Facebook's Trending Topics highlights fake Megyn Kelly story days after dropping editors
That didn't take long.
Just days after removing editors from curating Trending Topics, Facebook's news-driven section surfaced a fake story about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly.
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This is just about a worst-case scenario for Facebook, which had previously been battling allegations that its Trending editors had discriminated against conservative news outlets.
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Facebook removed the article after a few hours.
Trending Topics editors originally used data from Facebook users to then curate news stories and write Facebook-friendly headlines and synopses.
Now, algorithms are running almost the entire thing. The headlines are gone, and so are the editors, having reportedly been laid off.
Those editors also served as something of quality control, making sure the news section was stocked with topics that made sense and were legitimate. They even operated based on an extensive list of media outlets.
It would appear this is a trick that the algorithms have not yet perfected. The fake story came from a website called "EndingTheFed.com." A Facebook search found that it has gained a following among far-right conservatives, with Facebook pages for "Females for TRUMP," "American Preppers Network" and actor Scott Baio (who spoke at the Republican convention) having recently shared posts from the publication.
The story in question claimed that Megyn Kelly had been exposed as a "traitor" for backing Hillary Clinton. There's no evidence out there that this is the case. The post from "EndingThe Fed" points to a report from another website that then links to yet another website, "Conservative101," which has a screed that seems to just be some stream-of-consciousness writing based on various other news reports.
The rise of these kinds of digital media operations has been sharply chronicled by John Herrman at the New York Times, who found many similar pages that serve tens of millions of Facebook users with politics-based pulp psuedo-news. Herrman wrote:
It’s an environment that’s at best indifferent and at worst hostile to traditional media brands; but for this new breed of page operator, it’s mostly upside In front of largely hidden and utterly sympathetic audiences, incredible narratives can take shape, before emerging, mostly formed, into the national discourse.
A Facebook spokesperson said that the Trending review team accepted the story over the weekend and then reconsidered it on Monday morning. They added that Facebook is working to make its detection of hoax and satirical stories more accurate.
Jason Abbruzzese is a Business Reporter at Mashable. He covers the media and telecom industries with a particular focus on how the Internet is changing these markets and impacting consumers. Prior to working at Mashable, Jason served as Markets Reporter and Web Producer at the Financial Times. Jason holds a B.S. in Journalism from Boston University and an M.A. in International Affairs from Australian National University.
