Facebook posts fake news after replacing humans with algorithms
Facebook's decision to replace trending news editors with algorithms is backfiring spectacularly, with the automated system posting a fake news story and links to a video of a man masturbating with a McDonald's sandwich.
The social media giant announced the change in a statement posted on Friday, arguing that it would allow the company to "scale Trending to cover more topics and make it available to more people."
Facebook trending news came in for a flurry of criticism earlier in the summer, after anonymous former employees claimed conservative views were being suppressed by the site.
Approximately 15 to 18 people were given the sack over the weekend to make way for the computerised system, Quartz reported. But the decision to replace humans with algorithms is not working out as smoothly as Facebook might have hoped.
On Saturday, the site pushed an article titled 'BREAKING: Fox News Exposes Traitor Megyn Kelly, Kicks Her Out For Backing Hillary'. The news item is fake: Ms Kelly is still very much a Fox News anchor and has not endorsed Hillary Clinton.
The trending news algorithm also pushed stories related to a #McChicken hashtag which had gone viral after somebody posted a...