Facebook Has Removed Human Editors: Fake News Trending
Facebook has removed human editors from decision making and the result has been fake news trending. As of Friday, humans no longer had input into deciding on trending topics on the popular social media site. But three days later, automated computer algorithms had chosen a fake story, reports the Washington Post.
The trending item revolved around Fox News personality Megyn Kelly. The Facebook story circulated that Kelly had been fired from the American broadcaster for supporting U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. For a time, the circulated Kelly issue was the top trending story on the social media giant. It later disappeared from view.
Can #verification of UGC be completely automated? The Facebook example shows: We still have work to do. https://t.co/NT0vqNOd9v
— DW Innovation (@dw_innovation) August 30, 2016
Facebook has been using algorithms for some time. The process considers the volume and momentum of a topic, reported the Washington Post. Results are determined by interest resulting from social media mentions. Previously, a human editorial team wrote descriptions for trending topics. Some critics complained that the result of human interactions with stories was a bias against certain topics and news sources.
The report on Megyn Kelly reportedly came from one news source, Vanity Fair. With no human oversight it wasn’t caught and soon shot to the top of Facebook’s trending list. For a time, it became more popular than Beyonce’s VMA award and Anthony Weiner’s sexting scandal stories on the same day. Facebook did not comment on the fake story. On Facebook removing human editors, the company said that it had let go between 15 and 18 employees. They were to be replaced by a team of engineers that would oversee the automated algorithms.
Fake news story hits Trending Topics after Facebook lays off staff https://t.co/EC9vOzHpI3 #infosec #cybersecurity
— Carlo Van (@thecarlo) August 30, 2016
Although Facebook didn’t confirm it, speculation is that the automation move was made in order to prevent perceived liberal bias in their trending topics. That charge was based on a report by former employees that alleged the social media company routinely suppressed news stories that favored conservative views.
The importance of the way news is disseminated online is reflective of the growing influence of social media outlets like Facebook, in contrast to traditional news media. According to recent surveys, 62 percent of American adults reported getting their news from social media sites, says USA Today. Facebook is estimated to have 1.7 billion monthly users.
Now that Facebook has removed human editors, the new automated format shows users a brief description of and the number of people discussing the topic. Popularity of a trend is measured by the number of original posts and shares of posts. Trending topics are then personalized based on user location, pages they like, and overall Facebook popularity.
Facebook has not revealed how it intends to prevent errors such as the Megyn Kelly report from going viral. One suggestion has been to have human fact checkers monitoring trending news stories. It can still be difficult to spot fake news stories, for both humans and robots. Some websites disseminate false news while acting and looking like authoritative sources. The problem is that machines look at data as black and white and have a more difficult time of deciphering the intent of content.
Possibly adding to the confusion, Facebook has recently announced that it will soon allow users to trigger a Safety Check feature. The feature allows users to flag loved ones after a natural disaster or terrorist attack. Currently, Facebook opens the Safety Check when it feels that it’s necessary in a certain area of the world. This has opened the site to further criticism over which events are considered more important. There were complaints after terror attacks occurred in Paris and Lebanon around the same time and Facebook used the Safety Check feature for the Paris attack only.
There is concern about fake disaster events popping up in future trending too, now that Facebook has removed human editors. Even with human oversight there have recently been two false reports of armed gunmen and terror at different American airports. Social media was instrumental in creating an online panic before it could be verified as false.
[Photo by Matt Rourke/AP]
