Mumbai: Facebook, the only social networking site with billions of users, has been one of the fastest growing tech companies over the past few years.
The company, which started off its journey as a mere networking site in 2004, has now become a market leader; from a commoner to the wealthiest man on Earth, everyone’s a part of the vast network.
Not to mention, the Mark Zuckerberg-led company has also been involved in numerous philanthropic activities as well; the CEO of the 342 billion dollar company, in many past interviews, pointed out that one of the social networking venture’s main motive is to connect the world and make it a better place.
As of April 2016, the social media site was the most used networking site with more than 1.65 billion active users. That’s quite a lot of people! Now imagine if Facebook determines what news you read regularly on the networking site?
Recently, several media reports have emerged, following an article on Gizmodo, where past Facebook workers testified that the company manipulates its trending news section—curators were manually instructed to ‘inject’ with the algorithmically-run trending news module.
Suppressing authentically trending news and pushing up other content according to user preference might be a good business ploy but undeniably unscrupulous.
The company’s ‘News Trends’ feature, which was kicked off in 2014, has been popular among people only because of its unbiased approach toward any developing story over the course of a day.
However, recent allegations by former employs have tainted that image and it will be extremely disreputable if it is found that trending news section is prejudiced.
Giving preference to news can significantly affect people’s opinion regarding an on-going development such as an election or other issues that are equally important.
While Zuckerberg and other Facebook high-ranks have strongly reacted to the Gizmodo report and introduced a subsequent investigation, what if the company does promote news according to monitored preferences?
It is definitely unfair to people whose stories, although prominent, fail to get the required attention on social media.
Considering that more than half of the social network’s population closely follow the trends section, it should be really cautious about what goes on the top half of the trending section; one wrong trend can lead to diversified and even misleading results.
Facebook has brushed the rumours aside but are still investigating the issue allegations. Facebook’s Global VP Justin Osofsky, in a blog related to the subject, said: “We have found no evidence to date that Trending Topics was successfully manipulated, but will continue the review of all our practices.”
Well, considering the vast audience it caters to, ‘injecting new trends’ would definitely lead to stained opinions, and I hope the company takes utmost care to uphold neutrality regarding its trending news module.
