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Facebook Changes Feed To Promote Posts That Aren't Fake, Sensational, Or Spam (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the fine-tuned dept.

TechCrunch is reporting that Facebook is prioritizing "authentic" content in News Feed with a ranking algorithm change that detects and promotes content "that people consider genuine, and not misleading, sensational, or spammy." The algorithm will also boost stories that are going viral in real-time. From the report: To build the update, Facebook categorized Pages that frequently share inauthentic posts like fake news and clickbaity headlines, or get their posts hidden often. It then used these posts to train an algorithm that detects similar content as its shared in the News Feed. Facebook will now give extra feed visibility to posts that don't show signs of similarity to inauthentic content. Meanwhile, Facebook wants to more quickly surface big stories going viral either because the topic is being posted about by lots of people, or a Page post about the topic is seeing tons of engagement. Facebook will then take that as a signal that you might temporarily care more about the topic, and therefore show it in your News Feed while it's still hot. Facebook says it doesn't anticipate significant changes to most Pages' News Feed distribution, but some might see a small increase or decrease in referral traffic or outbound clicks depending on if they share authentic, timely content vs inauthentic and outdated stories.

7 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. People who get their news from Facebook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are probably not really that interested in whether the 'news' is real or not.

  2. Seems likely to fail by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So it

    promotes content "that people consider genuine

    Isn't the real problem that people consider anything that matches their confirmation bias to be genuine?

  3. Third-party fact checkers scares the... by randomErr · · Score: 5, Informative
    Third-party fact checkers scares the hell out of me. Snopes, FactCheck.org, Politifact, ABC News, and AP can be argued not to be impartial and to have a political agenda. If that can be proven out then only one voice will truly be heard on Facebook.
    • Snopes ran by Kim Lacapria who self describes herself as 'openly left-leaning and a liberal.'
    • FactCheck.org and Politifact - Trump quoted an article about the number of deaths via the poorly ran Vetrans Adminstration. Trump was reported as giving false facts. When the original CNN article came out the article was reported as completely true.

    I can point out similar instances with the other sources. I'm not totally against using these sources but I want a balance from the other sources on the other side of the political aisle.

    --
    You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
    1. Re:Third-party fact checkers scares the... by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Third-party fact checkers scares the hell out of me. Snopes, FactCheck.org, Politifact, ABC News, and AP can be argued not to be impartial and to have a political agenda. If that can be proven out then only one voice will truly be heard on Facebook.
      Snopes ran by Kim Lacapria who self describes herself as 'openly left-leaning and a liberal.'
      FactCheck.org and Politifact - Trump quoted an article about the number of deaths via the poorly ran Vetrans Adminstration. Trump was reported as giving false facts. When the original CNN article came out the article was reported as completely true.

      You know, there's a simpler explanation. Maybe fact-checking is a more "left-leaning and liberal" preoccupation. The same way fake news appears to be favored by the alt-right.

      http://www.npr.org/sections/al...

      I'm not totally against using these sources but I want a balance from the other sources on the other side of the political aisle.

      Facts are not "balanced", nor should you expect them to be. The molar mass of nitrogen is 14.0067 g/mol. I don't need to consult someone from the "other side" to tell me that nitrogen doesn't really exist, it's only a liberal conspiracy, or to give me the molar mass in units of fetal souls.

      Fact-checking sources provide citations I can check. Remember what happened when "Conservapedia" came out? It was going to be a "conservative" alternative to Wikipedia. They beshat themselves so badly that the only people who visited that site were those seeking to ridicule it. Remember the president's spokesperson giving us "alternative facts"?

      Remember which power structure is ascendant during this Age of Alt-Facts. Do you believe it is coincidental that it coincides with an effort to make people believe that nothing is true, no information can be trusted?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
  4. Re: Better late than never by Maritz · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Only idiots read anything facebook. Fake holy hillary stories obviously weren't fake enough.

    Ads upon ads, the reason I gave up stupid facebook centuries ago.

    Newsflash matey. We are fucking drowning in idiots. What they think matters, sorry to say.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  5. Re:Better late than never by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But.... All the media was against Trump. Where could you find FAKE news benefiting him if there were NONE telling anything good about him?

    It doesn't make any sense.
    Trump won, despite all Media trying to make him lose. Do yo mean that only news from cnn, fox, etc. are the real ones and everything else is fake?

    Wake up and don't pretend people are stupid.

    most news consumed by Trump voters were by way of facebook. Tomi Lahren posts garnered more views per episode than Bill O'Reilly. That's the tip of the iceberg though. Fake sensentional articles written by pro Russian sponsored trolls were shared at an ungodly rate. Think I'm wrong, ask a Trump voter if their timelines are now devoid of Hillary killed X person posts or Obama secret something posts. Same as how they were bombarded with these fake articles, progressive peoples timelines now look like an anti Trump site. You're right that traditional news sources were all against Trump. Traditional news sources are subject to higher standards, verifications and/or editing. Those same sources aren't going to turn pro Trump because hes president now. The shitshow we have been seeing for the past 12 days is what they wrote about all along and will continue to do so.

  6. Re: Better late than never by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What they think matters

    Only to them. But since it is easier to scream "Trump is banning immigrants!!!!!" than it is to say "Trump has suspended travel for 120 days from seven countries" all we get are the idiot posts because that is what people parrot.

    Keep in mind, Obama banned immigrants just last month, and nobody cared.

    --
    Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.