Facebook to scrap 'trending' feature after outcry over fake news

Social media platform says the feature has become less useful to users over time

Saturday 02 June 2018 20:30 BST

Facebook's new mute feature can block keywords from appearing on your newsfeed (PA)

Facebook is discontinuing its troubled "trending" section, the social network has announced.

The section, which launched in 2014, was designed to help people quickly find interesting topics on Facebook.

But Alex Hardiman, the company's head of news products, said in a blog post that users were shifting to consuming news on their phones and through video.

"So we're exploring new ways to help people stay informed about timely, breaking news that matters to them, while making sure the news they see on Facebook is from trustworthy and quality sources," she said.

The trending section had been a headache for the company. It amassed notoriety in 2016 after a report that detailed allegations of the trending team suppressing conservative news.

The backlash from conservatives led Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to extend an olive branch, holding a meeting at his company headquarters with more than two dozen conservative figures including Glenn Beck, Dana Perino and Tucker Carlson. Facebook eventually fired the editors on the trending team, replacing them with an automated process.

But the curation of trending news in the absence of human oversight led to more embarrassment.

The algorithms promoted 9/11 conspiracy theories, a false story about then-Fox News host Megyn Kelly, and a parody news article about magical iPhone features, which some say were early indicators of Facebook's misinformation problem.

The company continued to modify the section, but Facebook said that over time it became less useful to users.

Media analysts have argued that Facebook's reaction to claims of anti-conservative bias led the company to take a more lax approach to the Russian disinformation campaign. Facebook continues to face criticism from right-leaning circles.

In recent months, Facebook has launched several initiatives to address accusations of political bias, misinformation and transparency in political advertising.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

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1/1111 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Clean up your News Feed

Most of us are Facebook friends with some people we don’t actually care about, and there are several ways to keep their updates off your News Feed. The easiest option is to head to the column on the left and open News Feed Preferences. From here, you can prioritise friends, unfollow friends, refollow friends you unfollowed in the past and even block specific apps.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Change ad preferences

You can view a list of everything Facebook thinks you’re into and tinker with your ad preferences. A lot more information is displayed on the desktop site than the app, so we’d recommend doing this on a computer. Just open Settings and select Advert Preferences.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Manage notifications

You can get notifications about pretty much anything on Facebook these days, and that can be seriously irritating. Choose what you do and don’t want to be notified about by going into the Settings menu and selecting Notifications. You might be surprised by the number of sections you have to trawl through.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Save data

Facebook automatically plays videos in your News Feed, and that’s a problem if you aren’t on a generous data plan. You can change this by going to Videos in the Settings menu and disabling autoplay. On the app, there’s feature in the left-hand column called Data Saver, which also does this, but reduces the size of pictures too.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Reorder your News feed

You can choose to order the updates that appear in your News Feed by time or importance. Just hit the three buttons next to News Feed Preferences on the Facebook site and choose between Top Stories and Recent Stories.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Download your data

Facebook lets you download all of the immense amounts of data it has on you, including the posts you’ve shared, your messages and photos, ads you’ve clicked on and even the IP addresses that are logged when you log in or out of the site. It’s a lot of information, which you’ll want to get your hands on if you decide to quit the social network.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Find nearby places

Nearby Places is actually a really handy tool, which lets you quickly find and research things like restaurants, hotels, museums and nightlife hotspots around you. It lives in the left-hand column, and also shows useful information like customer ratings, prices and distance.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Find free Wi-Fi

Similarly, Find Wi-Fi is ideal for when you’re bored, running low on data or lost. It shows you all the places in your vicinity that offer free Wi-Fi, so you can head over and either relax or get some work done.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Save things for later

Facebook’s ideal for killing time, but every now and again you’ll stumble across something you’re interested in right as you need to put your phone away. Fortunately, you can save posts for later by hitting the arrow in the top-right corner and selecting the Save option. Everything you save goes straight to the Saved section in the left-hand column.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Control tags

When people tag you in posts or pictures, they don’t have to automatically appear on your profile. You can switch on Facebook’s Review Tags feature by going to Settings and Timeline and Tagging.

11 useful Facebook features you didn't know existed

Delete your account

To permanently delete your Facebook account, you need to head to Facebook’s Delete Account page. The site can take up to 90 days to process account deletion requests, but once your account's gone, it’s gone. You can deactivate your account instead, by going to Security and Login in the Settings menu.

The company has also been reeling from the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Lawmakers in Congress and in Europe have raised the possibility of drafting new regulations to address Facebook's privacy violations.

In Friday's announcement, Facebook also said that 80 publishers are testing a "breaking news" label that they can pin to their articles in the news feed. The company is simultaneously experimenting with a breaking-news notification, a section dedicated to breaking local news, and a video feature for American users to watch live coverage and weekly reports.

Ms Hardiman said Facebook will remove the trending section next week.

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