Facebook has switched to where their news stories are chosen with an automated process. Well now Facebook posts a fake Megyn Kelly story. Perhaps now they will reconsider their plans of automating this very important process.
Facebook Posts a Fake Megyn Kelly Story
The article falsely claimed that Megyn Kelly was getting fired from Fox News due to her support for Hillary Clinton. While not true, this had the basis of a bombshell story in the political world. The article was published at a perfect time for something like this. It went viral and millions of people were led to believe it was true.
That said, people "in the know" realized this was totally false. See below.
https://twitter.com/kyletblaine/status/770078183211294720?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/JGreenDC/status/770211292019822593?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
This has finally been removed. But Facebook should answer for this. Completely fake "news" should not be "trending" https://t.co/RbE0AFl1Ua
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) August 29, 2016
This article was trending on Facebook for several hours before finally being taken down Monday morning.
This is relevant because just last Friday, Facebook announced they were automating the process for trending news. They were not completely removing the human element, as humans can still pick through the news for relevant stuff. The snippets and headlines were to be completely automated though.
Facebook was fighting claims that their news leans liberally in a big way. This claim was first made by Gizmodo.
Here is a video from The Verve that shows how Facebook controls what becomes trending.
It seems Facebook is in a battle with Google to control everything. The news, people's information, etc. Facebook appears to be in the lead, but mistakes like this are costly and questions their authority. But ultimately, it will not be hard for them to overcome, as their users are so reliant on their product for day to day living.
