Facebook's Fight Against Fake News Was Undercut by Fear of Conservative Backlash

[Tom Servo]

Facebook's Fight Against Fake News Was Undercut by Fear of Conservative Backlash

Michael Nunez | Monday 10:46am

It’s no secret that Facebook has a fake news problem. Critics have accused the social network of allowing false and hoax news stories to run rampant, with some suggesting that Facebook contributed to Donald Trump’s election by letting hyper-partisan websites spread false and misleading information. Mark Zuckerberg has addressed the issue twice since Election Day, most notably in a carefully worded statement that reads: “Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99 percent of what people see is authentic. Only a very small amount is fake news and hoaxes. The hoaxes that do exist are not limited to one partisan view, or even to politics.”

Still, it’s hard to visit Facebook without seeing phony headlines like “FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide” or “Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President, Releases Statement” promoted by no-name news sites like the Denver Guardian and Ending The Fed.

Gizmodo has learned that the company is, in fact, concerned about the issue, and has been having a high-level internal debate since May about how the network approaches its role as the largest news distributor in the US. The debate includes questions over whether the social network has a duty to prevent misinformation from spreading to the 44 percent of Americans who get their news from the social network.

According to two sources with direct knowledge of the company’s decision-making, Facebook executives conducted a wide-ranging review of products and policies earlier this year, with the goal of eliminating any appearance of political bias. One source said high-ranking officials were briefed on a planned News Feed update that would have identified fake or hoax news stories, but disproportionately impacted right-wing news sites by downgrading or removing that content from people’s feeds. According to the source, the update was shelved and never released to the public. It’s unclear if the update had other deficiencies that caused it to be scrubbed.

[Tom Servo]

What does it say about the gullibility of the right that the majority of fake news stories are targeting them and their beliefs? How about this, Facebook: Get out of the news curation business all together. All you're doing is further cluttering up the field. Let people "like" the page of a newspaper or media organization if they want news stories in their feed. Let people make their own decisions, for better or for worse.

[80zephyr]

What does it say about the gullibility of the right that the majority of fake news stories are targeting them and their beliefs? How about this, Facebook: Get out of the news curation business all together. All you're doing is further cluttering up the field. Let people "like" the page of a newspaper or media organization if they want news stories in their feed. Let people make their own decisions, for better or for worse.

Describe fake? Unless something is factual, it is very hard to do. If some one posts that Hillary lost her shit after the election, does Facebook remove it without evidence of it being fake? I think that Facebook just opened a Pandora's Box that will be hard to close.

Just my .02

Mark

[Celeste Chalfonte]

The bigger question is: What is the matter with this country, that 44% of our people get their news from Facebook, for cryin' out loud????

[Norm dePlume]

The bigger question is: What is the matter with this country, that 44% of our people get their news from Facebook, for cryin' out loud????

Cue the Neil Postman quote...

[Lady Marva]

What does it say about the gullibility of the right that the majority of fake news stories are targeting them and their beliefs? How about this, Facebook: Get out of the news curation business all together. All you're doing is further cluttering up the field. Let people "like" the page of a newspaper or media organization if they want news stories in their feed. Let people make their own decisions, for better or for worse.

The Facebook folk can't. The "people" have to be told what's good for them.

[Michele]

The bigger question is: What is the matter with this country, that 44% of our people get their news from Facebook, for cryin' out loud????

Thank you.

What I've observed from the "fake news" on FB? There's no partisanship...it's right and left. People post op-ed pieces as "fact" and instead of making the author prove what he's saying, they'll ask the person reading the article to prove it isn't true. Personally, I think it all started with the majority of younger people getting their news from Jon Stewart at Comedy Central...which should tell you something right there.

[scott]

Thank you.

What I've observed from the "fake news" on FB? There's no partisanship...it's right and left. People post op-ed pieces as "fact" and instead of making the author prove what he's saying, they'll ask the person reading the article to prove it isn't true. Personally, I think it all started with the majority of younger people getting their news from Jon Stewart at Comedy Central...which should tell you something right there.

It actually goes back further than that. Their parents got their news from fictional TV shows. There were a few studies about that in the 1990s.

Also note that lots of the 40ish people use clips from The American President, The West Wing and The Newsroom to prove their points, completely oblivious to the fact that all are fictional accounts and all were written by the same guy.

[Tom Servo]

The Facebook folk can't. The "people" have to be told what's good for them.

It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation, really. Research has shown that people spend more time on Facebook if their news feed shows stories and posts from people who share their political outlook, so Facebook shows people more news that fits with that user's world view. Which creates this cycle where everyone winds up in their own little bubble.

Facebook doesn't know what the high holy heck to do with me. One week I'll get nothing but leftist drivel from the "progressive" friends I have, which are roughly half of my total friend count. Then another week it'll mysteriously shift to rightist horse squeeze for a while, from the other group of friends. It seriously can't make up its mind if I'm left or right.

[Lady Marva]

It's a bit of a chicken and egg situation, really. Research has shown that people spend more time on Facebook if their news feed shows stories and posts from people who share their political outlook, so Facebook shows people more news that fits with that user's world view. Which creates this cycle where everyone winds up in their own little bubble.

Facebook doesn't know what the high holy heck to do with me. One week I'll get nothing but leftist drivel from the "progressive" friends I have, which are roughly half of my total friend count. Then another week it'll mysteriously shift to rightist horse squeeze for a while, from the other group of friends. It seriously can't make up its mind if I'm left or right.

guess Myself is blind. Don't notice ANY of that.

[phillygirl]

Thank you.

What I've observed from the "fake news" on FB? There's no partisanship...it's right and left. People post op-ed pieces as "fact" and instead of making the author prove what he's saying, they'll ask the person reading the article to prove it isn't true. Personally, I think it all started with the majority of younger people getting their news from Jon Stewart at Comedy Central...which should tell you something right there.

Yes. And I find it hilarious when I see some of the left wing stuff posted here, whether it's an article or a meme. And I hear it from the same liberal colleagues and liberal friends on Facebook. I do have one conservative friend that frequently sends me "news" stories via email that are just not true. Because I happen to like him, I go through the trouble of sending him the Snopes links to show him that it's false. I mean, I hate Jane Fonda too, but I'm tired of reading about her getting the "Woman of the Year" award and the note that she gave to the Vietnamese General from the POW that got him tortured more because of it. Every 2 years that gets sent to me, despite my painstaking work to show its falsity.

[Billy Jingo]

Thank you.

What I've observed from the "fake news" on FB? There's no partisanship...it's right and left. People post op-ed pieces as "fact" and instead of making the author prove what he's saying, they'll ask the person reading the article to prove it isn't true. Personally, I think it all started with the majority of younger people getting their news from Jon Stewart at Comedy Central...which should tell you something right there.

I think it was actually Fox that started it, not Comedy Central.

[80zephyr]

Unless you are stating facts, all news is fake. Stating an opinion has nothing to do with the facts, no matter how hard the author tries to pull them to fit his narrative. It is his world view that decides how he wants to massage those facts.

Mark