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Facebook Changes Feed To Promote Posts That Aren't Fake, Sensational, Or Spam (techcrunch.com) 194

TechCrunch is reporting that Facebook is prioritizing "authentic" content in News Feed with a ranking algorithm change that detects and promotes content "that people consider genuine, and not misleading, sensational, or spammy." The algorithm will also boost stories that are going viral in real-time. From the report: To build the update, Facebook categorized Pages that frequently share inauthentic posts like fake news and clickbaity headlines, or get their posts hidden often. It then used these posts to train an algorithm that detects similar content as its shared in the News Feed. Facebook will now give extra feed visibility to posts that don't show signs of similarity to inauthentic content. Meanwhile, Facebook wants to more quickly surface big stories going viral either because the topic is being posted about by lots of people, or a Page post about the topic is seeing tons of engagement. Facebook will then take that as a signal that you might temporarily care more about the topic, and therefore show it in your News Feed while it's still hot. Facebook says it doesn't anticipate significant changes to most Pages' News Feed distribution, but some might see a small increase or decrease in referral traffic or outbound clicks depending on if they share authentic, timely content vs inauthentic and outdated stories.
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Facebook Changes Feed To Promote Posts That Aren't Fake, Sensational, Or Spam

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  • From:

    Washington Post
    Fox
    Huffington Post
    USAToday
    NYT
    MSNBC
    NPR
    Vox

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01, 2017 @08:10AM (#53779937)
    Are probably not really that interested in whether the 'news' is real or not.
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I don't think many people go to Facebook to get news, it just comes down their feed because their friends keep clicking "like" and reposting on it. It's then just a case of being too lazy to go to a reputable site to figure out of it's true or not.

      Don't underestimate the power of this. Even people who think they are immune are influenced by the endless torrent of stories pushing a particular angle, unless they get a regular dose of counter views.

      • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        I don't think many people go to Facebook to get news, it just comes down their feed because their friends keep clicking "like" and reposting on it. It's then just a case of being too lazy to go to a reputable site to figure out of it's true or not.

        Don't underestimate the power of this. Even people who think they are immune are influenced by the endless torrent of stories pushing a particular angle, unless they get a regular dose of counter views.

        You'd be surprised then. True, they don't go to Facebook to lo

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01, 2017 @08:13AM (#53779951)

    So it

    promotes content "that people consider genuine

    Isn't the real problem that people consider anything that matches their confirmation bias to be genuine?

    • This is not a bug, it is a feature....

    • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2017 @09:10AM (#53780205)

      Didn't you get the memo? We're so democratic now that reality has to bend to the wishes of the majority.

      • by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        That includes that notion that there is even a "majority" that actually thinks the same thing. That proposition has always been a bit bullshit in the US. Both factions are entirely too full of themselves and think they have much wider support than they really do.

    • So it

      promotes content "that people consider genuine

      Isn't the real problem that people consider anything that matches their confirmation bias to be genuine?

      This AC needs to be at +5 insightful. In the short time I've been on Facebook, what has happened is the feed has adjusted itself to my friends, relatives and those people who I originally got on Facebook for in some groups that I run.

      So I get both liberal claptrap and conservative bullshit. Especially because I regularly talk to and interact with both sides.

      Now, if a person gets a lot of liberal info that they don't like, they might be associating with people who's political views they aren't in line

  • Click here (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Facebook changed their feed...CLICK HERE to see what happens next! The results may SHOCK you!

  • by randomErr ( 172078 ) <ervin,kosch&gmail,com> on Wednesday February 01, 2017 @08:20AM (#53779983) Journal
    Third-party fact checkers scares the hell out of me. Snopes, FactCheck.org, Politifact, ABC News, and AP can be argued not to be impartial and to have a political agenda. If that can be proven out then only one voice will truly be heard on Facebook.
    • Snopes ran by Kim Lacapria who self describes herself as 'openly left-leaning and a liberal.'
    • FactCheck.org and Politifact - Trump quoted an article about the number of deaths via the poorly ran Vetrans Adminstration. Trump was reported as giving false facts. When the original CNN article came out the article was reported as completely true.

    I can point out similar instances with the other sources. I'm not totally against using these sources but I want a balance from the other sources on the other side of the political aisle.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      The problem is that most of the people that use those services dont really give a fuck about facts. They feel if youre not part of their bubble, you dont matter to them. especially if you disagree.
    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Snopes, FactCheck.org, Politifact, ABC News, and AP can be argued not to be impartial and to have a political agenda.

