Facebook news selection is in hands of editors not algorithms, documents show

[apples]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/may/12/facebook-trending-news-leaked-documents-editor-guidelines

Leaked documents show how Facebook, now the biggest news distributor on the planet, relies on old-fashioned news values on top of its algorithms to determine what the hottest stories will be for the 1 billion people who visit the social network every day.

The documents, given to the Guardian, come amid growing concerns over how Facebook decides what is news for its users. This week the company was accused of an editorial bias against conservative news organizations, prompting calls for a congressional inquiry from the US Senate commerce committee chair, John Thune.

The boilerplate about its news operations provided to customers by the company suggests that much of its news gathering is determined by machines: ?The topics you see are based on a number of factors including engagement, timeliness, Pages you?ve liked and your location,? says a page devoted to the question ?How does Facebook determine what topics are trending??

[PzLdr]

The Zuckmeister has some 'splainin' to do. Even if you accept the argument that they use five news sources to trend [with three required to give significant coverage to a story], the usual suspects are NOT going to cover say, Lois Lerner and the IRS, Benghazi, the Servers, to any meaningful degree, 'above the fold', as it were.