No More Trending Topics On Facebook

As per the recent updates, Facebook will be removing the box which shows the trending news. This box is found on the right-hand side of the desktop on the news feed page, and it has remained the same for the past four years. People had been criticizing as to how Facebook chooses the stories to be put in the trending box. 

However, people failed to notice the authenticity of the news and the reliability of any kind of news which is being distributed through this social media platform used by millions of people. The trending box that is to be removed soon was popular in 5 countries. The trending box is the source of news that has been accounted for the record of “less than 1.5 percent of clicks to news publishers on average.” Facebook is now using many other ways of delivering news including a label of breaking news as well as a separate section for collecting the local stories.

Why Is Facebook Removing The Trending News Option?

Facebook has decided to remove the “Trending” option from all the mobile devices as well as the web and is aiming at making way for newer future experiences. From studies, it has been made evident that most of the users have found the “Trending” option to be less useful. Some of the users were not even aware of its presence. This lead to a closure of the “Trending” section- the section which is stacked with some of the latest news articles from the whole day, categorized under different subheads. This backlash first started in the year 2016 when Gizmodo had published one report which said that the previous editors of Facebook had also claimed that they even “routinely suppressed” the conservative stories.

What made it worse was the age-old joke that Facebook always runs one day behind Twitter as for when it is about jokes, stories, and news. The section failed to pick up the stories over the time.

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Does Facebook Have Some Bigger Plans?

When we hear of the removal of the “Trending” section, the first and the foremost thing that a regular user of Facebook will be concerned about is, is the provision for the “trending” section going to remain vacant? The answer is clearly “No.” The removal of the “Trending” section of Facebook will give vent to some bigger plans. They definitely will be looking for other methods by which they can deliver the news to the people.

However, the success of any brand lays in the satisfaction of the customers or the users derive by using it. In that case, it has to be noted that as per the information gathered by the reviews of the users, most of the users don't want any such feature that would deliver news on Facebook. They want to see more of their friends and families and want Facebook to confine its purpose merely to socializing and entertainment. Therefore, a thorough survey needs to be conducted to have an overall idea of the demands of the public.