Facebook in the News: Social media, Journalism, and Public Responsibility Following the 2016 Trending Topics Controversy

• In Event: Journalists’ Discourses About Journalism: Negotiating Professional Practices and Boundaries

Abstract

In May 2016, two stories on Facebook’s Trending Topics news feature appeared on the site Gizmodo, the first exposing the human curators working surreptitiously to select news and the second containing accusations that certain curators censored conservative news. These revelations led to public outcry, both from conservatives upset at possible bias and others who criticized Facebook for its largely secretive and haphazard approach to news. This study examines the response to the controversy as metajournalistic discourse—talk about news that seeks to define appropriate practices and legitimate news forms. It finds a divergence between Facebook’s approach to news as content driven by popularity and journalists’ efforts to place Facebook as an active participant within the news ecosystem and therefore beholden to an enhanced institutional commitment to public responsibility.

Author

• Matt Carlson, Saint Louis U