媒介会不会影响大选
社交平台的“热门话题”如何排序一直是一个争议焦点，近日，Facebook同时依靠软件和人工的做法浮出水面，但同时也引来筛选话题有政治倾向的批评。这一话题的背后，其实是对FB影响力的担心，和对“媒介会不会影响大选”这一问题的再次辩论。
测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：
Trending Topics 热门话题
accusation 控告，指控；谴责[ækjʊ'zeɪʃ(ə)n]
algorithm 算法，运算法则['ælgərɪð(ə)m]
barometer 气压计；晴雨表[bə'rɒmɪtə]
terminology 术语学；用辞[,tɜːmɪ'nɒlədʒɪ]
prominence 突出；显著['prɒmɪnəns]
inquiry 调查；质询[ɪn'kwaɪrɪ]
implementation 实现；履行[ɪmplɪmen'teɪʃ(ə)n]
conservative 保守派，守旧者[kən'sɜːvətɪv]
阅读马上开始，建议您计算一下阅读整篇文章所用的时间，对照下方的参考值就可以评估出您的英文阅读水平。
如果您读完全文用时为： 那么，您的阅读速度相当于 每分钟阅读的英文单词数
2分27秒 母语为英语者的朗读速度 140
1分30秒 母语为英语的中学生的阅读速度 250
1分47秒 母语为英语的大学生的阅读速度 350
0分37秒 母语为英语的速读高手 1000
Facebook makes changes to its Trending Topics team （375words）
By Hannah Kuchler in San Francisco
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Facebook has made changes to how its Trending Topics team functions, in response to accusation that it has previously suppressed rightwing news and views that were popular on the platform.
In a letter responding to a Republican senator’s questions about Trending Topics, Facebook wrote that it would stop using a list of top-10 media outlets as a barometer for the importance of a story and would abandon a list of a thousand sources it relied upon to identify news.
After conducting an internal investigation, the social network also pledged to institute “additional controls and oversight” around the team that oversees the algorithm compiling the list of popular stories on the site.
Facebook said it had already updated the “terminology” in its guidelines, so it no longer talks about “injecting” or “boosting” topics, but instead says “topic correction”, for rewriting headlines, and “prominence”, for deciding if a story is national or major. It has provided refresher training for all topic reviewers.
“Our investigation has revealed no evidence of systematic political bias in the selection or prominence of stories included in the Trending Topics feature,” wrote Colin Stretch, Facebook’s general counsel in the letter to Republican senator John Thune.
“At the same time, as you would expect with an inquiry of this nature, our investigation could not exclude the possibility of isolated improper actions or unintentional bias in the implementation of our guidelines or policies.”
Facebook has come under pressure to explain how the Trending Topics team works after a report in technology blog Gizmodo claimed that reviewers, meant to be objectively overseeing an algorithm, were actually encouraged to exclude conservative topics from the list.
In the letter, Mr Stretch said that Ted Cruz had been featured in the list more than 160 times, Rand Paul more than 50 times and Mitt Romney more than 40 times. But he did not give comparative figures for people to the left of these politicians.
US conservatives were enraged by the story, with senator Thune writing to demand answers in his position as the chairman of the committee on commerce, science and transportation. Several rightwing commentators also criticised the site. Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive, last week invited several prominent conservatives to Facebook to explain how the feature works.
请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：
1. What did FB do to respond to the questions about Trending Topics?
A. wrote a letter
B. changed team functions
C. hired robots only
D. took a legal action
2. What was FB’s barometer for the importance of a story?
A. opinions of editor
B. media outlets
C. CEO’s decision
D. the number of forwarding
3. Who will receive the letter from Colin Stretch, Facebook’s general counsel?
A. Republican senator John Thune
B. Republican senator Ted Cruz
C. the public
D. existing competitors
4. Who were invited by Zuckerberg to explain how the feature works last week?
A. radicals
B. Jacksonian Democrats
C. conservatives
D. president Obama
[1] 答案 A. wrote a letter
解释：Facebook写了信函作为回应。
[2] 答案 B. media outlets
解释：此前Facebook会参考其他媒体机构（media outlets）的信息进行工作。
[3] 答案 A. Republican senator John Thune
解释：Facebook的首席法律顾问科林‧斯特雷奇（Colin Stretch）向参议员John Thune写了信函。
[4] 答案 C. conservatives
解释：上周Facebook CEO 与保守派会面试图降低敌意。
