"It’s Time to End ‘Trending'"
Why it is good – as #Mastodon and #Microdotblog does – to still keep human admins in the mix on surfacing “trending” items:
“The first problem with [FB and Twitter] “trending” is that it selects and highlights content with no eye toward accuracy, or quality. Automated trending systems are not equipped to make judgments; they can determine if things are being shared, but they cannot determine whether that content should be shared further.”