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Just days after announcing changes to how it handles its Trending Topics section, a fake article about Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly was found trending on Facebook.
The article was headlined "BREAKING: Fox News Exposes Traitor Megyn Kelly, Kicks Her Out for Backing Hillary," although no such thing has happened. The false article claimed Kelly was "on her way out of Fox News" for being "a closet liberal who actually wants Hillary to win." The publisher of the article, called "End The Fed," has more than 200,000 likes on Facebook. The trending article cited another questionable news source called "Conservative101."
Megyn Kelly is trending on Facebook for an article that has no basis in reality. pic.twitter.com/31f4ERnzHI
— Kyle Blaine (@kyletblaine) August 29, 2016
.@facebook still has a totally fake story about Megyn Kelly in its trending list. Niiceee pic.twitter.com/n2egP2d92h
— Justin Green (@JGreenDC) August 29, 2016
This has finally been removed. But Facebook should answer for this. Completely fake "news" should not be "trending" https://t.co/RbE0AFl1Ua
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) August 29, 2016
The article was trending for hours before it disappeared on Monday morning.
On Friday, Facebook announced changes to how it handles the Trending Topics section. Rather than humans writing descriptions for the stories, the company announced, snippets are now automatically generated. But Facebook said people aren't completely cut out of the process: they're still around to comb for news through other daily trends.
The company has continued to beat back allegations of bias after a Gizmodo report from earlier this year said humans on the Trending Topics team were suppressing conservative news.
The Verge has asked Facebook for comment on the trending Megyn Kelly story and will update with any response from the company.
