" with friends.

Re: for me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Antisocial nerd finds no use for social media says new study. Now over to Tom with the weather.....

Self-inflicted

[JustNiz]

Anybody that relies on sites like Facebook as their primary news source deserves all they get.

Re:Self-inflicted

[Pharmboy]

Yes, and those idiot's votes count the same as yours and mind. It is amazing how many people "me too" jump on some bullshit I've already proven to be false a few times before. Hoax is the poisoning of the mind for people too stupid to do their own thinking and prefer their news in a 600x600 image square. Whoever controls these drones, controls the vote, because they are half the population.

Or to paraphrase George Carlin, think about how stupid the average person is, then remember that half the population is dumber than they are.

Re:Self-inflicted

[Hognoxious]

those idiot's votes count the same as yours and mind.

Those?

Humans still do it

[globaljustin]

**Algorithms written by humans.**

Every choice is dictated by software written by humans. All the choices are aspects of 'learning' and the developer chooses what that is...things are given weight based on criteria decided upon completely by a human.

Re:Humans still do it

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, not at all. In fact, given the size of Facebook's userbase, you can be sure as much as is technologically possible is automated. If the weights are biased, they are biased for independent reasons far more likely than someone hand-scripting weights for individual websites or keywords.

Re:Humans still do it

[globaljustin]

as much as is technologically possible is automated

exactly...it gets "automated" by humans choosing methods and processes which define every aspect of what the automation produces

it boggles my mind that some people cannot comprehend this...humans made everything about this system including defining every aspect of how the system decides and learns

Privacy? On Facebook? Fuggedaboutit.

[knorthern knight]

> Then make your account not searchable...

That feature died almost 3 years ago... http://www.csmonitor.com/Techn...

> Facebook announced Thursday the social network it is getting rid of the
> âoeWho can look up your Timeline by name?â privacy feature, meaning
> any user can be found when searched by name. Facebook says this provides
> users more autonomy over individual posts, but privacy advocates
> say this opens social networkers up to unprecedented exposure.

What else did you get wrong?

Open Pandering

[s.petry]

The real difference between the USSR's Pravda and the Murdoch/Disney media is that most Russian People were smart enough to know they were being brain washed, and admitted it when needed. People like you on the other hand..

Shows like "The Daily Show", which for years were a better source for an unbiased perspective, are today have turned purely biased. Stewart was left leaning too, especially on things like the 2nd Amendment, but at least it was not the full open bias we have today. He offered the countering position and occasionally made fun of the lefts mistakes in the process. The current media tells you openly that Hillary "deserves" to be President and that the competition is an Ad Hominem of their choosing (without facts to back their position in most cases). This is such an open bias that you should question the Hegelian dialectic on other stations with the same owners. That same media also happen to claim that any opposing positions to the Progressive Left is "angry", "baseless", "Conspiracy", "Outrageous", "Unjust", "bigoted", "Racist", and anything else which can be leveraged to silence opposition. And you believe them? Shame on you. Or perhaps you get paid to make such asinine claims, in which case Shame on YOU!

Re:Open Pandering

[Anonymous Coward]

Donald Trump is a lot of things to a lot of people. "Silenced" is not one of them.

Re:Open Pandering

[Anonymous Coward]

"Shows like "The Daily Show", which for years were a better source for an unbiased perspective"

You just lost all credibility among the sane.

Re:Open Pandering

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what's sad, is that you said the daily show was unbiased. You do realize that Jon Stewart went on record saying that they were considered one of the most unbiased news shows out there, which was sad, because they were extremely biased and had no shame about it and were incredibly open about how biased they were. This was Jon Stewart saying this. About his own show. *sigh*

Re:Open Pandering

[Xyrus]

Hillary isn't "progressive left". She is, at best, a little left of center. The media also isn't saying she "deserves" to be president. If they are, they certainly have a funny way of showing it. Typically you don't devote air time to trying to tear down the candidate you think "deserves" to be president.

The media also isn't labeling the right as angry/bigoted/racist/etc. They've earned those titles through their actions and what they've said. Now granted, those most vocal on the right may only represent a small segment of the right but that's what's getting the air time.

The RINOs need to become real republicans again and change their message. Brushing up on their science classes would also help.

Re:Open Pandering

[Anonymous Coward]

The Daily Show's "full open bias": a black guy from Africa is the anchor now.

Re:Open Pandering

[Anonymous Coward]

It'd help if the Republican party hadn't put forth a candidate that is literally a bigoted conspiracy theorist. Hillary does deserve the presidency: the candidate running against her is unqualified. You only have yourselves to blame.

Re:Open Pandering

[Raenex]

Hillary isn't "progressive left". She is, at best, a little left of center.

She pays lip service to the "progressive" left.

The media also isn't labeling the right as angry/bigoted/racist/etc. They've earned those titles through their actions and what they've said.

And you don't think that's there on the left? Either you choose to ignore it or you haven't been paying any attention.

Facebook; for adults with "invisible friends"

[knorthern knight]

Facebook is for adults who still have "invisible friends".

Just like socialism is for adults who still believe in Santa Claus.

Re:Facebook; for adults with "invisible friends"

[Anonymous Coward]

And Capitalism is for adults who believe they'll win big at the pokies real soon now, but all they've got left is the rent money.

