Facebook has announced that they will be removing the 'Trending Topics' feature, which aggregated headlines from its social media platform. Deadline reported that this is Facebook's latest attempt at ensuring users see news from trustworthy and quality outlets. The section was displayed on the right of the main news feed and in search on mobile. It has received much criticism since its debut in 2014.

Starting next week, the feature will no longer be in operation. The decision comes as the social network fights against the spread of fake news. Facebook has become one of the main sources of news for many people.

Facebook has said in a recent blog post that they are looking for new ways to display news, including a local news section. Facebook is conducting a test with multiple publishers across the globe to offer publishers a place to insert "breaking news" indicator on their posts.

Facebook has been blasted over fake news

Facebook was called into question after alleged Russian operatives and spammers spread the false news on the site during the 2016 US presidential election campaign. There have been several stories that were proven false by an audit by The Intercept, including a story claiming Fox News fired Megyn Kelly for supporting Hillary Clinton.

The feature is similar to Twitter's trending topics.

Several years ago Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg were criticized for favoring liberal stories over conservative ones. Facebook responded to those critics by removing humans from the program and using only algorithms. In 2017, Facebook attempted again to fix the trending section by compiling stories covered by multiple publishers.

Facebook trending section is not popular with users

Facebook also said that users found the product to be less useful. While they are pulling the plug on this feature, they have begun testing a new section called Today, which connects people with news from sources within their own cities. Facebook Watch will soon have a live news section.

Facebook has said they are working to ensure that the news users see on Facebook is high quality.

Facebook appears to have given up fixing the problems caused by the trending section and realizing it was not worth the mediocre benefits the company and news publishers saw in it. The social media giant has become a less popular source for news as Twitter has taken over the constant update of news headlines.
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