By Katie Davis F acebook, a service with 1.7 billion users per month, insists at every opportunity that it’s not in the business of news. Despite that assertion, it built a module that interprets relative popularity and impact of stories; much like a modern news editor would do, displaying trending stories prominently on its homepage, without the aid of an editor. 63% of Facebook users are getting news from the social network, trending topics has become a powerful way to surface what the Facebook community deems important. However without an editorial team to sift these topics to weed out the difference between fact and fiction it leaves Facebook users, with unprecedented control over the news that others in their region see. With no editorial team and Facebook being less than forthcoming about how its algorithm works we have done some additional research to give us a better understand- ing of how their trending algorithm works. Now it must be said that Facebook does have a team of engineers whose job is to spike mundane stories, but for the most part it is now run entirely by an algorithm. Engi- neers that are still working on trending topics are bound by a rulebook that requires them to let every algorithmi- cally surfaced topic reach the public eye, so long as it cor- responds to a real-world event and isn’t a duplicate topic according to Facebook. So the team is also obliged by the same rules to believe that every topic it sees is true, unless proven otherwise by reviewers corroborating with other sources from Facebook’s internal review tool, rather than the traditional journalistic approach of verifying through external sources. Before a story passes through, it must first be surfaced by the trending algorithm which identifies topics that have recently spiked in popularity on Facebook, meaning a
high volume of mentions or a sharp increase in mentions, shares and likes over a short period of time are also weighed within the algorithm. One thing that Facebook or its many patent does not discuss at length is filtering mechanisms, in the past trending software use to research a list of 1,000 news sites to verify these stories, but that practice has been discontinued and according to a patent that Facebook recently received only spam, defined as “unsolicited bulk messages, especially advertisements, sent indiscrimi- nately and/or repeatedly,” is the only thing the system specifically filters out. In the months to come more of the editors’ and curators’ jobs will become automated allowing hundreds of stories to slip through the cracks with human control gone and an untested algorithm at the helm. It goes without saying that Facebook’s trending module is likely to face additional criticismdown the roadwith its new trending systems. One thing that Facebook has promised is faster takedowns of false new stories. However, can Facebook keep on top of the rising popularity of the alt- right movement and legions of internet users motivated to push their message to and abilities to gain access to millions of users’ timelines to promote their message. Facebook says that they are ready, so I guess it is time to put the algorithmic reliance editing to test and see what topics are trending online as it will be a public testing group to see if Facebook technology is fact or fiction.
59
OCTOBER 2016 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker