Home Title Index Topic Index Sources Directory News Releases Sources Calendar

Facebook plans to curate 'high quality' news for its users from 'trusted outlets'

Ryan, Danielle
http://www.rt.com/news/455306-facebook-curate-news-feed/

Publisher:  RT
Date Written:  01/04/2019
Year Published:  2019  
Resource Type:  Article

Facebook is considering hiring human editors to hand-pick 'trustworthy' news to display on its site. Facebook's track record of bias and censorship make its motives suspect.

Abstract: 

--

Excerpt:

In his ongoing quest to satisfy the political censorship demands of Western governments, Zuckerberg told German publishing house Axel Springer that he is considering the introduction of a dedicated news section for the social media platform, which would potentially use humans to curate the news from "broadly trusted" outlets. Zuckerberg said Facebook might also start paying news publishers to include their articles in this dedicated news section in an effort to reward "high-quality, trustworthy content."

With social media censorship already at worryingly high levels, who will decide which outlets are "broadly trusted" and which are untrustworthy? What qualifies one outlet as more "trusted" than another? Will Zuckerberg make the criteria public?

Facebook should probably already be aware of the pitfalls when it comes to hiring human editors for such purposes. During the 2016 US presidential election, the company's solution to political bias in its trending news section was to fire the human editors responsible for it. Maybe Zuckerberg thinks this time it will be different? Or maybe, and more likely, this is just another PR effort to placate the pro-censorship crowd on Capitol Hill.

Sources-journalists use the sources website to find you


AlterLinks
c/o Sources


© 2023.