Facebook has completed an internal investigation of its “Trending Topics” feature, which has recently been accused of bias against conservative news sources. In a letter posted on Facebook’s press page, the company says they’ve found no evidence of “systemic bias” and that conservative and liberal stories have trended at “virtually identical” rates. Still, Facebook has announced changes to how the section works, including a quaint Orwellian renaming of its moderators’ internal tools: The most controversial function, once called “blacklisting,” is now named “revisit.”
Vice has announced a reorganization that includes a promotion for Josh Tyrangiel (who will now supervise all of Vice news), layoffs of digital staff in New York, Los Angeles, and the UK, and new bureaus in San Francisco and Hong Kong.
The notebooks that Francis Ford Coppola kept while adapting and casting The Godfather, his 1972 mafia masterpiece based on Mario Puzo’s novel, are going to be published by Regan Arts in November. The Godfather Notebooks will be 720 pages (including a new introduction by the filmmaker), and will, Coppola says, be “the key to understanding what went into making the film.”
Who knew that author Rikki Ducornet, whose novels include The Jade Cabinet (1993) and the forthcoming Brightfellow (out in July)—was the inspiration for Steely Dan’s “Rikki Don’t Lose that Number”?
Nearly five-hundred authors have signed a petition denouncing Donald Trump, with signees including Tobias Wolff, Stephen King, Lydia Davis, Francine Prose, and Jonathan Lethem. When asked why he signed, King told BuzzFeed: “Trump is a pugnacious idiot with no real understanding of how government works. . . . To call him underqualified for the job would be like calling me underqualified to teach quantum physics.”
At the Awl, Alex Balk pleas with writers to stop writing so much. And he’s not just talking about online content: “Have you seen what’s not on the Internet? . . . As it happens, opening the gates to everyone doesn’t make the stuff coming out of the high towers any better.”