the "nicer news feed"

[Nevilledog]

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Brian Stelter
@brianstelter
the "nicer news feed"

Kevin Roose
@kevinroose
Replying to @kevinroose
A few days after the election, amid a flood of misinformation, Facebook dialed up a publisher quality score known as NEQ to make authoritative news more prominent. Now, employees wonder if the “nicer news feed” can stay. https://nytimes.com/2020/11/24/technology/facebook-election-misinformation.html…
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[crickets]

1. Disappointing.

Guy Rosen, a Facebook executive who oversees the integrity division that is in charge of cleaning up the platform, said on a call with reporters last week that the changes were always meant to be temporary. “There has never been a plan to make these permanent,” he said. John Hegeman, who oversees the news feed, said in an interview that while Facebook might roll back these experiments, it would study and learn from them.

The article seems to show how powerful analytics could be in producing more truthful newsfeeds as opposed to pushing inflammatory and manipulative news sources. What Facebook has learned is that hate sells, and money wins out over truth. Rank and file employees lobbied hard to get the changes, but the bean counters at the top will likely roll back.