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The Washington Post Tracked Facebook's Trending Topics For 3 Weeks, Found 5 Fake Stories and 3 Inaccurate Articles (washingtonpost.com)

Posted by msmash on from the fault-in-our-algorithm dept.

An alarming number of people rely on social media, including and especially Facebook, for news. Over the past few months, we have seen how Facebook's Trending Topics feature is often biased, and moreover, how sometimes fake news slips through its filter. The Washington Post monitored the website for over three weeks and found that Facebook is still struggling to get its algorithm right. From the report: The Megyn Kelly incident was supposed to be an anomaly. An unfortunate one-off. A bit of (very public, embarrassing) bad luck. But in the six weeks since Facebook revamped its Trending system -- and a hoax about the Fox News Channel star subsequently trended -- the site has repeatedly promoted "news" stories that are actually works of fiction. As part of a larger audit of Facebook's Trending topics, the Intersect logged every news story that trended across four accounts during the workdays from Aug. 31 to Sept. 22. During that time, we uncovered five trending stories that were indisputably fake and three that were profoundly inaccurate (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source). On top of that, we found that news releases, blog posts from sites such as Medium and links to online stores such as iTunes regularly trended. Facebook declined to comment about Trending on the record. "I'm not at all surprised how many fake stories have trended," one former member of the team that used to oversee Trending told the Post. "It was beyond predictable by anyone who spent time with the actual functionality of the product, not just the code."The Post adds that "there's no guarantee" that it was able to catch every hoax, since it looked at Trending feature only once every hour.

5 of 113 comments (clear)

  1. Says Hillary Propaganda arm Washington Post by bongey · · Score: 2, Informative

    Hillary has created the most effective propaganda arm ever made.

    Hillary Propaganda Divisions ABC,NBC,CBS,CNN, NYT, Bumberg, Huffy Post, NewYanker, Politicon, Politifalsehoods, Last Twit Tonight,Washington Post
    https://theintercept.com/2016/...
    http://www.americanthinker.com...
      http://dcleaks.com/emails/cApR...

    1. Re:Says Hillary Propaganda arm Washington Post by bongey · · Score: 3, Informative

      You really are repeating the echo camber of propaganda that hillary has created and didn't read anything. I posted a story for Glenn Greenwald and you called in right wing. You are fucking insane if Glenn Greenwald is right wing now.

      The media is one of the strongest weapons in showing the world the devastating effects of corruption and shining a light on those who would use their entrusted power for personal gain. An independent and free media is a cornerstone of democracy and a crucial component of a healthy governance system.

      Glenn Greenwald( Pulitzer prize winner) hates trump and hillary both but at least he is ethical.

      Glenn Greenwald found ABC,NBC,CBS,CNN, NYT,Bumberg,HuffyPost,NewYanker,Politico, New Yanker taking marching orders from the Clinton Campaign.
      https://theintercept.com/2016/...

      Clinton has corrupted this and turned it into a propaganda arm for her campaign.

      This should scare the hell out of the american people if they know their history.

      I was voting for Hillary until I found this out it is worse than anything Trump has done.
      Trump makes we want to vomit but he would last 4 years and it would clean out the political system a bit. Think off it as a cleanse, nasty going down but it cleans out all the crap.

      I am voting Trump, not because I like him, he makes me vomit, but because the press will do their job, to find government corruption. We will have a health democracy with Trump. If Trump goes 2 dollars over on expense report it will be front page news for a week. Hillary nope, she will tell them what to write. Trump will last 4 years but the crap will be gone.

      Also here are some more fun ones.

      Funny how they came out yesterday saying wikileaks was propaganda, notice how all of the above repeated it, like good little hillary youth.
      https://theintercept.com/2016/...

      Washington Post shilling for Hillary.
      http://www.americanthinker.com...

      Hillary Clinton public and private opinion : wall street and lobbyist ended slavery She lies about lying. That what she we actually saying. Read actual leak, not her lies.
      Nope it is a Fox anchor. You guys will be crying about the moderator.

        Obama likes to expose himself.Go check out his 'Agent' as they call it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

  2. It's like a mirror by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    It would only be news if WaPo ran an expose on their biased reporting, see

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/10/11/wikileaks-eilperin-warning-podesta/

    Everyone knows faceplant's news is crap but WaPo isn't that much better in terms of integrity.

  3. Re:And yet no Hillary email stories by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    Holy Fuck.

    RICHARD GOD DAMNED ARTITAGE IS THE LEAKER YOU ASSHOLE!

    You God Damned stupid fuck.

    I know...you are only 12 and your mommy is babysitting you with the computer

    Fucking stupid asshole.

  4. Re: Well... by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Informative

    Bro, look at what is literally trending right now.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."