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You might have heard: Trying to get rid of human bias in its trending topics, Facebook announced it would no longer longer employ humans to write descriptions for the section, but just three days after that announcement, the trending news section include a fake news story claiming Megyn Kelly had been fired from Fox News
But did you know: Former Facebook news curators say the story selection algorithm failed to improve over time and wasn’t ready to be released (Slate)
While Facebook’s move to automate its trending news feature seemed to be an effort to end controversy around allegations of liberal bias in the section, former members of the trending news team tell Slate that they understood that Facebook’s end goal was always to automate the story selection process. But those news curators also say that the software Facebook is using isn’t ready to be rolled out: The algorithm was supposed to improve over time, but a contractor who worked on the algorithm for over a year said, “I didn’t notice a change at all.”
+ Another former news curator predicted to Digiday that the trending news feature could go away entirely: “I think they are just going to get rid of the product altogether, because there is going to be backlash when people who do use the tool realize that the quality has gone down — unless there are severe algorithmic changes that improve the quality of the topics” (Digiday)
+ In the wake of the trending news section including a fake news story, Poynter’s Kelly McBride calls for Facebook to add a public editor to explain the company’s controversies from its point of view (Poynter); “False content often gives off great signals on Facebook,” Craig Silverman writes, and the elements of false or misleading content are often what makes it successful on Facebook (BuzzFeed News)
+ While in Italy on Monday, Mark Zuckerberg reiterates that he doesn’t see Facebook as a media company: “We are a tech company, not a media company,” Zuckerberg said in response to a question about whether Facebook would become a news editor (Reuters); Peter Kafka argues that’s not true, however: “When you gather people’s attention, and sell that attention to advertisers, guess what? You’re a media company” (Recode); In an academic paper published earlier this spring, Philip Napoli and Robyn Caplan explain why it matters when companies such as Facebook deny that they’re media companies (Social Science Research Network)
+ Noted: Tribune Media will sell its Tribune Tower in Chicago to a Los Angeles-based developer for $240 million (Chicago Tribune); President Obama will guest-edit Wired’s November issue (Politico), and he will be the first sitting president to guest-edit a magazine (Wired); Reuters launches a partnership with Graphiq to offer its members access to interactive data visualizations (Reuters); Twitter will share video revenue with individual content creators, offering 70 percent of ad revenue to creators (CNBC)
How news organizations are taking advantage of Amazon’s Alexa (Nieman Lab)
News is one of the core features of Amazon’s AI software Alexa, and news organizations are trying to figure out the best ways to use Alexa. So far, there’s two main ways news organizations can use Alexa: Flash Briefings and skills. In Flash Briefings, the user asks Alexa for their Flash Briefing, and Alexa will launch into pre-recorded updates from broadcasters, headlines from the AP, and weather info from AccuWeather. Through the Alexa phone app, users can also choose which updates they want to receive. “Skills” are installed by users, and can include asking Alexa for a specific piece of information — for example, The Washington Post built a skill for its summer Olympics coverage and another for its political coverage.
+ From last week: Publishers can now create audio apps for Amazon’s Alexa (Amazon)
How a Lithuanian news site is using its journalists to get users to turn off ad blockers (Poynter)
Lithuanian news site 15Min.lt, the country’s second-largest news organization, is taking a new approach to getting users to turn off ad blockers. Rather than a pop-up message asking the reader to turn their ad blocker off, 15Min.lt is using its journalists to appeal to readers directly. 15Min.lt created 12 videos featuring members of its staff explaining why readers should either whitelist the site or pay a €1 per month fee. Plus, the videos are related to the articles the user is trying to read: If a user is trying to read a business story, they’ll see a video with 15Mint.lt’s business journalist.
How Nextdoor implemented new features to reduce racist posts by 75 percent (Fusion)
“Erasing racism through technology alone is impossible,” Kashmir Hill writes, but neighborhood social network Nextdoor found that a few changes to its interface reduced the number of racist posts significantly. Those changes, which were rolled out to all of its users last week, include requiring users whose posts in the “crime and safety” section mention race to submit additional information — such as more information about what the person they’re posting about looked like or what they were wearing. Plus, Nextdoor added “racial profiling” as a category when users mark a conversation as inappropriate.
+ The potential problems with Facebook and WhatsApp sharing data: Facebook suggested that psychiatrist’s patients friend each other, likely because all of those people had the psychiatrist’s phone number, which was linked to her Facebook account (Fusion)
How the rise of mobile could create a ‘a second-class digital citizenship’ of less informed news consumers (Nieman Lab)
According to a new report from Harvard’s Shorenstein Center, the rise of mobile has a dark side that could lead to the creation of a less engaged, “second-class digital citizenship” made up of less informed news consumers. Somewhat paradoxically, the report’s research Joanna Dunaway says that smartphones are an imperfect tool for consuming news, due to their smaller screens, slower connection speeds and cost of data compared to desktops. Dunaway explains: “We found that, relative to computer users, mobile users spent less time reading news content and were less likely to notice and follow links and to do so for longer periods of time.”
Journalists do read and respond to comments, new research from the Engaging News Project finds (Engaging News Project)
New research from the Engaging News Project finds that journalists do actually read and respond to comments. Based on interviews with 34 journalists, all journalists interviewed said they read comments at least occasionally and two-thirds of those interviewed said they responded to commenters at least occasionally. And while some journalists were more enthusiastic about reading the comments than others, some of those interviewed said they found reading comments to be a regular part of their job: “It’s a way of finding out much more immediately how your work is being received,” one journalist said.
The post Need to Know: Aug. 31, 2016 appeared first on American Press Institute.
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