In an article for New York Magazine, Brian Feldman pointed out a number of problems with the ‘Trending’ designation used by various social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. He lists a number of reasons why it’s time to end trending.

Although all of the websites mentioned above use the term, none of them seem to have a clear definition of what they understand ‘trending’ to mean. Feldman says that “the “trending” sections of major platforms are, as of now, algorithmically determined, their contents selected by formulas developed internally at those companies and kept private.”

Besides the criticism that an algorithm “selects and highlights content with no eye toward accuracy, or quality,” Feldman points out that a trending status is “eminently gameable.” Feldman says it’s “a worthless metric, but in the online-content economy, it somehow means everything.”

Read the full New York Magazine article here.