Are Facebook’s “Trending Stories” Really Trending?

“Workers prevented stories about the right-wing CPAC gathering, Mitt Romney, Rand Paul, and other conservative topics from appearing in the highly-influential section, even though they were organically trending among the site’s users”, Gizmodo quoted a former Faccebook trending topics journalist as saying. However, the CEO added that it has taken the earlier report seriously and has launched an investigation to make sure that the company’s employees are following the guidelines.

“In the coming weeks, I’ll also be inviting leading conservatives and people from across the political spectrum to talk with me about this and share their points of view”, Zuckerberg concluded.

Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post Thursday night that the company’s investigation into the allegations didn’t turn up evidence that the account is true, but vowed to have a “direct” conversation with those on the right regarding the charges. The documents include instructions for how curators can “inject” or “blacklist” topics in the trending topics.

The Guardian released leaked documents that seemed to show guidelines for Facebook editors on how to pick trending stories.

“Topics that are eligible to appear in the product are surfaced by our algorithms, not people”, Orofsky wrote.

Tom Stocky, Facebook’s VP for search and head of trending topics, hit back quickly, denying the accusations in a statement on May 9.

Stories with insufficient sources also shouldn’t be included: “Use this when we think a topic is connected to a real-world event but the available information is not sufficient to characterize the topic with confidence”, Facebook’s guidelines explain.

Facebook’s vice president of global operations, Justin Osofsky, clarified that perception with a another online post Thursday that aimed to provide more details about how the Trending Topics module works.

After a delay of a few days, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has jumped to the defence of this social network and its handling of news.

In the letter, the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation asked Zuckerberg if his news curators practiced “politically motivated manipulation”.

In a post published to Facebook’s media relations section on Thursday, a senior company official outlined its “Trending Topics” guidelines at length.

The Menlo Park firm has come under fire after technology site Gizmodo reported that Facebook contractors were instructed to choose articles from preferred media organizations such as the New York Times or the BBC and downplay stories from conservative-leaning sites or news about Republican leaders.

Facebook news is selected by editors outside of the site’s algorithm, according to leaked documents released by The Guardian on May 12.

The list of “Trending Topics” is then personalised for each user via an algorithm that relies on a number of factors, including the importance of the topic, Pages a person has liked, location, feedback provided by the user about previous Trending Topics and what’s trending across Facebook overall.