      All humans have personal opinions. What Snopes and the other sites do is investigate and publish with a list of their sources and explanation of them. That allows them to be publicly scrutinised and challenged. Fake news avoids such scrutiny, or accuses it of bias and conspiracy.

      I'm not totally against using these sources but I want a balance from the other sources on the other side of the political aisle.

      Sorry, there is no "balance" when it comes to facts and the truth. Something is either true or it isn't. Alternate facts are just lies.

      Perhaps you want sites with an open conservative bias to also do fact checking. That's reasonable

      • by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        When it comes to things I have personal knowledge of those sites are total bullshit. They distort just as much as any primary propaganda site. They just try to wrap themselves up in this pompous air of self importance.

        They are inferior to something like NPR that will give you enough information to make your own conclusion even if the journalist has his own obvious bias.

    • by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2017 @09:14AM (#53780223) Journal

      Third-party fact checkers scares the hell out of me. Snopes, FactCheck.org, Politifact, ABC News, and AP can be argued not to be impartial and to have a political agenda. If that can be proven out then only one voice will truly be heard on Facebook.
      Snopes ran by Kim Lacapria who self describes herself as 'openly left-leaning and a liberal.'
      FactCheck.org and Politifact - Trump quoted an article about the number of deaths via the poorly ran Vetrans Adminstration. Trump was reported as giving false facts. When the original CNN article came out the article was reported as completely true.

      You know, there's a simpler explanation. Maybe fact-checking is a more "left-leaning and liberal" preoccupation. The same way fake news appears to be favored by the alt-right.

      http://www.npr.org/sections/al... [npr.org]

      I'm not totally against using these sources but I want a balance from the other sources on the other side of the political aisle.

      Facts are not "balanced", nor should you expect them to be. The molar mass of nitrogen is 14.0067 g/mol. I don't need to consult someone from the "other side" to tell me that nitrogen doesn't really exist, it's only a liberal conspiracy, or to give me the molar mass in units of fetal souls.

      Fact-checking sources provide citations I can check. Remember what happened when "Conservapedia" came out? It was going to be a "conservative" alternative to Wikipedia. They beshat themselves so badly that the only people who visited that site were those seeking to ridicule it. Remember the president's spokesperson giving us "alternative facts"?

      Remember which power structure is ascendant during this Age of Alt-Facts. Do you believe it is coincidental that it coincides with an effort to make people believe that nothing is true, no information can be trusted?

      • Facts are not "balanced", nor should you expect them to be. The molar mass of nitrogen is 14.0067 g/mol. I don't need to consult someone from the "other side" to tell me that nitrogen doesn't really exist

        Bullshit. It's not nitrogen, it's phlogisticated air. Don't believe me? Try burning something in it. It won't burn because the so-called "nitrogen" is already full of phlogiston and can't take up any more.

        And what's that liberal claptrap about it having a positive mass? If you fill a very large, very light

      • You know, there's a simpler explanation. Maybe fact-checking is a more "left-leaning and liberal" preoccupation.

        That's mostly irrelevant. It still means that "fake news" which conforms to left-leaning biases is more likely to slip through the fact-checking.

        e.g. Every major media outlet calling it Trump's ban on Muslim immigrants, when it's actually a 120 day freeze (not that I agree with with it). By their definition, Obama banned pay raises for government workers [nytimes.com] (2 years > 120 days). Or how the

        • That's mostly irrelevant. It still means that "fake news" which conforms to left-leaning biases is more likely to slip through the fact-checking.

          No, because well-known fact-checkers can still be relied upon to call out fake news no matter the bias.

          http://www.snopes.com/trump-cr... [snopes.com]

    • by Ol Olsoc ( 1175323 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2017 @09:29AM (#53780305)

      I can point out similar instances with the other sources. I'm not totally against using these sources but I want a balance from the other sources on the other side of the political aisle.

      Here's the interesting thing AFAIAC. People want, people want.

      Don't want - do!

      If you want conservative fact checking and conservative media and conservative teachers in schools - become one. Have so many conservative fact checkers that the liberal ones are just reduced to the noise background, so that their lies are laughable among the truth that the conservatives hand out.

      Because if we allow liberals to run these things, we'll just turn out more liberals that listen to more liberal lies.

    • by Maritz ( 1829006 )
      When you fear independent corroboration of things, it means you're sold on bullshit. Yeeeah I'm sure Snopes is all woolly liberals - unless it agrees with you of course.
      • by jedidiah ( 1196 )

        > When you fear independent corroboration of things, it means you're sold on bullshit. Yeeeah I'm sure Snopes is all woolly liberals - unless it agrees with you of course.

