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Facebook's frictionless sharing apps are dredging up decade-old news stories and putting them at the top of national news sites. A story about an overworked Oxford student's suicide currently tops the most shared and most viewed lists on the Independent's website despite dating from 1997. “Sean, 12, is the youngest father” ( …

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  1. bigphil9009

    BBC News does this too

    I've noticed the same thing happening on the BBC News website too. Quite often a story in the "Read" suggestions comes from a much earlier time, and the storys still carry the same formatting as they did when they were first released, which can make for an interesting exploration of how the site used to look in years gone by...

    1. Bumpy Cat
      Devil

      GOATS

      The best and funniest example is the "Man forced to marry goat" story - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/4748292.stm - which is five years old but bounces into the BBC's most read list every few months.

      1. Miek

        I expect it will bounce back into the most read section again today ;)

  2. hugo tyson
    Meh

    Happens everywhere

    This happens everywhere, the BBCs 'most read' and 'most shared' periodically suffer ectopic articles that are from years ago but interesting/weird enough headlines that I, for one, click to see what it's about, thus regrettably driving it up the ratings. It's not a stable system 'cos there's no "Bale out 'cos I didn't want to see this" back-button to withdraw your pseudo-vote for the story.

    1. Studley

      Bale out?

      He's hardly been Tottenham's best player this season, but... oh right I see.

      Wishy-washy BBC blog article on this very subject: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2010/06/goats_condoms_testicles_and_pa.html

    2. Grease Monkey Silver badge

      Yes it happens very occasionally on the BBC website, but it's months since I last noticed it. The point here is that it diesn't just happen occasionally with the Facebook app - it happens all the time.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    Pics are it didn't happen....

    What next? A black man as president?

  4. NogginTheNog
    WTF?

    WTF is...

    "Frictionless sharing"?

    Nothing to do with lots of lube and a few friends by any chance..??!

    1. Paul RND*1000
      Paris Hilton

      I think it may be a reference to what it does to your privacy.

    2. Francis Boyle Silver badge

      If it's frictionless

      you're using too much lube.

  5. Jamie Kitson

    Yeah but

    The Indie's readership is so low that this was bound to happen.

  6. Dom 3

    Worth a punt

    Please, everybody follow this link:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4748292.stm

    and see if we can get "man marries goat" back up on the most-read list again.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Please, NO!

    Don't you even think about doing old news here on El Reg. Just to notice the silliness:

    - Look! The new 386 chip is out!

    - The largest HDD ever, with 5MB of storage!

    - A mainframe was downsized enough to fit in a single container!

    - This notebook tip the scales at just 15lb! You can even carry it with one hand, thanks to the handle!

    -The latest mobile phone weighs only 1lb and cost measly 5000£.!

  8. Dave 62
    Linux

    lol! a penguin =P

    It certainly happens on teh beeeb but I believe it occurs occasionally on el regeg

  9. Daniel B.

    Not new

    Facebook has been doing this with their daft "top nees" feature, it's just natural for this timeline munging to permeate down news sites doinf FB.

  10. I Like Heckling Silver badge

    ....... and this is why I got rid of my facebook account and moved to G+ in Oct.

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    so...

    ... now we go from "the medium _is_ the message" to "the clientele* of the medium is the message"...?

    * "readership" soon to be a term no longer applicable

  12. Charlie Clark Silver badge

    Does anyone still care about Facebook?

    El Reg seems have fallen to the same trick - so 2010.

    1. Grease Monkey Silver badge

      Since Facebook is still gaining in popularity I would say that yes people do still care. Fuck knows why.

  13. Stevie

    Er...

    Not saying this is certain, but according to Raymond Briggs seminal work on the subject, Bogeymen prefer "Olds" to "News" and the older the news the more highly prized it is. Could be a large, hitherto unsuspected non-"drycleaner" readership has just gone digital.

    Just sayin'.

  14. Jim Birch

    ...and I thought all news was recycled :(

  15. silky johnson

    "the crowd, effectively, becomes the news editor"?

    Er, no they don't.

  16. Winkypop Silver badge
    Trollface

    News eh?

    ...it's just a laff, innit?

    When you get a chance: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4748292.stm

  17. Grease Monkey Silver badge

    Search Engines

    This is the same logic that makes quite a few search engines a pain. The idea that search results should be weighted based on the number of people who have clicked on a particular result makes no sense. People tend to click on the first result or at least one on the front page. So once something gets to the top it's unlikely to get bumped off. And of course the opposite is true, new pages are going to find it hard to make it to the top of the list.

    I want the latest search results not a popularity contest based on weeks old "votes" that people didn't even know they were casting.

  18. Gio Ciampa
    FAIL

    That would explain...

    ...the "Budweiser Frog screensaver is a virus" outbreak the other day

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