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Am I the only one to have never seen (as best as I can tell) fake news on Facebook's trending topics? I don't think it's just a matter of them personalizing it

by baddox 10y ago

Am I the only one to have never seen (as best as I can tell) fake news on Facebook's trending topics? I don't think it's just a matter of them personalizing it to me, because I get all sorts of celebrity and sports news that I presume is accurate but in which I have absolutely no interest.

sbuttgereit 10y ago
Nope, I haven't seen "fake news" in trending and I share your pain otherwise. For all the apocalyptic talk of AI and non-existent privacy... I can think of nothing less relevant to my tastes and interests than the trending news feature of Facebook... except for maybe the suggested pages feature... oh yeah, and ads. I have gone far out of my way to say which stories I'm not interested in (they ask, after all) and nope... same useless crap different day. So far, if this is the edge of a dystopian future of unbounded technical tyranny: I am thus far not all that impressed. In truth, the only thing that is apparent is they've modeled an "every man" that they then use to throw stuff at me to see what sticks. Apparently, "every man" reads a lot of People Magazine and watches a lot of ESPN. The only reason I use Facebook has to do with my friends and family that are reasonably easy to reach on the platform en masse. Everything else about the platform is useless on a good day and actively annoying on a bad one. I might add that I don't worry too much about sharing personal details with them and really, really wish they'd make a service that takes advantage of all that I've shared with them... even good ads would be welcome. I think I may well just shut my Facebook account down and put reminders in my calendar to touch base more personally with those friends and family I like keeping in touch with.
soundwave106 10y ago
I've never seen what I call "fake news" (conspiracy theory oriented clickbait) on Facebook, personally. But I've seen a couple of really oddball conspiracy theory oriented Youtube videos as "recommended for you" from time to time. I've always wondered what triggered those. I don't use Facebook much at all, but my general impression is that some of "trending topics" and "recommended for you" is shaped in part by what people in my friends list have clicked on / shared / liked / etc. I only have a couple people on the feed that are terribly prone to the conspiracy mindset, so to me it's not surprising I don't get too many of those type of posts in "trending topics". (I usually use Youtube without an account, so maybe it's a little more random there.) It's good that Facebook is adding a more descriptive headline to "trending topics"; the current headline-oriented format I found fairly useless (for reasons described in the article; currently, the two or three word title that trends is not terribly helpful, you have to hover over the text to find out what the actual story is).
0xfeba 10y ago
The fake news was targeted mostly at poor, white, republican/conservatives.
- CaptSpify 10y ago
  source?
  - 0xfeba 10y ago
    http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/02/politics/russia-fake-news-reality/ http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/02/politics/russia-fake-news-... http://warontherocks.com/2016/11/trolling-for-trump-how-russia-is-trying-to-destroy-our-democracy/ http://warontherocks.com/2016/11/trolling-for-trump-how-russ... And by matter of filter bubble. The people the news (mostly negative pieces about Obama or Clinton) was likely to show up for were white conservatives.

by baddox 10y ago

sbuttgereit 10y ago

Nope, I haven't seen "fake news" in trending and I share your pain otherwise. For all the apocalyptic talk of AI and non-existent privacy... I can think of nothing less relevant to my tastes and interests than the trending news feature of Facebook... except for maybe the suggested pages feature... oh yeah, and ads. I have gone far out of my way to say which stories I'm not interested in (they ask, after all) and nope... same useless crap different day. So far, if this is the edge of a dystopian future of unbounded technical tyranny: I am thus far not all that impressed. In truth, the only thing that is apparent is they've modeled an "every man" that they then use to throw stuff at me to see what sticks. Apparently, "every man" reads a lot of People Magazine and watches a lot of ESPN. The only reason I use Facebook has to do with my friends and family that are reasonably easy to reach on the platform en masse. Everything else about the platform is useless on a good day and actively annoying on a bad one. I might add that I don't worry too much about sharing personal details with them and really, really wish they'd make a service that takes advantage of all that I've shared with them... even good ads would be welcome. I think I may well just shut my Facebook account down and put reminders in my calendar to touch base more personally with those friends and family I like keeping in touch with.

soundwave106 10y ago

I've never seen what I call "fake news" (conspiracy theory oriented clickbait) on Facebook, personally. But I've seen a couple of really oddball conspiracy theory oriented Youtube videos as "recommended for you" from time to time. I've always wondered what triggered those. I don't use Facebook much at all, but my general impression is that some of "trending topics" and "recommended for you" is shaped in part by what people in my friends list have clicked on / shared / liked / etc. I only have a couple people on the feed that are terribly prone to the conspiracy mindset, so to me it's not surprising I don't get too many of those type of posts in "trending topics". (I usually use Youtube without an account, so maybe it's a little more random there.) It's good that Facebook is adding a more descriptive headline to "trending topics"; the current headline-oriented format I found fairly useless (for reasons described in the article; currently, the two or three word title that trends is not terribly helpful, you have to hover over the text to find out what the actual story is).

0xfeba 10y ago

The fake news was targeted mostly at poor, white, republican/conservatives.

CaptSpify 10y ago
source?
- 0xfeba 10y ago
  http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/02/politics/russia-fake-news-reality/ http://edition.cnn.com/2016/12/02/politics/russia-fake-news-... http://warontherocks.com/2016/11/trolling-for-trump-how-russia-is-trying-to-destroy-our-democracy/ http://warontherocks.com/2016/11/trolling-for-trump-how-russ... And by matter of filter bubble. The people the news (mostly negative pieces about Obama or Clinton) was likely to show up for were white conservatives.