Facebook Highlights False News Story In Its Trending Topics

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We all knew that something like this was going to happen the minute Facebook announced that it was going to use algorithms to select trending news topics. Facebook will no doubt respond with a statement blaming the algorithm, promise it won't happen again (until next week) and bury the subject. Rinse. Repeat.

Today, Facebook is getting a bit more egg on its face: its trending topics area promoted a story about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly being fired for supporting Hillary Clinton. As of this writing, that has not happened -- but the false story was still trending for hours on Facebook before finally getting pulled.
 
To be fair it has to be exceedingly difficult to write an algorithm that can tell the difference between actual true news and the fake stuff that pops up.

The easiest way is probably to have a whitelist of news sites it will pull from, that are known to have thorough editorial staff. If they do this - however - they will be accused of playing into the hands of "liberal mainstream media".

That's why - presumably - they had a staff of curators. The problem is, people are biased. Every last one of us is, whether we admit it or not. People looking at headlines and sorting true from false are going to be doing so through the filter of their biases.
 
So in other words, knowing that machines can't and most likely will never get it right (because they've been created/programmed by people), neither will people. Got it. ;)
 
What kind of algorithm would come up with this as news anyway?
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Who fact-checks mayface and spacebook posts?

Holy shit people are stupid.

You want to know how I know the internet is a shitty place for news?

The same few idiots who run a sight for the hollow earth society run a fucking site for the flat earth society.
 
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