Mathew Ingram talking about Facebook’s lack of Ferguson coverage:

In the end, we all have to choose the news sources that we trust and the ones that work for us in whatever way we decide is important. And if we choose Facebook, that means we will likely miss certain things as a result of the filtering algorithm — things we may not even realize we are missing — unless the network changes the way it handles breaking news events like Ferguson.

Ingram does a good job explaining the why, but I think he severely downplays the significance. Facebook is too massive for this type of thing to be OK — as Facebook is effectively censoring the news. I am fine with an algorithm based approach, but somewhere there should be a human who is looking at current events and can say: “Wait, this is important.” And thus the news is let through to all users.

I highly doubt that Ferguson would be covered by the likes of CNN if it weren’t for Twitter. Had Facebook been our only source, it would have passed most of us by, and that is a problem.