Apple and Facebook under fire over news sources as US mid-terms approach
Human-curated news content is, some say, biased due to repetitive patterns — but are algorithms any better at choosing ‘legitimate’ news?
New York — Apple and Facebook have figured out how to keep us glued to their devices and platforms, but they haven’t figured out how to curb the misinformation that plagued them during the 2016 US election and have struggled to regain public trust. And now, in the run-up to the 2018 US mid-terms, they certainly don’t agree on a solution. Last week, Apple launched a human-curated political news section to help readers steer clear of falsehoods surrounding the mid-terms. The company’s announcement re-ignited a fiery debate with Facebook about whether tech giants should hire people to curate news or rely on algorithms. Apple has used human editors to curate news content in "Top News" and other specialised sections since the app first launched in 2015, and said it will continue to do so for the mid-term elections news section. The company uses a combination of human editors and machine learning to manage more tailored content in personalised feeds for users.
"News was kind of goin...
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