Last week we reported that Facebook had been facing pressure to shed more light over the way it surfaces Trending Topics. The social network has come forward with more details, announcing changes to the process that selects which topics make it to the Trending section.
Trending Topics are shaped with the help of three factors: an algorithm that identifies popular themes across the platform and news outlets, a team that validates their existence, and a personalisation mechanism that makes every Trending Topics list unique and relatable to each user’s taste.
From now on, Facebook will strengthen the process and make sure that there is no bias whatsoever, when Trending Topics are published. For this reason, Facebook will scrap the list of over a thousand news sites where it looks for popular topics, and which supplement the algorithm that does the initial screening for the Trending section.
Then, the company will remove the ability to assign an “importance level” to a topic through its assessment team. While this doesn’t necessarily secure that isolated improper actions won’t take place, it however provide an additional level of unbiased approach. To tackle this, Facebook will introduce more robust escalation processes and oversight on the review team.
You can find more info here.
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