Facebook Trending Messed Up Again, Promoted 9/11 Hoax

September 11 is an important date for Americans to remember and major establishments pay tribute to the victims of the tragic events associated with it in different ways. Unfortunately, Facebook’s “Trending” news section allowed a 9/11 hoax article to get through the supposedly rigorous, algorithm-based screening process. As a result, the social network had to pull out all articles that mentioned the incident and the date.

This is just the latest in a string of bad publicity that Facebook has been getting since removing humans from its screening process when selecting articles for its “Trending” section. This has allowed, not only misinformation to spread in the hugely influential tool, it even included some frankly damning ones.  This time, The Washington Post and various other news outlets noticed how 9/11 topics via the tool led users to a website that features hoax articles about the incident.

It wasn’t until Facebook was contacted by media organizations about the matter that the social network decided to act, removing any trace of the topics from the section. In response to the questions regarding the obvious error, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed that they were aware of the situation on Friday.

“We’re aware a hoax article showed up there and as a temporary step to resolving this we’ve removed the topic,” the spokesperson said.

Incidents like this appear to be becoming a trend for Facebook since it also had to apologize for including a false report about Fox News host Megyn Kelly, CBS News notes. By removing humans from the equation and relying solely on machines to manage its “Trending” section, the social media site has sacrificed fidelity for efficiency.

The sole purpose of using algorithms instead of human judgment to screen articles is to allow Facebook to crank out more news pieces and feature them on their “Trending” tool. Without human perspective, however, it’s clear that the social network is losing control.