Facebook has fired its entire Trending Topics team, and will replace them with computers.
According to Quartz, the entire editorial team of 15-18 people contracted through a third party were let go on Friday and given an hour to vacate the premises. The Trending sidebar will now be populated by an algorithm that determines what Facebook users are talking about.
In an announcement about the changes to Trending, the company emphasized that the move removes the need for human staffers to write small blurbs describing the topic displayed on the site.
The news follows reports back in May that the Trending section was subject to liberal partisanship, a claim CEO Mark Zuckerberg denied following an internal review that found “no political bias.”