It’s time to get rid of the Facebook “news feed,” because it’s not news

[Commentary] Proving whether fake news influenced the election more than the usual political propaganda is impossible. What's certain is that fake news on Facebook is a symptom of a larger problem: the company is trying to play contradictory roles as both trustworthy news publisher and fun social media platform for personal sharing.

The problem is that it cannot be both—at least not without making some changes. When you log into your Facebook account, your default page is dominated by a cascading "news feed," automatically selected for your pleasure, which consists of whatever your friends have shared. The company uses a mix of secret-sauce algorithms to choose which pieces of news you see. Some items are displayed based on what you've responded to before. For example, if you always like or reply to news from Trevor but ignore news from Mike, you're going to see more Trevor and less Mike. Other news that Facebook thinks you probably want to see is fed to you based on your profile. The Wall Street Journal has an incredible infographic on this, showing how Democrats on Facebook see liberal-leaning stories and Republicans see conservative-leaning ones.

Mark Zuckerberg has protested since the election that it's preposterous to believe that Facebook could change anyone's minds based on their news feed—yet the company behaves as if it does. Given that Facebook's main goal is to serve you ads and get you to buy things, their number-one priority is keeping you glued to your feed. If you see a bunch of things you hate in your feed, you're going to stop looking at it and take your clicks elsewhere. Common sense dictates that Facebook should avoid showing you news that will upset you or make you angry.