This article has been imported from chorus.fm for discussion. All of the forum rules still apply. The Washington Post tracked Facebook’s “Trending Topics” section for three weeks. They found a bunch of fake and inaccurate stories. Our results shouldn’t be taken as conclusive: Since Facebook personalizes its trends to each user, and we tracked results only during work hours, there’s no guarantee that we caught every hoax. But the observation that Facebook periodically trends fake news still stands — if anything, we’ve underestimated how often it occurs. Maybe it’s time to re-think this whole thing, yeah? Expand - View Original
There's nothing I hate more than seeing friends/family re-sharing fake news stories. It's hard to even blame them because there's so much you have to wade through, and investigating that you have to do...although you should investigate.
I feel like a read about this same problem a couple of months back, guess it still hasn't been fixed. Things rarely turn out well for Facebook when they try to copy other social networks.
Facebook should own up to their mistake and re-hire the human editors who had previously been curating this content. The company can afford it, and the good will it would buy them makes it a win-win.
I despise how easy it has made it for people who want to share conspiracy theories and tabloid garbage like conservativetribune.
Trump is a sensation in and of himself. I'm not saying she's sunshine and daisies and she has indulged in some shady shit but that reads like an InfoWars post.
There was something earlier this month that said "our carbon levels have reached the point of no return" or some shit like that. It said hundreds of thousands of people were "talking about it" even though the websites weren't credible at all. The whole thing disappeared within the hour.
If I can't trust the news blips next to my aunt's pictures of how her new quilt is coming along, what the fuck can I trust?
Facebook is just a target for ad revenue and it reeks of desperation. "Here's a list of shit, number 9 will shock you!" Or "this person did something, you won't believe what they did next!". If you find yourself that bored you'll click on it and see a Web page that's 70% ads. It's just a mindless abyss and an aggressive tumor on facebook and a pretty much any social media thing.