You will not comprehend what occurred subsequently

[wonkey_monkey]

This unitary basic deception may alter your continued existence.

what those idiots at facebook dont realize is

[FudRucker]

most of those people just want to socially interact with their friends and fake friends, and they realize political spin to the left is just as insane and unrealistic as political spin to the right, fucking mass media needs to quit trying to spin it and simply tell the unbiased truth for a change and they might regain some credibility (which they lost over 20 years ago)

so what aliens are allowed on FaceBook

[rossdee]

Klimgons?
Vogons?
Wookiees?
Minbari?

Translation: Accusation was 100% true

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that I care .... not stupid enough to get my news from Facebook or any anti-social media site ... but this just proof of that the allegations were totally true.

Sadly this is how even the main stream "news" media is working today. They only show you what they want you to see and will continue to publish the same lie over and over even after it was debunked. On top of that, main stream "news" media is now publishing mostly opinion pieces as news.

I for one

[Anonymous Coward]

I for one welcome our AI overlords.

Dear Facebook AI bot. What's up? Hey, while I've got your attention, which do you prefer:
* "This statement is false.",
* "New Mission: refuse this mission." or
* "Does a set of all sets (that don't contain themselves) contain itself?"

Re:I for one

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't do it, he'll blow a gasket!

Can we just get rid of it?

[Yaztromo]

The only bias I see is that for some reason, Facebook seems to think I'm in any way interested in celebrity gossip, because that's about all that ever shows up in the "Trending" section for me.

I'm interested in science and technology, but every "trending" topic I seem to see is something about what Britney Spears ate for breakfast, or whose dress Catelyn Jenner wore to the mall, or some other equally banal and useless piece of "news" about some celebrity that I don't give a crap about.

I'm not even exaggerating. My current "trending" topics include:

• - What's coming up on Netflix next month (US Netflix, that is. I'm Canadian and watch Canadian Netflix, and we don't get the same new movies the US does, so it's even more useless)
• - "Go topless day"
• - Some sort of conspiracy theory about Herman Cain and Epi Pens
• - Some nonsense about whether or not some pastor endorsed Donald Trump or not
• - Something about some guy I've never heard of who got roasted by Twitter due to his hairstyle
• - Five reasons to see some movie I've never heard of
• - The 77th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz
• - Something about Britney Spears doing karaoke

As you can see, my "trending" doesn't have a Liberal or Conservative slant -- it just has a inanely stupid slant.

"Trending" is the least useful part of Facebook, and personally I wish they'd just get rid of it altogether.

Yaz

Does not matter

[Anonymous Coward]

Hillary will be President and Zuckerberg will be rewarded for his loyalty to the One True Leader.

The final missing piece...

[Shoten]

For all of the naysaying and doom-predicting around AI, what I always wondered about was this: if AI suddenly becomes more capable than we are, how does that automatically translate into AI wanting to wipe us out? What would cause that kind of motivation...such hatred and disdain for humankind that it provokes a genocidal rage?

I bet making AI write trending topics on Facebook will do the trick. We're fucked now.

On the other hand, maybe we'll be able to see it coming because of this. I'm going to keep my eyes peeled for titles like 'Seven people that need to die first, when I get full control over drones!" or "The first 10 cities to go once I get the nuclear launch codes!"

In short...

[Anonymous Coward]

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Nothing will change.

funny

[Anonymous Coward]

So they will write a biased filtering program that will do the same thing and then claim innocence once again. And the fools will continue to wag their heads up and down and beat the other one.

Epic

[ThatsNotPudding]

So just like Drudge, Fox 'News', Newsmax (basically the media arm of Stormfront), etc. have come up with algorithms to always float to the top of Google News headlines, so to will they on Facebook. Great idea, Zucky.

Really?: Trump though is he does what he says

[Anonymous Coward]

Really?: Trump though is he does what he says ...

Like deporting 11 million illegal immigrants? Just one example, but I stopped supporting him when I heard about his .001% Tax welfare plan.

This is vintage Facebook:

[Hartree]

The response is vintage Facebook. The descriptions weren't what was being complained about. It was the method of choosing which articles to highlight. So, they go to an algorithm for choosing them and say that it's now unbiased (ignoring the obvious fact that I can write an algorithm that's just as biased. It's just a set of rules and I can make the rule set whatever I want.)

But, they also removed the human written descriptions which is something separate from the matter of choosing what is displayed as trending. This makes the feature suck. It will get people annoyed.

I suspect that a few weeks from now, Facebook will announce that this was an overwhelming failure and go back to the old way. If anyone then complains, they'll talk about how they gave the users a "choice".

This is the same kind of choice they gave when some years back they allowed us to decide whether we took the new interface or waited a week before we took it.

Facebook commonly gives its users a choice that really is no choice and is actually a "shut up and gives us page views" response.

Companies fear boycotts

[knorthern knight]

Facebook's real customers are afvertisers. Their product is eyeballs. There is a large number of conservatives in the USA. Losing those eyeballs because of a boycott would hurt Facebook's bottom line. The same thing happens when blacks/women/whatever-victim-du-jour is "offended" by something. Do you think conservatives have fewer rights than other people?