In a controversial move, Meta announced that it will be ditching humans entirely in favor of algorithms to curate Facebook News.
Although most of the articles were already determined using algorithms, the ‘top stories’ section was still curated by humans.
According to a report in the UK’s Press Gazette published yesterday, Meta ended its contract with Upday, the company that provided the necessary freelance workforce to power news curation in the U.K. market.
This happened after the Press Gazette published a negative report on their working conditions, but it is suspected that the decision, which is financially-motivated, is loosely based on a number of ‘human’ incidents that took place in Australia and the U.S. earlier this year.
“We are always evaluating our global curation partnerships based on user and product needs,” a Meta spokesperson said in a stock statement, adding that “it makes little sense to over-invest in areas that most of its users are not interested in.”
The changes will be gradually applied as several other freelancer contracts max out their duration, and come into full effect sometime in early 2023.
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