Facebook has disclosed that it is stepping up its game to avoid occurrences where fake stories appear in their Trending Topic like the issue with the backing for Hillary Clinton or the 9/11 event. The trending topic is meant to display only storied that are very popular and trending, however, the algorithms that is used in judging which story should make the list has failed.
Adam Mosseri who is in charge of News Feed for Facebook said they have spent a lot in making News Feed what it is and to record the success it has which they intend to use for Trending Topics as well.
Tops executives of Facebook are yet to give a convincing response on how to they go about their 1.7 billion user that they have each month in the area of evaluation and displaying of contents. They have joined the huge number of companies that are fighting fake stories from making appearance online.
A partner network is the one that is in charge of First Draft and their job is to bring all the internet companies together with big names such as Washington Post and New York Times among others. Their job is to verify the questions and also come up with something known as “code of practice.”
Facebook’s editors that are in charge of the Trending Topics were accused back in May of intentionally disallowing real and popular stories and in its stead allow fake stories. Although Facebook did not agree to the accusation, they have, however, agreed to work towards making the process better.
The first attempt they made was to fire those in charge of that section in August.
They have promised to work with the feedback from people so as to make the whole process much more rewarding and a reflection of what should be in the Trending Topic. They said they will work on detecting fake stories as fast as they can.
the backlash Facebook received for it failure to allow real news and instead allow fake one to appear on its Trending Topic, was not as harsh as the one it got for the news that got the congress spitting venom ever since especially the one that implied backing for Hillary Clinton. Some Democrats were even of the opinion that such undermines questions bothering on consumer protection.
A Commerce Committee member, Sen. Claire McCaskill gave his voice to the question of consumer protection posed by such act. On the other hand, many others were not really deceive on how they see the oversight on Facebook’s side.