        It disagrees with my first hand knowledge of events. That's a problem you can't wriggle out of. It dissembles and dismisses key relevant details to support liberal narratives.

    • by iris-n ( 1276146 )

      I dream of the day we will have again an honest, reality-based right. Say whatever you want about Thatcher and Reagan, at least they had no fight against established science and peddle "alternative facts".

    • It's not a matter of protecting people from exposure to falsehood: that's a fool's errand. The real problems are intellectual laziness, parochialism, and moral cowardice. It's views becoming widespread because they've been seriously challenged, and then intractable because they're what "everyone" believes, and most people are conformists.

      You should focus on the achievable, which is achieving the maximum justifiable certainty.

      The very notion of "balance" is broken; it is profoundly wrong-headed. You can't

  • Wait... what? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    How do they decide "what isn't fake"?

    "ranking algorithm [...] that detects [...] 'that people consider genuine [...]'"

    Ah, OK. Mob expertise. But that's a game Slashdot & Reddit have learnt to play *much* better.

    Somehow they want the advantages of traditional media (control, reputation, gated communities, branding) without paying the price (a small army of professionals). Typical parasitic behavior. I sincerely hope they shrivel up and die, victims of some self-defense mechanism society at large invents.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Simple solution is to read multiple news sources. Anyone who uses only one source be it FB or the NYT will have a skewed perspective and miss things.

  • by ausekilis ( 1513635 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2017 @08:34AM (#53780021)
    I've had to report and ignore more than one idiot still on their soapbox about vaccinations causing autism.

    5 minutes with Google will pull up that mercury was used as a preservative, had some correlation to autism, and hasn't been used since the Gov banned it in the 70's or 80's. And those research papers everyone pulls up? They all reference 1 paper, done in the 60's.

    I can't wait for the braindead, unwashed masses to actually have a few braincells capable of independent thought. Since these same idiots believe everything they read on the internet (primarily Facebook), changes like this may actually help.
    • by budgenator ( 254554 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2017 @09:09AM (#53780197) Journal

      It's not that hard;
      No publication date -1,
      No Author -2,
      No links to supporting articles -2,
      verbatim copying of other site without quote, or a blockquote -2,
      tries to get your Email address -3,
      tries to get you to like page with a popup -3,
      tries to get you to like page with a popunder -4,
      dingus.tv or dear hughesnet subscriber popunder -5,
      autoplay video -6,
      any adds about herbal viagra, why a celeb doesn't talk about an offspring, or pictures being banned or embarassing -5,

    • I am just waiting for the day that we discover that vaccinations do actually cause autism but not for the reasons anybody knew about. Not that I think it will happen, but it could, you never know.

      Everyone in their camp. Vaxxers vs. Anti-Vaxxers, Trump vs. Anti-Trump, Global Warming vs. Anti-Global Warming. Each side so vocal and so adamant that the other side conform to their views. Each side digging in the more they come under assault. Doubling down on their beliefs. The critical voices actually confirming

    • I can't wait for the braindead, unwashed masses to actually have a few braincells capable of independent thought. Since these same idiots believe everything they read on the internet (primarily Facebook), changes like this may actually help.

      Intelligence is not required for reproduction. In fact, the stupid people are winning.

      Some people think that the movie Idiocracy is predictive of the future. I think Mike Judge was on the right path, but he's way too optimistic.

  • by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2017 @08:44AM (#53780077)
    I give this at most a week before something obviously fake gets promoted or the spammers figure out how to get around the algorithm and Facebook has to apologize again and looks completely inept.
    • I am sure that people will come up with circumvention techniques but FB is not exactly going to be sitting idle either. It's a cat-and-mouse game like everything else.

      If you are saying that it only lasts for a week in it's current form as implemented today, I might agree with you.

      If you are saying that they scrap the whole thing at the first sign of trouble... I disagree.

      • They won't scrap it, because replacing the algorithm with human bodies to do it is far more expensive. However, it's a defensive game from Facebook's perspective. It doesn't matter if they're right 99 times out of 100, it's when they get it wrong and part of their user base throws a giant tantrum and puts their giant persecution complex on display that Facebook will have to apologize and take their lumps in order to appease everyone. Hell, I think this has already happened a few times with their existing al
  • by cc1984_ ( 1096355 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2017 @08:46AM (#53780083)

    And you won't guess what happened next!

