
Information About Trending Topics - jflowers45
http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2016/05/information-about-trending-topics/
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darkengine
A non-apology with no admission of any wrongdoing. Even before the recent
controversy, it was blindingly obvious to anyone who cared to look that the
trending topics were curated for a particular angle. Twitter does the same
thing with their trending hashtags and topics as well. How many times has an
inconvenient hashtag mysteriously dropped off the trending list?

Today's implementations of social media have changed little. Control of
information to the public is still in the hands of the media.

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CamonZ
Media has always been biased in favor of the gatekeepers (and their views)
that control the medium

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ps4fanboy
Is facebook media though? This feels more like google removing conservative
websites from their index.

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exolymph
The trending topics box is not that important in and of itself, but Facebook's
editorial attitudes are crucial -- considering their position as an entity
perceived as not having editorial attitudes. Let's all remember that
algorithms reflect editorial choices just as much as manual curation. Bias
cannot be erased; it's part of human communication. Declared bias > hidden
biases.

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alva
Leaked FB Trend guidelines can be found here
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/12/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/12/facebook-
trending-news-leaked-documents-editor-guidelines)

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bduerst
Based on the comments here, am I missing something? Was Facebook recently
accused of manually manipulating the trending topics?

Edit: Nevermind, found it. For those also curious:
[https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/12/facebook-...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/12/facebook-
trending-news-leaked-documents-editor-guidelines)

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cameroncf
The list of sources used for "corroborating" information is interesting. It
includes sources like tigerwoods.com

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excalibur
I've always ignored these, it's amazing to see how much some people care about
them. If it looks like an ad and smells like an ad...

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cloudjacker
This won't save you from the congressional hearing

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CamonZ
Congressional hearing? Regardless of the fact that fb pretty much holds the
same position of the government and helps spread it, why would there be a
congressional hearing on a private company doing what they want with their
platform.

We have always been free to stop using fb or roll an alternative.

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cloudjacker
Also won't save you from the congressional hearing. Such hearings only happen
because they don't like what they are seeing, it pretty much means hot water,
and it doesn't mean there will be any meaningful consequence except
broadcasting to the nation that Congress isn't amused.

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sker
Considering the state of American right-wing politics, I don't blame them.

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bpodgursky
It's a very shortsighted attitude.

If the mindset is total freedom to use editorial discretion, there's no reason
they couldn't use it to push conversations around ex the Free Basics
controversy in India, or the things you inevitably will disagree about in the
future.

