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Facebook says: "The list of Trending Topics is then personalized for each user via an algorithm that relies on a number of factors, including the importance of

by scholia 10y ago

Facebook says: "The list of Trending Topics is then personalized for each user via an algorithm that relies on a number of factors, including the importance of the topic, Pages a person has liked, location (e.g.. home state sports news), feedback provided by the user about previous Trending Topics and what’s trending across Facebook overall. Not everyone sees the same topics at the same time." (My italics.) If you're interested in Iran, you will probably see stuff about Iran that hardly anyone else sees. I have zero interest in Iran and have never seen anything about it.

salimmadjd 10y ago
If you look at the image I posted [0] there is trending topic of Justin Bieber. I have zero interest in him, in fact I've never or rarely can I recall have mentioned anything about the pop culture, music or anything else (I like classical music and some classical rock). Given all the different topic I post on FB and Justin Bieber popping up, I can image this is not all personalized news. I also follow many people who posts news and information on Iran, and it's surprising none of them showed up on trending, except an article with intent of vilification. Seems unlikely. Even if FB news is personalized, FB guideline indicates they can inject any news they want into this. I noticed the same thing with the Yahoo News showing up on Yahoo email years ago and last time I checked continuing today. That source also rapidly became hawkish on foreign policy issues.
- dimino 10y ago
  What you're trying to do is draw conclusions based on very small sets of data. Sure, the article submitted agrees with your conclusion, but there's simply no way to tell if the conclusion you're drawing (and what's stated in the article) is related to your observations. Your very small anecdotal evidence does not provide additional confirmation of the reported behavior.
  - nimblegorilla 10y ago
    Not everything has to be proven beyond reasonable doubt before people provide anecdotes.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
TrevorJ 10y ago
The problem is what facebook says is at odds with what the leaked documents purport to show. Trending items, and hand-curated items are not the same thing, and apparently they have been passing one off as the other which is problematic.
- throwawaykeno 10y ago
  "Fair and balanced" isn't either. We can argue about whether there's an ethical problem, but the assertion that there's any sort of legal problem seems completely arbitrary and partisan IMO.
  - pessimizer 10y ago
    > "Fair and balanced" isn't either. "Fair and balanced" doesn't mean anything. Editorial control and algorithmic control are two different things. > the assertion that there's any sort of legal problem seems completely arbitrary and partisan IMO. I don't see any assertion that there's a legal problem in the parent.
    - throwawaykeno 10y ago
      > Editorial control and algorithmic control are two different things. It's also a meaningless distinction. The point of contention is the bias, not whether the bias is imposed by an algorithm or by a human. People would still be complaining if Facebook had tweaked its algorithm to achieve identical outputs instead of employing humans to do it manually. The truth seems to be somewhere in-between -- it was algorithmically generated and then the output was human-modified. In general, I think the response to this post demonstrates the prevalence of magical thinking about computers, even by people who ought to know better. Bias is bias regardless of whether it's explicitly programmed behavior, emergent behavior from a carefully trained neural net, or enforced in human processes post-hoc. Distinguishing between these on the basis of where the behavior came from -- rather than whether or not there's a bias -- misses the point. > I don't see any assertion that there's a legal problem in the parent. The point of my post wasn't to contradict the parent post. There certainly are people who do claim it's a legal problem.
golemotron 10y ago
>Facebook says: "The list of Trending Topics is then personalized for each user via an algorithm that relies on a number of factors In other words, they are lying. 'Trending' should be calculated directly as topics of highest interest over all users. If it's not it's a manipulated figure.

by scholia 10y ago

salimmadjd 10y ago

If you look at the image I posted [0] there is trending topic of Justin Bieber. I have zero interest in him, in fact I've never or rarely can I recall have mentioned anything about the pop culture, music or anything else (I like classical music and some classical rock). Given all the different topic I post on FB and Justin Bieber popping up, I can image this is not all personalized news. I also follow many people who posts news and information on Iran, and it's surprising none of them showed up on trending, except an article with intent of vilification. Seems unlikely. Even if FB news is personalized, FB guideline indicates they can inject any news they want into this. I noticed the same thing with the Yahoo News showing up on Yahoo email years ago and last time I checked continuing today. That source also rapidly became hawkish on foreign policy issues.

dimino 10y ago
What you're trying to do is draw conclusions based on very small sets of data. Sure, the article submitted agrees with your conclusion, but there's simply no way to tell if the conclusion you're drawing (and what's stated in the article) is related to your observations. Your very small anecdotal evidence does not provide additional confirmation of the reported behavior.
- nimblegorilla 10y ago
  Not everything has to be proven beyond reasonable doubt before people provide anecdotes.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

TrevorJ 10y ago

The problem is what facebook says is at odds with what the leaked documents purport to show. Trending items, and hand-curated items are not the same thing, and apparently they have been passing one off as the other which is problematic.

throwawaykeno 10y ago
"Fair and balanced" isn't either. We can argue about whether there's an ethical problem, but the assertion that there's any sort of legal problem seems completely arbitrary and partisan IMO.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  > "Fair and balanced" isn't either. "Fair and balanced" doesn't mean anything. Editorial control and algorithmic control are two different things. > the assertion that there's any sort of legal problem seems completely arbitrary and partisan IMO. I don't see any assertion that there's a legal problem in the parent.
  - throwawaykeno 10y ago
    > Editorial control and algorithmic control are two different things. It's also a meaningless distinction. The point of contention is the bias, not whether the bias is imposed by an algorithm or by a human. People would still be complaining if Facebook had tweaked its algorithm to achieve identical outputs instead of employing humans to do it manually. The truth seems to be somewhere in-between -- it was algorithmically generated and then the output was human-modified. In general, I think the response to this post demonstrates the prevalence of magical thinking about computers, even by people who ought to know better. Bias is bias regardless of whether it's explicitly programmed behavior, emergent behavior from a carefully trained neural net, or enforced in human processes post-hoc. Distinguishing between these on the basis of where the behavior came from -- rather than whether or not there's a bias -- misses the point. > I don't see any assertion that there's a legal problem in the parent. The point of my post wasn't to contradict the parent post. There certainly are people who do claim it's a legal problem.

golemotron 10y ago

>Facebook says: "The list of Trending Topics is then personalized for each user via an algorithm that relies on a number of factors In other words, they are lying. 'Trending' should be calculated directly as topics of highest interest over all users. If it's not it's a manipulated figure.