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Oh please. When I see "trending stories", that implies that the stories are popular, not that they've been manually selected or filtered by some unelected grou

Oh please. When I see "trending stories", that implies that the stories are popular, not that they've been manually selected or filtered by some unelected group with an obvious bias and agenda. As for porn, if the site clearly states that that's something they censor, that's fine. Lots of sites do that. But yes, the whole name "trending stories" absolutely does imply an "organic popular list". If you "know" that this isn't really what it is, that's great for your insight, but it's still lying on the part of Facebook.

basch 10y ago
i see no implication of interventionless "most popular." especially on facebook. each person's trending stories could be different and be presented based on what it thinks is popular AND applicable to you. all i see is "here is a subsample of some of our most popular stories." do you and your friends have the same trending stories at the same time? cuz i get regional stories. im sure my friends in other regions dont get those stories. it is quite obviously targeting me based on something besides a global trending list. nothing on facebook is ever organic. and ive never seen facebook claim anything was.
- Grishnakh 10y ago
  >especially on facebook. each person's trending stories could be different and be presented based on what it thinks is popular AND applicable to you. I would agree that this is a fair assumption to make about how it should work. >cuz i get regional stories. im sure my friends in other regions dont get those stories. Yes, that's no different than Google News. That's an entirely fair thing to do: tailor a person's feed for their preferences and locality. >it is quite obviously targeting me based on something besides a global trending list. Yes, and as long as it's unbiased, there's no problem with that. Especially if users can configure it (maybe I'd really like to see local news items from my hometown, for instance). However, if they're intentionally omitting news feed items because they don't like them, that's wrong. Omitting news feed items from your feed because you don't live in Laramie, Wyoming and these items are only of interest to locals there is one thing; omitting items because they're of interest to a political group that you don't care for is entirely another.
  - basch 10y ago
    having humans tagging certain stories as "not news" is not evil agenda based bias, it is spam filtering. just because a group of people start shouting about something loudly, and the shouting gets popular, doesnt mean facebook should choose to amplify it. for example, think of mean girls. when gretchen is trying to make fetch happen, and regina says "Gretchen, stop trying to make fetch happen! It's not going to happen!" A group of likeminded people, say republicans in this example, could be trying to make someone appear popular by shouting their name a lot, ad nauseum. that doesnt make it newsworthy outside the echo chamber. if the republican network is more coordinated and better at discussing one topic at at time than the democrats, they can push a story higher on the trending list. people being able to manipulate the trending list through coordination isnt ideal. if you want a gamified, competitive trending list, visit twitter. letting pure popularity and activity overrule common sense is foolhearted. i have never seen facebook claim their trending list behaved like twitter (which is where it seems you are getting your ideal trending behavior concept from.) using humans to balance the trending stories, instead of letting one ideology take it over, is a good thing. but balance doesnt always mean fair or equal. myths dont deserve equal space to debunking. intelligent design doesnt automatically deserve equal placement to more accredited theories. if something is factually wrong, facebook can remove a story from trending to prevent its spread. plus, algorithms are going to display some kind of bias. any sort of spam filter will disfavor certain noise. is blocking viagra ads bias? algorithms written by people will lean in SOME direction. believing in unbias is naive.
    - Grishnakh 10y ago
      BS. "Spam" is advertising; news you don't agree with is not. Yes, if Facebook users shout about something loudly and it gets popular, FB has no right to squelch that just because they disagree with it. That's censorship. If Democrat voters don't like the Republican-aimed news, FB can and should make sure their news feeds are tailored for users so that people don't see stuff from sources they think are junk and so their feeds are more tailored for them and their preferences. I have no problem with that. That's how Google News works; I can tell it to not show me news from crappy sites like Breitbart or WND. But it doesn't censor those sources against my will; if for some crazy reason I really liked those site, I could tell GN to show them to me, and I can set my preference for those sites to a higher factor. The whole key here is user choice: having some fedora-wearing hipster at Facebook telling me what I should and shouldn't be reading is asinine and condescending. Having the ability to configure my news feeds to show me what I want, and hide things I think are garbage, is absolutely correct however.

basch 10y ago

i see no implication of interventionless "most popular." especially on facebook. each person's trending stories could be different and be presented based on what it thinks is popular AND applicable to you. all i see is "here is a subsample of some of our most popular stories." do you and your friends have the same trending stories at the same time? cuz i get regional stories. im sure my friends in other regions dont get those stories. it is quite obviously targeting me based on something besides a global trending list. nothing on facebook is ever organic. and ive never seen facebook claim anything was.

Grishnakh 10y ago
>especially on facebook. each person's trending stories could be different and be presented based on what it thinks is popular AND applicable to you. I would agree that this is a fair assumption to make about how it should work. >cuz i get regional stories. im sure my friends in other regions dont get those stories. Yes, that's no different than Google News. That's an entirely fair thing to do: tailor a person's feed for their preferences and locality. >it is quite obviously targeting me based on something besides a global trending list. Yes, and as long as it's unbiased, there's no problem with that. Especially if users can configure it (maybe I'd really like to see local news items from my hometown, for instance). However, if they're intentionally omitting news feed items because they don't like them, that's wrong. Omitting news feed items from your feed because you don't live in Laramie, Wyoming and these items are only of interest to locals there is one thing; omitting items because they're of interest to a political group that you don't care for is entirely another.
- basch 10y ago
  having humans tagging certain stories as "not news" is not evil agenda based bias, it is spam filtering. just because a group of people start shouting about something loudly, and the shouting gets popular, doesnt mean facebook should choose to amplify it. for example, think of mean girls. when gretchen is trying to make fetch happen, and regina says "Gretchen, stop trying to make fetch happen! It's not going to happen!" A group of likeminded people, say republicans in this example, could be trying to make someone appear popular by shouting their name a lot, ad nauseum. that doesnt make it newsworthy outside the echo chamber. if the republican network is more coordinated and better at discussing one topic at at time than the democrats, they can push a story higher on the trending list. people being able to manipulate the trending list through coordination isnt ideal. if you want a gamified, competitive trending list, visit twitter. letting pure popularity and activity overrule common sense is foolhearted. i have never seen facebook claim their trending list behaved like twitter (which is where it seems you are getting your ideal trending behavior concept from.) using humans to balance the trending stories, instead of letting one ideology take it over, is a good thing. but balance doesnt always mean fair or equal. myths dont deserve equal space to debunking. intelligent design doesnt automatically deserve equal placement to more accredited theories. if something is factually wrong, facebook can remove a story from trending to prevent its spread. plus, algorithms are going to display some kind of bias. any sort of spam filter will disfavor certain noise. is blocking viagra ads bias? algorithms written by people will lean in SOME direction. believing in unbias is naive.
  - Grishnakh 10y ago
    BS. "Spam" is advertising; news you don't agree with is not. Yes, if Facebook users shout about something loudly and it gets popular, FB has no right to squelch that just because they disagree with it. That's censorship. If Democrat voters don't like the Republican-aimed news, FB can and should make sure their news feeds are tailored for users so that people don't see stuff from sources they think are junk and so their feeds are more tailored for them and their preferences. I have no problem with that. That's how Google News works; I can tell it to not show me news from crappy sites like Breitbart or WND. But it doesn't censor those sources against my will; if for some crazy reason I really liked those site, I could tell GN to show them to me, and I can set my preference for those sites to a higher factor. The whole key here is user choice: having some fedora-wearing hipster at Facebook telling me what I should and shouldn't be reading is asinine and condescending. Having the ability to configure my news feeds to show me what I want, and hide things I think are garbage, is absolutely correct however.