Surely you can't be suggesting that an entity can only be considered a "legitimate" satirist if it's been around for a long time and there's a high amount of consensus regarding it?
Also, you cannot use network effects as an accurate proxy for critical thinking. Humans inherently defer a ton of thought to crowd consensus; this crowd consensus becomes less reliable as the subjects involved become more complex. The increasing complexity of modern society only further necessitates the need to train our critical thinking skills. Codifying network effects as a proxy for critical thinking, as FB is doing here, only accelerates the unreliability of groupthink.
I respectfully disagree with you on both counts. I have no illusion that FB cares what I think and will take my approaching and it's not perfect, but it would improve FB's situation. To address your other response, that is why I invoke the Pareto principle (you can solve 80% of malicious news feed entries with 20% of the effort).
Anyway, let me also note I find it strange that you are approaching this the way you are. FB is a proprietary, private platform. They will take actions that are best of the long term growth and profitability of the corporation on behalf of the owners (the shareholders). This whole epistemological/political element perplexes me, I think it entirely misses the mark of why FB is doing this.
edit: I should also mention, your comment about groupthink makes me think you misunderstand me. Gaming a PageRank like algorithm is certainly possible, but the eigenvalues of the Markov process on the adjacency matrix of complainants/news sources would take a away a large part of the human bias element. And counter-counter-measures are pretty well researched.
You express a vital misunderstanding of capitalism. Companies do not take the actions that are best for their long term health. They take the actions that are best for their health in the foreseeable future. Further, FB is a private company that owns largest forum for online socializing and public discourse. They are a private entity that controls the commons. I don't care about FB's profit motives; I care that their actions directly erode one of the core requisites of a healthily functioning complex society, so that is what I will talk about. It is not okay to make money by fucking shit up.
edit: I don't understand your stance on satire outfits. Was the Onion a satire publication in 1988? If so, how do you square that with your claim?
edit2: You refer to "malicious newsfeed entries." It's interesting that the only large scale activity that can even begin to consistently be considered such is the creation of "dark posts," which FB's censorship program does zilch to combat.
Also, you cannot use network effects as an accurate proxy for critical thinking. Humans inherently defer a ton of thought to crowd consensus; this crowd consensus becomes less reliable as the subjects involved become more complex. The increasing complexity of modern society only further necessitates the need to train our critical thinking skills. Codifying network effects as a proxy for critical thinking, as FB is doing here, only accelerates the unreliability of groupthink.