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But it should be pretty easy to believe that half of people (at least) are gullible. If "Obama bans Christmas" ends up as trending news because a couple hundre
by thrownaway2424 10y ago
But it should be pretty easy to believe that half of people (at least) are gullible. If "Obama bans Christmas" ends up as trending news because a couple hundred far-out whackjobs clicked on it, then your mom sees that in the trending box, and now your mom thinks that Obama banned Christmas.
- bobwaycott 10y agoThis seems to be a far more damning indictment of trending news than curated news or the gullibility of people. Perhaps that is what you're getting at. I have this nagging suspicion that people catalog information based on the subjective believability of headlines without following through to the story, and only click on things because they either A) don't believe the headline, or B) find it enticing enough to want the juicy details. "Obama bans 'Merry Christmas'" would likely get far more clicks and trend more than "Obama said Happy Holidays yesterday". To me, the problem is in the headline writing, coupled with silly human behaviors and algorithms. Not sure how to solve that problem. I think Gizmodo's headline on this story is a compelling example of what I'm talking about. "Facebook has a tool used by curators to modify the Trending News section" probably wouldn't get as many clicks.