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Facebook relies on the editorial judgment of its employees, not just an algorithm, when promoting content to its coveted trending news section, according to internal documents leaked to The Guardian.
A spokesperson for Facebook on Thursday confirmed the authenticity of the documents to BuzzFeed News, but said they were an “older version” of the guidelines.
The Guardian reported that after the algorithm did much of the work in gathering content, a small team of editors were instructed to “inject” or “blacklist” stories from the trending module based on a set of instructions outlined in the guidelines:
The guidelines show human intervention – and therefore editorial decisions – at almost every stage of Facebook’s trending news operation, a team that at one time was as few as 12 people:A team of news editors working in shifts around the clock was instructed on how to “inject” stories into the trending topics module, and how to “blacklist” topics for removal for up to a day over reasons including “doesn’t represent a real-world event”, left to the discretion of the editors.
The company wrote that “the editorial team CAN [sic] inject a newsworthy topic” as well if users create something that attracts a lot of attention, for example #BlackLivesMatter.
The Guardian spoke to three former employees who confirmed the process, but who also denied that their personal biases factored into the decision making.
The report comes just days after Gizmodo cited former Facebook news team staffers who claimed they were instructed to suppress conservative coverage from the trending module. The sources who spoke to The Guardian about the guideline documents denied those claims.
John Thune, chairman of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee, has called for an inquiry into Facebook's process.
Justin Osofsky, vice president of Facebook's global operations, said in a statement to BuzzFeed News that the guidelines "demonstrate that we have a series of checks and balances," adding that the site does not "discriminate against sources of any political origin, period."
"Trending Topics uses a variety of mechanisms to help surface events and topics that are happening in the real world," he said. "In our guidelines, we rely on more than a thousand sources of news — from around the world, and of all sizes and viewpoints — to help verify and characterize world events and what people are talking about.
"The intent of verifying against news outlets is to surface topics that are meaningful to people and newsworthy. We have at no time sought to weight any one view point over another, and in fact our guidelines are designed with the intent to make sure we do not do so."
LINK: Facebook VP Says “No Evidence” Of Political Bias Against Conservatives
from BuzzFeed - USNews http://ift.tt/1T8qU5o
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