“9/11” became the top on Friday list of trending stories after Facebook’s algorithm which was used in the selection linked it to an article published by Daily Star where they alleged that the Twin Towers attack was as a result of bomb planted in the building and not by an act of terrorists.
This will make it the second time in barely two weeks that fake story made it to the highest ranking on storied that are trending all thanks to Facebook’s algorithm. Recall that Facebook algorithm on August 27, published a new story about Megyn Kelly, a news anchor which happened to be a hoax. This was coming under 24 hours of social networks switching from the human curation team.
Due to the fact that Facebook boasts of over one billion users that are active on a monthly basis, its Trending Topics section cannot help but be the major place for top stories not minding if they are true or not. However, Facebook was made dragged when it ventured into the “Napalm Girl” photo by pulling it before it eventually had a change of mind regarding its rules. There have been series of misinformation as a result of the fake stories that are found on the sidebar.
Facebook did not waste time to remove the post after learning it was not true.
Facebook spokesperson in a statement said they removed the article after finding it was a hoax. The 9/11 issue naturally came on top especially as people are waiting to mark its 15th year anniversary. But the link that the article was linked with contained untrue stories.
The articles are judged by the time they are posted and their relevancy. The links are replaced after a short period of time without needing human intervention.
The daughter of the senator of Arizona, Meghan McCain, became a trending topic on Friday at about 9 a.m. PT regarding a Trump fake news story website. There she was referred to as “Miss Piggie” in the Muppet character.
Few hours later at 2 p.m., the link changed itself to a story about McCain, but this time about a story where she criticized the current presidential election.
Facebook on August 26, after switching to its algorithm said it will involve human beings in the process so that the links that are posted will be nothing but having only “high quality” content.
However, Facebook was mum over how they carry out their algorithm that made it to miss the hoax links that made it to the trending topics section, and how its quality control team intends to tackle the issue.