  • by Anonymous Coward

    They will prioritize their advertisers, while links to competitors will be down graded.
    Links to HuffPo, CNN and WaPo will get priority while Fox, Breitbart and Drudge will get marked down.
    If you can't shift the perspective, what is the point of being a billionaire, except to own a Hawaiian Island?

    • by Notabadguy ( 961343 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2017 @10:08AM (#53780579)

      Jesus - I just paid a visit to CNN, and their front page "news" article about Trump nominating a Supreme Court justice was full of shit like this:

      "It was a sweet moment of vindication for the Republican Party -- especially its social conservative and evangelical wings who had defied expectations that they would desert Trump over his three marriages and often vulgar tone.
      Whatever he said, and whatever he did, conservatives clung on to the tiger's tail, convinced Trump would deliver them a Supreme Court pick they could get behind. Looking on were Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan, savoring their reward."

      "But the President is also known to place great value in someone's appearance and might have concluded that Gorsuch, tall, fit with a square jaw and immaculately cropped gray hair looks the part of a Supreme Court Justice."

      That's why I consider CNN to be as fake news-y as anyone else. I want to read fucking NEWS. I don't want interpretations of what the people might have been thinking, or derogatory assumptions, or portrayals of any sort. I just want news.

  • Guess Fakebook will no longer be celebrities' love child, then?

  • My feed today is completely empty...
  • "Facebook Changes Feed To Promote Posts That Aren't Fake, Sensational, Or Spam"

    I noticed, they chose 'Stupid' instead.

  • by Salgak1 ( 20136 ) <salgak.speakeasy@net> on Wednesday February 01, 2017 @10:35AM (#53780747) Homepage

    . . .but why not let the USERS decide what they see and don't see ?

    Ooops, I forgot, on Facebook, the "users" are the PRODUCT. . . . because (insert the deity or deities of your parents' choice here) forbid we don't deliver vaguely-targeted irritating advertising with a patina of user sharing to make it look like "social media". . .

  • Based on the description alone, it would seem that the only way to detect this is by majority vote. Things could get past the filter and still be wrong or misleading if enough people were misled.

    • that sounds correct. I remember a case where a Microsoft AI experimenter was made to scan the internet and use frequency and then later discussions with human beings to determine 'truthfulness'. It was shut down for the 'opinions' is stated expressing about race, women etc.
        That might have been because the users thought it was fun to mess with it.

  • by JWW ( 79176 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2017 @11:08AM (#53781033)

    Arbiters of what is real or what is fake?!!

    And the only "problem" anyone sees in this is that they might not find all the "real" fake stuff.

    The real problem is we've given control of information and news to people who cannot be unbiased because no human can.

    You will see what they let you see. What they let you see will be "correct".

    The terrifying thing is not that "there's incorrect stuff on Facebook!!!" The terrifying thing is "Facebook" is actively monitoring and controlling what you see in an effort to get you to believe the "correct" things.... (note any interpretation of correct, that is not one you make yourself, is coercion, manipulation, and propaganda by definition).

    The commitment to "cleanse" fake news from the world is one of the most totalitarian efforts I've seen undertaken on a mass scale in my entire life...

  • Is that why I haven't seen a single post about Trump all day?
  • "Facebook Changes Feed To Promote Posts That Aren't Fake, Sensational, Or Spam"

    In other news, "Facebook Feeds Dropped By 99.7%"

  • by BeerMilkshake ( 699747 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2017 @12:09PM (#53781815)

    Recommend taking a look at steem.io and steemit.com. Steem offers financial reward for writing, curating, mining and other positive activities. FB has zero cost to post and very little incentive for liking or disliking, so c**p has no resistance to propagation.

  • by ripvlan ( 2609033 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2017 @01:32PM (#53782717)

    It'll be interesting to see how this works - what is the definition of "fake" news. Will CNN drop from view? What about The Onion? (which is the definition of Fake news - although considered highbrow satire). Posts about SNL mocking Trump?

    Will this stop the those who embrace alternate facts? Or fuel the conspiracy that liberal media is controlling the story? Look at FB who is now "blocking" access to the stories that people want to read - and the reason will be defined as attempting to hide the real story!!! Or hiding the stories that the media doesn't want you to read. The "Go do your own research!" movement will not die on the vine because their favorite stories are harder to find on FB. I predict that people will move to alternate sites to get their fix.

    Times - they are a changing.

  • So... they're getting rid of BuzzFeed and ~80% of Salon then?

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