Facebook should prevent bias in its trending news


How do people get their news?

Many people rely on newspapers and websites to find out about important information. But for many people, the main way they get their news is through social media.

According to the Pew Research Center, 82 percent of American adults between the ages of 18 and 29 use Facebook and 70 percent of all Facebook users claim to use the social media website daily. Regardless of its common popularity, Facebook has also come under fire recently for allegedly keeping conservative topics and sources out of the “trending news” feature on the side of the website’s news feed. It is not clear if this occurrence was deliberate, and it certainly was not an absolute ban on anything that made the mistake of mentioning free-market capitalism in a positive context. The fact that allegations of editor bias nonetheless surfaced, however, warrants discussion.

The “trending news” sidebar on the Facebook homepage carries 10 popular stories at all times and is constantly updated to remain relevant. However, these updates are not automated. Facebook has elected not to automate the system because, as any social media-savvy young adult knows, cat memes and other viral phenomenon are overwhelmingly popular — so popular, in fact, that they may crowd out legitimate news sources and information. Though a sidebar full of pictures and videos of cats would certainly be a welcome vista for this writer, there are many who use Facebook to get easy access to the most commonly talked-about news in current circulation. Of course, without the meme-promoting robots taking the wheel, human editors are left to gauge interest in topics, crunch numbers and present the most click-worthy morsels of information to users.

But Facebook is not a daily news publication. It has become, however, a gatekeeper for relevant information. Though this isn’t a problem for those with subscriptions to regular sources of news, what may be more likely is that users like to keep their information in one place, at one click away. With more than one billion active daily users who see the same headlines concurrently, the ability of Facebook to influence public dialogue and debate is substantial. The capacity for strong bias, even unconsciously, to influence that dialogue and debate through choosing what story gets to be featured and from which source, is concerning, and Facebook should seriously consider either automating the system or eliminating it altogether.

It appears that Facebook’s workers have not engaged in deliberate and substantial suppression of conservative sources and stories. The fact that a trend worthy of Los Angeles Times reporting has emerged, though, is cause for some alarm. Facebook is doing its users a service by bringing world news to their screens. Those same users, though, ought to use due caution when reading headlines and stories pulled from the news sidebar, since there may be more editorializing happening behind the scenes than one would initially expect. Facebook lists the most popular stories on the internet; it is not expected to be a source of media commentary. It is additionally not obligated to offer original insight, present contentions and counterpoints or to refer readers to the most credible news sources.

Though Facebook does provide opposing views in its news sidebar, it does not do so in an organized fashion. There is no immediately clear differentiation between reputable news sources, bloggers, commenters or for that matter, political leanings. This is left largely up to individual users to determine on their own. The only thing that most of the one billion daily users see is the headline and deck, and that is determined by a real human editor with a real opinion. In this case, biases on the part of the user and the provider may be reinforced, rather than challenged, by the way the information is presented.

It is important to keep in mind that few, if any, individuals are unbiased. This is especially true in the news industry. Those who would like to keep up with current events are advised to use multiple sources to gather their information. Not only would perusing a variety of sources reveal coverage of different topics, the sources will often report with political slants that are opposed to one another. Each reader ought to then sift through the various perspectives presented by the news media and determine for themselves what appears to be the truth.

The power to sculpt the opinions of one billion other human beings represents no small undertaking. That power must, therefore, be exercised responsibly and with restraint. In the interest of increasing the availability of information that is untouched by an editor’s conscious or unconscious opinion to Facebook’s huge number of users, the news sidebar ought to either be removed or automated. After all, would a sidebar full of cats be such a bad thing to see every day?