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Facebook Is Killing Off Trending As It Tries To Revamp Newsfeed (betanews.com)

Posted by msmash on from the good-riddance dept.

Mark Wilson writes: Facebook has announced plans to kill off the Trending feature of its newsfeed. The social network says that this is to "make way for future news experiences." Over the years, Facebook has experimented endlessly with the presentation of news, and has faced criticism for failing to weed out "fake news" and also accusations of liberal bias. Now the company wants to find new ways to help people find news that matters to them, ensuring that it comes from reliable sources.

11 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. Fuck Newsfeed and Fuck Facebook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We don't WANT a newsfeed on Facebook. AT ALL. We want to find out what are friends are doing. WE DON'T GO TO FACEBOOK FOR NEWS!

    Just show us our friends posts, let us screen out the political garbage, and stop switching from Most Recent to "Top Stories" EVERY! FREAKING! TIME! we log on!

    Why is this so hard for Facebook to understand

    1. Re:Fuck Newsfeed and Fuck Facebook by jellomizer · · Score: 2

      I need to agree. Is is a shame you used an Anonymous Coward post, as this will not get moderated to a level it deserves.

      The reason why Facebook took over MySpace was due to its simplicity. Making things more and more complex. Makes using Facebook a chore vs. Something fun.

      I will get ads, most likely targeted based on what my friends and myself post. But that is expected from a free service. But news feeds, political stuff, and having to see over and over again one of my friends popular post, where I am more interested in what is happening with my more boring friend.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    2. Re:Fuck Newsfeed and Fuck Facebook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      ... let us screen out the political garbage, ...

      Yeah, right. Political garbage took off because people kept sharing it and re-posting it.

      Political garbage took off because people like just hearing what they want to hear. They want to live in their little bubbles and feel that they are right about everything.

      It's emotionally painful to see and accept the truth when it runs against one's world view that they are attached to. And very few people are willing to challenge their own beliefs.

      So, fb ending news feed won't do a goddamn bit of difference.

    3. Re:Fuck Newsfeed and Fuck Facebook by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Informative

      While I agree, the problem is that lots and lots of people *do* go to Facebook for news. And the people who use Facebook for news, are the least discerning news readers, so they share the stupidest most flamebaitish "fake" news, which causes a recursive singularity of stupidity, and is why Facebook is in so much trouble. But since sooo many people like to log in and share news, and that gets them so much attention and ad revenue, they aren't going to take that feature away.

    4. Re:Fuck Newsfeed and Fuck Facebook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      WE DON'T GO TO FACEBOOK FOR NEWS!

      I think you're confused about what the Facebook Newsfeed originally did. It started out showing you what was new that your friends had posted. i.e. "what [our] friends are doing". Then friends started posting mainstream-news items and they became liked/shared so much that Facebook thought everyone wanted to see them. That's where the problem started. Eventually, FB set up a system where people could pay cash to have their ads labeled as "trending on facebook", so you weren't even seeing the trends amongst your friends any more, nor Facebook as a whole, but instead whoever had a pile of money and a meme.

    5. Re:Fuck Newsfeed and Fuck Facebook by sconeu · · Score: 2

      Thank you!!!!

      Facebook should be embarrassed that the need for FB Purity exists

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    6. Re:Fuck Newsfeed and Fuck Facebook by corbettw · · Score: 2

      having to see over and over again one of my friends popular post, where I am more interested in what is happening with my more boring friend.

      This is one of the things that eventually forced me to shutdown Facebook for good. I got sick and tired of seeing the same posts over and over. Then I'd switch from "most popular" to "newest", and what do know? There were tons of posts that I never saw because Facebook declined to include them in my feed.

      Just let me see what I want to see, not what you think I should see.

      --
      God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
  2. Balanced or liked by Camarillo+Brillo · · Score: 2

    If we the people only get fed news that only appeals to us, how are we supposed to weigh out the issues of the day. Myopic insight only lead to self satisfied conclusions. Its sort of like only taking right hand turns and being bewildered why you only go in circles.

    1. Re:Balanced or liked by Train0987 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You confuse "news" with editorial opinion. Facts don't appeal to any one group over another. Some of us just want straight facts so we can form our own opinions. The media and these social media monopolies are trying to control opinion by disguising their agendas as fact.

    2. Re:Balanced or liked by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      More insidious is the cherry-picking of facts. My daughter did a science fair project on fake news this week, and she watched ten hours each of MSNBC and Fox News. Both stations generally presented facts even though Fox did a lot of editorialization/option pieces, but they were clearly presented as such. The problem was that there was very little overlap on the facts they presented.

      A good example was Trey Gowdy's recent statement:

      “I am even more convinced that the FBI did exactly what my fellow citizens would want them to do...President Trump himself – in the Comey memos – said, if anyone connected with my campaign was working with Russia, I want you to investigate it...He[Trump] was never the target – Russia was the target.”

      MSNBC (and ABC that I watched) only mentioned the first part that the FBI did what they should. Fox News only covered the last part which is Trump was never the target. No one covered the important middle part that was that Trump himself asked for an investigation. That looks good for Trump, but everyone ignored that.

  3. They still couldn't control the narrative by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 2

    Facebook and other Tech companies want to control the narrative. Once you control the narrative, you control the people.

    The problem is, that once you start issuing controls on the narrative, it becomes easier to spot those controls, and even circumvent them. That is part of the reason why Facebook is starting its downward trend. People, even ones that might like the narrative, don't want to be spoon fed preprocessed baby food news.

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